The Weight of Opinions - a meandering...

While I have my personal opinions
about what just happened in this country -
and the numbing and sombering effects of
its consequences,
I must not engage in my opinions -
but turn my focus
towards the Greater Reality within myself -
for I do believe there is a Greater Reality than our
personal beliefs, religions, "spirituality", nationalism;
personal politics; and the distractions of our lives
that keep us bound to *this* time-bound reality -
that I must now learn to travel through...

For some reason this moment is a "gate" that we,
as a country and a world, must pass through  - and
learn to accept and navigate what has befallen us in
this shift in reality...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 6, 2024

~

If there is anything you should stop wearing
as you get older is the weight of other people's
[and your own] opinions...

Author Unknown

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Time is Limited - Steve Jobs

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living
someone else's life. Don't be trapped by
dogma. which is living the results of other
people's thinking.  Don't let the noise of others'
opinions drown out your inner voice.  And 
most importantly, have the courage to follow
your heart and intuition.  They somehow
already know what you truly want...

Steve Jobs

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Hate - Baldwin, Kornfield & Seng T'san

I imagine one of the reasons that people cling
to their hate (prejudice and racism) so stubbornly
is because they sense that once hate is gone,
they will be forced to deal with
their own pain...

James Baldwin

~

We project our fears and hate onto others
because we can't look honestly
at ourselves...

Jack Kornfield
Buddhist Teacher

~

When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.

Make the smallest distinction, however
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.

If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinion for or against anything.

To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.

When the deep meaning of things is not understood
the minds essential peace is disturbed....

Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject
that we do not see the true nature of things.

Seng-T'san

Chinese Poet

~

Photo from the internet

The Traveler - Alexandra David-Neel and Lama Yongden

The traveler who finds his road blocked by a river will use
a raft to reach the opposite shore, but, this shore, once
reached, he will not take the raft on his shoulders while
continuing his journey.  He will abandon it as something
which has become useless.

The raft represents the different kinds of methods, intellectual
training, or moral discipline, which are available as means to
bring the seeker of liberation to the "other shore."  On this shore,
both have lost their value; they bear no relation to the conditions
existing on the "other shore" and, like the raft in the parable,
they are only a useless burden...

To go beyond virtue and vice, opinions and beliefs, is to go
beyond the mental constructions which are built by the mind,
unceasingly, and to recognize, by transcendent insight, that
they are void of reality.  It is also to recognize, by transcendent
insight, that which has been imagined as practicing virtue,
surrendering to vice, as holding opinions and elaborating theories,
as traveling towards a goal and reaching a goal, is nothing but
an inconsistent phantom, devoid of reality.

Alexandra David-Neel and Lama Yongden
from - The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhists Sects

with thanks to  - The Beauty We Love

~

I have been a seeker and I still am,
but I stopped asking the books and the stars.
I started listening to the teaching of my soul...

Rumi

~

Photo - taken by my brother

A Bridge to a Kinder World - Diane Walker

We pray today, not just for ourselves,
But for all in need of prayer.
We act, not just on behalf of ourselves,
But for those who will benefit.
...and we reach out today, not just to those
Whose opinions mirror our own,
But in hopes of building a bridge to a kinder world.

Diane Walker

Contemplative Photography

Photo and verse by Diane Walker

What's Your Echo? - Bram Levinson

Have you actually ever considered what you do right now,
like the next word that comes out of your mouth,
the next social media post that you put up, the next thought that
flutters across your mind...is actually contributing to your echo?
Your echo is the energy that someone is filled with when they talk
about you or think about you - your energy with them.
Your echo is the energy that trails behind you in your wake.
It's the energy that outlives you and out lasts your body, your life.
It's your impact, your imprint.
We emanate energy.  We are energy in a human body and that energy
is palpable, it's contagious.

What's your echo?

What's going on in the world has triggered a lot of opinion.
What you emanate into the world contributes.
It's your echo.
We are responsible for what we give off.
What is happening around the world right now is the sum total of
all our energies that are frenetic.  We are giving off a lot of chaos.
There is a rising wave of intolerance that is happening in our minds.
We get swept up into it...  [But] we are given life boats to navigate
those choppy waters if we are clear enough.
It's about getting out of our stories and beliefs that we walk around with
about who we *think* we are.

We are all energy, the energy that animates us into life...

What you do matters...

It takes presence...

What's your echo...? 

Bram Levinson
Yoga and Meditation Teacher

Excerpts from the video: "Echoes: What Remains of Us?"

To view the full video click HERE and scroll down to video

~

What we speak
becomes the house
we live in.

Who will want to sleep in your bed
if the roof leaks
right above it?

Hafiz

~

Photo - part of an arurora borealis