Category: Short-Term Goals

Started Lonesome Dove [Kindle] last week and I can’t put it down.

A country western novel about two retired Texas Rangers on their last adventure and the people who thread through their lives past and present. John Steinbeck with more humor. Centered on the big bold American West featuring Indians and outlaws and cattle and guns. But like all good stories the land and the times are just a backdrop to the good stuff: unfinished loves, unspoken friendships, dreams being made and destroyed, life’s little pleasures and bitter sweets. The style and flow remind me of Norm MacLean’s A River Runs Through It which I wanted to be 5x longer. Luckily Lonesome Dove is a hefty book – 800 plus pages, I’m only 2/5 through, and glad there’s a lot more waiting.

Here are some snippets so you get a sense of the author’s writing:

Call’s got to be the one to out-suffer everybody, that’s the pint. I won’t say he’s a man to hunt glory like some I’ve knowed. Glory don’t interest Call. He’s just got to do his duty nine times over or he don’t sleep good.”

“I figured out something, Lorie,” he said. “I figured out why you and me get along so well. You know more than you say and I say more than I know. That means we’re a perfect match, as long as we don’t hang around one another more than an hour at a stretch.”

But he was convinced that Indians understood the moon. He had never talked with an Indian about it, but he knew they had more names for it than white people had, and that suggested a deeper understanding. The Indians were less busy and would naturally have more time to study such things.

Roscoe found it hard even to remember Elmira, though he had done practically nothing but think about her for the last twenty-four hours. All he really knew was that he hated to ride out of the one town he felt at home in. That everyone was eager for him to go made him feel distinctly bitter.

His wife had left for parts unknown, his deputy was wandering in other parts unknown, and the man he was supposed to catch was in yet other parts unknown. In fact, July felt he had reached a point in his life where virtually nothing was known. He and Joe were on a street in Fort Worth, and that was basically the sum of his knowledge.

I just finished Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Miracle of Mindfulness [Kindle]. Beautiful and simple, a little crystal of stories and advice. Nhat Hanh is considered by some to be a (the?) Living Buddha. Here are 8 of my favorite excerpts.

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to talk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child – our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

Mindfulness is the miracle by which we master and restore ourselves. Consider, for example: a magician who cuts his body into many parts and places each part in a different region – hands in the south, arms in the east, legs in the north, and then by some miraculous power lets forth a cry which reassembles whole every part of his body. Mindfulness is like that – it is the miracle which can call back in a flash our dispersed mind and restore it to wholeness so that we can live each minute of life.

To master our breath is to be in control of our bodies and minds. Each time we find ourselves dispersed and find it difficult to gain control of ourselves by different means, the method of watching the breath should always be used.

…a person who knows how to breathe is a person who knows how to build up endless vitality: breath builds up the lungs, strengthen the blood, and revitalizes every organ in the body. They say that proper breathing is more important than food. And all of these statements are correct.

Take the example of the Zen Masters. No matter what task or motion they undertake, they do it slowly and evenly, without reluctance.

…it is not just our own lives that are recognized as precious, but the lives of every other person, every other being, every other reality. We can no longer be deluded by the notion that the destruction of others’ lives is necessary for our own survival. We see that life and death are but two faces of Life and that without both, Life is not possible, just as two sides of a coin are needed for the coin to exist.

When reality is perceived in its nature of ultimate perfection, the practitioner has reached a level of wisdom called non-discrimination mind – a wondrous communion in which there is no longer any distinction made between subject and object. This isn’t some far-off, unattainable state. Any one of us – by persisting in practicing even a little – can at least taste of it. I have a pile of orphan applications for sponsorship on my desk. I translate a few each day. Before I begin to translate a sheet, I look into the eyes of the child in the photograph, and look at the child’s expression and features closely. I feel a deep link between myself and each child, which allows me to enter a special communion with them. While writing this to you, I see that during those moments and hours, the communion I have experienced while translating the simple lines in the applications has been a kind of non-discrimination mind. I no longer see an “I” who translates the sheets to help each child, I no longer see a child who received love and help. The child and I are one: no one pities; no one asks for help; no one helps. There is no task, no social work to be done, no compassion, no special wisdom. These are moments of non-discrimination mind.

The objects of meditation must be realities that have real roots in yourselves – not just subjects of philosophical speculation. Each should be like a kind of food that must be cooked for a long time over a hot fire. We put it in a pot, cover it, and light the fire. The pot is ourselves and the heat used to cook is the power of concentration. The fuel comes from the continuous practice of mindfulness. Without enough heat the food will never be cooked. But once cooked, the food reveals its true nature and helps lead us to liberation.

Here’s my recent performance. Some observations:

Wake up before 8am – much better. The key is going to bed early. If I’m in bed by 11pm, I can usually wake up by 8

Pushups – a new habit where I do a set of pushups that equal my age. The idea is that as I get older, the habit becomes harder

Singing – making the most progress here. I released a song and will try to do this every week

Why all this tracking and sharing?. Here was last week’s performance.

What are your habits? How do you measure your performance? I’d love to hear from you.

Christianity is basically a historical religion. That is to say, it is founded not on abstract principles but in concrete events, actual historical happenings. The most important of these is the life of a Jewish carpenter who, as has often been pointed out, was born in a stable, was executed as a criminal at age thirty-three, never traveled more than ninety miles from his birthplace, owned nothing, attended no college, marshaled no army, and instead of producing books did his only writing in the sand.

He was born in Palestine during the reign of Herod the Great, probably around 4 B.C .—our reckoning of the centuries that purports to date from his birth is almost certainly off by several years. He grew up in or near Nazareth, presumably after the fashion of other normal Jews of the time. He was baptized by John, a dedicated prophet who was electrifying the region with his proclamation of God’s coming judgment. In his early thirties he had a teaching-healing career, which lasted between one and three years and was focused largely in Galilee.

Certainly puts things into perspective regarding history, achievement, and our life’s purpose. I’m enjoying Huston Smith’s book, The World’s Religions [Kindle].