LADY WITH A FAN Let my inspiration flow in token lines suggesting rhythm that will not forsake me till my tale is told and done While the firelight's aglow strange shadows in the flames will grow till things we've never seen will seem familiar Shadows of a sailor forming winds both foul and fair all swarm down in Carlisle he loved a lady many years ago Here beside him stands a man a soldier by the looks of him who came through many fights but lost at love While the storyteller speaks a door within the fire creaks suddenly flies open and a girl is standing there Eyes alight with glowing hair all that fancy paints as fair she takes her fan and throws it in the lion's den "Which of you to gain me, tell will risk uncertain pains of Hell? I will not forgive you if you will not take the chance" The sailor gave at least a try the soldier being much too wise strategy was his strength and not disaster The sailor coming out again the lady fairly lept at him that's how it stands today you decide if he was wise The storyteller makes no choice soon you will not hear his voice his job is to shed light and not to master Since the end is never told we pay the teller off in gold in hopes he will come back but he cannot be bought or sold

Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week

May 28, 2008

LARGER SCALE THINKING

Compassion is the ultimate attitude of wealth: an anti-poverty
attitude, a war on want. It contains all sorts of heroic, juicy,
positive, visionary, expansive qualities. And it implies larger scale
thinking, a freer and more expansive way of relating to oneself and
the world. This is precisely why the second part of the Buddhist
path, or yana, is called the "Mahayana," the Great Vehicle." It is
the attitude that one has been born fundamentally rich rather than
that one must become rich. Without this kind of confidence,
meditation cannot be transferred into action at all.

From "The Open Way," in CUTTING THROUGH SPIRITUAL MATERIALISM, page 99.

For photos, stories about the 16th Karmapa and reports on the visit
of the 17th: http://www.chronicleproject.com/stories_99.html or
http://www.karmapavisit.org

All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used
by permission.

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Please send comments on and contributions to OCEAN OF DHARMA QUOTES
OF THE WEEK to the list moderator, Carolyn Gimian at: carolyn@shambhala.com.

[Ogyen Trinley Dorje, His Holiness the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa, arrives
in Boulder, Colorado today, where he will give teachings to several
thousand students. In honor of his first visit to America, this is offered: ]

May 24, 2008

THE BRILLIANT SUNSHINE OF KINDNESS

I am thankful for the splendor and magnificence of His Holiness the
Sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa. His manifestation and existence are so
fortunate and powerful for us in this dark age. The propagation of
the Kagyu dharma, the lineage to which I belong, is always within his
empire. The brilliant sunshine of His Holiness's kindness, as well as
that of Khyentse Rinpoche and Dudjom Rinpoche, [two other lineage
holders with whom Chogyam Trungpa had a strong connection], has
encouraged me in continuing my teaching in the Western world. Through
their kindness they have acknowledged my transformation from a pebble
to gold, and they have given me further responsibility as a lineage
holder, vajracarya and vidyadhara, in the modern world, so that I can
teach continuously and further the dharma of the Practice
Lineages....With the blessings of the lineage, and because of my
unyielding vow, there is obviously no choice.

From "Foreword" in THE RAIN OF WISDOM: The Essence of the Ocean of
True Meaning, page xii.


For photos, stories about the 16th Karmapa and reports on the visit
of the 17th: http://www.chronicleproject.com/stories_99.html or go to
http://karmapavisit.org

Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week

May 22, 2008

ENVIRONMENTAL GENEROSITY

Compassion has nothing to do with achievement at all. It is spacious
and very generous. When a person develops real compassion, he or she
is uncertain whether he is being generous to others or to himself,
because compassion is environmental generosity, without direction,
without "for me" and without "for them." It is filled with joy,
spontaneously existing joy, constant joy in the sense of trust, in
the sense that joy contains tremendous wealth, richness.

From "The Open Way," in CUTTING THROUGH SPIRITUAL MATERIALISM, page 99.

For photos, stories about the 16th Karmapa and reports on the visit
of the 17th: http://www.chronicleproject.com/stories_99.html

All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used
by permission.

http://www.dharma-haven.org/tibetan/meaning-of-om-mani-padme-hung.htm Nice link

May 19, 2008

SURRENDERING IN SADNESS

In devotion firm as an unchanging mountain
Truly seeing you alone, [my teacher,] as the Buddha,
Free from conventions of young or old,
In foreign lands, in sadness, with reverence,
I survive by the amrita, [the nectar,] of your blessings.
....
You, my only father guru, have gone far away.
My vajra brothers and sisters have wandered to the ends of the earth.
Only I, Chogyam, the little child, am left.
Still, for the teachings of the profound and brilliant Practice Lineage,
I am willing to surrender my life in sadness.

Excerpt from "The Doha of Sadness," from "The Songs of Chogyam
Trungpa" in THE RAIN OF WISDOM: The Essence of the Ocean of True
Meaning, page 288. Translated by the Nalanda Translation Committee.
[Ed note: Vajra brothers and sisters refers to fellow vajrayana
students with whom one has a strong link through practice or through
having the same teacher.]

For photos, stories about the 16th Karmapa and reports on the visit
of the 17th: http://www.chronicleproject.com/stories_99.html
 

 

The Annuciation of the Eternal AUM !!!

Click this link SHAMBALA >>>PEACE!!!

Gregory the Illuminator

Born 257?; died 337?, surnamed the Illuminator (Lusavorich).

Gregory the Illuminator is the apostle, national saint, and patron of Armenia. He was not the first who introduced Christianity into that country. The Armenians maintain that the faith was preached there by the Apostles Bartholomew and Thaddaeus. Thaddaeus especially (the hero of the story of King Abgar of Edessa and the portrait of Christ) has been taken over by the Armenians, with the whole story. Abgar in their version becomes a King of Armenia; thus their land is the first of all to turn Christian. It is certain that there were Christians, even bishops, in Armenia before St. Gregory. The south Edessa and Nisibis especially, which accounts for the Armenian adoption of the Edessene story. A certain Dionysius of Alexandria (248-265) wrote them a letter "about penitence" (Eusebius, "Hist. Eccl.", VI, xlvi). This earliest Church was then destroyed by the Persians. Ardashir I, the founder of the Sassanid dynasty (226), restored, even extended, the old power of Persia. Armenia, always the exposed frontier state between Rome and Persia, was overrun by Ardashir's army (Khosrov I of Armenia had taken the side of the old Arsacid dynasty); and the principle of uniformity in the Mazdean religion, that the Sassanids made a chief feature of their policy, was also applied to the subject kingdom. A Parthian named Anak murdered Khosrov by Ardashir's orders, who then tried to exterminate the whole Armenian royal family. But a son of Khosrov, Trdat (Tiridates), escaped, was trained in the Roman army, and eventually came back to drive out the Persians and restore the Armenian kingdom.

In this restoration St. Gregory played an important part. He had been brought up as a Christian at Caesarea in Cappadocia. He seems to have belonged to an illustrious Armenian family. He was married and had two sons (called Aristakes and Bardanes in the Greek text of Moses of Khorni; see below). Gregory, after being himself persecuted by King Trdat, who at first defended the old Armenian religion, eventually converted him, and with him spread the Christian faith throughout the country. Trdat became so much a Christian that he made Christianity the national faith; the nobility seem to have followed his example easily, then the people followed -- or were induced to follow -- too. This happened while Diocletian was emperor (284-305), so that Armenia has a right to her claim of being the first Christian State. The temples were made into churches and the people baptized in thousands. So completely were the remains of the old heathendom effaced that we know practically nothing about the original Armenian religion (as distinct from Mazdeism), except the names of some gods whose temples were destroyed or converted (the chief temple at Ashtishat was dedicated to Vahagn, Anahit and Astlik; Vanatur was worshipped in the North round Mount Ararat, etc.). Meanwhile Gregory had gone back to Caessarea to be ordained. Leontius of Caesarea made him bishop of the Armenians; from this time till the Monophysite schism the Church of Armenia depended on Casearea, and the Armenian primates (called Catholicoi, only much later patriarchs) went there to be ordained. Gregory set up other bishops throughout the land and fixed his residence at Ashtishat (in the province of Taron), where the temple had been made into the church of Christ, "mother of all Armenian churches". He preached in the national language and used it for the liturgy. This, too, helped to give the Armenian Church the markedly national character that it still has, more, perhaps, than any other in Christendom. Towards the end of his life he retired and was succeeded as Catholicos by his son Aristakes. Aristakes was present at the First General Council, in 325. Gregory died and was buried at Thortan. A monastery was built near his grave. His relics were afterwards taken to Constantinople, but apparently brough back again to Armenia. Part of these relics are said to have been taken to Naples during the Iconoclast troubles.

This is what can be said with some certainty about the Apostle of Armenia; but a famous life of him by Aganthangelos (see below) embellishes the narrative with wonderful stories that need not be taken very seriously. According to this life, he was the son of the Parthian Anak who had murdered King Khosrov I. Anak in trying to escape was drowned in the Araxes with all his family except two sons, of whom one went to Persia, the other (the subject of this article) was taken by his Christian nurse to Caesarea and there baptized Gregory, in accordance with what she had been told in vision. Soon after his marriage, Gregory parted from his wife (who became a nun) and came back to Armenia. Here he refused to take part in a great sacrifice to the national gods ordered by King Trdat, and declared himself a Christian. He was then tortured in various horrible ways, all the more when the king discovered that he was the son of his father's murderer. After being subjected to a variety of tortures (they scourged him, and put his head in a bag of ashes, poured molten lead over him, etc.) he was thrown into a pit full of dead bodies, poisonous filth, and serpents. He spent fifteen years in this pit, being fed by bread that a pious widow brought him daily. Meanwhile Trdat goes from bad to worse. A holy virgin named Rhipsime, who resists the king's advances and is martyred, here plays a great part in the story. Eventually, as a punishment for his wickedness, the king is turned into a boar and possessed by a devil. A vision now reveals to the monarch's sisters that nothing can save him but the prayers of Gregory. At first no one will attend to this revelation, since they all think Gregory dead long ago. Eventually they seek and find him in the pit. He comes out, exorcizes the evil spirit and restores the king, and then begins preaching. Here a long discourse is put into the saint's mouth -- so long that it takes up more than half his life. It is simply a compendium of what the Armenian Church believed at the time that it was written (fifth century). It begins with an account of Bible history and goes on to dogmatic theology. Arianism, Nestorianism and all the other heresies up to Monophysite times are refuted. The discourse bears the stamp of the latter half of the fifth century so plainly that, even without the fact that earlier writers who quote Agathangelos (Moses of Khorni, etc.) do not know it, no one could doubt that it is the composition of an Armenian theologian of that time, inserted into the life that was already full enough of wonders. Nevertheles this "Confession of Gregory the Illuminator" was accepted as authentic and used as a kind of official creed by the Armenian Church during all the centuries that followed. Even now it is only the more liberal theologians among them who dispute its genuiness.

The life goes on to tell us of Gregory's fast of seventy days that followed his rescue from the pit, of the conversion, and of their journeys throughout the land with the army to put down paganism. The false gods fight against the army like men or devils, but are always defeated by Trdat's arms and Gregory's prayers and are eventually driven into the Caucasus. The story of the saint's ordination and of the establishment of the hierarchy is told with the same adornment. He baptized four million persons in seven days. He ordained and sent out twelve apostolic bishops, and sons of heathen priests. Eventually he ruled a church of four hundred bishops and priests too numerous to count. He and Trdat hear of Constantine's conversion; they set out with an army of 70,000 men to congratulate him. Constantine, who had just been baptized at Rome by Pope Silvester, forms an alliance with Trdat; the pope warmly welcomes Gregory (there are a number of forged letters between Silvester and Gregory, see below) -- and so on. It would not be difficult to find the models for all these stories. Gregory in the pit acts like Daniel in the lion's den. Trdat as a boar is Nabuchodonosor; the battles of the king's army against the heathen and their gods have obvious precedents in the Old Testament. Gregory is now Elias, now Isaias, now John the Baptist, till his sending out his twelve apostles suggests a still greater model. The writer of the life calls himself Agathangelos, chamberlain or secretary of King Trdat. It was composed from various sources after the year 456 (see Gutschmid, below) in Armenian, though sources may have been partly Greek or Syriac (cf. Lagarde). The life was soon translated into Greek used by Symeon Metaphrastes, and further rendered into Latin in the tenth century. During the Middle Ages this life was the invariable source for the saint's history. The Armenians (Monophysites and Uniates) keep the feast of their apostle on 30 September, when his relics were deposed at Thortan. They have many other feasts to commemorate his birth (August 5), sufferings (February 4), going into the pit ( February 28), coming out of the pit (October 19), etc. (Niles "Kalendarium Manuale", 2nd ed., Innsbruck 1897, II, 577). The Byzantine Church keeps his feast (Gregorios ho phoster) on 30 September, as do also the Syrians (Nilles, I, 290-292). Pope Gregory XVI, in September, 1837, admitted his namesake to the Reman Calendar; and appointed 1 October as his feast (among the festa pro aliquibus locis).

 Edgar Allen Poe!

 

 

 

    Today is Beltane (May 1) ---Traditional fire fesival Day~ Ancient Lustral Rite~

 

Since the Celtic year was based on both lunar and solar cycles, it is most likely that the holiday would be celebrated on the full moon nearest the midpoint between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice (near may 5th). the beginning of the pastoral summer season when the herds of livestock were driven out to summer pastures and mountain grazing lands.....

 

 

Blessings upon all of the sacred Mother's children!!!!!

 

 Peace and Love to all!