Here's a view of the focus of my energy for the past week or so. GongGong (the mother) has tried to hatch a brood so many times I have lost count, and I have "midwifed' her through it all. (Ensuring that she get food, water, time away from the nest, doesn't try to sit in the winter, etc.)

This is our very first brood in all the years we have kept fowl, although the mallard is really working on it this year. I have enclosed a photo of mom and dad - my banty frizzle and the funniest looking rooster in the world! His crow is just as loud as them all; we have to bring him indoors on harsh winter nights or he would freeze trying to guard all his hens.

On with the day!
Stanley, Banty Frizzle, and GongGong, Banty Silke, a match made in... err.. shell.





Chinese characters for the word "not expectant" in Kai font



all six babies, three days old






Meditate with no thought of gain.
Expect no ambitions to be fulfilled.
Only then will the inner force manifest.



In the competitive world, we give expression to our ambitions, shrewdness, and aggressiveness. We must do this to survive. In the meditative world, we cannot use these attitudes. What works well on the outside will not serve us on the inside.

When we meditate, we must expect no gain. If we look for results, then those results will elude us. In contrast, if we suspend our ambitions, then the results will manifest very quickly. It may sound like absurd mysticism, but it is an undeniable, empirical truth. If you have no expectations, you will feel the divine. If you strive and have selfish desires, then you will feel only frustration.

When the mind is occupied with meditation for gain, it creates a barrier to precisely the results that you want. Spirituality is a mode that is far beyond the machinations and imaginations of the rational mind. It is created by an aspect of the mind that is not a part of everyday thought. In fact, the part of the mind that brings spirituality is very nearly antithetical to the common ways that we think. Therefore, we can only reach this type of spirituality by suspending our everyday thinking.


unexpectant
from the book
365 Tao
Daily Meditations
by Deng Ming-Dao
ISBN: 0.06.250223.9
"Six Babies"    
© 2007 lisbethwest 
hatched in the  
elizabeth ann kibben
memorial garden 
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