For many years I have hung out in Hacienda Heigts, California, to pursue my profession with a company that happened to be located close to this rather uninteresting and dull city.

And I never knew that just up the street was a huge Chinese-Buddhist temple - five minutes away from where I usually got on the freeway when going home to the center of all cuture - Hollywood.

A few days ago I was invited by a friend to go to this Buddhist Temple she had discovered for herself and that was really working well for her in terms of prayers being heard - and not only heard in the sense of “Oh year, thanks, got it!” but in the sense of being acted upon and fullfilled.

So, one Monday we got on the road and headed towards Hacienda Heights and when we off the freeway at Hacienda Blvd. heading south I got rather curious because I thought I knew the area but was absolutely not aware of a temple. But I had to admit that I had never followed Hacienda Blvd up that far.

And then suddenly there it was, totally mis-placed in the suburan area, this huge temple - the Hsi Lai Temple.

We did all the things you usually do in a temple like this and it felt good. I was reminded of a visit to a Buddhist temple in Berlin, Germany, many years ago that had a lasting impact on me. I don’t remember much of that visit, especially where in Berlin that temple was but after some research I have concluded that it might have been “das Buddhistische Haus” in Berlin-Frohnau. I remember that we took the S-Bahn very far north in West-Berlin, but the pictures on the web site do not match what I remember.

But what I certainly remember was the total mental silence that filled the place and was instantly noticable right after stepping through the gate from the street. I remember that this silence was so unnerving to my friend who had taken me there, that he needed body contact to be able to stand it.

Back to the Hsi Lai Temple - it did not have that intense silence permeating it, but it is certainly a place where you can spend some time reflecting and gathering energy.

On leaving we passed a little stand where you could get a Dharma Word for a donation of one dollar. I certainly had to do this. I got one little plastic ball with no way to open, but right next to the dispenser of the plastic ball was a plastic ball crusher. You put your newly aquired plastic ball into this crusher, banged down the handle and so now I can share what I found in the sphere…

Dharma Word

When our mind overcomes all temptations, every day is a happy day. When illusory thoughts do not arise, every place is a peaceful place. When the mind is still and all thoughts cease, that is true wealth. When selfish desires terminate, that is the true field of merit.

Posted by Merlin - August 21st, 2008

Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert says our beliefs about what will make us happy are often wrong — a premise he supports with intriguing research, and explains in his accessible and unexpectedly.

Thus is the introduction to an article about the “scientific proof” that the current crop of gurus is right, that…

• We create our own reality;
• we attract to us what we put our attention on

I put together two interesting talks from TED in the article Synthetic Happiness on the Universal Serenity site.

Posted by Merlin - August 14th, 2008

I want to pass on a story I have heard/read before at least once but maybe more. I am sure that it is on the internet many time. As a matter of fact, just let me check…

… hmmm, it’s actually less than I thought, Google only found about 200 instances of the story. But then again, Google eliminates duplicates and so there will be more. I just checked Yahoo and then find about twenty thousand instances of a key phrase of the story I’m about to give you - that’s more like it.

But before I get into any ranting and philosophizing, here’s the story…

Jerry is the manager of a restaurant. He is always in a good mood.

When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would always reply, “If I were any better, I would be twins!”

Many of the waiters at his restaurant quit their jobs when he changed jobs, so they could follow him around from restaurant to restaurant.

Why?

Because Jerry was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was always there, telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him: “I don’t get it! No one can be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?”

Jerry replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, I have two choices today. I can choose to be in a good mood or I can choose to be in a bad mood.

I always choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be victim or I can choose to learn from it. I always choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I always choose the positive side of life.”

“But it’s not always that easy,” I protested.

“Yes it is,” Jerry said. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk every situation is a choice.

You choose how you react to situations.
You choose how people will affect your mood.
You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood.
It’s your choice how you live your life.”

Several years later, I heard that Jerry accidentally did something you are never supposed to do in the restaurant business. He left the back door of his restaurant open.

And then ???

In the morning, he was robbed by three armed men.

They want?

#123*+!@$%&*~

While Jerry trying to open the safe box, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found quickly and rushed to the hospital.

After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.

I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, “If I were any better, I’d be twins. Want to see my scars?”

I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. “The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door,” Jerry replied. “Then, after they shot me, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or could choose to die. I chose to live.”

“Weren’t you scared?” I asked.

Jerry continued, “The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the Emergency Room and I saw the expression on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read ‘He’s a dead man.’ I knew I needed to take action.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Well, there was a big nurse shouting questions at me,” said Jerry. “She asked if I was allergic to anything. ‘Yes,’ I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Bullets!’

Over their laughter, I told them, ‘I am choosing to live. Please operate on me as if I am alive, not dead’.”

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude.

I learned from him that every day you have the choice to either enjoy your life or to hate it. The only thing that is truly yours - that no one can control or take from you - is your attitude, so if you can take care of that, everything else in life becomes much easier.

OK, that’s the story! Obviously I like it, otherwise I would not have posted here on this site together with 20,000 other versions of it. The email in which I got it then continued on to indicate that now I had two choices as well, either to delete the message or pass it on. Mostly I don’t like to pass on email messages like this because, even though well intentioned, they add to the spam and interruption of my work flow. If I want to share I put it up on a blog and everybody interested in what I want to say is welcome to subscribe to the RSS feed for MerlinSilk.com.

If the unsolicited message is small and just contains a little story, then, in my eyes, it’s excusable to send, but many of the mails I get contain megabytes of video attached. It does not matter, time-wise, as I am lucky enough to be on a fast internet connection, but it is still wasted of band-width, as pretty much all those videos are on YouTube or any other video sharing site and a link to that video would suffice. All these extra bytes transferred just wear out the tubes of the internet and they might need replacing much earlier.

But now back to the subject at hand: why, if there are thousands of people posting this story on the internet (guess I am the 20,001st), are there so few practicing what this story suggest? I mean, I am throwing with stones here while sitting in a glass house. I was rather poopy with my loved once the other day. So this question is a real one, not rhetoric.

What do you do to keep up the good mood and don’t react to negativity in kind fashion?

Posted by Merlin Silk - April 23rd, 2008

Posted by Merlin Silk - April 9th, 2008

With the battle for the presidential nomination raging it is interesting to gather some opinions about those who strive to be our rulers, those who want us to vote for them so that they then may tell us what to do and think.

Yoko Ono, late John Lennon’s wife has a great website Imagine Peace. On it I found the following video…

It struck me as fascinating how John Lennon assessed the situation with government and politicians - The people are the government, they have the power.

And isn’t he right?!

I might have mentioned once or twice on this blog (yeah, right - once or twice!) that I am working on the understanding of “The World IS as I see it.” Thus John Lennon’s statment was right on the money for me. He described the only one little thing that needs to happen to change the world, and that is seeing it differently - namely realizing that we do have the power. A requirement for this realization would be to stop blaming others for non-optimal situations.

A nice exercise on the way to reach that goal is to play ‘pretend.’ Thanks to Larken Rose I have a nice example for that. If we take back all the power we think we have given to the government, we can easily imagine what he describes in one of his latest letters to his mailing list.

Dear Subscriber,

This message needs a very prominent disclaimer. This is because the federal control freaks and their hired thugs, who don’t hesitate to resort to overt oppression and violence themselves, are scared to death that one day their victims will decide to do a little “enforcement” of their own. You see, “government” folk can kick down doors, taser people, drag people away, shoot people, imprison people, steal property, and otherwise harass and intimidate the peasantry as often as they like, but if you happen to make some comment about the purpose of the Second Amendment, well then, you’re a TERRORIST! (The feds accusing someone of being a “terrorist” is a little like Hitler calling someone an anti-semite.) So I want to make this perfectly clear, so that even a hired federal goon or a judge can understand it: I am NOT advocating the following scenario. Far from it. I am pointing out how irrational and thug-minded the feds’ method of “debate” is, by seeing what their rationale would look like in the other direction. So, with that being said, imagine the following story appearing in “Domestic Terrorist Weekly”:

---

TAX EXTREMIST APPREHENDED
April 15, 2010
(c)2010 Associated Militant Press - Washington, DC

This week the Militia Department of Justice announced the arrest of another in a long line of “freedom protestors” who have been thumbing their noses at the American public, duping people into handing over money they didn’t owe. “This should send a strong message to any other freedom protestors that their lawlessness will not be tolerated,” said Militia Attorney General Trooth D. Fender, after the arrest of so-called “district judge” Powe R. Happee, adding that “These scam artists are duping the public and defrauding innocent people, and must be held accountable.

Last month Common Law Court Justice B. Dunn issued an injunction, barring an extremist cult publication called “The New York Times” from printing any more tax-related articles. “This abusive extortion scheme is an affront to all law-abiding citizens,” said Judge Dunn in his ruling, before imposing a ten-year prison sentence on David Cay Johnston, the leader and head guru of the “freedom deniers” sect at the “New York Times” cult.

“If you tell Americans that they owe the tax, you can expect to be forcibly silenced,” said tax expert Ikan Reed. “Even the few judges and IRS agents who have been found not guilty of fraud have had all their money stolen and their houses burned to the ground, as a warning to others who might be considering taking their advice.” Mr. Reed also added, “I mean, if we all owe the tax like they claim, why do these guys keep getting captured and locked up?”

Commissioner of Liberty, Propper T. Wrights, said that he is asking the Militia Congress for more powers to fight against the freedom protestors, including the ability to impose more severe fines and penalties against the promoters of the “61 fraud scheme”–a frivolous argument in which proponents claim that Section 61 of the Internal Revenue Code means that all income is taxable for all Americans. “These frivolous scams must be stopped at all costs, to protect the innocent,” said Mr. Wrights.

---

Aside from a little pointless “turnabout-is-fair-play” daydreaming, what’s the point here? It is this:

Would kidnapping a few dozen IRS bureaucrats prove that we don’t owe the tax? No. Would hanging a judge or two prove us right? No. Would forcibly silencing opposing views show the validity of our position? No. What proves someone right is EVIDENCE and LOGIC. Any bozo should be able to understand that.

So why is it that the government, and its lapdog media, constantly harp on how much the feds have HURT people who say “861″? (And they’re hoping to do the same to Wesley Snipes.) What kind of moron thinks that THAT is proof that the 861 evidence is invalid? “Hey, we locked some people up, stole lots of money and property, and silenced a bunch of web sites. See? We told you they were wrong!” Nice mentality.

Luckily, most of us outgrew this outlook on life at about age three, when we realized that smacking our sibling in the head didn’t actually prove that we were in the right. Trouble is, neither federal judges nor IRS and DOJ thugs have figured that out yet. They still think locking people up, issuing injunctions and swiping property is an adequate substitute for rational discussion. Or rather, they think it’s okay for THEM to use violence instead of words; but if they even suspect for a second that WE might resort to violence, they run crying to the nearest armed federal thug. What a bunch of hypocritical, spineless cowards.

Sincerely,
Larken Rose

What I want for Larken is that he will take more John Lennon’s viewpoint. I can understand his grudge against the government that put him in jail for a year, but I think once he succeeds in owning this fact as his own creation, all this will go away. We might lose his sharp pen, which I enjoy a lot, but this will be worth the price to pay for his peace and happiness.

Posted by Merlin Silk - January 24th, 2008

It is a few month now that I work myself through Haanel’s Master Key System, and it has been a very interesting trip.

Many of you know by now the idea of the “Law of Attraction,” made very popular through the movie “The Secret.” This movie, released just a few years ago, created the impression that this law of attraction was something brand new - not quite so! It is commendable that this movie brought the idea to a lot more people than Haanel’s book would have ever done, but this book pre-dates the movie by nearly a century.

The book is a series of weekly transmissions, or lessons, to the student. Principles of changing your world are introduced, then followed by an exercise to be done during the following week.

If you are used to just consume knowledge and wisdom by being impressed by some writer or movie maker then this is not the right venue. This is a book written in a language that you have to get into to understand. In my mind it seem to reflect the fact that education  a century ago appears to have been better, that people were able to understand more involved written concept. There has been no effect of the tube yet - it had not yet been invented.

But if you are eager to get more than a fleeting WOW! then this is the right book to work through. If you really work with a subject it just sticks better.

My book goes with me all the time, just in case I have some time to read or re-read something - and it shows…

Posted by Merlin Silk - January 23rd, 2008

Was working on content for a new web site www.UniversalSerenity.com and I had finally figured out how to do the recordings that I needed for that.

I had tried many different combinations of microphones and pre-amps, USB interfaces etc and had settled down to recording onto the laptop with a Plantronics USB headset. That worked OK but even though the laptop is pretty quiet, it does have a fan and is was audible in the recording so I had this extra step of removing the noise.

I had experimented with my iRiver H340 and the sound recording with the built-in microphone was pretty good, but unfortunately this mike also picks up the hard drive when it starts up to write some recorded data onto it. There is an external microphone for this mp3 player (which by the way can do mp3 encoding on the fly when recording) but I have not managed to get one - the only place apparently selling them is in the UK and they just don’t want to talk to me.

Finally I managed to use a good dynamic phone with a pre-amp feeding into the line-in of my iRiver and that works like a charm.

That’s what I did this morning - recording a training session to groove in ‘create and destroy’ - and it worked nicely.

Now, having the mike connected to the iRiver and monitoring with headphones when I was done I just looked around my music collection which calls the iRiver its home I ran into the Beatles song ‘Across The Universe’ - a song that has some impact on me. I still remember the emotion I had listening to it many, many years ago when I just finished a science fiction novel from the Perry Rhodan series. This story, the song and the emotion of huge space of multiple dimension is - since then - intricately entwined.

Today, after finishing my recording, I listened to this song for the first time with headsets. I can listen to lyrics much better when they are crooned directly into my ears - believe it or not - this was the first time I really listened to the lyrics!

And I was fascinated. It was such a surprising match to what I had just done before - training to create my own world, and then listening to the Beatles telling me from a time rift of 40 years that nobody can change that creation - I suppose they implied ‘except for I myself’ in contrast to an external force.

So, thank you, John, Paul, George and Ringo for telling me - it only took me 40 years to get what you said - a short time, all things considered.

Words are flying out like
endless rain into a paper cup
They slither while they pass
They slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow waves of joy
are drifting thorough my opened mind
Possessing and caressing me

Jai guru deva om
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world

Images of broken light which
dance before me like a million eyes
That call me on and on across the universe
Thoughts meander like a
restless wind inside a letter box
they tumble blindly as
they make their way across the universe

Jai guru deva om
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world

Sounds of laughter shades of life
are ringing through my open ears
exciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love which
shines around me like a million suns
It calls me on and on across the universe

Jai guru deva om
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Jai guru deva
Jai guru deva
Jai guru deva

The Beatles - Across The Universe

I had to look up “Jai guru deva OM.” The internet, through some of it’s representatives, told me that it means something like “Hail to God Devine” with “OM” representing the vibration of the universe used in meditation.

Posted by Merlin Silk - December 3rd, 2007

I ran across a little thought here and wanted to see what we can do with it.

That quote is from the course in miracles and for all fast readers of this course here is the location of the quote: T-9.I.13.5 and the quote itself i…

“As long as you believe that fear is possible, you will not create.”

When I first read this I was about to read right past it because it is kind of self evident, right?

But then I had the thought if it is possible to make the conclusion also the other way: if my creation I intend does not work, does that mean I have fear?

And I had to answer that with a resounding YES!

In other words I found myself a nice meter with which I can easily and without fail evaluate my fear level. Want to know if I am fear-free in an area - just create something and see if it comes to be.

If not, then back to the drawing board, so to speak.

Just the viewpoint alone of using the failure of a creation to measure remaining fear brings such a nice exterior viewpoint that makes creation a lot easier and nicer.

Posted by Merlin Silk - October 13th, 2007

I got this story of Vernon Howard in an e-mail and thought I better share it …

A king once ruled over a nation of unhappy people. Wanting to help his subjects, the king asked a wise man, “Is there a way to relieve my people of their sorrows?”

“Yes, there is,” replied the wise man. “As you know, just outside of town there is a height known as the Mountain of Truth. Ask everyone to leave their troubles at the base of the mountain. That is all they need do.”

The King issued a joyous proclamation. Everyone was invited to bring his problems to the Mountain of Truth at once. Every kind of difficulty could be left there, including Sorrow, Conflict, Fear, Tension, Worry and Hostility.

At the end of twenty-four hours, the king was stunned. Out of his thousands of subjects, only ten had left their miseries at the mountain.

“This is incredible,” he told the wise man. “I don’t understand. Everyone assured me he wanted to get rid of unhappiness.”

The wise man nodded. “I knew this would happen, but also knew you would never believe me until you saw for yourself. You see, most people secretly love their suffering. Conflict and hostility provide excitement, a false feeling of life. Our first task is to show them the difference between artificial life and true life.”

Posted by Merlin Silk - October 12th, 2007

“The man whispered, ‘God, speak to me’
And a meadow lark sang.
The man did not hear.

So the man yelled, ‘God, speak to me!’
And the thunder rolled across the sky
But the man did not listen.

The man looked around and said,
‘God let me see you’ and a star shone brightly
But the man did not notice.

And the man shouted,
‘God show me a miracle!’
And a life was born but the man did not know.

So the man cried out in despair,
‘Touch me God, and let me know you are here!’
Whereupon God reached down
And touched the man.

But the man brushed the butterfly away
And walked away unknowingly.”

Author Unknown

Posted by Merlin Silk - August 1st, 2007

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