[Megan]

tracyrtwyman, I totally agree!

Just to pass the time....

First, the atheist:

Bertrand Russell: The Science to Save Us from Science

But all who are not lunatics are agreed about certain things: That it is better to be alive than dead, better to be adequately fed than starved, better to be free than a slave.

Many people desire these things only for themselves and their friends; they are quite content that their enemies should suffer.

These people can be refuted by science: Mankind has become so much one family that we cannot insure our own prosperity except by insuring that of everyone else.

If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign to seeing others also happy.

Throw in a coupla gurus:

You are all the time only relating to yourself.
--Sri Bhagavan

Krishnamurti's Big Secret:

I don't mind what happens.

A smidgeon of Bible:

Jesus, in the Book of Matthew:

Why, then, do you look at the speck in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the log in your own eye?

How dare you say to your brother, 'Please, let me take that speck out of your eye,' when you have a log in your own eye?

You hypocrite! First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will be able to see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

A pinch of prominent Buddhist:

Each of us is like a bubble of awareness.

When we transform ourselves, free ourselves from inner knots and blemishes and blossom out our inner beauties, our new openness and blissful pleasure resonates instantaneously and reinforces liberation and satisfaction in the other bubbles. Changing ourselves for the better changes the world for the better.

--Robert Thurman, Infinite Life, p. 50

And some Buddhist-Trekky wisdom (who knew?):

Anger Has No Arms or Legs
By Justine Willis Toms

Early this morning I was contemplating the Buddhist saying, "Anger has no arms or legs," when an old episode of Star Trek came to mind.

There is an invisible entity that has entered the Enterprise. The crew can't see it, but the audience can. It appears as a swirling energy pattern near the ceiling, and moves about the ship at will.

Klingons are on the ship fighting one-on-one with members of the Federation crew. Every time there is a fight, the swirling energy pattern gets bigger. We, the audience, can see that this entity gets its energy from anger, fighting, and negativity in general.

At some point Captain Kirk and his crew figure this out, and negotiate with the Klingons to be friendly. An extraordinary scene unfolds: These mortal enemies begin to walk about the ship with their arms around one another in joyous camaraderie. They laugh and joke and poke fun at one another with good humor.

As they do, the malevolent presence begins to dwindle until it is just a wisp, and it finally leaves the ship for lack of the energy on which it depends for its survival.

http://www.ndbroadcasting.org/read.php?id=JT20070201

Can't leave out the Native Americans:

All My Relations:

Instead of modern medicine’s view of separation that focuses on fixing unique body parts in distinct individuals separate from each other and the environment, Native Americans believe we are all synergistically part of a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts; healing must be considered within this context. Specifically, we are all connected at some level to each other, Mother Earth (i.e., nature), Father Sky, and all of life through the Creator (Iroquois), Great Spirit (Lakota), Great Mystery (Ojibway), or Maker of All Things Above (Crow).

This sense of wholeness and connection is implied by the concluding phrase of healing prayers and chants “All my Relations,” which dedicates these invocations to all physical and spiritual relations that are a part of the Great Spirit.

To metaphorically describe our universal connection, the Lakota use the phrase mitakuye oyasin – “We are all related,” while Southwest pueblo tribes, who consider corn as a life symbol, state “We are all kernels on the same corncob.”

NATIVE-AMERICAN MEDICINE

Or the Aborigines:

Aboriginal Wisdom:

These people believe everything exists on the planet for a reason. Everything has a purpose. There are no freaks, misfits, or accidents. There are only misunderstandings and mysteries not yet revealed to mortal man.

from MUTANT MESSAGE DOWN UNDER by Marlo Morgan

Some Sufi sages:

The sun never says to the earth,
"You owe me."

Look what happens with a love like that.
It lights up the whole sky.
--Hafiz

Beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other'
doesn't make sense any more.
--Rumi

And Z is for Zen:

Judgment

My Zen teachers were fond of pointing out that making judgments is one of the subtlest ways of no longer being in the present.

The logic is simple. All judging is based on comparison, and comparison requires that we leave the present for past or future.

No one can decide for us when judgment works for us and when it doesn’t. When life requires judgment, it works. When we’re making ourselves miserable with judgment, it’s time to be present.

jack/zen » Blog Archive » Judgment

"Weeds only grow when we dislike them."