"Spiritual Window Shopping " Written by Jalaal'uddin Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks) and now taken from a page of a book written by Robert Beer, "Tibetan Symbols and Motifs" These spiritual window shoppers, who idly ask. "How much is that?"-"Oh I was only looking" They handle a hundred items, and put them down again, shadows with no capital. What is spent is love, and two eyes wet weeping. But these walk into a shop, and their whole lives pass by suddenly, in that moment, in that shop. "Where did you go?"-"Nowhere" "What did you have to eat?"-"Nothing much". "Even if you don't know what you want, buy something, To be part of the exchanging flow. Start a huge foolish project, like Noah. It makes absolutely no difference what people think of you. "Jalaal'uddin Rumi> Reading this reminds me that I am greatfull for simple minded use of the word Zen that have touched my life indirectly leading me to Japan and Eastern thoughts. From Chevy Chase in "Cady Shack" goin Nanananannnana NAaaaananananaaaaa while puting those golf balls to the Link Herb has willingly provided showing commercial enterprises of Zen garden boxes . Read the bottom of this poem again. For I do not know anything. Please excuse my ignorance. I little confused. I am starting to wonder if anything that has the word Zen is good. Maybe its not good for you. But why not just get the word out ? Keep repeating Zen. Let a culture learn and adopt new concepts slowly. Two women claimed an infant. One who riased the infant and one who is natural mother. King Solomon said , "I will solve this, I will Cut the infant in half and give and give each of you half. One women says ,"Noooooo ! She can have him ". King Solomon then knew this to be the real mother. Moral of story is aside of illustrating remarkable intelligence of King Solomon, true nature of love is not intelligence. Wisdom is not intelligence. When the Buddha Shakyamuni suddenly held up a flower and looked at it, Mahakashayapa smiled sharing in the true nature of the shared reality seen in the flower.Essence of Zens founding Wisdom. I have very little understanding of these words . No idea. I think I do. But really deep down inside I know I cant grasp this. Hard to swallow the truth. Wisdoms are complex . Absolute truths are simply amazing. Peak expereinces..now those change me in a huge way.I would like to be a good man. "What Makes a Zen Garden" is teaching me this path. My path started when I picked up a pebble in our backyard when I was around 3 years old. I dropped it when seeing my father. Lost concentration of pebble.. I remember his legs. haha. Thats all I recall of that moment. Another day I picked up pebble again. My father said white. I recall his bending down and taking the pebble in both of our hands. He looked in my eyes and said white. I loved my Dad. dropped the pebble when he let go of my hand. I followed him . Sometime within that week my mother took me outside. I recall finding a pebble and going to my mother white. She looked at me with wide eyes smiling. I dont recall my feeling. When she took the pebble from my hand to look. I went to the ground and looked for white. I do not remember anymore of this learnings. I do recall nursery school. Going to the car with my mother and picking up a Quartz stone . While in the car wearing my Cowboys Footaball leather jacket I held this Quartz in my hand. " White" The thought creeped in and I knew I had not seen a white stone since the week with my father teaching me white. From this thread of thought I came to know of white , quartz . Somewhere in there is pebble and stone. I dont recall. But those were Peak Expereinces. Those are the memories that bring me to Japan. I seek to know who I am. Materials of a garden need words. Without words one does not see. I see white quartz pebbles everywhere now. Zen, Japanese Garden , Kare San Sui , Suiseki ,Zen. How one comes to know a word is more importent than the word itself. Zen will not come untill I know how I became me. I am part of the Flow . Zen and Japanese Gardening is within me. One must have the will , desire to find new words to see with. Keep open heart to see wisdoms also. Dogen. King Solomon. Basho. Three new influences in my life this week. Good thread : )

Valinsv, yes, it is a healing type of business, and whether or not an environment has an Asian or Zen style to it, Feng Shui is really about the ''art of placement''. Currently, they have double doors opening to their business, but they only unlock and use one of the doors. I believe they need to use both doors so they can allow new business in while old business is leaving. There are unused chairs in front of the pathway of one door, with a large window behind them. No one ever sits there because it isn't comfortable to sit in front of a large window. There are two different styles of chairs, 5 of one and 2 of another. Two of the chairs are regularly chosen to be sat in, because of where they are. I believe equality of seating and arrangement of the chairs is important to their business, especially in the waiting room. (I doubt they actually need 7 chairs in their waiting room, since they really don't keep people waiting long. They make appointments and keep them on time.) There is already a certain type of eclectic style going on which could work well for them with some editing, yet relates well to their business. They've actually put some Feng Shui principals into practice, without understanding fully what's really going on. I know they probably have a pretty tight budget, yet believe just rearranging the furniture would be a great start. Think about those shows that have a designer come in and rearrange the furniture without spending any money, yet the room feels instantly better!

There was a store that carried them in a neighboring, larger city so I did have the opportunity to try it out. I ended up ordering it online. I believe that Herman Miller only has an annual sale on their products, which expired on the 11th. By ordering online I was able to save on another trip, get free shipping and saved on sales tax as well. I'm eager to get it as I'm really ready to get rid of the chair I currently use. I think it is likely that you will have to find a place in a larger city that carry the more expensive chairs mentioned. I have never seen them in a place like Office Depot or Staples.

Hi lascatx! The piano does not fit between the windows or on the opposite wall unless I angle it in the corner which someone mentioned was a no-no for upright pianos. I'm wondering if art and lamp above/on the piano could help with the "all one height along the wall" problem. And then I could move the existing art to the back wall where the mirror is in these pics. The bookcase has been in our foyer right outside this door to this room. I kind of miss it there, so I may move it back. It's not really any farther away if I use it for storage for office items - I haven't been sold on it between the windows and that would be one less piece of brown furniture in here. I definitely gravitate towards blues, so I'd definitely be open to that on the walls...finding the right color is the hard part. The current color is Benjamin Moore November Rain and it isn't terrible in person, but I figured I should explore other options since it needs a fresh coat.