Conviction
If a thought grows out of the workings of the brain, then a Conviction is the guidance that grows out of the Heart. Integrity is a conviction of self esteem working with in a family and out to a community and our Globe, this blue pearl.
It is not a clever argument, a conviction is a firm belief. I believe that most often it is not verbally sharing a belief but the very living integrity that moves others into action. As a parent I had first hand proof that it was the way I moved, spoke, treated others, and lived my every day life that was the great teacher. It is my actions that I impressed on those under my care how to behave both in times of joy and those many times of struggle.
Just a few days ago while I was leaving an appointment I was told that she was glad I talked with her since I always leave her with a smile on her face! That could be none other than the conviction of joy in my heart that rounds out the sounds my words try to convey.
Conviction is a seed for understanding the infinite amount of time and energy each of us have to complete the thought, contained in a word and that string of words that brings people close to one another. The evidence is in the action that always speaks louder than words, thought without words we would all be miming with painted faces and stripped leggings.
I remember with great fondness the time I drove my dearest teacher and monks around on their errands. I would sometimes have a group of monks in my car on the way to the grocery store. There were times when visiting monks came to see my teacher and I was asked to take them window shopping. Most often they wanted to go to the poor part of town and look around in the thrift stores in that community. My teacher liked to go to great malls in various towns around where he lived. People who view their lives as Spending Time, learn by watching the way true meditating servants of the common good live, is a great adventure and gift in itself. This also taught me to watch how people mirror my behavior.
There were no words shared but the conviction that was taught, is to always want to see every part of the world with no fear. I walked with conviction born out of inner integrity where few choose to shop.
In fact, one day, long ago I was in such a very thrifty thrift store with three or four travelers when I found a big packing box of High Loft European Goose Down ‘Famous Label’ with the embossed coat of arms, (Ralph Lauren), king size pillows for fifteen dollars each! What a great surprise. The next day I went to Bloomingdales and found the regular size of this same pillow for three hundred dollars each! I guess it was not being afraid to window shop deep within the wrong side of the tracks! Probably these pillows were not sold earlier because the usual clients did not know what they were or their exorbitant usual cost.
The conviction in my heart is: we are all worthy people! No matter how much stuff we have or how much it cost.
Trauma
Something is tearing at my tender heart, it is a condition of life. I am reading a new book, Trauma, by the noted author Mark Epstein.
I warn you all that the font used is very small so you have to hold the book differently and really concentrate on reading. This book is helping me see as I struggle to move forward. I went to his book tour a few days ago. It was a real insight from a psychological view. His talk was very practical. Mark spoke from his experiences of eating mindfully as a simple act of not putting more food into your mouth until you have completely finished chewing and swallowing the first bite. My taste buds are singing as they send the good impulses to my brain which then tells my mind/body that good food is fuel for delight.
Then there is the physical brain, amygdala, over active that is the touchy function of our body mind system. This is the sentnal communicator of stress. One step at a time to turn your attention to the impulses is to turn toward Kindness; Be Kind to yourself.
Ask yourself, what does being kind to myself look like at this intersection. Find what will let you feel you are being Kind To Yourself and Do That Action. Being Kind to yourself is a source of awakening. Kindness is a light on this place you and I are going through, today in the here and now
Our understanding that living with and through a Trauma is NOT Fun. This is a source of connection that allows us, you and I, to care about each other and send our caring support out to all our friends and family.
Last night I painted my toenails. I have not done this in months. I just want to tip toe today with a small caring sparkle.
Emotions are as real as a table, sometimes hard and heavy, “without the hurt the heart is hollow”.
Hug This Emotion!
Crystal clear sweet sharp clarity in taste and poise, touch and scent, in beauty for all eyes to see.
I left New York and the east coast of America for the weather and unanimity of the bay area but I do not long for my past as a ‘home’. In fact I went back for several weeks last year for my birthday. I saw all my dearest best friends and retraced the steps that helped build the person who has this life I now live. I noticed that I am traveling at an inner pace which is different than the outer wave length lived in those seasons that now will always be my past.
I am home in my heart and at peace as I strive to see the energy in its more refined layers of My Material World! Accomplishing everything everywhere without exception!
In Bayard Rustin’s Back Pocket
A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin: Band together! The two men worked to bring civil disobedience, non violent assembly, and public intellectualism, the public intellectual discourse against the halls of Power. From his father, Randolph learned that color was less important than a person’s characterand conduct. From his mother, he learned the importance of education and of defending oneself physically against those who would seek to hurt one or one’s family, if necessary. Randolph remembered vividly the night his mother sat in the front room of their house with a loaded shotgun across her lap, while his father tucked a pistol under his coat and went off to prevent a mob from lynching a man at the local county jail.
Can you find any people rising up to become leaders with such strong intuition and usefulness to humanity, as a whole society, in our current time of Tyranny as Mr. Rustin and Mr. Randolph?
Have we started to move into Protest and take a stand to pressure Politics. The most extreme elements of those, drunk on power, are working hard against the belief that we are all members of One Global Family.
What is the chance that those of us who stand for our American Constitutional Right To Privacy? Personal right to a private life and private communication, which is a building block of real democracy must find a leader as Bayard Rustin was.
Goodness is normal, caring about other people is right, and the natural normal aspect of our evolution, to walking upright on two feet: bipededness
Is there any one reading this who is completely against and ready to stand up against the kind of Big Government that passes laws which currently condone mass surveillance, penalize both legitimate protest and dissent, using the News Media they own, issuing a flood of bad press against all organizing including the Occupy Movement platforms?
The ability of people to move into the landscape of life by moving into the the light, the light in the world and there is a light at the end of the tunnel is essential for life itself. I am ready to make this assent. I believe that now is the time to gather together and walk peacefully together functioning and acting as the Heart of Our Country.
The Grover Norqust Gang is actively working to suppress and ignore our Constitutional checks and balances. Not one of the American citizens voted or elected this man. His group are funded and backed by big corporations in concert with wrong military minds, and bought politicians intervening world wide. Grover Norquist orchestrated the Iran/Contra, by funding Oliver North! Norquist has designed programs which have taken over our Congress.
Where is Thomas Paine? He emigrated to the British American colonies in 1774 with the help of Benjamin Franklin! Where is a man with the character and cash of the likes of Benjamin Franklin NOW? Paine had the good fortune and timing to arrive in time to participate in the American Revolution. His contribution was the powerful, widely read pamphlet Common Sense (1776), the all-time best-selling American book that advocated colonial America’s independence.
Where are the powerful intelligent peacemakers hiding? I hope to, by this post, to draw out men to serve simply and simply serve. In the way Rustin served as an unidentified member of the American Friends Service Committee‘s task force to write “Speak Truth to Power: A Quaker Search for an Alternative to Violence,” published in 1955. This was one of the most influential and widely commented upon pacifist essays in the United States. Rustin was a member of the New York City Fifteenth Street Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). He traveled widely in service to peace.Can we look to the Quaker’s for resistance and leadership?
FREE FOOD Saturday
Naive Peace
Naive
It looks like I mistook Beef Stew for Prime Rib, yet again. Am I the only woman that has this loop action and reaction to social life with people? I am struggling to see the boundaries between the Layers of thought.
What is the Undercurrent of ‘a thought’?
Who is this person who is trying to find a mind body space to slip into for clarity of consciousness? How can I turn on the inner light, direct my mind, and find in that space an insight or knowledge of Peace? I want to know the meaning of peace as an integral part of all life. When will I start recognizing a pattern? What is the texture and size of the meat in the beef stew? My teeth now the difference as they sink into a bite of rare prime rib.
How do I manage to starve the desire that allows me to settle for the Beef Stew rather than wait until I recognize the nice juicy steak? Action is what is needed to starve the ‘seed’ thought at the root. I feel like I am on fire! I must Stop, Drop, and Roll to change the programming information to my amygdalae. It is this emotional learning, with an aspect of fear conditioning, that resonates, causing stimulation of adverse memories that predict the long term signaling of this little almond shaped part of our human brain.
In Terms Of Value, This Almond Is Exceptional
The present moment, the scene that is going on right now, is what must be realized, with an emphasis “on being here now”.
I am reaching toward the Gnostic rather than the dense personal identifier. So how realized can we be?
This moment could snap a complete realization in both the direction of particles and the music of Nature. I am listening to the Music of the Spheres.
Be Here Now. Here is another practical aspect of Mindfulness or attention to the Gap moment between the seed or root of thought and the brain. The value is being able to register that particular thought.
Like all of the steps you make when purchasing an airplane ticket.
Think about what you really want. Imagine that week after week as this dance with one another.
Peace: A Facet of Fairy Tales
Peace
The stories of fiction and non-fiction are not so far apart. Those Myths and Fairy Tales we all seem to have grown up on spread out a bridge of many colors as a path on which to trod forward. Are they purely fiction?
I have been listening to a running conversation within the AI community about the important meaningful stories of each individual. The inclusion into the Singularity of the life stories of all people on earth has had the spotlight shinning on one sector project. It is not the intellect or the ego driven complications, which are essential to the coming evolution of intelligent machines. The value is in the everyday goodness. Ray Kurzweil’s father was a wonderful musician and conductor. His life was of great value though he is not internationally known as a conductor. He is deeply loved by his son, who has collected every scrap of paper and every tangible item, music and more with all the pictures in one place. All this information about the life of this one man is to be a template that will be used to ‘upload’ all the stories of all the people on our Mother Earth.
The physicist, Richard Feynman, Nobel Laureate, saw stories in the clouds. He did not talk much about what he was looking for as he flew into the clouds day after day. Then when he was invited to give a series of lectures at Harvard, he told his story in language that was understood by almost everyone. His was a fiction about non-fiction!
There is wonderful value to the every day.
My story about Peace starts in 1971 when I was invited to the Peace Bell Ringing at the United Nations in NYC. I had no idea what a remarkable event is was going to be when I got up that morning and traveled into The City. One of Jean Huston’s Mystery School students was going to ring the Peace Bell. A group of us who were doing monthly live readings of Aescalope’s in the building where John Lennon family lived went together. More soon
Any Minute Mindfulness
I am standing in the glistening azure water at the Lions Pool in a park in Oakland California. I have escaped from a family farces of verbal abuse that felt like a energy vampire had sucked all the joy out of my being. Now I was standing in the water saying to my self over and over, ‘I Am Here Now.’ It felt like heavy lifting. Just saying the words of this mindful sentence was like dragging an entire building of historical emotions into the proper receptacle. That was then and this is now. I was not going to get lost again. I had to tell myself that what had happened was not happening now. I struggled to take the time to look around at my surroundings and get my balance. I was working on being Mindful. At any minute now, I was mindful.
This is such a good thing! That the word Mindfulness has entered the main stream vocabulary. It is a sign the masses have a notion that they have a brain service station. At last I have some glimmer of understanding that my mind has some directing process in life.
Like driving in the evening, the headlights on a car serve to show us the path ahead. The actual understanding that our mind can function in this way to help us see where we are, and what is ahead, is a wonderful step. This is the first step for peacefulness. This works from the inside out for both the individual and global life.
This is True: Being A Good Person
Using the word, Mindfulness, in work places and in schools is a sign that populations are becoming aware of the existence of a mind. It shows there is an interest and hunger to become familiar with the concept of mind. What is this aspect of my being and what does it actually do? The inner thoughts and tools are very ancient. You can search the concept and how it developed in India.
HHDL gave a teaching this year which you can take time to watch:
http://dalailama.com/webcasts/post/288-opening-the-eye-of-the-new-awareness
It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.
~ Audre Lorde
For this, (Mindfulness), we have to forget things like “I should be mindful of this or that”. If you are mindful, you are already creating a separation (“I – am – mindful – of – ….”). Don’t be mindful, please! When you walk, just walk. Let the walk walk. Let the talk talk. Let the eating eat, the sitting sit, the work work. Let sleep sleep
Hurry up, at any minute I will be mindful!
Rewiring the System 