Please come and take your seat...

Here is your seat.

It rests on top of a three legged stool.

It grows within the upright sitting posture.

Please, come, come...

Your seat is waiting for you.

Please come and take your seat...

The Glass Menagerie

It has been many, many years since I've read or seen Tennessee William's play "The Glass Menagerie..." but as I recall there is a character in the play who is enchanted by a set of glass figurines... she is somewhat spellbound by them and tends to live her life fixed upon them....she is unable to see through them, to see through her enchantment with them...the audience knows and sees but she is not able to see for herself...

This precept, this precept about anger includes our enchantment with the figurines in our world from what Shantideva calls the "little cares" to what we imagine to be the "big cares." We become spellbound in our mind, wanting the moments of our lives to reflect what we have in our minds, from our conditions and habits and when it does not we get angry...the anger protects us from falling through and seeing through to disenchantment....it is there where we are actually free, actually sober enough, to stay with the real situations. Anger is a surface for the enchantment below. Anger is a little bell, a clacker to take a look around for the spellbinding going on in your heart and mind.

Shortcut to Enlightenment

Start by putting yourself at ease. Then notice what takes you away from being at ease. Then go back to being at ease. It's one, two, three...being generous with all the senses comes from a place of ease....

generous eyes

generous taste

generous touch

generous smell

generous ears

generous mind-heart

Make the best of friends

Meeting everything...just that. Meeting what comes into life right in front of you; inside and out. Meeting and greeting without gripes; without critcism; without corrections; sweeping is an example...meeting the floor with the broom; meeting the broom; hearing feeling sweeping without rushing; without pushing; shoving. Meeting sweeping.

Meeting the wishes, fears, sorrows, memories, hates, aches, itches, pains, complaints, measures, meeting all the birds that fly into your life.

Making friends.

No Gripes - 6th & 7th Precepts

This precept is an encouragement to practice equanimity...everyone is welcome; every part of yur self, every being in every place welcomed. No one faulted, criticized, x'd out, left out, not included. It is the precept to help us leave the mundane pair of praise and blame. Welcome aboard....ahoy.