How to pick a tree
that one can be resigned
to sit under until
Enlightenment?
If the choice is hard,
you are not ready.
If the choice is easy,
you are not ready.
If there is no choice,
perhaps, you're ready.
Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.
The world as experienced through my mind is not a true reflection of the world. The mentally-experienced world is malleable and can be painted beautiful.
All things are impermanent, so nothing is worth great angst.
There are two ways to live life: take everything seriously or take nothing seriously.
The need to break free of the program -- e.g. to be master of fear & anger, not slave to them.
fingers of forest interspersed with fingers of pasture -- the hidden & the exposed -- two kinds of danger: being seeable & being unable to see. is the mind fearful of being exposed the same as the mind fearful of being confined?
bounded by city:
look up to boundless sky,
& the mind soars.
What brings you peace?
Being in the now, and feeling – but not feeding – emotional sensations.
What is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?
Awareness. It’s the only thing I take in the shower or through the metal detectors, or to every place I go – regardless of widely varying customs, rules, and etiquette.
Of all the masters & all the slaves,
I find that mind fire burns in waves.
And sometimes the emotions derail
too quickly to lengthen the exhale.
Trees falling in the forest, unheard,
can still crush a nest of baby birds.
Turns out it's not the sound that matters,
but what the destruction leaves in tatters.
The phrase “Queen of Slaves” comes from a Percy Bysshe Shelley poem (Canto 4, No. 24)
Feel the breeze upon your face.
Let it be all you know.
Don't ponder atmospheric lows.
Just feel the breeze upon your face,
and know:
There is a breeze.
(Though it may not be
what you think it is.)
You have a face.
(Though it may not be
what you think it is.)
Tiger Riding for Beginners 