will duncan - Readings

George Washington's "Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation"

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 07:37:42 -0800

1. Every action done in company ought to be with some sign of respect to those that are present.

2. When in company, put not your hands to any part of the body not usually discovered.

3. Show nothing to your friend that may affright him.

4. In the presence of others, sing not to yourself with a humming voice, or drum with your fingers or feet.

5. If you cough, sneeze, sigh or yawn, do it not loud but privately, and speak not in your yawning, but put your handkerchief or hand before your face and turn aside.

6. Sleep not when others speak, sit not when others stand, speak not when you should hold your peace, walk not on when others stop.

7. Put not off your clothes in the presence of others, nor go out of your chamber half dressed.

8. At play and attire, it's good manners to give place to the last comer, and affect not to speak louder than ordinary.

9. Spit not into the fire, nor stoop low before it; neither put your hands into the flames to warm them, nor set your feet upon the fire, especially if there be meat before it.

10. When you sit down, keep your feet firm and even, without putting one on the other or crossing them.

11. Shift not yourself in the sight of others, nor gnaw your nails.

12. Shake not the head, feet, or legs; roll not the eyes; lift not one eyebrow higher than the other, wry not the mouth, and bedew no man's face with your spittle by approaching too near him when you speak.

13. Kill no vermin, or fleas, lice, ticks, etc. in the sight of others; if you see any filth or thick spittle put your foot dexterously upon it; if it be upon the clothes of your companions, put it off privately, and if it be upon your own clothes, return thanks to him who puts it off.

14. Turn not your back to others, especially in speaking; jog not the table or desk on which another reads or writes; lean not upon anyone.

15. Keep your nails clean and short, also your hands and teeth clean, yet without showing any great concern for them.

16. Do not puff up the cheeks, loll not out the tongue with the hands or beard, thrust out the lips or bite them, or keep the lips too open or too close.

17. Be no flatterer, neither play with any that delight not to be played withal.

18. Read no letter, books, or papers in company, but when there is a necessity for the doing of it, you must ask leave; come not near the books or writings of another so as to read them unless desired, or give your opinion of them unasked. Also look not nigh when another is writing a letter.

19. Let your countenance be pleasant but in serious matters somewhat grave.

20. The gestures of the body must be suited to the discourse you are upon.

21. Reproach none for the infirmities of nature, nor delight to put them that have in mind of thereof.

22. Show not yourself glad at the misfortune of another though he were your enemy.

23. When you see a crime punished, you may be inwardly pleased; but always show pity to the suffering offender.

24. Do not laugh too loud or too much at any public spectacle.

25. Superfluous compliments and all affectation of ceremonies are to be avoided, yet where due they are not to be neglected.

26. In putting off your hat to persons of distinction, as noblemen, justices, churchmen, etc., make a reverence, bowing more or less according to the custom of the better bred, and quality of the persons. Among your equals expect not always that they should begin with you first, but to pull off the hat when there is no need is affectation. In the manner of saluting and resaluting in words, keep to the most usual custom.

27. 'Tis ill manners to bid one more eminent than yourself be covered, as well as not to do it to whom it is due. Likewise he that makes too much haste to put on his hat does not well, yet he ought to put it on at the first, or at most the second time of being asked. Now what is herein spoken, of qualification in behavior in saluting, ought also to be observed in taking of place and sitting down, for ceremonies without bounds are troublesome.

28. If any one come to speak to you while you are are sitting stand up, though he be your inferior, and when you present seats, let it be to everyone according to his degree.

29. When you meet with one of greater quality than yourself, stop and retire, especially if it be at a door or any straight place, to give way for him to pass.

30. In walking, the highest place in most countries seems to be on the right hand; therefore, place yourself on the left of him whom you desire to honor. But if three walk together the middest place is the most honorable; the wall is usally given to the most worthy if two walk together.

31. If anyone far surpasses others, either in age, estate, or merit, yet would give place to a meaner than himself in his own lodging or elsewhere, the one ought not to except it. So he on the other part should not use much earnestness nor offer it above once or twice.

32. To one that is your equal, or not much inferior, you are to give the chief place in your lodging, and he to whom it is offered ought at the first to refuse it, but at the second to accept though not without acknowledging his own unworthiness.

33. They that are in dignity or in office have in all places precedency, but whilst they are young, they ought to respect those that are their equals in birth or other qualities, though they have no public charge.

34. It is good manners to prefer them to whom we speak before ourselves, especially if they be above us, with whom in no sort we ought to begin.

35. Let your discourse with men of business be short and comprehensive.

36. Artificers and persons of low degree ought not to use many ceremonies to lords or others of high degree, but respect and highly honor then, and those of high degree ought to treat them with affability and courtesy, without arrogance.

37. In speaking to men of quality do not lean nor look them full in the face, nor approach too near them at left. Keep a full pace from them.

38. In visiting the sick, do not presently play the physician if you be not knowing therein.

39. In writing or speaking, give to every person his due title according to his degree and the custom of the place.

40. Strive not with your superior in argument, but always submit your judgment to others with modesty.

41. Undertake not to teach your equal in the art himself professes; it savors of arrogancy.

42. Let your ceremonies in courtesy be proper to the dignity of his place with whom you converse, for it is absurd to act the same with a clown and a prince.

43. Do not express joy before one sick in pain, for that contrary passion will aggravate his misery.

44. When a man does all he can, though it succeed not well, blame not him that did it.

45. Being to advise or reprehend any one, consider whether it ought to be in public or in private, and presently or at some other time; in what terms to do it; and in reproving show no signs of cholor but do it with all sweetness and mildness.

46. Take all admonitions thankfully in what time or place soever given, but afterwards not being culpable take a time and place convenient to let him know it that gave them.

47. Mock not nor jest at any thing of importance. Break no jests that are sharp, biting, and if you deliver any thing witty and pleasant, abstain from laughing thereat yourself.

48. Wherein you reprove another be unblameable yourself, for example is more prevalent than precepts.

49. Use no reproachful language against any one; neither curse nor revile.

50. Be not hasty to believe flying reports to the disparagement of any.

51. Wear not your clothes foul, or ripped, or dusty, but see they be brushed once every day at least and take heed that you approach not to any uncleaness.

52. In your apparel be modest and endeavor to accommodate nature, rather than to procure admiration; keep to the fashion of your equals, such as are civil and orderly with respect to time and places.

53. Run not in the streets, neither go too slowly, nor with mouth open; go not shaking of arms, nor upon the toes, kick not the earth with your feet, go not upon the toes, nor in a dancing fashion.

54. Play not the peacock, looking every where about you, to see if you be well decked, if your shoes fit well, if your stockings sit neatly and clothes handsomely.

55. Eat not in the streets, nor in the house, out of season.

56. Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for 'tis better to be alone than in bad company.

57. In walking up and down in a house, only with one in company if he be greater than yourself, at the first give him the right hand and stop not till he does and be not the first that turns, and when you do turn let it be with your face towards him; if he be a man of great quality walk not with him cheek by jowl but somewhat behind him, but yet in such a manner that he may easily speak to you.

58. Let your conversation be without malice or envy, for 'tis a sign of a tractable and commendable nature, and in all causes of passion permit reason to govern.

59. Never express anything unbecoming, nor act against the rules moral before your inferiors.

60. Be not immodest in urging your friends to discover a secret.

61. Utter not base and frivolous things among grave and learned men, nor very difficult questions or subjects among the ignorant, or things hard to be believed; stuff not your discourse with sentences among your betters nor equals.

62. Speak not of doleful things in a time of mirth or at the table; speak not of melancholy things as death and wounds, and if others mention them, change if you can the discourse. Tell not your dreams, but to your intimate friend.

63. A man ought not to value himself of his achievements or rare qualities of wit; much less of his riches, virtue or kindred.

64. Break not a jest where none take pleasure in mirth; laugh not aloud, nor at all without occasion; deride no man's misfortune though there seem to be some cause.

65. Speak not injurious words neither in jest nor earnest; scoff at none although they give occasion.

66. Be not froward but friendly and courteous, the first to salute, hear and answer; and be not pensive when it's a time to converse.

67. Detract not from others, neither be excessive in commanding.

68. Go not thither, where you know not whether you shall be welcome or not; give not advice without being asked, and when desired do it briefly.

69. If two contend together take not the part of either unconstrained, and be not obstinate in your own opinion. In things indifferent be of the major side.

70. Reprehend not the imperfections of others, for that belongs to parents, masters and superiors.

71. Gaze not on the marks or blemishes of others and ask not how they came. What you may speak in secret to your friend, deliver not before others.

72. Speak not in an unknown tongue in company but in your own language and that as those of quality do and not as the vulgar. Sublime matters treat seriously.

73. Think before you speak, pronounce not imperfectly, nor bring out your words too hastily, but orderly and distinctly.

74. When another speaks, be attentive yourself and disturb not the audience. If any hesitate in his words, help him not nor prompt him without desired. Interrupt him not, nor answer him till his speech be ended.

75. In the midst of discourse ask not of what one treats, but if you perceive any stop because of your coming, you may well entreat him gently to proceed. If a person of quality comes in while you're conversing, it's handsome to repeat what was said before.

76. While you are talking, point not with your finger at him of whom you discourse, nor approach too near him to whom you talk, especially to his face.

77. Treat with men at fit times about business and whisper not in the company of others.

78. Make no comparisons and if any of the company be commended for any brave act of virtue, commend not another for the same.

79. Be not apt to relate news if you know not the truth thereof. In discoursing of things you have heard, name not your author. Always a secret discover not.

80. Be not tedious in discourse or in reading unless you find the company pleased therewith.

81. Be not curious to know the affairs of others, neither approach those that speak in private.

82. Undertake not what you cannot perform but be careful to keep your promise.

83. When you deliver a matter do it without passion and with discretion, however mean the person be you do it to.

84. When your superiors talk to anybody hearken not, neither speak nor laugh.

85. In company of those of higher quality than yourself, speak not 'til you are asked a question, then stand upright, put off your hat and answer in few words.

86. In disputes, be not so desirous to overcome as not to give liberty to each one to deliver his opinion and submit to the judgment of the major part, especially if they are judges of the dispute.

87. Let your carriage be such as becomes a man grave, settled and attentive to that which is spoken. Contradict not at every turn what others say.

88. Be not tedious in discourse, make not many digressions, nor repeat often the same manner of discourse.

89. Speak not evil of the absent, for it is unjust.

90. Being set at meat scratch not, neither spit, cough or blow your nose except there's a necessity for it.

91. Make no show of taking great delight in your victuals. Feed not with greediness. Eat your bread with a knife. Lean not on the table, neither find fault with what you eat.

92. Take no salt or cut bread with your knife greasy.

93. Entertaining anyone at table it is decent to present him with meat. Undertake not to help others undesired by the master.

94. If you soak bread in the sauce, let it be no more than what you put in your mouth at a time, and blow not your broth at table but stay 'til it cools of itself.

95. Put not your meat to your mouth with your knife in your hand; neither spit forth the stones of any fruit pie upon a dish nor cast anything under the table.

96. It's unbecoming to heap much to one's mea. Keep your fingers clean and when foul wipe them on a corner of your table napkin.

97. Put not another bite into your mouth 'til the former be swallowed. Let not your morsels be too big for the jowls.

98. Drink not nor talk with your mouth full; neither gaze about you while you are drinking.

99. Drink not too leisurely nor yet too hastily. Before and after drinking wipe your lips. Breathe not then or ever with too great a noise, for it is uncivil.

100. Cleanse not your teeth with the tablecloth, napkin, fork or knife, but if others do it, let it be done with a pick tooth.

101. Rinse not your mouth in the presence of others.

102. It is out of use to call upon the company often to eat. Nor need you drink to others every time you drink.

103. In company of your betters be not longer in eating than they are. Lay not your arm but only your hand upon the table.

104. It belongs to the chiefest in company to unfold his napkin and fall to meat first. But he ought then to begin in time and to dispatch with dexterity that the slowest may have time allowed him.

105. Be not angry at table whatever happens and if you have reason to be so, show it not but on a cheerful countenance especially if there be strangers, for good humor makes one dish of meat a feast.

106. Set not yourself at the upper of the table but if it be your due, or that the master of the house will have it so. Contend not, lest you should trouble the company.

107. If others talk at table be attentive, but talk not with meat in your mouth.

108. When you speak of God or His attributes, let it be seriously and with reverence. Honor and obey your natural parents although they be poor.

109. Let your recreations be manful not sinful.

110. Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.

More Shreya Equals Less Preya

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 07:47:33 -0800

The man who lives in his religious centre of personal energy, and is actuated by spiritual enthusiasms, differs from his previous carnal self in perfectly definite ways. The new ardor which burns in his breast consumes in its glow the lower 'noes' which formerly beset him, and keeps him immune against infection from the entire groveling portion of his nature. Magnanimities once impossible are now easy; paltry conventionalities and mean incentives once tyrannical hold no sway. The stone wall inside of him has fallen, the hardness in his heart has broken down. The rest of us can, I think, imagine this by recalling our state of feeling in those temporary 'melting moods' into which either the trials of real life, or the theatre, or a novel sometimes throw us. Especially if we weep! For it is then as if our tears broke through an inveterate inner dam, and let all sorts of ancient peccancies and moral stagnancies drain away, leaving us now washed and soft of heart and open to every nobler leading. With most of us the customary hardness quickly returns, but not so with saintly persons. Many saints, even as energetic ones as Teresa and Loyola, have possessed what the church traditionally reveres as a special grace, the so-called gift of tears. In these persons the melting mood seems to have held almost uninterrupted control. And as it is with tears and melting moods, so it is with other exalted affections. Their reign may come by gradual growth or by a crisis; but in either case it may have 'come to stay.'

  William James: Saintliness, Lectures 11, 12, and 13.

It is the highest power of divine moments that they abolish our contritions also. I accuse myself of sloth and unprofitabelenss day by day; but when these waves of God flow into me, I no longer reckon lost time. I no longer poorly compute my possible achievements by what remains to me of the month or the year; for these moments confer a sort of omnipresence and omnipotence which asks nothing of duration, but sees that the energy of the mind commensurate with the work to be done without time.

   Ralph Waldo Emerson

Spiritual Work

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 07:40:44 -0800

The divine working is not the working which the egoistic mind desires or approves; for it uses error in order to arrive at truth, suffering in order to arrive at bliss, imperfection in order to arrive at perfection. The ego cannot see where it is being led; it revolts against the leading, loses confidence, loses courage.
Sri Aurobindo, 'The Synthesis of Yoga

The act of surrender, as the term is used in this book, is the voluntary casting off of the thoughts and emotions that interfere with the realization of the spirit within.

Spiritual work has one purpose--evolvement. Growth means hard work.

Lucky is the one who can work for years without any sign of the miraculous.

It is not enough to maintain at the point you have reached; you must constantly reach deeper or the process is voided. Work must go deeper and transcend tensions; anything else is imagination. One must fight against the life mechanism which insists one has done enough. This is not a work of logic. It is a work of work. Doing and results count, not emotions and thoughts of work.
Rudi - Spiritual Cannibalism.

Tapas - Fasting and Using Hardship

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 10:20:36 -0800

There’s hidden sweetness in the stomach’s emptiness.

 We are lutes, no more, no less. If the sound box  is stuffed full of anything, no music.

If the brain and belly are burning clean  with fasting, every moment a new song comes out of the fire.

 The fog clears, and new energy makes you  run up the steps in front of you.

Be emptier and cry like reed instruments cry.

Emptier, write secrets with the reed pen.

 When you’re full of food and drink, Satan sits  where your spirit should,

an ugly metal statue  in place of the Kaaba.

When you fast,  good habits gather like friends who want to help.

 Fasting is Solomon’s ring.

Don’t give it  to some illusion and lose your power,  but even if you have, if you’ve lost all will and control,  they come back when you fast, like soldiers appearing  out of the ground, pennants flying above them.

 A table descends to your tents,  Jesus’ table.  

Expect to see it, when you fast, this table  spread with other food, better than the broth of cabbages.

Jalal ad-Din Rumi (1207-1273)

"It's like this my friend -
If nothing that you didn't want
Should ever fall upon you,
It would be impossible
For what you want to manifest.
When the wise have finished,
Everything they didn't want
Becomes the source of all they want;
So take it on, with pleasure!"

Walking Through Fire, Jamyang Shepay Dorje 1648- 1721

Lila, Divine Play

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 10:10:22 -0800

'It is this beggar's play, his lila, not work.' 'When there is activity which is motivated by self-interest and ends with pleasure or pain, we may call it work. It requires exertion. But when we live outside the reach of pleasure or pain, a realized man is untouched by these. Our activities are effortless. Our work is really our play.'

Yogi Ramsuratkumar

The Work wants your life--but only when you are in a love affair with life itself, only when you are bright, strong, confident, capable, in short: ALIVE. the Work does not want some kind of dull, dispassionate, struggling, agonizing humanoid. To give your life to the Work is to give breath and activity to the Work everyday; to give passion to the Work everyday. You have to have a childlike, eternal beginner's mind, a belief in miracles, like, 'Any day anything can happen!'

It is the nature of this Work that a revelation, a breakthrough, could happen at any time, and has many times! But, how easily we forget.

Lee Lozowick - The ALCHEMY of love and sex.

Desire and Pleasure

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 10:06:50 -0800

“The problem with you is not that you have desires but that you desire so little. Why not desire it all? Why not want complete fulfillment joy and freedom?"

Sri Nisargadatta

"Both good (shreya) and pleasant (preya) present themselves to a man. The calm soul examines them well and discriminates. He prefers the good (shreya) to the pleasant (preya); but the fool chooses the pleasant (preya) out of greed and avarice."

Katha Upanishad - 1.2.2

"Man has little needs and deeper needs. We fall into the mistake of living from our little needs till we have almost lost our deeper needs in a sort of madness. Let us prepare now for the death of our present little life and reemergence in a bigger life in touch with the moving cosmos."

D.H. Lawrence – Lady Chatterlys Lovers

The virtues and precepts Benjamin Franklin and Buckminster Fuller tracked everyday.

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:20:45 -0800

Bucky’s Self-Disciplines

I decided that Nature might support a man who was doing what Nature wanted to be done and concluded that I would be informed by Nature if I proceeded in the following manner:

1. Use myself as an experiment to see what, if anything, a healthy, young male human of average size, experience, and capability with an economically dependent wife and new born child, starting without capital or any kind of wealth, cash savings, credit or university degree could effectively do that could not be done by great nations or great private enterprise to lastingly improve the physical protection and support of all human lives.

2. Commit all of my productivity toward dealing only with the whole planet Earth and all its resources and cumulative know-how. Observation of my life to date shows that the larger the number for whom I work, the more positively effective I become. Thus, it is obvious that if I work always and only for all humanity, I will be optimally effective.

3. Seek to do my own thinking, confining it to only experientially gained information.  

4. Seek to accomplish whatever is to be attained in such a manner that the advantage attained would never be secured at the cost of another or others.  

5. Seek to cope with all humanly unfavorable conditions by searching for the family of relevant physical principles involved.  

6. Reduce my inventions to physically working models and must never talk about the inventions until physically proved or disproved.  

7. Seek to reform the environment, not the humans. I am determined never to try to persuade humanity to alter its customs and viewpoints.

8. Never promote or sell either my ideas or artifacts or pay others to do so. All support must be spontaneously engendered by evolution’s integrating of my inventions with the total evolution of human affairs.

9. Assume that nature has its own gestation rates, not only for the birth of each new biological component, but also for each inanimate technological artifact.  

10. Seek to develop my artifacts with ample anticipatory time margins so that they will be ready for use by society when society discovers–through evolutionary emergencies–a need for them.  

11. Seek to learn the most from my mistakes.  

12. Seek to decrease time wasted in worried procrastination and to increase time invested in discovery of technological effectiveness.  

13. Seek to document my development in the official records of humanity by applying for and being granted government patents.
 
14. Above all, seek to comprehend the principles of eternally regenerative universe and discover how humans function in these principles.  

15. Seek to educate myself comprehensively regarding nature’s inventory of chemical elements, their weights, performance characteristics, relative abundance's, geographical whereabouts, metallurgical alloys, and chemical associabilities and disassociabilities.  

16. Seek to comprehend the full gamut of production tool capabilities, energy resources, and all relevant geological, meteorological, demographic, and economic data.
 
17. Seek to operate only on a do-it-yourself basis and only on the basis of intuition.  

18. Plan for my design science strategies to advantage the new life to be born on Earth, life born unencumbered with the conditioned reflexes so prevalent today.  

19. Commit whole-heartedly to the above and pay no attention to "earning a living" in humanity’s established economic system, yet find that my family’s and my needs are provided for by seemingly pure happenstance and always

Ben Franklin

1. Temperance - Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. Silence - Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself, avoid trifling conversation.
3. Order - Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have it's time.
4. Resolution - Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
5. Frugality - Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself, i.e., waste nothing.
6. Industry - Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off al unnecessary actions.
7. Sincerity - Use no hurtful deciet; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. Justice - Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. Moderation - Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. Cleanliness - Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloths, or habitation.
11. Tranquility - Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. Chastity - Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.
13. Humility - Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Shantideva

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 11:31:20 -0800

17
"I have much material wealth as well as honour,
And many people like me,"
Nurturing self-importance in this way
I shall be made terrified after death.

18
So, you thoroughly confused mind,
By piling up whatever objects
You are attached to,
Misery a thousandfold will ensue.

Meditation Advice from the Sakyas quoted by Pabongka Rinpoche

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0800

If the visualization’s clear

            Than let it be clear

            But stop the mind from flying out.

            If the visualization’s muddy,

            Then let it be muddy,

            But stop the mind from flying out.

            Draw the toxins out

            From your practice of meditation

            And spit it away from you.”

“The Heart Essence of the Angels” – Pabongka Rinpoche (1878- 1941)