Picture of the Day

I almost always hit a few POD sites each morning. This one (Astronomy Picture of the Day) I even go back and look at the weekend photos that I may have missed.

This picture is.... AMAZING!!! It is my new wallpaper. It was posted lst weekend.

The resolution is huge!! You can see so much. In the left third you can see a thunder head forming. They reach up to 50,000 feet above sea level.

Absolutely amazing!!

Zen Summary XI

Last one.


If we are not totally blind, what we are seeking is already here. This is it. - Alan Watts

Pull a five story pagoda out of a tea pot. - Zen Koan

If you love the sacred and despise the ordinary, you are still bobbing in the ocean of delusion. - Lin-chi

He comes without lifting a foot, Teaches with out moving his tongue. No matter how you lead the way, there is always one you follow. - Zen Commentary

The quest of certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers. - Erich Fromm

The invariable mark of wisdom is seeing the miraculous in the common. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music - Friedrich Nietzsche

You can outdistance that which is running after you, but not what is funning inside you. - Rwandan Proverb

In Zen, the effort and the result are not two different things, the means and the goal are not to be separated, the finding occurs in the very seeking itself. For ultimately, what is sought is the wholeness of the seeker, and this emerges only in the wholeheartedness of the seeking - Bernard Phillips

As I grow to understand life less and less, I learn to live it more and more. - Jules Renard

Practice and enlightenment are not two. - Dogen

We invent nothing, truly. We borrow and re-create. We uncover and discover. All has been given, as the mystics say. We have only to open our eyes and hearts, to become one with that which is. - Henry Miller

Zen Summary X

Pray to God, but hammer away. - Spanish Proverb

A monk asked Wei-kuan; “Where is Tao?”
Wei-kuan answered: “Right in front of us.”
“Why don’t I see it?” asked the monk.
“Because of you egotism.”
“But if I cannot see it because of my egotism, can you see it?”
“As long as there is ‘I and thou,’” said the master, “this complicates everything and there is no seeing Tao.”
“Then when there is neither ‘I’ nor ‘thou’, it is seen?”
The master replied: “When there is neither ‘I’ nor ‘thou’, who is here to see it?” - Zen Mondo

Zen is a matter of character, not a matter of intellect. - D. T. Suzuki

I must consider myself a corpse which has neither intelligence nor will: be like a mass of matter which without resistance lets itself be placed wherever it may please anyone; like a stick in the hand of an old man, who uses it according to his needs and places it where it suites him. - St. Ignatius Loyola

“Just ask, just ask!” says the dew, and rolls away. - Issa

Zen Summary IX

Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery. - Anne Dillard

A man is on the highway, yet he has not left his home. Another man, who has left his home, is not on the highway. Which of these two should be respected? - Zen koan

Shake off this sadness, and recover your spirit; sluggish you will never see the wheel of fate that brushes your heel as it turns going by, the man who wants to live is the man in whom life is abundant. - Miguel de Unamuno

Do not seek to find out what to do. Every what to do is only a general recipe, that is, an abstraction. You will never come back into the truth of your own being riding on the back of an abstraction. If you know what to do, [you can] be sure it is the wrong thing. - Bernard Phillips

The hand that guides the brush has already caught and executed what floated before the mind at the same moment the mind began to form it, and in the end the pupil no longer knows which of the two - mind or hand - was responsible for the work - Eugen Herrigel

Zen Summary VIII

Sneezing, I lost sight of the skylark. - Yayu

What saves a man to take a step. Then another step. It is always the same step, but you have to take it. - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

The wind is cold; through the torn paperscreen; the moon of October. - Sokan

There is something obscure which is complete before heaven and earth arose; tranquil, quiet standing alone without change, moving without peril. It could be the mother of everything. Not knowing its name, I call it Tao. - Lao-tsu

You are what you is. - Frank Zappa

You cannot avoid paradise. You can only avoid seeing it. - Charlotte Joko Beck

Zen is like looking for the spectacles that are sitting on your nose. - D. T. Suzuki

For studying Zen, one should have quiet quarters. Be moderate in food and drink. Cast aside all involvements and discontinue all affairs. Do not think of good or evil; do not deal with right or wrong. Do not intend to make yourself a Buddha, much less, be attached to sitting still. - Dogen

Zen Summary VII

Flowers in the summer, fires in the fall. - Zen Saying

The turnip farmer points the way with a turnip. - Issa

I embrace emerging experience. I participate in discovery. I am a butterfly. I am not a butterfly collector. - William Stafford

From the first not a thing is. - Hui-neng

Both the slayer and the slain are like a dewdrop and a flash of lightning - they are thus to be regarded. - Final verse uttered by a dying samurai

Doubt everything at least once, even the proposition that two times two equals four. - Georg Christoph Lichtenburg

Zen is really extraordinarily simple as long as one doesn’t try to be cute about it or beat around the bush. - Alan Watts

Why abandon a seat in your own home to wander in vain through dusty regions of another land? If you make one false step, you miss what is right before your eyes. - Dogen

Zen Summary VI

Seeking wisdom, the Emperor Gyo sent a messenger to a hermit named Kyoyu, offering to hand the empire over to him. Kyoyu not only flatly refused, but upon hearing such a foul suggestion washed his ears in the river Ei. Another Hermit, Sofu, coming there to water his ox and seeing this, led his ox away, saying he would not let it drink such filthy water. - Zen Story

The whole world is you. Yet you keep thinking there is something else. - Hsueh-Feng

As naturally as the oak bears an acorn and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. - Henry David Thoreau

Settling on a blade of grass, a dead leaf; the dew does not discriminate over what to call home. - Soin

You can tell wether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell wether a man is wise by his questions. - Naguib Mahfouz

In your heart, you already know. - Zen Saying

Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation. Tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding and trilling bolster his ego. - Jean Arp

Zen Summary VI

Seeking wisdom, the Emperor Gyo sent a messenger to a hermit named Kyoyu, offering to hand the empire over to him. Kyoyu not only flatly refused, but upon hearing such a foul suggestion washed his ears in the river Ei. Another Hermit, Sofu, coming there to water his ox and seeing this, led his ox away, saying he would not let it drink such filthy water. - Zen Story

The whole world is you. Yet you keep thinking there is something else. - Hsueh-Feng

As naturally as the oak bears an acorn and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. - Henry David Thoreau

Settling on a blade of grass, a dead leaf; the dew does not discriminate over what to call home. - Soin

You can tell wether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell wether a man is wise by his questions. - Naguib Mahfouz

In your heart, you already know. - Zen Saying

Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation. Tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding and trilling bolster his ego. - Jean Arp

Zen Summary V

When we are not sure, we are alive. - Graham Greene

To imagine that Zen is mysterious is the first grave mistake which many make about it. - D. T. Suzuki

The first mystery is simply that there is a mystery. A mystery that can never be explained or understood. Only encountered form time to time. - Lawrence Kushner

Forget not that the earth likes to feel your bare feet and the wind longs to play with your hair. - Kahlil Gibran

God builds his temple in the heart on the ruins of churches and religions. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The knowledge of the ancients was perfect. How perfect? At first they did not know that there were things. This is the most perfect knowledge -- nothing can be added. Next, they knew that there were things, but did not make distinctions between them. Next they made distinctions, but did not pass judgment. When that started to pass judgment, the Tao was destroyed. -- Chuang-Tzu

Zen has been used for healing people’s sicknesses, but it has also been used by the samurai for chopping of peoples heads! - Alan Watts

Firearms Refresher Course

1. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.

2. A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.

3. Colt: The original point and click interface.

4. Gun control is not about guns; it's about control.

5. If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?

6. If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words.

7. Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.

8. If you don't know your rights, you don't have any.

9. Those who trade liberty for security have neither.

10. The United States Constitution (c)1791. All Rights Reserved.

11. What part of "shall not be infringed" do you not understand?

12. The Second Amendment is in place in case the politicians ignore the others.

13. 64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday.

14. Guns only have two enemies; rust and politicians.

15. Know guns, know peace, know safety. No guns, no peace, no safety.

16. You don't shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive.

17. 911: Government sponsored Dial-a-Prayer.

18. Assault is a behavior, not a device.

19. Criminals love gun control; it makes their jobs safer.

20. If guns cause crime, then matches cause arson.

21. Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.

22. You have only the rights you are willing to fight for.

23. Enforce the gun control laws we ALREADY have; don't make more.

24. When you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create slaves.

25. The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control.

And lastly, just because;

Calling an illegal alien an "undocumented immigrant" is like calling a drug dealer an "unlicensed pharmacist”.

Zen Summary IV

Words may express it, words cannot hold it: the way of letters leaves no trace, Yet the teaching is revealed. - Dogen

Think sideways! - Edward De Bono

The meadows were a-drinking at their leisure; the frogs sat meditating, all Sabbath thoughts, summing up their week, with one eye out on the golden sun, and one toe upon a reed, eyeing the wondrous universe in which they act their part; the fishes swam more staid and soberly, as maidens go to church. - Henry David Thoreau

The fruit drips when it is ripe. - Zen Saying

The frog rises to the surface by the strength of its non-attachment. - Joso

One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. - Andre Gide

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Zen Summary III

More from my Daily Zen Canander. See the first collection here and the second here. then if your realy feeling the Zen, biker Zen is here.

How strange that nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude! - Emily Dickinson

The knife does not cut itself, the finger does not touch itself, the mind does not know itself the eye does not see itself. - Zen Saying

What is to give light must endure burning. - Viktor Frankl

We all travel the Milky Way together, trees and men... trees are travelers, in the ordinary sense. They make journeys, not very extensive one, it is true; but our own little comings and goings are only little more that tree-wavings - many of them not so much. - John Muir

The universe came into being with us together’ with us, all things are one. - Chuang-Tzu

A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows even though we do not love it. - Dogen