My lovely wife just bought me a new digital camera for my up-coming birthday and one of my favorite features available is the ability to take black and white pictures. This is a black and white picture that I took of my photo of Thay (as Thich Nhat Hanh is known by his students) on our altar. The beads wrapped around the picture are of my old 108 bead mala.I thought I'd also add a great view on the different religions of the world by the Great Mahatma Gandhi:
Religions are different roads converging on the same point. What does it matter that we take different roads so long as we reach the same goal? I believe that all religions of the world are true more or less. I say "more or less" because I believe that everything the human hand touches, by reason of the very fact that human beings are imperfect, becomes imperfect.
-Mahatma Gandhi
This is great wisdom. No matter how much we believe in a religion they are all run by imperfect beings. The Buddha understood this problem with organized religion. This is why the Great Awakened One taught us to not believe what he said (or anyone says) unless we have come to that conclusion from our own internal investigation. Also the teaching that attachment to the trappings of a "religion" will not get us very far on the path to liberation. It just becomes another hobby. This is why I often refer to myself in writing as a "Buddhist." The quotes present because after all what is a "Buddhist?"
However, (as you know) it is inquiring within through grounding, personal practice is what sets us free.
Above is a picture of one of the cute little finches that visit our bird feeder on a daily basis (with a section of the yellow prayer flag in front). Late this morning as I was meditating they were really talking up a storm and it made me smile in many moments during my sitting practice today.
With my eyes closed all I could sense was their chirping and in that moment I was transported to all the different places that finches live. I was there in all those places at once. It was a beautiful experience of non-self, suchness, interconnectivity, inter-being or whatever feeble words one might use to explain the moment.
~Peace to all beings~
