“Nan-ch’uan and his lay disciple Lu Hsuan (陸亘). Lu was reciting Seng-chao’s saying:
天地與我同根 Heaven and earth come from the same root as myself:
萬物與我爲一 All things and I belong to one Whole.
However, he did not really understand the full purport of it. Nan-ch’uan pointed at the peonies in the courtyard, saying, ‘The worldlings look at these bush of flowers as in a dream.” Lu did not see the point.”
Here at www.neko-chan.com we are all pretty fond of animals.
The recent outrage of misguided people hunting wolves from helicopters has us digging deep into our pockets to donate to saner groups who oppose this criminal murder of these noble animals.
We encourage anyone who cares to look into the whole situation and decide what you think is right, and act on your thoughts.
I can’t do anything to change your mind, so I will just show you our wolf t-shirts and music.
The ancient Celts made beautiful knotwork art to express their religious beliefs that all things are connected. What does connectedness mean to you?
Celtic knotwork is an old tradition, appearing in history sometime after about 450 AD; but our understanding of the Celtic knots’ meaning amounts to educated guesses on the part of historians, mythographers, and archaeologists, because there is little written history documenting their purpose.
However, patterns of their appearance through history alongside other cultural elements in graves, churches, groves, and carven in dolmens and menhirs give us insight, and allow us to infer some basic information relating to the Celtic knots’ meaning.
The Celtic knot symbol is also referred to as the mystic knot, or the endless knot. This sometimes alludes to beginnings and endings, such as births, deaths, threshold states between childhood, maturity, and old age; dream, death, and waking. In the knots, one cannot see a beginning or an end. In this we are reminded of the deep time nature of our spirit, memory, and the collective past life of all animals, humans, and plants.
Due to it’s infinite path, the Celtic knot can represent an uninterrupted life cycle. Some may use this symbol as a charm of sorts – warding against sickness or setbacks that might interfere with an otherwise calm and stable life. In this vein, these knots are used as emblems, which can be found in jewelry, clothing, or home décor. In ancient times, gifts adorned with mystic knots would be given with best wishes of longevity, or luck with new endeavors.
The Celtic Trinity Knot or the Triquetra, is one of the most often seen knots. The term Triquetra derives from Latin, and it means “three-cornered.” There are many schools of thought when discussing the Celtic trinity knot meaning
The meanings of this tripartite sum are as numerous as the religions that have lived on Gaelic soil: Father, Son and Holy Spirit; Mother, Crone, and Maiden; The Norns of Past, Present, and Future.
This vast number of interpretations reminds us that the meanings of these peculiar and beautiful knots are not set in stone. The mystery is part of the fun, and in my opinion, part of the meaning. Every culture gives something to the world, and the offerings of Gaelic culture seem to always partake of the nature of riddles, perhaps because in wondering the mind finds more wisdom.
In a beautiful sea foam bowl.
Of course, these lovely bowls are not just for incense.
You could keep toys for your cat in them, or your car keys, or candy!
Sure, you could even eat cereal out of these beautiful Japanese bowls. We do! Classier than plastic ones from big box stores, and without the carcinogenic plastic leaching problem that those have.
Some people feel like getting together with dear friends and having tea on the porch as the weather warms.
Other people feel melancholy in the springtime. Perhaps it is the rain, or maybe they are remembering a friend they missed, or a year that didn’t go very well for them. At any rate, though no medical claims are made, it is sometimes said that burning Aloeswood incense is balancing to the humours, re-setting a blue mind to cheer, or an anxious spirit to calm.
Whether your spirit needs rejuvenating with meditation and some incense, or you’d like a new tea set to enjoy with close friends, we hope you will come see us at www.neko-chan.com and let us help you make your springtime as pleasant and full of good memories as possible.
Without an understanding of the basic axioms of Tibetan cosmology, prayer flags appear to be nothing more than a quaint and folksy knick knack. They are so much more than this, fortunately.
Tibetan religious belief is based on an understanding of the universe which the vast majority of Americans are unaware of, and probably have trouble believing, but that looked at in an objective manner is no less credible than the bedrock assumptions of the prevailing logical positivism that masquerades as common sense in the western world.
In simple terms, this western belief is that everything but a human being is a ‘thing’ and if it isn’t even an animal, it is a dead thing at that.
Any reasonable feeling person will eventually realize that animals are just as much ‘people’ as humans are in terms of having feelings, emotions, fears, pain, love, affection, families, and friends. In fact we share everything that makes us human with animals, with the exception of abstract thought. The willful ignoring of our shared nature with animals, resulting in widespread cruelty, is much akin to beliefs in prior centuries that humans of differing skin color or genetic origins are somehow less ‘persons’ than some other sort of human.
Just as animals are easily seen to be little different from humans, in non western cosmologies ‘personhood’ is sometimes extended to the land, the sky, the wind, the water, fire, etc. This is not so much an intellectual stretch as it might at first appear. For just as we can say that water is ‘merely’ atoms and molecules, so too can we say that we are made up of such constituent particles. The fact that water does not appear to communicate with us in words such as one would read in the Washington Post does not really preclude the possibility that water possesses some kind of primordial awareness. Just so, wind is the movement of air molecules, but what is wind really? How can something so all pervasive in this mysterious world not in some way partake of the consciousness that we oddly believe we alone possess?
In Tibetan cosmology, the wind is very much imbued with consciousness and awareness. In Tibetan Buddhism, pure mind is known as Rigpa, and is said to partake of many of the same qualities as the sky. The wind, the sky, the air molecules are very much alive and able to ‘read’ the prayers on a prayer flag, perhaps not understanding the prayers as a human would, but at least carrying the primal imprint of their meaning. The wind is our cousin; we are of the same planet, the same world, the same life. As such our mind is not so alien to the wind that the wind cannot carry our prayers.
Warehouse Manager’s Corner
A few words about Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche’s
“The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep”
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche’s warm and kindly manner
infuses this book with a personable and accessible
feel sometimes lacking from such advanced teachings.
This humble lama does not put on airs, though his
attainment is immense and he is deserving of the greatest
respect, as are these ancient and magical teachings.
So informal is his manner, you might think reading this
book that he was merely a softhearted underpaid social
worker explaining how you can sleep better,
deepen your practice, and enjoy life more, by following
a few steps before bedtime with diligence and an awareness
of how steeped in blessings and wisdom these ancient
Bon teachings are, which are older even than Buddhism,
though they have become an integral part of Buddhism.
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche responsibly points out that
while it is good to read these teachings, to receive
them in person from a lama you know is vital if you want to
progress past the obstacles every practitioner
encounters. An experienced teacher can recognize these
troubles and guide you past them. But this book is a very
good start.
Though persons primarily interested in dream practices
may be tempted to skip the section discussing karma, there
are good reasons to give it some attention. The very same
understandings of karmic traces which form the foundation
of buddhist understanding of the four noble truths also
inform dream yoga, because in truth we are dreaming all the
time, whether asleep or awake.
By this I mean that the greatest impact of our experience in life is not what we encounter in the outside world, but in the echoes, traumas, delights, and yearnings which our outward experience lights in our inner minds and feelings. This process is somewhat like a brushfire hitting an old gunpowder barrel left over at an abandoned mine.
This is the nature of karma. Traces are left in us, and they have
effects, both good and bad. Dream yoga eases our minds
into greater flexibility through practicing awareness of the
cartoon-like flexibility of reality and feeling.
The beneficial effect of this softening is that we can be
subsumed and immersed and fully alive in experience which
is beneficial rather than disconnected from our lived experience.
In perceiving traumatic circumstances also this realignment of
perceived reality can enable us to adjust our reactions to what is evil, horrifying, or cruel, so that the least harm is suffered in the myriad misfortunes of life.
I don’t want to give the impression that I will always be dispensing useful information here… There will occasionally be less serious entries, where cat pictures and geeky content will be the rule. Nevertheless, this blog will still contain information about Buddhist ritual items, Asian history, and tidbits about important figures in Buddhism.
We get calls from customers. Lots of calls. Not all of them orders. From time to time people will ask how malas are to be used. While it is perfectly okay to wear malas because they are beautiful and you just like them, many people use them to count mantras, or to just remind them of their spiritual practice with the pleasant sandalwood or cedar smell, or the smooth coolness of semiprecious stones against their skin.
Neko-kun is not a spiritual teacher, so when customers ask for his opinion in these matters, he usually tells them to do what they prefer, or what comes naturally, or if they have a guru or lama, to do what he or she tells them to do.
That being said, for those who are curious, have no lama, or just want to know some trivia about malas, here are a few points:
-Hindus do not generally use their index finger when counting their mantras, because the index finger represents the ego, and they prefer to count mantras without reinforcing the ego.
-Buddhism has so many sects, many of them quite close to Hinduism, many quite different. Most Buddhists do count mantras on their mala with their index finger, since the relationship between the ego and spiritual advancement is a complex dialectic between letting go and creating greater clarity and flexibility. But some Buddhists do also follow the Hindu practice of holding the index finger away from the beads and counting with the middle, or sometimes the ring finger, which represents the heart.
-Hindus and Buddhists agree on this one: When you make one complete circuit of the mala, you never keep going around again the same direction, because that would involve “stepping over” the Guru Bead, which is the bead above the tassel or string hanging down. This would represent stepping over the guru, not a desirable action. This is not supposed to be some fearful “step on a crack, break your momma’s back” Obsessive Compulsive insanity ritual, rather it just serves as a reminder every full mala of mantra repetitions to reconnect with your link to the divine, the sacred, to love.
Exciting things are happening these days at neko-chan headquarters. Our new site is up and final testing is underway.
We hope to have the bugs out in a few days, though the more astrologically-minded of readers will shake their heads and tell us that it won’t happen until after February 18th, when Mercury stops being retrograde.
No, not a Car, nor a big kitty, just the old planet….
So, why should the apparent backwards motion of a planet nearly eighty million miles away have any effect on websites on Earth?
Don’t ask me. I never told you I was an astrologer, did I?
Anyhow, returning customers are logging in and finding an error message asking them to call us here at customer service. Don’t be shy! We’re actually very pleasant to talk to.
Best regards,
-Neko-kun
