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Category: Deer Park

  • Mindfulness Sweetens Our World

    How wonderful that it is now raining in Northern California. From Native Peoples I’ve lived with, especially Hopi, I learned to express deep gratitude I feel for rains, which sustain all life. These current rains here are blessing us with clean air to breathe and putting out the devastating wildfire. Thank you land ancestors for…

  • Have a Lot of Faith in Myself

    Looks like they are practicing Zen sitting, walking, eating & working meditations. But are they really practicing? Are we sure? And what about us? Perhaps 50 percent, or maybe just 10 percent of the time or less, if being honest with ourselves. But part-time Buddha’s are capable of strong aspirations for diligently practicing virtues with…

  • Being Humble

    (originally posted Sept 27, 2012) Last week after some quality time cultivating my garden of mindfulness at Deer Park, I packed up the camping gear and slowly drove out of the hidden mountain valley. Neil Diamond’s glorious Jonathan Livingston Seagull soundtrack CD was playing, as I rolled slowly across bouldered hills into the fog of Escondido. Still on…

  • Equality Without Complex

    We have the complex of superiority as human beings and we think we have that kind of intelligence, that kind of consciousness that other living beings do not have. But I’m not very proud of that kind of mind that we are using in daily life: the mind of discrimination caught by many notions, the…

  • When It’s Hot As Hell, Lets Cool It

    I have been in Hell, many kinds of Hell, and I have also noticed that even in Hell compassion is possible. With the practice of mindfulness meditation, you may very well prevent Hell manifesting. And if Hell has manifested, you have ways to transform Hell into something that is much more pleasant. When you get…

  • Community & Friendship’s Delight

    Dear WordPress Community, and Friends on the path, So easily mind goes here, then goes there. The mind can go in a thousand directions including thinking that it’s alone. But, with mindfulness, concentration & insight we can remember the path upon which we’re stepping. On this path are also countless beings supporting us, at this…

  • Hundreds More Smiles

    One standing a little left the other just a little to the right, Teacher & Student both near yet, somehow far apart. Hundreds of smiles, along with the fate of humanity await this reconciliation. Oh, to embody wisdom teachings borne from ancient ancestor’s desires to transcend life’s minor pains & major devastations, varying as scrapes, aching shoulders,…

  • Breathe, It’ll Be OK!

    How can I know anything about the past or the future, when the light of the Beloved shines only Now. ~Jalal-al-Din Rumi While in the sanctuary of retreat it may be easier to relax, to breathe, it’ll be OK. Welcome to the mountain top, we’re on on this quickly spinning ball, together, right? Let us…

  • Building Clarity Hamlet

    Gratitude for the compassionate ways of the sisters at Deer Park Meditation Center/Monastery. They teach the ways of understanding and love, living in harmony with nature. They are there as friends to all who present themselves; whether people animals plants or minerals. For the past 14 years they’ve lived in small bath houses (next to…