Andrew Furst's Blog, page 69
March 17, 2016
Garwin Falls – A Two Minute Meditation
Winter hills
and falls
Southern
New Hampshire’s
snow
give these lungs
a jumpstart
lend this life
some spark
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Minute Meditations is an ongoing series of short videos, poems, and commentary intended as a meditation. Offered as an opportunity to step back from your cyber routine and settle into a more natural rhythm, if only for a minute.
Get Each Week's Minute Meditations In Your Email Box
These videos are produced for those of us who spend an inordinately large amount of time in the cyber-world. They are not a substitute for unplugging from your devices and taking a stroll near trees, water, or a patch of unkempt grass. Getting out into the world - touching, smelling, hearing, and seeing nature is the best way to reconnect with our prime purpose.
What is our prime purpose? We are feeling and sensing machines. We are the universe looking back on itself. We are witness to the wonders and dangers of living in this corner of the cosmos. We are the seekers looking for connection a little further beyond yesterday's borders and boundaries.
But sitting and staring at the screen robs us of the sustenance that we rely upon for wonder and sanity. These videos are an opportunity to bring the sensations of nature to you, while you're in the cyber-world. Its an opportunity to relax your gaze, resettle your posture, and regain some depth in your breath. Listen and watch the video and allow your self to open up and recharge.
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March 16, 2016
Steep – Verse Us (Poems by Me)
There was a stage in my life
When I accepted what was told me.
Thoughts etched, the acid leaving indelible patterns;
Currents and tides of being
That invited loyalty.
Tastes of doubt’s power
left me dispossessed – finding new songs,
vainly pressing my own.
Tramping not so slow
warned – unheeding.
Unsensing to the shivering fault,
I’m left to wonder
which rocks on the beach
found their smoothness the right way
and which did it all wrong?
Verse Us - Poems I write: haiku, senryu, mesostics, free verse, random word constructions, I might even use rhyme or meter once and a while.
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Post Card Art Project – Words and Pictures
Here’s the next installment of the Post Card Art Project. Words and Pictures
The artist (and let me know if there are mistakes) are shown below in the same position as their card:
The Post Card Art Series
This is the one of several posts I will be offering titled the Post Card Art Series. Its a collaborative art project done on post cards.
Using an image divided into four sections, I created four post cards. I printed 200, pre-stamped them, and mailed them out to patreon supporters, friends, and blog readers who expressed an interest. They applied the art, mailed the cards back. Now I'm assembling them.
The results are fun and unique.
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March 15, 2016
Reap What You Sow – Say What?
Say What? is an ongoing series of laconic exchanges on Buddhism in the format of a comic strip.
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She Sang – The Idea of Order at Key West by Wallace Stevens – Compass Songs
She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.
The sea was not a mask. No more was she.
The song and water were not medleyed sound
Even if what she sang was what she heard,
Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.
For she was the maker of the song she sang.
The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea
Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.
Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew
It was the spirit that we sought and knew
That we should ask this often as she sang.
If it was only the dark voice of the sea
That rose, or even colored by many waves;
If it was only the outer voice of sky
And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,
However clear, it would have been deep air,
The heaving speech of air, a summer sound
Repeated in a summer without end
And sound alone. But it was more than that,
More even than her voice, and ours, among
The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,
Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped
On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres
Of sky and sea.
It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.
Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As the night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.
Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker’s rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.
Compass Songs is an ongoing series of works by poets that I enjoy. Poetry, as the Zen Masters have said, is like a finger pointing to the moon. It speaks the unspeakable.
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March 14, 2016
Peace Between Nations – Black Elk
Quotes -The path to right view is an arduous walk through fields of manure.
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The Purpose of Life? – Dialectic Two Step
Estimated reading time: 8 minute(s)
Question: I can’t let go of the question “what is the purpose of life?”
It consumes me everyday and distracts me from life. How can I let it go?
Response: You must answer the question and be settled with the answer you come to. For me reading the parable of the arrow laid this question and many others like it to rest.
It’s just as if a man were wounded with an arrow thickly smeared with poison. His friends & companions, kinsmen & relatives would provide him with a surgeon, and the man would say, ‘I won’t have this arrow removed until I know whether the man who wounded me was a noble warrior, a priest, a merchant, or a worker.’ He would say, ‘I won’t have this arrow removed until I know the given name & clan name of the man who wounded me… until I know whether he was tall, medium, or short… until I know whether he was dark, ruddy-brown, or golden-colored… until I know his home village, town, or city… until I know whether the bow with which I was wounded was a long bow or a crossbow… until I know whether the bowstring with which I was wounded was fiber, bamboo threads, sinew, hemp, or bark… until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was wild or cultivated… until I know whether the feathers of the shaft with which I was wounded were those of a vulture, a stork, a hawk, a peacock, or another bird… until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was bound with the sinew of an ox, a water buffalo, a langur, or a monkey.’ He would say, ‘I won’t have this arrow removed until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was that of a common arrow, a curved arrow, a barbed, a calf-toothed, or an oleander arrow.’ The man would die and those things would still remain unknown to him.
“Cula-Malunkyovada Sutta: The Shorter Instructions to Malunkya (MN 63)
Thích Nhat Hanh provides a beautiful summary
The Buddha always told his disciples not to waste their time and energy in metaphysical speculation. Whenever he was asked a metaphysical question, he remained silent. Instead, he directed his disciples toward practical efforts. Questioned one day about the problem of the infinity of the world, the Buddha said, “Whether the world is finite or infinite, limited or unlimited, the problem of your liberation remains the same.” Another time he said, “Suppose a man is struck by a poisoned arrow and the doctor wishes to take out the arrow immediately. Suppose the man does not want the arrow removed until he knows who shot it, his age, his parents, and why he shot it. What would happen? If he were to wait until all these questions have been answered, the man might die first.” Life is so short. It must not be spent in endless metaphysical speculation that does not bring us any closer to the truth.
Dialectic Two-Step is an ongoing series of my thoughts on questions that come my way.
Wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two. - Octavio
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March 13, 2016
Steaming Coffee – A Two Minute Meditation
Oh the comfort given
by this Sunday morning cup
A grail with such potential
but it’s contents can disappoint
A chill or bitterness
extinguishes the fire of desire
Such joy
must come from chosing.
Not the cup,
but contentment.
Image above from The Commons
If you enjoyed this post, please like and share.
Minute Meditations is an ongoing series of short videos, poems, and commentary intended as a meditation. Offered as an opportunity to step back from your cyber routine and settle into a more natural rhythm, if only for a minute.
Get Each Week's Minute Meditations In Your Email Box
These videos are produced for those of us who spend an inordinately large amount of time in the cyber-world. They are not a substitute for unplugging from your devices and taking a stroll near trees, water, or a patch of unkempt grass. Getting out into the world - touching, smelling, hearing, and seeing nature is the best way to reconnect with our prime purpose.
What is our prime purpose? We are feeling and sensing machines. We are the universe looking back on itself. We are witness to the wonders and dangers of living in this corner of the cosmos. We are the seekers looking for connection a little further beyond yesterday's borders and boundaries.
But sitting and staring at the screen robs us of the sustenance that we rely upon for wonder and sanity. These videos are an opportunity to bring the sensations of nature to you, while you're in the cyber-world. Its an opportunity to relax your gaze, resettle your posture, and regain some depth in your breath. Listen and watch the video and allow your self to open up and recharge.
The post Steaming Coffee – A Two Minute Meditation appeared on Andrew Furst.
Sunday Morning Coming Down – Los Angeles by Denison Witmer
Denison Witmer. One of my quiet little favorites.
Sunday Morning Coming Down is an ongoing music video series. The songs fit my definition of music for a lazy couch bound Sunday morning.
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Los Angeles by Denison Witmer
I remember thinking
That someday you’d leave
Praying in your bedroom
Before I fell asleep
I still feel the moment
You came alive
Like a poem about springtime
Nothing to hide
And all of these homes
Are lined up so straight
But here on the inside
It’s not that way
I gave you my life and more
From sadness to sunshine, I’m yours
I’m your lost happiness
Up in your Los Angeles sky
Lately I’ve been feeling
That you’ll never know
If you don’t mark the way back
The further you go
And lately I’ve been feeling
Like I’m the bright star
That fell behind the mountain
Of feeling you are
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March 12, 2016
Disturbing Thoughts – Say What?
Say What? is an ongoing series of laconic exchanges on Buddhism in the format of a comic strip.
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