“Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken. Take heed, do not squander your life.”
I have just finished watching “The Buddha: The Story of Siddhartha” on Netflix and it was such a touching documentary of the Buddha’s life and journey from having everything a person could offer, to throwing it all away and going on a journey to find answers to all of the many questions he had, to suffering. Finally coming to the realization that all the knowledge he needed was already deep within him. I was going to go to the Dharma Center last night, but I changed my mind and am continuing on with my reading. I ordered the “Tao Te Ching” for my Kindle today. I have decided that I can do this journey on my own. Everything I saw on the documentary today confirmed what I already know, Be Your Own Light! With that I leave you with the Rolling Stones….
Ok I have lost my mind. Now that we’ve got that out of the way! You all might as well know that my crazy posts have stemmed from a personal attack, once again. I have come to the conclusion that craigslist is EVIL! Yes, I should just stay away from it. I couldn’t help myself. I found out that someone has taken a vendetta against me and is posting a bunch of lies on craigslist. Well, I got fed up and I put it out there and told them if they have something to say they can come say it to my face. I told them exactly who I was and where I lived. Now you may not understand how craigslist works but basically you can get on there, post anything you want about anybody or anything and you don’t have to put who you are on there. So you can attack someone and no one would ever know who the sick source of the attack is. Someone has got a personal vendetta against me and I really don’t understand why. They accused me of going on craigslist and bashing other bands. Which everyone knows that IS NOT how I roll. No matter what I think about a band I don’t criticize. Do you know why I don’t? Because words hurt! I always try to find something good about every band I hear, no matter what they sound like. There is always something good to be found. I don’t care how badly a performance may be going, mine or anyone else’s. It is NOT my place to judge. Yet these jackwagons can get on craigslist and say what they want and hide, like a chickenshit, behind the anonymity that craigslist allows. It’s BS!
Yes, I realize I am in the public eye and I am subject to attacks about everything and anything. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. In all reality I am a very caring, sensitive person and I do indeed get hurt easily. That’s why I try not to hurt others. That is the Buddhist in me. Words can hurt more deeply than a fist. I guess I need to grow thicker skin huh? You may as well know right now that I have a serious love/hate relationship with music and being a musician. Yes, I love playing music, it is such an integral part of who I am. Yes, I actually love performing. What I don’t love is that by being a performing artist I am open to attacks like this that come from people that are so jealous and insecure that the only way they can make themselves feel better is to attack someone else. With that I leave you with Incubus….
It appears that I am caught in some sort of karmic justice boomerang. I keep running into people from my past that I thought were long gone. I find, even after all this time, literally years, I still have trouble letting go of “stuff”. Believe me I try, but it isn’t easy. The Buddhist in me says that I must forgive and let go in order to move forward, but it is so hard when all these mix of emotions come welling up inside. You put on a good face and just try to pretend like everything is ok, when deep down inside you know it’s not. You’re standing there smiling at this person that hurt you, you are saying “Hi” and all the general small talk, and you know that you are simply putting on a false front, you are bald face lying when your smiling! I don’t know whether I hate myself more for being fake and pretending a false forgiveness that I don’t honestly feel or whether I hate myself more so for my inability to let go and go on. I am trying to grow as a Buddhist and I find that at times like this my faith and belief is really put to the test. Maybe this is karma’s way of giving them a chance to say “I am sorry”. I don’t know. I do know that two simple words go a long way toward mending the bridge of past hurts and ill will. With that I leave you with one of my all time favorite heartbreak songs…..
“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.” Thomas Jefferson
I usually don’t have a lot to say about politics, but for once I am going to speak my opinion because it is an issue that bothers me deeply as a woman and as a Buddhist. I have difficulty in believing that Mitt Romney could even begin to keep church and state separate. I have spent my life around Mormons, my mother and my grandmother are both LDS, and I know first hand that Mormons are zealots and Mormonism strikes me as being almost cult like. Now I know I am going to get lambasted for saying what I think, probably most by Mormons defending their faith, however this is only an opinion.
How, I ask you, is a Mormon going to keep his extremist religious beliefs out of state affairs? Like many religions the Mormons believe that their views are the only “right” ones and that everyone else is wrong and if you don’t follow their path you are surely going to hell. Well this strikes me as no better than leading the lambs to slaughter if Romney gets elected president. We might as well throw the church and state policy that Jefferson and John Locke supported and brought into the United States consciousness right out the window. It is one thing to be a Governor of one state, it is an entirely different issue to be the Commander in Chief of the United States. You have to be open minded and you also have to be able to embrace all nationalities, all religions, all genders and all people poor and wealthy alike. Romney is not a good fit. I truly understand that Mormons love to convert people of all nations, hell they put the M in missionary. One has to wonder about how they feel about people that don’t want to convert to their zealotry.
Probably one of the most disturbing ideas that I can’t get out of my head is the way the Mormon men reflect on their women. Women are no better than chattel and breeding factories. They certainly don’t hold an equal status in a marriage. The whole polygamy thing is a disturbing issue in and of itself. Yes, of course they have laws against that now, thank goodness, however the men thought nothing of taking as many wives as they could get and used the excuse that the men were being killed off and there were more men to women so it was necessary to take more than one wife. That logic is simply disgusting. It’s an excuse for them to have sex with as many women as they want and for it to be deemed perfectly acceptable. Let’s not forget the excuse of making sure that the Mormon species survive by breeding and having 20 children with 5 different women. There are still some places in Utah and around the United States that practice polygamy in the name of Mormonism and against all constitutional laws.
I will not apologize for my beliefs to anyone. I am not the only one who feels this way. At one time I was baptized LDS, before I wised up and realised what a frightening, brainwashing, zealous religion it is. My great grandfather was a polygamist and I am, to this day, ashamed to admit that there are Mormons in my family lineage. Mitt Romney does NOT represent me as a Buddhist and certainly not as a woman and he never will. Just because I am Buddhist it does not mean that I don’t have an opinion.
Dalai Lama “All the world’s major religions, with their emphasis on love, compassion, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness can and do promote inner values. But the reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate. This is why I am increasingly convinced that the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics beyond religion altogether.”
“The Beauty Of Gray” Live
If I told you he was your brother
We could reminisce
Then you would go about your day
If I said you ought to give him some of your water
You’d shake your canteen and walk awayThe perception that divides you from him
Is a lie
For some reason you never asked why
This is not a black and white world
You can’t afford to believe in your sideThis is not a black and white world
To be alive
I say that the colours must swirl
And I believe
That maybe today
We will all get to appreciateThe Beauty of Grey
If I told you she was your mother
We could analyze the situation and be gone
If I said you ought to give her
Some of your water
Your eyes would light up like the dawn
The perception that divides you from her
Is a lie
For some reason we never asked why
This is not a black and white world
You can’t afford to believe in your side
This is not a black and white world
To be alive
I say the colors must swirl
And I believe
That maybe today
We will all get to appreciate
I don’t know what I did to deserve such an auspicious honor but All Thee Above was so sweet and posted a blog about me on Here is Recommended Sites Tuesday. I appreciate the kudos very much! Thank you so much my friend. I am now the proud owner of two blogs, this one of course and my new one at EZ Street a Day in the Life. My Buddha Blog is a personal journey that started on New Year’s Eve of 2011 and will hit it’s one year evolution on 12-31-2012. It’s amazing how much one can go through in one year on the search for spiritual growth. My EZ Street Blog is all about my journey as a musician and all that is involved with the life of a professional musician. I will be discussing the daily joys and frustrations that go along with being in the entertainment field. I am very curious to see the evolution one year from now. I can tell you the path has been a long one and it won’t stop until I am on my death bed. So for those of you who follow my blogs, thanks for coming along for the ride. I hope I have made it enjoyable and entertaining, even when I’m bitching…. 😀 Much love and peace, Jaz
“Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.”~Buddha
I have so many things that could upset me today, so many things that I could try and control today, so many things that could upset the balance of my universe. I refuse. I refuse to allow outside disturbances to put me on a path that does not lead to peace. Peace of mind and peace of heart. Pure peace and that alone shall stand. Yesterday my sunflowers needed to be cut down, they had been attacked by earwigs and were sickly looking. Yet, even though they looked sick, upon closer inspection I could see that they still bore the fruits of their labors. They were loaded with sunflower seeds. So, in apology for their early demise, I cut them down and offered the sunflower heads to the birdies and the squirrels. After all they might as well give their fruits back to nature. Much like life, some thing or some one may look sickly on the outside, however; if you look deep enough you can find the seeds of good offering themselves up for sharing and giving back in a spirit of peace and good will.
If you don’t like something change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. Mary Engelbrei
Ok, so my therapist wants me to write a letter to my mom about all the resentments I have toward her. Damn man! Why? I am where I am in my thinking about my mother and I don’t understand why she wants me to dredge up past resentments that I have let go of. That is not the Buddhist way and I don’t like rolling that way. I think that a majority of women have resentments toward their mothers and no matter how good or evil their mothers are or were they are set up to fail no matter what they do. We daughters put a high level of expectation upon our mothers because that is the matriarch we look up to. It’s really not fair to them, if you think about. We take our mothers and place them upon this pedestal that I think not even the best of mothers can reach the pinnacle of and when they don’t reach our level of expectation we get angry and resentful. That’s not fair to them. They are human and fallible just like everyone, but I think we daughters look to our mothers as some sort of superhuman with no kryptonite and that’s our own fault. Sure, my mom was a self-involved creature and I know for a fact she never wanted children, but her moral beliefs would not allow her to “get rid” of us. She was more interested in partying and being free than being strapped to 3 children. Oh well, I can do nothing to change who she was then, I can’t change all the ways she let me down then, what I am capable of changing is the kaleidoscope I view our relationship through. I can chose to see all the colors as dark and bleak, or I can choose to see the color values that stand out the most, the positive colors and I can choose to forgive her and myself for not seeing all the pretty rainbow of colors sooner.
I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself. David Herbert Lawrence
Oh hell! Things are picking up so fast for us musically, it seems that every day we are adding new songs to the set list. Lately we are meeting and increasing the community of musicians we speak with. Gigs have been weekly and sometimes twice weekly. This insanity, coupled with my Buddhist studies, sobriety work and a 100 miscellaneous other things. We have a very heavy schedule and my poor house is not getting cleaned like it normally does. Mind you, it may sound like I’m whining but I’m not. I think I am simply amazed at how insanely busy things have gotten. I still manage to get to my studies every day, I write in my journal everyday, find time to read ppls blogs and blog myself. And I even found time to complete a sketch this week!
So all in all life is good. I still have my moments where I feel a lot of pressure, and frankly my sleep schedule is completely messed up, ciest la vie!
“Our Similarities bring us to a common ground; Our Differences allow us to be fascinated by each other.” Tom Robbins
You might be in the right place when….You have an addiction and everyone there does too. You are in a room chalk full of complete strangers, yet the love and support is there for you to take and to give. You have a chance to untimely change your life through the kindness of others that share a similar bond with you. You have a place to go almost every night to receive love and support, you can listen to the trials and tribulations of others so similar to your own, and every single person here shares the exact same problem as you do. Their road map to getting to these hollowed rooms may have been different, but the perils and dangers are the same. Each road that each person traveled may have been different, but inevitably led to a choice of two paths, life or death. I only recently began going to meetings, but I know something now that I didn’t know then. In my past failures in my trials with sobriety I failed because I neglected to set up a solid support system of people like myself, struggle like myself and are needing support to make it through another 24 like myself. Thank Buddha I finally figured it out. I think I’m home.
Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting. Emmet Fox
I really have to get this off my chest because it has been bothering me. However, I need to do this in the most Buddhist fashion I can and that isn’t going to be easy because frankly I am really irked at this person. I have been going to meetings recently to help me maintain my sobriety. There are great, loving people there and as of yet I have not met anyone negative, that is until Saturday. The meeting was a good one and one person even received his award for 14 years of sobriety. We closed the meeting and without my knowing it this person who had received the award made a point of saying to me, “I remember you when you were living on Chicago Street, you were trying to get sober then, too.” Now I have to point out here that I haven’t lived on Chicago street for over 8 years, so it just goes to show how long my battle has been. This person who pointed this out to me isn’t a regular at our meetings, in fact I have never seen him there before. I think he simply showed up at our meeting because it was his day to receive his award and there were no other meetings on that day. I didn’t recognize him and put it together who he was until after we had already left. He was the head of a group I used to attend about 9 years ago and I haven’t seen him again until Saturday. The fact is I didn’t like him then, and I surely don’t like him now, Buddha forgive me, but I abhor him and his critical, judgmental self. What right has he to judge me! I am so incredibly happy for him that he has managed to maintain 14 years of sobriety, Good for him. We can’t all be like him, in recovery, self-righteous and supercilious. Some of us have to fall and scrape our knees many many times before we get it. Was it really necessary for Mr. High-and-Mighty, Mr. I am so much better than you, Mr. Look at my award, to point out another person’s failure who is struggling with their sobriety. In a way I hope I never see the MF again, but at the same time I feel the strong need to point out to him that what he did was incredibly negative, incredibly out of line and incredibly the opposite of what we try to learn in our meeting about love and support. So, on that note, now that I have gotten that off my chest….Peace be with him, bastard that he is!
I have nothing prolific or profound to offer today. In fact, yesterday was one of my most relaxing days in quite some time. Yes, I did rehearse as usual, but we have most of the kinks worked out so that was easy breezy. Yes, I went to my daily meeting and it was a full meeting. The topic was fear, but I chose to listen instead of speak. Yes, I cooked dinner as I do every night, and even that task was simple and easy. I did absolutely no house cleaning and the only real work I did yesterday was to read my Buddhist text and write in my journals. I love it. I even took 2, yes 2, naps yesterday. Days of simplicity and ease like this are so rare that I treasure them. We have a gig today but my stress level is so low….I am loving it!
By my Buddhist nature I am always learning how to be more in tune with nature. Last winter I was having a collision with ravens and then it was peacocks. Lately it seems that dragonflies keep coming to me in nature. It seems they are everywhere! What strikes me as strange about this is that there are no wet lands even remotely close to my house. Dragonflies are amazing creatures. They can fly up to 60 MPH. In Japan they represent courage, hope and happiness. To me they are beautiful and I love how Anne Oddity described their wings as stained glass. The wings of a dragonfly are so very transparent yet absolutely loaded with the colors of the rainbow. For whatever reason it seems dragonflies are my representative symbol for this early summer and I love it!
I discovered the secret of the sea in meditation upon a dewdrop.Kahlil Gibran
I am so used to my days being either entirely insanely busy or entirely quiet. Either way, it drives me crazy, just the same. I have the hardest time sitting still and just meditating on a single drop of water. It seems like I am always waiting for the water drop to fall, fall off a tap in a kitchen, fall from the leaf of a beautiful flower, fall in the garden. Just simply fall. Sometimes, o.k. most of the time, I forget to just look at the drop of water. All my busy mind sees is a crashing rolling sea of salt water waiting to suck me under her eddy and tides. To wax and wane me at her will. My mind refuses to see the simple rounded drops of a single little drop of water presented to me as a gift. My mind refuses to see the reflections mirrored in reverse and completely upside down. It’s like the saying that, “You can’t see the forest for the trees.” A different perspective, an entirely new perspective and my brain absolutely refuses to register this upside down “Alice” world and all it’s gifts and beauty. This surrealistic world where dreams are reality and reality dreams. This is the biggest down fall in my search for Buddhism and peace. I Can Not sit still. I thought, foolishly, that as I got older I would somehow achieve some sort of plane of simplicity, some sort of simpatico with the universe, but I find, as I get older, I am busier than ever. I am more active than ever in such a different way. I was amazingly aware of things when I was 18 and 19, 23 and 24. My awareness has taken on a different panorama. It’s as if my mind has become skewed and twisted. I still feel 24 in body and spirit, but it takes just one look in the mirror to make me realize I am seeing that dew drop that is waiting to fall off the leaf of the flower, that one mirrored drop waiting to fall off the tap, and it’s as if I am seeing it for the first time. This is not a depressed blog, it’s just a simple fact. I ride my mountain bike around without a care in the world, I see the beauty around me and it registers, I don’t feel 42. There is still this part of my mind that sees all the beauty that surrounds me. I am constantly reminded how alive I really am. I am so fortunate to be able to ride a mountain bike, walk and hike, enjoy my day, create art, make music, love and live. I realize that that dew drop, albeit upside down and in reverse, is just a reflection of my life, only older and still waiting, waiting patiently to understand when gravity will take hold. Buddhism will find me and I only hope it finds me worthy. I hope it finds me strong enough, worthy enough, and lotus worthy. I hope karma looks at my life’s journey and allows me the honor of coming back as a bird or a fish and doesn’t choose to turn me into a toad stool, no matter how many fairy rings I created. Don’t take this as a sad blog, it’s not, by a long shot. It’s simply an observation of my life and the life around me. It’s pretty cool that I am aware who I am and where I am on the food chain.
Everyone is giving out awards lately, so I have created the Beautiful Karma award. The first recipient was Dolly at allaboutlemon. My second award goes to Lily at onemoremorning. The reasons for this are because she is such a wonderfully giving person. Lily is giving of her thoughts and insecurities, happiness and sadness. Lily takes time out of each day to read her fellow bloggers and give words of encouragement. She shares with you her tragedies and her apexes in life and will gladly loan you a shoulder when you need one. I see a wonderful path ahead of Lily and there will be, as there always are, speed bumps that, I have said in the past, may feel like gigantic trenches, but Lily, my friend, you are a survivor and your karma will be the wings that help you in those times of trouble! Peace be to you always….Much love and extra karma points, Jaz. Here is your award!
You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give. Kahlil Gibran
I had a lot of fun this year decorating eggs for Easter! From top to bottom and left to right. My own design, Dragonfly, peacock feather, Om Mani Padme Hum, Lotus flower, my design, my design, flowers, dolphin, pink sunflower, heart, cattails and peace. I tried to pick designs that had significance in my life. Easter was wonderful this year. We had family and friends over, including my daughter’s new boyfriend Isaiah. He’s very cute and and a very nice person. Thank Buddha my daughter has good taste! Dinner was wonderful, except for the biscuits that I pulled an internet recipe for. Afterwards we had my homemade German chocolate cake and French vanilla ice cream. It is one of the best Easters that I can remember. I love cooking and sharing my culinary skills with family and friends. Holidays, whether you are Christian or Buddhist, are a time to give and share. They should be representative of selflessness and love…I hope all had a beautiful day…As Always…Peace Jaz
For some reason I keep running into peacocks. It seems that every time I turn around some image of a peacock is crossing my path. It started a few days ago when I won a peacock necklace. Then when I went shopping at The World Market I ran into a peacock ring that I just had to have. Later that same night I went shopping for a journal for my daughter and guess what? You guessed it, I found her a journal that had peacock feathers imprinted on it. These are just a few of the instances, everywhere I go I keep seeing peacocks, peacock feathers and representations of peacocks. I think Buddha is trying to tell me something, and I think it is something very positive in relation to my sobriety. I’m still trying to understand the significance and since it seems to be a recurring theme in my life I’m quite certain there is an underlying positive message. Not so very long ago I kept running into crows, not just a couple, not even just a few, but whole murders of crows, and at that time I was in a very dark place. I never take messages from nature for granted and I firmly believe that the peacock message is meant for me to gain some better understanding of the nature of my new found state in my path to nirvana.
From “The wheel of Sharp Weapons”, written by Dharmaraksita
In jungles of poisonous plants strut the peacocks,
Through medicine gardens of beauty lie near.
The masses of peacocks do not find gardens pleasant,
But thrive on the essence of poisonous plants,
In similar fashion the brave bodhisattvas
Remain in the jungle of worlds concern.
No matter how joyful this world pleasure garden,
These brave ones are never attracted to pleasures,
Peacocks are said to have the ability of eating poisonous plants without being affected by them. Because of that, they are synonimous with the great bodhisattvas. A bodhisattva is able to take delusions as the path toward liberation and transform the poisonous mind of ignorance, desire and hatred [moha, raga, dvesa] into the thought of enlightenment or bodhicitta, which opens colourfully like the peacocks’ tail.
The mind of the sentient beings in this world is like a thick forest of desire and hatred. The pleasures and material possessions are like a beautiful medicinal garden. The brave-minded bodhisattvas, because of having realised the shortcomings of samsara, are not atracted to samsaric pleasures, just as the peacocks are not attracted to medicinal plants. The bodhisattvas, having the attitude of wishing only to work for sentient beings and not desiring any happiness for themselves, can utilise the poisonous thoughts of ignorance, desire, hatred and so forth in order to accomplish the works for sentient beings.
By eating poison, the peacocks’ body becomes healthy and beautiful. He is adorned with five feathers on the head, which symbolize the five paths of the boddhisattva and the attainment of the five Buddha families. They have beautiful colours, like blue, red, green and please other beings just by being seen. Similarly, any body who sees a bodhisattva receives great happiness in his mind. The peacock’s eating habits of eating poisonous plants do not cause harm to other beings. Similarly the bodhisattvas don’t give the slightest harm to any other sentient beings. By eating poison the colours of his feathers become bright and his body healthy. Similarly, by taking all problems and suffering upon themselves, the bodhisattvas quickly purify the mental blocks and develop their mind quickly, attaining higher and higher realization. Particularly peacocks symbolize the transmutting of desire into the path of liberation. Therefore, they are the vehicle of Buddha amitabha, who represents desire and attachment transmuted into the Wisdom of Discriminating Awareness.
“There are no mistakes, just happy accidents.” ― Bob Ross
We had a girls night out last night, three generations of strong, independent women, and it was wonderful! We had decided to go to The Olive Garden for dinner but I wanted to get my daughter a journal that she had asked for so while they went over to get seated I went into Michael’s crafts to look for a journal. I was walking down the main isle when what should come across my line of vision but a Buddhist pendant. I have been looking for a pendant but had been unable to find the one I wanted. Bam! Just like that a a pendant carved out of stone of the two golden fish symbol in Buddhism was staring me right in the face.
The two golden fish represent *”the state of fearless suspension in a harmless ocean of samsara, metaphorically often refer to buddha-eyes or rigpa-sight; symbolises the auspiciousness of all sentient beings in a state of fearlessness without danger of drowning in the Samsaric Ocean of Suffering, and migrating from place to place and teaching to teaching freely and spontaneously just as fish swim freely without fear through water.” It is so serendipitous and so symbolic of the state of my being right now. It was perfect, and to top it off dinner was perfect and we had the best bonding time. I couldn’t ask for more!
They call this war a cloud over the land. But they made the weather and then they stand in the rain and say ‘Shit, it’s raining!’
Ok, WTF. I went to the store last night and here comes that damn murder of crows. What is the deal?! Just when I think I finally am at peace things just get tossed. I feel like someone is trying to pull me into a twisted knot like a pretzel. I just wrote, not so long ago, about the “Omen of Crows”. I don’t seem to be able to escape those black bastards. I really wish they would stop following me. They seemed to be travelling the same direction I was travelling as if to tell me, “Stop! Don’t go that way!” Maybe I put to much cadence in nature but I can’t help myself because I believe nature has it’s own way of resolving issues, selective evolution and all that crap. I love Buddha, very much, but he really has to stop sending me messages. Nature has it’s own way of speaking to us and if we listen very carefully we can hear every subtle message it sends, although at times too painful to hear, so we choose to ignore what is blatantly in front of us. Maybe I am being so blind that I just refuse to hear or see what is right in front of me biting me right on the nose.
Maybe there is a soulmate for you in this world. Maybe there isn’t. But you can count on this: If that person is out there, you will never bond with him or her by clinging to a set of specific expectations about how it should happen. He or she will not possess all the qualities you wish for and will not always treat you exactly as you want to be. I’m sure you already know this deep down, Aquarius, but hearing it from an objective observer like me might help liberate you further from the oppressive fantasy of romantic perfection. That way you can better recognize and celebrate the real thing.
I don’t particularly believe in astrology, especially because I am Buddhist, but this week and the last few astrological projections from “Free Will Astrology” have been trying to tell me something and I really wish it would stop! I don’t know why the cosmic forces are messing with my world right now, and really, could you knock it off! I just only hope I don’t come back as a duck or some crazy thing like that in my next life, a good looking duck I would not make.
“Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful.” -Thich Nhat Hanh
Sometimes I forget to smile, especially when I am out in public. I find myself walking around, deep in thought and not aware that I have a rather grumpy look on my face. I’m trying to remind myself to smile at people when I am out and about, to share a little smile with just one person can alter how you feel and how that person feels. It’s such a simple gesture, but I think we all get so wrapped up in our day-to-day lives that we forget to simply smile at a stranger, to make another person feel a little warmth. To share a smile with someone you don’t know is one of the best gifts you can give and it’s free.
“We must never forget that it is through our actions, words, and thoughts that we have a choice.” –Sogyal Rinpoche
Sometimes I forget this most simple truth in life. Somewhere along the line I forgot that I had a choice to change things, to make things infinitely better rather than worse. It was by my own hand that I nearly cut my own throat, it was by my own words and actions that I nearly made an error in judgement, a judgement that could have cost me dearly. I must always remember that it is no one else’s fault that I have done the things that I have done in my past. There in lies the key to salvation of my moral ground, the past is the past. I must live for today, live in this moment and by my actions, words and thoughts I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror and say, “Yes, I am following the right path. Yes, I am using right thinking. Yes, I am being true to myself.” I have no desire to live a life suffering in mortification of the things I have done or may have been considering. For today I enter the water and wash myself clean. Today my decisions will remain clear and rational and not based on some flighty emotions or desires that may lead me on a path to destructive behavior.Today I will be true to myself!
Don’t look back, a new day is breakin It’s been too long since I felt this way I don’t mind where I get taken The road is callin, today is the day I can see, it took so long just to realize I’m much too strong not to compromise Now I see what I am is holding me down I’ll turn it around I finally see the dawn arrivin I see beyond the road I’m drivin
It’s a bright horizon and I’m awaken I see myself in a brand new way The sun is shinin, the clouds are breakin Cause I can’t lose now, there’s no game to play
Andrew W. Mathis – “It is bad luck to be superstitious.”
Friday the 13th has passed…did anyone have anything bad happen today. I didn’t. That could be due to the fact that I don’t believe in silly superstitions. Black cats?…absolutely love them. Walk under a ladder?…..I paint houses sometimes in my work and do it all the time….Broken mirror 7 years bad luck?…..I have butter fingers and if I counted every mirror I ever broke I would be truly screwed until the end of this life and into the next one and the next one after that. Superstitions are silly, although I’m sure there are those out there who fully believe in them and I am not judging. Everything in this life happens in it’s own way, in it’s own time and sometimes due to karmic reflex of things we have done to harm others, not because the neighbor’s black cat named Satan crossed our path. If you are superstitious I think there’s some old wives thing about throwing spilled salt over your left shoulder or some such thing (feel free to leave me a message and tell me about this if u know). As for me I know that life has an energy all it’s own and it will do what it’s going to do. My saying “It is what it is.” I accept that and I certainly don’t blame Satan the black cat because my car just broke down….
Le blog givré, pétillant et coloré pour tout ce qui me passe par la tête : mode, beauté, art, culture, cuisine, politique, société... / The frosted, sparkling and colorful blog for all that pass me through the head : fashion, beauty , art, culture, cooking, politics, society...
CYMRY 