A Jewish Haiku and Thoughts on Meditation
For whatever wonderful reason, Buddhism and Judaism follow me around, and continue to show up in my life in some shape, form, or fashion. I seem to also follow Buddhism and Judaism around, and so the cat is chasing its tail.
It is a continuous flowing stream of some new offering in my life from the repository of Buddhist and Jewish collective consciousness. It must have to do with my past, and my karmic programing.
After the recent “heavy” entries on Crestone and Beyond, I thought a little fun might be welcome, and so I have posted this entry.
My friend Emily Greer, a Jewish mother of 4 daughters, and wife of Dr. Steven Greer, who I refer to often in the Crestone and Beyond Journal (www.theorionproject.org, and www.disclosureproject.org) has recently sent me an amusing email that has me laughing at my Jewish consciousness, and my Buddhist consciousness.
It’s all my mother’s fault. That would be Dr. Jane. She was physician to most of Montgomery’s Jewish folks back in the days of my youth. I was very intimate with many Jewish households, and was welcomed as family. My good fortune was to be included in their family Friday night candlelit celebrations.
Dr. Jane was also physician to members of Helen Keller’s family, and she and Ms. Keller were intimate friends. When I was 9 years of age, and Ms. Keller was 80 years of age, she initiated my consciousness into the world of expanded vision. I liken that event to my Buddhist journey initiation, but it was also my Kabbalistic initiation. It was simply initiation into Self.
At the time I was more interested in basketball, school, and my friends. I was also very intrigued by how it was that Jesus enabled healing miracles. There was a stained glass window in my Episcopal church in Montgomery depicting Jesus healing through His hands. I gazed at that window often.
This little piece is entitled Jewish Haiku, is making the rounds, and I hope it makes you laugh. Good laughter is good medicine.
_______________________
Jewish Haiku
Lacking fins or tail
the gefilte fish swims with
great difficulty.
_________________________
Beyond Valium,
peace is knowing one’s child
is an internist.
_________________________
On Passover we
opened the door for Elijah.
Now our cat is gone.
_________________________
After the warm rain
the sweet smell of camellias.
Did you wipe your feet?
_________________________
Her lips near my ear,
Aunt Sadie whispers the name
of her friend’s disease.
_________________________
Today I am a man.
Tomorrow I will return
to the seventh grade.
_________________________
Testing the warm milk
on her wrist, she sighs softly.
But her son is forty.
_________________________
The sparkling blue sea
reminds me to wait an hour
after my sandwich.
_________________________
Like a bonsai tree,
is your terrible posture
at my dinner table.
_________________________
Jews on safari –
map, compass, elephant gun,
hard sucking candies.
_________________________
The same kimono
the top geishas are wearing:
I got it at Loehmann’s.
_________________________
The shivah visit:
so sorry about your loss.
Now back to my problems.
__________________________
Mom, please! There is no
need to put that dinner roll
in your pocketbook.
__________________________
Sorry I’m not home
to take your call. At the tone
please state your bad news.
__________________________
Is one Nobel Prize
so much to ask from a child
after all I’ve done?
__________________________
Today, mild shvitzing.
Tomorrow, so hot you’ll plotz.
__________________________
Five-day forecast: feh
Yenta. Shmeer. Gevalt.
Shlemiel. Shlimazl. Meshuganah
Oy! To be fluent!
__________________________
Quietly murmured
at Saturday Synagogue services,
Yanks 5, Red Sox 3.
__________________________
A lovely nose ring,
excuse me while I put my
head in the oven.
__________________________
Hard to tell under the lights.
White Yarmulke or
male-pattern baldness.
__________________________
And since we’re in an Eastern mode, here’s some
Jewish Buddhism for you:
If there is no self, whose arthritis is this?
__________________________
Be here now.
Be someplace else later.
Is that so complicated?
___________________________
Drink tea and nourish life;
with the first sip, joy;
with the second sip, satisfaction;
with the third sip, peace;
with the fourth, a Danish.
___________________________
Wherever you go, there you are.
Your luggage is another story.
___________________________
Accept misfortune as a blessing.
Do not wish for perfect health, or a life without
problems.
What would you talk about?
___________________________
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a
single Oy.
___________________________
There is no escaping karma.
In a previous life,
you never called,
you never wrote,
you never visited.
And whose fault was that?
___________________________
Zen is not easy.
It takes effort to attain nothingness.
And then what do you have?
Bupkis.
___________________________
The Tao does not speak.
The Tao does not blame.
The Tao does not take sides.
The Tao has no expectations.
TheTao demands nothing of others.
The Tao is not Jewish.
____________________________
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Forget this and attaining Enlightenment will be the
least of your problems.
_____________________________
Let your mind be as a floating cloud.
Let your stillness be as a wooded glen.
And sit up straight.
You’ll never meet the Buddha with such rounded
shoulders.
_____________________________
Deep inside you are ten thousand flowers.
Each flower blossoms ten thousand times.
Each blossom has ten thousand petals.
You might want to see a specialist.
_____________________________
Be aware of your body.
Be aware of your perceptions.
Keep in mind that not every physical sensation is a
symptom of a terminal illness.
_____________________________
The Torah says,
Love your neighbor as yourself.
The Buddha says,
There is no self.
So, maybe we’re off the hook.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
I do not know the author of this bit of humor.
Regarding ordinary religious paths, I have always wondered how humans, using their limited conscious minds, continue to grasp at the knowing of the unlimited Unbounded Mind of the Creator, cook up the religions, cook up the guilt and shame propaganda to keep us mainlining the garbage, and then, as history has shown, they even help cook up the wars and destruction.
The sheeple’s dependence on this ignorance is….how shall I critiqe it?….extraordinary.
I prefer the mystical paths of the Eastern sects, Kabbalah, Christian mysticism, and my overarching all inclusive umbrella favorite, Siddha Yoga.
A Few Simple Thoughts On Meditation
The Creator lives inside of us. The left hemisphere that we use to think and judge with is not a suitable instrument to employ to grasp the unlimited nature of the multidimensions of Creation. I touched on this theme in the recent post entitled “Sweet Dreams…” In this post I told the story of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s left hemispheric stroke, and how it affected her perceptions of reality.
She broke through the Lethal Covenant of left hemisphere overriding the Heart Mind, and the needs of the body.
How do we grasp the unlimited with a limited instrument? How does our sense of separation evolve into nonlocal consciousness?
Answer: The thinking mind must be led into quietness through the processes of meditation, which always consists of at least 3 components: the relaxation response, witness consciousness, and mindfulness.
A key to meditation is in how you follow your breath, as you practice those 3 processes.
One can read the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and get a mind’s eye view of what we can become. The second sutra is monumental.
Yoga chitti vritti nirodha. The purpose of yoga is to still the thought waves of the mind.
I recommend a great and simple text on the subject of mindfulness, a work by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., entitled Wherever You Go, There You Are. Each chapter is a smashing simplicity of 1 to 6 pages of pragmaticism. You can randomly open the book to any page, and “get it” just by reading that page.
As we move toward freedom and imperturbability, the negative motivators of wanting security, wanting approval, and wanting control begin to loosen their grip on our conditioned reflexive entrainment patterns of response. We begin to lose interest in judgment.
The Seven Deadly Needs no longer continue to inform who we are becoming. These negative motivators are: the need to know, the need to be right, the need to get even, the need to look good, the need to judge, the need to keep score, and the need to control.
One can start by simply observing how these negative needs keep showing up in your life, and simply witness them without judging them. Just cut the judgment off somewhere. Just that practice, in itself, is a meditation.
Back in my gladiator surgeon days, I worked with the same office nurse for 20 years. One day Candis put a little piece of paper on my desk, about 3”X3” in size. I still have that piece of paper. On the paper were printed these words:
How To Save Your Life–Show Up, Be Present, Tell the Truth, Release the Outcome.
That advice is a lifelong meditation.
Signing off from Crestone and Beyond,
Love.