silent thunder

I'm back up to my fighting weight these days... too fat to run away!

wyrd sisters

flowing toward balance always... energy flows toward balance drawn bows settle at rest water settles in the lowest from push to pull and pull to push unceasing no hesitation complete release free fall open always flowing toward balance never quite balanced yet always balancing.

*deep bow* your words resonate with clarity and power with me... this opening... the release... i can see why I never approached it directly... it was counter-intuitive for me. but when true exhaustion caused me to really release... then it, unfolded. Awareness, spaciousness, as you say, able to host anything at all and forever unblemished, untaintable... one can't drive a nail into the sky and this release, this openess... as you say, all potential and all manifestation, yet it is never used up, never lost, can't be broken or fixed... inexhaustible. miracle of miracles!

Growth and Decay are no longer separate processes to me. They both flow into each other, perpetually. They are present in the flowing process of our bodies and minds always. Superior and inferior... these have no place as one will never triumph over the other. Can you ever order a room so everything is up only? Can you break sticks in half and be left with only tops? Are there waves that form with only crests? These are not manifestations of separate processes, but perception lends that illusion. Growth feeds on decay (all life consumes other life, be it rain and sun and minerals in soil, or plants and animals directly), while decay nurtures all life and is the foundation of all growth. In this it has become apparent to me that life, is by its nature, acquisitional, selfish and always taking in from the environment and merging the external with the internal through breath and eating. Whereas decay... decay is nurturing, giving... it is the ultimate release and giving back. They are not separate to me, but one unified flowing expression of the spectrum of the fluid life process.

all my life I been waiting for I been praying for for the people to say that we don't wanna fight no more there'll be no more war and the children will play

painted this shortly after studying with Wang Li Ping it is my visual description of the silent, empty utterly expansive center of no center

the center is not a place but a presence... a beingness... a listening...? I like this... it resonates with my experience of being a flowing verb ( awareness ), not a static thing.

breath flowing in... stories abound in a mind breath falling out...

One is not superior to the other. They are not separate. Hard and Soft. Rigid and Flexible. All have their benefits. Like growth and decay... always flowing into and from each other. endlessly from the bellows of dao Dao gives birth to all and all exist on a spectrum. Nothing is separate from dao... ever.

Democracy: The rather naive notion that the greediest of people, working from selfish motives, if left to pursue their interests unimpeded... will somehow work to the benefit of all. Oligarchy: Born of Democracy.

or deliver it... life is selfish... acquisitional... always taking in and acquiring more life to sustain its own pattern death is selfless... utterly giving and a total release of all back to all

basket

a place to set bits and baubles

some folks revel in the rain... others just get wet.

One of my bosses, after giving me a good dose of shit yesterday, semi-apologized for being a smart ass... I grinned rather uncontrollably, like the generally silly beast I imagine I seem like to other people... and blorted out. "Never stop. I'd rather take shit from a smart ass... than clean it up after a dumb one."

More translations! The many voices blend together and harmonize in ways that I sense, downplay the weaknesses in each and bolster the resonant strength inherent in the underlying truths as a collective. Not reading the original is... cumbersome to say the least, troubling even. Many varied translations helps me immensely. and yet, each time I get too distracted by the ineffectiveness of words, language let alone translations of words between cultures and times, eventually the following phrase manifests in my mind process. 'remember... the only impossibility, is to ever be separate from dao for one moment, even by the width of a hair.' and then I smile and relax into it.

Ismo crushes it on his tv debut! We'll be seeing more of him soon.

Guan Yu Park in Jingzhou, China is its location. That article has a few more pics, some of the extensive scaffolding during construction. Quite the project! The scale is truly epic... reminds me of the Lord of the Rings "Gates of Argonath statues" along the river Anduin. The message is not lost on me, to invest in and erect a 20 story statue tribute honoring the God of War. woof~!

I suspect I already know the answer, but will ask for clarity. As we are able to follow topics to ensure being notified of new content. Is it also possible to block topics from entering the activity feed?

In memory all actions are equal... to me. When an experience manifests with a strong reaction, or reveals some aspect of myself, or my essential nature previously unknown, whether in the dream realms or the waking, then it has power and value in my path. Dreams are so real when I'm in them, that there are times distinguishing them as 'not real' is not possible, until I wake up. Only then do I look back and sigh and say "well, it was just a dream." However, I no longer say that to myself... for too many times, I have had experiences in dreams that revealed key aspects to my essential nature, that have brought about realizations and insights that have lasting, powerful resonant effects in my experience of true self. Does it matter where the source of an experience came from, in the potential for that experience to reveal truth? Any longer, I say no. Dream experience and Waking experience are both often equal in memory, when dreams are vivid enough and recalled with clarity. And if an experience can bring about insight and realization, then to me, it matters little to me, how solid the event was... *(particularly when waking life is proven to not be solid, or permanent ) I honor my dreaming life as I do my waking life... but I also only take that so far and don't worship either as ultimate truth, nor do either lend me a sense of absolute certainty in any way, other than to reinforce the one certainty that still remains with me... i am aware. Waking life to me, is more like a shared dream, than dreams are like individual fantasies of unreality.