markteppo posted on Happiness, by Matthieu Ricard. The quote on Mark's post: it's such a good description--for me, at least--of those moments of pure happiness. Not the time-bending transcendent kind, or exhuberance, but simple and profound joy.

(Riffing on Mark's take, not refuting...) It doesn't suggest a subjective universe to me. It's more like the internal chatter stops and the mind moves out of the way. The opposite of subjective, in a way, personal but not insular.

Anyway, not to get too arcane...

Here's a blog I keep up with: Happiness Project. I was intrigued by her approach:

otterdance's Buddhist Thought of the Day made me remember something from a biography of Johannes Brahms. He wrote to Clara Schumann:

“Passions are not natural to mankind; they are always exceptions or excrescences. The man in whom they overstep the limits should regard himself as an invalid and seek a medicine for his life and health. The ideal and genuine man is calm both in his joy and sorrow.”

The last sentence has stayed in my head for years, like words spoken by a kind mentor. They speak of mindfulness and presence and dignity amidst the deep joy and sorrow of Brahms' music and life.

Back from a meditation retreat. When I wasn't daydreaming meditating, I read a book called Fourth Uncle in the Mountain. The author Quang Van Nguyen is a Vietnamese herbalist doctor who now lives in Vermont. My meditation master, a 69-year-old Tibetan, had a health crisis a few years ago and really rallied under Quang's care.

Fourth Uncle rivals One Hundred Years of Solitude for magical realism, but it's an autobiography, not a novel. It is a story of spiritual adventure and unfolding, set in a world where magic and the supernatural are part of everyday life. War, too, is a character in the story: we see its impact on "little people" without politics or polemics.

An inspiring quote in the book: Quang's father says to him: "People who pray and meditate every day help others without even knowing it. Their spirits grow big like trees. Their branches extend over their neighbors, family and friends."

Right now, though, after slogging through the emails that piled up, I feel more like an unpruned shrub than a noble tree.

Heather's blog had an entry on guerilla restoration. It will make you happy: a cell of people engaged on making good.

Part of the attraction for me is that it's about an giant antique clock. Not that I'm a patron of mechanical clocks. The ticking of small clocks is too busy: quick, quick, quick, quick, they say. A big grandfather clock might be different: Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Time taking its time.


Years ago, a friend and I went into an abandoned clock tower in Richmond. The floor was scattered with pigeon droppings and old papers. The clocks were all stopped. The sun shone through their marble faces and cast a soft creamy light in the tower. (The tower is now restored, and it's even being used as a train station again.)

Time seems to be a thing with me. When I was a little kid, I got into memorizing aphorisms. One of my favorites was Benjamin Franklin's: "Time is the coin of your life; spend it wisely." (He also said, "Lost time is never found again.") In my past life in a corporate office, I taught time management.

quixhobbit Julia wrote a most poignant reflection on time: "If anyone has a deep awareness of how potentially brief and fleeting our lives can be, it's me--that's what a cancer diagnosis did for me, no matter how well I'm able to bury it most of the time. I'm not even 40 yet, and I’m already painfully aware that I am not going to finish everything I want to finish before I die."

I wonder what would happen if we somehow did finish everything we wanted to finish. Would we be hollowed out, barely human anymore? Or would we be joyous, able to live in the here and now? Would that be paradise?