Journeys
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Timothy M. Leonard's books on Goodreads
A Century Is Nothing A Century Is Nothing
ratings: 4 (avg rating 4.50)

The Language Company The Language Company
ratings: 2 (avg rating 5.00)

Subject to Change Subject to Change
ratings: 2 (avg rating 4.50)

Ice girl in Banlung Ice girl in Banlung
ratings: 2 (avg rating 4.50)

Finch's Cage Finch's Cage
ratings: 2 (avg rating 3.50)

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Friday
Apr012011

Kid Fools

Namaste,

Said the young Nepalese girl carrying the world on her back.

Her world is a large plastic sack for collecting valuable garbage. She uses a piece of thin hooked metal to probe piles of refuse. She has children scavenger friends in Vietnam (bundled logs and firewood), Laos (twigs and firewood), Cambodia (trash, charcoal, plastic bottles) all singing and dancing under the weight. Down all the days of their youth.

The weight of childhood is heavy. Children are not fooled. No joke. 

The girl led a traveler to the national zoo. A huge magnificent orange and white striped Bengal tiger roared near the bars. Feed Me! He dragged raw red buffalo meat into the shade expanding canines, grinding flesh.

Two sad brown eyed crying Black Himalayan bears in a cramped cold cement cage with scraggly tree trunks pressed their noses through rusty bars whispering, Please open the cage and take us back to the mountains.

A Griffon's brown elegant wing span blocked the sun flying beneath wire limitations. Oh, it said, If only I could soar again on thermals. If only I could regain my dignity and freedom. 

I have seen many people in cages, said the girl.

Metta.

Draw water. Draw your dream.

Saturday
Mar262011

Boudhanath

Namaste,

The road from Bhaktapur to Boudhanath is paved or broken or nonexistent.

Broken dirt rutted cement narrow filled with humans and black belching diseased smoke. Green fields, planting, turning dirt, harvesting beans, potatoes, cauliflower, hauling wicker baskets to market. Soldiers running their future, pounding old boots past a rising forest. Mountains run in shadows. Children in cold dawn light brush white teeth.

It's a returning to Tibet. Pilgrimage around around around circumambulation. Chanting prayers, earning merit. A shift from the Hindu spirit world of Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu. A feeling of peace and tranquility permeates your walking meditation.

Spin prayer wheels.

Lhasa Morning Meditation. We slow down. Each step is a breath. As before, in other planetary places we savor the beginning of a new day becoming - cold, isolated, sublime mysterious reality. The street blends into the circuit. Go to the main square.

Two large chorten furnaces are breathing fire, sending plumes of gray and black smoke into the sky. Figures of all ages and energies, sellers of juniper and cedar. Buyers collect their offerings - throw sweet smelling twigs into the roaring fire, finger prayer beads and resume their pilgrimage. Merit.

We join the flow, shuffling along. Feel the softness being with the ageless way of meditation, a walking meditation.

It is a peaceful manifestation of the eternal now. The  vast self vibration of frequencies in the flow. Our restless wandering ghost spirit feels the peace and serenity inside the flow.

The sky fills with clear light. As above, so below. Prayer flags lining roofs sing in the wind as incense smoke curls away. The shuffling pilgrims create a ceaseless wave - the sound of muted consistent steps, clicking of prayer beads, a gentle hum of turning prayer wheels, murmurs of mantras from lips. Everything is clear and focused on offering, sacrifice, gaining merit in the collective unconscious. Our river flows.

Dawn light blesses eastern snow capped mountains with a pink glow. A black faced half-naked boy throws himself down and out on his hands and knees prostrating the length of his skinny skeleton. He wears slabs of wood on his hands and an old brown apron. He edges forward, pulling himself along, rises, gestures to the sky, hands together, down along his skin out and down to the ground scrapping away flesh edging forward inside shuffling pilgrims. His eyes are on fire!

One completes one circuit after another, circling the Jokhang, the spiritual center of Tibet. More light, more people ascending into the square - handfuls of juniper feed roaring flames, Crack! Hiss! Burn! Back to Dust!

You will walk through the fire. Do this practice every day.

Metta.


 

 

Thursday
Mar242011

Mandala

Namaste,

An old caretaker man lies on his back inside an erotic temple with 24 carved images of playful sexual pleasure. He welcomes devotees covered in their piety, devotion, shadows, offering flowers, oil flame light, petals, incense, foot worn stone paths. Interiors.

Ring a bell, many bells, fingerprints wear down stone. Human gestures vibrating bells across a valley.

Endless brick factories fill the Sudal valley. Humans living in brick shacks, using water, clay, wooden forms, creating gray bricks. Sand, dust, hand labor, coal fired smokestacks, piles of coal being crushed, hauled on backs to fire. Fire gray red. The scope and density of men, women and children pouring their lives into their daily effort.

This massive element of people surviving. You walk on streets made of bricks, seeing brick homes rising to blue sky. Brick by brick. 

A mandala. Centering the universe with non-attachment.

The center that I cannot find is known to my unconscious mind. I have no reason to despair because I am already there, sings a Nepalese child.

Gallery.

Metta.

Tuesday
Mar222011

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.

Thursday
Mar172011

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.