My first intentional gift this morning was to pay for the bagel, and beverage the girl in front of me in line at my workday morning coffee shop had in her hands. I explained her that I was on a 29 day gift giving challenge, and could I pay for her items. She looked at me odd, then smiled at my smile and said yes. We both laughed and after a moment she asked me about the challenge. I told her about the website and she said she was going to check it out. So, that was my second gift of the day. 
Archive for August, 2008
Field Report: Day 3
21
Aug
The Practice Of Giving
19
Aug
Came across a remarkable article today, Giving Something Each Day May Keep the Doctor Away. The piece is about the origins of the website (and challenge), 29gifts.org. It’s a noble effort and a good reminder of what’s important in life, especially in this age of Consumerism. Check it out, I think it will put a smile on your face (which is my official gift on the first day of my taking up the challenge.)
This comes at a particularly synchronistic time for me. I am headed to Burning Man this weekend, to experience that mad atmosphere of engaged participation and gifting economy once again. Almost feels like cheating since, for at least ten of the days of this challenge for me, I will have no choice but to give things away every day, and likely many times a day.
Cheers!
Why I Love Jewish Mysticism
13
Aug
Just one example of many, this quote is from an article by Rabbi David Cooper from an article in Parabola magazine.
Many of these teachings, nonetheless, were revealed publicly in the Zohar, the Book of Splendor, published around 1300 C.E. The Zohar teaches for all to see that the initial Hebrew words of the Bible, Bereshit bara Elohim, have, in fact, two contradictory translations. One way to translate the opening line, as described above, is to treat the word Elohim, one of many Hebrew names of God, as the subject of the sentence, thus rendering the translation as the familiar phrase: In the beginning, God created.
The other grammatically correct way to translate these words, however, is to treat Elohim as an object, thus rendering the translation: “In the beginning ____ created God The blank in the sentence has an assumed “It,” which compels us to read the opening, In the beginning, [It] created God, heaven and earth.
If one chooses to accept the first translation, with Elohim (God) as Creator, we are immediately ensnared in a well-known series of difficulties that result from having a Creator that precedes and is separate from its Creation. Serious questions arise: If God is all good, how or why would it create evil in the universe? If God is all powerful, why doesn’t it end war forever? Moreover, if God knows everything then there can be no free will. For two thousand years, philosophers have discussed many contradictions like these and most have concluded that such paradoxes will never be resolved and thus the idea of God, as presented in the Bible, can never be proven nor disproven.
On the other hand, if one chooses to consider the mystical translation, that Elohim is part of the Creation rather than the Creator, we must ask, what is the hidden “It” that created God (Elohim)? This extraordinary “It” that precedes the God-name Elohim was a core element of hidden esoteric teachings that were first openly acknowledged in the twelfth century C.E. by a Jewish mystic named Isaac the Blind, who was also the first to give Kabbalah its name. Isaac’s kabbalistic teachings rapidly spread in a way that within a hundred years led to the publication of many parts of the Zohar.
Isaac the Blind referred to the mysterious “t” as Ein Sof (literally: without end, or Boundlessness), which he defined as “that which can not be conceived by thought.” This is a difficult teaching, for it stipulates that there are no words, no thoughts, no way to describe Ein Sof, which should not even be called an “It,” for that implies an entity.
You can read the rest of the article, here.
Cheers!
Silly Buddha Causing Problems Again
07
Aug
You have to love the British! There’s a big ta-do over an offensive depiction of the Buddha in a Norwich gallery, which you can read about here.
Whether you think the piece is offensive or not, I find it more telling that the complaints were about the Buddha with a fruity phallus, and not the, “Christ crucified on the back of a flying bomber and Hindu god Ganesh sitting beneath a Nazi helmet.” Not sure what that says about the level of concern for Buddha’s image, as opposed to Christ and Ganesh, for our modern age, but I do think it’s interesting.
Cheers!
A Shout Out For A Great Effort
05
Aug
Do yourself a favor and check out this video. It’s about the Public Meditation Project started by Alexander Cequea Fuentes. It inspired me to start an extra daily meditation session of 15 minutes (in addition to my daily morning session of 30) in the break room at work. For me, this type of down home, grass roots, spreading of peace and mindfulness is just what our world needs.
