The wisdom of plants
Most are androgynous
Some are androgenous
Few are purely female
Nature is not biased
So why are we?
*Ginkgos are androgenous.
#dailyhaikuprompt - pink
#mastoprompt - #androgynous
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/mosaic-ginkgo-leaf-wisdom-sharon-cummings-sharon-cummings.html
During #Zen retreat work periods it's not about, say, getting the windows clean — it's about washing them.
In tonight's #meditation that sense was present ... as in ...
it's not about achieving a certain state — it's about sitting.
It's what's happening.
I had an insight about my run of recent degraded sleep.
I learned a a few months back that if I meditate too close to bedtime, it disrupts my sleep. #zen
Right now my mind feels like I am meditating continuously. The sleep disregulation now makes sense.
My current challenge is how to use my new mind to deal with this. I've been experimenting with different qualities of mins to call up. Haven't found the right one yet but optimistic.
It is what it is
Such is life
I don't mind
Mediterranean Pool, Varazze, Italy. November 2011. Ref-11568
https://www.denisolivier.com/photography/mediterranean-pool-varazze-italy/en/11568
#denisolivier #swimming #mediterranean #canoneos #horizon #denisolivierphoto #pool #denisolivierphotographer #ocean #denisolivierphotography #zen #bath #cloud #sea #sky
Wir sind sehr gut darin, uns auf das Leben vorzubereiten, aber nicht sehr gut darin, zu leben. Wir wissen, wie man zehn Jahre für einen Abschluss opfert, und wir sind bereit, sehr hart zu arbeiten, um einen Job, ein Auto, ein Haus usw. zu bekommen. Aber wir haben Schwierigkeiten, uns daran zu erinnern, dass wir im gegenwärtigen Moment leben, dem einzigen Moment, in dem wir leben können.
- Thích Nhất Hạnh
#AchtsamkeitClub sind an #Achtsamkeit #Meditation #Zen interessierte Menschen aus #Bonn
BDG news: Street in New York City Co-Named in Honor of Thich Nhat Hanh
Read here: https://tinyurl.com/4u9d26su
Today is #Monday April 14th, the #Moon has moved into #Scorpio
(that would explain the day) & the current #moonphase is still #FullMoon
#SelfCare #MoonForcast #MoonChild #MoonMagic #MoonBlessings #moonsister #zen 
I think my mind has turned again.
I had been struggling off the stool to call forth the qualities of mind I have been cultivating. I think I was striving too much, getting in my own way. A couple of interactions last week and today helped me lessen the striving.
I'm still processing, especially a few follow on insights. At all events the shift in my practice and lived experience is most welcome. #zen
@bodhidave recently tried to describe the heart of Zen 
For me, Zen is a certain reduction to the essentials in life. A form of asceticism.
To concentrate on the things that have real meaning and not to interpret something into everything and thereby lose yourself unnecessarily in useless thoughts.
To consciously perceive the world around me and enjoy the beautiful things. Compassion, serenity and tolerance and a healthy amount of love in my heart.
"Value life. if you value life then you will put profit into perspective."
BDG feature: Thích Nhất Hạnh’s Engaged Buddhism During Wartime Vietnam, Part 1
Read here: https://tinyurl.com/mr65enz3
What the heart of #Zen is can be hard to put into words. I'm a longtime, fairly intensive practitioner. And a way I express my sense of Zen practice is that it's allowing an embrace with a kind of fundamental honesty.
And when we're there, held by things as they are — we realize they're alive. And that we are an expression of that life.
And then things can be the way an oceanographer once descried the Gulf Stream:
"There is a river in the ocean."
AN AUTISTIC URBAN HERMIT
(you may not understand if you are not autistic)
For many years, I've been a very curious person. I've learned many things and done many things that I found interesting: science, art, computer science. Like a voracious animal, my mind has consumed all kinds of information, eager to understand everything around me and everything I experienced. Soldier, doctor, monk, musician, hacker, etc. Until one day, staring at the ceiling in the bed of a psychiatric hospital where I was hospitalized, I asked myself: "How did I get here, to this?" And that night, 17 years ago, another part of my life began. I began to die and be reborn, to discover how and why I had gotten to that situation. I discovered that I have high abilities, that I am bipolar and autistic. But for every limitation I discovered, I also discovered the limitations of the world and the human society in which I live.
Today I know that nothing has meaning and that life doesn't need to have it; that what many see as progress and evolution, I see as barbarism and brutality, and that humanity is the stupidest species on the planet, not the best. I don't have goals anymore, I don't need them. But I do have a compass, a kind of direction without needing to get anywhere. To live as peacefully as possible and need very little, being aware and critical of everything. A peaceful dwelling isn't just my house tucked away in the middle of the city, but also a peaceful inner life, without the noise and clamor of the lives of "normal people," without socializing more than the bare minimum necessary for survival. And this isn't because of autism; it's because of a kind of purge, a psycho-spiritual hygiene. The forced social being I often was is dying. Until a few years ago, there wasn't so much exposure and socialization; it wasn't mandatory or essential to living and working in this world. With all the technology and supposed progress, there is increasing misery, hunger, war, and violence everywhere, which makes me think that it's more of a trigger than a solution.
Being overly intelligent and being autistic is a fatal combination that guarantees the death of the social being and the development of the inner hermit that every gifted autistic person potentially is. I'm slowly retreating from the world to my quiet inner abode, where a very narrow door filters who enters and who doesn't. Just my small family group and a minimum of kindness toward a few people is more than enough.
I thought a lot about sharing what I'd learned, about helping, but I realized that idealism and the romanticization of compassion are useless when the sufferer doesn't understand the root of their problems and isn't willing to do their part. Human nature is to be a soulless son of a bitch, held back only by fear of punishment, whether from human law itself or some imagined deity. It's better to live in full awareness of the suchness of things. I myself can be a compassionate genius and in the next moment break your head for being rude and treating me badly.
We live in the worst of all possible worlds, and with that, we are warned that the worst can always happen. Knowing that, any good thing that comes or appears is a gift, a bonus track.
I don't give unsolicited advice, but if you want some, it's this: "Step away from the world as it is and watch it burn from a distance."
(An autistic person becoming an urban hermit.)
