The Great Bell Chant

May the sound of this bell penetrate deep into the cosmos.
Even in the darkest places,
May living beings hear it clearly.
That all suffering in them may cease,
Understanding come to their heart,
And they transcend the path of sorrow and death.

The universal dharma door is already open;

The sound of the rising tide is heard clearly.
The miracle happens: A beautiful child 
Appears in the heart of a lotus flower.
One single drop of this compassionate water
Is enough to bring back the refreshing spring 

To our mountains and rivers.

Listening to the bell,

I feel the afflictions in me begin to dissolve.
My mind calm,
My body relaxed,
A smile is born on my lips.

Following the sound of the bell,
My breath brings me back 

to the safe island of mindfulness.
In the garden of my heart,
The flowers of peace bloom beautifully.

A Gorgeous Gatha

Have to share this gorgeous gatha for meditation from TNH. This one got me through a medical test today; it made me feel solid, lucid and calm in a situation that usually causes a good deal of anxiety. I highly recommend it!

*   *   *

Breathing in, I know I am breathing in.
Breathing out, I know I am breathing out.
In...
Out.

[breathing in, etc.] I feel my in-breath grow deep.
I feel my out-breath become slow.
Deep...
Slow.

I feel calm.
I feel ease.
Calm...
Ease.

I smile to my afflictions.
I release my afflictions.
Smile...
Release.

In, out.
Deep, slow.
Calm, ease.
Smile, release.

In the Garden of Mind...

...Flowers of Consciousness Bloom

Today I was meditating on abundance and satiety, and the ethical implications of both. Abundance is the opposite of scarcity; it simply implies that needs are met, and perhaps there’s a little left over afterwards. Satiety is defined as "fullness to the point of excess," which most observers would probably consider a fair description of a large portion of the North American population.

Abundance can be made of anything. The salient things aren’t things at all, but the way you perceive reality, your relationship with your environment. I see abundance as largely a matter of cognition, attitude and practice. Looking deeply into abundance, I see peace, shared prosperity and shared global responsibility.

Looking deeply into satiety, on the other hand, I see resource wars and terrorism playing on an endless loop. It isn’t sustainable for one part of the world to consume such an outsize portion of the world’s natural resources while comprising only a sliver of the planet's population. While satiety is causing its own intrinsic problems in this culture, the impact of such patterns of consumption on parts of the developing world can be devastating. Boiled down to its essence, the never-ending cycle of war and terrorism -- with devastation of the biosphere as collateral damage -- is about patterns of consumption.

We know that craving and attachment cause suffering, and that seeking a never-ending surfeit of material possesions can feed both these mental formations. Most of us in this part of the world do have an overabundance of resources at our disposal. At the same time, there are members of our species all over the planet living subsistence-level lives, and many actually fall below that line on any given day. To the the humanist, the ethical philosopher and the peace practitioner, the correct course is obvious: redistribute our excess to those at the other end of the economic scale. Balance!

From a place of abundance, we know that we have all that we need and enough to share with those who need our help most. Our daily lives can be a reflection of our mindfulness of the interconnected nature of all beings.