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Friday, February 13, 2004
Thursday, February 12, 2004
"Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Thursday, February 12, 2004
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Metta Prayer
May all beings be happy, content, and fulfilled.
May all beings be healed and whole.
May all have whatever they want and need.
May all be protected from harm, and free from fear.
May all beings enjoy inner peace and ease.
May all be awakened, liberated, and free.
May there be peace in this world, and throughout the entire universe.
- Unknown
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Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
The Mirror of Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the root of the Dharma.
Mindfulness is the body of practice.
Mindfulness is the fortress of the mind.
Lack of mindfulness will allow the negative forces to overcome you.
Without mindfulness you will be swept away by laziness.
Lack of mindfulness is the creator of evil deeds.
Without mindfulness and presence of mind,
Nothing can be accomplished.
Lack of mindfulness piles up shit.
Without mindfulness you sleep in an ocean of piss.
Without mindfulness you are like a heartless zombie, a walking corpse.
From "Awakening the Buddha Within," By Lama Surya Das
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Monday, February 09, 2004
Monday, February 9, 2004
I have faith in the willingness of the ordinary person to act with tremendous compassion when asked. I believe in the greatness of the common man and woman. Our greatest problem is not that people are unwilling to rise to the challenges of our time. Our greatest problem is that we do not want them to and we do not ask them to. We ask too little of people, and the little that we ask is itself the source of their apathy. We ask too little to inspire them greatly. People are greatly inspired when great things are asked of them. When we ask less than they are capable of and less than there are hungry to give, we diminish their spirits and their own sense of themselves. We do not have faith in the ability and the willingness of the ordinary citizen to make extraordinary contributions to their society.
I remember when we began the AIDSRides and the 3-Days how people said that it was too much to ask. People would not sleep overnight in a tent and they would not raise that much money. But what we found was that there was a very substantial number of people out there who found the request to be a breath of inspiration. Finally, someone was asking them to rise to the level of their own passion and their own potential. And their passion and their potential answered and they walked and they rode and they slept in the tents and they raised over $300 million. Net.
Who is to say that the average citizen would not respond if we said that we, the people, are going to embark on a radical plan to eradicate breast cancer in the next ten years, or to end AIDS within the next ten years, or to end hunger within the next ten years, or all three for that matter?
I can tell you that I have seen no limit to the willingness of people to rise to the challenge of their times. And I can tell you that there is a direct correlation to how much you ask of people and how greatly they will rise. We often need leadership and inspiration, and that is in short supply, but that is OK. It does not need to be in large supply. One candle is all it takes to ignite a great light. One candle, and then, the people inspire one another, and then miraculous, unbelievable things can happen.
There are a lot of people out there vying for leadership and promising the people that they will solve all the problems from on high. They will provide all the answers. They will relieve all the burdens. They will do it all for the people. That is not what the people want. The people want a leader who will ask them for their all – who will ask the people to solve the problems. Who will ask the people to provide the answers. Who will ask the people to relieve the burdens from one another. Who will ask the people to rise to greatness. We don't need a great leader. We need leaders who will inspire us to greatness.
This is the essence of what John Kennedy meant when he said, "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." This is the essence of what Robert Kennedy meant when, asked by a group of medical students who would pay for all of his expensive social programs he answered candidly, "you will," and they cheered him. This is the way to win the hearts of the people, and the hearts of the people will do the rest.
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Sunday, February 08, 2004
Sunday, February 8, 2004
This is the same idea as yesterday's Apple Computer philosophy on rejecting the mass mind, but in Thomas Merton's words, and only as he can put things:
"People are constantly trying to use you to help them create the particular illusions by which they live. This is particularly true of the collective illusions which sometimes are accepted as ideologies. You must renounce and sacrifice the approval that is only a bribe enlisting your support of a collective illusion. You must not allow yourself to be represented as someone in whom a few of the favorite daydreams of the public have come true. You must be willing, if necessary, to become a disturbing and therefore an undesired person, one who is not wanted because he upsets the general dream."
"The general dream," as he refers to it, is of course the general resignation, or the general denial - the antithesis of moral responsibility and, by nature, of a dream.
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