Attention All Animal Lovers: Stop the Madness in Utah!

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Attention All Animal Lovers: Stop the Madness in Utah!

We here at Future Twits love feral cats.  We personally support and care for a colony of feral cats.  By working with these animals, feeding and caring for them, they are now more like outdoor pets than feral animals.  Still, these cats will probably never be tame enough to live in a house or be your typical lap sitting, human loving cat.  I ask though, do they deserve to die?  An accident of birth forced them to be homeless and friendless on the day they were born.  These cats keep the mice population down and bother no one.  Should it be someone else's choice if these cats wander from our property to decide whether they live or die?  Please if Utah House Bill 210 passes consider boycotting Utah.  DO NOT visit Utah and support their large tourism industry, cancel business conferences, and avoid buying any product from Utah.  Hit Utah where it will really hurts in their pocketbook.  PLEASE all animal lovers out there this bill is not just for feral cats.  Do we really need crazy animal hating rednecks running around the countryside shooting anything that moves in order to “kill them crazy varmints” that might spread a fictitious disease to their inbred idiot families.  Utah notoriously comes up with really stupid bills and laws.  Please do not support “legalized” animal abuse.  STOP THE MADNESS!!!

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Rocky Mountain Buddhist Hermit.

Growing up at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, (Colorado) spending decades climbing their heights and summer's backpacking into remote, mountain lakes for a week's stay, has been monumental in helping my Dharma practice.

It is also why I am so attracted to the way of the Buddhist hermit who's monastery is the mountain-tops (or forests) and his sangha the wildlife. Nature teaches you patience, paying attention, doing more with less, appreciating what you have and expecting the unexpected. In short -- it teaches you how to live in the present moment.

In the high mountains, (10,000 ft above sea level and higher) circumstances can change faster than a blink of an eye. The altitude changes everything to where you have to be alert at all times to survive. It can be warm, short's weather down in town during the month of August when we go backpacking; yet you still have to pack winter gear. You can be hiking in shorts and sunshine one minute and the next minute find yourself in a driving snowstorm. I have spent more than one August, summer's day held up inside a tent at 11,000 ft. above sea level, gazing out of the tent at a snow storm settling in around the camp site.When backpacking you take a fold-out backpacking stove (seen above, with fuel canister) to cook freeze-dried food, which isn't gourmet but when eaten after hiking up an 11,000 foot mountain, it tastes better than what any five-star chef in Paris could whip up. That's because you appreciate it more after having busted your ass-off and spent all your energy on putting one foot in front of another, slowly, up and up the mountain. It is the best food you've had all year because it is literally the only food you have. You take care not to let one drop hit the ground because each bite is precious for needed calories. Yet, how much food do we waste at home? Each bite of food is savored mindfully like it was the first meal to cross your lips in ages--even the bowls and kettle are licked clean of sustenance. It teaches you to focus on simply eating and enjoying it.

Everything in the mountains must be done with great care and attention to detail, which, again is why it's a great place to practice and live the Dharma. For example, getting a drink of water entails an entire process of purification pumps and water storage bottle balancing. It's not like flipping on the tap at home; but that water is the best water you'll ever taste because of the attention you put into gathering it. And, you see it as a lot more precious than the water you pour out of the tap at home. You find yourself rationing it out throughout the day because if you guzzle it all at lunch, then you have to hike back up to the glacier to pump some more because you don't ever want to be caught out in the wild without water.

Then there is shelter, which takes on a whole other importance when backpacking. Carrying everything you need for a week on your back means you're near-homeless and that makes you cherish your flimsy tent as though it were a palace. It makes you thankful for a warm place to sleep with some cover over-head. And you begin to realize that you don't need a big house let alone a mansion. I guess I relate so much to these hermit monks because I have lived the last two decades preparing for just such a life. One day perhaps, when, (and if) I feel the time is right, I will disappear into the mountains and build my small hut to spend the rest of my days meditating in. Not out of searching for the, "enlightenment treasure chest" but out of letting go of it.

Not to become some fabled "mountain-top guru." In fact, if you try, and come looking for me to be my student, I will shoo you away because there are much better qualified teachers than this crazy-eyed Buddhist. It's about being an anonymous being living out the rest of his days in the natural world--our true home. A home that humans have nearly abandoned for the accouterments and attachments of city life. We need to reclaim that home. I don't think everyone can or should become a mountain hermit but for me, it's in my karma. I have known from a young age that my life would find me living a life of solitude in the mountains at some point.

I will no longer feel attached to the desires of city life; and the choice will be made for me. I'll leave that city life chaos to more capable hands. At that stage of spiritual life, the best place for me would be in nature, where life exists at it's most basic foundation. A good place to leave this world from when the moment arrives.

~Peace to all beings~

Living the Simple Life: Stories and Teachings of Munindra.

Anagarika Munindra was a Bengali Buddhist master who many (certainly in the west) might not of heard about, and there's a reason for it. He was a very simple yet profound man who didn't seek attention or recognition for his presence of being. Yet the energy that he radiated made him a magnet that seekers of awakening couldn't help but be attracted to. Whenever he went; people followed.

His teaching was not complicated, which in my mind that is the true nature of Buddhadharma. Recently some students of his compiled a book ("Living this Life Fully: Stories and teachings of Munindra") of what it was like to learn from his side and the end result is a true example in living the Dharma. He doesn't just teach you--he shows you.

I get a lot of Dharma books from publishers and there are a fair number that rarely grab my attention immediately. A lot of times I find myself laboriously hacking my way through a dull and scattered book as if I was making my way through the maze-like Ituri rain forest in Congo, Africa. I was pleased, however, to crack open this book to the first page and be greeted with this breath of Dharmic fresh air.

Everything is meditation in this practice, even while eating, drinking, dressing, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, thinking. Whatever you are doing, everything should be done mindfully, dynamically, with totality, completeness, thoroughness, Then it becomes meditation, meaningful, purposeful. It is not thinking but experiencing from moment to moment, living from moment to moment, without clinging, without condemnation, without judging, without evaluating, without comparing, without selecting, without criticizing--choiceless awareness. Meditation is not only sitting; it is a way of living. It should be integrated with your whole life. It is actually an education in how to see, how to hear, how to smell, how to eat, how to drink, how to walk with full awareness. To develop mindfulness is the most important factor in the process of awakening.

James: What else needs to be said of the Dharma? Indeed it is simple if one can be totally absorbed in each moment; whatever that moment might find us doing. This teaching reminds me so much my Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh addresses Dharma practice. A lot of this book mirrors what Nhat Hanh speaks of, so if you like his style then you'll really get a lot out of this book. Another section that resonated with me was Munindra's approach to sectarianism, which is so silly. Sectarianism is like two school boys having a contest to see who can pee the furthest. The Buddha taught one Dharma and that's the approach Munindra takes. As one student said of him, "awareness was awareness, and it was open to anyone." Student Eric Kupers noticed: I didn't notice any sectarianism from him at all, or "you gotta sign up for something" or "you shouldn't sign up for something." It was just very much about living truth of the teachings in the moment in a very down-to-earth way.

James: Such wisdom resonates deeply within my essence because when we are truly absorbed with the present moment, all lines of demarcation between "us and them" fall apart like an structureless cloud revealing a clarity of mind that is as crisp and clear as the blue sky. Munindra understood firmly that no sect, tradition or teacher has a copyright on the present moment. It belongs to none of us, yet is apart of us. As student Robert Sharf remembers, "Basically, it doesn't matter style of practice you're doing. Either you're doing it mindfully or you're not."

This is an excellent book on showing the way to being at one with the freedom of the present moment. So, while formal meditation is very valuable we must learn how to make our meditation mobile. Thus, it infuses our every moment and we can practice anywhere and at anytime. You'll find powerful insights packed into just the first few chapters more than the entire length of a lot of books. It's a must have for a serious Dharma practitioner.

~Peace to all beings~

The Science of Meditation.

Emory, Georgia (USA) -- For thousands of years, Buddhist meditators have claimed that the simple act of sitting down and following their breath while letting go of intrusive thoughts can free one from the entanglements of neurotic suffering. Now, scientists are using cutting-edge scanning technology to watch the meditating mind at work. They are finding that regular meditation has a measurable effect on a variety of brain structures related to attention — an example of what is known as neuroplasticity, where the brain physically changes in response to an intentional exercise. The same researchers reported last year that longtime meditators don't lose gray matter in their brains with age the way most people do, suggesting that meditation may have a neuro-protective effect.

A rash of other studies in recent years meanwhile have found, for example, that practitioners of insight meditation have noticeably thicker tissue in the prefrontal cortex (the region responsible for attention and control), and that experienced Tibetan monks practicing compassion meditation generate unusually strong and coherent gamma waves in their brains.

James: I think this is partly why so many Buddhist monks live so long. Thich Nhat Hanh for example is in his 80's but could easily pass for 60. He'll be 82 on the 11th of this month. I wrote a few posts back on how meditation and mantra meditation have helped me cope with my schizoaffective disorder. I spoke in that post solely on depersonalization but I wanted to do this post because of the results of the study that show improved attention and control.

Well It got my attention because I am very interested in the relation between science and Buddhism as many of you know and because I have as apart of my mental condition attention deficit disorder (A.D.D.) When a person has A.D.D. it means that they can't "screen out" or filter background "noise" and commotion like most people are able to do. So while it appears as though we are just not "listening" sometimes to someone talking to us or that we can't concentrate upon something it's because we are having to deal with many things at once, which makes it very difficult to focus on one thing. I kind of liken it to having to read a science or math text book to prepare for an exam while the t.v. is loudly playing, while someone is trying to talk to you and while your alarm clock is beeping. Is it any wonder then that we don't retain conversation details as well as folks who don't have A.D.D.?

However, when I meditate I find it much easier to deal with external stimuli. I think part of it is being able to close my eyes to eliminate all the visual distractions that often distract me as I'm very sensitive to colors and images. So with my eyes shut it's somewhat similar to putting a towel over a bird that escaped its cage. It panics and acts frantic flying around bumping into things and not knowing where it is but once you can throw a towel around them and cut off their vision they relax and calm down to where you can help them.

So with my eyes shut I am better able to concentrate upon my breathing and deal with the sounds from the daily routine and traffic of a busy neighborhood. Instead of trying to shut them out I let them pass through my ears and register in my mind. I focus on each sound and hold it in my mind as I breath in and then I let it fade away as I breath out. In this way I am able to deal with each sound mostly one at a time. Not unlike serving people one at a time in a line rather than all at once.

I contemplate the sound and recognize it so that my subconscious knows that I’m paying attention to it and I contemplate on what each sound means and then symbolically I kindly escorting the noise out of my mind with the exhale and I repeat the process as needed. I also find it helpful to thank my sub consciousness for keeping me informed but remind it that it doesn’t have to work so hard and that it can take a break. It seems to work. It seems like it backs off on pushing the noise over and over and louder and louder, which is exactly what I find happens when I try to ignore it.

Then I’ve noticed that once I emerge from meditation that my mind is sharper, better able to concentrate without interference and better able to hold my attention a good period of time later. After meditation it also helps me feel more patient and less overwhelmed with stimuli because I am continuing that thought processing used while meditating. Of course it never lasts all day but the more I practice the longer I can go without too much interference and stress from all the stimuli. It is much like learning a language in a way, the more you practice the more your mind rewires itself. And so no wonder the great teachers all refer to meditation as practice. Of course I'd have a hard time even getting on the meditation seat without medication but it works well with meditation. So I can attest to you that indeed this scientific study is spot on.

~Peace to all beings~