Today’s Oracle
My software angels choose this oracle quote for you today:
101) If your guides claim That the Kingdom is in the sky, The birds of the sky will be there before you. If they say it is in the sea, The fishes of the sea will be there before you. The Kingdom is within you and without you. When you know yourselves, you will be known. Then you shall know that you are Sons of the Living Father. But, if you do not know yourselves You are in poverty, and you are poverty. Attributed to Jesus, Gospel of Thomas
You can use my Potent Quotes Oracle page whenever you need help. Hold a question in your heart, and see what quote comes up for you when you scroll down. It will be a response to your question. Play with it.
Quotations act as little doorways into new worlds and new perceptions. They consist of distilled genius.
Get the Wizard’s Handbook on Oracle Creation and have fun with oracles.
Zen Stories
I love stories. Stories offer me possibilities of how I could choose to live my life. Most of the important life changes I have made came from listening to living stories told by writers, colleagues, clients, or life coaches.
Back in the 60’s, my brother, John, introduced me to Zen. Then I found Zen Flesh Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings either from his guidance or from The Whole Earth Catalog. Naturally, the koans in the book puzzled me, but I loved the 101 Zen stories Paul Reps told.
Note: The idea in Zen is to get direct insight into the mystery of the universe. Not an intellectual understanding but to arrive at the same place that Buddha did. To wake up.
Japanese Zen masters use short stories called koans to nudge the student into awakening. They’re puzzles that can’t be solved from where you are. Your intellect and your ego will grind to a halt or explode trying to manage it. If you wrestle with them long enough, an intuitive leap offers itself to you.
It has that sense like something you know intimately that’s just on 
the tip of your tongue. And then POW. (See sculpture from the Seattle Art Museum depicting a Zen monk at the moment of awakening.)
Preparing for my total hip replacement surgery, I was hungering for more Zen stories and found this lovely book, Zen Masters Of China: The First Step East by Richard Bryan McDaniel. Bryan has collected stories from Buddhism’s first entry of into China with Bodhidharma through to the Japanese era.
Think of sitting in a coffee shop with your old friend, Bryan, who has just returned from a spiritual journey to China. Bryan tells you stories of the people he met, some of whom you may have read about. Bryan gives you some background, some historical perspective about these masters he met, but he mostly tells you sweet and engagingly useful stories.
I found the stories comforting, which is what I was really seeking. (My surgery went well.)
Recently, I was reporting to my Zen coach, Osho Genjo Marinello, “Currently, I am watching and feeling the breezes. Even when I’m indoors, I look out enjoying the wind moving through the trees bending the ornamental grasses across the street. It helps me come back to the moment.”
Genjo then told me that the Zen master, Joshu used the wind in one of his koans.
I found the story in Zen Masters Of China –
Another monk posed this somber question: “After the body has died and has been reduced to its constituent elements and scattered, is there anything that remains, eternal, non-material.”
“The wind is brisk today,” Joshu (Zhaozhou) replied.
Way cool, yes? Imagine my relationship with the wind now. And with Genjo and Joshu.
McDaniel’s next book in the series of three books stepping east, Zen Masters of Japan, is out now. Bryan is working on book three which will deal with American Zen masters. He posted a wonderful piece about his lovely conversation with Genjo:
May you walk in beauty,
William
P.S. My newest book Drawing the Sacred: Communing with the Sacred through Drawing – An Illustrated Journey echoes all these ideas. Go read the description and consider getting it.
P.P.S. Please let your friends know about this.
P.P.P.S. Get Notified: Have you filled in your email at the top right corner yet? Do it now while you’re here. Obviously, you can unsubscribe anytime if it doesn’t serve you.
