Breath Blog

Monday, July 31, 2006

Faith...a subtle chain...



"Faith is the subtle chain which binds us to the infinite."

- Elizabeth Oakes Smith (1806-93)

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Laughter...

"The most wasted day is that in which we have not laughed."

- Chamfort

Saturday, July 29, 2006

Avoiding the cycle of resentment and retaliation...



"Without forgiveness life is governed...by an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation."

- Roberto Assaglioli, founder of Psychosynthesis



Friday, July 28, 2006

Now here's a challenge for the weekend...


"You should live in such a way that you can confide anything on your mind."

- Leo Tolstoy, another quote from his "Calendar of Wisdom"

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

The highest possible goals...



"In the long run, people achieve only that which they have set as goals for themselves; therefore, set the highest possible goals for yourself.

"The fulfillment of the law of goodness has nothing in common with everyday material prosperity. Sometimes material prosperity and moral goodness clash in conflict. These sufferings lead to the highest elevation of spirit.

- Leo Tolstoy from: A Calendar of Wisdom

Monday, July 24, 2006

Indispensable beings...



"So long as we are loved by others, I should say we are almost indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend."

- Robert Louis Stevenson

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Dare to take this personally!




"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. The bamboozle has captured us. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. "

- Carl Sagan

Dr. Carl Edward Sagan (1934-96) was a popularising American astronomer and astrobiologist, and I am sure he meant this in the grand historical sense. But when I read the quote, it resonated as the immense difficulty of unravelling my past into the magic of the present.

Perhaps I will stand corrected, but the key to getting your power back is to give it up. The difference is surrender as opposed to conflict - and I am not making a political statement, just a personal one about my own state of being...

Against the backdrop of the cosmos, it is possible to feel the humility to understand the bamboozle... And I feel sure that Carl, the stargazer, must have known this, and his quote is just good advice to apply a new and more enlightened focus on life.

Friday, July 21, 2006

Our local swans


This year, the local swan couple, who jealously guard the stretch of river outside our house, had a big family of "ugly ducklings" - six in total. Last year they had three cygnets but lost one.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Past forgiveness

"Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past."

- A spot-on, pithy quote from Lily Tomlin

Wednesday, July 19, 2006


"Do not believe what your mind tells you!"

Seen on a teeshirt in London

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

More about noble friends and noble conversations...

I just had to return to this quote from a lovely book: One Breath at a time by Kevin Griffin:

"One night, my teacher was talking about a
sutta (a record of the oral teachings of Buddha) where the Buddha's cousin and attendant, Ananda, comes to him and says: "Venerable sir, this is half the holy life, that is Noble Friends and Noble Conversations." When my teacher read this, I thought that the Buddha was going to correct, saying that these things weren't that important. Instead, the Buddha responds: "Not so, Ananda! Noble friends and noble conversation are the WHOLE of the holy life."

The reason is that someone posted how much they agreed with the quote from Mark Twain I posted on 4 July:

"The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are right."

It comes back to the real business of life...seeing that my precious relationships are in tact, maintained with authenticity and honesty...which to be truthful, after an "extremely expensive" education which primed me with the perverted wisdom of never displaying my emotions, are not always my strong suit.

But I guess Buddha knew, having grown up in an extremely controlling family, that unless we have a really good level of human honesty about ourselves no amount of meditation will prepare us for the eightfold path of right living. To neglect our loved ones, our human relations, for a path of solitary path of meditation, can be a costly affair. I for one know what it is to put a spiritual bypass around my problems - I just seemed to rehatch them into bigger and bigger eggs....

Here's another take on the subject:

"A good spiritual friend who will help us to stay on the path, with whom we can discuss our difficulties frankly, sure of a compassionate response, provides an important support system which is often lacking. Although people live and practice together, one-upmanship often comes between them. A really good friend is like a mountain guide. The spiritual path is like climbing a mountain: we don't really know what we will find at the summit. We have only heard that it is beautiful, everybody is happy there, the view is magnificent and the air unpolluted. If we have a guide who has already climbed the mountain, he can help us avoid falling into a crevasse, or slipping on loose stones, or getting off the path. The one common antidote for all our hindrances is noble friends and noble conversations, which are health food for the mind."

-Ayya Khema, When the Iron Eagle Flies

I think Ayya, a German Jewish Buddhist nun who fled the Nazis, is referring to guru with a small g and not a capital g. And this makes a big difference in how you consider her quote...I believe that she is looking to a friend who is perhaps just one step ahead of you on the climb, and with whom the position is often reversed...so there is a wondefully, loving mutuality of respect. A loving, authentic and honest relationship...

Ayya died in November 1997.

Thanks to Geoff Allen for his excellent page of Buddhist quotes, where I sourced this quote.

And by the way, don't you love the picture of Buddha transmitting wisdom to Ananda...

Monday, July 17, 2006

Breathing new life into old bikes


Check out Bicycle Empowerment - fantastic project, recycling this superior form of transport. Heard about it on a BBC Radio 4 programme, driving home from London tonight.

Sunday, July 16, 2006

The main man for manifesting change...





Mike Dooley was in town over the weekend. I went to see him at the home of English Folk Dance, Cecil Sharp House, in north London...

He was inspirational...and pretty cosmic...although a little hung up on Ferraris...but his take on the universe is worth a look...

Saturday, July 15, 2006

A fuzzy head and the need for simple truth

A glass too much wine last night, so I leafed through a book for some mental relief and this is what I found. I really like this saying from Cicero - as it is apt for me: I cannot bear the simple, beautiful truth about myself and my relation to the universe without wrapping it up in a super-duper, many-layered, sophisticated, over-complicated, neurotic package. And I have to unwrap the whole thing every time I want to get to the real me....


"The clearest and simplest notions are almost always concealed by sophisticated meditations."

- Marcus Tullius Cicero

Friday, July 14, 2006

"Please, hear what I'm not saying"




"Please, hear what I'm not saying"
by
Charles C. Finn

Don't be fooled by me...
Don't be fooled by the face that I wear...
For I wear a mask, a thousand masks,
masks that I'm afraid to take off,
and none of them is me.
Pretending is an art that is second nature to me,
but don't be fooled.
For God's sake don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm secure,
that all is sunny and unruffled with me,
within as well as without,
that confidence is my name and coolness my game,
that the water's calm and I'm in command,
and that I need no one.
But don't believe me.
My surface may seem smooth,
but my surface is my mask,
ever-varying and ever-concealing.
Beneath lies no complacence.
Beneath lies confusion and fear and aloneness.
But I hide this. I don't anybody to know it.
I panic at the fear of my weakness,
and fear being exposed.
That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,
a nonchalant, sophisticated facade
to help me pretend,
to shield me from the glance that knows.
But such a glance is precisely my salvation.
My only hope. And I know it.
That is, if it's followed by acceptance,
if it's followed by love,
it's the only thing that can liberate my from myself,
from my own self-built prison walls,
from the barriers that I so painstakingly erect.
It's the only thing that will assure me
of what I can't assure myself,
that I'm really worth something.
But I don't tell you this. I don't dare. I'm afraid to.
I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance,
will not be followed by love.
I'm afraid you'll think less of me, that you'll laugh,
and your laugh will kill me.
I'm afraid that deep down I'm nothing,
that I'm just not good,
and that you'll see this and reject me.
So I play my game, my desperate pretending game,
with a facade of assurance without,
and a trembling child within.
So begins the glittering, but empty parade of masks,
and my life becomes a front.
I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you anything that's really nothing,
and nothing of what's everything,
of what's crying within me.
So when I'm going through my routine,
do not be fooled by what i'm saying.
Please, listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying,
what I'd like to be able to say,
what for survival I need to say,
but what I can't say.
I don't like to hide.
I don't like to play superficial funny games.
I want to stop playing them.
I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me,
but you've got to help me.
You've got to hold out your hand,
even when that's the last thing I seem to want.
Only you can wipe away from my eyes
the blank stare of the breathing dead.
Only you can call me into aliveness.
Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging;
each time you try to understand because you really care,
my heart begins to grow wings,
very small wings,
very feeble wings,
but wings!
With your power to touch me into feeling
you can breath life into me.
I want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me,
how you can be a creator a honest-to-god-creator
of the person that is me
if you choose to.
You alone can brake down the wall behind which I tremble.
You alone can remove my mask.
You alone can release me
from my shadow-world of panic and uncertainty,
from my lonely prison,
if you choose to.
Please, choose to.
Do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you.
A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach to me
the blinder I may strike back.
It's irrational, but despite what the books say about man
often I am irrational.
I fight against the very thing that I cry out for.
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls,
and in this lies my hope.
Please try to beat down those walls
with firm hands,
but with gentle hands
for a child is very sensitive.
Who am I, you may wonder?
I am someone you know very well.
For I am every man you meet
and I am every woman you meet.

Charles C. Finn

Freedom, brotherhood and equality




Just to clock one of the world's great revolutions - of 1789. It began with horrendous bloodshed; and then the monarchy were put back on the throne... But it did start a move towards a fairer way of co-existing despite the horrible bloody legacy...the oppression of the many by the few began to lessen...

But yet again man's humanity to man underscored a revolution that had noble aspirations.

So I return to my noble respiration - feeling uncomfortable in the realm of politics

Thursday, July 13, 2006

A suprising but very welcome inspiration




"It has been women who have breathed gentleness and care into the hard progress of mankind."

- Queen Elizabeth II

Now, here's a turn up for the books - writing with a sense of inspiration about the queen of my country...

And I accept, totally accept, the wisdom of her remarks. We have forgotten the nurturing mother in a mad paternalistic world...where men hold the reins of power but women sit at the seat of power - the heart... My wonderful wife, Josephine, has helped me more than I can say on my journey through the ruins of my life on to the freeway of the heart...

But I need to go one step further and thank the giver of breath for the kindness and comfort that it inhales and exhales into my life - balancing me on a metronome of grace. Inspiring me to give up my right to be miserable. Helping me reach out with a gratitude that leads to generosity. Removing my cloak of isolation so that I can more enjoy the fellowship of my dearest family and friends...

That's something I've wanted to write for a while now - so thanks, your Maj...

Portrait by Christian Furr

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Threefold purity



"So that's threefold purity. It provides good directions for practicing meditation-or any other activity, for that matter. Have no expectation about who you are--the generous one or the mean one or whoever-no expectation of your activity or process, no expectation of fruition. This is how we go from living by concept, freezing ourselves in time and space, to relaxing into the fluid spaciousness with which we were born."

- Pema Chodron, Shambala Sun

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Tibetan monks,"the Olympic athletes of meditation."




Check out this bit of new science...

As interesting as it is, the scientists come at this stuff with a sense of self-congratulory surprise, when monks, yogis and normal people have been relishing it for milennia.

It's a Time Magazine article from Jan this year.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Wise words from Jack on the "climb"



"Even when we do receive good advice, it is easy to ignore it or misinterpret it. The places where we are stuck, those difficult layers of fear and attachment, the points of self-delusion and unworthiness we will encounter, are many.

They come in everyone's practice, and the more educated and competent we believe ourselves to be, the slower the climb and the more foolhardy the falls."

- Jack Kornfield

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

The day after independence day




My American buddy decided over the weekend that is was definitely time for him to leave the UK.

Cody’s been here a while – raising his kids and doing business – and really become a bit of an Anglophile.

He’d had a row with his baseball coach on Saturday, and that triggered a row with a taxi driver, who raised the fare when he’d had to detour via a cash machine.

The upshot was that my friend underpaid the driver slightly…and I think a few choice words were exchanged. And before you know it the police were arresting him, after receiving the taxi driver’s complaint, without allowing him to contact the US Embassy.

He was finger-printed, a DNA swab was taken from his mouth, he spent a few hours in jail and was then released when the police realised the whole silly incident was less than a storm in teacup. But now his data is on the dreaded database.

So it became an Independence Day issue – now Cody could clearly see why so many people emigrated… to the US… and he was now returning to his homeland, and somewhat ironically leaving what for him had become the land of opportunity!

At the time of the call, I empathised with him - and felt almost violated on his behalf at the actions of the boys in blue.

As my indignation waned, it became more of a kettle calling the pot black issue. My experience with the US police literally outgunned my friend's. I had a gun shoved in my face. Admittedly the circumstances were a little challenging for the police – a psychedelic rent-raising party in 1969 California.

I saw Cody on Monday night, and we had a good laugh…. about it....

What does all this mean? What does it have to do with my breath blog?

Well, its just the timing and that very strong word: independence. My reflection was that independence is about an inner freedom. No matter where you live the forces of law and order are not always going to get it right... And in many cases downright wrong.

So, my blog is driven by the contrariness of the world; the sense of injustice that is not recoverable. And all this negative stuff is offset by the magic of resting back and relying on a power greater than me - inflating and deflating my lungs with awesome precision and precious care...

No matter what goes on I feel that I literally have to hang on to my breath, especially when the going gets tough....

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Noble friends and noble conversations - again!




"The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are right."

- Mark Twain

Monday, July 03, 2006

There's no time like the present




"Your brain is capable of handling 140,000 million bits of information in one second, and if you take hours or days or weeks to reach a vital decision, you are short-circuiting your most valuable property."

-Jerry Gillies, the founding director of The Biofeedback Institute


What is significant about this information is that I have what has been called the "limbic system" of the brain which carries out the massive list of bodily functions, perhap even encompasses our unconscious mind, or even keys into the collective function, and it operates under cover.

In other words I "work" without even reflecting on it: digestion, memory, learning, all my physical and nervous systems are just ticking over, controlled by the totally amazing power house of my brain.

I tend to feel, though, that I am my cognitive mind - that prefers coco-pops over corn flakes, dislikes the neighbours, justifies procrastination etc. This part of me can only process a pathetic amount of data a second, and is not hard wired into all my systems and beyond. It is as if it acts like a constant brake to my amazing God-given ability. I mean "handling 140,000 million bits of information in one second". How far out am I? And you too! Because we're all at it.

Mr Gillies' point, I believe, is that I should learn to trust my big, big brain and not my more trivial mind (used here in its limited sense).

This comes up again and again in my life, letting go to my better nature, or higher self, and not listening to my cognitive mind, which seems to sift and amplify my neuroses of fear, anger and resentment.

The exponents of pyschoneuroimmunology like Dr Nichol Clarke at Helionics have demonstrated the power of the limbic system to move away from past patterns and improve the quality of my aspirations. Tim Galwey found the benefit of collaborating with the limbic system in his ground-breaking "Inner Game of Tennis" in the 1970s. Harnessing our hidden unselfconscious powers was found to radically improve on court performance and enjoyment.

Fantastic subject, but as far as I can go with it tonight after a long, heatwave day.

Keep the breath!

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Wish fulfilling jewel


Apparently, the wish fulfilling jewel is virtue.

If you are virtuous, you get what you want...

On reflection, I think that is true, do you?

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Teachers and teaching




"When after the rain, water flows from the roof through pipes, it seems to us that water flows out of these pipes, but in reality it falls from the sky. The same phenomenon can be seen with religious teachings taught to us by holy people. It seems to us that this teaching comes from them, but in reality these teachings come from God.

- Sri Ramakrishna (1836-1886, pictured above "in samadhi")

The passing of time

Half of 2006 has just vanished - where I don't exactly know? (Does anyone?) It has made me think of my age - mid-50s...

And yesterday I came across a book The New Yoga for people over 50

I found two remarkable quotes in the excerpt they carry on Amazon asserting that physical age is not as daunting as one imagines when pushing up towards 60. A dear friend of mine once got involved with a zany group who believed in physcial immortality - until their friends starting popping their clogs.

The quotes are below. The pictures are (above) from Vigeland Sculpture Park in Helsinki by the eponymous Gustav and Goya below. The sculpture seems to be a vision of old age as something robust - even a feeling of defiance that it should be taking its toll. Definitely a couple of yogis.

Goya's vision is more frightening a feeling of falling into a petty, recriminating, helpless old age.

"We need to change our idea of what aging is. If I know my biological potential is 130 years, then I don't consider myself middle-aged until I'm 65... One of the great principles of mind/body medicine is that expectancies determine outcome. If you expect to remain strong in old age, you will."

Deepak Chopra, Ageless body, timeless mind



Advanced age is not a static, irreversible biological condition of unwavering decrepitude. Rather it's a dynamic state that, in most people, can be changed for the better no matter how many years they lived or neglected their bodies in the past - Yes, you do have a second chance to right the wrong you've committed against your body. Your body can be rejuvenated. You can regain vigour, vitality, muscular strength and aerobic endurance you thought were gone forever... this is possible whether you're middle-aged or pushing 80. The 'markers' of biological aging can be more than altered: in the case of specific physiological functions, they can actually reversed.

- William Evans: Biomarkers, the 10 keys to Prolonging Vitality






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