Bookshelf: Present Moment, Wonderful Moment

While I continue to energize myself (as I did this past weekend camping and photographing the vineyards and wineries my wife and I stopped by--one of which is seen above) for my longest, most challenging annual long distance “run,” the school year, I have gone back once again to a slim volume that I like to re-read on occasion. Further prompted by another reading I am currently doing, I went into my attic bookshelves and pulled Present Moment, Wonderful Moment: Mindfulness Verses for Daily Living by Thich Nhat Hanh. (Thich Nhat Hanh is a teacher, author and peace activist whose most familiar American writings are likely the two books he wrote regarding some perceived similarities between the Buddha and Jesus.)

In his book Present Moment, Wonderful Moment Hanh offers some suggestions for increasing mindfulness in every day living by preparing, and explaining, forty-nine short, practical verses. One example of the short gathas, or "mindfulness verses" would be this one, suggested for use upon waking up and starting each day:

Waking up this morning, I smile.
Twenty-four brand new hour are before me.
I vow to live fully in each moment
and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.

My own faith background as a Roman Catholic is chock-full of “prayers” designed for repetition at different points during the day, week and mass “celebration,” but few seem as proactively compassionate as most of these. Rather than focusing on one’s request for forgiveness, these tiny gatha seem to be written with the intent of establishing right behavior as a way of building compassion in both the reciter, as well as those they may encounter during the day.

Breathe in, breathe out... YOU AND I ARE ALIVE!

Hey, Davey (and Goliath!)

"You do need one more thing Davey, the will to help people and the world you live in."~Davey's friendly, neighborhood Pastor

As previously mentioned, we don’t have cable or satellite television in our home, just five, or occasionally six, television stations. One of those stations that comes in on a clear morning when the planets are in alignment is TCT, or the Tri-State Christian Television Network. TCT is a Christian television network which features many pastors, reverends and their families testifying. Another facet of their programming, one that is intermittently entertaining is their children’s programming. This morning at 6:30 a.m. as I sat down to check my e-mail, I came across an old “friend” while avoiding Chuck Norris infomercials, Davey and Goliath.

For the initiated, Davey and Goliath is a 1960s stop-motion animated television series produced by the Lutheran Church in America, and created by Art Clokey after the success of his Gumby series.

Somewhere along the line it became somewhat "kewl" to deride Davey and his talking dog (for example on The Simpsons and MadTV), but I think the show still holds up pretty well, in its attempt to teach or illustrate simple ways that people can be better to one another. Granted, the show does have a(n intentionally) Christian bent, but regardless of one's faith affiliation, the messages Davey and his friends (among them one of the first African-American characters to be respectfully portrayed) are universal, if not a little hokey in their presentation.

Kewl!

Breathe in, breathe out... YOU AND I ARE ALIVE!

3° of Separating... Whatever

Why post this video above (care of Youtube)?

The Internet, like the world, is an increasingly small place, and it feels sometimes like we are more and more frequently inhabiting a space in which everything is separated by six degrees or less. (Not that this is necessarily a bad thing...)

The video above is a case in point.

Like many of you, I have signed up for a bunch of different listservs most with a wide range of topics ranging from Buddhism, animal rights, human rights, John Edwards for President, Darfur and prayer power. Yup, prayer power. This morning I received an e-mail from the prayer power people, announcing that some members related to this group would be appearing on Oprah tomorrow to discuss a recently public book.

About five weeks ago while perusing the web for inspirational quotes or videos or magic to motivate my students to success on the state exam, I came across the video above. Although I never did show it to my kids, it worked for me... the images, the accompanying music, and positive, thoughtful prompts. I kind of got it. Little did I know that the video is also an advertisement for the book to be promoted on Oprah tomorrow.

Again, not a bad thing, but it seems like the "lines" are getting greyer and despite our "knowing" more, the world is still getting smaller; this one took only two to three degrees of separation.

Adio, wli nanawalmezi.

Poetry Snack: Discourses on Vegetable Roots

No exercising today, primarily because I spent the day grading standardized tests. The process and task were a bore, but it was nice to have the opportunity to catch up with colleagues from across the school district who I normally don't have the chance to speak with. One by product of spending time doing those professional responsibilities which I find least desirable (grading state exams), is having the time to reflect on the question of "how did I get here?" I'm pretty sure I did not get into this "business" for this reason, although I knew it (testing) was an important part of it. I, like most tecahers, went into into a particular discipline because we loved the content... the subject... in my case, the idea of the poetry...

While in undergraduate school I took quite a few poetry courses, all dealing with analysis and none with the actual art of writing poetry. Unfortunately, I am one of those folks who can appreciate poetry in a variety of forms, but find it difficult to put pen-to-paper myself. I do, however, find some joy in writing brief observations of the natural world and the work of Robert Bly has given me some hope that the narrative paragraph can be a form of poetry.

I recently unearthed a copy of the book A Chinese Garden of Serenity which is a collection of epigrams, or meaningful sayings, from the Ming Dynasty called 'Discourses on Vegetable Roots.' These works are translated by Chao Tze-chiang. I hope that you will find the line and lyric as poetic as I have:

The attitude of people towards me may be warm or cold, but I respond neither gladly nor resentfully; the tastes of the world may be savory or insipid, but I react neither happily nor disgustedly. If one does not fall into the trap of the mundane, one knows the way of living in, and escaping from, the world.

The "answer" to happiness (I think) suggested in the preceding epigram is to neither run or over indulge in life but to experience the moments as they come. Along the same lines is the following excerpt:

Walking along a narrow path, one should lave a margin; tasting rich delicacies, on should share a morsel. These are the happiest ways of dealing with the world.

Published as a hardcover volume in 1959 by Peter Pauper Press, this book is no longer for sale on-line via Barnesandnoble.com. If you're interested in reading more, I would suggest a good used book store, which happens to be where I bought this copy for $5.00!

Adio, wli nanawalmezi.