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LEVEKUNST art of life

BEING HUMAN

Let’s hold hands together, let’s practice together so that for the sake of our children and the earth, we can go back to being real ordinary human beings again. Through our practice, and our connection to each other and to all things, let’s put the humane back into being human.

IN HIDDEN WORLDS: THREE PHOTOSUPREMATIST ARTISTS

Three contemporary Hungarian artists, Balint Szombathy, Aniko Robitz, and Minyo Szert have been exploring the worlds hidden within the surface of perceptual phenomena. In very different ways, using fixed images derived from photographic and telephotographic processes, they uncover and give us new and very different worlds.

SACRED FEMININE

The loss of the feminine features and energy is a serious problem in our society. The society we live in today is shaped by masculine aspects that impose a patriarchal culture based on race, power game, rationalism and success based on strength.

THE DUDE AND SPIRITUAL FATIGUE

Imagine my incoherent thoughts when in a small meeting of Buddhist-minded individuals on the second floor of a café in a small upstate NY town we hear a friend coming along, telling us that they in fact are ordained as Dudeist Priests.

REFLECTIONS THAT TURN THE MIND

True practice involves changing thick habits of body, speech and mind. Sounds simple when you say it. It even sounds romantic and heroic: I will transform my thoughts, words and deeds to become enlightened for the benefit of all sentient beings. A hardcore dharma practitioner soon realizes that this particular resolve is hard.

RETREAT & KINDNESS

Neither wild monkeys, nor snakes or other poisonous animal life could dissuade me from staying in retreat, not even these huge reptiles and the fear they triggered in my mind. But now a larger problem occurred.

SPACE TO REST

You know your holy place. Your field, tree, chapel, cushion, cathedral, mat, temple or ocean wait for you. Go there often, without any agenda. And let your heart sing the lullabies of its longing to keep itself awake.
A Quiet Collision of Verse and Image by Deborah Anne Quibell & Kimberly Poppe.

THE TROUBLE WITH AGENCY

Conditions can never cause anything to happen because they are neither an agent nor have agency. Perhaps this surprises you. But think about all the things you thought were going to happen in your life that didn’t, and all the things that did that you never saw coming!

ABOUT EQUANIMITY

As human beings, we are subject to continuous change throughout life. Taoists speak of ten thousand sorrows and ten thousand joys. The joy turns into sorrow. Sorrow turns into joy. There is no exception. Equanimity is a liberating quality that gives us an open, equitable, peaceful and stable heart towards the vicissitudes of life.

GESAR’S SONGS OF ABANDONMENT

The human world is cracking up. A century of warfare, genocide, destruction and want has severed men and women from their roots.
They have no forbears, no folkways or culture, no past. Money has shredded all other values. The young wander in a phantasmagoria of luxurious diversions, violence, intoxication, constant novelty and hopelessness.

IN SEARCH OF MEDICINE, BEYOND CLOUDS

We were getting close to our destination, and everyone started to show signs of excitement. The nuns chatting at half a dozen- reminiscing stories of His Holiness’s annual teachings this time last year. As we approached Lower Dharamsala we passed the Tibet College of Tibetan Medicine, the Menzi Kang.

THE STOMACH SUFFERS FROM LACK

The stomach suffers immensely, it suffers from lack. The spine bent and hobbled with hurt, the spine that held up the stairs and resisted the shifting walls, the spine carries us forward, stiffened, but not broken. The hands, palms dark and swollen, knuckles split, fretted with blood. –A poem from an earthquake Nepal survivor.

THE LIFE OF KUKKURIPA

The pure and free expanse of shunyata is not reached by the contrived path of rejecting the world. The changeless radiance of Great Compassion is not reached by the fabricated path of clinging to good qualities.

A DISCONNECTED LIFE

We are not only fed a multitude of reasons as to why we need to be fearful but because we believe that what we think we know and what we perceive with our senses is true and real we become entangled. The whole spiral of delusory perceptions spins around relentlessly due to the momentum of these inherently faulty beliefs.

BUDDHIST MASTER ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE

We need the leaders of all religions to be involved. It’s very important that religious leaders, politicians, business people, and industrialists have a genuine dialogue. I think everybody will care, if not for other reasons, then at least for his or her future descendants.

THE EQUAL NATURE OF ALL THINGS

How authentically human am I? What is the best way to be and live life to its fullest? Are there a few points to check if I am right or wrong in a situation? Whether politician or carpenter, single or in a family. Everyone needs a spiritual guideline and a code to live by. Here is one with four straightforward and deep words.

DEFEATING THE BAIT-AND-SWITCH

A minor influence outside of your psyche, has eaten away slowly your patience and compassion until it has succeeded in boring a hole right through your previously harmonious state of mind. Your weakened mental structural integrity is being eaten by your newly acquired psychologically triggered chemical imbalances. Physical problems arise from the chemical problems. Your stomach may hurt, your head may ache, and your happiness is in pain.