Thich Nhat Hanh Intro

I am reading "The Sun My Heart" by Thich Nhat Hanh. If you have not heard of him, he is a Buddhist monk from Vietnam. He was chairman of the Vietnamese Buddhist Peace Delegation during the war and was nominated by Dr. Martin Luther King for the Nobel Peace Prize. I really enjoyed the introduction to the book so I thought I would put it in here. He has a very relaxed way of writing that, especially for me, is an easy enjoyable read, sometimes even funny. Here is that intro...

Meditators since the beginning of time have known that they must use their own eyes and the language of their own times to express their insight. Wisdom is a living stream, not an icon to be preserved in a museum. Only when a practitioner finds the spring of wisdom in his or her own life can it flow to future generations. Keeping the torch of wisdom glowing is the work of all of us who know how to clear a path through the forest in order to walk on ahead.

Our insight and our language are inseparable from the times in which we live. For many years now, the East has followed the West down the path of technological and material development, to the point of neglecting it's own spiritual values. In our world, technology is the main force behind economics and politics, but those in the forefront of science have begun to see something similar to what the spiritual disciplines of the East discovered long ago. If we can survive our times, the gap that separates science and spirituality will close, and East and West will meet one another on the path to discover true mind. those in whom the seeds of this endeavor have already been sown can start working towards that convergence right now, using their own daily mindful lives.

This small book was written not to show off any knowledge of the author. (In fact, there is not much for him to show off.) It prefers to be a Friend rather than a book. You can take it with you on the bus or subway as you do your coat or your scarf. It can give you small moments of joy at any time. You may like to read a few lines, then close it and put it back in your pocket, and read another few lines sometime later. If you find a paragraph that is difficult or complicated, just skip over it and try the next one. You can return to it later and maybe you will find that it is not so complicated after all. Chapter Five, which is the last one, is quite pleasant to read. You can start there if you like.

Please draw on your own experience to understand this book. Do not be intimidated by any of the words or ideas. Only as author of the text yourself will you find the joy and the strength necessary to journey from mindfulness to insight.

Goats in Duvall

Today we went to see some goats hat were either rescued or found walking down the middle of the road. It was Janae', Jianna, Dar and me. This couple in Duvall have five goats, a dog and two or three cats, all rescued.

Here is Dar kissing one of the goats.
My favorite animal was Jake, their dog. He has the coolest hair; it reminds me of Fraggle Rock.

Found These At Grandma's

I don't need to say much about this. I will put the descriptions below

First, my mom at age 13.

Second, my sister at age 6.

Get ready Ava, that's going to be you pretty soon.

Swim At Shadow Lake

Shadow Lake.

My Mom, Ava, Andrew, Jianna and I went out to my Grandma and Grandpa's house for a final clean up. There was a lady there who was cleaning out the rest of the house and offered to give us the "a family day". How nice is that? We went for a walk down this long dead end that my Grandma used to walk; there are a bunch of private owned camp spots down there but mostly just a lot of trees. Next we went down to the lake and played and swam. The water was perfect. We spent some time swimming here as kids so it was nice to get in another, and possibly final, swim in there.

We brought a raft to tool around on



I put this picture in because it was the only one I could find that had the dock in it. It is probably as old as I am. I think it used to be a little further out than it is now, it could just be that I was a bit smaller than I am now.

Steve Miller 2008

On Saturday, my best friend Micheal and I went to the Gorge to see Steve Miller.
It was a good show, Joe Cocker opened for him.
This is the 3rd time I've seen Steve Miller there, Micheals 4th
The clouds parted as we came down the East side of the pass. The weather was great, sunny, hot with a cool breeze.

This is Micheal at breakfast the morning after. I ate my eggs off of the frisbee we bought.

Lets skip straight to lunch the next day. We stopped at Lake Easton so Micheal could do some fishing. I read my book and took some pics.

It wouldn't be a concert at the Gorge without a drunk woman dancing on top of a car. I never camped at the Gorge but it was pretty fun.