For me, the greatest effect of meditation comes after – when I get to perceive the world with open eyes, clear and responsive senses.


Hidden Majesty of Everyday Phenomena

These high-speed photographs of milk droplets hitting coffee remind me of meditation somehow. There are these moments . . . in the midst of a breath, or watching a thought splash into awareness, or listening to a sound, when we get a glimpse of the beauty of life's processes. There is a pause in the midst of the motion. Perception opens up, and the beauty of what is always there is revealed.









Link to TECH BLOG
Found by Mark Frauenfelder at BoingBoing.net - thanks, Mark and TechBlog!

The Synapse is Holy

I love this quote from Gretel Erlich:

"An intake of breath is not just oxygen, a pulse is not just the rush of blood but also the taking in of divinity through an orifice, and as it moves through, it becomes a spark. To be inspired is to have accepted spirit in the lung and heart, to watch it circulate through miles of blood vessels and capillaries whose tiny fenestrations allow oxygen, nutrients and grace to leak into the tissues of muscle and consciousness, then be taken up again, reoxygenated, and returned.

The synapse is holy. Apse comes from apsis, whose roots mean to loop, wheel, arch, orbit, fasten, or copulate, and the apse of a church is a place of honor. The synapse is the gap where nothing happens. Bodies of thoughts swim in the synaptic lake, sliding over receptors, reaching for the ones that live on the other shore. An interval of between 0.5 and 1 millisecond transpires before an impulse makes its way across the gap . . where we pause between life and death, treading water in the oblivion of a gray sea. What is a thought before it registers memory? . . . Is it like unrequited love, or a lover who is spirit only, who has no body?”

How odd that we walk around with these bodies, live in them, die in them, make love with them, yet know almost nothing of their intimate workings, the ludicrous balancing act of homeostasis, the delicate architecture of their organs and systems, or the varying weathers of their private, internal environments. Up to this point my living and breathing had been an act of faith. I existed but I didn’t know how."

A Match to the Heart (amazon link).