Mind your head

Namaste,

The path brought him to Bhaktapur, Nepal.

Offerings, Hinduism, calm fresh air in a fresh morning. This shift of spirit energies, consciousness. Temples, endless dawn processions of women in radiant rainbow orange, green, blue, shimmering, yellow, red saris bundled inside morning mist. Fog water vapor. 

A woman offers rice, yellow and orange flowers on a pavement Shiva. Ointments, prayers. Blessings.

A man clangs a gigantic brass bell. Sound resounds through the temple square. Deep echo.

Metta.

Nature

Greetings,

Nature is a gigantic, sublime, violent experiment. Nature is an awesome, beautiful, terrifying and magnificent dramatic lesson in natural laws. Magma at work. Do not disturb. Nature is a wonderful teacher. Nature informs humans in clear non-negotiable terms, you adapt, adjust, evolve or you die. This is natural selection.

Simple as that. Nature said, Unfortunately for all living species, I have no agenda, flight plan, schedule, meeting, commerce, economy, plan, or boarding pass. My departure gate is the crust.

I have a free pass. I have total power. I am unpredictable. I am violent and I am benign. I am gentle, kind and generous. I giveth and I taketh away. Humans will never, with their severely limited intelligence control me, manipulate me or own me. I have vast powers. I create and I destroy. That's my Nature.

Some humans call me Shiva, the Auspicious One. I am the destroyer of life. Fire is my source of power.

Another manifestation is Mahakala, the Lord of Time.

Humans are naturally naive. Naivety and stupidity and laziness is their Nature. They don't listen or pay attention to Nature until it, for example, shifts the plates below the Tibetan plateau causing an earthquake. The natural result is loss of life in Sichuan because shoddy buildings built by greedy humans all fall down smashing 10,000 children. 

Humans use fire to cremate bodies because there are not enough vultures to eat the remains. 

Japan is another example of my power.

Ash, on the other hand, a buy product of Nature goes with the flow.

Metta.

Hawk Informers

A male street hawker spoke with flair and conviction, If you don't buy my cheap cotton hat with a national flag red star, or a cheap wooden bracelet made by an orphan, then the next time I see you while I am walking hot Hanoi streets in the middle of the broiling day with sweat streaming into my eyes trying to make a living, then I won't know you.

My eyes will be dark and lost in their pitiful future. I won't remember you. Ever.

I will continue to walk. All day. In the heat. No water. No rest. To walk, work, meet tourists. No pity. This is my social and economic reality. People ignore you when they don’t have a sale.

Darwinian logic. Evolution of the species. Survival.

I’m not surprised, said Charlie. This is common throughout the country. The Central Party creates a climate of fear. Fathers report wives. Wives report sons and daughters. Daughters report their fathers. It is an evil cycle.

Charlie is a member of the Shining Path Young. This is our new generation, with a new generation of informers and spies. They make good money. They keep their mouth shut and know their place. Infamy. 

What I do today is important because I'm spending a day of my life on it.

Memory & Tibet

Greetings,

Here are a couple of new reads for you.

Moonwalking With Einstein...by Joshua Foer. 

..."Before writing was common, human beings had to use their own brains for information storage, and before books were indexed — making it possible to gain access to them in a nonlinear way — people labored under the “imperative to hold” books’ contents in their own mental hard drives simply to find particular bits of information. Poets in the oral tradition, like Homer, relied on repetition and rhythms and other patterns to recite their work from memory, and in the ancient world, exceptional memories were both exalted and widely known."

Colin Thubron a travel writer and novelist has published To A Mountain In Tibet. He has written about the Near East, Russia and The Silk Road.

“You cannot walk out your grief,” he tells himself. “Or bring anyone back. You are left with the desire only that things not be as they are.” This is the reason he has resolved to go “walking to a place beyond your own history, to the sound of the river flowing the other way.” 

Metta.

Just One Breath

Greetings,

Here is a fine article on Poetry and Meditation by Gary Snyder in Tricycle. Beyond wild.

Teasing the demonic 
Wrestling the wrathful 
Laughing with the lustful 
Seducing the shy 
Wiping dirty noses and sewing torn shirts 
Sending philosophers home to their wives in time for dinner 
Dousing bureaucrats in rivers 
Taking mothers mountain climbing 
Eating the ordinary

Metta.