Thursday, July 28, 2011

Do Not Join That Club

Listen up, rock stars and other artistes! Dying by overdose is trite, boring, conventional and places you squarely within everybody's expectations. Break out of the box. Rebel. Dare to engage with life and live to a grand old age - something that will shock everyone.


The genius who lives has nothing left to prove to anyone.



Friday, July 22, 2011

About Faith

A friend of mine posted this on her Facebook status, and I had to share.

FAITH
by Bill Scheffel
Unconditional faith is not something to believe in but something to know. It is not forcing myself to believe but encountering something believable, something undeniable, something innate. The encounter itself is intangible, a substance I cannot collect, bring home, or experiment on. I cannot prove its existence or even that it happened. Faith is packaged intangibility as terrain, an invisible homeland we emerged from, or once crossed over, or slept on for a night - that continues to exist as a spiritual echo or postcard.

The text says, “That mind of sadness, possessing faith, free from thought is the profound tradition of the genuine great warriors.” Faith is an innate aspect of the mind of sadness - which is unconditional sadness: the all-embracing mercy, love and compassion that is an ocean without shore, distributed evenly and without beginning or end throughout the timeless and unbounded cosmos. It discovers us as gravity, intangible attraction. The mind of sadness possesses faith as the universe is possessed by gravity.

The mind free from thought is like the moon without space probes or discarded fuel tanks. A perfect sphere of non-interference that has no diameter. The thought that goes looking for something it can never find is freed by outer space and faith flares in countless unique constellations. The profound tradition of genuine great warriors are those who open to witness this immensity without location.

These warriors have journeyed though countless light years of aloneness. Since awake travels at the speed of light they became ever closer to themselves. On an endless journey, they have nothing to dispense but gravity itself; compassion or mercy in all its faces - terrible fires or the miracle of water. The most perfect geniuses of awakened warrior-ship travel faster than the speed of light, which explains how they might arise between the thought we just had and the one we haven’t had yet. The gap in thought is our invisible homeland and our faith the felt evidence of each of their visits.


Bill Scheffel
31-May: 2009  Boulder
http://westernmountain.org/

Thursday, July 21, 2011

New Review Up at Amazon!

I really hope all that they say about word-of-mouth advertising is true -- because word of mouth about YU is just marvelous.  This is from a lady who was loaned a copy of YU by a friend of my mother.

"WHAT A WONDERFUL BOOK! The author paints pictures with her words so real that they draw you into the story. I swear that I could detect the smells rising from the pages. I wondered "what was real and what was fantasy." I was there in that story and loved it. I didn't want it to end. A great mystery written in intelligent lovely prose....almost poetry. It so exciting that I did not want to stop reading. I had to find out what happened with Ross Lamos, his special gift, and his connection with the Jade owners. IT is especially wonderful read aloud. Ancient Chinese art and a smart mystery mixed with Buddhist wisdom make a soul rewarding read. Don't miss it. I will read it again."

Oh my!  

Sunday, July 17, 2011

A Moment of Clarity ...

"One way to look at the US economy is this. We have 14.5 trillion on a credit card with a low introductory rate of 2.9%, good indefinitely. If we are late with even one payment, the interest rate adjusts to the default rate of 29%. And politicians are actually arguing that we should skip a payment and take the penalty, to demonstrate their regret for having run up the balance in the first place."

Thanks to Scott McCaulay of Indiana University.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Meet Me In St. Louis ...

I am headed for Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention for writers, readers, fans, publishers of mystery fiction! St. Louis, Sept 15-18. Promotional goodies for YU: A Ross Lamos Mystery will be in 1600 swag bags.  One of them will be available to everyone starting in August or September -- I'll let you know when it's up!