The Mystics Meeting

Looking is its own action!

2009-06-22T17:12:00.004-04:00

My dear friend "J" had sent me an email which invited an inquiry together... I thought Id share here what I wrote to him back...

"J" said:

I have been wondering why dialogue groups appeared after Krishnamurti died. Why he was so concerned that when people talk together they be generous, interact with affection. Have great care to listen to the other.

Many like to point out that Krishnamurti was protected and supported during his life by others as he did his work. Can the dialogue process be approached in a way as a support, if for a brief time, when one is laying aside ones ego and listening. It has to be relatively safe to lay down one's tools and weapons or one will not listen - will not stop the walling.

My reply:

"Why he was so concerned that when people talk together they be generous, interact with affection. Have great care to listen to the other."

yes, I can see this... the very importance of this, in what we purport to want to find for ourselves-- "inner peace", wisdom, and the like...

what Ive been calling "Debate energy"- which is the manifestation of the "agree/disagree" mind, HAS to end- HAS to find its own end, in order to ACTUALLY SEE (and not 'hold' as a belief) what it is that we are trying to come upon...

since it is the brain itself that is the very source of this agree/disagree mind, through its insistence on its own primary dichotomy, "I and other", then the brain is NOT going to be an ally, in seeing the end of debate energy within itself... it is going to insist on debating the validity of its creations, the very agree/disagree stance that it MUST make for itself, to keep itself alive (in the form of thought, or ego, I mean here)...

therefor, ONLY compassion, for the Brain itself, for this very activity, brought to it by something else found also "inwardly", will allow the brain to look inward, and STAY there... the very ending of the outward vector within the brain, IS the ending of debate energy- it is the inward vector that is ALREADY the compassion that is required to see what we want to see- and it is here, in the INWARD, where we see that IT ALSO always contained the outward that we thought was "out there"...

compassion, and compassion alone, will bring us to this...

but the ego/brain will also now want to usurp compassion as a posession for itself, so that it can take it under its control... it MUST always win for itself- its a matter of "life and death" for the ego/brain... and so it will create a version of compassion that it thinks it can "own"- that it thinks it can "use" and "carry" from one place to the next, and thus be always in the "good" or the "right" for itself...

this is still just the ego/brain at work- but this activity has NO EFFECT on Compassion itself- it cant! it is NOT the actual NATURE of Compassion to be partial, to separate itself off from all else, so that it can be carried away...

thus, JK would say "Looking is its own action"... meaning, (if I may say) that the Compassion is ALREADY acting PRECISELY where it needs to be acting, WITHOUT any "effort" from any of "us"... without any interference from the partial, the whole is already at work, doing exactly what it needs to be doing, in order to bring about this understanding that we have been in search of...

do, or dont do- its of no matter to Compassion... and its the very understanding that Compassion is its OWN action, and NOT a personal action, that will bring us to exactly the right "place"- be that called a state, or silence, or an experience, or a learning- NONE of what we call it could possibly matter to this action- its already working towards what it needs to do, to get us to a real understanding of this matter... THIS is the true "letting go", this is true "meditation"-- just Looking, and seeing the truth of this unfold before us...

there is no "loss" in this understanding- and there is no "gain"... there is no "expertise" for this either... there is no "knowing" of this on the personal level, that can be "used" to make a place for oneself in this world... there is only the watching of Compassion acting in the world, and an understanding that whatever is seen as NOT Compassion, is itself only of the world, and thus, itself, has no part of what we are trying to really see...

that is, an "illusion"... but that word can get so loaded and entrapped by the ego/brain, but Im using it here because others will use the word to point to some of this same thing too...

IS it all really an "illusion"?

who wants to know? becomes the real inquiry in that... is it the agree/disagree, delineating, dichotomous brain that is looking to "figure it out" BEFORE it gives up anything of itself that it holds dear? Or is it that ever loving infinitely deeper true Curiosity for the truth, that has set you and I on this inquiry in the first place? No doubt, since we were VERY very young lads, did we live INSIDE of this beautiful and Compassionate Curiosity...

THAT is the compassion acting... already... just the looking, to really see it- NO HOLDING BACK looking at EVERYTHING that we think of as "sacred", but is still of the world- and thus a creation of ego/brain... that Looking has always been there for us, and I dare say, for everyone really... some seem far removed from it- but they can NOT POSSIBLY be any MORE removed from it than they are of death... we are ALL equally close to this one thing- call it death, call it curiosity, call it Love, call it Compassion, call it God... whatever... it is... and it acts and has been acting perfectly to do its job of joining that which seems separate, but never really was... this is the true illusion... that any of us are separate...

on "A Course in Miracles"

2009-06-20T11:16:00.003-04:00

On June 1st, I started reading "A Course in Miracles", after having it on my laptop in electronic form for a couple of years now...

In the past, I found material that was "objectionable" to my sense of what wisdom was. Im here now to report, oh how wrong I was!

It is an amazing work I will say, once Ive gotten past whatever "debate energy" I wanted to bring to its use of a Trinity metaphor, and the other ways in which it might define a word... it is clear, to get past ones own objections, means to enter a true listening to exactly what is being said... the truest listening does not bring with it its particular definitions, or its insistences on what must or must not be true... a true listening will hear with much different ears, and come to understand that which is being pointed to (the "mirror of relationship" is still the main pointing here, from what Ive been hearing), rather than that which the listener already "knows"...

And so, as it turns out, the use of a Trinity metaphor (being one that I grew up with, and thus the source of this "objection") is absolutely PERFECT for what I actually NEEDED to be looking at... (go figure)

other metaphors too, that Ive heard many a time over in my lookings, but found them to be lacking (e. "life is but a dream", among others) are also coming into the fullest view, of how they apply to the truth of what has been created by THIS EGO, to keep it from being with "what is" (God, if we can allow)

As of this writing, there are probably some 400 "notes" that Ive made on the text... (mostly off of what is called the "urtext" - which is the name given the original writings of the "scribe" who took down this "information/communication", before it was edited for "print" (I know, I know, some of this description is going to get loaded with new-ageyness that, goes (or has traditionally gone) against my grain too- but thus, the truest listening that I was speaking of comes to be called)

Also, I started by reading fully what is called the "Manual for Teachers", which is easily what "hooked" me into it... there was NOTHING said there, that I could find anything BUT a deep and profound recognition in what it was communicating... and thus, I might find myself recommending this-- but even there, it really doesnt matter (and actually SHOULDNT matter) where or how one comes upon this communication...

Thus goes some accounting for what Ive been doing this past month with my time (still "homeless-and jobless", which should be demanding a post of how loosely Im insisting on using these words... perhaps something clever will come along to say what it really means, using different words, but thus far there seems to be some sort of leaning to NOT give that energy just now... just sticking to the reading of ACIM as proper use of my time)

update

2009-05-19T18:56:00.003-04:00

there have been so many... so, SO many things that have been flooding into this mind-body these last few weeks of housinglessness... this will be night #21 for me, since losing the last place that I lived in- but to be honest, only 2 of these nights were spent in my car... all of the others have been under a roof, of a Church meetinghouse, a new friend, an old friend, or a not-long seen relative - Ive been very fortunate so far in this regard, but each stay has been necessarily short...

the latest blessing has been to find someone who is allowing me to house-sit for them through the month of June, or until their house gets sold... and what a tremendous blessing this is- the house was built in 1806, and has an incredible charm (even though it stands empty but for a few plastic chairs and one bed, some built-in storage and desk helps much too- and Im able t use my folding camp tables and chair here as well... the gardens are really exquisite, and the stone walls were built by the current owners- the husband of the couple, who have lived in the place for nearly a quarter of its life- 48 years...

there is peace here... it is cold in the evenings, but my sleeping bag remedies that just fine - Id rather not turn on the heat... the refridge is perfect- the stove boils tea water perfectly well in the teakettle left behind- the water runs hot and cold, just as designed ... all is so very very wonderful here...

but the insights that have been running these 21 days- oh I do wish I could get them all down... but really, I cant... they come, and they open within- and they get absorbed without record... Ive been letting them go on purpose, it seems... to run to open my computer, or to scribble them down will not do, as Im usually in the car or in the center of some town, or in a market getting some vegetables and protein for myself- and by the time Im in a place to record them, theyre not there in writable form...

but I can tell you, they are all about kindness, and compassion, and what is so utterly false within our measuring brain that prevents us from seeing this as what life itself really is!...

ask me something here, and maybe something will come forth- but Im not writing elsewhere on the net (not really) for this time, so there is nothing fresh to add to here from that...

thats the update-

I Love life so much- its perfect no matter what comes into it... its so simple- love Love... its so so simple...

the Short version

2009-05-01T08:08:00.004-04:00

Hi Terry,

just a quick note here-
as of yesterday, I am fully Homeless- my buddy R. kicked me out with "an hour" of notice... and there was NOTHING but his own "stuff" that was going on...

he bought a trailer for me to live in- $700 - from 1968, and he parked it out behind the barn...(I just spiritually could not bring "debate" to this request)

this because he wanted the house all to himself and his new (2 months) girlfriend that he met online...

so, on moving-to-the trailer day (I was to be out by the end of April, this is on the 28th) I started to load my possessions into it, and give it a once over with some formula 409, when five minutes later he comes out and tells me "you have to be gone in an hour" - meaning, from the house, entirely...

so that ends a two (and more) year long intensive study in the up-close-and-personal behavior of a Narcissistic Personality Disorder...

I risked everything to see this thing "to the end"- and so, thats what I got... I knew this day long ago, and its here now- and its kinda wonderful... I mean, there is really nothing but pure curiosity for whats going to come next, and a Joy of sorts for life just the way it is, that is here in this heart right now... nothing but... there is a big smile on my face for this fact alone...

but still, logistics are logistics...

oh, so not only in one day did I lose both my housing and my livelihood, but my car also would barely make it out of the driveway... transmission trouble...

so, I got the car to my storage unit (the one I rented for just this day) and loaded what I was able to put in this one-trip-load into it... and then got the car to the mechanic, and then got to the UU church in town, where the minister happened to be that night (8:00 pm) and was allowed to stay that night, and last night... she did make it sort of clear, it couldnt go beyond that (blog-post to come on the lookings involved there)...

yesterday, I got a cell phone that I owned charged up with some prepay minutes (R. left me with a few hundred bucks on the kitchen counter) and went to the mechanic (been using for 4 years now- wonderful guy!) to tell him of my situation and see if there was any way he could put me in front of the line of work for the day...

(blog-post to come) late yesterday, I got a call that my car was ready- I went to pick it up, he handed me the keys, and said "youre all set"... I said, "cool, thank you SO much for getting to it" ... I reached for my wallet... he said "youre all set"... I looked in his face, he was looking me right in the eye, he said, "youre all set"... a tear came to my eyes before I even mentally understood what he was saying... I said to him, "you know, theres a tear here now" ...he said, "I know... we all have those things happen to us, Im just glad I could do something to help in some way"... my eyes were completely blurry with tears by the time I got the key to the ignition, as they are here now again, even recounting this...

last night, I went to the Poets group at the church, the minister was leading this group... when we got to my turn to read a poem, one's own, or by someone else, I shared with the five others there, this one by Jeannie Zandi:

I want to be God's
favorite waitress. When
he comes
in the door, I
want him
to ask for me. When
he wants
something,
I want him
to ask me
to get it. I don't care
what it is. And
I don't care
how
he asks.

I want
to spend my life
perfecting my approach. Warm
smile, gracious welcome, sweet,
unhurried manner.
I want him
to feel like
he's my only
customer.

When my car breaks
down in the middle of the night with
my young daughter asleep
in the back seat, I know
it's another chance
to capture
his heart.

I ask, what will it be
God? What can
I bring you
from the kitchen? A meeting
with a friendly stranger? Hours
of waiting
in the dark? Or a long alert walk
on this cold, moon-less night?
You tell me.

I'll go get it."

____________________________

the poem was very well received, there was a good deal of warming spiritual discussion on it, and how some were reading it, and why I brought it to the group... the minister asked me before moving on to the next poem, if I had "anything more I wanted to share about this poem, and what it means to me" ...and so, I took her spiritual invitation and shared with the group too, my situation of the last two days/year ... not in length of course...

right now, Im still in the church (6:42 am) my car is packed with stuff for the next three days (may still have to get to the storage unit one more time) and Im going to Vermont to see Jeannie Zandi- D. told me she was going to be there this weekend- I think I knew this a month ago... so when I got my car back, I decided to call, and I got the host there on the phone- (the church let me use their phone too, so I didnt have to waste minutes on my new cell)... she said, "its not really so much a problem that youre not going to be able to pay, its more that we are all booked up and there are some waiting too... I felt a bit disappointed... but really, I was still ready to meet whatever it is that I was going to find around the corner... and then I told her the story above, and she said, so simply and so very sweetly, "you have to come"... and there is a joy here for that invitation alone, let alone getting to meet up with Jeannie and other folks who look deeply at things, (like EVERYone I know down there!!!)

so, we will hope my car makes the trip- and if it doesnt, Ill be Gods favorite waiter...

dont know where Ill be sleeping tonight, the backseat of my car is likely someplace... being homeless with car is Im sure something totally different than being homeless without...and so goes this part of the adventure

I hope I do get down to see you the end of the month, Ill contact G. and see if there is a way to ride down together... OR, Ill just drive down and be homeless down there rather than up here... and then Ill be there for the retreat for sure...

If you know of any resources, or can think of any ideas, let me know...

Love to you and K. and Everyone we know
Love to you all
t

Housinglessness

2009-04-29T13:44:00.001-04:00

Im officially homeless

but I LOVE the phrase Housinglessness! its so much more true- since ones true home is in one's heart

Ill let you all know what happens, but I have an hour to pack up what I can and get out of where Ive been living- the promise of a "place to live" and "I would never kick you out on the street" was rescinded, after over a year of investing (fun word to use here) myself in the upkeep and care of this place...

all is well though
I hear God a'knockin

Ill let you all know what transpires

be well
love to all

Some things are not a matter of Opinion

2009-04-29T09:36:00.004-04:00

... and some things are...

how does one meet what is a mere opinion, with that which is not an opinion?
to put the question another way, what happens when Open meets Closed?
how do you see something that is utterly False, and meet that with truth?

this is Peace Pilgrim, answering that question for us, as she does, by her living example (yes, her body has passed away, but her example is still quite a living thing!) (YouTube video, one hour)

And then they said, if you had to choose between killing and being killed which would you choose. Oh I said, I don't think I need to make such a choice as long as my life remains in harmony with divine purpose. But not only that, if it were my calling to be a martyr (now that's a really rare calling and it's a very high calling) I don't believe it's my calling. Although I'm ready if it is (the world learns and grows through its martyrs). I said, if I had to make such a choice, I would choose being killed rather then killing. In any case where it was necessary to choose harming and being harmed I would choose being harmed rather than harming. And they said, could you give a logical explanation for such an attitude? Yes I said in my frame of reference I could. In my frame of reference I am not the body - I am only wearing the body. I am that which activates the body - that's the reality. Now if I am killed it destroys merely the body, which is transient anyway. But if I kill it injures the reality, which can only be injured by my own wrong act. (source)

"reality can only be injured by my own wrong act"

Wow, yes!

the carrying of opinions from one place to another, and the use of them as a means to get something from another... THAT is the "wrong act"...

drop them, and see what reality actually IS. Im saying to you here- this is what Love really is- this is what Compassion actually is...

True Gifts

2009-04-26T09:18:00.004-04:00

someone said to me yesterday, "I find I have a hard time still, owning these things as my "gifts"... the way others perceive what I say- they seem to label me as "out there"- perhaps a bit kooky, because of the way I see things"...

also, on a few occasions yesterday, I discovered my new friend had found reason to deliver some "advice" that she thought would be useful for me... to "overcome" something that she imagined I was struggling with... it could have seemed to me, that it was I who was saying "out there" things, because there was nothing in what I said that was identifiable to me as a struggle- I was speaking of nothing that I needed to "overcome"... this was strange at first sight- but then, very shortly, I saw into what I think may have been unfolding...

_____________________

the more you come to understand the truth of your own gifts, the more you will see the uselessness of advice-from-others... and proportionately, the more you will see the meaninglessness of dispensing advice-to-others (who have not explicitly asked for it)

what is important about this, is the simple ratio that it reveals

the distance between yourself and your true gifts, is going to be precisely equal to the amount of advice (unsolicited) you dispense to others...

now, here is the irony of this

those who dispense advice (unsolicited), often do not even know they are doing so- they are THAT far away from coming to understand their true gifts...

and to further the paradox along a bit more

there may arise a desire to "point this out" to the one who is dispensing advice left and right- this of course, would be oneself abandoning ones true gifts, in order to match (not meet) the advise-giving energy... if this should happen, one may want to question whether one has really understood fully, the truth of ones gifts...

now, let us look just a bit at solicited advise

I think it might be somewhat clear, if one is looking the above paradox squarely in the face, that even solicited advice is at its best, never really "advice", in the way we commonly take to mean it.... but rather, a true gift will understand enough about itself to share the question of the other... to take the question fully into ones own heart, and speak as if whatever circumstance was being examined were an alive circumstance for oneself... (indeed, on the level of true gifts, this is actually the case... there is no real separation of "you" and "me"... "I" and "other")... this true seeing changes the communication entirely, and now, that which was being sought (advice) is no longer what it was, but has transcended to a completely different level of information flow...

it is a funny thing to see a very sincere advice-giver deliver some words upon a situation, and completely miss that these words are entirely meant for themselves! that these words are really speaking of the DISTANCE between their own ideas of how the world should be, and their own true gifts...

a true gift will meet this situation with compassion... maybe it will say nothing... maybe it will say something once, from the depths of seeing the mirror of oneself in the circumstance, and then let it be... but a true gift will not endeavor to correct the circumstance from an image of "how it should be"... it will not advise against advice... it simply cannot do so...

thus, we are left with the purest form of communication

invitation...

this is the sharing of the question that was spoken of earlier... this is the seeing of the mirror, that ones own true gifts are not in any way separate from another's... they may indeed manifest in different ways, thus we have many different ways of loving God, if you will... but different is not separate... not from the level of ones true gifts... these gifts will be loath to label themselves beyond what they already see of themselves in the other... this non-separation has a completely different way of allowing for information to come and go, than this language we are sharing now is capable of fully revealing... the words are not the flow...

a true invitation is delivered from a silent, spacious place... it is an invitation to give space to the words that arrive in the haste and noise of advice... a shared looking, together, as if one were not separate from the other... advice, in the way we mean it here, is itself a separating agent- as it is itself born of that noise and haste, and is devoid of the space in which one can truly see oneself- the gift of oneself- the true gift... space is the mirror of all relationships, between people, between natural things, and man made things- all things are a part of this space, which is bound to mirror our true gifts...

lets look there, in that space
we can look together...

_______________________

Added

its funny to consider, some readers will have come here and not read past the third paragraph above... "well, if youre not interested in my advice, why should I even bother to read your blog?!"...

yes indeed- why?

and so, in perfect fashion, these folks will close this tab, and move on to other pages that resonate better with their intent... dear reader, if you have come this far in the post, then you have already understood oceans more than the advice merchant...

the invitation then, is to understand there are oceans more to see... beyond what is looked at here... the inviation is a galaxy into itself... and more beyond that...

our poor, poor, agree/disagree minds...

Im speaking here about a way to meet this universe, that has not a speck of debate within it... that flies around with stars and planets and moons- comets and asteroids...

there is no "out there" in this space... the space is always and ever "right here" ... the inward, which contains within the fullness of the apparent and all of the hidden outward... this is the space of invitation...

what are the ways we share that invitation together?

we already (and always) are,
are we not?

now, breathe*

*either the very best, or the stupidest advice ever delivered ;-)

A bit about Homelessness- and maybe surrender

2009-04-24T17:53:00.000-04:00

You and I are on this road together ... lets say we are going to a retreat for the weekend, some 40 or 50 miles up the road ... we've been there before, so we sort of know the town some ...

we left home late though - weve been on the road for about 100 miles already - we were rather planning to have arrived there by now - its getting late, and now that its winter, its getting a bit dark a bit much earlier - so at this point in our trip, its dark out ...

and, its started to rain too ... badly, in fact ... the rain is coming down very heavily ... there are no stops really, between where we are and the town were the retreat is being held - no gas stations, no motels ...

on the side of the road, there is a homeless man - drenched and cold and rather bedraggled ... he has his shopping cart full of his worldly possessions with him ... his thumb is half heartedly out for a ride - but clearly he expects no one to stop for him, not really ...

we do stop ... we know for a fact that there is some free shelter in the town that we are headed to ...

he says to us that he will not be able to take our offer, if we cant bring his shopping cart full of stuff with us ...

the one of us that is driving, and whose car this is (and I dont know which one of us that is) says that we cant take his stuff ... that person says that the man must leave his stuff behind if he wants the ride, and try to come back for it all later ... the homeless man refuses ... the one of us driving now asks "why not just be grateful for the ride? - we cant take your stuff with us - we have our own luggage in the trunk, and the back seat is not made for carrying such cargo - and we will all three of us get soaked to the skin to try to stop and pack it all in here - its cold and wet and dark - and we just cant do it" ... "do you want a ride or not?" ....

the one of us that is the passenger, is completely unsure of what to do ... that one of us is rather seeing the irony of us going to a retreat to find some clarity around letting go of things, but too, that one of us doesnt want to get into an argument - doesnt want to piss off the driver/friend - doesnt want to get soaked either - but still, asking, "what are we doing here? - why are we in this position at all?" ...

the homeless man refuses our offer still ...

we get into the car then, and get onto our way ... its a very silent 40-50 miles from there to where we are going, except for the few comments that the driver one of us had uttered about "why couldnt he just leave his possessions behind? Im sure no one would have taken them, he could have easily hidden them in the woods, and come back for them later ... it was silly of him to be so afraid to leave behind a cart full of junk and miss the opportunity for shelter - he could have brought just the two or three things with him that he considered essential" ...

the other of us, remained silent for the most part for the rest of the trip ...

so, heres the inquiry:

who was homeless here?
and what exactly is "home"?

If I could let go of this, I could let go of anything!

2009-04-24T13:55:00.002-04:00

Think about this with me... what would be that "one thing" that, if I could only get past the rising in my stomach/throat/brain that comes along with this particular circumstance, then I could get over ANYTHING else that were ever to come my way...

its a trick question really... the answer is, "whatever is there in front of you" (that may be rising in any given moment)

if getting past or letting go of even the simplest of risings, does not once and forever cure you of any rising yet to come, then- it wasnt really let go of...

not really...

a true and complete letting go of ANY one thing- will cure one of false expectations forever! because its not ever the "thing" that is let go- but the very act of creating an expectation in the first place... THAT is the one true and complete letting go...

perhaps, the next thing that rises in us- a slow line at the checkout in the store- a rude driver- a forgotten birthday wish- a broken promise- whatever it might be... perhaps we could give that rising within us our fullest and most complete attention, and just see... just see- maybe THIS one will BE THE ONE... the last one to ever rise in me again...

how will I ever know if it is the last one? maybe Ill never know- wouldnt that be something!

Something important onTranscendence and Immanence

2009-04-19T19:45:00.003-04:00

A MUST READ: "our addiction to Transcendence while ignoring Immanence"

Betray

2009-04-16T15:31:00.003-04:00

From Etymonline:

betray
c.1275, bitrayen "mislead, deceive, betray," from M.E. be- + O.Fr. traien, from L. tradere "hand over," from trans- "across" + dare "to give" (see date)

From Dictionary.com:

1. to deliver or expose to an enemy by treachery or disloyalty
2. to be unfaithful in guarding, maintaining, or fulfilling: to betray a trust.
3. to disappoint the hopes or expectations of; be disloyal to: to betray one's friends.
4. to reveal or disclose in violation of confidence: to betray a secret.
5. to reveal unconsciously (something one would preferably conceal): Her nervousness betrays her insecurity.
6. to show or exhibit; reveal; disclose: an unfeeling remark that betrays his lack of concern.
7. to deceive, misguide, or corrupt: a young lawyer betrayed by political ambitions into irreparable folly.
8. to seduce and desert.

From Etymonline:

traitor
c.1225, from O.Fr. traitor (11c.), from L. traditorem (nom. traditor) "betrayer," lit. "one who delivers," from stem of tradere "deliver, surrender" (see tradition).

___________________

I HAVE been delivered over...

I can meet that with fear, in which case, THAT is what Ive been delivered over to... or I can meet that with Love, in which case, that is the recipient of this body/mind... in any case, Ive been betrayed, in a business partnership- and as a consequence, Im coming up on a kind of semi-homelessness...

there is a 14' trailer that Ive been provided with to live in- (built in 1968) ... that will be my home... it is believed I still may be able to recieve an internet connection wirelessly, but there is no knowing for sure at this point... if I decide to walk away, I will lose anything that my car will not carry- and, in this economy/job-market...

thats what it looks like from the standpoint of "story"- from a "point of view"...

in any event, the story is not what is really important here- only how the story lives in me... and why should it live in me at all?

this is the current inquiry... and prayer...

more later, perhaps... right now, look with me at how this lives in our world... why this energy of "you are not enough" takes hold, and creates this disorder...

it is SO telling, these are the folks that seem to FEAR chaos more than death- so they go about trying to create a man-(self)-made order out of their lives... completely missing the disorder (see the post below) that is born of that very grasping... completely MISSING the order that is this beautiful life, just as it is! but the "you are not enough" is buried so deep in the unconsciousness of our mind- from childhood, from birth, and earlier- its in our DNA it would seem... but we know, some part of us KNOWS, its not true... why is it so hard to live from this knowing? why does the "not enough" return to haunt us? AND come out defending itself as "normal"... "Its how everybody does it!", says the "not-enough"...

this MUST be met with compassion- anything else, and one has stepped in that same stream of "not enough"...

so, this has been my Easter week...

and the blessings from this have poured forth- in seeing the no-struggle, that HAS to meet this energy... and IS meeting this energy, with simple prayer, and love...

peace to you all...

I love you all- no lie... no betrayal...

Narcissistic personality disorder

2009-04-16T15:19:00.006-04:00

DSM IV-TR criteria

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. believes that he or she is "special".
4. requires excessive admiration
5. has a sense of entitlement
6. is interpersonally exploitative
7. lacks empathy
8. is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her
9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

this is here as a precursor to some upcoming post that I can feel on the horizon... its been a meditation of mine (just as it is seen here, really) for the past year... thats the time Ive spent living with someone that, Im coming to understand more and more, suffers from this condition... in my next post, will be something similar to this, that might say more- but for now I ask that you meditate on these for a bit...

this really does sound like a whole society, doesnt it?

Ive had my fill of narcissism- and in that, Im finding society at large (business, politics, "going along to get along") just a bit much... do you know what I mean?

and so, you know me... Im looking deeply, to see what of this is there in myself-
nothing has changed this realization one bit- if I recognize it in another, it means it is there in me... the very thing that is doing the recognizing, IS THAT!...

yes- I see it... and its hard to overcome... the outward pointing that arises when we feel ourselves as separate from the other...

you are the only one responsible for your own disappointment

2009-04-16T08:07:00.003-04:00

take for instance, all of the words that are appearing these days about "Obama isnt 'all that' after all" - "just more of the same" - etc etc...

and so, the outward pointing begins, about how the "theys" and the "thems" and the "yous" should have done/known/thought this or that ...

no no no no no...

YOU are the one who placed a wrong expectation back then... YOU are the one who did not see what the truth of that moment was... YOU are the one who had insisted, and still are insisting on your measurements, on the image of what "change" would look like... and so now, your expectations looking like they are not going to be met, you are finally catching up to what the real change was... and its YOUR disappointment- not anyone elses...

YOUR measurements have ACTUALLY finally caught up to you- only now are you seeing it- but LOOK at the effect it is having on you! OUTWARD POINTING- rather than inward looking...

and so-

HERE, is what the REAL CHANGE was:

People were Happy- en masse

THATS it! - nothing more, and nothing less than that...

but, that wasnt enough for you- you had to go and make an image of the future out of that... and you know what? so were they!... in fact, THATS WHY they were happy- they all had an image too!

so, was it a "false happy"?

ONLY if you are still in YOUR IMAGE! only if you are still in your insistance about how it "should" be, can happy (and hope and promise in the sense of the Creative) ever be registered as FALSE...

but, if you should to decide NOW, as you could have THEN, and still can LATER- to just be HAPPY for Happy for being... then you will see it completely differently!

(Oh GOD, did I just say dont worry, be happy?- no no... thats not what I mean- no no no ... let me try that again....)

_____________________

for one to BE completely with what IS, in the present moment- a new seeing of what is truth and what is false emerges- and it emerges NOT out of that image making apparatus, the brain, and thought, and expectations and disappointments... but rather- it emerges out of itself...truth comes forth from itself, to inform consciousness... compassion enters, and that is what acts... and it acts only in the moment...

THAT action of compassion, that arises in the absence of time (expectation, agenda, image, the "me" thought), is what will bring real change... NOT the happy that was formed of images "back then" - NOT the happy that might come from images satisfied "later"- NOT the happy that comes from meeting up with others of like image-making apparatus ... no no... not that...

Compassion creates happy in a completely different way- and it is TIMELESS...

happy is timeless... period-
there is no "false happy"... there is only happy, or image making...

see this, please.... this is where the creative lives...

you know this... every poet knows this, every musician knows this, every artist, every writer, every runner when he's in the "zone", every lover, every mother, every mothers son and daughter, knows this... it can only ever be NOW...

there is no "false happy"
there is only happy, or image making...

seeing this, is compassion- and THAT is what is going to make the change you were "hoping" for... you have to learn what is false in yourself, the image making apparatus of the brain that creates time- that INSISTS on it... then, that insistence will drop away- and with it, war will drop away, judgment will fall to pieces, agenda will fly out the window, the "what about me" thought will never have ground to form... compassion comes in, and acts....

this cannot be "taught"- it cannot be "told"- it will not come of convincing... none of the old ways will bring this about...

do you see that? - none of the old ways!

isnt that the very thing we are here "objecting" to? the "old ways"?

the very change we are looking for HAS to begin, and be WILLING to END, HERE... here--- here--- here---

not, "out there"... be the change... this is what it means...

____________________________

ETA-

look here- I know I didnt explain it well...

THIS is what I really mean...

Birdsong from Inside the Egg

Like the ground turning green
in a spring wind.
Like birdsong beginning inside the egg.
Like this universe coming into existence,
the lover wakes and whirls in a dancing joy
then kneels down in praise.

Sometimes a lover of God may faint
In the presence. Then the Beloved bends
And whispers in his ear, “Beggar, spread out
Your robe. I’ll fill it with gold.
I’ve come to protect your consciousness.
Where has it gone? Come back into awareness.”

This fainting is because
Lovers want so much.

A chicken invites a camel into her henhouse,
And the whole structure is demolished.
A rabbit nestles down
With its eyes closed
In the arms of a lion.

There is an excess
In spiritual searching
That is profound ignorance.

Let that ignorance be our teacher!

The Friend breathes into one
who has no breath.

A deep silence revives the listening
And the speaking of those two who meet on the riverbank.

Like the ground turning green
in a spring wind.
Like birdsong beginning inside the egg.
Like this universe coming into existence,
The lover wakes, and whirls
in a dancing joy,
then kneels down in praise.

- Rumi & Coleman Barks

found here (link), mere minutes after I posted the above...

an Easter message

2009-04-12T09:11:00.002-04:00

-Courtroom scene (from the US television series Boston Legal)

Alan Shore gets up and walks over to stand in front of Eleanor: "You think its best that I leave?"

Eleanor doesn’t reply.

Alan notices his jacket isn’t yet buttoned. He does so: "Did you not you say last week, 'Let’s work this out?' Did you not say you couldn’t bear the idea of going to work at a place without me?"

Eleanor Frutt: "I said that."

Alan Shore: "Did you mean it?"

Eleanor Frutt: "I meant it. But Alan, I said that unobjectively, as your friend. As a person who continues to care deeply for you. But… I don’t think you’re entirely well. You are gonna self-destruct one day, and I can’t prevent that. But I can’t let you destroy my partners in the process. I’m sorry."

Alan touches Eleanor's hand lightly and walks away from the stand. He says nothing more.

-end of scene-

Great stuff about "New Age" and skepticism

2009-04-11T14:23:00.005-04:00

Bridging the Chasm between Two Cultures

A former leader in the New Age culture (Karla McLaren) author of nine titles on auras, chakras, "energy," and so on - chronicles her difficult and painful transition to skepticism. She thanks the skeptical community and agonizes over how the messages of scientific and critical thinking could be made more effective in communicating with her former New Age colleagues.

~Karla McLaren in Skeptical Inquirer

the vice of "not enough"

2009-04-10T07:02:00.004-04:00

there is another GREAT conversation going on over at BlissChick's (enCouragingBliss: Do Not Get Rid of Your Vice) about turning around what is falsely appearing as "not enough" in this moment, and seeing the very Truth of our nature behind that... below is one of the longish comments that Ive been making over there- but do go over and join in yourself!

yes, attachment is key to "vice"- and when I look inwardly to myself, there really is no confusing this...

for me, consuming alcoholic beverages is not a vice- I simply do not do it... there is no longer an attachment to it- there USED to be, but somewhere along the line, that just went away (from a complete seeing of the falseness of that action in MY life)... so when there was attachment there was "vice"- now there is no attachment... there is no struggle, there is no "should" or "should not" attached to it... I use wine in cooking, and there is a pleasant smell, and the enjoyment ends there, it doesnt go further as it once did... (therapy, and 12 step programs did not "do" this for me- it happened in just this way that Im describing, a DEEP looking at what is ones True nature)

now, procrastination DOES still have an attachment for me... there IS something that rises in me, when I feel Im being "lazy"- this is a problem now, it is a vice...

I see it is a vice, and Im clear about it- because there is an inevitable "should" that rises along with it... "I SHOULD have finished/ started/ not promised/ that task"... "I SHOULD not be so lazy"... "Ive overcome huge obstacles in the past, so I SHOULD not be having a problem with this!"...

the "turn around" is simple: "How do you know that is true?"... "what would it be if that SHOULD was simply not there in that sentence? would the world end? would people come to REAL harm, because you didnt meet their expectations?"

THEN, I really get to see the vice... its expectation itself! "Should" is past and future- and not ever true in this very moment! so I am "projecting" an image onto this moment (no matter how strongly felt, held, believed, or even reasoned logically!) that HAS NO VALIDITY to the truth of this moment... RIGHT NOW, there is not a SINGLE VALID should that can prove itself as true... whatever is TRUE for this moment, is RIGHT NOW, getting done without a SHOULD attached to it...

LOOK, and you will see!

really! there are NO shoulds in this moment- all shoulds are there in the future, and have no validity, no life, no air, no oxegen fuel, to this moment... ONLY in that feeling in the pit of my stomach, that is the ONLY place a should shows up as "real"- but to everything else as it is, there is no validity!

Ive seen this about alcohol, at the heart level- Ive not yet seen this about meeting others expectations at the heart level (the falseness of it I mean)... the "should" can still arise, and that most certainly feeds on itself, to where I "procrastinate" (whatever the hell that is) and end up letting others down... so, I look at it- I see the falseness of it (just like I did the alcohol) and I LET IT fall away on its own- LOVE and COMPASSION must come to this, not another "should" ("you "should" know this by now, after all, YOUR the one who is still doing it") - NO! love and compassion are not a possession that one can use to overcome a should with- love and compassion are the very seeing of the falseness of all of this, and then THEY come to act on this seeing... compassion acts of its own accord- as soon as I think "I must have more compassion so that..." - then Im back in the illusion again... seeing this IS love acting... and THAT is the real turn around!

there is someone on the web that does this sort of thing, I would certainly recommend seeing her speak on video or visiting her site...

Byron Katie, speaks a lot about the "turn around"- and the Inquiry being Love itself...

YouTube vids here

(sorry Christine, I get "carried away" on these responses sometimes- but this is the stuff I "live for"- and the conversation here is alive, I just arrive and this is what comes... bless you for your blog and your insights)

Strike for the Homeless

2009-04-09T17:18:00.004-04:00

You know what should happen?

the employees of some big company should all go on strike, in order to house the homeless... thats right, "we wont go back to work, until you fatcats in the big offices build some basic housing in our town, for those that are currently living on the streets."

dont you think that would be an interesting thing to see?

has anyone ever done anything like that? anyone know? I dont know...

and, Im saddened that it took me until I find myself inches away from homelessness to even think of this... "I should have done more when I had the chance", is now going through my head... so, how can I ever blame anyone for their own "what about me" thought!?

Dear Debator

2009-04-09T11:11:00.005-04:00

oh, dear debator-

the foolishness is this:
its not whether or not another believes or does not believe in God
or X, Y, Z-

its not whether or not another is open minded enough to see the very truth of what you are seeing-

its, how do you get across to another, who has closed his mind, the very truth of what you are seeing?

you should have seen by now, that which you resist, persists

END your debate*, and you will get across to the other, the very TRUTH of what you see!

but if you choose not to, then you have made the heart of the debate, "rightness", into that God which you have put above all others...

"So what" you ask?

yes, so what...?

_____________________________

after reading this very good post
and watching this excellently done video:

still, its not enough to see the truth-
its not possible to "have" the truth-
one must be the truth, to have it make a difference

and the truth of an open mind is so much greater
than being right

________________________

not to mention, when you end your debate, you might just see something that the other WAS seeing rightly, and you had been missing...

________________________

ETA (after watching this wonderful video)
*here, by debate I mean at its essence, the insistence on the primacy of the us/them - agree/disagree mind

Wisdom of the Hands

2009-04-06T09:07:00.003-04:00

Its about time that I highlight here another of my favorite daily blog visits- Doug Stowe's Wisdom of the Hands

Some of you may know, I was a Jeweler for many years, culminating in my own design practice - it was when and where I learned so much about the things of the Spirit that you see me speak about here- the doorways of perception, we might call it - I left that work many years ago now, to pursue "deeper things" (a story for another day) but I find Doug's blog about teaching youngsters in Arkansas and the world over the Love of handwork to be one of the most spirit filled that anyone might find anywhere...

Here is a particularly deep conversation (how can they be ready for that?) and below, one of my comments that came from reading Doug's and others lookings in that thread...

what we are talking about here is the mistaking of Craft for Art...

Art should never be spoken of- should never be practiced- should never be valued- should never be pursued

Craft, is Love... love of the material, love of the source of that material, love of the tools that work that material and of the toolmaker that makes the tools, love for the person for whom this material will form into usefulness, love for the person who delivered the material to the shop in which it will be worked...

Art is the product of that Love
pursuit of Art is foolishness, because it will be absent of Love, and instead, filled with the "what about me" thought- as Doug called it, "measurement"... "what will I get out of this?" - "what will THEY think of me?" - "how much will this be worth?" - "will I be respected by THEM?"

all of these are thoughts of separation - of me and you - of I and other - there is no Love there in these thoughts, and this is what "Art" has become... I say, let us not speak of Art at all... let us instead put ourselves to the material, and learn of it... learn of earth, and dirt, and sunlight, and tree, and mountain, and brook, and ocean, and all the creatures therein... learn them through the love of the Meeting - through the Wisdom of the Hands - through the Union of Heart and Mind and the materials of the earth... This is what Craft is- Love!

as well, the materials do not have to be of the earth, although it is surely with them that we will come to learn this... but the materials are also YOU- your life- your heart- your thought- your experience- your loves- your losses- your craft... that also, is the material of this Love- and there is where the true meeting will take place! the truest of all learnings, is not that which might produce a craft, but that which meets the other fully, as they are, without measurement and in FULL recognition- of the falseness of our perceived separation - seeing the mirror of the other- seeing me, when I look at you, when I look at a tree, a bird, a field mouse, a pine cone, a pumpkin, a grapevine, a crystal of tourmaline trapped in some rock, the sediment at the bottom of a stream bed... this is what the materials of the earth are there to teach us- LOOK at their sacrifice! that we may learn this lesson!

Trees, Mountains, Creatures, give their LIFE, that we may come to this meeting! That you and I are not the separate things we think we are- that you and I are one thing, and in that oneness, everything... this is the purpose of Craft, of Love!

let us not speak of Art- let us instead learn what Art is, through the meeting with the materials of this earth, these planets, these suns... this existence...

Risk

2009-04-03T10:14:00.003-04:00

the site where I first found this is no longer up, so Im not sure then where this should be attributed- but its just too good- I have to post it here today:

Saul is working in his store when he hears a booming voice from above: "Saul, sell your business." He ignores it. It goes on for days. "Saul, sell your business for $3 million." After weeks of this, he relents, sells his store. The voice says `Saul, go to Las Vegas." He asks why. "Saul, take the $3 million to Las Vegas." He obeys, goes to a casino. Voice says, "Saul , go to the blackjack table and put it down all on one hand." He hesitates but knows he must. He's dealt an 18. The dealer has a six showing. "Saul, take a card." What? The dealer has -- "Take a card!" He tells the dealer to hit him. Saul gets an ace. Nineteen. He breathes easy. "Saul, take another card." What? "TAKE ANOTHER CARD!" He asks for another card. It's another ace. He has twenty. "Saul, take another card," the voice commands. I have twenty! Saul shouts. "TAKE ANOTHER CARD!!" booms the voice. Hit me,Saul says. He gets another ace. Twenty one. The booming voice goes: "un-f--king-believable!"

Sometimes if feels like Ive led this incredibly risk-filled life, in search of a singularly perfect truth, that everyone else in the world already knows!

do you ever get that?

Faith, Time, and Compassion

2009-04-02T09:35:00.004-04:00

First, please do read this excellent article by Doug Muder: A Religion for Hard Times

my comment after reading his article (posted here on his blog)

Panic: "whats going to happen to me?!" = Future

Denial: "it wasnt supposed to be like this!" = Past

Radical Uncertainty: This moment, unfolding, perfection, just as it is... Now...

Belief: the mistaken notion that the infinite nature of Nature is the Eternal- "Because its so BIG, Ill never understand it"... Infinity is still a time bound mathematical concept- an invention of man...

Faith: the ending of time, meeting Eternity here and now

Joseph Campbell put it like this:

"Eternity isn’t some later time. Eternity isn’t even a long time. Eternity has nothing to do with time. Eternity is that dimension of here and now that all thinking in temporal terms cuts off. And if you don’t get it here, you won’t get it anywhere. The problem with heaven is that you will be having such a good time there, you won’t even think of eternity. You’ll just have this unending delight in the beatific vision of God. But the experience of eternity right here and now, in all things, whether thought of as good or as evil, is the function of life."

Im saying, its in the meeting of the Eternal with the Infinite, where Time comes into being, is where Panic and Denial are born... but to stay in this moment, and not get lost in the mathematics of life, but to just be with the unfolding of this moment, just as it is- then something new can be seen- something that has been spoken of by sages throughout human history...

Im saying that Faith is this meeting place- between Time and the Timeless- between the "what about me" thought, and the truth of no separation- between Form and the Formless- Heaven and Earth- I and Other...

the ending of Debate- of the agree/disagree mind... the ending of Expertise, of ones resume- past/future... the ending of Comparison- "whats in it for me"- "what have you done for me lately?"... the ENDING of these things, will transcend our panic and denial- will lift us out of the wild forest- and into the loving arms of the Universe Unfolding- whatever condition it finds us in!... I would like to say, its not an arc- its not "of time", where Love meets us, its life itself...

this is not "easy", I know...
but there is a truth to this, what Im speaking about, that heals...
life is suffering, yes... we are bound to time, as long as we are bound to time... when we look to see what of this moment is NOT timebound- THAT is what heals... that is what we would call, Compassion... it transcends the "you" and "me" - its not even about "we" per se... its beyond that... and this is what heals...

when I tell you that I am a sufi

2009-03-22T16:17:00.002-04:00

when I tell you that I am a sufi
why do you want so badly to believe that its true?

when I tell you that Im a mystic
why does your eyebrow raise up?

when I tell you that Im a tree
why does your finger begin to reach for a book of names and addresses?

when I tell you that I love you
why do you begin searching the attic trunks, to see if there is
something old in there you can let me wear?

when I tell you that Im hungry
why does your stomach begin to clench?

when I tell you how Im feeling
why do you reach for the radio to turn to a song you like better?

when I tell you of years that vanish into cloudforms
why is a brighter light suddenly called for?

when I tell you of the closeness of the soil, beneath the foot of a mantis
why does your lower lip tremble from the word "god"?

when I tell you I am homeless
why do you feel a sudden need to travel to the sea?

when I tell you that one needle from a single norway spruce, is enough to brighten my thoughts
why do you ask me what I do for my living?

when I tell you of the song that Ive yet to write
why do you give me tales from your wedding night?

when I tell you what the spring breezes were trying to whisper to me
where did you think you would hide?

will you meet me now,
that you know what mysteries have poured from the heart?
can you still your cheek, or your eyelids, through one meal
and listen to the sound of the sun crossing the sky?

here is where it waits- here is where it was left for you to find
that very day you put the distance of three thousand lifetimes
between us

Profound

2009-03-21T09:34:00.007-04:00

From The Natural Contemplative:

Watching Whales, Watching Ourselves

Meditation isn't really worth anything unless it exhausts all of our strategies and concepts and opinions and plans and ideas about who we are and what the world is, and leaves us with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Leaves us with nothing at all to grab onto, no safety net, no life raft, no "self." Nothing but this moment in its marvelous, incomprehensible actuality.

I love the root of the word "Profound" ... it could be said to mean "before the bottom" - I can imagine it as, "lets get to the bottom of this" - or - "the ground of all being" perhaps-- there seems to be several ways in which this etym can infuse the metaphor...

so, I loved that John's metaphor of watching and learning the way of whales, as capturing the essence of meditation, fits in so nicely with this image of diving into the ocean and exploring all of what is there "before the bottom" - this has always been the way Ive enjoyed the root of the word Profound- as a "diving in"... there is an ocean of life here to be lived, and we may never get to the bottom of it- but its clearly the dive itself, where the true meditation lies...

______________________

and too, I found this a perfect thing to share for a delightful thread at Blisschick's (Help Answer a Reader's Question!) - you must check this out too!

The Doorway

2009-03-21T08:04:00.003-04:00

what a wonderful coincidence!

Ive been following MysticSaint's blog (Inspirations and Creative Thoughts) for several months now, and Ive just posted my first comment there- it is a marvelously rich and love poured work of Sufi inspiration...

and today, we find talk of the doorway! "We are a door that’s never locked" How fun!

so, I shared my poeticized version of part of one of my postings below, that now Im obliged to put it here too- although, I keep repeating this, "its still in draft form" ... (I guess now, its not a draft any longer ... sometimes poems will whisper to the pen, "ready or not, here I come!")

the only way to convey
a truth-completely-seen,
is to BE that truth,
completely

one must be like a janitor
one may have the keys to a truth
but it is just a doorway-
the only job for the one
who has seen the other side
is to leave the door
open

if the truth
from the other side
should be pulled into the hall
for delivery
then our poor janitor has failed
at his job-
treating the contents of
that truth
as his own property, and
as such, he
has stolen it away

this is how it is to create
hierarchy, out of that
which was never subject to it

-the truth

it cannot be a
proper stewardship of truth,
to make the truth one's own
to enter into the debate

the true janitor
opens the door
and leaves

our participants in the hall
are to find the doorway
for themselves-
to go through
themselves

there is a great humility to being the janitor
this is what makes him the “keeper”
of truth… the debators
may have clever means
for “success”
at their disposal
but for their sadness
they may never come upon the truth
(we will only get to see
what we've come to find
in our debate-
more of our own “not enough”)…

this is why
the janitor
is found to be
mumbling to himself-

his conversation has been
with unseen
unknown things, that others
in the hall
have yet to discover

---------------
and too, Ill repost this note:

the image (and thus, the word) of Janitor keeps coming to me by way of its etymology:

1584, "an usher, doorkeeper," from L. janua "door," from janus "arched passageway"

and so,

Janus: ancient It. deity, guardian god of portals, patron of beginnings and endings, 1508, from L., lit. "gate, arched passageway," perhaps from PIE base *ei- "to go" (cf. Skt. yanah "path," O.C.S. jado "to travel"). He is shown as having two faces, one in front the other in back. His temple in Rome was closed only in times of peace.

the metaphor is so utterly rich- the "two faces" being a metaphor for that which has no opposites, or the mirror within oneself, if you like...

one molecule of peace

2009-03-20T15:01:00.003-04:00

When one molecule of peace will change the whole field...

PLEASE, see this posting from Elena: Outer War, Inner Peace

what is "spiritual"?

2009-03-19T11:43:00.004-04:00

There are a lot of things that can be said about the word "spiritual", and for me, ALL of them are probably true... (in the sense that when one goes deeply inward, it is seen that nothing is true, and everything is true)...but, here is what I would like say about the word just now:

if it is not willing to go inward, and (self) examine the "what about me" thought, then it is not "spiritual"...

hopefully, you are seeing the irony here- this very statement that I just made can be called into question by its own position- "does this statement go inward, and examine the "what about me" thought, or does it posit a certainty about the matter?

seeing the truth of this, however, may be enough to let it be... seeing the falseness of language itself, and seeing this with great immediacy and care (compassion), itself and alone, may counter the shortcomings of language, to allow for what is spiritual to come to the meeting...

agenda, however, will simply acknowledge the shortcomings of language, and carry on with making its point- bound to coming into conflict with all the other "points" and "positions" out there... in agenda, there is no real Listening- there is just more of the "whats in it for me" thought... agenda cuts off the spiritual, and then makes argument for why it was "right"... it will be telling the truth of that, certainly- but it will still be partial, and not of the whole... when one listens, without agenda, one is participating in the whole...

this is the essence of collaboration- this is what comes to truly meet you...

Jalal ad-Din Rumi said:

There is a way between
Voice and Presence
where information flows

in wandering talk, it closes
in disciplined silence, it opens

so, what do we do, when we come upon another's insistence- another's request for compassion from us, BEFORE they will listen to us? Do you see this? this is the essence of agenda- of the "what about me" thought... "First, YOU give me, THEN, I will give you in return"... there are things in life that come to this and are still called "knowing" or "non-negotiable"... but they are delivered out of the "what about me" thought, and that itself will close off any possibility of meeting... so what then?

how will we meet with this closedness?

what happens, when open meets closed?

do you see this? it is very clear... only the agenda, the "what about me" thought itself, will not be able to see the truth of what happens when open meets closed...

look with me...

Something more on Hierarchy

2009-03-18T08:18:00.002-04:00

The conversation on hierarchy with Will Shetterly continues here:

Will says:
“If both the far right and far left oppose you, you’re probably doing something wrong”

I could be saying this here to myself, couldnt I? or, something much bigger than we can commonly see is at play here- embedded into the structure of what is unfolding… how will we find out? how would we come to know if we are seeing something that is simply not seen by ANY “sides”? something beyond the notion of “sides”…

Will says:
“this isn’t meant to persuade. It’s meant to say I believe I understand why they behave as they do, and if there’s a way to get through to them, I do not know what it is, because so far as I can tell, their fundamental beliefs preclude it.”

So, this is what Im talking about-
you are saying that you have seen a truth that you also know intuitively, cannot live within the energy of “debate”- that as soon as debate is brought to it, it burns it up- debate consumes this truth, it is that rare, it is that delecate.. but at the same time, it is THAT overarching…

Will says:
“I have fundamental beliefs of my own that aren’t subject to logic: that everyone’s equal and everyone should share. They want a better form of hierarchy; I want to end hierarchy. There should be room for us to work together in some places, but their system doesn’t allow for allies as the rest of us understand the term”

Yes! this is what Im talking about- IF you can say that youve seen the end of hierarchy, THEN you simply cannot go back into the debate- debate itself is nothing BUT the attempt to “place oneself”- to position, to “take a stand” and test that stand… this will all continue to feed the energy of hierarchy… the ending of this is a completely different truth- when one comes upon this, and truly sees this within oneself- THATS when debate ends, because hierarchy ends within oneself…

as long as there is a sense of debate- a sense of “my logic is over arching, and they SHOULD get it”, it doesnt matter HOW TRUE that may be, the “they should” is what shuts out that overarching logic found at the end of debate… “they should” is what will invite debate right back in to the looking… the delicate (but HUGE) truth that is seen at the end of hierarchy, cannot withstand that invitation…

the end of hierarchy is humility- and humility by definition, will not debate with anyone- it will not try to convince in any way- it cannot carry a “should”… the should will shut it out so quickly- like those doors that used to slam down on the opening credits of “Get Smart” (original version) - SLAM- closed- when debate meets humility- meets the end of hierarchy…

Will, Im saying that what youve seen is true, but it cannot be carried- the truth of the end of hierarchy, comes with the truth of the end of debate- the end of certainty- the end of the “what about me” thought- as long as these things continue, it is the “truth carrier” that is crushing the truth- that is bringing a closed to that which was opened… these things live within US, and are not an “out there” that can be debated against… or else, what youve seen, is what you continue to see “out there”, and was never really true in the first place…

this is called “missing the mirror”- the very act of seeing that the overarching truth (the end of hierarchy) is being missed by “out there”, is ones own missing it “in here”- it can only be MY OWN insistence- and this is really who the “should” is being leveled at… missing the mirror- missing my own seeing of a truth that is so much bigger than me- and my own pitiful attempts to carry this, and make it “mine”…

the only way to convey a truth-completely-seen, is to BE that truth, completely… one must be like a janitor, one may have the keys to a truth, but it is just a doorway, and the only job of one who has seen what is on the other side of that door, is to open the door and leave- if the truth of the other side of that doorway, is pulled into the hall and delivered, then the janitor has failed at his job- he has made the contents of that truth his own property, and as such, stolen the truth- this is how it is to create hierarchy, out of that which was never subject to it in the first place- the truth… this is not proper stewardship of the truth- to make the truth your own in order to enter into debate… the true janitor opens the door, and leaves the participants in the hall to find the doorway for themselves- to go through themselves… there is great humility to being a janitor, and this is what makes him the “keeper” of the truth… the debators may have clever means to “success” at their disposal, but they will never come upon the truth- they will only get to see what they came to find- more of their own “not enough”…

(this is why the janitor is always found mumbling to himself… his conversation is with unseen and unknown things, that the others in the hall have yet to find)

The Cult of "More"

2009-03-17T12:21:00.002-04:00

A "must see" article- LET IT DIE: Rushkoff on the economy

I was just calling this a "natural correction" in my post below- this is very much the part of the cult I was speaking of (as well as Academia, which feeds these illusions)

From the page:

Now that the scheme we have mistaken for the real economy is collapsing under its own weight, however, it’s a whole lot easier to make these arguments. And, if anything, it’s even more important for us to come to grips with the fact that the system in peril is not a natural one, or even one that we should be attempting to revive and restore. The thing that is dying—the corporatized model of commerce—has not, nor has it ever been, supportive of the real economy. It wasn’t meant to be. And before we start lamenting its demise or, worse, spending good money after bad to resuscitate it, we had better understand what it was for, how it nearly sucked us all dry, and why we should put it out of our misery.

The Cult of Measurement

2009-03-17T11:08:00.002-04:00

This post is a response to another of Will Shetterly's that comments on "The Culture of Cults"- which caught my interest, in that I can see myself agreeing with much of what I see there...

From the page:

Cult belief systems are typically:

Independent and non-accountable - believers follow their own self-justifying moral codes: e.g. a Moonie may, in their own mind, justify deceptive recruiting as 'deceiving evil into goodness'.

Aspirational - they appeal to ambitious, idealistic people. The assumption that only weak, gullible people join cults is not necessarily true.

Personal and experiential - it is not possible to exercise informed free choice in advance, about whether the belief system is valid or not, or about the benefits of following the study and training opportunities offered by the group. The benefits, if any, of group involvement can only be evaluated after a suitable period of time spent with the group. How long a suitable period of time might be, depends on the individual, and cannot be determined in advance.

Hierarchical and dualistic - cult belief systems revolve around ideas about higher and lower levels of understanding. There is a hierarchy of awareness, and a path from lower to higher levels. Believers tend to divide the world into the saved and the fallen, the awakened and the deluded, etc.

Bi-polar - believers experience alternating episodes of faith and doubt, confidence and anxiety, self-righteousness and guilt, depending how well or how badly they feel they are progressing along the path.

Addictive - believers may become intoxicated with the ideals of the belief system, and feel a vicarious pride in being associated with these ideals. Cults tend to be cliquey and elitist, and believers can become dependent on the approval of the group's elite to maintain their own self-esteem. At an extreme, believers fear they will fall into hell if they leave the group.

Psychologically damaging - when established members leave or are expelled, they may develop a particular kind of cult-induced mental disorder, marked by anxiety and difficulty in making decisions. The disorder exhibits similarities to (but is not identical to) post-traumatic stress disorder, and certain types of adjustment disorders. [ICD 10, F60.6, F66.1, etc.]

Non-falsifiable - a cult belief system can never be shown to be invalid or wrong. This is partly why critics have low credibility, and why it can be difficult to warn people of the dangers of a cult.

My comment on Will's blog:

These attributes of a cult are probably perfect in how they are seeing the situation- and Im sure they can probably be attributed to any "ism" that we can think of, and still hold water

the thing they seem to be missing, is what Ive been calling the "mirror"- that is, the ability to self reflect, to look and see if the things that are being put forth are likewise applicable to the place where those attributes are being seen FROM-

for instance, this would be akin to going into a doctoral dissertation defense, and having your dissertation be ABOUT the Falsity of defending doctoral dissertations- this should be a perfectly valid experiment, but can the academic system allow such self examination while in the very process of producing what is being challenged BY what it produced? (ie, expertise)

Im saying the aspect of this mirror, the extreme willingness to self-examine WHILE in the process of putting forth self, is like watching a drop of pigment fall into a clear glass of water- there is no chance of taking the pigment back out by the same methods that got it there...

one must END all notions of "us" and "them"- and from there, a new learning comes into it... as long as we insist on using "us" and "them" language, no matter how pure the original seeing may have been, it will be tainted by a separation that is itself infused with the same energy that was seen as false in the first place...

this is what I call "carrying the insight"... an insight cannot be carried into the next moment, and made into knowledge- this is simply not the nature of insight... an insight is an opening, pure and simple- an opening into non-separation, that must stay put in the very moment that it is seen... the moment one attempts to "carry" this opening with one, into the next moment (to make "knowledge" out of it) it becomes as closed to the truth as that separation which gave it birth...

END the "us and them", the "-isms" and "-ists", the need for expertise of any kind, within one self... END them, and then compassion acts... compassion will act of its own accord- without our need to make it into something - into something "special" or "better"- the movement of making "special" or "better" is still of the same energy that created hierarchies in the first place- there is still underneath all of that, the "what about me" thought, that is itself infused with the same hierarchy...

It takes an act of great Love and curiosity to end the separation of "us and them"- to end it ALL, within oneself, before any thought of communicating an insight comes into play- a great faith in truth is necessary, and integral to that truth-faith is the knowing that we cannot ever know- a willingness to look inward, to the mirror, and see that everything that is measured is already there in oneself...

this act of Love that looks, cannot be born of hierarchy and separation- it is prior to all separation - prior to all measurements, it is the source of any insight- and it will not carry to the next moment- it must be brought to the meeting NEW, each time...

this is what will end war- by ending the conflict that is inherent in pointing outward from oneself- by risking it all, to find that which was never separated from its source, from the ground of all being- to find it HERE, and NOW, without any call to expertise, without any act of agreement or disagreement- just to look inwardly, and see the mirror of relationship- this is the ending of hierarchy- finding out where it cannot live- depriving it of its energy, completely, within oneself, BEFORE there is any requirement that the other do so... this is what will bring true peace

A deeper listening to my labels

2009-03-17T08:45:00.005-04:00

The "conversation with God" post (two below here) was deleted from its source post by the owner of that blog- as well as some other comment-posts that I made there by way of explaining my not needing to hang on the word "God" for what I was meaning to say. It seems my explanations were not effective- everything got deleted, apparently for the use of the word "God" (Im sad that I did not save my "explanation" posts, they are lost) ... so, this has been with me since the day of the post, as well as the irony that all of this was around our human propensity to "Label"...

I also promised Val, in my comment to her comment (below)- that I was holding her "Labels" post with my lookings, and that I would have more to say "later"... this took some time, to absorb the ironic nature of all of this looking, and what my own comments might be... put another way, my promise to Val got caught up in the deletion of my comment from Forest Wisdoms blog...

below, is what came to me this morning about all of this- it is what came to me as I looked again at Val's posts (If there's one thing I hate... and Words Reduce Reality) and all of the comments there, about "Labels" - and true to form, it ended up quite lengthly- so Im putting it here rather than burdening Vals blog with such a long comment...

_________________

It seems to me to be an important thing, that when I see what is false about labels (or words which as Tolle and others have said, are also labels in their way- more essential to the problem perhaps) ...when I see what is false about labels, its important that I trace it back to as far as I can possibly go- to get to the root of whatever might create conflict with "what is"...

when I trace back words and labels to their root, and look at how they create conflict, it seems to always come upon this movement of "agree/disagree"- accept/reject- fight or flight- what a friend once called the "purr and flinch"- ... this movement of opposites takes many forms, but these forms are, at their base, just opposites... this is what seems undeniable about them...

its not a meaningless paradox to notice that even in this, one might have the impulse to agree or disagree...

this movement seems to be near the very source of labels... indeed, of words- of language itself...

so when we move to "do something about" labels, then the simple question comes to the fore, "have I just labeled labels?" - as good/bad - acceptable/unacceptable - worthy of keeping as is/worthy of needing to change- on and on we go with the movement of opposites...

I think we can trace back this movement of opposites to a "Prime Opposite"- that which supersedes all others- "I/other"... and this may be the thing that inevitably creates conflict with "what is"

here, Im saying "what is" is the world AS it is- without opposites... here, Im saying that in order to understand more of what is, one must find the place within oneself that can rest with what is, WITHOUT the use of agree/disagree... WITHOUT the purr or flinch...

this has been called many things- space- silence- listening- peace- looking... whatever part of the human engages with the world that has not yet created a label, made a word or a thought out of it- whatever that place in the human experience might be, that place can see what the world without opposites really is... that place can consider what it is the sage sees when he says "you ARE the world"... that's the place that can understand deeper things... it may return to the world of words in order to communicate what was seen, but it has nothing invested in those words- there is no longer a movement of "agree/disagree" ... when the gateway of that paradox has been gone through, there is no longer conflict with "what is" - no separation from "you" and "me" and "them" and "us"...

here, everything is telling the truth...

this understanding can only ever be held "lightly" - ever so delicately, gently - as an invitation, not ever as a claim... as soon as something contains the energy of a claim- then it goes back into the world of opposites again, and it has no life to understanding the world as it is, without opposites... this is what I mean when I ask "why do we measure?" - its not to suggest that we "shouldnt" measure, because then we have merely created another opposite out of it... its a true invitation into that silent place, where there is no separation from you and me- its been called "oneness" as well, and thats as good a word as any...

when we measure our existence, we kill what we are- life itself- we make a dead thing out of what was just alive within us- in order to carry it to the next experience - in order to "have" it, so that it might keep us safe- this is what our labels intend to do, to keep us safe by keeping us separate from that which the brain (thought/word/measuring center that it is) is helpless to miss- utter connectedness...

all of the agree/disagree that we do misses this connectedness- it separates by its very nature... if you agree with me, then you have done the same thing as if you disagreed with me- you have killed the invitation to life- this movement of opposites is what keep us missing life- it may create wonderful cathedrals and bridges and art and culture and rockets to the moon, when in its place- but it slips out of its place so easily, into the psychological- into a belief that we are separate from everything else- and this creates the "what about me" thought, that in turn leads to every war this planet has ever experienced...

life is an invitation... we kill it when we meet it with anything but like invitation... if we insist on any conclusion, then we are not living in this invitation- we are insisting on opposition- this will drive us deeper and deeper into self-involvement, as is quite evident by the world we see around us... there are natural corrections to this, but when we strive for "better/more/faster" in any way, then the intelligence that is natural to this universe is laid aside, so that the "what about me" thought can reign supreme...

this language... this poor poor language- it's so innocent of its shortfall... it is built to make claims- it is so very difficult to hold invitation... but if we look, if we look carefully, those of us who have been as thoughtful as we can be about all of this- we will see that its not the language that attracts us, that resonates within us- but the poetry... the energy of connectedness... that which is willing to drop the words, and look again, in silence- in space- in peace... just that looking alone, will see into the truth of what we are...
_________________

2009-03-16T16:38:00.003-04:00

I have permission to post part of an incredibly beautiful poem that Elena wrote- Im so very pleased to have this here- her blog, Wandering Monk, Reluctant Gyrovague, is just terrific- deeply insightful, and full of Peace and Love- please go give her a visit...

The Dead Come Out in March

In winter everything sleeps under cover – so quiet and clean, so empty. I love the sharp, black calligraphy of plant stems rearing above the snow: asters, milkweed, or regal prairie dock. But with March, the sordid dead come out. Cold rain runs uncaring through rotted leaves, sodden sticks and matted grass. Any lingering snow turns gritty dark from the decay heaved to its surface. It might as well be road debris.

Birds swing joyously by, but who else could believe this is the path to life?

Just so the spiritual journey. When in the March of it, I sometimes long for the time I still slept - when I didn’t have to daily sort through yesterday’s corpses. And I wonder why some have their feet placed on the path to wakefulness, with all the pain of learning to see what is. Yet others sleep until the end, never glimpsing what else they could be

...

~R. Elena Tabachnick

theres more to the poem, go check it out!

a "conversation with God"

2009-03-03T16:27:00.001-05:00

There's a "conversation with God" that came to me today- born here at Forest Wisdom's blog... (please know, Im both and neither, an atheist and/or a theist- it simply doesnt matter to me- the word "God" is sometimes helpful for a poetic soul to use, and so thats all...)

me: "why do I measure?"

God: "are you saying you think you shouldnt measure?"

me: "no, but Ive been seeing that measurements are always coming up in me- and that they always fall short of the truth"

God: "what is the truth?"

me: "what if I said 'You'?"

God: "thats right- but do you know me?"

me: "no- I doubt you completely"

God: "I wouldnt have it any other way"

me: "I know- I know that about you- and for that, I think youre cool... so, why do I measure?"

God: "Let me cut right to it for you, ok?"

me: "sure, please!"

God: "you measure because Ive allowed you to... its how you know yourself- its what you are... I gave dolphins sonar so that they can know where they are in the ocean, and where others are in relationship to themselves- they send out little "pings" and back comes the signal, and in that way, they get to know where they are at all times- 'there is a ship, there is a whale, there is a school, there is my pod'- this is dolphin-measure... I gave elephants a deep throat so they can rumble across the savannah ... I gave eagles sharp eyes so they can see into the canyons... I gave humans a frontal cortex so they can think into the very depths of their own existence... this is why you measure, so that you know who you are- so that you can know where you are- so that you can know what you are...."

me: "I get that- that makes sense- but the thing is, this can often cause such suffering... when I say "those people over there" - and I see "them" in relation to "my people over here", I see that as my own measurement- and Ive traced all human cruelty to this very thing- if I stopped doing this, would human cruelty go away?"

God: "the measurement in itself is not the problem, it is not the source of human cruelty- as I said, its just a tool that I gave you... the problem comes in that you have identified yourself completely with these measurements of yours - you think you ARE what you measure... and in that, youve forgotten something very important..."

me: "but, identification IS measurement, I can see that so clearly! so I shouldnt measure- if Im helpless to this identification..."

God: "No no... measure all you want- Im telling you there is no problem with it- I will let you do this all day, and it doesnt change anything... the thing is, the identification is a sort of forgetting- you dont seem to realize that with every measurement you separate yourself from me- from what is- from each other... every measurement you make, separates you from the simple FACT that you are not separate- you are One with me already- I am that which is inseparable- and this is what your measurement is bound to disregard- you have no choice in this matter- and this causes you suffering beyond the natural entropy of the body- this is what moves into your psychological, and then you identify with the body- you think "I am this body" and by so doing, you separate yourself again- its all a forgetting that you are not separate... and that forgetting has this aspect of "tearing" - its like tearing a ligament - separating sinew from bone, this forgetting... and this is the pain that you are trying to alleviate - the problem is, you are alleviating it by trying to perfect your measurements! how silly!"

me: "well, why dont you help with this? why do you let this go on?!"

God: "what did I just tell you dummy?! THAT would be trying to perfect another measurement in order to make the pain go away- with that VERY request, you are making ME a SEPARATE thing that can act on a YOU... and I just got done telling you- its not ME that forgets there is no separation between me and you, its YOU that forgets... I dont need to do anything - I am already with you completely... Im not the one making out this measurement- Im not the one separating us- YOU are- your very desire to have the suffering "go away" is self centered- and that is the thing that will bring about the suffering every time- that is what separates... your brain is like an athlete's muscle, and its been sprained from over tens of thousands of years of ab-use... you are just like that comedian who comes to me and says "doctor, it hurts every time I do this (*lifts up arm)" and here Im telling you - then dont DO that!"

me: "wait... so, dont think?... but you just said that I can measure all I want... its the identification thats the problem"

God: "YES- thats what I said... see, when you asked me at the very beginning of our conversation here, 'why do I measure?', you had it already in mind that you thought you had to find a way to stop measuring in order to stop suffering... you didnt see that THAT was a measurement itself... Im telling you now, when you ask 'why do I measure', if you saw that it was ME who was asking that question, and not you- that the PURE curiosity that is there in that question is the VERY same curiosity that is the sun when it comes up in the morning, of the hummingbird when it flits from flower to flower, of the flower itself when it opens to the sun- of the cock that crows- when you see that I AM that curiosity- and that I dont have a preconceived answer in my mind, that Im not trying to change anything- because I already know that I am not separate from you... when you see that- then you will remember... the forgetting will be in abeyance- it will simply fall away... there may be pain- but there will be no suffering... you and I will not be separate- you will not be separate from the sun, or the hummingbird, or the flower, or the crowing cock... you will be those things, when you remember that you are not separate from those things.... but if you TRY to remember 'SO-THAT'- so that you wont suffer any more, then you will find yourself back in the separation, and you will have created the suffering..."

me: "oh god...

I mean, Oh, God... as obscure as you can be sometimes, I think I might see what you are talking about..."

God: "you know what I call this?"

me: "umm...."

God: "let me not keep you hanging, beloved... I call this Love"

me: "I knew that..."

God: "yes... I know you did..."

An Exquisite Poem

2009-02-17T17:36:00.003-05:00

“They say that other country over there, dim blue in the twilight, farther than the orange stars exploding over our roofs, is called peace, but who can find the way? This time we cannot cross until we carry each other. All of us refugees, all of us prophets. No more taking turns on history’s wheel, trying to collect old debts no one can pay. The sea will not open that way. This time that country is what we promise each other, our rage pressed cheek to cheek until tears flood the space between, until there are no enemies left, because this time no one will be left to drown and all of us must be chosen. This time it’s all of us or none.”

- Aurora Levins Morales

found on Darvish- who found it from Wild Dervish Writes, who found it from a great visual arts/poster site, Northwood Poster Collective- you must see the artwork that goes with this!

Conceived in Iniquity - Born in Sin

2009-02-17T12:11:00.002-05:00

"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create money ."

~ Josiah Charles Stamp, (from wikipedia) 1st Baron Stamp, Bt, GCB, GBE, FBA, (June 21, 1880-April 16, 1941) British civil servant, industrialist, economist, statistician and banker- Director of the Bank of England- Chairman of the London Midland and Scottish Railway.

This quote was found in part 4 of the below links "Money as Debt"- a video series that I first saw well over a year ago, that goes into some wonderful explanation about our banking system, and how it is something that is merely created out of thin air... see the home page for the producer of this series, and also there is a great page of the quotations used in the movie is here

1. Money as Debt - Cartels Robbing the Public (1/5)

2. Money as Debt - How Money is Created (2/5)

3. Money as Debt - Money is Debt(3/5)

4. Money as Debt - Monetary Reform (4/5)

5. Money as Debt - Warning about the NWO (5/5)

Comment on Where Paradox Meets Bedrock

2009-02-17T09:07:00.004-05:00

I found the quote below by Edward Abbey on Forest Wisdom's blog- his post and his reader's comments called Paradox and Bedrock, led me to write a long-ish comment which I decided was worth cross posting here- but do go and see the whole thing on yonder page!

"Leading me away from the narrow dirt road, an alluring and primitive track into nowhere, meanders down the slope and toward the heart of the labyrinth of naked stone...looming over a bend in the road, is a balanced rock about fifty feet high, mounted on a pedestal of equal height; it looks like a head from Easter Island, a stone god or a petrified ogre.

Like a god, like an ogre? The personification of the natural is exactly the tendency I wish to suppress in myself, to eliminate for good. I am here not only to evade for a while the clamor and the filth and confusion of the cultural apparatus but also to confront, immediately and directly if it's possible, the bare bones of existence, the elemental and fundamental, the bedrock which sustains us. I want to be able to look at and into a juniper tree, a piece of quartz, a vulture, a spider, and see it as it is in itself, devoid of all humanly ascribed qualities, anti-Kantian, even the categories of scientific description. To meet God or Medusa face to face, even if it means risking everything human in myself. I dream of a hard and brutal mysticism in which the naked self merges with a non-human world and yet somehow remains intact, individual, separate. Paradox and bedrock." --Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

my comment:

This quote (reflects) exactly where I came to name my own blog as the "meeting"... paradox and bedrock- its perfect! everyones comments are perfect!

paradox will come to us at the end of our measurements - if we understand this notion of measurements as a field, then at the edges of this field is where paradox appears - bedrock, naturally, is the ground beneath all... so to come to that meeting-place where all of our measurements can be held in suspension- our names, our positions in society, our history, our dreams of "future"- all of these measurements of "who we are" exist in time, past and future... so to be able to hold them in suspension, to not need to see everything around us in the natural world (of which the man-made world is a part) through these filters, but to meet it all raw- naked- without being clothed in "who we are"... this meeting place is easiest seen at the edges of the field of measurement... of course, it must be understood that the meeting place is everywhere, the bedrock is beneath everything- but its at the edges of our measurements where we come to the place where words will fail utterly- its there where form meets the formless- the ultimate creativity- the complete breathlessness of ones participation with that which discludes nothing, the Whole...

there is no paradox, when we come to where our measurements can see their own end... there is no paradox when words fail and we allow them to do so... paradox is a "mathematical" term, if you will- and since it is found at the edge of our ability to measure (the mathematical/grammatical mind) it is bound to frustrate- this will seem very brutal or "dangerous" indeed to the "who-we-are"... the who-we-are will be quite insistent on measuring out its "place", in order to stay alive... but the body-wisdom- the natural wisdom of our true selves, need not believe that these measurements are anything more than a ping- a tool to move about in the primordial soup that is still this living that we do...

we are "meeting" with the bedrock all the time- it is the ground of being- its all around, ever present, and utterly without time... time only comes into existence for us humans, with our measurements (past/future- if/then- I/other)... bedrock gives not a whit whether we meet it or not- its always there, its always supporting us... it is Love itself... it only knows itself... there is nothing that separates from bedrock- there is nothing that can exist separate from bedrock...

where paradox meets bedrock-

where the ending of our measurements meets that which cannot be measured ...

where a bird comes and alights on a branch, and the witness disappears in the event... this is the wholeness - this is the "mystical" (un-measured, mystery) - this is Love loving itself... ever present, ever available for our participation... no practice will come to this- no wisdom will "get" us this- there is no "having" of this... we already ARE this... fully, wholly, immeasurably... words fail, here in this, because this is before "we" are born... in every moment- reborn and dying to this...

50 Billion Dollars lost

2009-02-08T15:31:00.003-05:00

Money is not "lost"

isnt this, like, an important thing to realize?

money is never "lost" ... it just moves from one persons control to anothers...

the real question here is, is money even real?

can we begin to ask that?- and inquire into what to do about what we find in that inquiry... or are we back to "what about me/ what about mine/ wheres my cut?" already...

of course, if you lost money, I will want to bring compassion to that, to you... you are feeling it now- and I get it... but the bigger question has always been looming... now that you're here with some of us who have always been asking this question- now that you are without "wealth"- maybe you would like to join the deeper inquiry... or, we can just set about getting 'more where that came from'...

see, it is never "lost"... there is always more where that came from...

so what you are really afraid of, is time (theoretically, lack thereof) ... and there is where you enter the mystics home... time IS money- and we all know this... this is absolutely true ... the mystic dares to ask (and its a real live inquiry, not some pie in the sky mystical hoobie-goobie)... the mystic asks, "is time real?"...

when we see the truth of this- then compassion comes - then compassion acts... debate ends- "what about me?!" ends- expertise ends- and compassion comes in and acts... compassion is not a possession... war is a possession... compassion is the absence of possession... this is important...

is it time to inquire into this? I hope so...

Dont be scared...

2009-02-08T14:22:00.005-05:00

... its just that... its just time, to take personal responsibility - THIS is what "Expertise" looks like... it is completely indistinguishable from a lie...

Roundtable Discussion With Bernard Madoff

if ever there were a reason to look inward, and end the outward pointing (debate) that goes on in this world, this video would be it...

what you are seeing here is precisely what comes to my mind when I hear people talking about "compensation packages" being necessary to attract the "most talented people" to whatever business...

please do look at this with me- inwardly, deeply- and see where this fits in with what we dearly hold as "truth", around our economic and educational systems...

additional video of roundtable
Watch Madoffs Body Language

A Business Man

2009-02-08T12:57:00.004-05:00

From Wikipedia:

Bernard Lawrence "Bernie" Madoff (born April 29, 1938) is an American businessman and former chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange

sometimes, just the simplest of statements can sound deeply and resoundingly ironic...

Ive just watched this terrific video of world-class Whistleblower Harry Markopolos testifying to Congress on the Madoff case...

also this statement from Ron Paul (found on this page and video):

If you look at the principle of fractional reserve banking, that in a way is a Ponzi scheme. This gets people doing things and building a mountain of debt… debt on debt, in this manner.

It was in watching these two videos together today, that set up this incredible irony in the phrase "An American businessman"...

theres so much more to say, isnt there?... we can let it rest in the silence though... more will come from looking at this later...

Crash Course

2009-02-06T21:14:00.002-05:00

Ill comment more later- but I just wanted to post this to get it up on the page here sooner than later- I do have some notions as to why this may still miss the mark, but its none the less well worth the time to go through and learn from this guy...

The Crash Course, by Chris Martenson

The Crash Course seeks to provide you with a baseline understanding of the economy so that you can better appreciate the risks that we all face.

Winter's Trees

2009-02-03T17:51:00.002-05:00

sometimes, a post that I make in a forum or a blog, comes not from the "head"- is not born of intellect- but rather is from that "poetry-place" that we know so well... it may be written in the prose form, but it comes from the same place as the poem comes from, or any sort of creative act for that matter- music, a photo, a painting, a meal-well-prepared, a child-well-raised... the poet in me can meet and act in any of those life places...

here is something I wrote that arrived like that - its from late fall of a year ago- but some friends were talking about trees just recently, and that reminded me of this post, and so I pulled it out from the archives, and thought I might share it here too...

when prose becomes poetry...

when the telling becomes the asking...

when the teacher becomes the student...

when the context becomes the leaves of the fall... beautiful, and exuberant - but fall they must - for they are not the tree... the celebration of the story is a marvelous season of the tree, but only a short season... fall they must... free words are dying words - they are beautiful in their dying... going down in a blaze of color and windblown lightness...

winter is the trees reflecting time... free of the context... alone with life and death...

the questions that the tree asks in winter, are not the sorts of questions that are taken up by the leaves... they are bare questions... sparse - simple questions... the leaves no longer drawing up the sap and the energy... so the energy that is there, is all poured into that reflection... into those sparse questions... about life and death and treeness itself... the celebration has now quieted completely... it is time to face the bare reflections in the ice born mirror...

free of its concerns for reds and yellows and oranges and goldens and long gone greens... free of concern for the fruiting and nut-making - having given what it has to give to the squirrels and birds and humans below...

what did krishnamurti call this inquiry? ... "discontent", wasnt it?... "now is the winter of our discontent"... ha ha!

yes - I think this whole thing that we do here - is about freeing up the words in the sense of "meanings"... freeing meanings - is losing the context - in this natural, seasonal way... reflection I dont think goes away... it just no longer adheres... its not concerned with "figuring it out"... that is not what the "asking" is... this period of alone reflection is the healing - not just for the tree, but for the forest itself... so it asks about death, not because of some story that it has to tell - that is long since dropped off of its branches... it asks for the purpose of healing... the whole forest is asking this question, bare of its contexts... safe in what has been stored for later use, that is no longer of concern...

how interesting, to see just how wealthy the forest is, in winter time... if one really looks... its all stored deep, down, in roots and burrows, for later use... safe in that knowledge, look at what it is able to reflect upon - leafless - fruitless... just bare reflection - on treeness... on forest, foresting... on life and death... in the quiet of winter...

Is Reality subjective or objective?

2009-01-26T17:10:00.003-05:00

A few friends were inquiring with me into the nature of reality- asking if reality is subjective or objective- asking if reality could be known... one of them brought forth this quote from Philip K. Dick:

"reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

they commented:

This is of course an inherently personal definition

I said this:

there is another way to take this quote- that when the subjective is in abeyance, then the objective can be seen... this quote could be speaking of KNOWING the subjective so completely, as to have it disappear, and there what remains, is pure objective...

that seems to be the difficult part for our looking- that once something is seen in its completeness, then it is no longer as it was...

put in another way: if the subject is partial, it will measure the world partially- and from there, notions of object are also bound to be partial...

if the subject comes upon itself completely- that is, it sees itself wholly, then the objective can also be understood wholly, because the subjective as a partial can no longer interfere...

what formerly existed as an opposite, no longer has an opposite- and this can be seen, upon understanding the whole of that which measures (makes partial)

that which measures - IS that which limits- to measure is to make partial- is to separate- that is what limits the immeasurable- the whole...

end the measurement, and then find that which is not partial... the wholly objective...

measurement will read this, and defend itself from the partial in all its cleverness...

"you cant do this-and-that because" - or - "oh, what youre talking about is just this-and-that"

these will be just partial defenses on something that insists on limiting itself for its own survival... the subjective is perfectly designed to keep itself alive as long as it is possible, BY separating into twos (opposites) and defending those partials that will feed it- and opposing those partials which are perceived as threat...

so, a non-belief is still a belief- that is to say, a partial that speaks of the whole, is still making a partial out of it... the whole, does not argue with itself

this, is reality

the difficulty in achieving this "state", is that it is not a state at all! the ending of the partial comes at the ending of time... above, I stated that IF we can see the partial wholly, THEN we can come upon the whole- but the partial will see this and understand this "in time"- time is as fundamental as "IF/THEN" - the if/then approach to the problem is itself a result of the partial being partial- in the whole, there is no time, there is no "if/then"- time is the block to the partial seeing itself- end time, and the whole will appear- the partial, the subject, IS time... they are inseparable... it is impossible for the partial to end time, by trying to end time- the partial has motive to end time, so that it can see itself as whole, and that motive HAS to exist in time- motive does not exist out of time, that is, in the whole- motive is time is partial... these things will not come upon the whole...

what will come upon the whole?

the whole...

can the partial, see its own end?

can the partial see the end of time?

who wants to know?

what remains, is what you are looking for...

call it something, and lose it! you have named it, you have measured it- it is partial!...

LOOK, at motive- and find out the ending of motive, the ending of measurement and time- and then, the whole will be there, as it always was... this we call reality, when we are partial beings...we call it nothing, when we are whole- when "we" are not...

Nisargadatta makes me laugh

2009-01-26T16:37:00.006-05:00

From this page:
David Godman explains his memories about Nisargadatta Maharaj

"I remember one woman asking him, rather innocently, 'I thought enlightened people were supposed to be happy and blissful. You seem to be grumpy most of the time. Doesn't your state give you perpetual happiness and peace?'

He replied, 'The only time a jnani truly rejoices is when someone else becomes a jnani'.

Harriet: How often did that happen?

David: I don't know. That was another area that he didn't seem to want to talk about."

(bolding is mine)

The ending of opposites, the ending of debate

2009-01-24T13:19:00.003-05:00

"I dont mean to debate this, but..."

Debate is bound to the outward...

no wisdom, comes from the outward... all wisdom is inward... the wisdom of the inward, will find that the outward is a part of it- the one and the many- but this will only ever be found inwardly- this cannot be seen from the outward... the outward will always believe itself to be separate from what it sees- this is the very nature of it BEING outward... the inward, already is one with what it sees- and there is nothing to debate there... there is only to see the nature of the inward, as the one and the many... if we are compelled to the outward, then we are compelled to debate- and this structure only exists to strengthen the "me"- to assure self and its life of fear, that it will continue on, and reign supreme... this is its design, and it does this excedingly well...

the ending of debate, within oneself, is a most sacred thing... it is the birth of the Sacred No- and thus, the birth of wisdom...

this is NOT disengagement, or illusory self affirment... but, we may not see this, until we learn the sacredness of the ending of debate- and this is a difficult thing to come to... the brain, within its very structure, is perfectly designed to separate- to create "I" and "other"- and in so doing, debate is its natural hunting ground... but therein lies the actual illusion- that we are in any way separate from another... seeing the fact of this, the fact behind the illusion, is the ending of debate... and this is where the oneness will come into the communication... this is where that which has no opposite, comes to inform- wisdom is here...

the Sacred No, is the biggest Yes that life has to offer... it is yes to everything that exists, just as it exists, timelessly, fearlessly, fully alive in this moment- in the now... it has no opposite, it has no opposition- it is pure compassion, that acts throughout- it is NOT a compassion that one obtains, or carries as an attribute- it is compassion that also is beyond opposites- it HAS to be beyond opposites to actually BE compassion, to actually Be Love... it cannot be otherwise...

end debate in onself, and come upon the eternal... live out of that, and all other questions fall into their places...

this is what is meant when the sage says: "Love only knows itself"

Content and Structure, to the Mystic's way of meaning

2009-01-24T13:03:00.004-05:00

I wrote the below three weeks ago- and I put it aside to go through it again and see if it needed "cleaning up"... it probably does, but who am I kidding? Im not going to go through it again- things like this, when they come out of me, I wasnt "there"... so in that sense, I didnt write this- it just comes out... and so, it may be messy, it may be perfect... I dont know... but it is time to post it...

______________________________

If you and I are there together, sitting in a room- comfortably- or perhaps we are taking a walk together, and we are talking things over... lets say that I see something very clearly- and in our discussion, it is seen together, as I speak it (whatever it is Im seeing clearly) as I speak it, we both get to see it- it becomes clear to both you and I because we are there and we are looking together... it is no longer at that place, about "me" seeing and then "you" seeing or missing- the seeing is one... the question, the frustration, the conflict, whatever it was that we were looking at together- was revealed in that moment of our looking together, its true nature was seen... it may return- it may return only a few moments later, and if it does, we look again... but when the true nature of something is revealed, the part of it that can "catch"- the part that latches on, that part has been dissipated, for even that moment... that moment when there is pure seeing, there is no "time" involved... in that moment, the illusion is dissipated... and then, yes, that illusion may take hold again, may return and attach itself moments after the seeing of it... this is the nature of the brain... it is going to do this... the important thing to understand here, is that even if/when that should occur, the dissipation, the clear seeing, has already done its work!...

nothing more should be said about this... know now, that even if the "problem" thought should return, the looking has done its work... this is important to understand... the clear seeing, was NOT from the brain... the clear seeing was not in time... the brain IS time- seeing the true nature of a thing, does not happen in time... so, time may well return, and with it, all of the worries and problems that go with it... then, we get to look again- and when we look into the nature of that return, we are less looking at the CONTENT of the problem, but now, we are looking more at the structure of the problem- which is that it was there, then a clear seeing into its nature, then a return to the content of the problem again-

but seeing the STRUCTURE of the problem, and how it arrives and how it dissipates, and then its return to the brain- this then becomes the new opportunity to come to a clear seeing... the content of the problem will only have any weight on us, if we fail to look at the structure of how these problems appear in the brain... the brain IS time- and time will always create problems by its very nature... "If/Then" is the primary problem making apparatus in the brain- I dont think there is an expression more succinctly depicting how time exists in the brain, the these two simple words, and their relationship to each other... "If/Then"...

when we actually see into the nature of a problem- the NATURE of it, not the content which includes all of the various opinions and offered up solutions and theories on causes etc etc... but the actual nature of the problem, and how it lives in ones own being- in ones own heart and mind- there is no "If/Then" in those moments of seeing... there is no solution/ opinion/ cause/ effect/ theory/ thought/ mine/ yours/... there is NONE of that, when we have an insight into the nature of a thing... ONLY the brain, comes in AFTER such a seeing, and lays claim to what it had measured as the content of the problem... and in that claim, in those measurements, Time then comes into existence- time as the "me"- this is then where the "hook" comes in- the burr, the grab, the latching onto... when the brain, poor sod that it is, comes to believe that IT IS its measurements- and thereby, living within the conviction that the world is full of problem...

the "me" is nothing more than the measurements that I make of the world, which in turn sees past and future in everything, where that is never so! there is no past and future- there is only ever NOW. we hear this, we may sense this, we make like this, we want to go hear more about this "now"... but that WILL BE the new "problem"... we now need more "now", so that (there is the if/then)... so that we can be without "problem", that only exists because we think in if/then...

this is not a simple twist of words to sound clever and make for good fun out of this post... this is a fact...

the solution to what appears to our if/then brains as a paradox, is to see the ending of the need for solution... "acceptance" has been used for this- but this will not be so either... accept nothing! LOOK!

Looking is the thing that can act on this... Looking is its own action...

this is what is most important to understand... the looking is already doing the necessary work of seeing... seeing will begin to see the structure of what is going on, over the content of what is seen... but if that should now become important, to see only the structure and not the content, then the structure merely becomes more content... and the brain will come and grab hold again...

this is why I said, its important to know that the looking has already done its work... the looking alone, will dissipate illusion, and reveal the true nature of things, of the one and the many... but with any attachment to what is seen, with any attempt to carry it with oneself, so that the "me" can have it for future, and thus, be without problems- THIS will be the very thing that creates problems- and THIS will be the very thing that keeps one from seeing clearly...

this whole thing was started as a comment about forums... how funny it is, that when a conversation moves along in an internet forum, one can say something that one is seeing ever so clearly, and have it missed by the others, precisely because it is mere content in the whirl of content that their minds are already in... and then, a day or a month later, a participant in that conversation will find a quote from some "authority" and post it, and create more opinion and argument off of that quote...

clear seeing must be created in the present- here and now- and ONLY so!... if Im bringing in an outside authority to boost a point that Im making, then Im not Looking in the here and now- and whatever it is Im saying, is more content in this vast ocean of content... none of it will be marked for clear seeing, as long as Im looking outside of myself for wisdom... as long as Im adding content to content, Im missing the seeing... Im in time- If/Then- if I could only get these guys to see what it is Im saying, if I could only get them to listen to this perfectly valid point of view, THEN I would... THEN they would... THEN the world would...

all of it misses the here and now... content, over this moments unfolding... content is born of measurement, and is born TO measure.... this moment contains nothing that is measurable... this moment just is...

Delivery of the "Sacred No"

2009-01-24T12:46:00.002-05:00

this is from a comment that I left on another's blog- get the full story here...

The "sacred No", is when I see that what rises in me, IS actually me, and its not dependent on what another does or says... from that seeing, I see a mirror was there all along- the mirror is to show me what obscures the truth... it does NOT mean that the truth was not seen by me- it means that the truth can never be "pointed out" to another- not with anything that may still be attached to some old "me"...

this is the essence of the "mirror" of relationship... it is essental for when you see the actual truth of something, and no one else around you seems to "get it"... the sacred "no" is the only thing that can actually get through, and it WONT get through in "my" time- it will get through in its own time... otherwise, otherwise, similar to what this very comment-post here is at risk of, the "taking credit for knowing the truth" is precisely what will obscure the necessary learning- the compassion...

its the compassion that acts on the truth in another, NOT the truth in me, the truth that "I have"... my truth, no matter how perfectly aligned with Truth-capital-T, is BOUND to obscure, when it is argued for... "that which you resist, persists"...

if the TRUTH is what is important to you, LET it GO! the compassion, is what will do ITS work- in ITS time...

I may not be there to witness it, but so what?

the only reason I would have to "persue" what I see and how I see it, would be to be sure to get the credit... look here with me... its there!...

and so, if Im at all concerned with "not leaving until they see"- that is now MY creating a hierarchy... that is now MY new religion- MY new law... the the resistance that that meets is far more destructive than getting credit for being right...

say the truth, and be on your way...

ONLY if the other has a real inquiry, a deep abiding desire to see the truth WITH you, and not to proffer some agenda- ONLY then, is it worth staying around in the dialogue... but upon sign that the other is completely unwilling to look within, and if I stick around to push the point, that is MY unwillingness to look within...

this is "the big one"... on the road to enlightenment... relationship, is a mirror...

Presence

2009-01-17T20:07:00.001-05:00

Presence

Why do we measure?

2009-01-17T07:57:00.003-05:00

Ego wants to want, more than it wants to have
~Eckhart Tolle

this really is the very essence of question of mine, "why do we measure"... this is it... because "I" am "not enough"... the "me" is the very manifestation of "want"- of "not enough", of measurement...

our brain separates "I" from "other"... if I and other are illusion- if there really IS NO separation- then what else could possibly come from that BUT "not enough"? a feeling of want- a feeling of incompleteness ... we are completely innocent of this wanting- of this "not enough"... and our grasping attempts at more gratitude is only born of WANTING completeness so that we dont have to suffer- but the wanting is more than the having, still...

when we can settle into the innocence of it- when we can just have what is, without wanting more- and this means too, "more wisdom" - "more peace" - more gratitude, abundance, connection, health, life, on and on with the MORE... the more will always win out over the have, the what is... Life as we have it, will never match up with life as we imagine-it-could-be, and that is the source of "not enough"... that keeps us from Life- that keeps us from Living THIS, right now- this, JUST as it is! this this this... just as it is!

ALL of our judgments of another- ALL of them, are born of this separation- of this "not enough"... and so, when we come to realize that we are NOT SEPARATE, then we get to see that the wars live in me- the greed lives in me- the envy, the disdain, the hatred, this lives in me... I am not separate from that! so if it is there, then it is here... the very fact of my seeing it as "there"- over there- yours-not-mine - pointing pointing outwards from "me"... the very fact of my pointing outwards, and disowning, is the source of war everywhere...

because it is conflict- it is in conflict with what is, in this very moment- it wants more- it wants what it wants- it has no intrinsic appreciation for what is... it can only know how to want...

it cannot look...

it cannot look!

want wants... its so simple... and that wanting is Is IS the very separation that creates all conflict... it matters not a bit where the energy centers of that conflict, of that separation have formed on the globe, so that then we can point outward from ourselves some more and say "there is war" and "they should stop fighting"... NO! - if you create conflict, then you have added to it! then the war is RIGHT HERE! ...

looking at this- without judgment, without measurement- just look at this... just to look, at where the war is, in this whole movement - how many wisdom-seers have told us? how many more have to tell us? before we will look? YOU are the world! - it is ALL ONE... there is no time and distance to war... war is here in this basic separation... SEE IT! see it!

look- and conflict will end- war will end... this is the lasting thing... this seeing is what lasts... not our ideas of how we can act on "them" to get "them" to stop fighting... that just piles more ideas onto more measurements... END the measurement, and find out- it ends HERE, with me, with this, with what is in this very moment...

this moment, is all that can last...

this moment is all that ever was...

this moment is where conflict, ALL conflict ends...

Sincerity

2009-01-16T17:04:00.005-05:00

sincerity

1546, from M.Fr. sincérité (1519), from L. sinceritatem (nom. sinceritas), from sincerus "sound, pure, whole," perhaps originally "of one growth" (i.e. "not hybrid, unmixed"), from sem-, sin- "one" + root of crescere "to grow" (see crescent). Ground sense is of "that which is not falsified."

my new friend tells me Im "nice"- 'Im a nice guy' he says... and that is so nice to have someone say- quite!

I wasnt always a nice guy... a good deal of looking at who and what I was has passed through here, and that looking seemed to manage to make some changes in this "me"...

but what I can tell you I always was- and still can attest for myself, is sincere...

the etym above will indicate some mystical roots to the word sincere- "to grow into one" - "to grow into wholeness" - "into the holy"- perhaps... yes, I can allow this for myself, from as far back as I can remember- to grow into one... if that is sincere, and I can see that it would be, then yes, I can allow this has always been here with me...

it seems then, sincere has led me to nice- and that is such a blessed thing, to have someone say...

I was asked yesterday by some folks that I dialogue with, what I thought it might be that makes profound change within us- is there some intention? they were suggesting, is there some will, to do the hard work of looking within oneself... I didnt use the word sincere in my response to the question, and I see that I will want to remember the word for next time... but I can see that I was with their question very sincerely- and whatever it was that I answered, was sincere... not just sincere in the desire to be honest with my answer, but sincere in this deeper sense, that to join the question of another (in this case an inquiry of "intention") is to grow into one, to move into wholeness...

this is a blessed thing, this sense of sincerity... Im going to continue to look at it, and how it informs the meeting...

Homeless Tom

2009-01-16T09:07:00.002-05:00

I left this comment on the blog of Homeless Tom

Im in a good place at the moment, but I do feel inches away from homelessness myself... of course, in reality, we are ALL always inches away from homelessness, or death- but the day to day keeps us generally mesmerized in some sort of "security" notion...

anyway, earlier this year there was a scary predictable sense of being a hairs breath away from having no place to go whatsoever... and I came upon your blog- and since, Ive read it from cover to cover...

so thank you for what you are doing here- and know that there are those out there who you are helping in ways you may or may not realize...

its like a "spiritual preparedness" for meeting what is REAL - what this life is all about really... and you are helping in that with journaling this experience for us...

thanks for the link above too- Ill be watching after that as well...

Peace, and better days for you and all there in your company...

Tom

I would recommend keeping this one on your list... it really is about "keeping it real" for me- I look forward to his posts when he can get the chance to make them- and I keep he ahd his companions in my prayers (companions the world over, indeed!)

rightness

2009-01-16T08:44:00.003-05:00

It seems...

it seems we either want to talk about some thing-of-life or another, in order to find out- or we want to talk about things to find out we were right...

this is oh so very tricky...

I beg of you to know which one of these has come to the meeting...

just knowing which one has come to the meeting is enough...

compassion will know what to do from there...

Home

2009-01-15T16:02:00.003-05:00

Home

Wanye Dyer made a feature flick

2009-01-14T10:44:00.003-05:00

Its called Ambition to Meaning

http://www.ambitiontomeaning.com/

Wayne Dyer has his first movie come out- and its free today for "Ellen fans", apparently - (just went through the process- much easier than most- asks for name and address- did not have to go back to my email to receive a code or anything... just give the info and get a streaming link to watch right away)

Trailer on YouTube

IMDB page

Molly Bryant ... Sarah

Michael DeLuise ... David

Portia de Rossi ... Denise Moore

Wayne Dyer ... Himself

etc...

if you exit to watch later, then you have to use the link they send you in email to reenter (at the place you left off- which for me was just before the closing credits end- so I dont know yet how that works fully)

REVIEW:
Yeah, you gotta love a movie where you start disliking it in the beginning because it feels "canned" and predictable- then it builds into a moment where a tear actually comes to ones face- and it ends with a huge smile on ones face, and a GREAT ending credit song!

See it! - well well worth it I think... its a movie I would have written (actually thought about something very very very similar to this) an Dyer beat me to it... and good for him! and good for anyone who watches...

oh, and what an interesting moment to find where that tear came for me... Ill not mention now- till you guys get a chance to see it- but I think the tear-moment was probably specific to me (dont know that anyone else would necessarily have the same reaction to this part) ...and it "opened" something that Ive been looking at this past two weeks or so... very very interesting moment, that...

The Devil and Krishnamurti

2009-01-13T22:58:00.001-05:00

You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, "What did that man pick up?" "He picked up a piece of Truth," said the devil. "That is a very bad business for you, then," said his friend. "Oh, not at all," the devil replied, "I am going to let him organize it.

~J Krishnamurti

Learning

2009-01-12T17:34:00.002-05:00

"to understand what truth is one must have a very sharp, clear, precise mind; not a cunning mind, not tortured, but a mind that is capable of looking without any distortion, a mind innocent and vulnerable; only such a mind that can see what truth is. Nor can a mind that is filled with knowledge perceive what truth is; only a mind that is completely capable of learning can do that; learning is not the accumulation of knowledge; learning is a movement from moment to moment"

~J Krishnamurti
October 1968
3rd public talk at Brandeis University

Dont let the door hit you...

2009-01-09T09:18:00.002-05:00

I know theres a few more days to go, but Id like to say my goodbyes now

"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"
Florence, South Carolina, 11 January, 2000

"You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror."
CBS News, Washington DC, 6 September, 2006

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." Washington DC, 5 August, 2004

~George W Bush-
twice elected President of the United States of America

LINK

Nazim Hikmet

2009-01-07T08:47:00.001-05:00

ON LIVING

I

Living is no laughing matter:
you must live with great seriousness
like a squirrel, for example-
I mean without looking for something beyond and above living,
I mean living must be your whole occupation.
Living is no laughing matter:
you must take it seriously,
so much so and to such a degree
that, for example, your hands tied behind your back,
your back to the wall,
or else in a laboratory
in your white coat and safety glasses,
you can die for people-
even for people whose faces you've never seen,
even though you know living
is the most real, the most beautiful thing.
I mean, you must take living so seriously
that even at seventy, for example, you'll plant olive trees-
and not for your children, either,
but because although you fear death you don't believe it,
because living, I mean, weighs heavier.

II

Let's say you're seriously ill, need surgery -
which is to say we might not get
from the white table.
Even though it's impossible not to feel sad
about going a little too soon,
we'll still laugh at the jokes being told,
we'll look out the window to see it's raining,
or still wait anxiously
for the latest newscast ...
Let's say we're at the front-
for something worth fighting for, say.
There, in the first offensive, on that very day,
we might fall on our face, dead.
We'll know this with a curious anger,
but we'll still worry ourselves to death
about the outcome of the war, which could last years.
Let's say we're in prison
and close to fifty,
and we have eighteen more years, say,
before the iron doors will open.
We'll still live with the outside,
with its people and animals, struggle and wind-
I mean with the outside beyond the walls.
I mean, however and wherever we are,
we must live as if we will never die.

III

This earth will grow cold,
a star among stars
and one of the smallest,
a gilded mote on blue velvet-
I mean this, our great earth.
This earth will grow cold one day,
not like a block of ice
or a dead cloud even
but like an empty walnut it will roll along
in pitch-black space ...
You must grieve for this right now
-you have to feel this sorrow now-
for the world must be loved this much
if you're going to say ``I lived'' ...

Nazim Hikmet
February, 1948
Trans. Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk - 1993

On Change and Path

2009-01-04T00:05:00.002-05:00

Below, something I wrote just before Christmas, as a comment on someones blog... I came across it again earlier today, and it seemed worthwhile posting here after all... hopefully, the context will be sufficiently evident...

I think we never really leave anything or anyone behind as we travel our "path"... I think what we leave behind is a part of ourselves, that we must pick up again when the circle is completed- when we come to see the true nature of ourselves and of our Self, then it is seen that nothing was ever left behind...

I think its helpful to consider this, as we contemplate the meaning of "path"... if indeed it is "me" (or a part of me, if we would rather put it as that) that was "left", or has "ended", then of course it needs to return, to come to the ultimate "wholeness" that signifies the true "ending"

did that make sense?

all of those things that I had thought had been left for good, are now reappearing as necessary parts to be re-embraced... to come home, to the wholeness that was always here, and could never leave... even the "leaving behind" is seen to have been as temporary as when it was an active part- ALL temporal things must come to wholeness- this can be understood as losing Everything, or Gaining the Whole- either way, its the same thing- its always coming Home...

this comes down to seeing ALL form, as a mirror for self, and Self... when S/self is understood for its true nature, then the formless is also understood- at that meetingplace, we find the holy- whole- Home-

Contemplation and Action

2009-01-03T15:13:00.002-05:00

In response to a conversation at Forest Wisdom

There is a way between voice and presence

where information flows

in disciplined silence, it opens

with wandering talk, it closes

~Jalal ad-Din Rumi

I think often, as human beings, we miss flow-ways of communication that are very active in our lives... often, the "need to DO something" can interfere with ones listening, which itself would be doing a great deal more-

and I think we potentially could be more open to our relationship to time and distance, not taking it at "face value"- that is, at minds first measurement of what those things are...

I know the academics would get all up in arms over this one (you cannot prove a negative and all that) but as a pointer to what Rumi was speaking of in his poem, I would challenge to see some 'proof', that buddhist monks meditating in the Himalayas RIGHT NOW, are NOT in fact what is holding the world together for us...

I know, I know- its wrong... Im just saying, its a pointer to something that we dont commonly allow for...

The End of "Us and Them"

2009-01-03T09:41:00.004-05:00

In his Morning Meditation, our Unitarian Universalist friend David Markham had a particularly wise and important seeing, that has sparked some additional seeing for me, and so I thought to bring it to here... he said:

"that suffering is the result of stupidity, ignorance, and lack of awareness"

and reading this, brought up again my ever-favorite meditation: "relationship is a mirror"

it rings true in these ears, when I read David describe being:

"utterly amazed at how stupid people are. They are narcissistic, arrogant, willful, full of hubris, and then wonder why they suffer."

yes, this lives in me too...

and we travel together as well, when we see his obsevation that:

"Whenever our politicians would divide the world into us and them, and in our personal lives we divide our families into us and them, and at work we divide the world into us and them, we are contributing to the suffering in the world."

ah yes!
here we have it right- where we say that it is this basic division of "us and them" that brings about all of this suffering...

so, if this is true, if what I see "out there" in "them" is truly not separable from what is "here" in "me", then it is there that I "Suffer" the stupidity, ignorance, lack of awareness of humanity... but when I see that these things are here in ME, as proved by the very FACT that I see it in "them" (relationship is a mirror), that I am the one now creating an "us and them" when it comes to this stupidity... then it gets to be seen that I and the stupidity, ignorance etc are one in the same...

it is there, and only there, that compassion can act... and it is only compassion, that has any wisdom to offer this situation of suffering... certainly not my cleverness in being able to point it out to others, how stupid they are and thus they suffer... the "they" in that VERY pointing out, is "me"... it is "I" who suffer the stupidity that is inherent in missing the mirror, in not seeing that it is me who suffers this separation, and not them... "I" am the one who compassion cannot act through- "I" am the one who is woefully unaware, whenever I make an "us and them"- whenever I separate my 'wise and clever' seeing, from that stupidity which it believes it can identify...

but when we see that there is NO separation- that the stupidity is ME, that it is "I" who suffers, then that ends it- that ENDS it, right there... there is nothing more for "them" to do! Compassion now comes in and acts- Love now comes to know itself- "I" am now out of the picture... this and only this will end the suffering- will end the separation that creates the stupidity...

did you know, that the root of the words "Satan" and "Devil" both, have this sense of separation with them, of "pointing outwards" to "other"? ... according to wikipedia "The name "Devil" derives from the Greek word diabolos, which means "slanderer" or "accuser"" and "The word 'Satan', and the Arabic "shaitan", may derive from a Northwest Semitic root meaning "to be hostile", 'to accuse.'" ... isnt the very picture in your mind of "accuser" a man or woman pointing their finger at a person in a crowd? ... I know thats the first image that comes to my head ...

This is what it is to "miss the mirror"... to separate what we see, from ourselves- and assume it is someplace "out there" that we are seeing it... this is the very lack of awareness in our own seeing, that will add itself to the stupidity- because there is no room for compassion to act in this... we have effectively walled it out, from our outward pointing- from the separation of "that" and "me" - "I" and "thou"...

This I think, is what Gandhi was seeing, when he said to "be the change you want to see"... to end the outward pointing- to see that the lack of awareness can ONLY come from believing that there is something that separates what I see from me- that there are things "out there" that need to be fixed, as if I didnt have that very trait, stupidity, ignorance, lack of awareness RIGHT HERE in me, BY the very seeing of it!!!

by the very seeing of it, it is me

relationship is this mirror... I pray to give my every living breathing moment, to polishing this mirror...

It's Right here- it's Right now!

2009-01-02T19:21:00.003-05:00

Your existence needs no justification. You do not have to prove yourself. No one is keeping score. The kingdom of heaven is right here, within and among you. If you can not recognize its presence right here, right now, how can you ever enter it? As the "prodigal father" says, in essence, "The party is in progress, set aside your distress and come join the party."

A great posting by (fellow New Englander) John Crockett at The Natural Contemplative... You'll want to read this one...

an important something about storytelling

2009-01-01T09:00:00.003-05:00

"Genre stories are about exceptional people, and may note the ways they're normal. Mainstream stories are about normal people, and may note the ways they're exceptional. This is why Lord of the Rings is not a genre fantasy; it's about an ordinary person caught up in exceptional events. Had it focused on Aragorn, few people would know of it today."

this is more than just about storytelling- or, it isnt, because in a way, our human life is ALL about storytelling... and so, this quote from Will (its all one thing) has much to say about the "meeting" with our own existence, and each other...

Ill say some more of whaat Im seeing here, after I sit with it for a bit

thank you Will!

A Brilliant and Clear Seeing

2008-12-30T15:13:00.003-05:00

On Philosophy, Found Here:

"The near future of philosophy will be the continued unpicking of analytic philosophy in order to reveal just how much its purported rigour is just a cover for another set of biases. Certainly there is value in it, but it has no flesh: analytic philosophy is a matter of rejecting meaning as a human means the term for a shallower conception of meaning that leaves the reader unsatisfied.

This would almost be fine if there were no meaning to be had; then philosphy would be a matter of slowly waking up to nihilistic reality, but analytic philosophy doesn't even address that well: the way in which it handles meaning is by rejecting that which cannot easily be put into words, and expressed mathematically.

After the boldness of the 20th Century, analytic philosophy lives on as a kind of pedants' corner. Unfortunately, logical positivism, having engendered a general cleanup of thought across disciplines, now leaves large areas of study distinctly less human in its wake.

Beyond philosophy, we have Dennis Skinner's influence upon psychology, leading to perverse failures to understand conditions of mind, since all that is deemed real is the externally measurable. This means that if one condition obscures another, where the second would be said to occur in the general population under the same circumstances, the second is said not to occur in this case, which cannot be the conservative assumption. This kind of thinking results in a general inhumanity in caring for people.

That is only one example, there are many fields that need rehumanising. This, I would suggest, is philosophy's most urgent task. But it is only the beginning of the process, since purported rigour feeds the cult of "expertese"; experts will be lothe to overturn the methodological aloofness that is intrinsic to their own social status. The war needs to be won in every discipline, so that the hardening arteries of positivism can be countered early in each student's development."

~Tim Wesson

The Art is in the Meeting

2008-12-27T20:28:00.002-05:00

Q: Would you say that the reader perceives things differently from the poet's intention? Or can one really come to see what the poet sees?

to me, it can either be as a clash of cymbals, or as delicate as the sunlight's first morning-meeting with dew, but it is in the "meeting", where there'is the Art...

the artist meets the seeing
the seeing meets the silence
the silence meets the pen
the pen meets the page
the page meets the reader
the reader meets the mind
the mind meets the seeing
the seeing meets the artist

who was the artist here?
was it the seer?
was it the reader?
was it the pen?

it was in the meeting- all meeting in one place! this is the art!- at the death of anyone called "artist", does the art come into being...

2008-12-25T04:40:00.003-05:00

the wind's voice especially fierce this morning,
and last night
booming across the field
it has things to say
about hope
and giving meaning to things
truly none of our business
"Let Gods will be done" it says
meddling in the course of this moment
does not portend

The BEST Christmas depression EVER!

2008-12-24T13:09:00.000-05:00

It lasted all of Five seconds, well, maybe 15 if Im being honest...

it really was great fun, to see something that just a few years ago would have occupied my every thought from October to January, take only 10 seconds to go through its cycle...

I was watching tv for about 3 hours yesterday, while watching for a fed-ex delivery for my roommate ... you dont want to know how "important" this package was... it was not a Present for anyone- it was not useful to the world in any way- it was just a self indulgence really- but I was being charitable about it, and spending my time downstairs instead of in my studio, so I could watch for the package for him...

so, after 3 hours of "holiday" commercials and jumping around from "Law and Order" to CNN to wherever else - my roomate comes home- and now can take the "watch" for his own package... we say hi- he has some reasonably innocent (for him, innocent) comment about the smell of the kitchen (didnt like what I was cooking earlier for my dinner- but did like the brownie smell from what I had baked- and the comment was about them not "mixing" or some such) and I got "huffy"- for about 10 seconds... he said he was only joking, I said I knew that perfectly well- but it still got to me- I went upstairs ... didnt make it to the top stair, when it was completely gone...

about two minutes later, I saw everything- I was detoxing from the tv, and THAT WAS my traditional Christmas Depression, "asserting" itself LOL!!!

it was really so cool, and really a wonderful Christmas gift to myself, from myself, to see it all so clearly-

oh, and today, I had a bout with holiday shopping anger- it was the same thing- it lasted about 5 seconds, and I was smiling inside all through it - see the old "me" asserting itself, acting like the barometer that it is, for the human weather we were having... (the head cashier at Michaels, the craft supply store, was telling my cashier how she could have done the transaction "better" (I handed her a 100$ bill and she didnt have the change) when it was CLEARLY (in my not so humble expert - truly, Im an expert in these things- in my not so humble expert opinion) it was CLEARLY HER own doing that was confusing the issue! The computer screen was telling all THREE of us that she owed me 67.03 in change, but instead she had to know how much I owed the drawer so she could count it back manually, for some silly reason- (all she should have done is hand the cashier HER 100.00 in twenties to her, and the cashier could have taken it from there) - I said "whatever 100-67.03=?, why does that matter" (snarky, yes) "I need to know", she said. "I just want 67.03 is all" "yes I know, Im getting to that"... finally she caught on to the simplicity of it all, and she eventually, with some "difficulty" after this "destroyed" her certainty of how this should go, managed to give me my change- then she started to tell the young lady (20 years old maybe?) how she should next time do it some other way- I said, loudly, to the cashier "YOU did GREAT, thank you SO much, and merry Chistmas to you!"... the head cashier didnt look up, and skulked off, with her Christmas present of self righteousness... for myself- I was smiling smiling smiling BIG smiles inside, seeing NONE of this was me or my doing... there really was just Love in this entire unfolding! and it was all PERFECT!

God, its all so very Lovely, this life is...

Damn those Santa wannabes

2008-12-24T07:53:00.001-05:00

Theres nothing like Good deeds going punished during the Holiday season

In Connecticut, one Barry Goldberg bought $1,300 worth of Wal-Mart gift cards valued at $10 each and started handing them out to customers in that store's lobby.

However, this was not too pleasing to the Stores Managers.

“The next thing I knew, they turned to me and said, ‘You have to leave the store. You can’t do this here. You’re soliciting,’” Goldberg said. “I said, ‘I’m not soliciting anything. I’m giving.’” Goldberg told reporters

Wal-Mart's reasoning seems to be that this particular Santa wannabe was interrupting the store's traffic flow.

It was reported that Target contacted him, and offered to swap out the Walmart Cards that he had left for Target Cards, and hand them out in their store...

nice move there, Target!

(link)

The big picture

2008-12-21T20:32:00.001-05:00

"Youre just not seeing the 'big picture'"

"no, YOURE not seeing the big picture"

"No, IVE got the big picture, its YOU thats not seeing the big picture"

"uhn-unh, Im seeing the big picture, You are the one not seeing it"

"what are you talking about? Ive got the big picture"

"IVE got the big picture"

"No, IVE got the big picture

"no, IVE got..."

whos got the big picture yet?

Dont Know Mind

2008-12-10T23:30:00.002-05:00

How Can You Stand Not Knowing? is a nice sermon by a fellow New Hampshirite and Deep thinker, Doug Muder, on things around Life and Death, and living and dying... do give it a read (or a listen, I did both as a read-along)... I LOVED being introduced to Hosea Ballou, and this bit from Dougs writing about Ballou's thought:

"the truly marvelous life is one aligned with the power of love. He pictured perfect love streaming down from God onto each individual, who can then reflect God's love into the world. Far from being sweet, sin smudges your mirror; it breaks your transmission of God's love."

This is PERFECT!

Messiness

2008-12-08T11:59:00.000-05:00

"Intelligent... spiritually mature... Inclusive... messy...

Why? Because messiness is the consequence of being inclusive"

I LOVE it!

see the whole thing here

A New Approach for my Bloglist

2008-12-05T17:39:00.005-05:00

Aug 2011: the content of this post has been removed by the owner (Tom)

Two Favorites

2008-12-03T15:25:00.005-05:00

These have become like Scripture to me- theyve helped me through some very troubled times... some very warm memories come with them too, of when they were recited among dear friends for instance, helping each other through dark times...

"It's the old rule that drunks have to argue
and get into fights.
The lover is just as bad. he falls into a hole.
But down in that hole he finds something shining,
worth more than any amount of money or power.

Last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street.
I took it as a sign to start singing,
falling up into the bowl of sky.
The bowl breaks. Everywhere is falling everywhere.
Nothing else to do.

Here's the new rule: break the wineglass,
and fall toward the glassblower's breath.

~Jalal ad-Din Rumi

also, this by Rumi:

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
Your covered with thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign
that you've died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.
The speechless full moon
comes out now."

translation by Coleman Barks

Word as Prayer

2008-11-25T06:55:00.001-05:00

Sometimes, a word arrives as a prayer... it just comes, like, in the form of an inquiry lets say... and then to ponder that word, "contemplate" it (lit: con- "to, before" + temple- "to bring before the temple")

to see all the ways in which a word can be taken- to see the ways in which it is judged, "good" or "bad"

to go and learn how the word came into being, what its roots are, and where it might have changed meaning... the etymologies of words are very sacred things to me... like the DNA of language- etymologies carry meanings and sufferings and joyousness from the ages through to this very moment of my coming upon the word...

its in this way, a word is a prayer for me...

todays prayer for instance:

irreverent

How does God view irreverence?
can God himself be irreverent?
is it ok to be irreverent with God?
maybe God wants me to be play at being irreverent with Him, and most reverent with his children?

see? - just a word, and Prayer in the form of Inquiry comes and floods this Temple...

Century of the Self

2008-11-23T19:47:00.002-05:00

"Modern psychology has a word that is used probably more than any other word in psychology, it is the word maladjusted. It is the ringing cry of modern child psychology, maladjusted. Now of course we all want to live the well adjusted life in order to avoid neurotic and schizophrenic personalities. But as I move toward my conclusion I would like to say to you today in a very honest manner that there are some things in our society and some things in our world to which I am proud to be maladjusted and I call upon all men of good will to be maladjusted to these things until the good society is realized. I must honestly say to you that I never intend to adjust myself to racial segregation and discrimination. I never intend to adjust myself to religious bigotry. I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions to take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. Never leave millions of God's children smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society."

~Martin Luther King, 1967

Im watching a series available at Google Video, The Century of the Self
its absolutely fascinating!

see the transcripts here, with links to each video on the respective pages:

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

this is what arrived...

2008-11-22T07:21:00.003-05:00

...as the FIRST thing in my head upon waking up this morning...

"When you find yourself distressed over something, look to see what it is that you're holding in one of your hands...

Chances are its either a diploma or a receipt..."

these things just arrive...

Quote me on this

2008-11-21T10:07:00.004-05:00

Aug 2011: the content of this post has been removed by the owner (Tom)

the Transition Town movement

2008-11-18T20:50:00.003-05:00

YouTube - TRANSITION TOWNS: An Interview with Rob Hopkins

from transitionculture.org, the above interview transcript

Transition Towns - Wikipedia

Central to the Transition Town movement is the idea that a life without oil could in fact be far more enjoyable and fulfulling than the present "by shifting our mind-set we can actually recognise the coming post-cheap oil era as an opportunity rather than a threat, and design the future low carbon age to be thriving, resilient and abundant - somewhere much better to live than our current alienated consumer culture based on greed, war and the myth of perpetual growth."

(quote attributed to the Transition Town Westcliff website)

Added: (these two pages seem important to link here, they were hard for me to find on their homesite)

the official list:
Transition Towns/Cities/Di stricts

and the "mulling it over" list:
thinking hard

the company of those

2008-11-14T19:56:00.001-05:00

"Keep the company of those who seek the truth, and run from those who have found it"
~Vaclav Havel

"Trust those who seek the truth. Beware of those who have found it"
~Andre Gide

"Grant me the company of those who seek the truth. And God deliver me from those who have found it"
~Isaac Newton.

__________________

(edit added: oh dear, now that Ive been linked to, I had better clean up my act! The above quotes will show up with several entries each if searched in Google, however I should have qualified with "attributed to" before each of the authors mentioned- I dont have hard facts on them, however Ive known that Gide had said something to this effect for many years... prior to the advent of the internet even :)

also, it should be mentioned, these were gathered by me for a comment left on Will's blog, along with the statement: "My religion is Inquiry, my faith is in meeting the other in THIS moment, my worship is the Dialogue that ensues...")

a detailed history of the future

2008-11-12T08:45:00.002-05:00

Marshall McLuhan- known for coining the expressions "the medium is the message" and the "global village".

"The artist is always engaged in writing a detailed history of the future because he is the only person aware of the nature of the present...

Poets and artists live on frontiers. They have no feedback, only feedforward. They have no identities. They are probes..."

palin know africa continent

2008-11-06T11:22:00.002-05:00

palin know africa continent

I try very very hard to look at the mirror of my own judgments of others

this one will be a challenge

Ive already failed at keeping anything political off of this blog :(

It felt really good, didnt it?

2008-11-05T00:37:00.003-05:00

(Aug 2011 edit: note the date of this post: Obama was elected president of the US on this day)

is atonement the right word here?

it feels like that... it feels like as a human body, we made something a bit more right today...

bless that...

may Peace and Love be to all

Sobriety and Joy

2008-11-03T06:56:00.003-05:00

in a forum thread called Sobriety and Joy, a Friend asked:

I have always thought that a relationship with God is a serious relationship, but ultimately a friendship. How do we balance the seriousness of God along with the joy of God? Is the only way we can truly enjoy the world is to spend it all the time in a state of constant serious prayer and meditation? It doesn't seem to me that that can be true. Does God really frown upon a lively conversation among friends, at a dance in the rain, or a bit of blues and rock and roll?

I Loved the question. I find myself singing a little less rock and roll these days, playing my guitar nearly as much, but dancing in the rain a lot more, and conversation with friends is generally dependent on their tolerance to my "seriousness"...

I replied there in the forum this way:

"How do we balance the seriousness of God along with the joy of God?"

I find a chuckle here, in reading this... the words came into my head immediately: "take the Joy of God Seriously!"

what is the Joy of God?

is a joy that I may be feeling the Joy of God?

what is the discernment there?

for me, if its about greed, lust, envy, then yes, it is self-centered joy and not God centered Joy - easy...

the moment I catch myself in the pursuit of greed/lust/envy based activities, Im faced with a choice, if I really am looking: 'do I continue this because its the easier thing to do, or do I look again, and discern for myself and God, the reasons why I would pursue this activity?'

for me, the moment I give it space, and Look, with sincerity in my heart, then I see that I AM in the Joy of God... this life, lived, is the Joy of God... this life lived in greed and lust and envy, is a life lived in the joy of "having" the joy of "getting" the joy of "obtaining" - that can easily be seen as self-centered activity, ambition... based on "more- more- more" ... that celebrates this life as if it were full of scarcity and lack- did God give us a world of scarcity and lack? Look at a starving child in a third world country, and it would appear so ... look at the greed that keeps that child from getting food, so that others can have "more", and there is the scarcity, there is the lack, there is the envy... is my playing a rock and roll song contributing to that? maybe so! maybe not...

am I looking to have an answer, so that I can continue to play the rock and roll songs? or do I really want to find out the truth of this?

see? there is God's Joy- finding out the Truth of abundance and scarcity... THAT is the Joy! the Truth of that... if you see that playing your music and going to parties is contributing to a child starving somewhere, then what? if you see it DIRECTLY, that it does or it does not, then what?

what will you do to see it directly?

will the opinion that I give here, be of any meaning or help, to your seeing it directly, and finding Gods Joy?

In the US, we are coming up on the Holidays... will I abstain from taking a meal on Thanksgiving, in solidarity with a starving child? will my statement mean anything to anyone but me? will the starving child feel this? THERE is God in the starving child, and THERE is God in everyone around the table! does a political statement make a difference to any of them? or to God? Is there another kind of statement?

If I sing a Christmas Carole, "Joy to the World" - and if the next song sung is "White Christmas" - or "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" - have I swung over from "good" to "bad" in such an instant, by such a participation? do the children in the room, who have yet to learn the meaning of Christmas, care? what does it mean to their parents, that I sing with them? that I pick up my guitar, and play along with the singing? is God in the words more than the voice? more than the notes?

stay in these questions, I say...

what value is my opinion, until you see directly, what is God's Joy? Until you come to know directly, how Love acts in the world, any ideas from others will lead you away from God... opinions, history lessons, theologies, they are all outward things... God is inward, go there... Look there- Be with Him there... and then, the other answers will come, without need of "doing" or struggle or conflict... action then will be pure- will be of Love, and not self...

the Joy of God, seriously

a spate of haiku

2008-11-01T08:38:00.003-04:00

all wisdom falls down
into its own cleverness
haiku from here on

________

five, seven and five
wild imaginings at bay
I bless the constraint!

________

about this word "wild"
does it slip off of your tongue?
leave it for the grave!

________

how do you do that!?
"I refuse to hide my joy!"
passion of the muse

________

a spate of haiku
from the midst of such doings
untethered repose

The mirror of saying Yes!

2008-10-28T11:25:00.003-04:00

James reminded us today of this from our friend Meister Eckhart:

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice.

This has been most relevant for me this past week- Ive been seeing it again- this thing that J. Krishnamurti would say over and over, "relationship is a mirror"...

and so Ive been seeing this more and more with each passing day- that even the tiniest event or the most horrid, is a mirror to who or what I am... the eyes that see and measure, are the eyes that are in THIS head- they are the filter through which THIS being perceives ...

so, when I sit in conversation with a friend, and a hypocrisy comes from what appears as his mouth- perhaps a comfortable 'middle class' hypocrisy, such as when one minute he will be speaking about how I need to do more to enhance his life or his finances (I stay in a room in his house) and then the VERY NEXT minute he is telling me that he is preparing to spend four grand on a drum set, that he already sold away once since Ive known him at an $1800 loss ... but the $30 that he gave me to get some food for myself must not become a "habit"...

yes, I see the mirror of that- Truly I do...

IF and only IF the request is coming from God... if its God asking me to do more, or to make do with less so that I can sit with my friend without judgment- then I can see that it is MY objection to God, that will contain this same hypocrisy...

this is a subtle and tricky thing to see, and only comes when I cease to measure, and simply ask God what it is that "I am" - "who is looking, God?" - "why am I measuring at all?" ...

but when it is shown that this measurement lives in ME, and NOT my friend, then yes, "thank you" is the only prayer...

thank you thank you thank you!

Internet Enthusiasm

2008-10-23T21:55:00.004-04:00

Im taking the title of this post from the very root of the word enthusiasm, one of my favorite etymologies: en- in + theos- God... to be in God (or to find God within?)

you see, my idea of what makes a deep and inspiring theological treatise, comes from blog and forum posts... the "off the cuff" responses to some daily event or to another posters lookings is so much more filled with "Light" to me, than any well thought out defense or apology created in academic surrounds...

Is this a harsh statement?
perhaps it is - and as I type this very line of this post, I am resolved to reexamine it...

so let me just get to my intent in starting this thought - its to point you to this forum post, by punkrainbow (the keeper of the blog "Love Keeping The World Turning") which just epitomizes what Im speaking about ...its a must read

Actually, the entire thread is quite a testament to this terrific Friends Forum in which it arises - there is so much there to look at, admire, be inspired by and struggle with - these sorts of threads found in the odd internet forum are an amazing kind of literature in their own right... I think we need to find some way to appreciate them more profoundly than we do... some forum threads deserve to be set apart from the background in which they arise, and find a new publication for preservation of the heart and the insight that embodies them...

"Building Bridges"

2008-10-22T11:01:00.003-04:00

I drive past this single lane bridge on the way to the Quaker Meeting that I attend - it goes over a river that runs alongside the road for a good part of that distance... it looks like the sort of bridge thats a private bridge, that is, it doesnt look like its town or state owned... but that someone had to contract privately to put it there- so he or she could get to their property, no doubt... I pondered for a moment, how unusual such an undertaking is for most folks ... not a lot of people have the phrase "my bridge" in their personal daily vocabulary... but these folks would... I mean, not a lot of folks have "my barn" or "my horse" or "my tractor" either ... but "my bridge" seems exceptionally unusual... this person actually went and "built a bridge"... not over a garden fountain, or a mowing path over the spring creek that runs through the back yard - but a real live drive-the-car-over-me bridge... thats pretty cool, really...

of course, I asked myself about "building bridges" in the metaphorical sense on the rest of the drive home... do I build bridges? is that what I do, from and with the spirituality that I find here *points to chest*?

not so much...
no - I dont - really...

Im much much more likely, to be the guy who will slosh across the river whether theres a bridge there or not- just so I can know intimately what it is that separates us... I will go through any cold, wet, deep tumult of a river, to find out the truth of you and me... this is what I do...

I tend to leave behind folks that way, on the side where I came from... they are more wishing I had found a way to bridge the course... and I tend to frighten the folks who Ive come to meet on the "other" side - the wet and muddy clothes they find me in are none too appealing for them to invite me up onto the porch, let alone to a table for warm tea...

but... I know something about the divide... Ill have to say that... a bridge may have been easier- but tends to take too long, and cost more than many folks can afford - either in their taxes, or out of pocket... I need to know sooner than that... I need to meet you sooner than that... excuse the dripping please, but my love of humanity would not let me wait...

gravity is good

2008-10-20T17:15:00.004-04:00

Timothy Travis just posted a great bit of looking on his blog, and I just have to give it a big recommend here- please give it a read:

gravity...
"I don't usually spend a lot of time accounting for gravity in my decision making. I go through my life doing this or that without wondering whether gravity is going to work. When I wad up a piece of paper and throw it across the room toward the wastebasket I don't have a plan "B" in mind, a plan for what I will do just in case that ball of paper goes up rather than down.

My faith is not like that..."

For me, its something about how I use the word "surrender" ... I will write some more about this a bit later... for now, go give gravity... your attention...

Wisdom Traditions

2008-10-19T08:38:00.002-04:00

wisdom traditions, a conversation... From my own posting there, we were speaking some about zen:

"I am not a practitioner of zen, or any other such sort of regimen or practice ... Ive come to understand something about "beginners mind" that is unmistakable, but from my own deep inquiry/looking ...so I should not speak for zen just as no one should speak for Quakers ...my testimony about beginners mind was more of a revealing from inquiry, and stands as the same sort of things as my testimony about the Inner Light - I have seen it, unmistakably, independent of any religion, belief or practice, before coming to Friends - in the holding of Silence itself ...again, I use the word "Inquiry" for this Silence - I mean by it, a question that is known to need no "answer"... another way Ive put it is: "my body is my Inquiry"...

so, beginners mind to me, is a condition of perpetual Learning, or Listening, or Holding of the Light - however we might find it useful to phrase... and it is seen that it needs no conclusion - it comes to no end- it is convicted about nothing... the Inquiry itself is seen to be the Sacred - the Holding of what is Holy, is the very question that a flower asks when it opens, or the leaves ask when they turn to their autumn colors, or the sun asks when it comes up in the morning, and sets at night... the sun is not convinced of anything, and seeks no answers... the sun, is in this beginners mind... Gods Good Creation... this is what I mean by Inquiry... and it is there when I Hold the Silence - when I go inward, to Inquire of the Light (or Hold the Light and Inquire of the Silence! same thing!) - when I meet another without any preconceived judgment or notion... and should I find a judgment in my heart when I meet you, you can know that I will be Holding that to the Light for inspection, for Inquiry, and nothing will be convicted about that judgment...

this is the condition you find me in, my Testimony... nothing perfect, nothing special, nothing religious even... just a deep commitment to the Peace of Inquiry... I can do nothing else... honestly"

Also, along the same topic, this page, Quaker.org, is freshly posted in the Delicious Bookmarks again, and it really is a kicking webpage... Ive seen it referred to time and time again since first coming across it...

the UK Friends there wrote:

"Quakers share a way of life rather than a set of beliefs. Quakers seek to experience God directly, within ourselves and in our relationships with others and the world around us. We meet together for silent worship in local meetings which are open to all.

The Quaker way has its roots in Christianity and finds inspiration in the Bible and the life and teachings of Jesus. Quakers also find meaning and value in the teachings of other faiths; we acknowledge that ours is not the only way.

Our focus is on our experience rather than written statements of belief. Our sense of community does not depend on professing identical beliefs, but from worshipping, sharing and working together."

Love that!
Just Love that...

The Hippie Kid, and me

2008-10-19T07:41:00.005-04:00

Ive been meaning to find again where I saw this post titled "Am I (Still) Quaker?" from (somewhere in the) Quaker blogosphere - it was one of the first articles I'd read since starting on my internet conversation with Friends (over a month ago now)... and this morning it came across my screen in a fortuitous way... Ive been calling it "the Hippie Kid" article, and it may go down as one of my most important influences in 1: What Im doing here in this Blog in the first place- and 2: What happens next in my relationship to Quakers, online at least... so it was only right that I find it and link to it, perhaps with a quote from the part that really spoke to me about my own lifes journey... the Posting of this essay by Sola Caritas author Ryan Dowell Baum is one of the best examples of how to make a long and complex History lesson into an easily digested snack (for those of us with ADD, right?)... give it a read, and learn in short order what you may need to know about "what is a Quaker anyway?"

From the page:

"The denominational family known today as the Religious Society of Friends (or more commonly by their nickname, 'Quakers'), was founded in the north of England in 1652 by a 19-year-old precocious little hippie kid named George Fox. Convinced that no one he knew had the real Truth when it came to matters of religion, young George ran away from home and schlepped all over the English countryside talking to anyone he could find--pastors, professors, and laypeople-- looking for someone, anyone, who could 'speak to his condition.' Finding no one, he was driven almost to the point of despair, when suddenly he heard a voice say to him..."

Yeah, see?
This I really get ... and in a way- it doesnt matter what words might have come to ones head from such a journey, the Clear Seeing of what exists as Truth in any moment, is just completely beyond words anyway... and this is what I find perfect in my relationship to the Silence that Friends will invite when meeting for Worship... this is so very important, to what I understand ones relationship to the Holy is... coming upon Truth for oneself - no matter how alone one may find oneself in conveying that to others ...indeed, letting ones Life speak, rather than making words fit...

Its a Blessed thing... and I thank friends and Friends everywhere who have looked with me - to discover that it was in the very meeting itself, in the mere coming together, where the Holy always resides... for me, in the Inquiry, "How do I meet you?"

This Mystics struggle with ritual

2008-10-14T09:07:00.002-04:00

In the QuakerInfo Fourm, a Friend wrote: "Early Quakers argued that such practices were at least temporary and at worst a deliberate insertion into scripture by the Catholic Church or simply traditional arising from custom and practice."

The topic of that thread turned to Quakers performing Baptisms... I was a bit aghast to hear this - certainly, this is not the part of me that finds affinity with Quakers... on the contrary, I have a hard time with ritual of any sort...

I want to share my response here:

Ah, yes - and this most certainly is what draws me to Quakerism ... I do not have this religious affinity for things "ritualistic" by any means... and I really quite agree with what you are saying here...

now, there comes a "but" ... let me leave that agreement for a moment, and look within...

the mystic in me, HAS to look at why something as such has moved in THIS heart, and make ABSOLUTELY sure that its intention is SPOTless... spotless to where there is no intention at all - to where I can be completely certain that it is Spirit guiding me, and not more layers of "me" - layers of ego, that wants to 'have its way'...

so, I look and look again at ALL of this - at all things ritualistic... and rather than refer to something of the past (the very "Temporary" that you mention, I see as identical to "temporal" - "of time" - "of the past" - this is where "ritual" lives, in worship of the past over what is Holy here and now...) let me then take in the very Spirit of Fox, and put it ALL to the test of intention... that is, is this movement in me "me" or is it Spirit?

Clearly, if I whip out a text of any sort, and start to disect it and point to some passage that agrees with my position, and allow for less weight in other passages to let me bypass them in my 'studies' of this text - then Im doing NOTHING different than any other section of humanity's religious requirements, and looking to make my own version of truth stand out in debate...

that does not seem to me, what has been actaully going on in Quakerism over these hundreds of years... but rather to LOOK, INTO the Silence, and not into the Books and Texts and rituals, to SEE what is there for me to see! This is to show me how I act in the world - to give this ego space in which it may see itself and that which is temporal in it... the discernment then is one of ego and God... the discernment then is between "What is" and "what I think it is" or "what I want it to be"...

THAT is the INWARD journey... that is something for me to discern, and NOT to put upon any other being on this planet... ANY other... its MY relationship to the Holy that I must see here... and not judge anothers relationship (which I do ALL THE TIME!) ... this is the message of the Spirit to me... to Look and Look again! until I am spotless of intention... and if I should die before such a day comes, then so it is, so be it! but I will NOT live this life inflicting my intention upon another... this is the mystics Peace Testimony... it goes WAY beyond war... it goes to the very heart of "How do I meet another?"... and it STAYS in that question, until there is no question... if I claim clarity too soon, then I have started another war in the hearts of men... I MUST stand clear of that intention, that can do such... that is the mystics Peace Testimony...

Now, I return my gaze to the ritual...

How do I meet this?

How do I meet this?

will I meet this by thumbing through a text? and making footnotes and references to habits and practices of a time ago?

or, will I have the Silence, the Space, the Spirit of what is Holy, to meet this with Love, no matter what my ego-tugs may be...?

and if so...

if so, isnt it Love itself that will see and determine if there is any possibility of Love that infuses the ritual? Love only knows itself... it does not Judge, and it does not see Judgment ... Love will act here, how it acts... Spirit will keep me in the Silence, the Sacred Silence, to see Love acting, and not clash against the egos of men, with my own ego...

this is the mystics Peace Testimony...

Please understand - this is not written to agree nor disagree - this is not trying to make anyone see anything my way - or to come to my understanding - in essence, this is not written TO anyone here... it is merely the inward looking that happens here... and that has found an affinity among Friends of the Silence...

I pray for Love to inhabit all agreements and disagreements that come to this looking... for the Looking itself, is not mine, but the agree/disagree most certainly is... there is nothing in Gods Kingdom, for this heart to disagree with... I pray to stay in that Looking...

Peace to all hearts...

A Schism of my Own

2008-10-14T01:59:00.008-04:00

Aug 2011: the content of this post has been removed by the owner (Tom)

Working Post (or, a maverick Mystics guide to Quakerism)

2008-10-10T09:49:00.031-04:00

Aug 2011: the content of this post has been removed by the owner (Tom)

A tiny thing about Convergence

2008-10-10T07:22:00.003-04:00

Aug 2011: the content of this post has been removed by the owner (Tom)

So, the first one is a cheat!

2008-10-09T14:14:00.006-04:00

Ive been wondering what Ill say for my first post in this blog o mine... and now I have some material ... as is typical of me, its in the form of commentary off of what someone else was thinking - but I still have this sneaky suspicion that thats ok... that God designed me this way, in order to allow my thoughts to integrate with the leadings and inspirations of others (whether they understand me or not - HA! ;P)

So be it - Let it be so ...

the piece I was reading was about just what was on my mind anyway... Here, by Ashley at A Passionate and Determined Quest for Adequacy (I Love her blog quote btw... Ill have to steal it from her for a posting here... maybe later)

Im my own words, her post is about finding Sacredness on the internet ... and that is just what Im saying my own leading in being here is born of... so my comment to her post, is presented below:

Ashley said: "sometimes when I post, I have an experience similar to how I feel when I give vocal ministry―I feel strongly led. Even so, I have a hard time thinking of blogging as a ministry."

Can I look at this with you for just a bit?

Im a newcomer to the Quaker Blogosphere, in fact, you have my first post - even before my own blog ;) ... (I find I often work best off of others thoughts, than to create them from "out of the blue") - but the Quaker blogs that Ive been reading and lurking around for the past several weeks (Ill bet you Martin has already spotted me showing up several times a day at QQ) have certainly inspired me to open up one of my own, in order to participate in the exchange here, even though Im new to the Society of Friends as well...

that surely seems like ministry to me! the very root of the word "inspired" does not escape the meaning Im giving it here - "In the Spirit", if you like... yes - why shouldnt anything from any corner of the world, from any faith or vocation, if its inspired in this deeply felt way, why should it NOT be called ministry? ... Bring me closer to God, with what you feel and see as you walk about this planet... it need not be at a meeting - you will be a minister to me...

Yes
the blogs here that Ive been circling around have most certainly done that... the energy and the Love that is poured into the many posts that Ive read, that is most certainly "of God", of the Spirit... there can be no question in my mind of this...

You all here, from California and the UK and the Northwest and Indiana and Texas and Korea and Russia and my own New England... You all here, are drawing this seeker closer to God, and perhaps too, Quakerism than I would have thought possible... Friend, thats a Meeting! ... I think its ok, to call that a Ministry :)

the Meeting Ive been attending has its own great Beauty, make no mistake - but too, make no mistake about this - so have the posts that Ive been privileged to engage with in this circle of Friends...

Bless you all for your ministry...

I promise, my first blog-post will be coming soon...

Peace
t