Word spread across the countryside about the wise Holy Man who lived in a small house atop the mountain. A man from the village decided to make the long and difficult journey to visit him. When he arrived at the house, he saw an old servant inside who greeted him at the door. “I would like to see the wise Holy Man,” he said to the servant. The servant smiled and led him inside. As they walked through the house, the man from the village looked eagerly around the house, anticipating his encounter with the Holy Man. Before he knew it, he had been led to the back door and escorted outside. He stopped and turned to the servant, “But I want to see the Holy Man!”

“You already have,” said the old man. “Everyone you may meet in life, even if they appear plain and insignificant… see each of them as a wise Holy Man. If you do this, then whatever problem you brought here today will be solved.”

I’ll never forget the moment I realized that the sinners on their way to Hell on the Portal of the Last Judgment at Notre Dame in Paris are not in chains; rather, they are holding on to the chains. God isn’t forcing them into damnation, they’re choosing it.

I do the same thing. All I need to do is let go of the chains with which I’ve enmeshed myself…

In the beginning was God,
Today is God,
Tomorrow will be God.Who can make an image of God?
God has no body.
God is the word which comes out of your mouth.
That word!

It is no more,
It is past, and still it lives!
So is God.

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the brutal assassinations of six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter at the University of Central America in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador.  They were shot down because the Jesuits had been a voice for the poor and the powerless and those in power felt threatened. 

May perpetual light shine upon them and may they rest in peace.  Amen.

Let us remember that every day people are being persecuted simply for standing up for their own human rights or for the rights of others.  The struggle against oppression continues.

An elephant is restrained by a small chain which links a metal collar on its leg with a small peg driven into the ground.  It could easily break free, but doesn’t. Why not? As a baby, the elephant was tied up like that and, at that time, the chain was strong enough to prevent the animal from escaping.

The adult elephant remains imprisoned by the memory of its being unable to break free when it was much younger.

Hmm. I wonder if I allow similar restraints to stop me from breaking free?

Several citizens ran into a hot argument about God and different religions, and each one could not agree to a common answer. So they came to the Lord Buddha to find out what exactly God looks like.

The Buddha asked his disciples to get a large magnificent elephant and four blind men. He then brought the four blind to the elephant and told them to find out what the elephant would “look” like.

The first blind men touched the elephant leg and reported that it “looked” like a pillar. The second blind man touched the elephant tummy and said that an elephant was a wall. The third blind man touched the elephant ear and said that it was a piece of cloth. The fourth blind man hold on to the tail and described the elephant as a piece of rope. And all of them ran into a hot argument about the “appearance” of an elephant.

The Buddha asked the citizens: “Each blind man had touched the elephant but each of them gives a different description of the animal. Which answer is right?”

[Source: http://www.awakeblogger.com/2008/09/the-10-very-best-zen-stories/]

Today used to be known as Armistice Day. It commemorated the ending of World War 1 on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year. Would that it had been our last war ever. So much blood has been spilled and continues to spill to this very day.

The British soldier and poet, Wilfred Owen, wrote hauntingly about the horrors of war.

Dulce et Decorum est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

[click to continue...]

Improv Everywhere is a group that stages “happenings” in public places – from an elaborate wedding reception for a random couple emerging from city hall to having hundreds of people  ride the New York subway system without pants.  Their latest production is a 4′07″ musical number they staged in a Queens, NY supermarket.  It is charming and very funny — people continue to look for produce as a  Broadway-style number is performed inches away from them.  New Yorkers!

One caveat – YouTube now places ads on many of its videos.  It is, apparently, impossible to defeat them so you may have to put up with one appearing on the lower half of the screen after 12″.  Click the ”X” icon at the top right of the ad to close it.  It’s annoying & frustrating and it’s also capitalism at work.

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” (Lewis Smedes)