Zen Stories

Today’s Oracle

My software angels choose this oracle quote for you today:

101)    If your guides claim
That the Kingdom is in the sky,
The birds of the sky will be there before you.
If they say it is in the sea,
The fishes of the sea will be there before you.
The Kingdom is within you and without you.
When you know yourselves, you will be known.
Then you shall know that you are
Sons of the Living Father.
But, if you do not know yourselves
You are in poverty, and you are poverty.

    Attributed to Jesus, Gospel of Thomas

You can use my Potent Quotes Oracle page whenever you need help.  Hold a question in your heart, and see what quote comes up for you when you scroll down.  It will be a response to your question.  Play with it.

Quotations act as little doorways into new worlds and new perceptions. They consist of distilled genius. 

Get the Wizard's Handbook on Oracle Creation and have fun with oracles. 

 

Zen Stories

I love stories.  Stories offer me possibilities of how I could choose to live my life.  Most of the important life changes I have made came from listening to living stories told by writers, colleagues, clients, or life coaches.

Back in the 60’s, my brother, John, introduced me to Zen.  Then I found Zen Flesh Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings either from his guidance or from The Whole Earth Catalog.  Naturally, the koans in the book puzzled me, but I loved the 101 Zen stories Paul Reps told.

Note: The idea in Zen is to get direct insight into the mystery  of the universe.  Not an intellectual understanding but to arrive at the same place that Buddha did.  To wake up.

Japanese Zen masters use short stories called koans to nudge the student into awakening.  They’re puzzles that can’t be solved from where you are.  Your intellect and your ego will grind to a halt or explode trying to manage it.  If you wrestle with them long enough, an intuitive leap offers itself to you. 

It has that sense like something you know intimately that’s just on the tip of your tongue.  And then POW.  (See sculpture from the Seattle Art Museum depicting a Zen monk at the moment of awakening.)

Preparing for my total hip replacement surgery, I was hungering for more Zen stories and found this lovely book, Zen Masters Of China: The First Step East by Richard Bryan McDaniel.  Bryan has collected stories from Buddhism’s first entry of into China with Bodhidharma through to the Japanese era. 

Think of sitting in a coffee shop with your old friend, Bryan, who has just returned from a spiritual journey to China.  Bryan tells you stories of the people he met, some of whom you may have read about.  Bryan gives you some background, some historical perspective about these masters he met, but he mostly tells you sweet and engagingly useful stories.

I found the stories comforting, which is what I was really seeking.  (My surgery went well.)

Recently, I was reporting to my Zen coach, Osho Genjo Marinello, “Currently, I am watching and feeling the breezes.  Even when I’m indoors, I look out enjoying the wind moving through the trees bending the ornamental grasses across the street.  It helps me come back to the moment.”

Genjo then told me that the Zen master, Joshu used the wind in one of his koans.    

I found the story in Zen Masters Of China –

Another monk posed this somber question: “After the body has died and has been reduced to its constituent elements and scattered, is there anything that remains, eternal, non-material.”

“The wind is brisk today,” Joshu (Zhaozhou) replied.

Way cool, yes?  Imagine my relationship with the wind now.  And with Genjo and Joshu. 

McDaniel’s next book in the series of three books stepping east, Zen Masters of Japan, is out now.  Bryan is working on book three which will deal with American Zen masters.  He posted a wonderful piece about his lovely conversation with Genjo:

May you walk in beauty,

William

P.S. My newest book Drawing the Sacred: Communing with the Sacred through Drawing - An Illustrated Journey echoes all these ideas.  Go read the description and consider getting it.

P.P.S. Please let your friends know about this.

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Happy Solstice – Book Giveaway

Happy Solstice – Book Giveaway

 A dear friend heads into heart surgery this morning, another friend’s adult daughter died leaving behind a husband and two kids, I successfully passed through my hip surgery and recovery unfolds well.

So what?

Prayer will transform all three situations.  And building an altar or a shrine puts muscle, creativity, and heart into your prayer as you put your mind and hands to work.

Saturday, December 21^st is winter solstice when we welcome the return of the sun.  This celestial event lends itself to building a shrine for the coming light and the coming year.

In honor of solstice, I’m giving away my Kindle book Altar Making: An Active Meditation for Healing Your Heart and for Deepening Spiritual Meaning in Your Life for one day.

You can download the Altar Making giveaway from 12:01 AM to midnight PST December 21, 2013.

Please get it and tell your friends, Facebook and tweet with abandon.  Consider writing a review.

Go for it => Altar Making

May the light shine on you this season,

William 

P.S. Kindle Devices keep getting better, don’t they – And more affordable.  Check them out here => Kindle Devices.

And you probably know you can read Kindle books on pretty much anything these days.  I read on my PCs.  Sasha reads on her Kindle and her Droid.  People love to read them on their Apple devices, particularly the iPad.

Get the Kindle reader apps for your device here => http://amzn.to/Ae0GtB 

Best Gifts

Today’s Oracle

My software angels choose this oracle quote for you today:

212)  We painted like children in the face of nature. – Henri Matisse

You can use my Potent Quotes Oracle page whenever you need help.  Hold a question in your heart, and see what quote comes up for you when you scroll down.  It will be a response to your question.  Play with it.

Quotations act as little doorways into new worlds and new perceptions. They consist of distilled genius. 

Get the Wizard's Handbook on Oracle Creation and have fun with oracles. 

 

The Best Gifts

Mostly, I’m a Grinch about Christmas.

You know what helps?  Reinventing the holidays.

I hang the decorations I like when I like – origami crane mobiles, red spheres dripping from the jade plant, favorite toys on the kitchen pass-through, displaying the pretty cards people send us.  And for me, staying out of the mauls (sic).

But what I like best is giving to charities.

Here are my two favorites:

The Heifer Project

The Heifer Project has their roots in WWII.  After the war, people in Europe were hungry and hurting.   An Arkansas farmer figured, “What those folks need is a heifer.”  He gave them one.  And that’s what they’ve been doing ever since.

They give folks in need breeding pairs of animals, fruit trees, bees...  And they train folks in how to care for the animals or plants.

 The owner doesn’t just eat the animal, they breed them.  That then becomes a small business that pays for clothing, medicine, and schools for their children.

The good news continues.  The recipient of the animal passes on a breeding pair to someone else and trains them.  That family then passes it on and on and on.  It’s paying it forward in a big way.  Whole villages are transformed this  way, lifted out of poverty, becoming self-sufficient and able to help others.

Can you imagine the self esteem and smiles.  Look at the website, you can find all kinds of success stories.  You won’t see starving kids.  You’ll see smiles.

And the best thing is you can give chickens, goats, heifers, ducks, and water buffalo in the name of your friends and family.  My Aunt Winnie was so happy when I gave chickens in her name.  She didn’t need a thing for herself.

 This video says it all in one minute.  Watch it.

Trust for Public Land

TPL celebrates 40 years of creating parks and conserving land for people this year.

You know this, but I’ll repeat it, “Parks are good for people.  Good for their souls.  Good for their mental health.  Good for their physical health.”

TPL wants to have a park or a pea patch garden, within walking to wherever  people live, especially underserved populations, which, not surprisingly, are the poorer sections of cities.  Lack of parks diminishes their lives and their souls, keeping them poor in spirit and in pocketbook.  Research shows parks reverse this trend.

 Chances are you have a TPL project near you, perhaps one you have enjoyed for years but never knew TPL had anything to do with it. 

Because TPL turns the projects over to local city, counties, national parks and the like. You may never know what they’ve done unless you visit their site.

They’re humble people.

Look around their website and be amazed at the heart and savvy behind their work.

And something I like, they win awards for the efficient use of your funds.  Almost all of it goes into acquiring the land.  I doesn’t go down a sinkhole of mismanaged flabby overhead.

Oh, and they never go into an area and just do good where they’re not wanted.  They are always invited in by a grass roots groups of people just like you.  I love that.

Think of what fills your heart and do that this season.  Do what you like best.

May you be blessed by your choices this season,

William

P.S. I’m giving the trade paperback version of Drawing the Sacred: Communing with the Sacred through Drawing - An Illustrated Journey to people this year.  You might want to join me in this.  It’s pretty and will look good on coffee tables.

More importantly, Drawing the Sacred can put people in touch with what’s holy in this time of holydays.

Go for it => Drawing the Sacred: Communing with the Sacred through Drawing - An Illustrated Journey

Alert: Stop Colds and the Flu

Today’s Oracle

My software angels choose this oracle quote for you today:

111)    Start a huge foolish project,
like Noah.
It makes absolutely no difference,
What people think of you.
-- Rumi

You can use my Potent Quotes Oracle page whenever you need help.  Hold a question in your heart, and see what quote comes up for you when you scroll down.  It will be a response to your question.  Play with it.

Quotations act as little doorways into new worlds and new perceptions. They consist of distilled genius. 

Get the Wizard's Handbook on Oracle Creation and have fun with oracles. 

 

Alert: Stop Colds and the Flu

Suzanne’s hairstylist  and her massage therapist both said that everyone they saw yesterday was coughing.  Sasha brought a cold home from college.  A couple of my clients had the cough, too.

Don’t get sick.  It sucks.

Get Well, Be Well, Stay Well: How to Prevent and Treat Colds and Flu Naturally will show you how.

The book reveals the acupressure points I use and that I teach my clients.  I have videos that make it easy. 

I show you magic ways to protect your body from martial arts methods to eating French clay.  From an ancient sinus clearing technique to vitamin supplements.

Have these methods prevented colds and flues for people? 

 “Most certainly.  These methods work,”  I say

And I recall what my first CranialSacral teacher said, “It’s hard to take credit for preventing something because the illness never happened.  But this work prevents tons of problems down the road for people.  Bet on it.”

Get the book.  Read it.  Use it.  Live long and prosper.  Tell your friends and family.

At $2.99 it’s a steal => Get Well, Be Well, Stay Well

Because it’s a kindle book, you can be reading it five minutes from now.

Remember, you DON’T need kindle reader to read kindle books.  Amazon will give you software to read Get Well, Be Well, Stay Well on your laptop, tablet, iPad, phone, et. Al.

Please pass it on to your friends.

Go for it => Get Well, Be Well, Stay Well

Live long and prosper,

William

P.S. Get Notified: Have you filled in your email at the top right corner yet?  Do it now while you’re here.  Obviously, you can unsubscribe anytime if it doesn’t serve you.

 

Book Giveaway Is Live

Book Giveaway Is Live

If  You’re Reading This After 12:01 AM PST November 23, 2013 then you can get Altar Making: An Active Meditation for Healing Your Heart and for Deepening Spiritual Meaning in Your Life at no cost…

NOW. 

Go for it => Altar Making

You can read more about why you want to get the book HERE.

Heads Up: The offer ends midnight, PST November 27, 2013.

Tell your friends.

Walk in beauty,

William

P.S. You can watch me make a playful altar in my YouTube video

P.P.S. After you download and enjoy  Altar Making Be Sure to write a glowing review.

: )  Thanks.

Go for it => Altar Making

Kindle Book Giveaway

Can Making Your Own Altars and

Shrines Make You Happier This Holiday Season? 

Can creating them bring more sacredness into your life?

You can find out for yourself.

You can download Altar Making: An Active Meditation for Healing Your Heart and for Deepening Spiritual Meaning in Your Life at no cost starting –

November 23, 2013 at 12:01 AM PST.  The offer ends midnight, PST November 27, 2013.

Go for it => Altar Making

“Making an altar may not make all your wishes come true, but it can make you really happy and bring more peace into your holiday season,” William Wittmann says.

Amazon reviews agree.

 “This book is a wonderful source of calm and inspiration and I've put its contents into practice in many places in my home, including one on each of my bedside tables. Nothing fancy and all with things I've found outside or already had. An easy, thoughtful way to stay in touch with myself.”

Another reader says, “Altar Making shows you how to bring the sacred into physical form. In easy to understand terms, William helps you create with your spirit, altars in your own personal style using what has importance and meaning to you.”

Remember how much fun it was to build things with Legos or blocks. Just imagine how nurturing it can be to build your own sacred altars and shrines.

When you create your own altar, you feel that same pleasure that you felt as a child. And when you bring in the Sacred, your satisfaction deepens.

You may also find that your connection to the innocent heart of your inner child deepens and sweetens in this sacred practice of altar making or shrine building.

This lovely book will walk you through the whys and hows of altar building.  In addition to my insights, I have seven friends, spiritual teachers all, that disclose their private experiences with building altars. Their contributions will feed your heart and expand your horizons.  They give you a wide range of surprising insights you will not find anywhere else.

Just imagine how nurturing it can be to build your own sacred altars and shrines. I recommend you get the book and nurture your soul.

Again Go for It => Altar Making

May you be lighthearted and free,

William

P.S. Be sure to post to Facebook and let your friends know about this opportunity.

Go for it => Altar Making

Lighthearted & Free

Today’s Oracle

My software angels choose this oracle quote for you today: 

338)

If you bring forth that which is within you,
Then that which is within you
Will be your salvation.
If you do not bring forth that which is within you
Then that which is within you
Will destroy you.
         - Gnostic Gospel

You can use my Potent Quotes Oracle page whenever you need help.  Hold a question in your heart, and see what quote comes up for you when you scroll down.  It will be a response to your question.  Play with it.

Quotations act as little doorways into new worlds and new perceptions. They consist of distilled genius. 

Get the Wizard's Handbook on Oracle Creation and have fun with oracles. 

 

Lighthearted & Free

Humans make stories that scare us.  With the rare exception of fear caused by something in the present, all your fears come from stories you make up or adopt.

Heading into surgery recently, I had a handful of stories that scared me.  Here are a few, imagine…

1.       What if I wake up during the surgery?  A friend gave me this one.

2.      What if my practice doesn’t survive being away for a month?

3.      What if the spinal anesthetic gets screwed up and I am paralyzed?

Can you see the pictures?  Feel the stories unfold from those premises?  I can.

To antidote my internal fear poisons, I worked with metta, loving kindness meditations.  I looked for phrases that just brought up pictures I wanted.

I came up with this one:

May I be lighthearted and free.

You can feel the freedom and happiness in that, right?

What phrases would you make up to keep you in alignment with the best flows of the universe?

Go back and read the quote for today.  It fits. 

You Can Help a Complete Stranger.  How?

Book reviews on Amazon make the books more visible to browsers.  When you review one of my books, it ranks higher and therefore has a greater chance of being found.

If you like my work, and presumably you do as you’re reading this right now, then you can help get these precious ideas out into the world by reviewing my books.

This applies to any of the books that I’ve written, but for right now it applies to Altar Making: An Active Meditation for Healing Your Heart and for Deepening Spiritual Meaning in Your Life because I dropped the normal price.

1.       If you’ve already read the book, please review it now.  Go here to review Altar Making

2.      If you haven’t read the book, you can get it at a reduced price right now of $0.99.  Get it, read it, and review it.

3.      Wait until Altar Making book giveaway starting on Nov. 23, then get it and review it.

Thanks for considering reviewing the book and helping other readers.

Go here to review Altar Making.  Or to read other people’s reviews. 

Playful Altar Video

You can watch me make a playful altar in my YouTube video.

Again, Go here to review Altar Making. 

May you be lighthearted and free,

William

P.S. Please let your friends know about the lower price and the upcoming giveaway.

P.P.S. Get Notified: Have you filled in your email at the top right corner yet?  Do it now while you’re here.  Obviously, you can unsubscribe anytime if it doesn’t serve you.

 

Why Make an Altar?

Today’s Oracle

My software angels choose this oracle quote for you today:

260) The fastest way to become rich as to socialize with the poor; the fastest way to the become poor is to socialize with the rich. -- Nassim Taleb

You can use my Potent Quotes Oracle page whenever you need help.  Hold a question in your heart, and see what quote comes up for you when you scroll down.  It will be a response to your question.  Play with it.

 

Quotations act as little doorways into new worlds and new perceptions. They consist of distilled genius. 

Get the Wizard's Handbook on Oracle Creation and have fun with oracles. 

Why Would You Want to Make an Altar?

Why would you want to make your own alter?

First – It’s fun.

Second – You literally get to take your connection to the Sacred into your own hands without the need of an intermediary.

Third – During the process of making the altar, you may learn something about yourself and your connection to the Sacred.  You may have insights into the core of what’s happening in your life.  Your prayers will become more effectively pointed as a result.

Fourth – Building an altar focuses your intent.  It puts muscle into your prayer or into your manifestation.  Just wrestling with the design opens up your Buddha brain.  And that opens your heart and soul for insight to enter.

Another Book Giveaway

I’m giving away my well beloved Kindle book Altar Making: An Active Meditation for Healing Your Heart and for Deepening Spiritual Meaning in Your starting November 23, 2013 at 12:01 AM PST – ends midnight, PST November 27, 2013.

Take advantage of this offer and let your friends know.

Here’s how I’m using altar making this week…

I Survived My Surgery

You may know that I had hip replacement surgery on Oct. 21^st 2013.  I survived and am healing well.  Rehabilitation takes months and I’m walking without a cane now.

After major life events, I find I wonder, “What’s next?  Where is my life taking me now?”

You may recall my recent pre-surgery blog post -- Relax, You’re Going to Die.

In that blog I included these instructions:

Relax, you’re going to die.
There is no-where to go
And no-thing to do.

And from that view point ask

What’s the next right thing to do?

I survived.  I’m healing.  I can relax, I’m going to die.  So, what’s the next right thing for me?

During my preparation for the surgery, the idea of making a mobile of origami cranes came to me.  After the surgery the image stuck, so I’m creating an altar with cranes.  It will be a mobile.

Cranes

Cranes symbolize happiness, good luck, longevity, and peace.  As I live into being an  elder, these seem like good things.

You can watch this video to learn to fold them here.

Gotta go and create now.

I expect that whilst constructing the mobile, collecting the windfall cedar branches for  cross bars, folding the cranes, I’ll have a better sense of the next right thing for me.

May you be light hearted and free,

William

P.S. My newest book Drawing the Sacred: Communing with the Sacred through Drawing - An Illustrated Journey echoes all these ideas.  Go read the description and consider getting it.  It makes  a great holiday present.  At 8 x 10 inches, the trade paperback version makes a great coffee table book.  One with soul.

P.P.S. Please let your friends know about this.

P.P.P.S. Get Notified: Have you filled in your email at the top right corner yet?  Do it now while you’re here.  Obviously, you can unsubscribe anytime if it doesn’t serve you.

Crane image courtesy of Anusorn P nachol / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

 

Cure Diabetes?

Today’s Oracle

My software angels choose this oracle quote for you today: 

375) There is a deep-seated misconception that being intuitive is a gift. It’s not. There is no such thing as a gift for intuition. I have finally realized that courage is the true gift, and intuition is sharpened as a result. Either you develop the ability to respond physically to what you are hearing, feeling, and sensing on the inside – or you don’t.  

Responding to others takes guts. What determines whether or not you have those guts is self-esteem. It is a strong sense of self. It is a willingness and ability to take charge of yourself.

You don’t need a lot of self-esteem. A little bit goes a long way; suddenly you are generous enough to give up the need to control other people.  

You don’t need to become 100% empowered. A 51% to 49% ratio will do this trick. Just get to the point where you’re conscious enough to hold yourself accountable for your own feelings.  

Just admit that you’re jealous, or embarrassed, or that you could betray a friend. Just get a little bit honest with your shadow. The moment you arrive there, you can really start dealing with your life. - Caroline Myss: Invisible Acts of Power, Healing the Heart of the World 

You can use my Potent Quotes Oracle page whenever you need help.  Hold a question in your heart, and see what quote comes up for you when you scroll down.  It will be a response to your question.  Play with it.

Quotations act as little doorways into new worlds and new perceptions. They consist of distilled genius.  

Get the Wizard's Handbook on Oracle Creation and have fun with oracles. 

 

Cure Diabetes?

The number one best seller with the unfortunate title: Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back To Health by William Davis, MD blew my  mind.  It may also save your life or more likely prolong your happy years. 

These paragraphs from the book set the stage:

After three months [being wheat free], my patients returned to have more  blood work done.  As I anticipated, with only rare exceptions, blood sugar had indeed often dropped from diabetic range to normal.   

Yes, diabetics became nondiabetic.  That’s right:  Diabetes in many cases can be cured – not simply managed – by removal of carbohydrates, especially wheat, from the diet.  Many of my patients had also lost twenty, thirty, even forty pounds.  (My emphasis.  WW) 

But it’s what I didn’t expect that astounded me. 

They reported that symptoms of acid-reflux disappeared and the cyclic cramping and diarrhea of irritable bowel syndrome were gone.   

Their energy improved, they had greater focus, sleep was deeper.  

Rashes disappeared, even rashes that had been present for many years.   

Their rheumatoid arthritis pain improved or disappeared, enabling them to cut back, even eliminate, the nasty medications used to treat it.   

Asthma symptoms improved or resolved completely, allowing many to throw away their inhalers.   

Athletes reported more consistent performance. 

All that in three months. Holy Cow. 

Later he adds heart disease and other details to the already impressive list of conditions that stopping wheat consumption affects. 

I’ve been using the Slow Carb Diet from Four Hour Body for over two months.  (See my Blog Post.)  In that program, I didn’t eat grains of any kind six days of the week and then I ate whatever I wanted on the seventh day including grains, including wheat.  This was not a wheat free diet.  Just mostly wheat free. 

In a second, I’ll tell you my blood results. 

Hi my name is William, and I’m a recovering wheat eater. 

Wheat can be addicting.  It is for me.  When you digest the gluten in wheat, it converts to gluteomorphin, which jumps across the blood brain barrier and attaches to your opiate receptors, just like heroin and other opiates.  Yikes. 

No wonder that the day after my pizza craving was consummated, I wanted more, even though I was hung over from what I had just consumed. 

The wheat you eat today is not the wheat of years ago.  And certainly not the wheat of 9000 years ago.  About 50 years ago, researchers and scientists started an intense program to hybridize wheat to feed the world.  They were successful in that effort. 

The mistake was thinking that all that messing with genes wouldn’t effect the nutritional value of the wheat.  They didn’t do animal testing or human testing along the way before essentially introducing the new wheat into the world where farmers grow it nearly exclusively.

A Naysayer

A naysayer says that this wheat sensitivity is overstated and only applies to a small number of wheat eaters.

I disagree, but who cares. 

It’s easy to test.  You just quit eating wheat and every food that contains wheat – and wheat’s in 100s of things.  Do that for a few weeks or three months and see how your health improves.  If nothing changes, wheat wasn’t your problem. 

Back to my Slow Carb Diet.  My blood test after two plus months found me more solidly in the happy zone with my sugar levels.  My heart risk indicator which is based on my cholesterol profile was the best ever.  My triglycerides were perfecto. 

Was it wheat?  Probably.  It was certainly better carbs – substituting legumes for grains, Eliminating fruit and fruit juices. 

Test it for yourself.  Read the book. 

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back To Health

My research staff likes this one: 

Wheat Belly Cookbook: 150 Recipes to Help You Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health 

You can find other Wheat Belly books here.

 

Walk in beauty,

 

William

 

P.S. Please let your friends know about this.

 

P.P.S. Get Notified: Have you filled in your email at the top right corner yet?  Do it now while you’re here.  Obviously, you can unsubscribe anytime if it doesn’t serve you.