be here....now

 

"Peace is the result of

retraining your mind

to process life as it is,

rather than as you

think it should be."

 

-Wayne Dyer

 

photo from here

handshakes

 

“To make peace, any peace

nothing, absolutely nothing visible

may need changing on Earth.

Peace is made up of handshakes

that take place

entirely in the mind.”

 

- Theo Grutter

 

from Thinking Wild - Its Gifts of Insight

 

image from here

tail chasing

"Only our own search for happiness prevents us from seeing it.

It is like a vivid rainbow which you pursue without ever catching it,

or a dog chasing it's own tail.

Although peace and happiness do not exist as an actual thing or place,

they are always available, and accompany you every instant."

- Gendun Rinpoche

 

for more Eliot adventures click here

Cell Rage

No matter how mindful, holy, or present I can possibly be it all goes to hell in a handbasket after spending an hour and a half being transferred 6 times at Verizon Wireless.  Where is my compassion?  Well it flew out the window after the first hour of being told that my call was important and that the next available operator would take care of my needs.  Did I mention the 3 hang-ups?   I'd like to see His Holiness the Dalai Lama deal with a phone tree and keep his cool, know what I mean?

P.S. I have to admit the operator that is now helping me is wonderful and apologetic about all the transfers.  And yes, I am treating him kindly, which is always an amazing feat for an "8"........

our many layers

"Emotional collapse comes when we have given ourselves over
to only one part of ourselves.

If we concentrate only on the children, or only on the job, or only on the money,

then when the children leave home, or the job ends, or the money is lost,

we have nothing else in life to live for.

But when we spend life developing all the many layers of the self,

no one thing can possibly destroy us.

Peace has a way of seeping from one category to another."

- Joan Chittister

photo from Paria movie town

Escalante - Grand Staircase Nat'l Monument

spilling sweat, not blood

"It's when we start working together

that the real healing takes place.

It's when we start spilling our sweat

and not our blood."

David Hume

I took this photo inside the AIDS Chapel

at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.

64th anniversary of Hiroshima

"We live in a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants, in a world that has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. We have solved the mystery of the atom and forgotten the lessons of the Sermon on The Mount. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about dying than we know about living." -General Omar Nelson Bradly - Armistice Day 1948

This is the last stanza of the "Prayer of Nonviolence" By John Dear (June, 2005)
"God of Nonviolence, Disarm my heart, and I shall be your instrument to disarm other hearts and the world. Lead me, God of nonviolence, with the whole human family, into your nonviolent reign of justice and peace where there is no more war, no more injustice, no more poverty, no more nuclear weapons, no more violence.I askof the nonviolent Jesus, our brother and our peace. Amen."