According to Buddha
Be yourself. Life is precious as it is. All the elements for your happiness are already here. There is no need to run, strive, search, or struggle. Just be. Just being in the moment in this place is the deepest practice of meditation. Most people cannot believe that just walking as though you have nowhere to go is enough. They think that striving and competing are normal and necessary. Try practicing aimlessness for just five minutes,and you will see how happy you are during those five minutes.
i howled at the moon with friends
and then the sun came crashing in
wo-o-o-o-o-oh, wo-o-o-o-o-oh
but all the possibilities
no limits just epiphanies
wo-o-o-o-o-oh, wo-o-o-o-o-oh
***
opening ceremonies ~ 2019 Canada Games, Red Deer AB ~ February 2019
I had the opportunity to shoot the games in 2015 here in Prince George. I was blessed in that I met so many wonderful people and still maintain those friendships today.
I can only imagine the experience…there were at least 20 photographers at the opening ceremonies 🤓 lots of long lenses…and yes sport photography would be exciting and then as you say the relationships built with these experiences are life time ones…I’ve seen this too…and experienced this as well…
ps. I can’t reach your website…strange 🤔
compose a creative day ~ smiles hedy
The quote of aimlessness coincides very much with the movie that refers to your post number. A movie about African Americans being murdered or going to prison while young African American girls were dealing with teen pregnancy and bureaucratic welfare system. I don’t think that was what Thich Nhat Hanh meant when she referred to aimlessness as one of the three doors of liberation. The pictures also curse a little with the two remaining doors of liberation; signlessness (not getting caught into traps of abstractions) and emptiness. Flags (a very abstract representation of …) being paraded through a crowded stadium accompanied by a pipe band – there you go emptiness – or it should refer to the “Bread and Circuses”, a metonymic phrase critiquing superficial appeasement.
it’s always a fascinating experience for me…it’s loud…filled with all kind of energies…I tend to go inward with these experiences now…crowds have become less appealing…but I do feel the joy among the athletes, the mayor of Red Deer was so genuine and enthusiastic and the politicians stated their rehearsed one liners…both in English and French…it was a long…I played with my camera and thought about the ‘bread and games’…always a wonder 🤔 thank you for your comments Urban 😊 appreciated ✌️
The evil was not in bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies and the excitement of the games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never appease.(Cicero)
when I think about the words of Ram Dass “Embrace, embrace, embrace…all of it. Embrace the evil. Accept the fact of what nature is, on this plane, without losing these awakenings that I had had to these other planes.”…and now as I read Julia Shaw’s work ‘evil is in the eye of the beholder’…using words like evil to describe people is to place them stark contrast from ourselves…but I don’t know Urban…I do wonder if all the time, energy and resources spent on sport was spent on other matters in our world, even the amount of time given perhaps it might be different…but I live with ‘sport boy’…so I also have learned “the beauty of sport”…it’s also distraction in my hedy head but I know I’m on another plane…some how I still imagine a different world. ☺️ thank you for sharing your comments…I appreciate them 🤓✌️💫
Perhaps a bit late in life I learned that instead of chasing whatever, I let it come to me now. It works amazingly well and no stress.
☺️🤓 I remember a yoga teacher telling me it’s okay to sit on the station bench and watch all the trains go by before I get on one…maturing/evolving is good for me…I still have some stress…but the joy of releasing is taking over more and more…letting go is good for me…thank you for sharing your comment Sha’Tara always appreciated ~ smiles hedy ☺️💫
Thank you sharing this!!💖
you’re most welcome ☺️ compose a beautiful day Vrunda ~ smiles hedy 💫✌️
A wonderful, wonderful quote, thank you for that Hedy. I thought at first that the images contradicted the message, since those Games participants were surely striving and competing. Then again, they were just as surely deeply present in the moment in that place, being fiercely and fully themselves. So perhaps this is an opportunity for the rest of us to practise not seeking resolution, but, instead, to relax into the paradox you have put before us.
yes Penny…I do trouble my thinking about the place of sport and competition…I felt there was a lot of emphasis of ‘winning’ and being ‘superior’…I don’t know…something inside of me just feels we are missing something…I can reflect on Alfie Kohn argument that ‘the race to win turns all of us into losers.’…your comments make sense to me ☺️🤓 have a joyful day ~ smiles hedy
Excellent.
Thank you kindly Rabirius always appreciate your words ☺️🤓 compose a beautiful day 💫
Nice blog
thank you kindly Rajanisingh ☺️💫 compose a beautiful day ~ smiles hedy