(no subject)

He heard the familiar creak of the top step upstairs. The weight and pace of the footfalls on the stairs told him that it was John, and not Susan, who was coming downstairs first this morning. He scrambled up the basement stairs with his brother in close pursuit, waiting for John to appear from the front hall and open the door to the kitchen.

"Good morning, good morning," John stage-whispered to them, bending over to greet them. "How are you guys doing today? Did you have a good sleep?" They took turns winding through John's legs, nibbling at his hands and sleeves on their way past. The only variation of their morning routine was dependent upon whether John or Susan came down to greet them first. However, it made no real difference to them who came down first, for the outcome was always the same: after a friendly greeting, they would both tear back down the basement stairs and wait expectantly against the wall with the shelves for their breakfast to be served. John or Susan would come down after them, meet them at the shelf, and after some movements they could never quite make out, they would magically set down two bowls filled with food. After gulping down their breakfasts, they would tear back up the basement stairs and wait expectantly for John or Susan to come and open the door to let them outside. Their day continued as it always did from then on.

(no subject)

Read a particularly eerie account of the moments preceding yesterday's suicide bomber attack in Netanya, Israel. A well-dressed Arab man walking into a crowded shopping mall was noticed by a man and his daughter because of the cold look in his eyes. As he approached, they realized that something looked out of place with him. He was quite thin, but his long overcoat looked extremely bulky. After he passed them, they noticed a belt holding explosives. "Daddy, that man is a terrorist," the daughter whispered to her father. He agreed and immediately phoned the police on his mobile phone. Father and daughter stayed frozen in their tracks, waiting to see what would happen next. After the explosion, the father said that if he had had a gun with him, he would have shot the man in the back.

A security guard looked up from the person he was talking to and made eye contact with the man in the overcoat as he passed by them on his way out of the mall. The guard thought something looked odd about him too, but didn't think about it too much after the man left the building. He noticed him come back in a few minutes later, look around, and without any warning, he disappeared into flames and smoke with a huge explosion. The guard would later say from his hospital bed that he didn't notice the man do anything - he just exploded into a ball of flames right before his eyes.

Israeli F-16 fighter jets made several attacks later the same day in retaliation. They leveled Palestinian security headquarters and coast-guard bases with rocket fire, using those jets in direct action against Palestine for the first time since the Six-Day War in 1967. A United Nations envoy to the Middle East was quoted as saying that the situation is on the verge of escalating to uncontrollable levels.

The bomber was a 21-year-old grocery clerk. After attending dawn prayers, he brought his mother a bag of sweets before leaving for work for the day. But he didn't go to work; he went instead to the mall in question and blew himself up, taking with him 6 people and injuring over 100 others.

He was only 21 years old. How could a 21-year-old man make a decision like that? The militant group Hamas later claimed responsibility for the action.

(no subject)

Tonight, as I stood outside in the cool night air listening to the frogs' raucous singing on the lake behind the house, I felt like I was suspended in time, forever. I felt like I could have been any person, at any time, throughout the entire course of human history. I felt my identity fall away softly behind me like a discarded cloak as I walked barefoot onto the dewy grass, each breath an eternal moment burned away in the flames of Time.

My identity, I can wear or set set aside, like that cloak. When I'm alone, I know peace. When I walk alone, I walk in peace. When I look around without speaking, just watching, listening, I see every aspect of my world as the reflection of God that it is. Every step I take is God's; every breath I take is heaven; every thought that arises belongs to all of humanity.

Namaste - not mine, not mine.

OM

bodhisattva

(no subject)

There is a natural state. It is simply the absence of dilemma. The absence of conflict. The essence of Being.

I can't write it down, hard though I might try. It cannot be said, it cannot be spoken. It is a state, though; at the very least, it may be reflected in your state of mind. That mind is peace. That mind is beauty. That mind is God. That mind is everywhere.

The whole of the universe resides in that dewdrop hanging from the branch outside my window.

In a blink of an eye, it is gone. But it was never really there to begin with.

There is nothing to hold on to.

There is just a gentle breath, a flower petal floating on a warm breeze.

A gentle gust - a subtle presence, gentle like a warm spring rain. So soft you can't quite feel it. So profound you can't avoid it. So ineffable you can't describe it.

Just there.

Love.