New life for an old cottage

 We purchased the adjacent property to Hawkscry recently (2022) to protect our privacy. The two properties share a long common border which could potentially alow a new owner to build close enough to be too close! The property has a small cottage with no plumbing and no insulation. Old style, but well built, all in all, with good supporting piers of brick that kept the termites out. After significant cleaning, we painted the ceiling, floors, and most walls to freshen things up. The front porch was pretty unstable, with some severe rot above and below, so we decided to rebuild it and make it safe and sturdy so it will once again offer a comfortable place from which to survey the lower meadow. The goal is to use the cottage as a kind of bunkhouse for visiting family as it is close enough to the upper cabin where facilities can be used. Work continues. Here are some photos of the progress.

Bee Dharma

Today I experienced one of those little dharma lessons which managed to take root and come to florition in my consciousness (register as a teaching). 

 I noticed a bee climbing the screen in full sunlight, unable to reach the outside, where shelter and food awaited. The natural and first inclination I had was to capture the bee, somehow, and release it to the outside. It was not even a thought. It felt deeper than thought; something part of the natural order. The obvious course of action. 

 But then my mind jumped into the process with its judgement that the bee was probably a carpenter bee. Suddenly there was this negative reaction to the presence of the bee, and the past and potential destruction such bees are capable of doing to the siding of the house. This judgement caused me to falter in my desire to rescue the creature.

 The mind can be a good servant but a terrible master.It takes practice to respond from the deeper, truer place of compassion for all beings without judgement. The mind is hardwired to make judgements in the interest of self preservation. But one must ask what self are we preserving? 

The illusion of a separate self makes one prone to defensive reactions. The reality is that on some deep level the bee and I somehow "inter-are" as Thich Nhat Hanh would say. Nothing is independent in its existence. All is connected and it is from this deep truth that my initial inclination to rescue the bee came.

Reality

The following are notes taken from a discussion of REALITY as defined in ACIM by Aaron Abke 1.Reality can not cause suffering because reality is non duel. Only duality can cause suffering. 2. Vision is what we attain when we go beyond individual perception. Perception is subjective because every individual experiences the world according to what is in their mind. Conditioned thoughts make up our mind. We, however, are NOT our mind. Vision is a much less distorted view of reality. 3. In duality we are caught between the waves of pain or pleasure, desire or fear. 4. Whenever judgement enters, reality slips away. 5. The world we experience is a perfect mirror of how we see ourselves. If we hate ourselves we see a world full of hate. If we love ourselves we see a world full of love. Both are projections but love is the mind seeing reality clearly and suffering is the mind mispercieving reality. 6. When mind is cleansed of its misperceptions and errors, its projection of reality is what we describe as love. In other words; SELF looking at SELF. GOD looking at GOD. REALITY looking at REALITY. 7. Reality is like a compass that always points to truth. Anything that points away causes us to become lost. 8. Suffering is a signpost that indicates we have strayed away from the truth in our thinking. 9. The only shadows in reality are the ones we conjure up. 10. What we call evil can only manifest in the absence of God. 11. The will of God; everyone has the free will to create the world they wish to exist in AND to escape it. 12. Reality can not be possessed or pushed away. The practice is to let it come to you. REALITY=LOVE=GOD 13. The ego is a distortion filter as it only sees along the binary continuum of good/bad, desire/fear, pain/pleasure, right/wrong. REALITY is non dual. It is perfect unity in love. When the ego experiences love, compassion, etc it is seeing a less distorted view of reality.

Guided meditation on your true nature

 This is a very beautiful meditation. You can find the guided meditation at 8min44sec into the video. But listening to the entire video will strengthen the message. 

https://youtu.be/7g0MIZTeTHA

A Course In Miracles

I've certainly heard about the course over the years but I never really paid a lot of attention to it. I think this was because of the very heavy use of traditional Christian terminology which proved problematic given my experience with the institutional church.

Recently I came across this guy Aaron Abke who has a YouTube channel and  Playlist on the channel devoted to ACIM and I must say his commentary has really hit home and resonates with something deep and true, so much so I have begun to take some notes in an effort to better internalize the teachings. Of course the goal is to actually bring this wisdom into practice in daily life, as with all yoga teachings. 

 Here are a few notes I have taken recently.

The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master.

You do not breathe the lungs or beat the heart nor do you think the thoughts. You can only choose to pay attention to thoughts. Thoughts are not who you are. 

We become imprisoned by thoughts by identifying with them

Thoughts are not real. We give them fuel by paying attention to them. Retrain the mind to think thoughts that  bring you into harmony with your true nature.

The separate self is not real, it is just a collection of thoughts

Nothing that is real can be threatened and nothing unreal exists

When acting and speaking ask is this my true nature acting or speaking

Give attention to thoughts of love, expansion, openness, compassion, kindness, beauty.

The feelings associated with thoughts represent how much attention has been given to them in the past. Be with the emotion and not the thought. Don't feed the thought ( this gives it a sense of realness)and don't suppress the emotion. 

God's voice does not always show up as a thought. Higher wisdom is quickly downloaded from source. It can be instant. 

God's voice is alive whereas thoughts are dead.

What we give attention to we give reality. 

You can not truly see what you are because you are already looking from it. You can only experience what you are in the absence of what you are not.

If you are looking for what you are,  you must be looking from a false point of view.

You can't use the Buddha to seek the Buddha because seeking the Buddha is already a denial of your true nature.

Only the christ nature can see the false. Two chairs in a room. Ego chair and God nature chair. You can not sit in both. Only from the God nature chair can you see what you are nto. From the ego chair you can not see your true nature. The false can't see itself because it always looks true from the position of the ego.

Take your thoughts into self inquiry and see if they align with your true self. 

Let your thoughts that don't align with your true nature be like thieves in an empty house. Nothing here to attach to. Nothing here of value.

What thoughts come up that don't align with true nature?

Meditation at 8:44 https://youtu.be/7g0MIZTeTHA

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