Why boasteth thyself
Oh, evil men
Playing smart
And not being clever?
I said, you’re working iniquity
To achieve vanity (if a-so a-so)
But the goodness of Jah, Jah
I-dureth for-I-ver

So if you are the big tree
We are the small axe
Ready to cut you down (well sharp)
To cut you down

These are the words
Of my master, keep on tellin’ me
No weak heart
Shall prosper
And whosoever diggeth a pit
Shall fall in it, fall in it
And whosoever diggeth a pit
Shall fall in it (… fall in it)

If you are the big tree, let me tell you that
We are the small axe, sharp and ready
Ready to cut you down (well sharp)
To cut you down

(To cut you down)

(To cut you down)

These are the words
Of my master, tellin’ me that
No weak heart
Shall prosper
And whosoever diggeth a pit
Shall fall in it, uh, bury in it
And whosoever diggeth a pit
Shall bury in it, uh (… bury in it)

If you are the big, big tree
We are the small axe
Ready to cut you down (well sharp)
To cut you down
If you are the big, big tree, let me tell you that
We are the small axe
Ready to cut you down (well sharp)
To cut you down
Sharpened …

 

The Honorable Robert Nesta Marley. O.M.

 

 
The essential thing in studying the Way is to make the roots deep and the stem strong. Be aware of where you really are twenty-four hours a day. You must be most attentive. When nothing at all gets on your mind, it all merges harmoniously, without boundaries — the whole thing is empty and still, and there is no more doubt or hesitation in anything you do. This is called the fundamental matter appearing ready-made.

As soon as you give rise to the slightest bit of dualistic perception or arbitrary understanding and you want to take charge of this fundamental matter and act the master, then you immediately fall into the realm of the clusters of form, sensation, conception, value synthesis, and consciousness. You are entrapped by seeing, hearing, feeling, and knowing, by gain and loss and right and wrong. You are half drunk and half sober and unable to clean all this up.

Frankly speaking, you simply must manage to keep concentrating even in the midst of clamor and tumult, acting as though there were not a single thing happening, penetrating all the way through from the heights to the depths. You must become perfectly complete, without any shapes or forms at all, without wasting effort, yet not inhibited from acting. Whether you speak or stay silent, whether you get up or lie down, it is never anyone else.

If you become aware of getting at all stuck or blocked, this is all false thought at work. Make yourself completely untrammeled, like empty space, like a clear mirror on its stand, like the rising sun lighting up the sky. Moving or still, going or coming, it doesn’t come from the outside. Let go and make yourself independent and free, not being bound by things and not seeking to escape from things. From beginning to end, fuse everything into one whole. Where has there ever been any separate worldly phenomenon apart from the buddhadharma, or any separate buddhadharma apart from worldly phenomena?
 

Yuanwu

 

L.B. “Bud” Walker died peacefully at home on Friday evening, January 27, 2017.

He was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan on April 17, 1925. From the age of 12 he was drawn to airplanes and his wish to learn how to fly led him to a life in the air. 

Over his career he earned licenses to operate (both VFR and IFR) single-engine and multi engine airplanes, seaplanes, and helicopters, and from there to acquire licenses to teach others to fly them, up to and including an airline transport pilot’s rating.  Among his military and civilian honors was the Orville and Wilbur Wright Award, given to him by the FAA in 2010.

Bud Walker flew thousands of hours in peacetime and also in combat during the Korean War.

A special joy at age 65 was his purchase of an aerobatic airplane, a Pitts Special, in which he entertained himself and those on the ground with his poetic and precise aerobatic maneuvers. He maintained the airplane largely himself and with close friends for twenty years.

In 1952 Bud married Joan Radcliffe. The romance began in Greece and lasted for 65 years.

Their children, Laurie Lysle Walker, Brian Browne Walker, and Julie Sands Donaldson, survive him. David Radcliffe Walker, their first son, died shortly after birth in 1955.

After his wife and family, the Grumman F8F-2 Bearcat, and his Pitts Special, Bud liked fast automobiles, swimming in cold water, and jazz music. He was an elegant drummer until very near the end of his life. He had good friends, told good stories, supported the needy, and remained the beautiful person he was throughout and until the end of a long illness.

His kind and generous spirit and faith in God lives on in his deeds and in the memories of those who knew and loved him.

A memorial service will be held at the Holloway Funeral Home in Oldsmar. Donations in lieu of flowers can be made to the Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranch in Safety Harbor.

It is

a signal honor when

the best man one has  ever known,

the best friend one has ever had, and

one’s own father are one and the

same man. I love you,

Papa, always and

forever.

person of tao

 

A man who

tiptoes can’t stand.

A man who straddles can’t

walk. A man who shows

off can’t shine.

 

A man

who justifies his

actions isn’t respected.

A man who boasts of his

achievements has no merit.

A man who brags will

not endure.

 

To a person

of tao, these things are

excess food and superfluous

behavior. Because nothing good

can come of them, he doesn’t

indulge in them.

 

from The Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu,

Chapter 24

 

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The Spirit

of the Valley never dies:

it is called Mysterious-Female.

The gate of the Mysterious-Female

is called root of Heaven

and Earth.

 

This is the opening

that generates Heaven, Earth,

and humans; this is the hometown of Saints,

Buddhas, and Immortals. You arrange the furnace

and set up the tripod here; you collect the Medicine and

refine it here; you coagulate the Elixir here; and you

deliver it here. Being is here, Non-Being is here.

The beginning and the end of all

operation are here.

 

This Opening

is the place where the four

elements do not stick: it is in the realm

of Empty Non-Being, “silent and still.” Neither can

you find it by using your intention, nor can you guard it by

not using your mind. If those who cultivate themselves want to

find this One Opening, they must begin by looking for it.

Only when they truly know it and clearly see it, they

can begin to collect the treasure of Heaven.

Those who not know this Opening may

strive in one thousand different ways

and toil in ten thousand different

manners, but they will never

see any progress or

improvement.

 

How could students

not strive? How could they not

exert their minds to inquire

into the principles?

 

Liu Yiming