Tantra Reading : The Radiance Sutras

When I was at Bhakti Fest in Joshua Tree last month, i met a man named Lorin Roche. He was a scholar and meditation teacher, and had spent several years working on a beautiful, poetic, practical, and accessible version of The Vijnana Bhairava tantra. The vbt is a delightful text that outlines powerful meditation techniques that can be used both on and off the mat, and allow one to see the sacred in all phenomenon. I really enjoyed meeting him, and taking his workshop, and I really enjoy the text. In fact, I used a reading from it in the wedding I performed just recently.

Be Wildly devoted to someone, or something.
Cherish every perception.
At the same time, forget about control.
Allow the Beloved to be itself and to change.

Passion and compassion, holding and letting go,
This ache in your heart is holy.
Accept it as the rise of intimacy
With life's secret ways.

Devotion is the Divine Streaming through you
From that place in you before time.
Love's energy flows through your body,
Towards a body, and into eternity again.
Surrender to this current of devotion
And become one with the Body of Love.


So check him out, he has alot of fantastic readings on his website, which i have been enjoying very much
http://www.lorin roche.com

Timothy Leary's Tao Te Ching

I am reading a fantastic book.

They recently republished Timothy Leary's version of the Tao Te Ching, "Psychedelic Prayers". (Psychedelic Prayers: And Other Meditations (Leary, Timothy)
) I had an old version once, but I gave it to Paulie Zink. I was without one for a while, because I didn't feel like spending $50 on a old tattered printing from the 60's. But It's back again, and I found one on ebay for 8 bucks. it has some extra stuff in the back that is wonderful too.
Tim wrote his version while in india, studying with a Buddhist Lama and a Vaishnava Monk. He had nine different english translations, and carefully crafted his version based on his readings and 'meditations' (wink, wink). He writes it as a guidebook for a psychedelic experience, and gives it a clear beginning, middle, and end. The result is an elegant and transformational text, one suitable for any voyager of consciousness. any one who "floats through the universe of the body, without getting lost". It works really well as a guide through yoga or meditation practice as well.

Here is a verse, it focuses on impermanence. I've been really into impermanence lately. Its a good thing to get a handle on. nothing fancy, its simplicity holds it beauty.

I - 5

All Things Pass


All things pass

A sunrise does not last all morning

All things pass

A cloudburst does not last all day

All things pass

Nor a sunset all night

All things pass

What always changes?

Earth...Sky...thunder...
Mountain...water...
wind...fire lake...

These change

And if these do not last

Do man's vision's last?
Do man's illusions?

During the session
Take things as they come

All things pass

****

and this one has been my favorite for a very, very long time.

VI - 17

Walk Carefully When You Are Among


"holy men" and
"righteous" deeds
Distract from the internal

"Learned men"
Distract from
Natural wisdom

Professional know-how
Addicts people to the contrived
And the external

Be respectful and compassionate
But walk carefully when you are among-
learned men
holy men
doctors
government officials
reporters
publishers
professors
religious leaders
psychologists
rich men
social scientists
women with beautiful faces
artists and writers
men who
charge fees
city men
movie makers
men who want to help you
men who want you to help them
Christians and Jews


For such as these
However well meaning
Place you on their chessboard
Addict you to their externals
Distract you from the
TAO within

The lesson of the TAO is more likely to be found among-
gardeners
hermits
mountain men
smiling eccentrics
men who build their own homes
children
parents who learn from their children
loafers
amateur musicians
serene Psychotics
animals
men who look at sunsets
men who walk in the woods
beautiful women
cooks
men who sit by the fire
wanderers
men who make bread
couples who have been in love for years
unemployed men
smiling men with bad reputations

Psychedelic Prayers: And Other Meditations (Leary, Timothy)


turn off your mind, relax and float down stream.....

Love....

daniel

A Poem For The Athiests

I found this on "The Sun Magazine"

It is called "Ode to The God of the Atheists" by Ellen Bass.
It is lovely, and reads like a Hafiz poem. It is devotional and heartfelt, and beautifully whispers a kind of faith that I, personally find hard to argue with. I particularly like the continued naming of The God of Atheists as "This God", as if to say, there may be others, other Gods for the religeous or the spiritual, but we are not talking about those here. We are talking about 'This God', and this is how 'This God' behaves. I can get behind it, when it's put like that.

The god of atheists won’t burn you at the stake
or pry off your fingernails. Nor will it make you
bow or beg, rake your skin with thorns,
or buy gold leaf and stained-glass windows.
It won’t insist you fast or twist
the shape of your sexual hunger.
There are no wars fought for it, no women stoned for it.
You don’t have to veil your face for it
or bloody your knees.
You don’t have to sing.

The plums that bloom extravagantly,
the dolphins that stitch sky to sea,
each pebble and fern, pond and fish
are yours whether or not you believe.

When fog is ripped away
just as a rust red thumb slides across the moon,
the god of atheists isn’t rewarding you
for waking up in the middle of the night
and shivering barefoot in the field.

This god is not moved by the musk
of incense or bowls of oranges,
the mask brushed with cochineal,
polished rib of the lion.
Eat the macerated leaves
of the sacred plant. Dance
till the stars blur to a spangly river.
Rain, if it comes, will come.
This god loves the virus as much as the child.

One of my favorite Hafiz Poems

here it is, written on a beautiful mural