If there is no self, whose arthritis is this?

Be here now. Be someplace else later. Is that so complicated?

Drink tea and nourish life; with the first sip, joy; with the second sip, satisfaction; with the third sip, peace; with the fourth, a Danish.

Wherever you go, there you are. Your luggage is another story.

Accept misfortune as a blessing. Do not wish for perfect health, or a life without problems. What would you talk about?

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single Oy.

There is no escaping karma. In a previous life, you never called, you never wrote, you never visited. And whose fault was that?

Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.

The Tao does not speak. The Tao does not blame. The Tao does not take sides. The Tao has no expectations. The Tao demands nothing of others. The Tao is not Jewish.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Forget this and attaining Enlightenment will be the least of your problems.

Let your mind be as a floating cloud. Let your stillness be as a wooded glen. And sit up straight. You'll never meet the Buddha with such rounded shoulders.

Deep inside you are ten thousand flowers.
Each flower blossoms ten thousand times.
Each blossom has ten thousand petals.
You might want to see a specialist.

Be aware of your body. Be aware of your perceptions. Keep in mind that not every physical sensation is a symptom of a terminal illness.

The Torah says, Love your neighbor as yourself.
The Buddha says, There is no self.
So, maybe we're off the hook.

Words to live by Cliffite!!! Some really hit home!!

And I heard it all with "the accent" terrific!

Haha...oy!

This was great! Thanks for posting it.

as this has absolutely nothing to do with President Obama..
I had a dream last night. It woke me up for no apparent reason. In the dream I had a vision of a frog standing on the top rail of a wooden gate. He looked like the Planters Peanut man or maybe Jiminey Cricket at first but on closer inspection his face resembled one of those totem faces from the Northwest Pacific region with the little beak like nose and the face that was either smiling or frowning depending on your current focus and perspective on reality (you know, like the transforming cube or MCESCHER). On inspection, he stood there proud with shoulders back and not moving but with an occasional focus of the eyes (you know how wild animals will stand still and follow you with their eyes when you surprise them). Then all the sudden he started the old soft shoe and began singing a song about dancin’ feet on the chicken gate and sticking his tongue out at me. At this time I awoke a bit but still maintained little conscious and fell back into the trance. There he was looking at me as if he expected something in return. I don’t know why (maybe because this whole experience was waking me) but I brushed him aside and the whole gate and surrounding image dissipated into a mix of color (sort of like those old Disney movies where the brush of paint would mix colors on the screen) as if it was scattered by a great wind and eventually the image settled back to the original scene sans frog. Suddenly I felt as if I could not breath and then as if the Heimlich maneuver had been performed and out of my mouth popped this stupid frog back to his perch on the gate. There he was smiling (or frowning) at me. I brushed him away again and out he popped from my mouth. I brushed him away again and out he popped from my mouth. I brushed hi…..then I was suddenly fully awake and conscious and staring at the darkness of the bedroom.

It is amazing the consistency of the arguments when believers get defensive when I am vocal about my personal opinions of God (although I have had to listen to their opinions on God for years, usually in a respectful silence). My difficulty is that people often lump atheists into a single dogma. Christians (those religious types I interact with most here in America) think of Atheism as just another religious sect and that all atheists share a common dogma. Atheism is not like Theism. The belief in God ties the Theist into an inclusive group by the fact that they all believe and will defend on the grounds of faith the existence of God as defined by revelation. They believe that somehow atheist are defined by this as well and therefore we will defend this definition in the same manner they will. They seem to believe we are devoid of ethics and morals and that we all think dream and believe the same things. In fact, the idea that sets us apart is that we have freed ourselves from dogma and subjective thinking. That means, to me anyway, that we base our philosophy, morals and ethics on our own rational thought and God, as perceived by the theists, is meaningless in defining or describing the Atheist. So maybe we need another term that removes theist from our descriptor. Maybe we should be called rationalists or reasonists? No that would place us in a similar philosophical conundrum as we reject with those of religion (that we some how have insight into the absolute truth). In my own personal case, I would like to think what sets me apart from believers is that I make my philosophical, moral and ethical decisions based on objective analysis of the data at hand. Therefore, I think Objectivist is a more appropriate term. I mean, it is not that I can not accept asceticism and conceptual mysticism as a way of rationalizing the illusions of life. I like to contemplate nature and reality and stuff without the bonds of totally rational thought myself sometimes. You know focus on the words of a poem or song or hike into a valley and meditate on nature. What I object to is that there is a preformed truth reveled to the ancients by a mystical omniscient God and that my reality is to be interpreted on this revelation without objective inquiry. That if rationalism and religion part ways that I am to follow the road of faith instead of the road of objective inquiry. If I do want to ponder the possibility of God, what I am saying, it is not the God some convention in Nicea created 1700 years ago. The God in my dreams is not the warlord God of a band of roving Semites from 3000 years ago or the God of a Bedouin tribe some 1600 years ago. When I think beyond reason to faith, I think of the transformations of energy that are life and the amazing diversity that is life and the joy and sensations that make me feel and think and dream that is the experience of life. It is these things that allow me to contemplate the words attributed to Jesus or Buddha or the Tao or Bob Dylan or Arlo Guthrie or Pete Seeger or John Steinbeck or Jack Kerouac or Mahatma Gandhi or Richard Dawkins or Brian Greene or Richard Feynman or Stuart Kauffmann or Ilya Prigogine or even my own mind

Objectivist Philosophy is far more diverse than Atheism. Atheism means I don’t believe in God. That is all I share with other Atheists. I don’t like or support Atheists who promote hatred and war any more than I like Theists who promote hatred and war. My objective analysis is that Theism promotes hatred and war (just open the headlines any day of the week, any week of the year, any year of the decade and any decade of the century, and any century of the millennia), therefore, I will speak out against it.

Well that is my two cents

By the way, my objective analysis is that Jesus was a Jew who studied Buddha and I also believe he would have rejected Christianity and Islam! That is just me!

Well articulated rhetoric indeed! But you ain't foolin' me! I got you pegged as a frog worshipper! And how can you be this verbose if you got a frog in your throat? Now, as penence, say 3 Hail Kermits and eat some flies.

You ain't the first frog worshipper I've met by the way. How do you think Gene Simmons got a tounge like that???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnFwfKXZ ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZqRTP3MqEY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDVpz-qE ... re=related

according to this now ya hear

OMG where's Louise? It's another FROG story!!!

that is no story, that was my dream

Oh PSB you creeped me out! Not with the frog (I love frogs) but with the Planters Peanut Man!!!! He always used to hang around on Chief Multnomah Day,in Portland, when I was a kid, looking at me funny thru that monical. It's the rubber, like Gumby and that Sinbad Cyclops thing I told you about a few years ago. Same with clowns.
UUUGGGGGHHHHH.

I don't know the significance of the frog or the old soft shoe or the chicken gate? But I have had 40 miles of bad road and I have boogied in front of the radio and the Texas trilogy is one of the best damn folk songs I have ever heard (although the best recording has never appeared on CD as far as I know as it was distributed by MCA (I believe) in the mid 70's and many of those Texas recordings from that time have long since become memories of the ones like me like those old train stations in places like Stillwater Oklahoma (now they have all been refurbed into trendy diners with wine and such). I have a couple of albums from back then by a guy name of Ray Wiley Hubbard (wish I could get them on CD). ever seen Ray Wiley? He is pretty good and sings about being born in Oklahoma and having a wife named Betty Lou THelma Liz and about not being responsible for what you are doing and stuff like that and well M is for the Mud flaps on my pick up and O is for the oil on my hair and T is for Dolly H is for Haggard and E is for Elvis and R is f

oh by the way...blame Cliffite for the Frogs...it was his inspirational words that probably gave me the strange dreams so its his fault I can not account for all the all th (I)(I)))((I)(I)'s (don't stare at it too long Leo you will go blind!)

don't blame me...blame agnes...

very nice jay.

my favorite of course is a truism...

with the fourth, always a cheese danish.

and of course, the Tao is not jewish.

But the Arnie is.

namaste