Friend: the only response to it all is WAKE UP 

me: Well, you can either shrivel up or wake up... and I don't look too good all dried out ... ;)

Friend : You look good any way!! But I digress- that is true, but how many choose shrivel 

me: Many do. The fear of the unknown is greater than the fear of the known type of thing... that's why we're here. That's why there's practioners and guides. We're here to help. As much as we can... we can just point to the moon and see who follows... lol "pick a boat, any boat. just do it!"

Friend: How about pointing to the moon and not getting attached to who follows or even our own fingers?

me: Well yeah.. that's why it was just "observe" who follows.. not "who gets roped in" heheheheheh

Friend: Some boats are dangerous because they teach attachment...

me: They may need a hand getting into the boat, but they've gotta row it themselves. The boat doesn't teach anything!  It's your own mind that gets attached to the boat. So when they finally realize they really aren't getting anywhere and are just floating in the river, splashing the paddles,  that's when you have a guide to point the way. They've still gotta row and they've gotta realize any other way isn't going to get them to the other shore. And no matter how pretty that boat is, you have to get rid of it at some point.

but is size all that matters?

 

People who meditate grow bigger brains than those who don't. Researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found the first evidence that meditation can alter the physical structure of our brains. Brain scans they conducted reveal that experienced meditators boasted increased thickness in parts of the brain that deal with attention and processing sensory input.

here for article 

I couldn't say this any better myself, so to quote from the cover:

Warning: This course will teach you nothing you don't already know, it asks for all the enthusiasm and attention you can muster, and it's 100% guaranteed NOT to improve you at all! So, why have thousands of participants at Cheri Huber's acclaimed retreats returned to their lives with such gratitude and joy?

"At the heart of so many of our 'self-improvement' hopes lies the illusion of self-control," teaches Huber. Unconditional self-acceptance is very much the opposite: It's revealed in the boundless delight we felt as children before we were "trained" to feel different, in the unfettered and energetic presence of Zen's first mountain sages. It's a natural way of being that yes, you can absolutely rediscover. That's where this course will guide you."

link to this on amazon ( and no, I don't work for this place nor do I receive any financial benefit) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591792371/002-9315711-4351254?v=glance&n=283155


I used this 6 cd set by Cheri Huber about 3 weeks ago. I could easily call this the most effective book/cd method I've ever used, no matter how often they proclaim otherwise. And if you looked thru my 4 bookshelves and innumerable boxes of books I've given away, you'd see that I'm no stranger to "improve me" land.

This set captures the essence that striving to improve is a lost cause. Cheri points directly to the fact that if you cannot see what's in front of your face, then paying attention to finding a better job or wife or dog or trying to think happy thoughts all the time will only lead to a continuation of looking everywhere but to your own mind. She guides you thru at least 6 meditations that get you in touch with that moment. Although that doesn't seem exciting, she asks you to get in touch with moments and watch how your body reacts when she mentions feelings- how do you feel when someone says "joy"? "sadness"? "loneliness"? She asks you to watch your physical and then emotional reactions, and then think back to a time when you felt that. Try and see if you can go back to the first time- the time you learned how to react in this pattern.

She goes right up to the line of using the analogy of "inner child" and "inner guide/ adult" but is very clear that these aren't a permanent fixture either. By the time I got to the fifth cd, I was starting to have my doubts as to where all this seemly unrelated messy inner exploration was going, but in the sixth cd she pulls it all together fabulously. I really got a deeper understanding of a situation that only served to make me anxious over and over again to the point where I couldn't see a way to form another responce to it. I used this situation in my mediations and when I was done, I wrote pages and pages of insights about it AND the next time it happened, I could see CLEARLY what I was ACTUALLY reacting to and choose another option. Having insight into my nature simply from watching and observing my own mind- no one else's words to read or decipher, no 12 step program to happiness to follow. Just what comes from my own mind.

Note the ironic twist that by striving to purchase this set it will only lead to you ending the long circle of desire. So spring for it. Consider it the last self help/ self improvment/  meditation/ guided imagery set you'll ever purchase.

Please let me know what you think of Cheri's program! I'm interested in other people's experiences with it....

ok ~matthew, i'll play

 It's the Friday Five! (on Wednesday)
We give five questions, and Zaadzsters answer them in their blogs. Join up!
 
1) 10 years ago what did you think you would be doing now? I thought I would be a boring I.T Project Manager ready to find a new career. So I guess I'm right on track, regardless.

2) Where do you think you will be in 5 years from now? Richmond, Va, if I have anything to say about it. I'd like to keep the same address for more than 10 minutes for once!

3) Do you live life one day at a time or look to the future? Which day is it? lol - mostly I look to the future

4) Do you wish you could go back in time and undo something in your life? Not undo- re experience alot of things though. Capture those memories even stronger. I've always been the type that tries to take a "picture" in my mind of that very moment and note how old I was and where I lived, but I just wish I'd done that more and with more details.

5) If you could send a message back in time and give a younger version of yourself some advice, what would it be? You don't suck as bad as you think.  ;) In fact, you can relax more. Give yourself more credit. Insist to mom and dad that you should wait till you're 30 to go to college.  And DON'T move to Miami!!!!!!

http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/2006/04/oughtnt_we_dig.html

For Hawking and Hertog, there's simply no doubt that top-down cosmology is the only answer. It's simple: if you can't know the initial state of the universe, you can't work forwards from the beginning: the top-down approach is the only one that works.

The trouble, of course, is that if they are right, we're involved in the making of that history. In that case, we have a new set of instructions for building a universe. Step one: look around you. Step two: find the set of all possible histories that end up as a universe like the one you see. Step three: add them together and create a history for yourself.

so... there really is no spoon?

:)

Hawking and Hartle's original work on the quantum properties of the cosmos suggested that imaginary time, which seemed like a mathematical curiosity in the sum-over-histories approach, held the answer to understanding the origin of the universe.

Add up the histories of the universe in imaginary time, and time is transformed into space. The result is that, when the universe was small enough to be governed by quantum mechanics, it had four spatial dimensions and no dimension of time: where time would usually come to an end at a singularity, a new dimension of space appears, and, poof! The singularity vanishes.

In terms of the universe's history, that means there is no point A. Like the surface of a sphere, the universe is finite but has no definable starting point, or "boundary". Hence the idea's name: the no-boundary proposal.

http://jayandrewallen.com/2006/04/29/forming-your-own-private-truth-commission/

I’ve run into a thorny emotional issue in the past few days. My wife had an onset of her psoriatic arthritis a few days back. That, coupled with her demanding schedule, has meant that we’ve had little quality time together. What little time we have had has largely been comprised of her fighting through her pain, or catching up on her job.

This triggered an emotional earthquake in me. Suddenly, I felt…unloved. Not paid attention to. I began to play out scripts in my head maligning her for being so "selfish" (never mind that her body is wracked with pain from her hair roots to her toenails, Jay). It was somewhat similar to the ego-attack I had the previous weekend, but even more intense and prolonged. My goal was simple: not to bury or eradicate the feeling, but simply to objectify it, so that I wasn’t torn apart in its maw. But, yet again, no amount of abiding and antidote-applying was lifting me out of my rut.

Wow Jay, Thank you for such an honest examination of yourself.. I"m putting this here as an inspriation for self honesty for myself and others.

I had a talk with a good friend last weekend and we discussed this exact issue. "M" commented on how for someone to have practiced 30 plus years yet still doesn't "get it" and seems so angry or egotistical, how can this exsist. Always trying to protect the self, basically. I said I've observed this also and I call it the "Screw the other shore, I need that boat!" syndrome. Practice *can* help bolster someone's certainty in how they view their world. However, all it is is replacing one cosmology with another. They use the framework or worldview of buddhism instead of being able to explore their own- they've *already* found one that works, why reinvent the wheel? And like the article says, you have to face your own self before you start propping yourself up with another framework just to make little "you" feel have the illusion of safety.  Western psychology with their cognitive behavioral (and all the branches thereof) really hits the nail on the head and addresses what we would call mindfullness. They call it paying attention to what's actually going on and not labeling it.
Anyone who feels "stuck" in their meditation practice might want to look into complimenting it with cbt as a way to break thru their own blocks.

This is a time of great change and religions need to adapt; a change in teaching style is necessary. A simple belief in God is no longer enough for many people. They want to understand: What is God? What is my true self? In the Bible, it says, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." What is this "I"? Is this "I" God? Is this God separate from me? If this God is not separate from me, are God and I two or one? Through meditation practice these questions can be resolved on a deep level. Then one can truly understand religion, understand this world. In meditation all opposites become one point: mind, God, dharma, truth. You can call it many things, but this point is before all names and forms.
Zen Master Seung Sahn

from "Open to Desire" by Mark Epstein


..."Sita and Rama have to find their way back to each other once they are established as separate persons, divided by and ocean and under the siege of the demons. They may be divine, but on earth they have to act out the human predicament.
Rama, incarnation of Vishnu, unsuspecting manifestation of God, is bereft when Sita, incarnation of the goddess Lakshimi and Rama's earthly wife, is taken away. cut off from her, he seeks help from the monkey Hanuman and a host of other animals. Hanuman, the embodiment of devotion, brings Sita's jewels to Rama and then takes a gold ring back to her as a symbol of Rama's unflagging love, a ring given to him by Sita's father at the time of their marriage. Sita welcomes Hanuman, takes the ring and gives him one more jewel, a pearl mounted on a gold leaf that her father had tied into her hair on the day of her wedding. She refuses Hanuman's offer to fly her back to Rama, insisting that he come to free her himself. Sita demands nothing less than complete reunion, even if it takes an epic battle to accomplish it. "