Silver

August 22, 2008

Silver ~ Canon 30d

Everything has a silver lining – if you're alive, if you have your breath, if you can remember you are a human being, not a human doing.

It's been a month of "being" for me – the longest break I've taken from blogging, I do believe – and I'm experiencing a complete absence of grasping or worrying about that. What is the most important thing in my life? Well, of course, it's the most important thing. If it seems as though I'm speaking in riddles, I'm not. The most important thing is whatever you are faced with at this moment, and my moments this month have been filled with my mother, the meditation group I help facilitate, with taking care of my body... exercising 4-5 hours a week, with cooking healthy food, spending quality time with Olympus the Cat, and taking the time to carefully consider the direction of Banjo Bunny E-cards. Icing on the cake? Before I had the chance to get anxious over work flow, not one, but three new projects sailed across my desk last week which will keep me busy for the next 3 weeks or so.

I'm blessed. I've been quiet, and quietude has been a wonderful companion – a silver lining wrapped all the way around my peaceful and lazy summer.

Posted by vincent at 11:21 AM | Please share your heart's comments (4)

Telephone Wire

August 08, 2008

Wire ~ Canon 30d

This image was shot while storm clouds rolled in during the retreat I was on in West Virginia in late June. Many pictures were shot and are sitting on my external drive, but they've not made it up here. I'm really taking it easy this summer. Work comes and goes, but I'm not too anxious about it these days. My mom was here for a week and a half and we had a wonderful time together. My energies are being focused on blossoming friendships and learning to be friendly with my circumstances, no matter what they might look like. So, I'm in the midst of a retreat from blogging, and it's just the way it is.

The image above echoes the last 24 hours ~ dark clouds looming over a technological wire. My main computer (desktop) has threatened to give up the ghost on me, and I've been diligently backing files up while trying to coax it back to life. As I write this, I'm reinstalling the system, which means the drudgery of reinstating multiple settings and serial numbers await me over the weekend. I'd rather run toward my life with open arms than disdain it's less than stellar moments. In spite of my frustration, I'm thinking this "disaster" is a way to improve my ability to allow and accept.

This too shall pass.

Posted by vincent at 08:26 AM | Please share your heart's comments (3)

Arousing Lovingkindness ~ Plant the Seed

August 01, 2008

My mom is visiting me this week so I'm taking a blogging break. We're having a relaxing time together, beating the DC heat and spending some time watching the Eckart Tolle/Oprah video podcasts from his new book, A New Earth. They're great!

I appreciate this video because it's about metta, or lovingkindness, which has been the focal point of the meditation group I've facilitated for just over a year now. It's true... lovingkindness is something we cultivate within us. Give it a try, and watch the seed of compassion grow within your heart.

namaste.

Posted by vincent at 06:01 PM | Please share your heart's comments (4)

Crying Fowl – Foghorn Leghorn

July 23, 2008

Foghorn ~ Canon 30d

Okay, he may not be anthropomorphic, but nonetheless, he certainly looks like a white Leghorn rooster to me. You should have heard this dude while I was attending a meditation retreat last month. Not only did he crow in the morning, he crowed ALL morning and through early afternoon as well. At times, it sounded as though both he and The Perfect Rooster (2 entries ago) were doing a rendition of Dueling Roosters, followed by much spasmodic clucking by the gaggle of hens. You'd think there was a military coup going on.

I'll probably write a bit more about this fella. He had a personality to match the Looney Tunes character who personified him.

Posted by vincent at 07:57 PM | Please share your heart's comments (0)

The Perfect Rooster

July 22, 2008

Handsome Bird ~ Canon 30d

I'm pretty sure they don't come more beautiful than this. The variety of colors, lines and textures in this image really make me smile. And what about the chicken wire? I love that too because it adds yet another layer of repeated pattern.

I shot this fella on the first day of the retreat. There were many chickens and an organic garden just yards from the center from which we consumed fresh eggs and greens every day. wow!

Posted by vincent at 02:58 PM | Please share your heart's comments (2)

Privatizing Profits & Socializing Losses –
Holding the Financial System Accountable

July 21, 2008

"I urge you to read this, sign it and tell as many people as you can to do likewise. Very few people understand the risk that this country faces and the result the current path of events will have on the lives of their children. This is extremely important, perhaps the most important thing in the history of this county.... Rob."

I received this email from my friend in Cape Cod, who does a huge amount of research into the state of the stock market and financial system. He urged me to sign a petition demanding congress stop the bailouts. Outrage had already motivated me to find the petition last night after watching the exchange between Senator Bunning and the Treasury Secretary on the news – listen to mp3 below.

It's time we, the citizens of the United States of America, wake up and STOP the privatization of profits and socialization of losses in this country. When your mutual funds take a hit on the stock market, does the government come to your rescue? Does anyone absorb your debt and shield your losses? NO! If we close our eyes and sink deeper into our lazy armchairs of complacence, we will be as much to blame for the dismal future awaiting this country. With each of these unjust bailouts, we teach the corporations and banks they can be as greedy and cavalier as they want – we, the taxpayers will ALWAYS be there to bail them out. Where is the leadership and accountability? Where are the voices crying FOUL on behalf of hard-working, honest citizens?

Please listen to this mp3, and if you come to the same conclusion I did, then sign the petition by clicking here, contact your congressman and senator, and forward these links to everyone you come in contact with. We cannot fix a broken system by giving the people who have damaged it even more power. Slow your own life down long enough to really see this picture.

Posted by vincent at 09:10 AM | Please share your heart's comments (1)

Slowing Down

July 20, 2008

15 mph ~ Canon 30d

This speed limit sign made me laugh out loud more than once while on retreat in West Virginia*. It looks as though it's too tuckered out to stand upright – almost as though it wore itself out at a higher speed, and had to make the cruel choice: Death or Down-shifting. I passed this little sign close to a couple dozen times over my 5 day stay... on foot, that is. The 15mph path led my heart from chicken coops and mulberry trees to grassy fields and an orchard just behind them – a world to be savored slowly and carefully.

The only creatures in peril of breaking the speed limit were deer who would suddenly bolt from the trees and thickets – their sleek bodies prancing past lazy cows completely unimpressed by flashy displays of elegance and speed. The earth and all her inhabitants were wide awake and going about their business of simply being. The absence of haste in the midst of so much awareness was an inspiration to me. I invite you to slow down your thinking for a moment and ponder that idea:

Precisely how does speeding through life cultivate clear seeing?

*Claymont Society, just outside Charles Town, West Virginia.

Posted by vincent at 01:25 PM | Please share your heart's comments (3)

What About Me?

July 18, 2008

Please watch this. Jamgon Mipham Rinpoche is a poet, artist and marathon runner in addition to being a Tibetan monk & author.

First you... then me. That's what happiness is, it's just the heart being free.

Posted by vincent at 05:42 PM | Please share your heart's comments (2)

When Every Voice is a Prayer

July 14, 2008

Prayer Flag 1 ~ Canon 30d

Prayer Flag 2 ~ Canon 30d

Meditation is a holiday for the heart. These words, spoken by one of my teachers during the Insight Dialogue Retreat I attended a few weeks ago, continue to echo within the chambers of my heart. "Aaaahhhh!" my heart responded, "Why don't you take me on holiday more often? You get just as much out of the deal as I do, so why not put your conceptual mind to bed and wake up to being with me a little more often? Can you pull off the mask, take a load off your tired, anxiety-prone persona, and simply notice the inner and outer landscape without all of the incessant, hungry commentary?"

Hungers – the continuous inner dialogue they produce, the needy or controlling interactions and clinging they inspire in our interpersonal lives – are the root cause of suffering in the world. Having trouble with someone? There's probably an unwholesome desire and a hunger to feed it hiding just beneath the surface.

This retreat gave me my first formal introduction to the Four Noble Truths. It took four years, but there's no time like the present, especially since the first sermon given by the Buddha following his enlightenment was about them. My teachers have touched upon them in their talks, so I knew what they were, but the seeds which were planted hadn't sprung to life or made sense to me until now – probably because my recent training provided concrete, real-life, practical application for the Buddha's Big AHA Moment.

I'm still assimilating what I learned and am not quite ready to post on the meat of what I encountered... mainly because I've just not had the time to reflect on a level that would allow me to share in a skillful way. I do, however, believe the kind of interpersonal meditation this practice provides is a powerful tool to cracking open one's awareness of the root causes of our suffering in community. I'm really looking forward to sharing what I've gleaned from my experiences here.

For the moment, I'll draw your attention to the prayer flags, which were hung outside the door I walked through for the retreat registration. The Tibetans believe when the wind blows through these flags, the prayers associated with them fly across the world. After sharing such introspective and open time with my fellow meditators, I can't help but see a metaphor here. Each of us is like one of those flags, tied together with our like-minded quest to wake up to the truth and find happiness. The wind is the zeal and inspiration which motivates us to speak the truth with compassion, understanding and wisdom with others in the world.

May we be inspired to speak the truth and listen deeply
May a spirit of hope and compassion move through us
bringing the peace we uncover within us into a misguided, suffering world.

Posted by vincent at 01:25 PM | Please share your heart's comments (3)

The Nature of Suffering

July 04, 2008

Split in Two ~ Canon 30d

A few of weeks ago I set out for a meditative afternoon walk through Battery Kemble Park, just a few miles from my home. Like a compassionate umbrella, the tall canopy of mighty oak, tulip and birch trees created a surprisingly hospitable environment even though the temperature was pushing close to 90 degrees in direct sunlight. Making my way through the forest vestibule of greenness felt like walking into a cool, deciduous cathedral lush with wild transience blooming and dying all around me. Turbulent thunderstorms had rolled through the neighborhood a day or two before, rendering a moist yet mud-free carpet of earth beneath my rubber-soled toes. Each step was met by a forgiving soil, a perfect blend of clay and rain supporting my journey.

(continued below)

Meditation Cushion ~ Canon 30d

As I approached my favorite resting spot; an enormous rock jutting out from the creek bed; I was met with a sense that something had changed in the now-familiar home of bugs, chipmunks, ravens and woodpeckers. Some sort of spatial rearrangement had taken place, and the quality of light was somehow different. It was 6pm, Where was the abundance of light coming from? I wondered. Standing at the edge of the over-sized boulder (which I fondly think of as my meditation cushion), the remnants of a violent, gut-wrenching performance made itself known to me. For a split second, I was breathless – dumbstruck with wonder – at the scope of the chain reaction that had played out just a day or two before: a heroic oak, whose broken roots lay exposed and alone on the creek's vulnerable shore, had been struck down – by an act of God, apparantly – and in its final dramatic moments a karmic domino effect erupted which would take the lives of not one, but five trees in total. The humbled tree decimated a sapling birch and tulip tree before squarely hitting an oak of comparable size on the opposite side of the creekbed. The point of impact for the falling oak must have occurred where its long body divided into two branchy appendages – the force splitting the trunk into two perfect vertical halves while ripping off a massive patch of bark on the still standing tree, which seemed to heave heavy sighs while shivering in the late afternoon sunlight.

I absorbed the scene with all my senses. There was so much carnage – so many metaphors for this vulnerable, fragile, sensitive life we're all immersed in together and suffer over. I thought of how chaos can strike without warning; my sacred spot – a place whose biggest drama was a hovering bug's view over the trickling creek water – was now scarred, chaotic, a scene of discord and disharmony. The smell of freshly ripped wood; the clean, bare look of it; was too much to resist, and I did my best Tom Girl Leap off the side of the rock – admittedly, a less than stellar dismount – but no one was looking, except for the trees, that is... who watch and listen, and cry and mourn for the redundant story of Death by Storm, followed by the all too familiar sacrificial transformation from tree to humble nurse log.

With one foot in the water and the other crunching across a carpet of worn pebbles, I crawled beneath the right half of the dying oak, balancing myself by hugging it's half circumference at one point. A palpable energy met my embrace which made my heart sing a song of wonder and ache for all my powerlessness in the aftermath of such turmoil, but soon my head appeared between the division, and like an archeologist or crime scene investigator, I gently ran my fingers across the fibrous guts on both sides of me. The clear and present danger of a nasty splinter put a temporary stop to my investigation, so I switched gears and began pulling at tags of tree fibers, which easily curled and bent with moderate effort. I tucked three strips into my back pocket, knowing they would be a poignant reminder of the nature of suffering and this transient life once they found a new home on my meditation altar.

The upper branches, sparkling in all their greenery, covered the sloping side of the forest like big leafy bushes. How long would it take for each leaf to curl and dehydrate? How long before no one would think twice to ponder the nature of suffering while walking past the jutting rock's scenic overlook?

The inside investigation now over, I pulled myself to a standing place on one of the half-trunks to explore the external metaphors. The tree-turned-bridge was more than sturdy enough to bear my weight with confidence, prompting the former teenager within to playfully scurry up, up, up to the point of impact where I inspected the peripheral damage: two more downed trees and a sea of writhing, twisting branches everywhere. One tree, one life, can wreak so much damage on so many others. I felt as though all the eyes of the forest had descended upon me as I concentrated my heart on the lesson nature had drawn in front of me.

The woods may not speak, but the life teeming within it is continuously manifesting energy. The trees may not see or hear in a way which makes sense to our human understanding, but nature is always, always speaking to us, and understanding the language requires an inner pause, and a willingness to open. Nature has an uncanny way of reflecting things which we know on a level so deep the conscious mind itself may not be aware of them yet. If we are open and relaxed, these soul-reflections can touch the heart, uncovering buried inner knowings, and because these realizations come to us in the form of images, they are easily remembered symbols which will animate in the heart long after the linear mind would have discarded the memory as trivial and rendered it forgotten.

As the forest spoke, I ceased my resistance to the chaos surrounding me. Letting go of my heightened sense of curiosity and excitement, I opened my heart to the suffering and the deciduous nature of all things. An unexpected whisper carried by a barely discernible breeze rustled through the dying leaves, "This is life. This is you. Have compassion for me. This breaking apart, this falling down, this suffering and splitting in two is the same suffering experienced by all beings. It's in the letting go, the acceptance of what is, and giving your life for others, that will allow appreciation and joy to manifest inside you."

Heavy Sighs ~ Canon 30d

Vulnerable, Fragile, Sensitive ~ Canon 30d

Inspecting the Split ~ Canon 30d

Impact ~ Canon 30d

Decapitated ~ Canon 30d

In time, I will find the words and images to reflect on the wonderful, insightful retreat I attended a couple weeks ago, but instead, these images were asking to be posted this evening. They've been waiting in line longer than the other images have, and when a natural wonder occurs in close proximity to your doorstep, there can be a gentle yet persistent internal push to get it posted.

Posted by vincent at 09:27 PM | Please share your heart's comments (7)