Civic Responsibility, Compassion, Walking the Talk by Kris Vockler
April 1, 2008
I’m one of those who other’s call social or liberal, in being a businesswoman, often they are saying this about me in a negative way. Yet I believe at the core that we, as humans, Americans, inhabitants of cities, counties, living in neighborhoods, have a civic responsibility to each other and our community. I live in a small area of town but I’m a part of the larger city, my company is in a small part of the city but I service customers all over the globe, everyone is treated the same.
We’ve all heard the saying “Think Globally and Act Locally”, it has great merit, think of the whole but act in your zone of influence.
A quote I recently saw from His Holiness the Dalai Lama really brought this home and rang so true:
“Adopting an attitude of universal responsibility is essentially a personal matter. The real test of compassion is not what we say in abstract discussions but how we conduct ourselves in daily life.”
-His Holiness the Dalai Lama, “Imagine All the People”
This is the crux and could be as simple as do you hold a door open for another, do you think about the cars next to you when you park at the mall; can they get into their car or did you park too close. It’s all about holding compassion for another in your hands and thinking, then acting on the desire to ease suffering of another. It’s so simple, just think for a moment how you might help another to not suffer or have a bad day, just by being conscious of them when you make an action.
If you read this and say, “why should I care”? You need to think about it the most.
Namaste
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Sphere: Related ContentRadio/Online Interview with Leslie Blackburn - Saturday 3/29
March 26, 2008
Our friend Leslie had this to say about her upcoming radio interview:
I welcome you listen to Radio Free Nashville on-line this Saturday for a discussion on Sacred Sexuality and Sacred Geometry!
Leslie Blackburn of One Space, LLC, to be interviewed by Dawn Kirk, host of “Wake Up & Live” on Radio Free Nashville www.radiofreenashville.org
This Saturday, March 29, 10am -11am EDT.
See below for more details on Dawn’s full two hour show line up for this Saturday!
The topics on “Wake Up & Live” this Saturday may seem deep and challenging but join me as I talk with Dorothy Marcic then Leslie Blackburn about the possible interconnectedness between the Divine Feminine, Sacred Sexuality, Sacred Geometry and Sex Trafficing. For a year now, I’ve found myself curious about these topics and even more so since they’re arising in these important times.
Dorothy Marcic, a former Vanderbilt business management professor and writer, is more recently known for her hit “Respect: A Musical Journey of Women.” From Hollywood to Chicago, St. Paul to Atlanta, Dorothy’s gotten rave reviews for her use of Top 40 songs to trace the progress of women in our society. ( http://www.respectamusicaljourn
(http://www.tennessean.com/apps
In the second hour at 9:00 Central, I’ll talk with Leslie Blackburn about Sacred Sexuality and Sacred Geometry. Trained as an engineer, Leslie is also an artist, yogini and Tantrika. Leslie has combined her managerial and speaking skills with her creativity and passion for the spiritual path to form One Space, LLC, a conscious teaching/learning community and an avenue for the sharing of her art. Her artwork incorporates the principles of sacred geometry and balance and is a flowing exploration of the inner self as well as the power and beauty of the human form. Through her exploration and practice of sacred sexuality/Tantra, she has experienced deep healing and release on a personal level and is called to share this path of potential with others. Leslie’s personal path and work has been the integration of the ever-unfolding feminine in body and psyche with masculine direction and purpose- Love in action! See www.onespaceconnected.com
Join us as we bring sexuality out of the shadows and listen for the sacred this Saturday from 8-10AM Central time on ”Wake Up & Live’ at www.radiofreenashville.org . How exciting during this month honoring women that we get to hear from two amazing women who are utilizing both their right and left brain capacities to bring healing and wholing to the world.
Sincerely,
Dawn Kirk
Prior interviews archived at www.seedsthestory.com/wakeup
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Sphere: Related ContentSacred Geometry 101 with Leslie Blackburn
March 26, 2008
Our friend Leslie Blackburn @ OneSpaceConnected.com is offering a Sacred Geometry 101 class in Dearborn, Michigan.”What the heck do shapes have to do with the creation of everything?!?”
Instructor: Leslie Blackburn
Where: Glass Academy, 25331 Trowbridge, Dearborn, MI 48124 (www.glassacademy.com)
| Cost: $35 (materials included) |
This workshop includes topics such as:
· Creation beginning with spirit in the void
· Geometry as the language of creation. Music, language, living creatures & plants all developed from these concepts
· Flower of Life
· Tree - Flower - Fruit - Seed (egg)
· Metatron’s cube - finding the 5 platonic solids from the Flower of Life
· Vesica piscis, light
· Feminine and masculine aspects of shapes and lines
· Build your own Star Tetrahedron!
· And as time permits we’ll explore more (phi ratio, golden mean spirals, fibonacci sequence)…
We will learn in a hands-on session, I’ve found that a deeper connection to this work happens when you not only hear, read about or see it…but create it!
Materials (compass, straight edge, colored pencils, paper) will be provided, if you have your own and would like to bring them please feel free. No prior experience is necessary. Just bring your open mind, interest and enthusiasm! I look forward to sharing an exciting time together! I just love this stuff 
Please fill out and email the Entry Form (or download from website below) to (please let me know by Apr 4, 2008):
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Sphere: Related ContentTips for Being Mindfull…
March 2, 2008
Morning all and Happy Sunday, I hope the sun is shining where you are, seems odd to see it here in the Pacific NW.
We’ve talked here about what Mindfulness is in several posts:
What it isn’t | Who exhibited it | Using Gratitude as a Tool
For the most part we have talked about using meditation and breath as a way to cultivate mindfulness yet our Friend over at The Middle Way has posted a fantastic list of cultivating it in many ways. Please check out the blog post here to see the full descriptions, the summarized list is below:
- Take a breath
- Smile in public (I’d also add “smile to yourself all the time”)
- Spot your moods and how moods affect your life
- Feel your body, how it is
- Eat mindfully
- Notice when entering a new space
- Try feeling any jewelry you are wearing, as often as possible
- Let the phone ring a big, breathe first
If you have other suggestions, head over the The Middle Way and post a comment.
~LaBoheme
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Sphere: Related ContentGreat Quote….On Mindfulness
February 1, 2008
How much of your life do you spend looking forward to being somewhere else?
-Matthew Flickstein, “Journey to the Center”
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Sphere: Related ContentSorry for Theme Changes Around Here
January 25, 2008
It appears we have a glitch in our wordpress account and our theme keeps changing around. We will try to have this fixed asap as well, keep an eye out for a totally new website for Beyond Zen along with several channels of writers; Buddhism Channel, Qigong Channel, Sacred Geometry Channel, all from your favorite bloggers.
Namaste,
Kris
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Sphere: Related ContentWhat is the Ego you say? by Kris Vockler
January 22, 2008
The other day I was trying to explain the ego to a friend of mine, from a Buddhist perspective on what it is. First off, it’s a very complex concept and how I explained it was very good yet there is more to it. Yet, to boil things down to an analogy that seemed to make sense to one who hasn’t studied Buddhism at all, here is my explanation:
The ego is like the spell checker in a word processing program. When you fire it up the first time, it’s blank and has no idea how to spell anything. So, we put a dictionary of words into it so it will know where to start, this is birth to early childhood for the ego. Let’s assume the dictionary we added to the checker is correct and all the spellings are right. Now as you progress through life you will come across a situation or event that shapes how you see the world. Call this event or situation a single word if you will. The spell checker that is your ego won’t recognize it and it puts a red wavy line under it so you know it doesn’t understand it. Once you have lived the event and now see the event through your own lens, you have just defined the word for the checker. If you spell the word wrong, you will forever spell or see the world in that incorrect way. As we go through life we add our own spellings to words and by the time we get older we realize that the way we spelled it is wrong and not true reality. This is where Buddhism comes in, Buddhism shows you where the word is spelled wrong (or where you incorrectly saw the event or world) and allows you to change the spelling.
About as simple as it gets as to how the ego takes an event and defines it, see how one can stray away from the reality of things?
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Sphere: Related ContentThe Middle Way & eSangha #12
January 22, 2008
My new friend @ The Middle Way has included our post on the difference between Namaste & Gassho, please check it out. This version of eSangha is fantastic and full of other posts on; Music, Meditation tips, Enhancing Attention, and an eBook on “Small is Beautiful”.
Gassho,
Kris
Links
Beyond Zen Post: “Namaste or Gassho, Hola or Halo”
The Middle Way Post: “eSangha #12″
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Sphere: Related ContentInner Smile on a Cold Day
January 18, 2008
Yesterday was one of those days, you wake-up completely on the wrong side of the bed. Tripping, spilling, cursing the morning away. I thought for sure it was going to be a horrible day. To boot, I’m late and there is ice all over my car. So, after de-icing the car and cranking up the heat I feel the heat of being late. Not that I was going to get in trouble, I just really hate to be late anywhere. So, there I am in my car, driving through my neighborhood, thinking of nothing but being late and how bad of a morning it was.
Freeze……Can you see how the day is shaping? It’s going to be bad and I’m determined to make it so. Ok Go!
As I get to a corner in my neighborhood I notice my neighbor and her grandchild waiting for the bus. This woman always waves to me and I wave back but it will take a huge undertaking to remove my negative thoughts. And then it happend. Although I might have been 20 degrees and ice everywhere, her Grandchild looked up with that pom on top of her knitted cap and her stripped mittens to “smile and wave” at me. I was stuck in my tracks, unable to move.
The moment of seeing a child smile and wave changed everything. I felt that “Inner Smile” blurb up and fill my body. The last thing to hit was the smile on my face. A simple act of joy and a smile melted me, turned everything around.
I couldn’t stop smiling the whole way to work…..then it cascaded to a spring in my step and my humor…….I felt like bouncing to every meeting.
The “Inner smile”, from Lao Tzu to Buddha, a concept of love from the inside.
What I felt was a massive amount of Qi cultivation at that moment, continuing throughout the day, thinking of my Qigong instructor saying “let a smile float up to your face” only brought more Qi. My practice of “Loving-Kindness” as of late came to mind as well and I was again washed in Qi and calm.
Some call it the Buddha Nature or Loving-Kindness and some call it the “Inner Smile”, I called it unexpected.
This just goes to show how much of a quality day we create by just thinking it as well as the power of a wave and a smile from another being.
For meditation and more articles:
Metta: The Practice of Loving Kindness by Kris Vockler
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Sphere: Related ContentUpdate “Spread the Love NOW! Group Writing Project”
January 8, 2008
As many of you know we were part of a wonderful project called “Spread the Love NOW! Group Writing Project“. Created by those wonderfully enlightened folks at [The Middle Way], [Zen-Inspired Self Development], and [UrbanMonk.net]. The project was fantastic and led me to a whole new group of enlightened ones to read and be a part of on this crazy path we each share yet walk alone. To read Beyond Zen’s part of the project, check out this post: A Story of Compassion and Dying.
I want all of our readers to also enjoy some of the great writing from this project; stories of compassion, concepts of compassion from many spiritual themes, and discussions on definition of the word “Compassion”. The list is below, enjoy!
~La Boheme
Entries
Ben Lumley at The New Horizons Project.
Kris Vockler at Beyond Zen.
Corinne Edwards at Personal Growth with Corinne Edwards.
Isabella Mori at Change Therapy.
Paula Kawal at Journey Inward Coaching.
Liara Covert at Dream Builders.
David Bohl at Slow Down Fast.
Deb Estep at Deb_Inside.
Swami Nirmalananda Giri and ReddyK at the Atma Jyoti Blog.
Mary Jaksch at Goodlife Zen.
Takuin Minamoto at Daily Action and Natural Expression.
Robin at Reflections on Compassion, posted at Yogini Myspace Blog.
Karen Zara at Abaminds.
Jenny Mannion at Heal Pain Naturally.
Evan Hadkins at WellBeingAndHealth.Net.
Shawn Williamson at do you LIVE or simply EXIST.
Patricia Singleton at Spiritual Journey of a Lightworker.
Alex Blackwell at The Next 45 Years.
Akemi Gaines at Gratitude Magic.
Vitor Bosshard at The Fractal Forest.
CG Walters at Into The Mist.
John Torcello has also contributed an entry by email, I’ve included it in the comments below.
Brightdays at Brighter Days for you and me!
Karen at Loving Awareness.
Krista at Lucid Amphibology.
Karen Lynch at Live The Power.
Andrea Hess at Empowered Soul.
Waters at Waters: The Last Thing I Wanted To Give.
Eric Grey at Deepest Health.
Stephen Hopson at Adversity University.
Em Dy at Pulse: Intention to Treat.
Iain Hamp at Follow Your Passions.
Rahul at Raw Speak.
Stephen Miracle at AltNoise.Net.
Pearl at Interesting Observations.
Mark at My Tropical Escape.
Matthew at Loving Awareness.
Daylle Schwartz at Lessons from a Recovering Doormat.
Charities Link at Charities Link.
Mihaela Lica at Pamil Visions eWritings.
David at Virginia Breeze.
Jerry Summers at Nothing Like Now.
Wishbone at Wishbone.
Arvind Devalia at Make Things Happen.
Samir Bharadwaj at Samir Bharadwaj dot com.
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