Just joined - blindly

Hi all,
I decided to join the group before even so much as reading any discussions. I have seen various of my friends frequently post here to discussions with interesting names so I got curious and checked by. Again I only saw the names and descriptions of rooms which I thought sounded interesting and appealing so I decided I'd join.

I haven't been very “successful” with groups here on Gaia… for various reasons… but I'm not giving up. Maybe I will get to feel at home here, it's definitely worth a try.
Thanks for having me.

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Hi Jenny,

You are in an amazing group.  Have fun exploring and posting.  We are here to back you up.

Enjoy - Carl is fun to post under for stretching the mind and Tai and Jenny always come up with new topics and make it safe to post what you want.  Silent Temple/Sean… is the best question poser so whenever you see his threads… go ahead as he is amazing on keeping things simple and enlightening.

Let us know what you need or want to talk about and I will help bring more friends for you to share your experience on Now I Can See the Moon!!!

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Hi Jenny,
Great to see you in here. We have a lot of quiet fun though sometimes end up laughing quite loudly. Here you can hone your creative skills and get good support doing that. I took up photography after joining just so I could post photos. We challenge each other in a caring way with poetry, photgraphy and just thinking. I tend to avoid the thinking as much as I can but do dip in from time to time. 
Happy Gaiaing
jenny

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Hi Jenny,

I used to sit with some monks from Sri Lanka. They were nice to me.

May you be happy, healthy, comfortable, and successful,

ST
 

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These photos are incredible ST. Would you tell us a bit about them please?

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I agree beautiful pics - is the second one a small stupa..

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Hi Jenny and Tai,

Well, maybe Jenny in Sri Lanka would do a better job than me but I will tell you what I know. The pictures are of a Buddhist temple carved out of solid rock in Sri Lanka. It is a very ancient temple. I originally saw a photo of the temple in a Theravada monastery in Michigan, The Great Lakes Buddhist Vihara, all of whose monks were from Sri Lanka. 

Great Lakes Buddhist Vihara

Bantha Muditah, who is always happy and smiling, once told me they have paintings in the temple of demons with rifles (as I recall, Portuguese invaders) and he started laughing. He thought it was so funny - the consciuousness of the people that made the painting.

Bantha Sathi, who is now in another State, once told me he had meditated there. I asked, “What was it like?” He responded, “Nothingness.” He meant he went into a state of complete emptiness with no subject or object - just pure consciousness.

Dambulla

Much love,

ST

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wonderful photos - just been checking the links and listening to the audio, the tone and vibration were the same, just different words, which leads me to think are the words as important as the vibrational idea of the words - if we know where the words are centered and belong, then this is all we need to know….

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Thankyou ST, I find the chanting very soothing. and the photos lovely,

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Oh, both of you listened to the monk chanting?

Yes, I feel there is a … ah … meditative transformational dynamic with chanting - even making up words as one chants. What is that, I wonder … So many possibilities … and I sometimes feel that we can just throw out the words altogether. I also feel that teaching people chants in languages they don't speak is sometimes very wrong.

I once knew an American who was a Korean Zen monk who would teach people to breathe using the first five Korean counting number, but he wouldn't tell people what they were. I found out by looking them up on the internet. A woman once went up to him and said, “I can feel the sacred meaning of the words resonating within me.”  He said, “They are just counting numbers.” I thought this was very cruel, and on top of it, he did not pronounce all the words correctly, and after studying in Korea for some time.

Just chanting sounds is fine but we should know the meaning if a chant is in another language. Why not translate if possible? There are no magical words but the heart is magical.

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Yes, that's it ST as long as we know the feeling/meaning and vibrational energy of a chant/mantra we will know the placing of the vibration within.   

When I learned the Divinity In, it was important to know the vibration of the energy - the heart felt meaning of the words act as a link into the dynamic “wholeness”. 

Once the feeling/emotion is learned the words do not seem so important. The vibration comes from somewhere in the centre of our being, it's like a holding within our “sacred place” the place maybe from where we came from and where we are going to… The feeling is the same with prayer energy and chi healing (for the want of a better word!)   

I've been learning about this energy when drumming too, when we drum in rhythm with everyone, it's as if we are “riding a wave” of energy which floats and never ends across all time.  The minute you dis-engage with this energy/feeling you lose “the connection” with the rhythm of the tune and the group energy.  It is like a state of no-mind/no-time when you are surfing the crest of a wave…

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Hey Julie,

Have you seen this:

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Hi ST, yes my son bought me the film for my birthday, my mum has it at the moment, but I'm going to pass it round the drum group when I get it back…
ps good drum class class night - it “rocked” as the saying goes - drumming generates loads of heat and it's a great work-out!!

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You are filled with surprises, Julie.  :O)

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Thank you Kathy, Taikunping, Jenny and Silent Temple for welcoming me here. I have been a little busy and preoccupied lately so I didn't really have much time/motivation to revisit but I certainly will once my mind is a bit more at peace again (also, I'll be traveling next week and I probably won't have much time to hang on Gaia the two weeks I'm away).

And Jenny, guess what, I am currently also thinking that when I'm in Germany I will maybe get me a digital SLR and start taking more pictures… (I already enjoy it but feel my regular digital camera has its limitations!).

Silent Temple, thanks for posting the beautiful pics! I have to admit that I haven't done much “sight-seeing” here yet. I live here for work (with a humanitarian aid organization) and when me and my friends travel, it always takes us to the beach where we spend the whole weekend slacking. However, today I actually “accidently” had the chance to visit the Temple of the Tooth (a temple that as the story goes keeps a Buddha tooth relic) in Kandy. I was traveling home to Colombo from Ampara and my car was supposed to meet another car in Kandy kiss movement style and the car coming from Colombo was late. So the driver, a great guy!, took me to the temple. Now how nice is that?!

I have also visited Dambulla once but that was for a workshop in Amaya Lake Hotel and again all I did at the end of the day was relax, swim in the pool, get a massage and walk along the lake for a bit, didn't have time to visit the caves.

Anyways, thanks again for the warm welcome. :)))
xxJenny

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Hi Jenny, great to see you here! I like the way threads flow in this group..after all, the barn's broken and one never knows how one will see the moon..and where that will take us! It's deeply peacefully lively group!

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:O)

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Wow Jenny you are doing the life I dreamed of doing when I was a child. Somehow though life took on a life of its own and I was swept up into having a couple of babies and changing dirty nappies by the age of 21. It seemed like I had no control over any of it. But I figured out that whatever life you get caught up in it has its ups and downs and the real journey is the inner journey that happens while you move along. The exciting part I guess is coordinating the two. I cant wait to see the photos you take when you get your new camera.

Speaking of chanting I wonder if its the vibrational sound that has the initial impact rather the actual words but I do agree ST that people should know the meaning. I had a friend once who took me to a church where they did that singing in tongues and I felt uncomfortable because for all we knew they could have been singing a lot of profanity. I think the word meaning adds to the power of the sound.

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Hi Jenny, 
Yes, I live the life I also have always dreamed of living as a child/teenager. And I'm glad I'm realizing that now. For the past year some developments/ongoings in my personal life have depressed me very much and I have been going through terrible ups and downs. I wasn't sure whether I really liked to be on the road so much, far away from friends and family and very very lonely at times, but I also didn't know if I would like what I thought lay ahead of me: settling down (also in a foreign country far away from friends and family).

My hopes and dreams of settling down got shattered all at once last weekend and suddenly, I feel free. And I love what I am doing. And I know that this is the life for me now. And that's all that counts. I'll let the future be the future and will live in the moment making the most of it.

And as long as we all do that, no matter whether we are changing dirty nappies, going to the office from 9 to 5 (which I do more often than traveling to the field), backpacking through the Himalayas or cooking delicious meals for husbands and kids - we will be happy. Happier than regretting that we missed out on something in our lives or longing for something the future might bring. I learned that only now. It's a new and wonderful feeling for me.

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Amen Jenny.
I also realised a little while back that I am in the right place. I have it all, a family, a meaningful career, a home, some really great friends. I should be spouting this on the Gratitude Chain. The thought of uprooting myself and being in a foreign country away from family where nobody speaks my language no longer appeals quite so much.

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Thanks for bringing us real views of this world we all share.  When I first joined Gaia, I had also brought in two members of another group I was a part of.  Both said similar things, “oh, so you want to save the world. That's what this site is all about.  We're going back to the other group”.  I felt that Gaia was the first community network that was really making a change for the better.  

I never said I can change the world, but did feel that I met kindred spirits that together were on that track.  So I meet my two Jenny friends here, and yes, we are creating changes.  We each can at least collaborate on successful actions even if sometimes it seems grim and all is bad.  I always have a line that works for me. When all seems grim and nothing is going right, just remember one thing that things will turn out all right.  

I hold that in light of things we experience here because there truly is more good than bad in the world.   I operate off of a dream: A civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights.  I feel I have found a group(s) on this site, where we seek no revolution. We seek only evolution to higher states of being for the individual and for society. We are achieving our aims.  As we balance things with words, put out positive things it does tip the ratio of negativity that we sometimes have to confront.  Its lighter to confront than to keep flowing to the negativity and counter intentions, as well as giving some workable advice from past experiences showing that changing can happen, even if beings cause their own feelings they can be brought back up.  Its only my opinion but I see changes daily on this site… not just this group.  ~k

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Beautiful, Kathy.

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Hi Jenny's (or Jennies :-), Kathy, Tai and Silent but always Present Temple,
Real indeed. So many different personalities, different lives and challenges. But all seem to be in sync with a shared pattern of belief, stepstones and bridges to cross. Shattered dreams, or maybe just illusions of a dream. I know, I've not only been there but I still am looking for the difference between the illusion and the dream. Can be very hard sometimes. Just a mirror your looking in? Or is it an open window blowing a soft breeze of fresh air that smells like new adventures.

Kathy, I agree, we do make changes for the better. Let's keep on feeding our dream. It can never be an illusion, because it's our's :-)

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Beautiful sentiments Kathy and Nion,
The truth is that your life becomes how you see it . My life hasnt always been this good. Its taken a lot of years of honing and creative visualisation to make the most of what I was given. You are right too this place is pretty special. Dreams become reality and without the difficult stuff we dont come to value the great as much.  I love that in here we get to connect with like minded people and the good rubs off. I was having some difficult moments at work and knowing that I could come home and turn on the computer to the positive alternate world helped me make happy changes in the day to day world.
The process is more important than the goal

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We all live in a Miracle.

Clinging to things in a dependent way, we stop realizing the Miracle and become unhappy.

Not clinging, we fully appreciate and clearly see.

Even is someone is to leave us we deeply appreciate, if we are autonomous, we can enjoy whatever time we have with them to the fullest.

Going, we come. Coming, we go. Best not to have a thought.

Weeping, we sometimes celebrate. Celebrating, we sometimes weep. Best just to be kind and embrace the Miracle.

ST

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Jenny - I have had the privilege of writing and receiving your help from that part of the world for another part of the world proving we on Gaia can bond and do something about any circumstance.  You have an adventurous lifestyle where production and service orientation is of high morale and sometimes heavy drama.  We just get to watch it on the news where I am and you are ready to put on combat boots if necessary.  I look forward to more talks with you and love sharing things from your experiences.
Thanks…for being there.  ~kes