Joshua Bell - Regina Spektor

The need to belong

The need to belong. This seems to be universal. A persons need to fit in somewhere. Youth will join gangs or find Jesus, God, Buddha, etc. Some will find work as their belonging, and some use their family. There is no end to the things we want to belong. Groups, clubs, political party, religion, schools, colleges, towns, city, states, country. Now we have a place to belong, we build up pride of these things, and will defend them as our self. We become the place we feel we belong. You read this and think this is true, but you don’t stop to think is it right to want to belong. You don’t see this as selfish. Why is this Selfish? I’ll tell you why.
Lets start with the guy that belongs to work. You may know him as a workaholic. He belongs to work, and gives everything to his work, and has little for anything else. Okay, but how does this apply to religion or families the strong building blocks of our country? When you belong to a religion you belong to that religion. How many different religions our there in this world? Lets just say there are many. You belong to your religion, and give everything to your religion, and have little for anything else. It’s a big world why would you want to limit your knowledge. I promise you God does not limit his. As soon as you belong to any religion you create pride. You can deny it all you want, it dose not make it true. There is no deity that ever belonged to a religion. Religious people lead in pride, and do so selfishly. Deny it all you want. You’re the one who has to face the truth in the end. Anyone who has really studied religion will know this is true.
You can be spiritual, and not belong to a religion. Okay, I know I will not change many minds about their religion, there is just way to much pride in them for me to be able to do that, so I will stop here. But what about the Family. Belonging to a family is great, how could it be selfish. Okay, first I must say family is great. Nothing is wrong with family. It’s what you consider as your family when the problems begin. It has all the problems of a workaholic or any religion. It is a knowledge stopper, and is very limited. It doesn’t take a village to raise a child, it takes the world. And again I will not change many minds. Pride man kinds mortal enemy. The limited thinking of Country, State, and mind will never let truth through. If it creates pride it is wrong. There is nothing to belong too, you are who you are. This has been taught to us for thousands of years, and here we are having not learned anything. It makes me sad. I know things will just keep going as they have for thousands of years. I belong to nothing, and I own nothing, and I am happy.

Regina Spektor @ In The Venue, SLC

Albert Troy Tucker

So This Is Life

Can you feel how painful it is to internally stand in oppsition to what is?

Who are you?

This is a pretty basic question: Who are you? How do YOU answer that? Do you say "I am a wife/ a mother/ a dancer..." Do you describe your interest? "I like to read, I like to hike, I'm a Buddhist..." Do you form an autobiography of your memories, your childhood, your formative years, abuse or love in your past and present?

WHERE, in all of that talking, thinking, and story telling are YOU? Where are you?

No where!

People cling to memories - especially of their childhoods! We revisit the old places we lived. We revisit, in our minds, the old wounds. We human beings cry that we are damaged by inattentive or abusive parents, that we have been damaged by poverty, rape, hatred, anger, or even that we have been damaged by love. We do this because we are looking for verification of WHO WE ARE. We go back to those old places - stop by old stomping grounds, reminisce, hurt over our pasts - because we're trying to verify to ourselves that THIS is what makes up who we are: that our experiances,memories, and interests define us. We suffer because we remember suffering and think that that this suffering dictates who we are NOW. We keep ourselves trapped in hell realms because we cling so hard to the attachments that provide us the illusion of identity! You're not the person you remember! Not even physically! Since you were a child, every cell in your body has been replaced - some many thousands of times over. And, that's just PHYSICALLY not being the same. You're not the person you remember from five seconds ago!

I'm serious! Think about it for a moment. Many people think that what they ARE is the sum total of their experience, their memories, their likes and dislikes. They don't realize that all of this is just story - just noise. None of it is YOU. You don't even exist except in the NOW ...and NOW is a concept that we can't even fathom because as soon as we try to grasp it, it's already passed! Try it, if you don't believe me! NOW. Now. Now. Now. What fraction of time is NOW? Not one that your processing consciousness can understand! When you say "now" to yourself, you process what has already happened, you're always trapped in the forward propelling illusion of a non-linear time! When you get a hold of NOW, you do it by letting go of all of the trappings of what you think YOU are, what you think the universe and TIME is.

Any thoughts going through your head are happening as post scripts. They are not the experience of NOW, they're the story you tell yourself after the fact. Do you see the illusion? If not, think about it - find somewhere quiet and really think about it.

If you only exist in the NOW and all of your attachments are just stories, who ARE YOU? You're the quiet emptiness in between your thoughts. So, let it go already! Stop telling yourself the story of who YOU are, and just BE. Let go of suffering - clinging to those illusions that we call memories only keeps the cycle going. You'll never be happy until you can let go of your attachment to suffering.

This is my Meditation Room, "Zen Room". This is where I can clear my head of me, and find the needed love and compassion for the world we live in. The video is my first attempt. I used the Nikon Coolpix camera, and the edit program that came with it, "my muvee" very simple, and easy to use. I hope to get better at this, and turn out something worth watching someday. Hopefully

To Live

To live in a world where the most important thing wasn’t you. Where you didn’t have to hear about the big house, and the BMW in the drive way. Where you spent your time bringing about peace where there is no peace, and you feed the people where there was no food. Where you took care of the people in need, and everything wasn’t about you. This is the dream I have, but know most live in the world of you. I myself find my “you” standing in the way of the dream, but I pledge to get “you” out of the way.

"What Once Was True, Is No Longer So."

Attachment to Impermanence.
Everything comes to an end. There is nothing that can escape this fact, but just because it all comes to an end, doesn’t mean it stops, its just not what it was before. We are sad when someone we love passes on. We are sad when love fades. This is the facts of our being, this is what happens. So this then is my question. “If everything comes to an end, does this mean my being unable to sing will come to an end?” or anything similar to this? Or may be its just not what it was before.

"Grasping at things can only yield one of two results:
Either the thing you are grasping at disappears, or you yourself disappear.
It is only a matter of which occurs first."

~ESCAPE~

Escape from the illusions of the mind. See and hear with mind and body as one. Nothing is as your eyes and ears perceive. Understand with a concise conscience. Flow don’t fallow. Be not but what is not. Here and now. No escape tomorrow. Just here.

"If we live in forgetfulness, we die in a dream"

The first thing we need to do is return to life, to wake up and be mindful of each thing we do. Be aware when we are eating, drinking, sitting in meditation. Don't waste our time living in forgetfulness. When you sit down to eat, is your mind one with that moment in time, or is it at school or work, or on the bills that need to be paid. Only you have the power to escape.