I Don't Entirely Agree, But Nevertheless Share The Longing...

"Anyone who wants to know the human psyche will learn next to nothing from experimental psychology. He would be better advised to abandon exact science, put away his scholar's gown, bid farewell to his study, and wander with human heart throught the world. There in the horrors of prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals, in drab suburban pubs, in brothels and gambling-hells, in the salons of the elegant, the Stock Exchanges, socialist meetings, churches, revivalist gatherings and ecstatic sects, through love and hate, through the experience of passion in every form in his own body, he would reap richer stores of knowledge than text-books a foot thick could give him, and he will know how to doctor the sick with a real knowledge of the human soul".

- Carl Jung

Hot tip

"It's all you, mate, muck, glory and all. All just perfect"...

http://www.thepresentparticiple.blogspot.com

Goodbye...

I watched through the stained glass windows of my bedroom as it flickered from white to red. I lay praying one of them would brighten, that one would park. That one might proclaim that you'd turned back. Come to try 'one last time'. Again. That you might save us in sake of your pride. That you might have allowed me mine. But the light would only torment, shimmering a certainty I couldn't admit. That you're not, this time, returning. That to the clockwork we'd rejoin, the potent world between us left now to diffuse in mere reminiscence. That you will not, this time, be back. The feeble hope I painted on to every passing light a sad reflection of the glow now destined to fade. Of the darkness which would pervade. Of the kindled promise left to cinder, of the coveted desires all but smoke. You would not, this time, return. I lay dreaming that we knew what was needed. That the multitudes might refract into something we could grasp. Something worth coming back for. Something that might, this time, make you return. But the lights would just pass. Just flicker from white to red. From coming to going. Without, this time, stopping to return.

My Morning Alarmclock Playlist

http://www.thepresentparticiple.blogspot.com

A Guy in a Head from a Heart I'm From...

A Guy in a Head from a Heart I'm From...

A gentle hum, a whisper,
'til all discordance shivers,
too bright, the light delivers,
too bright, the light delivers.

All still, among the imprints,
our solitary instance,
a brightest white delivers,
too bright, the light delivers.

And you were there when all the passion had been lost.
And you were there when all the hard stones had been cast.
And you were there among the diamonds and the dust.
I know you're there 'cause all the faith had turned to trust.

A kind my mind would splinter,
consumed among the quivers,
too bright, the light delivers,
too bright, the light delivers.

All still among the sinners,
'til harm is left to blister, in
brightest light's deliverance,
so bright, the light delivers.

And you were there when all the passion had been lost.
And you were there when all the hard stones had been cast.
And you were there among the diamonds and the dust.
I know you're there 'cause all the faith had turned to trust.

So stay with me.
So stay with me.
So stay with me in my sleep.

So stay with me.
So stay with me.
So stay with me in my sleep.

All That You Have Is Your Soul

Oh my mama told me
'Cause she say she learned the hard way
She say she wanna spare the children
She say don't give or sell your soul away
'Cause all that you have is your soul
...
So don't be tempted by the shiny apple
Don't you eat of a bitter fruit
Hunger only for a taste of justice
Hunger only for a world of truth
'Cause all that you have is your soul

Well I was a pretty young girl once
I had dreams I had high hopes
I married a man he stole my heart away
He gave his love but what a high price I paid
All that you have is your soul

So don't be tempted by the shiny apple
Don't you eat of a bitter fruit
Hunger only for a taste of justice
Hunger only for a world of truth
'Cause all that you have is your soul

Why was I such a young fool
Thought I'd make history
Making babies was the best I could do
Thought I'd made something that could be mine forever
Found out the hard way one can't possess another
And all that you have is your soul

So don't be tempted by the shiny apple
Don't you eat of a bitter fruit
Hunger only for a taste of justice
Hunger only for a world of truth
'Cause all that you have is your soul

I thought, thought that I could find a way
To beat the system
To make a deal and have no debts to pay
I'd take it all, I'd take it all, I'd run away
Me for myself first class and first rate
But all that you have is your soul

So don't be tempted by the shiny apple
Don't you eat of a bitter fruit
Hunger only for a taste of justice
Hunger only for a world of truth
'Cause all that you have is your soul

Here I am, I'm waiting for a better day
A second chance
A little luck to come my way
A hope to dream, a hope that I can sleep again
And wake in the world with a clear conscience and clean hands
'Cause all that you have is your soul

So don't be tempted by the shiny apple
Don't you eat of a bitter fruit
Hunger only for a taste of justice
Hunger only for a world of truth
'Cause all that you have is your soul

Oh my mama told me
'Cause she say she learned the hard way
She say she wanna spare the children
She say don't give or sell your soul away
'Cause all that you have is your soul

All that you have
All that you have
All that you have
Is your soul

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoNtYC_XDC8&feature=related

Status

Striving for satisfaction alone.

Go...

Go where
the love
will be.

One

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4dlqVlj6UA

Is it getting better?
Or do you feel the same?
Will it make it easier on you now?
You got someone to blame
You say
One love
One life
When it's one need
In the night
One love
We get to share it
Leaves you baby if you
Don't care for it

Did I disappoint you?
Or leave a bad taste in your mouth?
You act like you never had love
And you want me to go without
Well it's

Too late
Tonight
To drag the past out into the light
We're one, but we're not the same
We get to
carry each other
carry each other
One

Have you come here for forgiveness?
Have you come to raise the dead?
Have you come here to play Jesus?
To the lepers in your head

Did I ask too much?
More than a lot.
You gave me nothing,
Now it's all I got
We're one
But we're not the same
See we
Hurt each other
Then we do it again
You say
Love is a temple
Love a higher law
Love is a temple
Love is a higher law
You ask me to enter
But then you make me crawl
And I can't keep holding on
To what you got
When all you've got is hurt

One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should
One life
With each other
Sisters, brothers
One life
But we're not the same
We get to
Carry each other
Carry each other

One...
One...

http://www.thepresentparticiple.blogspot.com

37 Dicks - Haven't seen this baby in years!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpQqH4H_SUQ
http://www.thepresentparticiple.blogspot.com

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, addressing those who have or will undertake a retreat, gives this advice:

"You will fall sick, experience pain, and encounter many adverse circumstances. At such times do not think, 'Although I am practicing the Dharma, I have nothing but trouble. The Dharma cannot be so great. I have followed a teacher and done so much practice, and yet hard times still befall me.' Such thoughts are wrong views. You should realize that through the blessing and power of the practice, by experiencing sickness and other difficulties now, you are purifying and ridding yourself of negative actions.... By purifying them while you have the chance, you will later go from bliss to bliss. So do not think, 'I don't deserve this illness, these obstacles, these negative influences.' Experience your difficulties as blessings...when you do experience such difficulties, you should be very happy and avoid having adverse thoughts like, 'Why are such terrible things happening to me.'"

As Rinpoche advises, relating to hardship properly depends on the strength of one's view. In general, having a view is knowing exactly where you want to go and how to get there. It is the vision of knowing what you want. For example, if you have the view to become a doctor, your vision guides you through financial burdens, physical and emotional difficulties, and obstacles that get in your way. You know it will be difficult and involve sacrifice, but with a strong view, you forge to the finish line.

Similarly, if you want to become spiritually awakened, it is the power of your view that gets you there. If you are having a hard time getting to the meditation cushion, or engaging in the necessary study, it is because your view is not strong enough or is incomplete. A partial view, in this case, is one that doesn't include hardship. You can strengthen your view and accelerate progress by understanding how you lose your view in the fog of hardship, and therefore lose sight of your path.

Peace and Quiet at Last - Pico Iyer - The Australian - August 28, 2010

TO leave an expansive home for a monastery sounds, as Oscar Wilde might have said, like a breach of not just good manners but good taste. At the very least it sounds like an exercise in masochism.

I, too, was thinking that way as I envisaged leaving my comfortable study for an environment of flagellating monks straight from The Da Vinci Code, mystics speaking in sign language or new-age ladies lecturing me on the body's need for zinc.

Yet I realised as I drove along the Californian coastline to a Benedictine hermitage that monasteries may not be out of date, rather my ideas of them. You could even say that spending three days in a monastery offers one exactly what one most seeks on a holiday: a new way of seeing the world, a chance to look differently at the life you know too well and, apart from anything, peace and quiet in one of the most beautiful locations on earth.

Having made such a trip more than 50 times, I come to think that sitting still is a greater adventure, often, than going to Haiti or Ethiopia or Laos (though I've visited and loved all three).

The first time I took off on such a journey was 15 years ago, when a teacher at a private school in Santa Barbara told me that he took all his students, once a year, for three days, to a Catholic hermitage up the coast. The kids weren't Catholic, and neither was he, but he felt that just dipping their toes in silence might be the ideal thing for rich and sheltered teenagers who otherwise devoted some of their thoughts to boys, some to girls and most of them to making connections between boys and girls.

The monks at this place, perched on the loveliest stretch of coastline in California, were uniquely hospitable, he told me, and opened their doors to women, high school kids, Buddhists, furious anti-Catholics, even journalists: anyone who needed a chance to take a break.

I drove around the endless hairpin turns of Highway One, towards the hilltop monastery, duly sceptical, with years of enforced attendance at school chapel in my head, and the thought that I was in some ways going backwards (a retreat sounds like the opposite of an advance). Crawling up a switchbacked, narrow road to where the small cluster of buildings sat above the Pacific, I saw crosses and a chapel that did little to assuage my unease.

The first thing I noticed when I was ushered into my little, compact cell was a cross above the bed. The second thing I noticed, though, was an elegant garden, with a white chair for reading in it. The third thing I noticed was the ocean stretched out below, visible from my bed, my desk, the rocking-chair thoughtfully placed near the cupboard with tea and sugar in it. By nightfall, deer were stepping into the garden, emerging like spirits from the hills, and foxes were running along the wooden fence in front of me where Steller's jays had been alighting.

By the time the sun came up the next day, I had forgotten I was in the monastery, with bibles around, and a lectern. I had forgotten I was anywhere. The silence was intense: polished, as if from years of people working on it to make it gleam. Bells tolled throughout the day, summoning the faithful to the chapel, but I stayed where I was, knowing that what I would find on my walks, in my garden, in the books I picked up, would be more sustaining.

The people I occasionally bumped into in the kitchen where food was put out were lawyers, bankers, writers in search of a chance to catch their breath. The monks in the bookshop (talking about the John Cleese films they'd just screened in the cloister) could not have been more voluble or warm, or in more natural touch with the world I knew.

Nine rooms, each with its own garden and walled privacy, sat on a silent ridge overlooking the sea. Elsewhere five trailers, complete with bathrooms and kitchens, stood across the hillside. Some of the spaces had their own picnic tables and driveways, all had their own terraces. Obligation was a foreign word here and abundance my daily companion.

A journey into silence works on one strangely, I soon found. I began registering the details - the first star rising above a ridge, the rabbit scuffling through the undergrowth - that I never saw in my normal life, or even in the hillside California house I'd just left, where the same kind of birds could be seen (if only I'd been looking) and the same stars above the hills. I started thinking more kindly about the people I'd been arguing with in my head two days before.

Suddenly some things - those editorial changes, that salary negotiation, the reviews of my last book - began to seem very, very trifling. Other things - that old friend I hadn't seen for too long, that morning I once spent in Havana - came to seem more and more significant. It was as if I were cleaning out my system, with Hoover and washcloth and dustpan and brush, and when I was finished, I shone.

Yet it felt like the opposite of work. This was easier than any holiday I'd taken. There was food whenever I needed it. There were hot showers and a little library of books, as well as a bookshop and the silent, light-filled chapel to be visited any time. I could walk up and down the monastery road along the cliffs, each of its benches affording different views of the scintillant sea below.

I'd never found anywhere that opened me up so much or so changed me, somehow, in the way I saw the world.

I've revisited the place four times a year ever since; I've also stayed at retreat houses in Britain, Western Australia and Los Angeles. And all of them really offer the same amenities, though each has a slightly different colouration - woods, ocean, communal meals, a lovely single room - to cover the range of human tastes.

Occasionally, on retreat, I'll go to the services, but in most cases they take me away from the stillness, the silence, the sharpened attention I look for in a hermitage. Monks know better than anyone that people often find what nourishes them outside the bounds of formal worship.

When I come down off the mountaintop, I'm alive, aflame with ideas and direction. I know just what I should do with my next six months, just how to make my peace with that old cousin, this new challenge. Not working for a few days makes me crave my desk and my pen as I would crave a lover not seen for far too long. I've cleaned my head and dusted my mind and, instead of just repainting my car, I feel as if I've rewired its engine.

But still I don't know what to tell my friends. If I talk about a monastery, they'll activate all their childhood suspicions, as I did once. If I speak about silence, they'll look at one another nervously, and wonder what kind of misanthrope they've fallen in with. If I tell them I need to "get away" they'll wonder what selfish zany this is, who needs to leave a peaceful home to go to another peaceful place (where he offers a "voluntary donation" of roughly $70 a night).

Then they look at me and they see a bright shine in my eyes, a collected warmth and excitement they've never seen before. They hear me speak about the stars at night, the peace of not having a telephone or television, not even being able to check my emails. They see me actually taking care with my words and listening to them as if there were no gap between us. The best advertisement for these places is the grinning fool before them.