"It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." E.R.

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"It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." 



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Recently I had my son install some foam board insulation under the flooring of my mudroom which has been at one time part of the porch outside of the kitchen door. You see, we expanded the kitchen by tearing out the partition that separated it from the small mud room and pantry making for one large entry way in which you could take off your boots and hang your coat. He tore this picture away from the poorly insulated wall. It is from a 1914 newspaper. It is Winston Churchill. The headlines tell of the allied victories taking place in France against the German war machine. Of course this made me think of my father's involvement and eventual p.o.w. status during the second world war. Do we ever stop killing each other and fighting for one cause or one country against another? The answer is, "No." Then I thought of this story from an old Taoist sage; It seems there was a man who came upon a "stinktree" on his property. Looking up to its tangle of leaves and branche...
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This Being Human.... Sometimes, it would appear, that I have an over inflated sense of injustice; or justice. I am forever the champion of the underdog. I want to right every wrong. Ignorance and want needs a champion. So much so, that I often exhaust myself. I also often find myself in opposition to how things are; swimming against the current. I once thought that I knew better. Perhaps I did. Maybe I just lost me way. Remember the yoke being easy and the burden being light? I'm tired. As we face the new year, I would like to leave you with this Taoist parable. Chew on it.... There was a man who was so disturbed by the sight of his own shadow and so displeased with his own footsteps, that he determined to get rid of them both. The method he hit upon was to run away from them. So he got up and ran. But every time he put his foot down there was another step, while his shadow kept up with him without the slightest difficulty. He attributed his failure to the fact that he was not runn...
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According to Pema Chödrön, we might think that knowing ourselves is a very ego-centered thing, but by beginning to look clearly and honestly at ourselves, we begin to dissolve the walls that separate us from others. The journey of awakening happens just at the place where we can't get comfortable. Opening to discomfort is the basis of transmuting our so-called "negative" feelings. We somehow want to get rid of our uncomfortable feelings either by justifying them or by squelching them, but it turns out that this is like throwing the baby out with the bath water. According to the teachings of vajrayana, or tantric, Buddhism, our wisdom and our confusion are so interwoven that it doesn't work to just throw things out. By trying to get rid of "negativity," by trying to eradicate it, by putting it into a column labelled "bad," we are throwing away our wisdom as well, because everything in us is creative energy—particularly our strong emotions. They...
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