tao1776

  Like you, I am an avid reader. Books serve a vital purpose and that is a conversation we can enjoy over a cup of tea or just "hanging out." While exploring a Buddhist perspective on belief, tradition and secular Buddhism I came across this book, "The Novice" by  Stephen Schettini.  Working towards adulthood in the sixties and seventies unrest was growing. Politics, the Vietnam War, civil unrest. Great division and the lack of uniting answers. The ability to ask questions and seek answers, a growing phenomenon where followers were being replaced by explorers. The ongoing quest for understanding the conflicts of life, generations spirituality. The newest generation thought;  “Morality is doing what’s right regardless of what you’re told. Obedience is doing what you’re told regardless of what’s right.” (Noah Rasheta)  Buddhism began to flourish in Europe before it began to spread into the American west coast. Students went east.  The "Jesus Movement" b...

Like we discussed before, the only constant is change. And change certainly appears to vary in velocity, does it not? The use of blogger, both in the writing and the reading has plummeted. Facebook rose to it's pinnacle and now also appears to be sliding down a slope. My personal life from my blogger beginnings and the time I last babbled into blogger posts, things have dramatically changed. But isn't that always the way? Via blogger I met and shared with people who experienced life in other parts of the world. Fun, interesting and also a sharing of experience and pain. The learning and sharing of the depths of life; love, death, suffering and wisdom like art and poetry, they symbolize a finger pointing the way. To absorb, to feel, to understand is beyond the simplicity of words. To recite or quote is not intended to be thought of in steps. One, two, three, four. That is just, "belief." Yet through our sharing we helped one another understand things a little bet...

Anyone who owns chickens knows the highs and lows of choosing these prehistoric relics for their eggs, antics and sometime stews. We have dealt with lice, prolapsed vent, eating something too big to digest, rats, possum and at long last a sour crop. Big Fattie McChicken is loud, talkative and opinionated. When you find her with her comb flopped to the side while standing and staring off into space you know that something is wrong. We have a dog crate which we set up as a chicken hospital. After poking and prodding and smelling and listening to her gurgling wheeze, Gaia Girl searched out You Tube and found this: HERE  This helpful video showed us what to do. We were amazed at the grossly poured out chicken vomit but in about a day she was back to normal! We have a small group of fifteen or sixteen chickens (I loose count.) Katie is the leader and the smartest of bunch. Fattie is her ambassador. Cassie is the beauty, Bernie is the wise bearded wonder. And you cannot forget ...

America is still a work in progress. From Washington's first days in office through present day Obama debate has never ceased. While Capitalism is reducing the middle class to a point of nonexistence and while the Supreme Court appears no longer so, we seem no closer to unity now than at the birth of our nation. And perhaps that can be seen as a good thing Freedom seems under attack from fictitious foes and real alike. The founding fathers implemented a series of checks and balances so that no one authority could run roughshod with their own agenda. With no unity in sight Washington now slogs through political mud and who can say where progress lay? In their wisdom, the founders designed that the Senate balances the house; the presidency the Congress; the judiciary the legislative and executive branches, the states the federal establishment. And most important of all? Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of a religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereo...

In my late twenties with two growing boys, I bought a home and proceeded to add two girls to the family. All four are grown now and I am divorced from their mother. Yet I remain in the family home for another year ( my 3rd or 4th, I can't remember) longing for it to be sold. The market has hammered the price lower than what is imaginable and the many lookers struggle over the busy road that lies without the door. Sure, there are good memories mingled with the bad but the time to move is now. This home (pictured to the left) calls to me. The points to the positive are almost magical. And we all know how I like to avoid magical thinking!! I've sweetened the pot by adding the modern washer and dryer to go with the house. Plus the Vermont Castings wood stove which is irreplaceable. I'll even throw in some chickens if they like. The new home is less than half the size of my current home. It's private and quiet and it's a rental. Everything that I want. The plus f...

The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see. GKC  Sometimes the anonymity of being a tourist lends a temporary comfort; a comfort that eventually leads you back home to where you're left with a feeling that you haven't gone anywhere. 

Society is not changed by example. Society may reform itself, it may bring about certain changes through political or economic revolution, but only the religious man can create a fundamental transformation in society; and the religious man is not he who practices starvation as an example to impress society. The religious man is not concerned with society at all, because society is based on acquisitiveness, envy, greed, ambition, fear. That is, mere reformation of the pattern of society only alters the surface, it brings about a more respectable form of ambition. Whereas, the truly religious man is totally outside of society, because he is not ambitious, he has no envy, he is not following any ritual, dogma or belief; and it is only such a man who can fundamentally transform society, not the reformer. The man who sets out to be an example merely breeds conflict, strengthens fear, and brings about various forms of tyranny. It is very strange how we worship examples, idols. We don'...

A moment not measured in time. The kind of warm day when you forget about the weather. A breeze only noticed by the caress of her hand. The prayer flags mimic her movement. Slow, without purpose; but purpose abounds. Climbing the hill for the first time, slightly out of breath, anticipation and a call to exercise find the lungs in labor as the trail slowly clears.  The temple not yet complete, the Buddhist monks found one more lesson in impermanence. A large portion of the temple had burned. And judging by the date of the fire and that of today, progress was slow. While on the ascent down the trail, we noticed the rocks for the first time. Laughingly we joked that our eyes were, "opened." Some years later I explored the hill with my love Gaia Girl while on the road with my other love, the Ghia. As I was saying, the weather was as perfect as the Tao. One rode the day as a baby in a stroller. I remember the sync and the laughter. She is earth. I am sun. Tea leav...

Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner. Tao Te Ching We see him sitting on the back stairs or hanging over the railing with either a cigarette or a "forty" in his hand. His body emancipated, eyes protruding and his sockets are sunken into his skull like craters on the moon. The large house in which he now resides hosts twenty single rooms, a shared kitchen and a few shared privies. It lies at the edge of a small shopping center looming large as a Steamboat lodged on a sandbar just twenty paces from the alcohol store operated by a jovial man from India. It all seems surreal. This house was the place that I warned him about when he was a boy. Jokingly I would tell him and his younger brother that we should go uptown and trace out a spot so that they would know where to stand ...

The Tao would teach that our responsibility is not to mother or father people, or to supervise their behavior or learning process, but simply follow what is high and good in one self. The pathway became more and more difficult to follow and he stumbled several times over tree roots left exposed by the erosion of travelers who passed through here before. Walking deliberately, studying where each foot set down, he noted the subtle zig-zag of the journey.  He learned over time to never question the sudden veer in direction and sought to studiously follow where direction appeared to lay. On a most peculiar day he lost sight of the trail. He ignored what he knew to be true. The wisdom of stillness became replaced by a quickened pace. The terrain grew steep and the fast pace was soon replaced by a full out run. The ascent felt good. Lungs filled and the heart beat loudly. Speed was replaced by imbalance. As he ran and tumbled he felt the thud of his heels beating his backside with a...

I recently purchased a traditional felt Pork Pie . (half price on clearance) I've been a hat man all of my life. I've worn berets and fedoras, Irish caps and a Glengarry bonnet. Years of wearing baseball caps doesn't count. I wasn't sure if liked this departure from my usual leather cap. But I'm finding that it's beginning to grow me.  It's an amusing thing about how this hat is worn. It puts the center bowl if I may, lightly touching the crown of the head while the inside rim cradles the circumference of the head like a halo;  making it feel rather kingly or heavenly in some way. It being that I'm a Leo and that the clan who's motto, "Royal is my race" lurks somewhere in my veins, I guess it's only natural. True, I often feel that way without the hat. But.... the hat helps to bring my angelic nobility out. You're supposed to laugh... I'm different. I know that. I myself have called it by many things, yet in spite of my...

New England winters can turn on a dime. Warm, cold, snow, rain, ice, sun. Changes can occur within a span of hours. Our latest storm dropped a fluffy twenty nine inches with Monday calling for temperatures in the forties accompanied by rain. Oh-oh. We will have a mess on our hands. But I think the biggest challenge facing our girls is boredom - not the weather. They are a hearty lot but they are still prone to frostbite and temperatures even too cold for good New England stock. So one does need to keep an eye out. Katie was found in a ball and most unresponsive but a few weeks ago. She enjoys coming to the "big house" but it was apparent that she was not pulling a fast one. Not this time anyway. Once inside it took hours to bring her around. But within a day, she was singing the blues like Mamie Smith. They will pick through straw for hours. Especially when littered with corn. A head of cabbage hung like soap on a rope. Treats and warm water laced with molasses....

February 10th will be the start of the Chinese New Year. The year of the snake. As memory serves, the day before was traditionally a day to clean and set things in order. The evening was a time of reunion. It sounded to me that it resembled our thanksgiving. Feast and family and all that it entails. Dynamics. History. The circle of life in a full view, yet not often understood or valued until the circle has turned closer to our own 365. Since my divorce, that which I miss most is when my four children came home with their friends, husband and boyfriends, girlfriends and children. Overlooking the "human pigeon" behavior of my heroin addicted son and the drunken behavior of my now ex wife, it was almost perfect in it's family imperfection. Simplicity and movement within the cycle of life has become almost unknown; and I too am at present, among the masses. I will however roll along to find that which is down will be once again be, up" like the hands of time. A...

Normally, we do not so much look at things as overlook them - Watts Simple. Simple is good. Not the kind of simple as in Uncle Stan who was once arrested for simply trying to buy a burrito at midnight, with no money, in his underwear, with a beer in his hand. No, I mean simple. As in possessing "all of your needs and some of your wants." I never take for granted the shoes on my feet. A hot shower. A laugh with friends or family. Wake up. It IS the simple things in life that give life it's meaning...........

This is the first " real '" Christmas that me and Gaia Girl have enjoyed together. Technically speaking, this is our third Christmas together but the first two were a time of change and turmoil. This year we enjoyed Christmas eve together and sang carols at a U.U. service. A cold night, we returned home to a hot fire even as the snow was beginning to color the grass white in preparation for giving all those who pray for it, a white Christmas. Memories have sweetened my heart the last few days with smells and sounds reflective of the season. I lit a cigar the other evening and the pleasant smell lingered in a cloud several feet above the room's floor. It curled and rolled and silently dissipated into the candle light. Like a ghost memories of my Pe'pe' came flooding back. A clear visual before my mind's eye. A stout little French Canadian named Rossaire, he smoked those dried up little cat turds, the Parodi . He also chewed tobacco. He carried a spit...

I'm cautious when I hear people say that we need to restore America back to the faith that made it strong and that we need to put God back in our schools and classrooms. Those that make such broad statements never really define what they mean. Usually it means "Christian Faith" with the Ten Commandments posted on the wall while hoping that people of other religions will worship quietly and in the background. Often it centers around a designated authority who cannot be questioned or challenged.  I propose that we DO let God back into our classrooms - not through fear and a strong authoritarian rule but through teaching that which is contained in all religions: The Golden Rule and Loving Your Neighbor. Maybe even throw in some tonglen practice. :) How beautiful would it be if Kindness was our Religion. But that would require that we take more personal responsibility. What if we bought less guns because we felt them unwarranted in our home. Our decision. What if felt that...

Driving as much and as often as many of us do, I can't help but try and visualize the volume of gasoline that we are pissing away on a daily basis. I'm stunned by the volume of traffic, the great number of larger vehicles and that most everyone is driving from ten to twenty-five mph over the posted speed limit.  The majority of vehicles that I see on the road are the same as me; Only one or two persons per vehicle. The US Energy Administration Agency states that the U.S. uses an average of 367,000,000 gallons of gasoline every day. But just how much is three hundred and sixty seven million gallons? And the truth is? No one cares. The Purse is first. I often say to my Paint customers. "If the automotive industry was as regulated as the house paint industry, we'd all be riding horses".

Old friends are the best of travelling companions. I'm sure that familiarization is the key. There's a sync which makes traveling easy ; Just like Sunday morning :) We left for Raleigh, NC from North Central MA on Thanksgiving Day. We theorized that most people would be off the highway and having Thanksgiving dinner at home. Traffic would be light which would allow us to arrive in near record time. Our theory was proven wrong. The Jersey Turnpike proved to be a slow moving parking lot for almost two hours. But we flowed; easy... We left home at 8:30 a.m. and arrived for check    in about 10:45 at night. Just in time to share some  beer and wings with some of the locals. We were in Raleigh for a wedding. It was scheduled for late Saturday afternoon so we set Friday aside for exploring and getting a lay of the land. Mid afternoon we went to visit the groom and soon found ourselves roped into a dinner party for all of the out of town guests. We w...