Story - A Life Lesson from Frogs

There once was a bunch of tiny frogs who arranged a running competition. The
goal was to reach the top of a very high tower. A big crowd had gathered around the tower to see the race and cheer on the contestants... The race began...

Honestly: No one in crowd really believed that the tiny frogs would reach the top of the tower. You heard statements such as:

"Oh, WAY too difficult!!" "They will NEVER make it to the top" or:
"Not a chance that they will succeed. The tower is too high!"

The tiny frogs began collapsing. One by one... Except for those, who in a fresh tempo, were climbing higher and higher.

The crowd continued to yell, "It is too difficult!!! No one will make it!"

More tiny frogs got tired and gave up... But ONE continued higher and higher and higher... This one wouldn't give up!

At the end, everyone else had given up climbing the tower. Except for the one tiny frog who, after a big effort, was the only one who reached the top!

THEN all of the other tiny frogs naturally wanted to know how this one frog managed to do it.

A contestant asked the tiny frog how he had found the strength to succeed and reach the goal.

It turned out... That the winner was DEAF!!!!

The wisdom of this story is: Never listen to other people's tendencies to be negative or pessimistic...

Always think of the power words have. Because everything you hear and read will affect your actions!

Therefore: ALWAYS be... POSITIVE!

And above all: Be DEAF when people tell YOU that you can not fulfill your dreams!

Always think: God and I can do this!

12-31-2005 Quote for today

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.
-Marie Curie

Pondering

BY TONY BUJAS
With the assistance of your imagination, direct your mind in thought to the first human fight. Fear, hunger, greed, animal rage, choose one or more as the reason why. See it! Feel it! The victor gets the spoils, gets his way, and if anybody challenges his authority he kills them also. Ego rules! The cunning and skill he has used in hunting food he brings with him to his one-on-one encounters. Others soon learn to fear him. Some of the weaker individuals smartly make alliance with each other to stand against the bully!

Life is good for the tough warrior; he takes a mate, has a child, and, realizes that maybe being the meanest man around is now backfiring on him. Who will protect his mate & child when he goes hunting? And…what if…somebody…who can kill him…shows up? If he tries to force the weaker ones he's beaten to do his bidding when he's not around, they may kill his wife & child and run off. He looks for another family unit, someone in the same situation as him. A tribe is formed, from which will grow a village, and then a city. Cooperation is learned for the good of all. Responsibility rests on the leader's shoulders. The defense of the village is a main priority, for marauding bandits, and other tribes will take advantage of them if they are not strong.

War is a good teacher, in order to survive and conquer; techniques, methods, weapons, strategies, vulnerabilities, psychology, … are all developed to high levels due to the necessity to dominate the enemy. War arts on all terrains, for the individual, a small troop, an army, a navy, as well as healing & cooking arts come to be encompassed. Care for individuals and their animals of war start with good food and methods of injury treatment and rehabilitation. And, when killing makes one turn away in disgust, when one tires of losing his friends and loved ones due to war, spirituality is turned to.

In what we now know as Asia, the art of hunting & survival, flourished into many branches: unarmed-combat, weapons-combat, solo & group combat, military strategy, psychology, cooking, healing, qigong, love, philosophy, religion, spirituality, … Savagery, necessity and war have evolved into health, healing, fitness, fun, compassion, and meditational type pursuits for our current day and age. We modern day pursuitists, have inherited the knowledge of the ancestors, do we have the wisdom to continue to evolve to a higher level. Hmm! Let me ponder the possibilities!

Your 'thinking mind' can be exercised down any branch of possible scenarios, (as exampled above), that you may be questing to answers for. Insights may come gently in the background, directly to your focus of attention, at a later time in you daily living, or in a surprising fashion. Just another tool to try, relax and enjoy.

Play the movie in your mind, run through the gamut of possibilities, PONDER!

12-30-2005 Quote for today

The persuit of learning is like climbing. With each step the climber moves higher.

12-29-2005 Quote for today

For you who no longer posses it, freedom is everything, for us who do, it is merely an illusion.
-Emile M. Cioran

12-28-2005 Quote for today

Living well and beautifully and justly are all one thing.
– Socrates

12-27-2005 Quote for today

What is important is to keep learning, to enjoy challenge, and to tolerate ambiguity. In the end there are no certain answers.
-Matina Horner

12-26-2005 Quote for today

Love is the bridge that takes us past our minds into the truth.

Zen story - Prosperity

A rich man asked a Zen master to write something down that could encourage the prosperity of his family for years to come. It would be something that the family could cherish for generations. On a large piece of paper, the master wrote, "Father dies, son dies, grandson dies." The rich man became angry when he saw the master's work. "I asked you to write something down that could bring happiness and prosperity to my family. Why do you give me something depressing like this?" "If your son should die before you," the master answered, "this would bring unbearable grief to your family. If your grandson should die before your son, this also would bring great sorrow. But if your family, generation after generation, disappears in the order I have described, it will be the natural course of life. This is true happiness and prosperity."

Merry Christmas to the One I Love

Merry Christmas to the one I love,
Even on this day of love for all,
Remembering the love of one whose call
Redeemed all those whose hearts his love might move.
Yet only one love does my spirit prove,
Chosen in a passion like a squall,
Having in such ecstasy withal
Rejoiced in what we were created of.
In such love do we find our way outdoors,
So to be drawn to love of flesh and soul,
Traveling beyond our village green,
Moving towards the wash along our shores
As our love joins the greater love unseen,
Shining with dark passion on the whole.

12-24-2005 Quote for today

There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.
– Freya Stark

12-23-2005 Quote for today

When you get into a tight place and it seems that you can't go on, hold on, for that's just the place and the time that the tide will turn.
-Harriet Beecher Stowe

Taoist story - Priority

A hermit was meditating by a river when a young man interrupted him. "Master, I wish to become your disciple," said the man. "Why?" replied the hermit. The young man thought for a moment. "Because I want to find God."

The master jumped up, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, dragged him into the river, and plunged his head under water. After holding him there for a minute, with him kicking and struggling to free himself, the master finally pulled him up out of the river. The young man coughed up water and gasped to get his breath. When he eventually quieted down, the master spoke. "Tell me, what did you want most of all when you were under water." "Air!" answered the man.

"Very well," said the master. "Go home and come back to me when you want God as much as you just wanted air."

12-22-2005 Quote for today

The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which will last forever.
-Anatole France

12-21-2005 Quote for today

"Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step; only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find the right road."
– Dag Hammarskjold

Taoist story - Obsessed

Two traveling monks reached a river where they met a young woman. Wary of the current, she asked if they could carry her across. One of the monks hesitated, but the other quickly picked her up onto his shoulders, transported her across the water, and put her down on the other bank. She thanked him and departed.

As the monks continued on their way, the one was brooding and preoccupied. Unable to hold his silence, he spoke out. "Brother, our spiritual training teaches us to avoid any contact with women, but you picked that one up on your shoulders and carried her!"

"Brother," the second monk replied, "I set her down on the other side, while you are still carrying her."

12-20-2005 Quote for today

"What we hope ever to do with ease we may learn first to do with diligence."
–Samuel Johnson

12-19-2005 Quote for today

"All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without the benefit of experience."
–Henry Miller

12-18-2005 Quote for today

"I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I have just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well."
– Diane Ackerman

12-17-2005 Quote for today

"Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich."
– Sarah Bernhardt

Taoist Story - No Questions

Upon meeting a Zen master at a social event, a psychiatrist decided to ask him a question that had been on his mind. "Exactly how do you help people?" he inquired.

"I get them to where they can't ask any more questions," the Master answered.

12-16-2005 Quote for today

"Many things which cannot be overcome when they are together yield themselves up when taken little by little."
– Plutarch

12-15-2005 Quote for today

"Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy."
–Pyotr Tchaikovsky

12-14-2005 Quote for today

We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end.
-Benjamin Disraeli

12-13-2005 Quote for today

A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.
-Thomas Carlyle

Taoist Story - My Words

The wife of a man became very sick. On her deathbed, she said to him, "I love you so much! I don't want to leave you, and I don't want you to betray me. Promise that you will not see any other women once I die, or I will come back to haunt you."

For several months after her death, the husband did avoid other women, but then he met someone and fell in love. On the night they were engaged to be married, the ghost of his former wife appeared to him. She blamed him for not keeping the promise, and every night thereafter she returned to taunt him. The ghost would remind him of everything that transpired between him and his fiancee that day, even to the point of repeating, word for word, their conversations. It upset him so badly that he couldn't sleep at all.

Desperate, he sought the advice of a Zen master who lived near the village. "This is a very clever ghost," the master said upon hearing the man's story. "It is!" replied the man. "She remembers every detail of what I say and do. It knows everything!" The master smiled, "You should admire such a ghost, but I will tell you what to do the next time you see it."

That night the ghost returned. The man responded just as the master had advised. "You are such a wise ghost," the man said, "You know that I can hide nothing from you. If you can answer me one question, I will break off the engagement and remain single for the rest of my life." "Ask your question," the ghost replied. The man scooped up a handful of beans from a large bag on the floor, "Tell me exactly how many beans there are in my hand."

At that moment the ghost disappeared and never returned.

12-12-2005 Quote for today

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.
-Leonardo da Vinci

12-11-2005 Quote for today

The race of mankind would perish did they cease to aid each other. We cannot exist without mutual help. All therefore that need aid have a right to ask it from their fellow-men; and no one who has the power of granting can refuse it without guilt.
-Walter Scott

12-10-2005 Quote for today

Nothing wilts faster than laurels that have been rested upon.
-Percy Bysshe Shelley

12-9-2005 Quote for today

How beautifully leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.
-George Burns

12-8-2005 Quote for today

"Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength."
No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is,
if we lose our hope, that's our real disaster.
-His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

Taoist Story - Moving

Two men were arguing about a flag flapping in the wind.
"It's the wind that is really moving," stated the first one.
"No, it is the flag that is moving," contended the second.
A Zen master, who happened to be walking by, overheard the debate and interrupted them. "Neither the flag nor the wind is moving," he said, "It is mind that moves."

12-7-2005 Quote for today

Suppressed grief suffocates, it rages within the breast, and is forced to multiply its strength.
-Ovid

12-6-2005 Quote for today

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
-Bertrand Russell

12-5-2005 Quote for today

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.
-Michel de Montaigne

Taoist Story - Maybe

There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. "Such bad luck," they said sympathetically. "Maybe," the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. "How wonderful," the neighbors exclaimed. "Maybe," replied the old man. The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. "Maybe," answered the farmer. The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. "Maybe," said the farmer.

12-4-2005 Quotes for today

That best portion of a man's life, his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.
-William Wordsworth

Mokusen's Hand

Mokusen Hiki was living in a temple in the province of Tamba. One of his adherents complained of the stinginess of his wife.

Mokusen visited her, showing his clenched fist before her face.
"What do you mean by that?" asked the surprised woman.
"Suppose my fist were always like that. What would you call it?" he asked.
"Deformed," replied the woman.

Then he opened his hand flat in her face and asked:
"Suppose it were always like that. What then?"
"Another kind of deformity," said the wife.

"If you understand that much," finished Mokusen,
"you are a good wife." Then he left.

After his visit, this wife helped her husband to distribute as well as to save.

Each of Us Must Climb Our Separate Mountain

By William Byrd
Each of us must climb our separate mountain
To reach at last our own extended view.
We can be no more than what we are,
Yet that is quite enough for us to do.

The world is far too great for comprehension,
And so we only know what we can know.
But given the abilities we're given,
That's still a long and weary way to go.

Yet on the way, how beautiful the moments!
How good it feels to have some skill or art!
How wonderful to pause in awestruck wonder
At what must fill the unsuspecting heart!

And so we're proud of each of you today
For all you've learned, and all you've tried to learn.
Knowledge brings the deepest satisfaction,
Not least because it's something that you earn.

12-3-2005 Quote for today

What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster!
-Anatole France

Zen Story - Masterpiece

A master calligrapher was writing some characters onto a piece of paper. One of his especially perceptive students was watching him. When the calligrapher was finished, he asked for the student's opinion - who immediately told him that it wasn't any good. The master tried again, but the student criticized the work again. Over and over, the calligrapher carefully redrew the same characters, and each time the student rejected it. Finally, when the student had turned his attention away to something else and wasn't watching, the master seized the opportunity to quickly dash off the characters. "There! How's that?," he asked the student. The student turned to look. "That is a masterpiece!" he exclaimed.

12-2-2005 Quote for today

Life is very interesting... in the end, some of your greatest pains, become your greatest strengths.
-Drew Barrymore

12-1-2005 Quote for today

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
-Josh Billings