Atalanta stood alone on the beach, watching the ship sail from the shore, when she first heard the sound. Like a great drum being beat, the sound had thudded across the island to her. She was alone, having been cast off the ship by Jason and his crew. Jason was a good leader, a good captain on the Argo, but a sore lover at times. Atalanta turned inland, looking for the source of the sound.

Sand and large boulders littered the shore to the tree line. Her bow, gripped lightly in her right hand, was assurance enough against most foes, but she was glad to have the short sword tight against her back; at least Jason had the kindness to through it down to her as they pulled up the ropes.

Jason. Smug, self-righteous and so beautiful, loved by the gods; and he knew it too. But he is beautiful, she thought to herself, and a fine leader, if not sometimes completely wrong and ox-headed she thought. He would return for her tomorrow at dawn, she knew him too well to think he would actually leave her on this unnamed island alone. But he was making his point; he actually thought this would teach her a lesson.

A mother bear raised me from a babe; does he think I need to be taught a lesson? She thought to herself.

The sound boomed again from beyond the tree line. Atalanta closed her eyes and breathed in the forest around her. In the umbra she sensed the she wolf in the thick brush some distance into the wood. The she wolf was upset; hiding under a shadowed tree limb. All the smells of the forest were at her disposal now. Atalanta moved from the she wolf to a hawk perched high in a thickly leafed tree. The hawk too was agitated; he scanned the horizon seeking the sound and stretched his wings; ready for flight. There is safety in the air. She could see with his vision now; but longed for the flight he was about to take.  She pulled out of the hawk’s mind and pushed out further into the umbra.

Further on still a great ram stood facing the direction of the sound. He was resolute, nothing would move against his flock without being downed in the melee. He had been tested many times, but nothing could down him, he knew this to be true.  Her eyes snapped open, and though they looked human enough, they were the eyes of an animal. She moved into the underbrush silently and settled down onto her haunches to think for a moment. Push on to find the source of this sound, or wait until tonight, when she would have the upper hand in any event?

The sound boomed again, but this time it was more like a giant brass bell, and this time the sound was something more; this time it was angry. Birds flew into the air; animals of every ilk ran towards the ocean, as if the seas could protect them from whatever was out there. Poseidon had other things on his mind, she was sure of that much.

“You aren’t waiting until tonight are you?” she asked the sound. “Fine then, I come for you now.”

With one last look she made a note of the shoreline so that she could return once this was over and meet the Argo tomorrow. Lifting a branch out of her way with her free left hand as she stood, Atalanta walked into the sunlight and towards the sound. The earth was loam and pine needles, soft under her sandals, and that was good; though she was always quiet this only helped her stealth as she moved in a left to right pattern. She paused to listen and watch behind her every three meters until she was certain no person or thing was pacing her from behind. She had learned that lesson all too well from the Old Bear. Hunting is not something to take lightly. Hunting simpleminded can get you killed from behind too easily.

Atalanta covered ground quickly; soon she was far enough inland to lose the sound of the waves on the beach. Checking with the hawk she found him to be far above and circling on the rising air, still scanning the area for what he had heard.

BONG.

Again it rang out, but this time off to her right. This was all wrong; she knew the sound had come from a vast distance inland. She knew it had to be far off still, but now here it was, somewhere all too close; it had moved.

Atalanta reached out to the hawk and willed him to inspect the area where the sound seemed to be. His head flicked back and forth as he looked down at the land.  Though he would not have understood what he saw, Atalanta was horrified to see a swirling black darkness half a days run from where she now stood.  The swirling darkness was pulling tree and animal into it.  As wide as the valley it lay within, hungry and demanding more it boomed again, shimmered, and was no more.

Atalanta turned back to the ocean and ran.  Poseidon might be busy, but she knew one of the gods would hear her calls.  If the Argo didn’t return tomorrow she would have to find another way off this island herself.

Darkness, wicked lover of lonely souls, caresses me
I sleep upon the waves of illusion and do dream

Angels of the deep offer me direction and council
distance grows without movement
time slips on, yet the moon hangs still

Darkness calls to me, whispering in my ears
She knows my thoughts, and honors them to the last

The Sun cannot rise
no laughter on the waters now
Sirens wail
waters stale

Afloat on the ocean
alone in my bed
the last crow has left me
Yet Darkness stays instead

‘Bring her back’ it demanded of him. His own heart would always be his worst enemy, but this time his ego was gone, there was no more pain that would push past the summit of his self-love. She would come back or she wouldn’t, either way he would survive.

‘No, screw that’, he told himself. He would do more than survive.

Saturday afternoons seemed to breed these fights. Why didn’t matter, not that he knew why anyway, but what did matter to him now was that he could breathe again. A deep, full breath, the kind that makes your head light, rushed into his chest. The smell of honeysuckle came in through the kitchen windows. Suddenly he could hear the birds and the neighbors dogs, the sounds of cars on the street below and the bamboo wind chimes hanging outside.

Opening his eyes he sees the coffee pot sitting on the white counter tops. The kitchen is all her. The stainless steel toaster oven, the coffee pot blinking 12:00 eternal, the metal utensils she still uses on the non-stick pans. The whole thing is her, where is he in this house? What can he point to that lets anyone know he is alive and living here?

A painting on the wall that he would have chosen? Nope. The furniture he wanted at the store? Uh uh. Oh wait, the color of the paint in the bedroom! Wait, no, she talked him into that one, not really his choice – so it doesn’t count.

Maybe it was time to paint.

I see a future where the roads are self-healing
where the roads are a giant solar collecting grid spanning cities, states and nations
where every house is connected to the grid for free

I see a future that has cured disease with compassion and nature
where your doctor is worried about your health, not about your insurance
where the hospitals are places we meditate and pray, show kindness and love

I can see a future where no wars are fought over land, or food, or things
where nations have welcome centers, not detention centers
where borders are on maps, not fences or walls

I see a future where forests are treated like beings
where children can play in the rain
where grandparents are treated like treasures

None of this will happen unless we realize that there is no real difference between people in your family and people across the world. We are all suffering, we are all wanting the same thing for ourselves and our children; to be happy and safe, warm and dry, educated and heard. We want to have enough food so that our children don’t go to bed hungry, so that we don’t have to decided which child eats and which one has to wait.

As long as nations are run by people who profit from war, as long as companies control food and energy and medicines, as long as we sit by and offer no alternative; nothing can change.

Why would a company develop a road that collects the energy from the sun and then delivers that for pennies to your door? They won’t do that, no profit there. Why would a company cure the sick and dying in your backyard or the African Sahara? They won’t do that either, no money to make there. Cure cancer? No way. But, keep the cancer victim fighting his whole life, in and out of treatment, that is a good business plan.

I am no radical when it comes to politics, don’t misjudge my words. We don’t need a revolution in American politics, but rather a revolution in our hearts and minds, all across the world. If only we would act as if the man or woman we see was our son or daughter, our father or mother; how much better off would this world be? Would we transcend these wars? Would we feed the hungry and clothe the naked? Would we send bread instead of bombs if we were using our hearts, filled with understanding and compassion, instead of greed and hate?

I hope that revolution comes soon.

“If the government cannot lower the cost of living it simply has to leave. If the police and UN troops want to shoot at us, that’s OK, because in the end, if we are not killed by bullets, we’ll die of hunger.”
– A demonstrator in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

In the past few years I have opened my eyes to how this world operates, who operates and how 99.9% of us sit back while a very select few gain more at our expense. Make no mistake, they are people who revel in our suffering. Only by helping those around you can you attain happiness, not by collecting more money, or homes, or cars or whatever… Only by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked can we find an end to suffering.

Another piece of information in this article that should make you pay attention is this:

In addition, for several decades the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have refused to advance loans to poor countries unless they agree to “Structural Adjustment Programs” (SAP) that require the loan recipients to devalue their currencies, cut taxes, privatize utilities, and reduce or eliminate support programs for farmers.

So that explains it fairly bluntly: wealthy nations force those who are in need to subjugate themselves for the help they are receiving. Clearly, it is not the intent of the World Bank to lift the poorer nations out of poverty, but rather to enslave them.

Anyone remember this quote?

“Whatsoever you do to the least of my people, that you do unto me.” (Matthew 25:40)

For a nation that calls itself Christian, America is doing a woeful job. We are truly one people. There is no real distinction between you, me and the starving child in Haiti. None.

Food Crisis And The Failure Of The Capitalist Model is the article at CounterCulture.org.

I welcome your comments.

1. No meat is to be prepared in the kitchen of any Kagyu Monastery or Center.
2. No one is to be involved in the business of buying and selling meat — for all of his students this practice must stop.
3. There is to be no killing of animals on Kagyu premises.
4. Karmapa is aware of monks in robes going to buy meat and does not want to see this ever again.

Below is a very well done video of the above rules that the Karmapa has laid out. Note: This video is important, but not for the feint of heart, nor for children.

I started thinking about vegetarianism a few years ago, but I was misinformed by the American medical and food industries. One book I read brought me a long way on the road to a meat free diet though, Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, I highly recommend it. I have educated myself, and with the help of some good friends, I am getting better and better at eating a solely vegetarian diet. This is not an easy task in America. This is the land of the fast food burger, pepperoni pizzas and even our American past time, baseball, demands you enjoy a hot dog or two.

December 28th, 2007, that was the date that I said, I can do this, to eating vegetarian. Yes, I have cheated a few times since then, but in large part I have been meat free. Beans have become my friends, though those around me may counter that comment. Salads are now a mainstay of my lunch and dinner. They have even become a breakfast option for me, and I like it too. Fruits and veggies were always high on my list, now they are simply the largest part of that list, along with grains, rice and other staples. Have I mentioned how much I love fresh tofu yet? Not the stuff you get in Wal-Mart or the local grocer either. Nope, I love the stuff you get in your city’s Asian district. Hey, I live in Oklahoma City, if I can find fresh tofu surely you can too.

Let me speak for a moment about vegetarianism from the Buddhist standpoint. The Buddha said, among other things, that we should give up evil actions. I view the killing of animals as an act of aggression against a sentient being. Every action produces karma, good or bad, without consideration as to our intentions or the outcome. Eating the meat is no different from being the person who slaughtered the animal for you to eat that flesh. To think otherwise is an illusion. Being a person on the path to Enlightenment, foloowing the Dharma, means I listen and try fervently to follow the Buddha and those in his lineage, such as H.H. 17th Gyalwa Karmapa, Orgyen Trinle Dorje.

I feel better physically when I am meat and dairy free too. I used to eat lunch or dinner and feel bloated and lethargic, not anymore. Here are some links you might find helpful.

• Vegetarian books I can personally recommend are found here
• Vegetarian cook books in general can be found here
• Shabkar.org is an excellent site devoted to vegetarianism for Buddhists

I know this is a big step for anyone, let alone an American, so just think about it. Be mindful of your actions, show compassion and educate yourself.

The table that my laptop rests on as I write this, the mass that is the table, it was present there in that moment of the big bang. In fact, all that I am, was there in that moment too. The atoms, the elements that make my body, my skin, my hair and my heart, all of those atoms where nothing more than energy in that super-expanding ball of energy. This is a very hard idea to grasp. Of course the thing trying to grasp this idea was in the Big Bang too… my mind.

How is it that the electrical impulses that are the foundation of my consciousness were at one point rolling around the formless void of pre-space? In the moments before the multiverse became substantial, what was all of this energy? Was it really the size of a pin head? Super-compacted into this point of potentiality? Hard concepts to speak about without being mystical too.

I know that Hinduism teaches the universe is in an endless cycle of rebirth, even to the point that the universe itself collapses and is reborn anew. At the end of a Kali Yuga, the last stage of the universal timespan, the universe will chaotically devolve and then upon destruction be reborn, in effect restarting the clock. By the way, a Kali Yuga, which we are living in now, lasts 432,000 human years in traditional Vedic understanding and is known as the Iron Age. The qualities of this age are: the climate is one quarter virtue and three quarters sin and the human lifespan is 100 or 120 years. (Read more about the Hindu theory of time here: Hindu Theory of World Cycles)

But, getting back to my earlier thoughts about the nature of energy and mass again; it is believed in many schools of thoughts that intentions focus energy, that prayer is like focused laser of pure energy. So, and this is fun to think about, when we pray we are releasing actual energy back in to the universe. When I chant the Chenrezig practice with my friends I am sending out waves of energy into the universe. When my mother-in-law says the rosary she is doing the same. There is even a belief in Tibetan Buddhism that an entity can be generated by sheer meditation. I actually believe this could be so, given that we know that thought is the formalization of energy and that mass is energy at the basest level.

It is clear I am not a scientist, and if you have read my words before then you also know I am no monk, priest or philosopher; but that doesn’t keep me from day-dreaming.

Matt

On this moonless night, like countless before, energies moved over the land, calling out to the energy locked within these human bodies, and waiting to be heard. From the land of Twilight they came forward, as gods, faeries and nightmares alike, formed and broken by the humans who bowed to them. Tonight, the energy that had once been called king and god was listening and gaining strength.

The linen wrapped woman in the center of the group dropped to her knees, closed her eyes and smiled. He was close now, he had heard them and came from the other side.

Thunder-Father, Rain God, Life-Bringer; these names and others, since before humans walked the Earth, he had been called. He could will the rains to fall and the fields to bring forth a rich bounty, but was nothing unless remembered now. Manipulating matter was mere thought for him, but gaining form was something beyond his grasp without the intentions of those who believed.

“Thunder-Father, we call to you this night. Mother Moon hides her eyes and now is your time. Come to us and step upon the lands once more,” she said looking into the skies above.

A glow fills the small valley, like the soft luminescence of a giant firefly, and then; a nameless one walks back into our reality.

I have not lived my life seeking to duplicate those moments, though maybe I should have. Instead I live my life as most of us do; from home to work and back home again with various errands in between. I spend little time, if any at all, meditating and centering myself. There are occasions when I recognize that I am breathing, I am able to feel the universe for a short time; connected to everything, everywhere, in meetings or my drive time, even staring at the wall at the urinal. In fact a few weeks ago I was looking at the gray wall as I stood at the urinal (maybe not the scene you would like to picture, but I am the writer not the director) when I realized that there was not really a wall there at all. In my minds eye I could see past this wall, past the building and out into the blue Oklahoma skies. Once my mind was in those skies it was a small journey to the space all around the Earth and then into the limitless universe.

Taking in those moments in your day, finding the suchness of things and then not holding on to them, not trying to capture them, there is power there. Suchness, a strange thought to Western minds, is really simple. Suchness is easy to demonstrate: seeing a flower as a flower, suchness is there. Knowing the suchness of money is only seeing it as money, it is a merely a tool, it does not equate to wealth; there is power there as well. Realizing that status does not equate to happiness, you can find a calming suchness there too.

All of this lead me to ponder the suchness of now, and to the wonder and happiness when it dawned on me that now is simply now. It is not a magic moment with the universe singing to me with choirs of angels, but rather the now is powerful unto itself. Now is the moment of this breath, it is this heartbeat, which you can actually feel if you are quiet and you listen to yourself.

Those strange seconds when the world slowed or sped up, they were pure now, pure suchness. They were something for me to cherish, and though I cannot just close my eyes and experience that peace and calm, I have tasted it before and so I know it is attainable still. I am no Buddha, I am not Awake yet, but I am slumbering no more.

Matt