Oh my Goodness!

One of my contacts posted this on Yahoo Answers and I just had to share.
It's Shirley Temple singing... I don't know what film it's from, but it's

Oh...my...Goodness!

Buddha on Flowers

Ingredients:

Sayings of Buddha on "Flowers".
Rendered in haiku form.

This is fourth in the series.

The painting is by Odilon Redon. I know very little about him, but he also painted the "Red Boat with Blue[?!] Sail" in my avatar.

Directions:

Who will examine
This earthen body as if
Examining flowers?

Who will delve beyond
The kingdoms of men and gods
In search of rare truths?

You shall do all this,
And on the path of truth find
Flowers beyond compare.

Froth on a wave’s crest,
An evanescent mirage,
Such is this body.

Mind out the three flowers
Of pleasure, will and knowledge.
Their gifts are fleeting.

Flowers hide arrows.
Shun their allure and move on
Like fish shunning bait.

Picking and choosing
Flowers in the garden of life,
The vase stays empty.

Vainly loitering,
Death will sweep him up, like floods
A sleeping village.

As the bee collects
Nectar, not harming the flower,
So the wise should live.

Do not watch others,
Of their deeds or of their faults.
Judge only yourself.

No use to oneself
Is beauty without fragrance,
Words without practice.

How joyful to have
Flowers beautiful and fragrant,
Words lived in practice!

Flowers make fine garlands.
So too the wise can arrange
Their wealth to do good.

No scent blows upwind,
No fragrance of flower or tree,
Except for virtue.

Sandalwood smells fine,
Rosebay, jasmine, lotus too,
But virtue’s supreme.

Desire afflicts not
The virtuous and mindful ones,
Their way free from dust.

How sweet the lotus
That has emerged out of mud
To share its perfume.

Like one awakened,
Emerging among the blind,
May you too shine forth.

Buddha on Mind

Ingredients:

Sayings of Buddha on "Mind".
Rendered in haiku form.

This is the third in the series continuing on from

1. Buddha on Choices
2. Buddha on Mindfulness

The image by Frederic Leighton is Perseus on the winged horse Pegasus riding to the rescue of Andromeda, and the horse seems to me to both represent the energetic power and the restlessness of mind.

Directions:

As arrow-makers
Make their arrows straight, the wise
Direct their stray thoughts.

Thoughts thrash and quiver
Like a fish out of water,
Stranded from desire.

When the mind trembles,
Focus it on just one thing
In meditation.

Guard only your mind.
It is a slippery nymph,
Supple and absurd.

Thoughts wander at will,
But the master controls them.
This brings happiness.

The mind wanders far,
But the master reins it in
And ends its wandering.

Mind is not matter;
It lies within the chamber
Of your hidden heart.

The mind that is trained
Will find the way to freedom
And will not waver.

The mind that wavers
Will never fill with knowledge
And will lose its way.

The vigilant mind,
Free of judgment and impulse,
Sees and understands.

This bodily form,
Though weak like an earthen jar,
The mind keeps it safe.

In every hardship,
Make of your mind a castle
Fortified with love.

Guard the mind’s castle
With the light of knowledge held
Without attachment.

Before long, alas,
The body will pass away,
Mindless as a log.

A thief or rival
May harm you, but not as much
As your wayward mind.

Mastering your own mind
Will help you, more even than
Father or mother.

Buddha on Mindfulness

Ingredients:

Sayings of Buddha (5th century BC) on "Mindfulness".
Rendered in haiku form.

This is a continuation from Buddha on Choices.

The image is "The Valkyrie's Vigil" by Edward Robert Hughes.

Directions:

Mindfulness of life
Is the way of Nibbana.
Mindful ones don’t die.

Distraction from life
Is the way of Death. Fools sleep,
As if they were dead.

Awake and knowing,
How happy the wise are in
Noble mindfulness.

Ever practicing
Concentration and insight,
The goal: Nibbana.

Striving for freedom,
Mind fixed on the ultimate,
The wise break all bonds.

Awake, purify,
Work with care and compassion
And live in the Way.

The fame and fortune
Of the heedful and mindful
Will surely increase.

Through diligent work,
Disciplined in thought and deed,
You will see the light.

Like men of wisdom,
Make yourself an island which
No flood overwhelms.

The fool is careless,
But the master guards the door
Of the jewel of mind.

He yields not to lust,
But meditates and resolves
To find inner joy.

Masters see the world
As mountain dwellers see those
Who live on the plain.

The wise in his tower
Looks down at the madding crowd
With impartial gaze.

Among the mindless,
He wakes, swift as a racehorse
And outstrips the field.

Indra was mindful,
And became king of the gods.
Awake like Indra!

He who sees danger
In sleep, advances like fire,
Burning through all bonds.

He who is content
In mindfulness will not fall.
Indeed, he is close.

Life is not a dream
So wake up and wake up and
Find the way to peace.

Buddha on Choices

Ingredients:

Sayings of the Buddha (5th century BC) on "Choices".
The Buddha needs no introduction, lol.
Rendered in haiku form.

The image is "Choosing" by George Frederic Watts.

Directions:

We are what we think,
Arising out of our thoughts,
Our thoughts make the world.

Speak with impure mind
And trouble will follow you
As the wheel the ox.

We are what we think,
Arising out of our thoughts,
Our thoughts make the world.

Acting with pure mind,
Happiness will follow you,
Your faithful shadow.

“Look how he abused,
Cast me down, beat and robbed me.”
Thinking this, we hate.

“Look how he abused,…”
Stop and abandon such thoughts.
Stopping them, you love.

Hate is never good
For hate begets more hatred
And so it goes on.

Hate is healed by love,
Not hate; this is an ancient
And eternal law.

You too shall perish.
Knowing we shall both perish,
How can you quarrel?

Lost in the senses,
Like a frail tree in the wind,
You’ll be uprooted.

Master of yourself,
In the winds of temptation,
You’ll be a mountain.

He whose thoughts are stained,
Unmindful and deceitful,
May not wear the robes.

He whose thoughts are clear,
Mindful in his truthfulness,
He may wear the robes.

Ignorant of truth,
He who follows his desire
Overlooks the heart.

Seeing true and false,
He who looks into his heart
Follows his nature.

As rain penetrates
An ill-thatched roof, so does lust
Penetrate the mind.

He with impure mind
Suffers here and hereafter,
More so seeing his wrongs.

Sheltered by pure mind,
He rejoices in both worlds,
More so seeing his good.

Whatever you read,
Or speak of scripture, what good
If you do not act?

Are you a shepherd
Who counts another man’s sheep
But does not lead them?

Read little, speak less,
But act in truth, forsaking
Lust, hate and folly.

Knowing truth, mind freed,
In peace here and hereafter,
Share by example.

The Courage to Awaken to Bodhicitta (Pema Chödrön)

When I teach, I begin with a compassionate aspiration.

I express the wish that we will apply the teachings in our everyday lives.
I encourage the audience to keep an open mind. At the end,
I dedicate the merit of the occasion to all beings.

This approach reflects what are called the three noble principles: good in the beginning, good in the middle, good in the end. They can be used for all activities of our lives: to begin with the intention to be open, flexible and kind, to proceed with an inquisitive attitude, as Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche used to say, “Live your life as an Experiment”, and finally, to seal the act by thinking of others, that anything we learned in our experiment may benefit them. In this spirit I offer this guide on the training of the compassionate warrior.

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” (St. Exupéry)

I learnt my first lesson in bodhicitta when I was six and kicking my way home. An old woman sitting in the sun said to me, laughing, “don’t you go letting life harden your heart”. Reacting to difficulty, we have a choice.

What is bodhicitta? It is easier to understand than explain, knowing and discovering it from our own lives. It is only bodhicitta that heals. Citta means “mind”, and also “heart” or “attitude”. Bodhi means “awake”, “enlightened” or “completely open”. Sometimes the completely open heart and mind of bodhicitta is called the “soft spot”, a place as vulnerable and tender as an open wound. It is in part equated with our ability to love. Even the cruellest have it. As Trungpa Rinpoche put it, “we all love something, even if it’s only tortillas”.

It is also equated in part with compassion, our ability to feel the pain of others. We continually shield ourselves from this pain because it scares us. We put up protective walls, made of opinions, prejudices and strategies, barriers that are built on a deep fear of being hurt. These walls are further fortified by emotions such as anger, craving, indifference, jealousy, envy, arrogance and pride. But fortunately for us, the soft spot – our innate ability to love and to care about things – is like a crack in these walls. With practice we can learn to find this opening. We can learn to seize that vulnerable moment – love, gratitude, loneliness, embarrassment, inadequacy – to awaken bodhicitta.

The rawness of a genuine heart of sadness can teach us great compassion. It can humble us when we’re arrogant and soften us when we are unkind. It awakens us when we prefer to sleep and pierces through our indifference. This continual ache of the heart is a blessing that when accepted fully can be shared with all. The Buddha said we are never separated from enlightenment. Even when we feel most stuck, we are never alienated from the awakened state. What a revolutionary assertion! Bodhicitta, like the open sky, is always here, undiminished by the clouds that cover it. Just we’ve got so accustomed to those clouds!

Bodhicitta exists on two levels. First, there is unconditional bodhicitta, an immediate experience, refreshingly free of concept. Second there is relative bodhicitta, the ability to keep heart and mind open to suffering without shutting down. The man or woman who trains wholeheartedly to awaken these two is a bodhisattva or warrior of compassion. The training involves going through fire to alleviate suffering, willing to face the most challenging situations, willing to cut through personal reactivity and self-deception, dedicated to uncovering the basic undistorted energy of bodhicitta.

Wherever we are, we may train. The practice of meditation, loving-kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity are our tools, and with their help we uncover the soft spot of bodhicitta. We find it in tenderness, sorrow and gratitude. We find it hiding behind the hardness of rage and the shakiness of fear.

A warrior accepts that we can never know what will happen to us next. This “I” who wants to find security, who wants something to hold onto, can finally learn to grow up. The question for the warrior is not how we avoid uncertainty and fear, but how we relate to discomfort? All too frequently, we are like timid birds who don’t dare to leave their nest. Here we sit in a nest that’s getting pretty smelly and that hasn’t served its function for a very long time. No-one is arriving. No-one is protecting. And yet we keep hoping mother bird will show up and save the day. We can do ourselves the ultimate favour and finally get out of that nest! It takes courage for sure, and we could use some helpful hints. We may doubt, but do we want to live the rest of our lives in fear or do we want to grow up and face life directly?

Jack Kornfield tells a touching story how the Cambodians, repressed by the Khmer Rouge and forbidden to practice their religion, established a temple in a refugee camp, despite the danger of doing so, and opened it with a continuous chant of one of the central teachings of the Buddha:
 
Hatred never ceases by hatred
But by love alone is healed.
This is an ancient and eternal law.
 
Bodhicitta has this kind of power. It will support us in good times and bad. It is like discovering a wisdom and courage we do not even know we have. Just as alchemy would change any element to gold, bodhicitta can, if we let it, transform any activity word or thought into a vehicle for awakening our compassion.

The blog originally appeared on Buddhist Travelers.

The Wildest Dream (US, 2010)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Documentary

What if we could bring the dead back to life? In fantasy, we could find out what they alone know. But in reality, the dead keep their secrets. The best we can do is to follow in their footsteps. “The Wildest Dream” is a documentary filmed on a climb to the top of Everest interspersed with interviews, photos, archive footage and narrated correspondence from the 1920s as the American climber, Conrad Anker, retraces the steps of the indomitable British explorer George Mallory, his love for his wife, "dearest Ruth", his fatal attraction for Everest, that "prodigious white fang, an excrescence from the jaw of the world", and seeks to answer whether it was possible that he reached the summit of the world almost thirty years before it was finally conquered. He was last seen with his travelling companion Andrew Irvine a few hundred metres from the top before the clouds rolled in and obscured them from view. Only recently his body was re-discovered, face down in the scree and arms outstretched to catch his fall. But was he coming down or still going up? All his belongings were intact, frozen in time, but the photo of his wife which he had promised to place at the top of Everest was nowhere to be found. Had he already fulfilled his promise?

It is a beautiful and moving story. On the first expedition, Mallory, approaching from Tibet because Nepal had forbidden access from the easier South side, eventually managed to find a winding glacial valley that led right to the foot of Everest itself. But monsoon snows made climbing impossible after June. Six months later he would return and try again, but the expedition was hit by a fatal avalanche. In 1924, at the age of 38, he would try for a third and last time. Despite the pain of separation from his wife and three children, the fire of his dream still burned strong and he couldn’t bear to think others would achieve the crowning glory by building on his pioneering work.

Climbing Mount Everest as the filmmakers did to make this film is never to be taken lightly. They tested out wearing gabardine and hobnail boots as Mallory had done, but quickly reverted to modern clothing to avoid the danger of frostbite. What courage, what resolve, what fearless determination and pioneering spirit that Mallory and Irvine had to get so far! Whether they made it on that last fateful day, only a few hours from the top but with the difficult Second Step in their way, we’ll never know. But this documentary, despite an inherent bias in the making, shows that it was indeed possible, and despite that bias we can well believe they did. Within touching distance, a greater power takes over. In a tragic twist of fate, Natasha Robertson, who played the mountaineer’s wife, passed away in a freak skiing accident in 2009 and the film is dedicated to her.

This documentary is powerful and a great feat in itself in the making, and yet it lacks a balance of perspective from the doubters. The loving letters between Mallory and his wife provide a beautiful commentary, but still the movie becomes somewhat earthy and could have done with more about the poetry, culture and psychology of the mountain. If the spiritual is reduced to the physical, then something is lost. Eerily, the lama of the Rongbuk monastery where Mallory paid homage before his ascent warned him unequivocally not to disturb the sacred spirit of the mountain, and it's easy to see why none in the East had tried before. It took a certain combination of the selfishness and selflessness that characterised this golden age of exploration. When asked by an American reporter why he wanted to climb Everest, Mallory is said to have replied, "Because it is there", distilling perfectly the notion of emptiness and purpose for purpose's sake. However, though Mallory survived the Battle of the Somme, he could not survive Everest. He made the ultimate sacrifice. The word sacrifice literally means an act in the name of the sacred.

I leave the last words to George Malloray...

"We have conquered the mountain, and the mountain was in us."