T - Tzu, Lao (Inspirational Writers) #AtoZChallenge

“Love is a decision - not an emotion!” 

― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Image Courtesy : Google Images

Forever, Always

happiness, success

yours, mine

Let it go.

Here is a list of all my #AtoZChallenge 2017 posts.

H - Haruki Murakami (Inspirational Writers) #AtoZChallenge 2017

“Understanding is but the sum of misunderstandings.” 


― Haruki Murakami

Image Courtesy : Google Images

 
Somewhere in the Norwegian Wood

lost like Kafka on the Shore

I am waiting for Zen.


Here is a list of all my #AtoZChallenge posts.

Nothing is Forever

This story was first published as a winning post in Muse of the Month August, 2016 here at Women's Web.

Image Courtesy : Women's Web

Tashi Chodron was a symbol of peaceful resistance, women’s empowerment and brilliant literature from conflict.

She was born in McLeodganj, her parents had moved there from Tibet a few years ago. Her father started a school and provided her and her siblings good education and a comfortable life. As soon as she was in high school, proposals for marriage came pouring in and like all traditional parents the best prospect was soon arranged for her.

The first few months were stuff that dreams were made of. He was an upcoming writer, traveled a lot, was used to fans and publicity, but soon she realized he was also used to something else - violence. It was the kind of vicious violence that happened in the closed confines of bedrooms. The scars of which are too personal to reveal and too hurtful to ignore.

Still she carried on for three long years because “abandoned” women were not honorable in their culture. It was another “episode” as he would call them later, when he pushed her so forcefully against the wooden railing that she knew he had killed their third baby instantly. She walked out, blood running down her cotton trousers, straight to the police station.

Four days later as she lay in the hospital, she saw her mother sitting by her bedside. She knew the same rehearsed lines would now pour at her about tradition, marriage, and hope. Her father and brothers were waiting for her to gain consciousness so that she could withdraw her complaint and not ‘disgrace ‘the family. She didn’t. Hers became the first case from their community about marital rape and violence in Himachal Pradesh High Court.

The most expensive case for her, it took away everything- her home, her marriage, her social status and most importantly her family. She was disowned and all ties were severed, so much so that even relatives or former friends looked away when they saw her somewhere in the town.

Tashi took refuge in books. She read Buddhist literature and every book she could lay her hands on. In the next three years she survived on charity by tourists and odd jobs but completed her graduation and teacher’s training via correspondence courses.

She stared writing a blog and small assignments for local magazines and newspapers. A year later she was teaching in a monastery’s school and also working with an NGO for women. She now realized she had to let go of her family and unborn children to find a much larger family of distressed like herself.

Today the auditorium was bustling with literature enthusiasts, critics and Buddhist monks. One of their own would be here later for an event for her much-acclaimed poetry book.

Tashi walked onto the podium to read her favorite piece. Her voice faltered a little in the beginning, as she remembered the “no” that she could never say to her father when she was married off young, or the ‘enough’ she should have said to her husband.

She read:

Look out

At the cages

Ties of blood and race

Family and society

And then look in

Towards freedom

Find the peaceful place

That says and repeats

‘Nothing is permanent’

Be your own Buddha.

Amidst applause Tashi saw faces of women from her NGO, her students, and in the last row her ex-husband holding a copy of her book. The dedication of that book read – To Buddha, who said “nothing is forever.”

Zoom on Zen #AtoZChallenge #LifeLessons

Zen is not peeling potatoes and thinking about zen. 

Zen is just peeling potatoes.

- Zen Saying

Just like Yoga I came in touch with Zen quite late in life, but ever since it has opened up so much beauty and abundance for me, its almost like having a new soul and a new set of eyes to look at the world and the people around you.

So what is ZEN? Listed below are ten simple things that are Zen:

However I am a firm believer that each person needs to find his/her own Zen. The activity or non-activity, the practice, the thought, the feeling that connects you more intricately to yourself and everyone around you.

As they say in Zen " No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place."

We have to accept our place and our time and be at peace with it. The world is greater than us, the cosmos even greater, so while acknowledging our powers we must accept our smallness in it all humbly.

So bring in Zen into your life and see the difference.

Rashomon

Pic Courtesy : Google Images

Hiroshima,Nagasaki
the way we devastate
each other constantly

earthquakes
the soul shaking pain
we cause and endure
and play "strong"

Murakami - Norwegian Wood
fogs deeper than
mysteries of the soul
love a third dimension

Kurosawa's films
Rashomon effect
all of us trapped in
versions
we believe to be
truth

Buddha and Zen
all or nothing

a soul trip
to Japan.



 

A ZEN TALE

Once there was a little boy who was very sad about the way his parents treated his old grandfather. They kept him in the outhouse, he wore torn clothes and was served little or stale food in his almost broken plate and chipped mug.

A few days later the old man passed away, a day after the funeral as the parents were clearing the outhouse of the old man's things, the little boy rushed and snatched the plate and mug from them.

they thought he was just being sentimental about his grandpa's things but he said, " I want to save these so that when you are old and I put you in the out house, you can use them."

What goes around,comes around

Zen in life & death ( in the memory of my late father)

Z

 

 

Blogging from A to Z Challenge [April 2015]

 

  

We used to talk a lot

about death

and yet

your physical absence

is so heavy to bear

 

the suddenness with

which you disappeared

person-body-ashes-water-nothing

 

was that the last birthday gift

teaching me

"m-e-t-a-m-o-r-p-h-o-s-i-s"

one more time

 

I was always

your strong girl

in your version of me

I could take on

the world

on my own

 

Maybe I could

because you stood

by me

as a shield

 

Now you are

my arrow and my bow

my aims and my means

 

you were warmth

and now you are light

 

I read this poem

to myself

every night

 

and I know

you are watching

me do it right.

 

 

******************************************

 

A VERSE I READ OFTEN FOR MY DAD

 

 

 

       "Love never disappears for death is a non-event.

I have merely retired to the room next door.

You and I are the same; what we were for each other, we still are.

Speak to me as you always have, do not use a different tone, do not be sad.

Continue to laugh at what made us laugh.

Smile and think of me.

Life means what it has always meant.

The link is not severed.

Why should I be out of your soul if I am out of your sight?

I will wait for you, I am not here, but just on the other side of this path.

You see, all is well.”

- St. Augustine