This hour long presentation delivered by spiritual teacher Thich Nhat Hanh is a wonderful introduction into spiritual community also known as “Sangha”. Thich Nhat Hanh goes on to explain the importance of spiritual support from your community of brothers and sisters. It’s important that on the “spiritual path” we recognize the dynamics of our relationships to those around us.

Other topics that are touched on are being present and cultivating the ability to center yourself and be mindful in the midst of chaos. One contributing factor to cultivating mindfulness and awareness is through the support of your sangha or community.

Thich Nhat Hanh always delivers an enlightening message graced by many years of life experience and wisdom. Please have a listen to another great zencast. If you would like to leave a comment with regard to your sangha or this lecture please do so.

An impromptu film made in Tokyo by Dennis Wheatley and Stefan McClean. They were sitting in this sushi bar downtown Tokyo pondering how best to set up a camera to film things as they happen without causing a scene. They decided in order to capture people “in the moment” they would put a camera on the revolving conveyor belt to capture people just being themselves.

I love this video, it really does capture the moment and is accompanied by a wonderful piece of music. The music is “lost in a moment” by: “Shrift” from the album of the same name.

It seems as though we use the word karma in casual conversation like we would use the word luck or chance. I always hear the word used in casual conversation and it makes me wonder, what does karma mean for most people?

I’m guessing here but I think that most people use the word karma like they would use the words magic, lucky or fate. I’m not sure that people who use the word have actually ever thought about what it means.

I’m asking myself, what does karma mean?

When I think about the word karma all kinds of images come to mind. I’m picturing an old Indian guru wagging his finger at me warning I should take care of what I do in this life or it will come back to haunt me in the next. If I’m not good now I might be incarnated in my next life as a cow or monkey!

I also see the glamorous and trendy brand of the word “Karma”. I see it plastered on tattoo shops and new age stores that sell crystals and incense. I also see it marketed in Trader Joe’s on bags of pasta or cans of soup.

None of these things can be what karma is… right?

I don’t think any of the above has much to do with karma at all. So when I examine all that and ask myself again… what is karma? I realize I have to look past all those imprinted images, I have to go beyond my conditioning and see what’s really there.

After careful consideration it appears to me that the word karma is truly a beautiful and precious word that can imply an infinite amount of love.

Let’s take the generic definition of karma and break it down. Basically most of us think karma is tit for tat… what you do now will determine how the future will be for you later. I don’t know if any of you really believe that or not but lets forget all that and go further.

I wouldn’t say I believe in the generic definition of karma or most other definitions but I’ll tell you what I’ve come to understand it to be.

I don’t see karma as something to be feared or threatened with. I also don’t see it as some sort of cosmic game or anything fantastic like that. I do see however the opportunity to express love at every moment of our lives.

We’re not loving one another to keep score or save up points for the next life, we love one another because it’s who we truly are. We love one another because it’s natural and it feels great!

All the bad things that happen in our lives or in the world for that matter… aren’t due to bad karma, rather there’s not enough love present. If there were enough love present then there wouldn’t be any room for fear, crisis and confusion wouldn’t arise.

I have karma, karma doesn’t have me.

I say this because at every moment in my life I have the opportunity to express myself via the vehicle of love as opposed to fear. When I live my daily life I am fully aware of the dangers and opportunities that present themselves. When something bad happens unexpectedly or  I’m approached by someone with aggression or hate… how will I respond?

If I’m present at the moment life takes a turn for the worse then I can see that there is no need to fear the danger or aggression trying to rock my world. I see this as an opportunity, an opportunity to respond with love and nothing else. I don’t respond with love because I’m hoping to gain enlightenment or a higher incarnation my next life (if there is a next life). I respond with love because I want to be loved back, I want nothing but love around me and there isn’t any room for anything else in my life.

So when I think of the word karma I think of love. I see the opportunity for all of us to love one another and be loved back.

I would like to leave you with this question…

what does karma mean to you?

I’d like to share with you something I’ve been noticing in myself lately, I’ve become quite the complainer! For lack of a better word I’ve been… “practicing” observation consistently for the past several weeks and out of this observation I’ve become aware of many issues in my own life and society. I’d like to note that society and I are one but for the sake of this post we’ll address them as separate issues.

You see I’ve always been a “spiritual guy” (whatever that means), reading books, listening to cd’s and tapes, I even converted to Islam for over 2 years way back in high school! With that said it wasn’t until just recently that I had an awakening. Its as though someone ran into a room where I was sleeping yelling and screaming… the house is on fire get out of bed!

I’m up, I’m up already… and there’s no going back to sleep.

I must say that I have to attribute this most recent push out of the bed to J. Krishnamurti. I can’t give him all the credit as I’ve lead a pretty healthy spiritual lifestyle up to this point but Krishnamurti definitely said what I needed to hear at the perfect time. I’ve actually been giving it some thought and if I hadn’t been reading the teachers and philosophers like Ram Dass, Alan Watts and in and out of different churches my whole life I don’t think I would have been able to comprehend what Krishnamurti has said. Its almost as though these previous years have been to prep me for this chapter of my life.

So here I am now a completely different person then I was just a month ago. I have a whole new outlook on life or better yet, I now have some insight to my conditioning and societies conditions.

What is it that sustains this insight? To put it simply observation.

I’ve heard people say it before, be mindful, be aware, live consciously, etc, etc. The truth is if you observe yourself you will gain great insight into yourself and from that insight you can see the the truth in everything. I could go on here for a few more paragraphs just how powerful this action is but I’ll just say… if you can be observant you can change everything!

I’m not in awareness 24 hours a day, not yet… but I’m there more often than not now and its miraculous what you actually see when YOU’RE THERE to see it! Its even more amazing when YOU’RE ACTUALLY THERE in awareness before words come out of your mouth! Wouldn’t it be nice to actually say what you mean with clarity?

So with my new found awareness I can see clearly just how urgent a situation the entire planet is in. We are literally going to destroy ourselves and the planet sooner than later but 99% of the worlds population is going on as if everything is just going to work itself out. In daily life now I can see the insecurities and vanity in people like never before, I can see these things because I have lived this way myself but no more! I can also see that our systems of government around the world and divisive houses of religion provide ZERO security but rather breed conflict and fear.

I can see all this clearly now as a fact not some kind of philosophical idea, it is simply the truth. Now that I can see this all happening right before my very eyes, in my neighborhood, in my city, in my state, etc., its somewhat unsettling to say the least when others around you are still asleep and some are comatose. The consciousness of the world is caught in a tacit agreement to look the other way, not say a word and pretend its not going on. So long as we have the right to vote our government will fix the problem.

This is very frustrating for a newly awakened person but as I’m observing frustration doesn’t have anything to do with the problems of the world and neither does complaining about them.

Over the past several weeks I’ve been doing a lot of just that… complaining! You know what’s the good news however… out of my observation I’m aware of it and now I nip it in the bud mid sentence at first and now when the thought to complain comes I just let it pass on by.

Surely there are problems in the world, HUGE problems and I’m thankful that I now have this clarity to see all this but to let my emotions take over so that I stand on my moral soapbox to pontificate on how things ought to be is a waste of energy and unproductive.

I don’t have the answers to world peace yet but I’m already seeing that simply being observant in ones own life can literally change your world so I’m guessing if everyone could do this, maybe the world can change.

It has to start with YOU just like it has started with me. For the sake of the world, for you kids, for your unborn great, great grand children look into this will you? Look into yourself and maybe you’ll find something to NOT complain about too.

Peace and Love,

This is the second of a 6 part series of videos originally shot in 1982 at the Oak Grove in Ojai, California. This video is just over an hour long shot in full color with great audio.

This video is entitled “A Crisis In Ourselves”, it would seem that Krishnamurti addressed an issue back in 1982 that we are all still dealing with today. Actually are we dealing with the crisis in ourselves at all? Do we even see the crisis within or are we too stupefied to notice what is actually happening?

Krishnamurti makes it clear that there is something wrong with the state of affairs in the world only we are not dealing with the problem in the right way. We can all see that for thousands of years mankind has lived in terrible suffering and pain.

Century after century we continue to fight, create war, conflict and kill one another. Looking back we can see that we’ve tried several different means to bring peace. We’ve formed nations and armies to protect and give us a sense of security but to no avail, only a false sense of security. We’ve created governments to bring order to our societies and yet to this very day there hasn’t been a successful government to bring peace and cessation of fear.

In this video Krishnamurti ask us to look at this fact deeply. If we are at all serious, are we willing to bring about a complete change in the physiological mind that created all the past wars and wars of today?

If we are truly serious about this we must recognize that nothing we’ve done in the past has worked so obviously we need to make a complete and total change. We must first take care as to how we approach the problems of the world because if we try to FIX the problems coming from our conditioned minds and our approach comes from fear then our solution will be based on fear.

If we take great care to approach this very serious issue that the entire lot of mankind faces then perhaps we might make progress and see where to begin. If one does approach these issues very carefully one will find that the problems of the world today are not out there somewhere but rather within us all.

Please do feel free to post your comments about the video, I’d like to know what you think. You participation is encouraged, lets talk it up!

Namaste.