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The tyrannical military government in Myanmar(Burma) has implemented it’s threat to ‘crack down’ on the Buddhist monks who’ve been joining in the protests.

I wonder how it feels to be a soldier, opening fire on monks peacefully marching in protest of gross injustice? How does one justify such an action? Did any of them blanch, refuse to shoot? Were any of them appalled at breaking into a monastery and beating, humiliating and abusing the abbot and monks? How horrible, to carry the egregious karma resulting from such choices and actions.

This would be funny if it wasn’t a ploy to keep the Dalai Lama from recognizing tulkus and an attempt to win Chinese government control over who the lamas will be.

May all the baby tulkus happily chew up their reincarnating-without-a-permit citations and burble at the disgruntled officials until they shuffle off embarrassed at their ridiculous trangressions… If only it were so simple and the dangerous beaurocrats in power so easily defeated.

Oh Mani Peme Hung.

I came home today, laden with boxes of freshly-picked blueberries, to an unexpected disaster zone in my bedroom! My altar crushed beneath a small mountain of books, crystals and trinkets. The bookshelf nailed to the wall above had finally succumbed to the weighty wisdom of my collection of dharma books. Must’ve been some humonguous CRASH when that came down! Come to think of it though, if thirty-two dharma books fall on a shrine and no one is there to hear it…

I’d just been thinking recently that my shrine was looking dusty… I guess the dakinis thought so too! I must have had some merit amongst all that laziness though, ‘cuz they had mercy and only broke one small piece off of one of the many pretty glass, ceramic and crystal objects strewn helter skelter all over the floor.

So, today is all about blueberry delight and rearranging my room to make space for the sacred.

The blueberrification was entirely unexpected-this morning I took my car in to see Lope, my awesome new mechanic, a very friendly, articulate, expansive fellow. Sam was with me and we soon found ourselves gifted with a bag of blueberries and fresh blueberry watermelon smoothies as he told us all about this amazing U Pic blueberry farm he’d discovered out in Shohomish. Then it turned out, his wife wanted to go out there and load up again, so we joined forces and off we went!

It was so luscious-the plants were loaded with gorgeous, freshly rain-washed, immense berries and we bought a three dollar honey bear(from the hives overlooking the blueberry meadow) to go with. On the way home, I couldn’t resist popping by our local Javasti(crepe an’ coffee cafe) and having them crepe up some of our berries for lunch.

Mmmmmm…….

The nicely chatty farmer couple also gave us a stack o’ recipes for our eighteen pounds of fatties.

Blueberry crumble bar time!

My mom and Sam and I got to see a dear friend this week, for the first time since her three year buddhist retreat ended. Elisabeth, now known also as Wangmo, looked absolutely beautiful in her maroon and yellow habit as we showed her some new Seattle features.

The aquarium, with it’s spanking new ’sea wall’ and lovely, mesmerizing jellyfish arch and the Olympic Sculpture Park, with it’s big, rusty(or shiney) abstract objets d’art and lusciously smooth eyeball seats.

It was a monsterously fun day.

“Sitting practice is a way to be kind to yourself and to have the courage to find out and be who you are. It is a way to stop running from your anxiety, running to catch up or keep up with your neighbors, running to fulfill your own and other’s expectations for you, running away from knowing your own mind and heart, running towards your death and rarely ever tasting the richness of your life.”

‘Sacred World’ Jeremy and Karen Hayward

“Mindfulness is not a tool for therapy, a spiritual exercise, or an educational technique. It is a natural function. It is, more than anything else, what makes us human. We all have the capability to be mindful of our body, feelings, perceptions, and thoughts as they happen, unless we are diseased or brain-damaged. But most of us use this ability only partially and intermittently, hardly realizing we are doing it. There is no training for mindfulness in our upbringing, and we therefore do not realize the fullness of living and the creative potential that it’s practice can unfold. We practice mindfulness-’bringing back the wandering attention over and over again’-simply so that we can be present in our lives as they happen. Only when we are present can we begin to see our cocoon, to feel the fear that keeps it going, and perhaps be refreshed by glimpses of the sacred world.”

Sacred World, Jeremy and Karen Hayward.

“The Aboriginals told me they thought whiteys were sick. They were always trying to smoke me in a purifying fire or dump me in some sacred pool. They were very kind. Then they started asking me why I wasn’t in my own country with my own people. It made no sense to them, and pretty soon it made no sense to me.
One day, in a state of extremely heightened confusion, I walked a little from this bizarre desert settlement. I sat on the edge of an enormous cliff overlooking hundreds of mile of flat red desert dotted with mounds resembling large, nippled breasts. There was a tremendous expanse of sky, horizon, and air. Great expanses. And I heard my mind-it felt cramped, small and painfully claustrophobic. The space around me felt real. My mind felt sick. The thought arose that if I could just let my mind go into all that space, mix it with all that space, there would be relief. Let it go with the breath. Just that. Mix my mind with the vast space. Maybe I even did it for a moment, but it was fleeting. I knew I could not do it on my own and that I needed someone to teach me how to do this.”

excerpt from ‘Sacred World’ Jeremy and Karen Hayward.

An interview with Pema Chodron.

Just finished a Shambala training on Lungta, or Windhorse meditation.

It was seriously good for me.

I illustrated our text cover… Somehow, I always study better artistically.

‘We spend part of our life trying to get it together, and the other part watching it fall apart. As soon as we have time-’I have a whole hour free’-we are losing it. As soon as we make a friend, we are losing him. As soon as we have fame, it becomes tinged with notoriety. As soon as we have wealth, we’re losing it. Looking for something new to gain helps us forget to look but a few seconds back at the last thing we lost. Fabricating this chain of desire is how we keep ouselves in samsara. We are using this instability to try to make stability. We’re investing in hope and fear, banking on denial of a simple truth: all the pleasure the world can offer eventually turns to pain. Everything we gain is subject to loss.
Why do we put all that effort into gain when, in the end, we are going to lose it? Has anything we’ve gained brought us lasting happiness? Is there anything we own that we will be able to keep? What in our lives is not subject to the winds of gain and loss? Even this body will dissolve. In the face of death, there is only basic goodness. Gain and loss is just an illusion-one we have allowed to rule us.’

‘Ruling your world’ Sakyong Mipham