Adjusting

In dim light or darkness, eyes adapt by widening the pupils to let in as much light as possible. The iris (the colored part of the eye surrounding the pupil) contains tiny muscles that control the size of the pupil. This all happens without us having to think about it. This autonomous transition is a daily occurrence happening several times if not dozens throughout our day. I mostly notice it at night before heading down the hallway after I have turned out the last light in the room. After continuously stepping on kids play toys and bumping into furniture that seemed to move in front of me, I have learned a very helpful tactic. I sit.....and wait. I wait for my eyes to adjust. Everything slowly begins to come in focus. I wait a little more. And now I feel confident I can make it. It has helped me many times to allow my eyes to adjust to the light before I take that first step. I was thinking the other day about how this process is involuntary of the mind. From some reason it led me to think about my emotions, something I have also seen at times as involuntary, or not of my control. It made me think about how I try to practice the same pause before a knee jerk reaction. And how it is much needed to allow 'everything to come in focus'. I have learned that I unfortunately fail many times. But I try to remain aware of where I am at all times (emotionally). As long as I can remember to wait, and think about what it really is that I am perceiving...I am usually better off I have found. I think God has left a lot of parallels like this in life. Little hints to keep us on track...

Amazing Facts Of The Human Body!

• During your lifetime, you will produce enough saliva to fill two swimming pools.
• Coughs clock in at about 60 mph.
• Your nose can remember 50,000 different scents.
• The surface area of a human lung is equal to a tennis court.
• Everyone has a unique smell, except for twins.
  

A Quick Story On Temper....

A Zen student came to Bankei and complained: "Master, I have an ungovernable temper. How can I cure it?"

"You have something very strange," replied Bankei. "Let me see what you have."

"Just now I cannot show it to you," replied the other.

"When can you show it to me?" asked Bankei.

"It arises unexpectedly," replied the student.

"Then," concluded Bankei, "it must not be your own true nature. If it were, you could show it to me at any time. When you were born you did not have it, and your parents did not give it to you. Think that over."

Suffering

I was talking to my brother today about the idea of suffering. It made me think of a video that I had seen on suffering from one of my spiritual teachers named Ram Dass. Ram Dass was a Harvard professor with Timothy Leary in the 1960's. He wrote a very popular book in 1971 called "Be Here Now." In this video Ram explains the balance one must have with suffering. He explains how suffering is a part of life. Please watch the video and feel free to comment. Thanks.

White Collar Conservative....

"White collar conservative flashin down the street, pointing that plastic finger at me, they all assume my kind will drop and die, but I'm gonna wave my freak flag high."

-Jimi Hendrix

Radiohead - House of Cards

Sri Ramana Maharshi

"Nearly all mankind is more or less unhappy because nearly all do not know the true Self. Real happiness abides in Self-knowledge alone. All else is fleeting. To know one's Self is to be blissful always."

LISTENING

"Every word, every image
used for God is a distortion
more than a description."

"Then how does one speak of God?"

"Through Silence."

"Why, then, do you speak in words?"

At that, the Master
laughed uproariously.
He said, "When I speak, you
mustn't listen to the words, my dear.
Listen to the Silence."

A Meditation by Anthony de Mello, SJ

Free

Weary am I of the tumult, sick of the staring crowd,
Pining for wild sea places where the soul may think aloud.
Fled is the glamour of cities, dead as the ghost of a dream,
While I pine anew for the tint of blue on the breast of the old Gulf Stream.

I have had my dance with Folly, nor do I shirk the blame;
I have sipped the so-called Wine of Life and paid the price of shame;
But I know that I shall find surcease, the rest my spirit craves,
Where the rainbows play in the flying spray,
'Mid the keen salt kiss of the waves.

Then it's ho! for the plunging deck of a bark, the hoarse song of the crew,
With never a thought of those we left or what we are going to do;
Nor heed the old ship's burning, but break the shackles of care
And at last be free, on the open sea, with the trade wind in our hair.

A poem by Eugene O Neil.

Openness

I was talking to a friend the other day about being around people that challenge our own egos. How sometimes it is difficult to sustain a level of politeness and awareness, with certain personality types, in situations such as these. It sometimes can be easy to block these people from our agendas, making sure that we wont have to confront them and their stories. But we should welcome them and their issues with acceptance. Because this is what is really needed if we intend to grow. Most often if we are feeling uncomfortable in a situation, it is us doing the feeling. Opposition makes us look within. It challenges us to let go of the need that our ego demands and embrace the other person as we want to be embraced. There is an old saying I heard a long time ago that reminds me of the need to be out there, to be open. The adage says

'Ships weren't built to stay in the harbor.'

I guess to me, it says that 'dont be afraid to get out there and mix it up with people'...dont be too closed off to receive someone else. You really never know in life who you can find common ground with despite their flaws or differences. More importantly, only when we feel others' flaws, only when we feel others' differences, can we go inside and work on stilling our mind. Don't shy away from challenges. Be brave, and put yourself out there without any preconceived notions of how the scenario might play out. Rest in that openness.



This is an excerpt from D.H. Lawrence. From Lawrence's "Studies in Classic American Literature",I found it to be along the same line I am speaking of.

When I meet another man, and he is just himself - even if he is an ignorant Mexican pitted with small-pox - then there is no question between us of superiority or inferiority. He is a man and I am a man. We are ourselves. There is no question between us.

But let a question arise, let there be a challenge, and then I feel he should do reverence to the gods in me, because they are more than the gods in him. And he should give reverence to the very me, because it is more at one with the gods than is his very self.

If this is conceit, I am sorry. But it's the gods in me that matter. And in other men.

As for me, I am so glad to salute the brave, reckless gods in another man. So glad to meet a man who will abide by his very self.

Ideas! Ideals! All this paper between us. What a weariness.

If only people would meet in their very selves, without wanting to put some idea over one another, or some ideal.

Damn all ideas and all ideals. Damn all the false stress, and the pins.

I am I. Here am I. Where are you ?

Ah, there you are! Now, damn the consequences, we have met.

That's my idea of democracy, if you can call it an idea.

The Only Price

This is one of Adyashanti's writings. He has many other teachings at his website if you care to look.
http://www.adyashanti.org

Life without a reason, a purpose, a position... the mind is frightened of this because then "my life" is over with, and life lives itself and moves from itself in a totally different dimension. This way of living is just life moving. That's all.

As soon as the mind pulls out an agenda and decides what needs to change, that's unreality. Life doesn't need to decide who's right and who's wrong. Life doesn't need to know the "right" way to go because it's going there anyway. Then you start to get a hint of why the mind, in a deep sense of liberation, tends to get very quiet. It doesn't have its job anymore. It has its usefulness, but it doesn't have its full-time occupation of sustaining an intricately fabricated house of cards.

This stillness of awareness is all there is. It's all one. This awareness and life are one thing, one movement, one happening, in this moment -- unfolding without reason, without goal, without direction. The ultimate state is ever present and always now. The only thing that makes it difficult to find that state and remain in that state is people wanting to retain their position in space and time. "I want to know where I'm going. I want to know if I've arrived. I want to know who to love and hate. I want to know. I don't really want to be; I want to know. Isn't enlightenment the ultimate state of knowing?" No. It's the ultimate state of being. The price is knowing.

This is the beautiful thing about the truth: ever-present, always here, totally free, given freely. It's already there. That which is ever-presently awake is free, free for the "being." But the only way that there's total and final absolute homecoming is when the humanness presents itself with the same unconditionality. Every time a human being touches into that unconditionality, it's such peace and fulfillment.

In your humanity, there's the natural expression of joy and love and compassion and caring and total unattachment. Those qualities instantly transmute into humanness when you touch into emptiness. Emptiness becomes love. That's the human experience of emptiness, that source, that ever-present awakeness. For the humanness to lay itself down -- your mind, your body, your hopes, your dreams, everything -- to lay itself down in the same unconditional manner in which awareness is ever present, only then is there the direct experience of unity, that you and the highest truth are really one thing. It expresses itself through your humanity, through openness, through love. The divine becomes human and the human becomes divine -- not in any "high and mighty" sense, but just in the sense of reality. That's the way it is.

The only price is all of our positions. The only price is that you stop paying a price.

Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

...Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently over them all--young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.

Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth. But one creature said at last, "I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom."

The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks and you will die quicker than boredom!" But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.

Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more. And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!" .....

This is an excerpt from a favorite book of mine called Illuisions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, by Richard Bach. This was a short parable contained in the prologue. I thought it to be a profound element throughout the whole book. Its a must read.

It's All A Miracle

“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”

-Thich Nhat Hanh

Amazing Facts Of The Human Brain!

• Your brain generates 25 watts of power while you're awake---enough to illuminate a lighbulb.
• Every time you learn something new, your brain makes new connections and you can continue to make new connections throughout your entire life.
• One brain cell connects to up to 25 000 others.
• How much does human brain think? 70,000 is the number of thoughts that it is estimated the human brain produces on an average day.

• After age 30, the brain shrinks a quarter of a percent (0.25%) in mass each year.

5 more reasons to sit back and be in awe...

The Different Seed

And so it criticized each flower,
This supercilious seed;
Until it woke one summer hour,
And found itself a weed.

- Mildred Howells, The Different Seed

Ever felt this way?

Going Whichever The Way The Wind Blows

Going whichever way the wind blows,
you were caught in your world,
I was lost in mine.

Going whichever way the wind blows,
staring through the windshield,
seeing the other side.
let it go, it will get easier,
let it go, just enjoy the ride.

Going whichever way the wind blows,
Spacing on the road map,
useless dots and lines.

Going whichever way the wind blows,
tearing out the pages,
just to watch them fly,
let it go, it will get easier,
let it go, just enjoy the ride.

let it go, it will get easier,
let it go, just enjoy the ride.

Going whichever way the wind blows,
Going whichever way the wind blows,
stare into the rear view, leave it all behind.


This is a song by Peter Droge. I really think the song captures the idea of life and how it should be lived. ....just enjoy the ride....

Amazing Facts Of The Human Body!

• 50,000 of the cells in your body will die and be replaced with :new cells, all while you have been reading this sentence!
  
• Every person has a unique tongue print.
• The tooth is the only part of the human body that can't repair itself. (That is incredible.....c'mon!)
  
• Our bodies are recreating themselves constantly - we ,make a skeleton every 3 months, new skin every month. We are capable of reversing the Aging Process!!
  
• In one hour, your heart works hard enough to produce the equivalent energy to raise almost 1 ton of weight 1 yard off the ground.(Thats what I'm talkin' about.....a being...with energy)
  

5 more reasons to sit back and be in awe...

Alan Watts on Faith

Alan Watts wrote a beautiful quote on the subject of Faith. If you have never read any of Alan Watt's books, I strongly recommend... "The Book - On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are." This book hits home.....very quick.


"Faith is a state of openness or trust. To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float. And the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on. In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all. Instead they are holding tight. But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be."

-Alan Watts

The Owl

There once was an owl who sat on an oak.
The more he listened the less he spoke.
The less he spoke the more he heard.
Why cant we be like this wise old bird?

I am outside now. It is so beautiful today. I look towards the sun and smile. It has such a positive energy on some days...

The Universe Becomes Self Conscious

I thought this was funny....

F E A R

-Neale Donald Walsch, on the subject of fear.

Thoreau

"The scenery, when it is truly seen, reacts on the life of the seer. How to live. How to get the most of life.... How to extract its honey from the flower of the world."

-Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau is one of my top ten favorite writers. This guy was all about living simple and being with nature. He was a philosopher that also wrote on every topic from politics to understanding and co-existing with nature. I recommend Walden. It is a great read.

....a gentle breeze blew my way....

Today I watched the wind blow it's gentle breeze over a beautiful flower. It sent some of its pedals in motion. And as I watched, I thought about how God uses that gentle breeze to scatter the beauty all over. It is so cool when you think about it. Its like the whole world is his canvas. Wow.....

My friend.......Albert

Albert Einstein is one of my favorite teachers. He had so much understanding of the world and its ways. It is almost as if he was so brilliant, that his mind could only function on the level of sheer simplicity. In a world of such complexity....he made so much sense. He put much faith in the creative process, and knew it's importance in our personal development. One of my favorite quotes of his......

"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education"

-Albert Einstein

Moving Mind

Two men were arguing about a flag flapping in the wind.

"It's the wind that is really moving," stated the first one.

"No, it is the flag that is moving," contended the second.

A Zen master, who happened to be walking by, overheard the debate and interrupted them.

"Neither the flag nor the wind is moving," he said, "It is MIND that moves."

The ostrich who kept his head down.......

There was an Ostrich who was the most nervous creature of its kind. At the least provocation, the merest hint of alarm and the flimsiest cause for concern, he would thrust his head into the sand and stay there until he was sure, beyond any doubt, that the coast was clear and the danger past.

He could often be seen - his neck, body and legs very much in evidence, but his head well and truly out of sight - long after the wildebeest stampede had galloped away in a cloud of dust or the big game hunters’ jeep had rattled off into the distance.

“Why do you wait so long before showing your face?” asked one of the other ostriches.

“Well,” said the Ostrich who kept his head down, “one really cannot be too careful…”

“But---” began the other ostrich and then stopped short on hearing a low snarly-roar that suggested that a large predator was lurking nearby.

Instantly, the other ostrich made a dash for safety, knowing that, with a head start, he could out-run anything on four paws.

The Ostrich who kept his head down, on the other hand, poked his head in the sand and pretended that, since he could see nothing, he could not be seen.

The Jaguar, for that is who was doing the stalking, sat for some time washing his paws and looking at the exposed haunches of the Ostrich. Eventually, however, he decided that without the chase the kill would be boring, so he wandered off to look for an antelope or two.

The Ostrich who kept his head down, kept his head down for several hours, congratulating himself on having eluded certain death.

As a result, he failed to notice great banks of black storm clouds rolling in across the veldt or hear the rumble of approaching thunder. In fact, he knew nothing about anything until - with a single, dazzlingly searing flash - he was struck by lightning and fried to a crisp.

.......this is why awareness is so important.

Living the Mystery

An excerpt from a satsang with Adyashanti.

- Forgiveness -

it is 12:03am. I am home and began to think about forgiveness. How come some time it is such a difficult thing? It should be so easy. Easy to let go. But what really makes us hold on? I bet if we were always conscious of the present moment, we would have no choice of the matter. There would be no realization of past and no realization of future...just now. I guess we're not though....maybe thats the reason that, there is always tomorrow to make up (or so the illusion tells us).

We cant forgive, really forgive, until we counter every negative thought, with love, and then, replace it with compassion. We wont always understand...but that is where the compassion comes through. We don't need to understand. We only need to love. Only when we get to that level can we accept people, and situations as they are. We are all so beautiful. So much love.

Awareness

"One of the most important things to be understood about man is that man is asleep. Even while he thinks he is awake, he is not. His wakefulness is very fragile; his wakefulness is so tiny it doesn't matter at all. His wakefulness is only a beautiful name but utterly empty."

"You sleep in the night, you sleep in the day-- from birth to death you go on changing your patterns of sleep, but you never really awaken. Just by opening the eyes don't befool yourself that you are awake. Unless the inner eyes open-- unless your inside becomes full of light, unless you can see yourself, who you are--don't think that you are awake. That is the greatest illusion man lives in. And once you accept that you are already awake, then there is no question of making any effort to be awake."

-Osho

Hey! Cool. I can even blog from my phne?

Are you a dreamer?......

Back to the Garden.....

This will be a very interesting blog for those of you who choose to stop by. I want to start off by saying that we all are here for a certain reason. And many of us try hard, and struggle through life to find and understand that reason. I feel as if we are in a period of life, where it is so hard to interpret so many things to use for our own personal growth. I have recently (within the last 5 years) found myself reading, watching, craving anything that can help me along the arduous journey of life. I have looked at many things, and made the decision for myself what I choose to believe true. The title "Back to the Garden" references the idea that the world that we live in is sometimes too much, and hence, we need to get "back to the garden", to keep growing. Growing is essential. Here, on this blog, I will be giving excerpts, videos, poems, writings, quotes and much more to hopefully help you the way it has helped me. With that said this blog will be very informative....and at the same time....random. But what else is life about?...other than being random. I'll check in soon...in the mean time....

Don't stay too far away from the garden....

Your mind is a garden,

your thoughts are the seeds,

the harvest can be either flowers or weeds.

Wisdom is oftentimes nearer when we stoop than when we soar.

-William Wordsworth

Hello all......

My name is Kyle. This is my first blog and I thouht there is no time like the present to begin to document this crazy thing calledm life. I am 30 years old. I am a stay at home dad, with a little boy who is almost 2. My jobs consist of diapers, running around, keeping him fed & clean, and most importantly...keeping him happy. I am a married man, for almost two years now. It is the hardest thing I have EVER tried. At times it is even rewarding.

I am currently being paged now by my lil boy.........so I need to go. But I will be blogging every night at around 10pm. So please check back. Later.