Winter Vacation

Bodhimind Institute blog will be on vacation until mid January. Thank you for your support.

Ocean for Two

It is important to remember that this phenomenal world is the appearance of a reality that we can never quite grasp. As humans we need to live with distinctions to bring order to otherwise chaotic lives. So we personalize the concept of “mind” and attempt to frame it within our conceptual boundaries/notions. In other fields of participation in this cosmic game we call life, quite foreign modes of activity might be the order of the day. Activity that we would call mental. In the case of plant life, what might be appearing in the phenomenal world may just be the surface appearance, like seaweed appearing on the top of the ocean. While a deeper reality of the host may hold the greater part of its wisdom and knowledge.

I remember a story I heard once about highly evolved spiritual beings who were well past the need of human manifestation. But occasionally they wished to take a vacation from their exalted realms and so they would take on a life as a tree. This wasn’t your garden-variety street tree, but perhaps a hundred year plus type of tree. No wonder that some ancient trees were thought to be sacred. The columns in temples of ancient Greece and Egypt were stylized trees, and the first places where rites were carried out were in groves of scared trees.

I think that the human mind is a good development of the intellectual thinking mind. But beyond this one type of mind manifestation it would not surprise me to find many more possible verities.

On a more personal note, I find the common philosophical approach to the reality of the physical world to be at variance with what my own experience has indicated to me. In other words the philosophy that there is this one great solid physical world that is the reality our self is experiencing is rather simplistic and stifled.

My own experience has shown “me” that this so-called physical world is more like a projection that each person is making for themselves (a cooperative endeavor undertaken by all the participants “here”). Each of us projects for ourselves our own world, along with a body of senses to perceive this data, which we then earnestly take to be a solid physical world. And the relevant data is shared by all (“intuitively”) so that each of our versions of the projection agrees with another. The projections have no more actuality than a movie projected at the cinema.

The personality projecting this environment is far greater than the ego, which it develops within the projection as a “version” of itself in the physical embodiment. Ergo: since I do not believe that it is the physical body which “has the mind”, but the greater “mind” which has the physical body; then it is not quite correct to say that plants have a mind, because it is the greater reality manifesting itself as a plant.

However, the plant lacks the physical envelop which focuses the functions of the mind into an easily recognized form. And, as to whether this greater reality has what we could call mind, it is in this greater reality that that, which we would call the mind of the plant, has its abode.

All this should be taken in the context that I am not implying that these so called greater personalities are of the nature of permanent eternal souls. And please bear in mind that this is just a brief thumbnail sketch of what is taking place.

I would not be surprised if most of this sketch does not agree with accepted Buddhist philosophy. And it is not my purpose to convince anyone that my findings are the truth since I am far more interested in seeing others discover the truth for themselves.

Ten Companions

How to do Kinhin:

1. watch the breath.
2. put out one foot, let the heal lightly touch the ground.
3. exhale, shift the body’s weight gently onto the forward foot.
4. eyes gaze softly downward. Not looking at the floor, just relaxed and down.
5. relax, feel the weight of the body as you move, feel the floor beneath your feet, your torso held erect, shoulders relaxed: these are just momentary sensations, don’t linger with the mind upon them.
6. aware of breath, inhale. Breath gently, from the lower belly.
7. feel the trailing foot lift off the floor behind you. The toes giving a last goodbye to the floor, and then it is momentarily free.
8. the trailing leg naturally comes forward, as balance surrenders onto itself.
9. let the heal gently touch the floor a little ahead of you. A half a step ahead is not too little.
10. exhale.
11. hear the creaking of the floorboards, the shift of garments, the roar of a passing car on the street, the bark of a dog.
12. momentary sensations, , shift the weight of the body forward onto the lead foot gently.
13. repeat as necessary.

A Hare in the Soup

"Conditioned by attachment to duality as reality, action takes place. This is mind. A contracted form of Consciousness. So, though mind seems to be contracted, and locatable to an individual, it is still nothing but the omnipresent consciousness, it's true nature infinite to multiple finites appearing within the infinite… … Like water drops in the ocean."

Apparently in this system of beliefs, , one is unable to ever free themselves from bondage to this “omnipresent consciousness”. This is in contradiction to the Buddha’s teaching that liberation from such attachments is possible.

These ideas, from several thousand years ago, were not for realizing liberation, but were for union with a divine source of life, from which all was thought to have sprung. Obviously Buddhism pulled the rug out from under that conceptual framework then, and it continues to do so today.

Eating the Quick

"What is abrasive is that my posts challenge comfort zones, that is all. They challenge conditioning and attachment to limitation. So yes, there is apparent conflict. There are many who see what I write and understand it, and in fact are inspired."


Oh dear, obviously some have no problem giving themselves a high-five for an achievement which is entirely in their own imagination.

The truth is this: Yes, some people do have the views that others profess. However, the reason there are responses to the brandishment of these views is to help people learn what Buddhism is and is not about.

Buddhism is not one of these “make it up as you go along” religions. If people want to follow the practices that others preach, as far as I’m concerned, they are welcome to. Go for it. But it won’t be Buddhism, at least not as it is found in so many of the Buddhist traditions.

To credit oneself with pushing people’s buttons seems quite a conceit, but it goes well with an attitude of superiority, if that is what those are trying to cultivate.

Vessel for an Offering

Back in the early 90’s, I was on a rather tight budget. I kept my weekly expenses for dinners to $15.00 a week with the following recipe.

$15./week soup:

Go to the produce section of the local grocery store. Buy as many different vegetables as you can. My typical grocery bag would include all of the following:

1 lb dried lintels
1+ lb dried beans (black or red work well)
6-8 medium sized potatoes
1 medium sized acorn squash
3 good-sized rutabagas
1-2 turnips
1 med diakon radish
10 medium sized onions
1 large bunch celery
1 large bunch broccoli
1 small head cauliflower (if reasonably priced)
2 ears corn
1 medium eggplant
1 red/green pepper
1 large hand-full green beans
1 hand-full snap peas
4 large zucchini
2 crock neck squash
2 lbs white mushrooms
1 bunch kale (Red Kale if available)
1 bunch collard greens
1 bunch chard or mustard greens
3 lbs tomatoes


Bring water to a boil in a very large soup pot/ stockpot
Add lintels and beans.
While those cook, chop and add to the pot the vegetables in the order they appear on this list.
Stir frequently.
By the time you finish chopping and adding the last of the vegetables, the beans will be tender.
After everything is added, let the pot come to a boil, then let it cool a bit.
Refrigerate the whole pot, or place the soup into smaller containers and refrigerate them.
As the week goes by, you can take a bit of this soup, put it into a small pot with some water and a bit of crumbled tofu and some crumbled noodles. Reheat, salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Now that it’s a few years later, the cost of these ingredients may have gone up somewhat. But it’s still an inexpensive wholesome meal.

The Warmth of the Beast

Obviously leisure is boring, however I think it is that people are trying to find meaning in their lives.

Since they have been “sold” on the idea that importance comes with having fashion, celebrity, and possessions, they use those means to try to fill the gaping hole that the seeming worthlessness of their lives holds.

Thus we have that mantra: more, more, more.

Conversely, when one looks into the heart of one’s life, we find that real fulfillment comes with honoring, nurturing, and witnessing.

And so we have moments of peace, release, and knowing.