By Michael Avery (from Seven Signs from the Universe)
Mark West recently wrote in an email how he’d been cautioned to use more discrimination when expressing his frustration with a person at work. “Sometimes it’s best to just keep silent and contemplate upon the reflection we’re receiving from the world around us,” Mark noted. A waking dream suggested a better approach for him to take the next time he found himself frustrated by the actions of a co-worker.
Guest Post by Dennis Ernst
Wabi-Sabi’s roots are deeply embedded in Buddhist philosophy, particularly in the teachings that emphasize impermanence, suffering, and the absence of self.
It’s a perspective that sees a simplistic beauty in the transient nature of life, a view that emerged in Japan as an aesthetic counterpoint to the prevailing notions of beauty. The fragile, transient nature of something, imperfect, incomplete becomes a model for the human experience.
By Michael Avery (from a story by Jim Jackson in Seven Signs from the Universe by Michael and Pichaya Avery)
After fighting heavy traffic for an hour and forty-five minutes, Jim Jackson stopped for an early dinner at a restaurant in Troutdale, a small town just east of Portland, Oregon. He had only traveled thirty-nine miles and still had a ways to go before reaching the Menucha Retreat Center overlooking the Columbia Gorge where he and a friend would be facilitating a discussion group later that night.
Guest Post by David Rivinus
Stacy was ecstatic.
The vacation to Italy she and her husband had been planning for months was finally happening. The two were on an exclusive tour that had taken them to a quaint, picturesque village in the Italian Alps, far from the holiday crowds. It was quiet, beautiful and totally Italian. What’s more, the guides were terrific.
Guest post by Dennis Ernst
There is a word, I recently came across that I’ve been needing to add to my vocabulary of how to live. The word is found in the Japanese language as Shibumi. It translates to English as “effortless perfection, elegance, simplicity, and humility. It’s seen in Japanese minimalism and is an art form, a philosophy, and a lifestyle. This struck me as a wonderful metaphor of living.
By Michael Avery
from Seven Signs from the Universe by Michael and Pichaya Avery
Bookmarks
“Bookmarks” are like setting an alarm with a symbol. We mark a time in the future when it’s optimal for us to do a certain thing. We can choose a specific symbol for any number of situations. Here are three examples:
Guest Post by David Rivinus
Marion looked perturbed; that wasn’t like her.
A skilled, beloved and highly respected theater costume designer, she had trained pros who were now working on Broadway. And recently, she had agreed to mentor amateurs who showed promise. They paid her hourly for her instruction and put their new-found skills to a variety of uses.
“OK, Marion, what’s up?” I probed.
From: The Silent Questions, pages 256-258.
by Doug Marman
A young boy sat on the edge of the wharf, looking out over the gray water. His legs dangled free in the air, kicking back and forth. This was the place where he sat every day to listen to the sounds that the wind carried and to watch the way the waves danced. The sea was his friend, and he came to visit, just as he visited the geese in Mrs. Thatcher’s yard and the seagulls behind Mr. Danver’s Fish Market.
But the sea was different. The sea seemed to change every day, and yet, somehow, was exactly the same. It seemed endless and huge, yet at times you forgot it was even there, and it would startle you when you noticed it again.
By Michael Avery
A few days ago, when Oi and I began our daily walk along a path that meanders alongside a stream and some natural ponds, we came upon a disturbing scene: a motionless squirrel lying in some grass. His eyes were open, so I concluded that he had left his body through the doors of death.
But then Oi looked closer and saw that its stomach was moving in and out, faintly, but rapidly.
By Riley Carson
This song shares the experience of a transition from a vivid dream to a transcendent spiritual journey, where language dissolves and pure being takes over. “Where the Silence Sings” traces one soul’s surrender to the inner pull of divine love, following it past the last border of thought into an expanse of sound-and-light in the realms beyond the mind.
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