same old stuff

war and peace
the new translation:
good

being present
in
this now:
fun

seeing light
knowing i/we am/are
breathing
Sweet

waking up
as an ongoing activity
and life focus:
thrilling

love
is central to life:
elusive
and
......
(real
real in another way than we usually "think"
beyond "thinking"
sometimes just bullshit
and
sometimes...
forget the songs
forget the poems
forget even "falling in love"
and still
sometimes...

"real')

la
la

ciao
chris



b

why not love this?

what this?

this blog

this chair on which
you sit

this breath
in and out

this thought
that if if leads to happiness:
nice story
go with it

this thought
if it leads to unhappiness
check
it out

and let the thought
be just a thought
that isn't real

and what is
real?

this breath
this chair
this string
of light
this sound
of bird
or song
or what
is coming into your ears
right now?

why
not love
this.....

saving the world

in this month's
sun magazine
(not to be confused
with our local
sonoma sun newspaper
of boosterism
and inanity
and a few worthwhile tidbits fame)

a nice rant
by andrew harvey
about saving the world
via
mystical activism

like all andrew harvey,
to me,
this is heavy on
"hey, everyone..
the look
at me
be andrew harvey
being really passionate
about being
really ......"

sounds kind of like me
except
i'm so bad at getting a following

or i'm so bad
at really believing that everyone
should
.....

even save the world

not that that wouldn't be great:
humanity getting its shit
together,
but the evidence is...


people asleep
(including andrew harvey as
he gives this interview)

and people addicted
to their habits

including the car

and talking without
knowing they are alive
and real
while they talk

and

nature
out there
as something to be used
and talked about
and driving thru
or driven to
but to just be,
you know,
easy and sweet
and gentle
with this world
we may or may not want to
save

how to do
that?

heck
if i know

and i
do know
this:

a big key
to "saving the world"
is
happiness

not hurried
and loud
and expensive
and dumb ass happiness

but

happiness
that is very very easy
happiness
that
doesn't need to run away
from the world

happiness
that
gets bored with
most of the run around stuff

and doesn't need to withdraw

into bastions of
raving
or bliss
or hideaway retreat
or loud ass noise
or rushaway
activity
or exotic
"vacation"

not that

but
happiness
that is
its own
vacation
as the
now
the
now

even this nos

is always
a vacation

sweet
pure
free
easy
and
no waiting

the glory of life

the glory
of this
only
now
can we be
fully
yes
and this
now
is
not the last one
and who's
counting

what counts
is
this
love
of whatever
we are loving
and sky cloud song bird bird song
slight wink
high links
low down
to the ground

it's all around
life

you gotta
love
it

no you
don't gotta
you can
love it
now

the choice
is mine
your
s
ours

shall we dance
all our sweet
ness
in this
glory??

yes

and as Gerald Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
once wrote:

Glory be to God for dappled things,
For skies of couple-color as a brinded cow,
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls, finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced, fold, fallow and plough,
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange,
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim.
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change;
Praise him.

so happiness
of driving
an SUV up a desert
cliff
ala
tv ads
years ago
when i had a tv
dumb
not happiness

the happiness
of following
our breathing
while we listen
to someone
we love
talk
(and who is there not to
love
in this silly
wonderful
and amazing world)

the happiness
of looking at the sky
the birds
the Earth

hey,
happy Earth Day

great little article
by Richard Dale
today
in the Sonoma Index Trib

and you
could,
without too much trouble
find some
Earth oriented things
here and there
on this site

and hey,
this is just a computer

you are alive
i am alive

let'
s
get outside
and walk
slowly
and delightfully
in this glorious
day
of
our lives


yes

the glory of death

THE GLORY OF DEATH

this is one of the things you
aren't supposed to
say
right?

OH, WELL

and hey:
in a way,
death is really cool

and what's so cool about it?

it's so clean

it's no bullshit

it's clear
and finished

it's not a halfway thing

to me
falling in love
is like that:
boom,
you are in a different
state

marriage,
hmmm,
is usually a nice game
that may
or may not be real

darn
another thing you probably aren't supposed
to say

oh,
well times 2

and

what's done
is done

(note the number one
guaranteed losing bet:
that the past
be
different
than it
was)




death is
done

the person is gone

and guess what?

you can still love
them

and guess what:
you can have the best talks
you ever wanted with them

get out a pencil
write both sides
maybe you are "hearing their spirit"
maybe you are "making it up"

and what is the "making it up"
other than hearing something
that is in there
was in there
was hidden
was waiting

maybe they didn't even know
and it's there
however wonderful a something
you want to
hear from the gone person
or say
to them

this wonderful thing
was always there
waiting to be said
waiting to be felt
waiting to be shared

it's real

all the wonderful
stuff
is real


is that true?
maybe
.

i don't know
and
it's a nice
story

love
is the key
to a lot
of life
left in the living

love the death
love our grief
love our joy for them
love our incompleteness
love their imperfection
our imperfection
our yearning to have had it "better"

and be
right now
the "better"
we were waiting for
all along

passover

what is passover???

ciao
Chris

Green Sangha

maybe meetings
you drive
to
and talk
with an
no effort to be mindful
and a drink or two
to dispel any nervousness
and help the chatter keep coming
do it for you

not for
me

so starting
this

if interested
come
if not interested
what are you interested
in?

what is real
and sweet
and deep
for you?

search
look
wait
breathe

go even
slower

it's in there

Green Sangha
With Chris Elms, M.A.

Healing the Earth,
Healing Ourselves

No Cars

Bike, walk, ride a horse

Be present:
silent
talking
walking on Earth


4th Sunday, 3-4:30 PM
707- 996-1437
19262 Carriger Road, Sonoma, CA

does loving "what is" mean...

does loving "what is"
mean
loving everything?

yes.

okay, okay,
loving the war in
Iraq.
don't start there.

start where our real pain
is
anyway:

loving our husband when he leaves
his crap around
loving our wife when she gives us
"the look"
or
"the voice"

loving our boss when
he's a critical asshole

and what is
"critical asshole"
once we let go
of holding on
to viewing life
through concepts

so
our daughter:
she "should" be such and such
and
can we love her
when she is not such and such

our son
"shouldn't" such and such
and can
we love him,
you know big smile happy heart
overflowing yesnes
when he is doing the "shouldn't"
he so loves to do

can we love
'em
when they are
"all wrong?"

yes:
we understand and can live
in
love


anything else
is bullshit

does this relate,
grow from
use
the Work of Byron Katie
sure

but she wouldn't say
bullshit

because she loves
everything
including every singe excuse
every single person
on earth
has for not loving
what ever
is it
they aren't loving

that's kind of
my feel about enlightenment
now

forget all the fancy
stuff:

am i loving
the stuff that used to drive me
crazy?

then i'm there
enough

and there
is no
there

only
here

which is......

death, taxes, and some real stuff

you know, the dumb phrase:
death and taxes

i guess it has something to do with the
"inevitable"

my, my
they could have said:
gravity and breath
and these would have been more useful
as everyday constants for life on Earth

even now
you know this good old now
thing i like to write about
and live from
gravity
where i sit
where you sit, stand, gravity is there

and air
all
around
and we breathe
and know it
or breathe
and don't know it

la,
la


here are some nice
quotes
about the real deal,
one from adyashanti
a sweet spiritual teacher,
who kind of enhances the Byron Katie Work

the quote goes like this:

"Enlightenment is nothing more
that the natural state of being.
If you strip it of all the complex terminology and complex jargon
enlightenment is simply returning to our
natural state of being."

This from a book, True Meditation.
He also has an article
in Yoga Plus
becoming something of an industry
and that's his business

the other quote
is one of many brilliant quotes
that could be "shared" from ,
Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky's
New Translation of War and Peace

it's from a dream
Pierre, a central character,
who starts the book as a befudled
and "absent minded and ridiculous man,"
and ends the book, still a bit absent minded and
ridiculous, but full of wisdom

in the dream
a voice speaks to him
and says:


" ' Life is everything.
Life is God.
Everything shifts and moves, and this movement is God.
And while there is life, there is delight
in the self-awareness of the divinity.
To love life is to love God.
The hardest and most blessed thing is to love this life
in one's suffering, in the guiltlessness of suffering."

Page 1064.
you've been through a lot
by the time you get there.
Pierre is suffering
and growing hugely
when he has this dream.

Hint, for Pierre,
though not for everyone,
the book has a "happy ending."

ciao
chris

life is good

life is good
movement is life

good movement
can be of heart
mind
body
and soul

let's have sweet
aware
movement
in this day

what is gurdjieff meditation, fast funky version

like this
get up in morning
sit at edge of bed
sense right toes, right foot, right heel, etc up to right hip
keep whole right leg in sensing awareness
add on right arm, like this:
start with fingertips, and up to shoulder, each part of arm (and leg earlier, bones, muscles, blood, whole thing)
keep both in awareness
add
on left arm, shoulder to fingertips
now we are three
add on
left leg, hip to toes
sense all four limbs, as long as want
add on outer world
first:
sounds coming in ears,
plus four limbs in awareness
second:
light coming in eyes
(good idea to open eyes to do this)

get up
go about day keeping four limbs
sound
light coming in eyes
in "continuous" awareness

very sparky
and amazing
and hard
and good for doing with anything

waiting

waiting can
be a way
to avoid now

someday
i'll be happy
after....

and waiting
can be easy
as
in sitting on a log
beside a sunny path
waiting for whatever
is going to
come along
to come along

why not?

why not
wake up to now
right now

why not
laugh at all the
things you
did wrong
some other time

why not
be awake to waking
up from moments and days
and hours of
not being awake

why not
let happiness be
your guide

are you happy?
and not doing something
stupid?
then you are living life
in tune
with you.

even better:
if you are not happy,
you are believing
a story
about how What Is
should be different.

you could be right
that What Is
of this or that in
the world
could be better

and right now
this instant
how can
they be anything
but what they are

and will our feeling crappy
right
now
help
whatever in the world
could be better

it's
all
the is it true
stuff

is it true
i should feel bad
right now
about......

and what is my pile of
stuff and feelings
and actions
when i believe
whatever is setting off the feeling bad

and what
would i be
who
would i be
without that thought, story, belief
myth

and so on

this is the Katie work
you probably know

la
la

and why
not
be happy
as an ongoing
way of living

love

is the ocean
that doesn't have to be lusted
for
tried out for
achieved
any of that shit

love is
just the dusty
old road
that is left
when the non-sense
is not believed in

what's non-sense
most of our thinking

is that true?
heck if i know

is life good.
why not?

Signs of Waking, 1

SIGNS OF WAKING:

THE SWEETNESS OF NOW

There is already a power of now out there. Go power, go, go. And what are you feeling right now? Feeling as emotion, what are you feeling? Feeling as sensation, what are you feeling?

How do you feel, right now?

And whatever the emotion and the words about it, and the reasons for it, and the circumstances, let that slide for a while, and enjoy putting your awareness on the here and now sensations in your feeling of being you, right now, alive.

If you want.

Maybe feel your hands holding the book, and feel your bottom resting on whatever it is resting on, or your feet standing into the ground.

So, this is now: we have gravity, and legs and arms, and a spine in between. And our feelings have some kind of sensations toward the middle of us sometimes.

Is this too much?

Slow down.

It’s all about slowing down.

This is how you are going to love yourself more, and love others more, and end emotional suffering and feel more comfortable in your body, and help join a simplicity and ease of living that will save the Earth.

This is how, together, we are going to come back to our sanity and peace of mind and easy going friendliness that is how we were meant to be as human beings.

Can you follow your breathing, right now?

Just noticing the air coming in your mouth or nose and maybe noticing something happening in ribs or lungs or diaphragm, can you notice a difference that noticing your breathing makes?

Please don’t fix or correct or do anything fancy with your breathing, but if you notice your aren’t breathing, life might be a little more fun, a little more sweet if you did breathe.

And this is what is really interesting: what is the difference in our selves, in our sense of ourselves, in our sense of being alive, when we notice that we are breathing?
What is the difference when we notice our butts on our chairs or our feet on the ground, or back on the couch, whatever is connecting us with gravity? Can you find some pleasure in that?

This is always part of us, until we die: breathing.

This is always part of us, until we go into outer space: a connection to gravity.

Most of us have arms and legs we can use and fingers and toes at the end of them. All of us have a spine that is designed to hold us up easily in gravity. What difference does it make if you notice your spine now?

Is this too much?

Good.

Is this just right?

Good.

Is this not enough?

Good.


Part of this adventure, this learning signs of our waking to now, will be a process called the Work of Byron Katie, which could help us when we get lost in feeling bad about how the world is treating us. Part of this adventure is the wonderful retraining and opening of our awareness to what is going on in the present moment. Part of this adventure is trying this and trying that, and having experiences.

This is always true: right now we are having some experience.

What is it?

Without any story of how it should be different, what is our experience right now?
Without any story of what we have to do in the future, what is our experience right now?

Without any story of our various problems and troubles in the past, what is our experience right now?


Shouldn’t I be telling you all sorts of urgent reasons to come into the present?

I don’t think so.

Just come.

Experience the sweetness and ease of being, right now, whatever you are, right now.
This is what we save the Earth, the simple, simple, simple ease of feeling very fine, right now.

No need to go somewhere else: we are already right here.

No need to wait: now is already now.

No need to buy any Nowing outfit, no need to join any Nowing club, no need to get anyone’s approval to come into the Now.

No need to feel better to come in the now.

And, hey, get this: no waiting. In itself waiting to come to Now is about as silly as it can get. So, here we are, breathing, sensing some sort of sensation that goes along with whatever feeling we are having. Here we are, with a spine and two arms and two legs, all placed in some position in gravity? And noticing all that:

How do you Feel, now?