Below is an excerpt from Alan Cohen’s newsletter:

This is a story about a woman Zen master named Sono who taught one very simple method of enlightenment. She advised everyone who came to her to adopt an affirmation to be said many times a day, under all conditions. The affirmation was, “Thank you for everything. I have no complaint whatsoever.”

Many people from all arenas of life came to Sono for healing. Some were in physical pain; others were emotionally distraught; others had financial troubles; some were seeking soul liberation. No matter what their distress or what question they asked her, her response was the same: “Thank you for everything. I have no complaint whatsoever.”

Some people went away disappointed; others grew angry; others tried to argue with her. Yet some people took her suggestion to heart and began to practice it. Tradition tells that everyone who practiced Sono’s mantra found peace and healing. Thank you for everything. I have no complaint whatsoever.

As we approach the holiday of Thanksgiving, many of us will be getting together with our families. Perhaps family issues may come to the fore and we might be tempted to fall into a pattern of rehashing old resentments and arguments. Wouldn’t it be fabulous if, as we sat with our relatives, we held in mind, “Thank you for everything. I have no complaint whatsoever.”

Imagine what this Thanksgiving would be like! Indeed it would be a triumphant Thanksgiving to remember!

Yes, I know, there is a voice inside you objecting, “But if I did not complain, people would walk all over me and selfish opportunists would genetically manipulate my food and terrorists would keep crashing airplanes into buildings and . . ., . . ., and. . . . Got it. Now if you went to Sono, her response would be, “Thank you for everything. I have no complaint whatsoever.” I am simply suggesting that we practice the mantra for an entire Thanksgiving day. And then maybe one day a week. Then we might start to feel so good and our lives will become so effective that we want to turn every day into Thanksgiving.

In my book Handle with Prayer I state that the highest form of prayer is gratitude. Instead of asking God for stuff, start thanking God for stuff, and you will find that God has already given you everything you could want or need, including the adventure of discovering more riches every day. Life is a big treasure hunt. Eventually we grow weary of seeking treasures outside ourselves, and we begin to look within. There we discover that the gold we sought, we already are. The beauty we overlooked because we were focusing on what was missing, still lives and awaits us like an anxious lover. As T.S. Eliot nobly noted, The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

Thank you for everything. I have no complaint whatsoever. Have a great Thanksgiving.

It is good to have an end to journey towards;
but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
Ursala K. Le Guin

St. Lawrence River, Verdune, Quebec

The masters of life know the Way. They listen to the voice within them, the voice of wisdom and simplicity, the voice that reasons beyond cleverness and knows beyond knowledge. That voice is not just the power and property of a few, but has been given to everyone. It is the key to harnessing the power of the uncarved block.
Benjamin Hoff, from The Tao of Pooh

As the poet said, ‘Only God can make a tree’ — probably because it’s so hard to figure out how to get the bark on. Woody Allen

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 – 1969), From a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1963

IceHeart

This is currently on display at ArtExchange “WildCards V”

Giant Icicles

Trudy standing at the corner of “Walk, Don’t Walk”, waiting for the aliens to show up:

This problem of time just points out
how far apart we really are.
See, our ideas about time and space are different
from theirs. When we think of time, we tend to think of clock radios, coffee breaks, afternoon naps, leisure time, halftime activities, parole time, doing time, Minute Rice, instant tea, mid-life crisis, that time of the month, cocktail hour.
And if I should suddenly
mention space – aha! I bet most of you thought of your closets. But when they think of time and space, they really think
of
Time and Space.

An excerpt from “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, by Jane Wagner

First snowstorm in Montreal for me!

It is hard to let old beliefs go. They are familiar. We are comfortable with them and have spent years building systems and developing habits that depend on them. Like a man who has worn eyeglasses so long that he forgets he has them on, we forget that the world looks to us the way it does because we have become used to seeing it that way through a particular set of lenses. Today, however, we need new lenses. And we need to throw the old ones away. Kenich Ohmae