May All Beings Be Free From Suffering

May All Beings Be Free From Suffering by Tracy Cochran

Eight years ago this morning,  I was riding a Metro North train down to Manhattan when a conductor ran through the train with the terrible and surreal news that the World Trade Center towers had collapsed and that the Pentagon had been hit.

I knew about the two planes going in when I boarded the train but in a distant echo of the way so many other New Yorkers acted that day, my instinct was to head towards the trouble. When I heard the terrible news, I spontaneously began to say a Buddhist metta prayer for all the people I pictured falling to their deaths: May you be free from suffering… May you be at ease. I wasn't in denial. It was one of those rare moments in life where the heart steps in and takes over for the head and all the distracting thoughts, fears, and sense of separation between myself and others came down. It was as if my heart was with them, as if they were the same as I was.

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The Art of Collecting

 Photograph by Philip Clayton Thompson

Our personal tastes, our budget as well as the space  that we have to our disposition will determine the character and the size of our collection. One does not have to be a connoisseur to start a collection. But one will become one as soon as his or her involvement with the collection gets more and more serious. 

There are many things that can be collected, both modern and vintage, and many ways to display them. There are no limits to our creativity...

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Cities of the Future

In the future "it would be far easier and would require less energy to build new, efficient cities than to attempt to update and solve the problems of the old ones. The Venus Project proposes a Research City that would use the most sophisticated available resources and construction techniques. Its geometrically elegant and efficient circular arrangement will be surrounded by, and incorporated into the city design, parks and lovely gardens. This city will be designed to operate with the minimum expenditure of energy using the cleanest technology available, which will be in harmony with nature to obtain the highest possible standard of living for everyone. This system facilitates efficient transportation for city residents, eliminating the need for automobiles...

Skyscrapers would be constructed of reinforced and pre-stressed concrete, steel and glass. They will be stabilized against earthquakes and high winds by three massive, elongated, tapered columns. These support structures will surround the cylindrical central tower, which is 150 feet wide and almost a mile high. This tripod-like structure is reinforced to diminish compression, tension, and torsion stresses. These super-size skyscrapers will assure that more land will be available for parks and wilderness preserves, while concurrently helping to eliminate urban sprawl. Each one of these towers will be a total enclosure system containing a shopping center, as well as childcare, educational, health, and recreational facilities. This will help alleviate the need to travel to outside facilities."

These excerpts come from a longer article published on a wonderfully visionary and futuristic website The Venus Project

Image: Architectural project by Zaha Hadid

The Tao of Now

“Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes,” writes Henry Miller, as quoted by Josh Baran in The Tao of Now. “Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly.”  This sums up how I feel about the collection. After reading it cover to cover, it struck me that there is no rhyme or reason - no set path - in the order of the passages other than to point out Present Moment Awareness.   According to Baran, a former Zen monk, these quotes are the most “re-mindful” when it comes to “looking at now.” And he’s right. I was surprised how many times I found myself totally present with the book in hand, especially when Baran adds his own personal comments and reflections directing our attention back to the present moment: “Are you reading now, in full presence and connection?”

 

Baran’s anthology offers much inspiration to “be here now.”  You do not have to follow any particular tradition or way or technique or believe in any individual thing to reap its benefits: you just have to bring your attention again and again to the “now.”  The Tao of Now (in its first incarnation, 365 Nirvana Here and Now) incorporates quotes from great poets and novelists.

Image by Eugene Suo-Me
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In Praise of Shadows...

We Orientals find beauty not only in the thing itself but in the pattern of the shadows, the light and darkness which that thing provides. - Jumichiro Tanizaki

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