Nemo's Notes

No Idea

2011-12-02T08:04:00.000-08:00

A friend recently sent me this:

"I am circling around God, around the ancient tower, / and I have been circling for a thousand years, / and I still don't know if I am a falcon, or a storm, / or a great song." Here's my own permutation: "I am circling around love, around the throbbing hum, and I have been circling for thousands of days, and I still don't know if I am a wounded saint, or a rainy dawn, or a creation story."

by Rilke in his Book of Hours (translated by Robert Bly)

I have no idea what I am, who I am, what is going on, where I'm going, what I'm doing or why.

and I am fine with it.

Thrill is Gone?

2011-11-16T12:20:00.000-08:00

"Arthur Levinson, former CEO of biotech company Genentech, is taking on the chairmanship of Apple's board, filling the role that Apple founder Steve Jobs vacated when he died last month."El Reg notes that Disney CEO/President Robert Iger was also appointed to the board, and that this marks the first time since the return of Steve Jobs to Apple that the CEO and board chairman were different people.

What's interesting for me - and it started a couple weeks ago as I was looking at pics of the Apple sr. mgt team and they looked like nice guys and all. but they're just guys.

I've been noticing that with Steve gone my apple "fervor" for lack of a better term is diminishing.

Has it made me want to buy an android phone or switch to PC? nooo - not gone that far , yet.

but the bloom is off the rose. apple seems like just another company - good, better than many, but not the "Magic" place it was under steve.

Guess I'll wait and see what comes...

but interesting to notice.

End of an Era

2011-10-05T18:30:00.000-07:00

Steve Jobs died today.

I was blown way when I heard. Sad, moved. I was blown away by how blown away I felt.

One of the best lines:

He changed forever the computer, music, and film industries, doing so through the simple expedient of better design. He redefined the notion of taste in an industry dominated by engineers and a general lack of style.

Never met the man but worked at Apple and NeXT.

I have a story...not about Steve, but about the impact he and his vision and company had on me.

In 1992 I went to work at Apple HQ as an analyst in the IT dept.

I was a PC person. Had used a Mac a few times, considered it a toy, but it did great graphics.

When I got to my new cube, there was a Mac II waiting for me. I moved the monitor a bit and when I turned on the computer it "chimed me" (hardware failure).

My new co-workers said "you must be a PC guy, it can tell."

Well, I scoffed at that and rebelled against the kool-aid drinkers....

Until a few months later when, as an employee, I could buy a Mac laptop at a big discount.

This was my first Mac, my first laptop, a small Powerbook with trackpad. Hi Rez BW screen.

I remember picking it up at the depot and driving to one of the Apple HQ buildings where I had a meeting in a few minutes. I had time to open it and look at it before the meeting.

Now, remember, in 1992 - computers came in dull, gray boxes...

Not this box. Attractive brown color with attractive graphics on the outside showing off the laptop inside. Well thought out and designed.

I opened the box.

On the top was a slick, glossy sheet of paper that said welcome to the community of Apple. We are here for you and with you and want to help you be successful.

That kind of thing.

Then I opened the laptop.

The screen sprang to life.

It said:

"Do you know how to use a mouse. If Yes, click here. If no, press any key and we'll show you how.

I was amazed.

The care, concern, design, thoughtfulness. I felt I'd been touched by kindred spirits. Others who wanted to change the world, one person at a time.

Just like I did.

I was blown away.

When I got to work the next day, with new found respect for and enjoyment of all things Apple (and my new laptop which I loved for a long time)

I wrote a long email to my colleagues expressing how I felt.

They came by one at a time to smile, nod and say:

"You've Been Mac'd"

They even had a name for it. When one GETS what Apple is all about.

I've been a Mac fanboi ever since.

To this day, one of my never-fading joys is to open an Apple product.

Steve has always been my favorite entrepreneur.

The world dimmed a bit when he shut down for the last time.

I got shiny eyes and felt moved.

Thank you Steve for all you were and all you gave.

It was to make the place the way your think it should be.

I totally respect that.

my other posts about Steve:

here and here.

Let's Do It All Again

2011-09-11T10:12:00.000-07:00

Many decades ago I clearly saw the infinity of existence exposed through the idea of doing everything there is to do every which way possible in every possible combination, color, flavor, style and perversion, with everyone and everything ...

and then what to do the next morning?

Do it all over again.

Which is the point of existence.

that there is none

there doesn't need to be any.

A friend turned me onto this song which seems to capture the feel well. Especially the last line.

There's a stranger in my bed,
There's a pounding my head
Glitter all over the room
Pink flamingos in the pool
I smell like a minibar
DJ's passed out in the yard
Barbie's on the barbecue
This a hickie or a bruise
Pictures of last night
Eended up online
I'm screwed
Oh well
It's a black top blur
But I'm pretty sure it ruled

Last Friday night
Yeah we danced on tabletops
And we took too many shots
Think we kissed but I forgot
Last Friday night
Yeah we maxed our credit cards
And got kicked out of the bar
So we hit the boulevard
Last Friday night
We went streaking in the park
Skinny dipping in the dark
Then had a menage a trois
Last Friday night
Yeah I think we broke the law
Always say we're gonna stop-op
Whoa-oh-oah

This Friday night
Do it all again
This Friday night
Do it all again

Trying to connect the dots
Don't know what to tell my boss
Think the city towed my car
Chandelier is on the floor
With my favorite party dress
Warrants out for my arrest
Think I need a ginger ale
That was such an epic fail

This Friday night
Do it all again
Do it all again
This Friday night
Do it all again
Do it all again
http://www.directlyrics.com/katy-perry-last-friday-night-lyrics.html

Life in 'The Goo'

2011-09-09T12:09:00.001-07:00

Recently talking about how it is to live in the undefined region.

No definition to relationships. No definition to life situation.

No definition to work.

All undefined

Open

Changing

Referred to it as "the goo" - the place where it is all undefined. Like a chrysalis.

Like certain Grateful Dead Jams - where there would be a period of time when they weren't really playing any one song (all songs at once) and then a melody or rhythm would appear and the song would form.

Caused by a particular band member or played through them?

Sometimes hard to tell.

And, the longer I stay in the goo the better the outcome.

As if choosing, forming, deciding, creating too early stifles what is yet to come.

This can be very hard at times. I get the feeling of wanting to pick...well, anything, just to have finally made some thing form, exert some type of control.

To let that go and patiently wait for fullness.

One of the hardest things I've done.

Wish?

2011-09-08T09:37:00.000-07:00

Many people have pointed out that my birthday this year comes up as "11-11-11"

A truly mystical, magical and powerful number, in certain circles.

Uhm, ok.

This triggered a series of thoughts that led to the question:

OK, if The Universe came to me and said "your birthday is 11-11-11 this year. We will grant you a one time, never to be repeated wish. Anything you can imagine and describe that does not break current laws of physics and consciousness, you can have. Anything. Period."

what would you wish for?

Talk is cheap...

2011-08-12T12:10:00.000-07:00

Talk is cheap...Show me the code

- Linus Torvalds

"Dirty Dirties"

2011-08-11T13:46:00.000-07:00

When I used to participate in EST-like self help workshops one of the things we did was to help keep each other "clear" - work through negative thoughts and emotions and mental hindrances.

Given the amount of crap in most people's heads and the length of time it took to process people to 'clean them' it became burdensome to have to spend a lot of time (20- 40 mins) clearing someone before they were allowed back into the training room.

I bring this up because one of my friends, a roshi in her own right, started the idea of 'super fast cleaning'

The idea was to quickly get to the bottom line where some one was stuck. their dirty dirties - their beliefs and judgment and mind talk and such that kept them stuck.

Experience showed that once those dirties were reached, aired and released people cleared up and could get back to doing whatever they were doing.

So, "Dirty Dirties" because the word for quick clearing. Bottom-lining it.

Recently, reading Chuck's post about The Coward in us all, made me think about dirty dirties.

What are yours? What are those little, niggly secrets that you keep hidden because you simply *cannot* tell anyone....

Those are what are keeping you stuck.

This recently happened to me. I had my own and didn't share and the other person kept theirs.

We were left with walls between us...not seeing what is really there.

Once we admitted the dirties, we we clear and could resume.

Annoyingly, per Chuck's post, I still gave in to my inner Coward.

All the things we feared would happen, didn't.

Funny how that works.

What is it I want?

2011-07-06T22:00:00.000-07:00

Alot of people are asking me that these days.

Above is the best picture I can find of it.

If you want something badly enough - hold a picture of it in your mind, unrelentingly.

FEDYRHD

2011-06-22T11:49:00.000-07:00

My car recently died. It was 21 years old and 8 of them with me. Pretty amazing actually.

Before I left it for the last time, i sat inside quietly and let in all the years and times we had together. Really said "goodbye' and "thank you." Such a great car. We'd been through alot together. Literally and figuratively.

I ended up replacing it with a VW Rabbit...White.

I've always loved the song White Rabbit (listen here) and always wanted a white rabbit car. I wanted a bumper sticker that said "who the hell is Grace Slick" or something of that sort. I thought it would be priceless.

So, when the opportunity came, I jumped and it looks like I made a good choice. The car itself is great and exactly what I wanted and needed. So, it all worked out well. Ironically, I would have never considered this model w/o the White Rabbit hook.

I am considering a custom license plate. The blog post title is what I would put on it. And no, no one will "get it."

Interestingly, getting the car now seems to mark a transition point in some way.

And, thank you Gracie, I wish you well.

Could You?

2011-06-17T14:04:00.000-07:00

Recently re-watched The Abyss - a fun film from Cameron before the Titanic days...

In one scene the main characters (married but separated) are trapped 1,500 feet underwater and have to swim to safety...but there is only one suit with oxygen.

The man is the stronger swimmer so the wife tells him to put on the suit...and she will have to drown, but the water is so cold she won't die - just freeze - and he can revive her when they get back to the main station (or, that is the plan).

The scene ends with him watching her drown right in front of his eyes.

Watch here

It all works out of course, and turns around later in the film when he has to do a deep dive and uses a new technique to breathe: hyper-oxygenated fluid that he breathes directly into his lungs. Effectively "drowning' but still able to breathe.

Watch it here

I should add - that he doesn't think he's going to survive the deep dive and is seeing his wife and friends for the last time...but is willing to make the dive anyway.

wow...the metaphors simply abound....

Being an ex-scuba diver, when I saw this film for the first time (and even today) the scene where he has to breath in the liquid inside his helmet makes my skin crawl.

Visions of Johanna

2011-06-17T12:15:00.000-07:00

Probably my favorite dylan song. One of my top 10 of all time. And has probably the best lyric in any song I can think of:
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes

(listen here)

***********************************************************

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet ?
We sit here stranded, though we're all doin our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handfull of rain, tempting you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there's nothing really nothing to turn of
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind.

In the empty lot where the ladies play blindman's bluff with the key chain
And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the D-train
We can hear the night watcman click his flashlight
Ask himself if it's him or them that's really insane
Louise she's all right she's just near
She's delicate and seems like the mirror
But she just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna's not here
The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place.

Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
And when bringing her name up
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
He's sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I'm in the hall
Oh, how can I explain ?
It's so hard to get on
And these visions of Johanna they kept me up past the dawn.

Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
See the primitive wallflower freeze
When the jelly-faced women all sneeze
Hear the one with the mustache say, "Jeeze
I can't find my knees"
Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule
But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel.

The peddler now speaks to the countess who's pretending to care for him
Saying, "Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him"
But like Louise always says
"Ya can't look at much, can ya man "

As she, herself prepares for him
And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed
The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes ev'rything's been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

2011-06-17T12:07:00.000-07:00

Lately there is a sense of sitting between two stone faces.

Looking back at How It Was

and

Looking forward to How (i think) It Could Be/ Might Want It To Be.

In between, simply noticing.

Use of Rationality?

2011-06-15T06:45:00.001-07:00

"For centuries thinkers have assumed that the uniquely human capacity for reasoning has existed to let people reach beyond mere perception and reflex in the search for truth. Rationality allowed a solitary thinker to blaze a path to philosophical, moral and scientific enlightenment. Now some researchers are suggesting that reason evolved for a completely different purpose: to win arguments. Rationality, by this yardstick (and irrationality too, but we'll get to that) is nothing more or less than a servant of the hard-wired compulsion to triumph in the debating arena."

Swan Dive into the Unknown

2011-05-24T14:39:00.000-07:00

Recent events have led me to a place where I find I have taken a huge running leap into the Unknown.

My wife and I of 10 years have split and are going through a trial separation.

She moved out recently and we're now seeing what is next: stay together in some changed fashion or not at all.

Our relationship had grown stale and stalemated and events were necessary to blast us out of our complacency and into a new, open way of being (the particulars of the explosives used is irrelevant. They were potent and did their work fast and sharp. Oww.)

We are now looking at how to lovingly integrate this new-found clarity and perspectives into a new relationship. What it looks like i have no idea.

One thing I've noticed is lack of patience. I notice this quite alot. There is a strong tendency to want to "fill in the blanks" and "be done with this already." And get to the "final outcome."

Not that there is a "final outcome."

It is very hard for me to stay in an undefined, boundary-less space in a relationship like this. There is a wanting of borders, boundaries and definition. It's been hard to remain in the unknown.

So in some ways I have to let it play out. At other times I've been called or even compelled to act. Some this has had the unmistakable feel of being steered or moved in certain ways. Compelled is a good word for it.

Yet this is about waiting for fullness. I never really liked learning patience; it seems to take forever.

And yet, is so. And when I do try to push the river (i hate that metaphor - that and "partners in crime" Eww) it totally doesn't work. So I've stopped.

It's been hard to not listen to others. My wife and I are doing this differently and in many cases listening to others, especially those who have gone through something similar, is not a help. They mainly come from a space of pain and anger and fear and are about protecting themselves, protecting their self, which is totally understandable given their perspective.

I did this as well early on and from time to time.

Ultimately though, I choose to come from the Heart and am willing to let my heart break (over and over at times it seems).

It's been hard to stay open and loving at times. During certain situations almost impossible. At times pure furious anger overtook me. I was watching it come up like cold fog rolling in.

Yet my natural state is one of calm and clear center and love. This is where I am mostly - occasionally, like being dragged under water, I experience negative emotions, but I seem to pop back to the surface after a bit.

At times I have had to "pull myself back from the brink" of mind based egoic fear and come through as Heart. Only through heart can this work. Mind is not invited.

There has been alot of letting go of "how I think I should be" and letting "how I am" simply be there. Lots of letting go of ignoring the obvious and believing the impossible.

Lately, I've noticed that there is some distance and space coming and I no longer (or at least not as much) feel invested in an outcome.

Outcomes are merely content that appears in consciousness and is not better or worse than others. Each has its plus and minuses. There is more a sense of being OK and accepting whatever happens. Do I have a clear preference? No.

Still, the mind creates mini-universes - playing out a thought or feeling or insight or fear to a complete picture, complete with its own feelings, thoughts and associated mental stuff.

Resisting the impulse to go down mental rat holes is a big part of this. I can feel the beginning of a mini-universe or a rathole being entered and usually (not always) pull myself back. Similar to pulling attention away from thought and back to my breath during meditation.

I noticed I had gotten out of alignment in some areas and this served as a wake up call to come back into balance.

Things I thought were true for me are not and vice versa. So I've learned more about myself, what I want and don't want.

Pain ends

Tears and snot dry

hearts heal

One thing interesting about this: my wife and I saw our relationship improve once we started down this path. Being open and honest - more so than we have for years.

One thing that has been hard for us is that our usual way of working through challenges - in partnership, doesn't work for this. We can't be apart, together.

And, for the first time in many years, I feel excited and look forward to my job.

So, kudos to my wife for having the courage to upset the apple cart. Way to go Trish!

Kudos for me for doing my work and not giving in or giving up.

My nature is one of waking up. Like the Phoenix rising from the ashes.

One more death and rebirth.

Oldie but a Goodie

2011-04-15T15:51:00.000-07:00

Two seekers approached an elderly wise man and asked him to take them as his students.

He replied: "I can only take one of you. I will give you a test to see which one of you is ready for my teachings. I will give each of you a chicken. Go where no one can see and kill the chicken. Then come back when you are done."

The first seeker went deep into the forest and when he thought no one was watching, he killed the chicken. When he returned to the old man and told him what he had done the old man just turned him away.

A few days later the other seeker returned looking haggard and drawn, but carrying the chicken which was still alive.

The old man asked: "What happened, why did you not kill the chicken as I told you?"

The seeker replied: " I went many places, to the deep forest, then behind the farthest barn, underneath the bridge, behind the mill. I walked a long time and went many, many places. But, wherever I went, the chicken could see."

Healing

2011-03-12T06:46:00.001-08:00

Part of this work must include healing the jagged edges, hindrances and fractured parts of the self.
As Wolff would say, the experience of E means nothing if you can't transcend your own psychology.

Recent events have brought attention to a very old fracture.

I have been fortunate to know and work with a medical intuitive.
Her site can be found here.

Thank you Sydney. Profound gratitude for you and what you do.

A Ballon's Preference

2011-03-12T06:44:00.000-08:00

Imagine a balloon tied with a string.

Would it prefer to be held by the string
or float away?

(hint: there is no right answer)

Pot Stirrer Gets Stirred

2011-03-08T07:32:00.000-08:00

My core nature is to be a pot-stirrer and smoke alarm (not squeaky wheel, there's a difference, think about it).

Lately events have conspired to stir the pot-stirrer.
Initial reactions were wild and things seem to be settling down into a new, albeit weird normal.

One lesson all this has given me is an appreciation for how little credence to give the mind's interpretation, prediction and planning for how to react to events.
"If she does this then I'll do that" kind of thing.

Problem is there is the missing existential component of the moment - no matter how carefully, fully and accurately i plan and propose and prepare, at the moment when the other person says or does something, everything can change.
Predicable reaction become unpredictable.
Low probability outcomes or even non-imagined outcomes become really possible.
Space opens up for things that are pretty much unimaginable or imagined undesirable. Surprise when they are now both real and desirable.
And, this is where the work done to reduce or eliminate programmed, conditioned mental and emotional hindrances kicks in. Without it I would most likely be hanging with Charlie Sheen. In Spades.

and "I" am still not doing anything.

fucking mind...
now where did I put that lobotomy knife... it's around here somewhere... (Thanks to Chuck for the Lobo Photo. He raises an excellent point. One should NEVER perform their own lobotomy...how to know where to stop?)

I still maintain that thought is the toxic waste byproduct of consciousness in form.
All this is happening below (beyond?) the level of verbal conceptual mind anyway, so the mental stuff is just garbage-overlay and needs to go. THAT is (part of ) what the practice is about for me.

"You Should Write More"

2011-02-28T11:28:00.001-08:00

I'm told that some times. It came up the other day when I went here and then clicked through toLiberatedself's blog roll and boop! there was Nemo's Notes in his/her blog roll.
Get a nice rush from that: odd, but also a bit of an egoic smell. not that it lingers long.
When I mentioned this I was told - "you should write more."
Sigh.I am currently erasing shoulds from my life. I see places where I do things out of fear of future perceived consequences, instead of genuine desire.

As for the site at the top I mentioned. I thought it might be Stephen Norquist's posts at first, but now I don't think so. It seems (to me) to have much more of an edge, dark even angry side. SN's writings never seemed that way to me (and he has his own site.)
Someone once asked me :" Why do all you enlightened guys seem so angry when we ask questions." Could be questions like that (just kidding).

No Hindrances

2011-01-27T12:59:00.000-08:00

Reading this:

“Their faith is intertwined with their self-identity"

Brought to mind this line:
Indeed, there is nothing to be attained; the Bodhisattvas live this deepest wisdom ' with no hindrance in the mind, no hindrance therefore no fear.

I love that: No hindrances in the mind.

For Zoom

2011-01-27T05:18:00.001-08:00

The dog can't move no more
Surprised he made it till the spring
His pain won't go away and the pills don't do a thing
You've know that ole hound longer
than you've known any of your friends
And no matter how you let him down
He'd always take you back again
So it's one tall glass of whiskey
One last drink for old times sake
The dog just lays in bed and watches every move you make
Wrap him in his blanket
Hold him once more close to you
Lead him out behind the barn
with a borrowed .22

Everything slips through these cold fingers
like trying to hold water, like trying to hold sand
Close your eyes and make wish and listen to the singer
"One more round bartender, pour a double if you can."

"These cold Fingers" - Bill Morrissey

Water over the bow

2011-01-26T17:53:00.001-08:00

Enjoying the illusion of returning to the things of man to participate or at least witness the downfall of humanity led to the romantic idea of being one of the musicians on the titanic who played as it went down.
What greater image can there be?
Knowing full well the end is near and yet playing one's role to the fullest even when, especially when it seems futile and meaningless.

Lately, having been given exactly what I wanted and needed I've been preoccupied and often exhausted past caring as a member of a dysfunctional bucket brigade.
Long days, short nights and tangible insanity all around.

As the fire wanes, energy returns and my head rises above the waves and with that comes room.
Room for writing, feeling, music, both listening and even playing. Picking up the guitar again after many many years. The feel of the strings. The same guitar I've had for 30 years. an old friend. Worn and chipped and old, kinda like me. But a new set of strings and we're good to go.

Spinning Away

2011-01-26T17:42:00.000-08:00

Those moments of least definition
Those times in between ISness
The space before and after
Without trying or effort
Without calling into being
Without names or identification or form
Without having to be any one, thing or more

With special thanks and nod to Eno/Cale: Wrong Way Up

Dec 3, 2010

2010-12-04T07:53:00.001-08:00

Five years.

Who's Choosing?

2010-11-10T12:41:00.001-08:00

This post in Savage Love inspired today's blog post:

What is your response to people who say that being gay is a choice?

"You think being gay is a choice? Then choose it: Suck my dick. Show me how it's done. You choose it—suck my dick—and I'll videotape it, and then we'll put the proof that being gay is a choice on the Internet for the whole world to see. Deal?"
- Dan Savage

Exactly.
Who or what is making your choices?
Can you choose to like something you detest (for me: boiled okra. You can put a $100 bill in my hand and that slimy, snot look-alike food ain't going down my gullet. $1,000? OK. I'm not proud; I have my price.)

Point being - you can't convince yourself of things you don't believe or simply choose to stop believing in them. Why Not? What's going on here?

Which leads to...

Who is this 'you' that you cling to as being the real you?
Who (or what) is actually making the choice?
Is there really a choice being made at all?

Note: for those of you who, looking at the picture, said:
'Wow! boiled okra doesn't look so bad...'
I have news for you: That's not boiled. That's fried (i think). I couldn't find a picture of boiled okra. I could find a picture to illustrate Dan's quote, but this is a family show...

No Rational Explanation Here

2010-11-03T14:19:00.000-07:00

Everyone wants a rational explanation for why things happen. It can be kooky, odd, whimsical, but it better be rational. I think rational in this context means "ego-centric."
By this I mean it better have an explanation tied to "I did it. I'm in control and I did it. This happened then this, then this, then I chose to do that."
Even if what "I did" is bad, awful, etc., still, bad I is better than no I.

And the explanation should be 'mechanical' in the sense that it is predictable, controllable, quantifiable and measurable.

I noticed this when watching Dexter. Initially it was a mystery why he was like he is. I loved that. Then they went and 'diluted' the character by giving him a nice (OK, maybe not so 'nice') reason for being how he is. That I didn't love as much.

I don’t know why I do the things I do, or like the things I like or make the choices I do...do you? Really?

There is an assumption under the need for a rational explanation that I do not have: my 'self' - I - am in control of..well...something! Thoughts and actions are the top two.
But what if "we" are not in control?
I was told that the 12 Step NA program says that a Higher Power is in control of everything except our thoughts and actions. Interesting how that slipped in, right?

Now, in my case I have seen this for decades. Sometimes when dating, my feelings would shift and I'd go from infatuation and feeling in love to nothing. Like a switch was turned off. And I wasn't doing it consciously! I didn't plan it, I didn't plot it out. It just happened and the extent of my experience was watching it happen.

But, boy was that not liked. I had better come up with some nice, neat, rational explanation for the shift in my feelings.

Because if my feelings can shift, then yours can too, right? And how can we count on anything, consistency, etc?

But there is no consistency. not really. There is only The Truth. And NO ONE likes that answer. That means we're not in control, and anything could happen at any moment. Well. isn't that exactly how it is?

And, if there is no control, then who or what am I? And that leads down a very deep rabbit hole that few will look into. Stare into that abyss long enough and it stares back. In Spades.

It leads to: "if I have no control then who or what is making the choices?"

It leads to no-self and that is simply unacceptable, so get to work to find (i.e. make up) a rational explanation to distract us from the deeper truth that is staring us in the face.

Wayne Liqourmann puts it well when he talks about being an alcoholic and knowing he should quit and all the bad things that were happening as a result of his addiction and he still does the same behaviors, even though they almost killed him. That is what convinced him that maybe the 'he' he thinks he is, is not really in control.

Maybe, as Steve Jobs says, looking back I’ll be able to connect the dots. But I sure can’t connect them while it’s all happening.

BTW: I'm not saying I don't take responsibility for my actions. Only that I'm not the author and can't give a nice, neat, rational explanation for why I do what I do, think what I think or feel what I feel. Only that I do.

Whose Life Is It?

2010-11-01T19:01:00.000-07:00

I was recently blogging about work and Kitty sent me the photo above.
At first I thought it read "your JOE is not your life"
Works either way quite well, actually.

Family

2010-10-28T13:46:00.000-07:00

"If you think you're enlightened go spend a week with your family."
Ram Dass

I recently spent 2 days with mine and had a fine time (minus a couple of awkward moments). No Stress, no muss or fuss. Just people hanging out. Everyone has their issues, of course.
But I could have done a week with no prob...not something that I've really been able to say for a long time, if ever. Stone cold sober, too.
Many paths were tried over the decades to avoid the reality of dealing with family and past. That seems to have faded.
As I said to one of my kin, who seeks a way out... There is no way out. There is simply no where to go.
And no, I don't take Ram Dass literally. Spending a week with them doesn't prove I'm enlightened (whatever that means) but being unable to do so sure could point in that direction...

Enlightenment and Capcaity Planning

2010-10-28T13:44:00.000-07:00

This was a quote I saw in, of all places, a book on IT capacity planning:

Busy work does not accrue enlightenment.

Western culture too often glorifies hours clocked as productive work. If you don't take time off to come up for air and reflect on what you're doing, how are you going to know when you're wrong?

Work and Career (pt. 1)

2010-10-14T18:59:00.000-07:00

Work and Career issues have been (some of ) the largest "unresolved' issues in my life - certainly in the last few years.
Trying to find the right job...the right work...the right people...and not settle or do what is easiest.

Found this today:

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something -- your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever -- because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.
And that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking -- and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking -- don't settle.

Steve Jobs
Commencement Address at Stanford University
delivered 12 June 2005, Palo Alto, CA

Light Shines Through

2010-10-14T15:22:00.000-07:00

Recently on my morning walk I took these pics.
The first two are interesting: you can see the sun rays in the second (from the position of being 'ahead' of the rays) and the first shows the dark rays (from being 'behind') the rays.

I think it interesting because from where I stand the appearance is different (light rays vs. dark rays) but the sun shines through just as brightly in both cases.

Accessories, Anyone?

2010-09-06T11:11:00.001-07:00

One Less Angel?

2010-08-26T14:41:00.000-07:00

I related this story to a friend of mine and she suggested (strongly) that I blog about it. I don't know why...I'm trusting you, Sherry!

A few years ago my wife and I were finishing a long hike down off the local mountain. As we came to the end of there trail there's an old, weathered fence that separates the grazing land portion of the mountain from the homes nearby.

As we approached we saw this white shape sitting on top of one of the fence posts.

We got closer and saw it was a white plaster angel. Not even a nice cheery cherub, either.

Like fins on cars this seemed so unnecessary. The trail, the trees, the dust, the fence, the rusting barbed wire all seemed of a piece. The angel definitely did not seem to belong.

How often do we do that? Add on to that which is fine just as it is?

This really infuriated my wife, by the way...who snuck back later at dusk and knocked the angel figurine off the post and into the ditch nearby.

My friend who suggested I blog this, pointed out that the possibility is that the person who put it there found it the exact right addition and it actually added to the beauty of the scene.

Or they are an artist who put it there and is filming people and their reactions.

All part of "Having to Believe."

Of Mice and Elephants

2010-08-24T13:41:00.001-07:00

Walking the trail I noticed there were two mice, lying on the trail, one moving a bit and the other not moving till I touched it and then it moved just a little.

I thought they were both babies.

I didn't know what to do. There was nothing to be done.

As I started to move away I heard one squeaking.

As I walked away my heart got full and heavy.

I chose not to tell my wife who was a ways ahead of me and didn't see them.

The next day as we passed the spot I looked down and saw both mice were dead.

I walked a few more feet and started to cry. Stopped and doubled over and just cried dripping tears into the dust. I then told my wife what had happened. She had actually stepped on the body of the smaller mouse. We moved them off the trail.

Many years ago walking through North Beach with a friend, we were on the corner of Columbus and Broadway, in front of Carol Doda's old place, catty-corner to City Light books and Jack Kerouc Alley.

We looked down and saw a mouse, wounded, dying, as people hurried around and stepped over, around, almost directly on the mouse.

My friend went back and stepped on the mouse, squishing it, killing it, and then walked on.

She was sorely effected by that.

I was too. No words, no thoughts.

This thought came back after seeing the dead mice.

Maybe she related to the wounded mouse, with people scurrying by, paying no attention.

Knowing her history, this seemed to fit.

Years ago, trying to convey an aspect of the Immensity of the Vastness in a word I was completely unable to reduce the Immensity to a concept, let alone a word. The image of trying to stuff an Elephant into a Mouse suit came to me as an analogy.

Which led to this piece I wrote a few years ago:

Imagine an Elephant. A REALLY BIG Elephant.

And that Elephant is hanging out in the middle of nowhere by itself.

And, it is alone. There are no other Elephants – never were and never will be.

Now, that’s fine.

One day, the Elephant says – “Gee, I’d like some company. Gee, I’d like to play.”

So, it creates a bunch of teeny-tiny mouse suits.

And it, the REALLY BIG Elephant, tries to put on the mouse suit.

Now, obviously, this is a tight fit. To say the least.

The Elephant has to leave certain parts of itself out, because they just won’t fit.

And, it takes A LOT of mouse suits to hold even a little bit of the Elephant.

The Elephant imbues each mouse suit with the ability to “think” for itself – kinda like winding up a toy and letting it go.
It has to give the mice an illusion of free will or what’s the fun?
Plus emotions to make it all seem really real – danger is scary, love is dreamy, etc.

Then, the Elephant creates a HUGE playground for the mice.

And sets them loose.

Now, the Elephant (when in a mouse suit) can experience all the “reality” of being a mouse – hopes, fears, triumphs, pain, loss, gain, etc. that it can't experience being The Elephant.

Mice all have to die eventually or the place gets real crowded real fast.
And, the Elephant uses the death of a mouse as a way to end that particular “reality”/mouse-ness when it is done/bored/tired of it. On to the next. So birth is a way to get a bit of the Elephant into a new mouse suit (and new associated mouse-life).

Now, imagine that one day one of the mice “realizes” that she is, in fact an Elephant in a mouse suit.

Not just heard it from other mice, not just read about, not even “figured it out.”

But knew this to be true. In effect, the mice voluntarily gives up the “illusion” of being a separate mouse.

Now, this is very interesting.

On the one hand, she’s still got a mouse suit – and all that goes along with it.

But, she also knows, and will for the rest of her life (in that mouse suit) she is really an Elephant in a mouse suit.

Imagine how odd that would be.

Remember, all the other mice still think they are “real” and separate mice and the idea of Elephant is a belief sustained with faith.

The wonder and magic of Life lives through us and often it seems in spite of us

2010-08-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

We recently moved from a peaceful, beautiful, warm, sunny, quiet 5 acre farm where we would go weeks w/o seeing anyone to The Bay Area, where it can be cold, foggy, noisy with lots of people.

Going through the day to day things to do and watching the people around me. Many don't seem very happy. They seem sad, mad, resigned. I smile at them and often they smile back. Were they just waiting to be reminded? Called out?

My wife was saying how do people live like that day to day?

I said, well, it's not really living. And the IS is still pulsating and shining through. But, put up enough clouds and even the sun seems to get blotted out. Not completely of course. But it can seem that way.

Standing at the hardware store, under a 6 foot sign that says "Keys Made Here" and the keymaker is making a key for me with all the whirring and grinding noise and there are all these key blanks on hangers around and this other customer walks up and asks: '"Do you make keys here."

It was just too funny. I just looked at my wife and giggled.

I said to the key maker:"How often do you get that question?"

He said: "You don't want to know."

I was laughing all the way out. I think maybe I punched through his crust (a bit).

So, how do people do it day to day? Well, *they* don't. Life does. And the conditioned mind gets more conditioned, people get more hypnotized and stop looking, noticing or being present. That is what we see.

Yet, when we are empty, clear, not clouding the sky with mental debris...

I can watch my car trailer come loose and roll away and smash the neighbors car...and wonder and laugh at it (thanking the impulse to get take the full insurance option).
I can drive through downtown San Francisco driving a 26 foot fully loaded truck towing my car on the trailer on the freeways and city streets, making tight turns and all, having never done this before...and do it well (enough).
I can order in chinese food for the first time in 2 years (the country house, while fabulous, was 30 miles from the nearest town) and enjoy the immediacy and convenience.
I can look around at the fog and listen to the occasional jets flying over (seems we're near SFO's flight path) and the damp and smaller quarters and my wife freaking out thinking we made a mistake...and talk her down. (We didn't make a mistake).
I can appreciate the different climate ...as well as when the fog lifts and we can see for miles and even see the top of the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance.
I can appreciate and value a small community, shops, people, hustle, bustle, life.
I can appreciate drinks and dinner in North Beach.
I can be happy to be back in the Bay Area. I love the Bay Area.
I can be nice to people and greet them and meet my new neighbors and say "Hi" and meet the organic grocer lady and enjoy the sights and sounds and the feel.
And I can reconnect with my wife, re-partner up. We've had it so easy materially and spiritually in the mountains and we've gotten lazy in processing our stuff.
My kitties have been healing me and I them. My elder cat even invited me to meditate with her. While we sat there she healed my back, sore from moving.
And I can find a beautiful trail to hike nearby. Saying "Morning" to people as we pass (but not the runners or cyclists - they are too focused on their feet or pedals).
I can see and treasure the opportunity to put theory into practice.

Life is wonderful, magical in all its ways.

I feel so grateful and lucky to simply be.

Stay Hungy, Stay Foolish

2010-08-22T09:49:00.000-07:00

Reading about Steve Jobs recently, combined with a recent series of (unusual) drops on the part of Apple support, I found myself re-reading Steve's commencement speech at Stanford. I liked it so much that I chose to post it here.

Steve's speech reminded me what is possible when we Dream. And Break All The Rules.

The Problem with Abdicating to an "Authority"

2010-08-20T06:37:00.001-07:00

Validation

2010-08-20T06:33:00.001-07:00

Wonder and magic abounds, and is so simple.

Enjoy the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbk980jV7Ao

Tapasia

2010-08-04T17:26:00.001-07:00

Back in the 80's I introduced a friend of mine to ***-**, and he introduced me to the book: Be Here Now by Ram Dass. The first time I opened the book I opened to a page that described exactly what I was experiencing at that moment.

Given the intense subjective aspect of my experience, I thought: Wow, Pretty neat trick. This is a keeper.

I treasured the book and what it had to say and began listening to and seeing Ram Dass. He always resonated with me.

I last saw him about 6 years ago in Marin, CA. He was in a wheel chair from his stroke, but still telling stories and being Ram Dass. Comforting in a way. The questions he was being asked were probably the same ones he had heard thousands of times. He mentioned hearing the inner voice through the din of the outer blaring trumpets.

I raised my hand to ask a question.

How does one make the trumpets quieter?

He paused...(unusual for him) and then he (the universe) answered:

You don't make the trumpets quieter, you ignore them and pay more attention to the inner voice.

Recently I came across this quote from Be Here Now, for a friend:

Tapasia
Strengthening By Fire

If a man gives way to all his desires, or panders to them, there will be no inner struggle in him, no ‘friction’ no fire. But, if for the sake of attaining a definite aim, he struggles with the desires that hinder him – he will gradually then create a fire which will gradually transform his inner world into a single whole.

-- Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous

Here is a Deep Bow, Big Hug and Big Smiles to Ram Dass.

The Speaker Surprised Me

2010-07-31T13:21:00.000-07:00

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. ... Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated.

The tough mind is sharp and penetrating, breaking through the crust of legends and myths and sifting the true from the false. The tough-minded individual is astute and discerning. He has a strong austere quality that makes for firmness of purpose and solidness of commitment.
Who doubts that this toughness is one of man's greatest needs? Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

Softmindedness often invades religion. ... Softminded persons have revised the Beautitudes to read "Blessed are the pure in ignorance: for they shall see God." This has led to a widespread belief that there is a conflict between science and religion. But this is not true. There may be a conflict between softminded religionists and toughminded scientists, but not between science and religion. ... Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary.

There is little hope for us until we become toughminded enough to break loose from the shackles of prejudice, half-truths, and downright ignorance.The shape of the world today does not permit us the luxury of softmindedness. A nation or civilization that continues to produce softminded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.
But we must not stop with the cultivation of a tough mind. The gospel also demands a tender heart. ... What is more tragic than to see a person who has risen to the disciplined heights of toughmindedness but has at the same time sunk to the passionless depths of hardheartedness?

-- Martin Luther King Jr.

Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose

2010-07-30T09:12:00.000-07:00

Is the motto of the Dillon Panthers, a Texas high school football team shown in the TV Series Friday Night Lights.

Not watching any TV these days, only movies. When I do occasionally turn on TV it seems so odd, surreal and well, just strange.

This is one series I have really enjoyed:

The show models grown-up, self-actualized/human adulthood behavior in almost every character, from 8 to 80 year olds. I find this rare in TV: modeling conscious, adult behavior; it's refreshing.
Everyone "mans up." Even the women. I mean, almost every character vanquishes their demons and egoic mind to break free. It's inspiring, to say the least.
Entertaining. The writing is good, characters have depth, real issues and the acting is very good. Subtleties in performance, camera technique, caught looks and glances all contribute.

And, love their motto.

What are you watching?

Playing for Change

2010-07-30T06:12:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgWFxFg7-GU&feature=channel

with love to us all...

http://playingforchange.com/

Thanks to Jeff J. for this one - I needed it exactly when it came through.

Big smile

Big hugs

Deep bow

Why Cats Don't Talk

2010-07-28T08:44:00.001-07:00

If cats could talk, they wouldn't.

~Nan Porter

Riding the Iron Rail

2010-07-27T16:09:00.000-07:00

My friend Sherry recently blogged. In there, the quote:

"The quality of your life is determined by the focus of your attention" — Cheri Huber

Reminded me: in motorcycle riding we go where we look. It's called "Riding the Iron Rail."

If I look at the car's bumper ahead of me - then that is where I'm going. Even if it means riding right into the bumper. Or worse.

We train ourselves to break the gaze, look away and avoid the collision.

Make a new choice instead of riding the iron rail and smashing into the car.

In grappling with the mind-ego, it seems we begin to give this anthropomorphic qualities:

My mind is after me

I have to kill my ego

Satan is after me (?)

etc...

And now it's a real thing and begins to take on a life of its own and a momentum of its own and all of a sudden we've gone from simply breaking a habit to a massive war. Something doable to something impossible. The technical term for this is: you're screwed.

I look at this aspect of mind as a conditioned reaction. A set of (now) hardwired reactions, old same tapes and old same tricks (David S writes on this).

This functioning of the mind is conditioned. It's a learned reaction, a habit.

Until we learn to ignore our egoic, conditioned mind, to create new pathways, to recognize its old tricks...we're stuck riding the iron rail to our doom.

It's so simple to unlearn.

Simply break the gaze.

What is Meditation?

2010-07-27T14:41:00.000-07:00

Meditation is Non-doing

When people come to me and they ask, "How to meditate?" I tell them, "There is no need to ask how to meditate, just ask how to remain unoccupied. Meditation happens spontaneously. Just ask how to remain unoccupied, that's all. That's the whole trick of meditation - how to remain unoccupied. Then you cannot do anything. The meditation will flower.

When you are not doing anything the energy moves towards the centre, it settles down towards the centre. When you are doing something the energy moves out. Doing is a way of moving out. Non-doing is a way of moving in. Occupation is an escape. You can read the Bible, you can make it an occupation. There is no difference between religious occupation and secular occupation: all occupations are occupations, and they help you to cling outside your being. They are excuses to remain outside.

Man is ignorant and blind, and he wants to remain ignorant and blind, because to come inwards looks like entering a chaos. And it is so; inside you have created a chaos. You have to encounter it and go through it. Courage is needed - courage to be oneself, and courage to move inwards. I have not come across a greater courage than that - the courage to be meditative.

But people who are engaged outside - with worldly things or nonworldly things, but occupied all the same, they think ....and they have created a rumor around it, they have their own philosophers. They say that if you are introvert you are somehow morbid, something is wrong with you. And they are in the majority. If you meditate, if you sit silently, they will joke about you: "What are you doing? - Gazing at your navel? What are you doing? - Opening the third eye? Where are you going? Are you morbid? Because what is there to do inside? There is nothing inside."

Inside doesn't exist for the majority of people, only the outside exists. And just the opposite is the case - only inside is real; outside is nothing but a dream. But they call introverts morbid, they call meditators morbid. In the West they think that the East is little morbid. What is the point of sitting alone and looking inwards? What are you going to get there? There is nothing.

David Hume, one of the great British philosophers, tried once... because he was studying the Upanishads and they go on saying: Go in, go in, go in - that is their only message. So he tried it. He closed his eyes one day - a totally secular man, very logical, empirical, but not meditative at all - he closed his eyes and he said, "It is so boring! It is a boredom to look in. Thoughts move, sometimes a few emotions, and they go on racing in the mind, and you go on looking at them - what is the point of it? It is useless. It has no utility."

And this is the understanding of many people. Hume's standpoint is that of the majority: What are going to get inside? There is darkness, thoughts floating here and there. What will you do? What will come out of it? If Hume had waited a little longer - and that is difficult for such people - if he had been a little more patient, by and by thought disappear, emotions subside. But if it had happened to him he would have said, "That is even worse, because emptiness comes. At least first there were thoughts, something to be occupied with, to look at, to think about. Now even thoughts have disappeared; only emptiness....What to do with emptiness? It is absolutely useless."

But if he had waited a little more, then darkness also disappears. It is just like when you come from the hot sun and you enter your house: everything looks dark because your eyes need a little attunement. They are fixed on the hot sun outside; comparatively, your house looks dark. You cannot see, you feel as if it is night. But you wait, you sit, you rest in a chair, and after few seconds the eyes get attuned. Now it is not dark, a little more light........

You rest for an hour, and everything is light, there is no darkness at all.

If Hume had waited a little longer, then darkness also disappears. Because you have lived in the hot sun outside for many lives your eyes have become fixed, they have lost flexibility. They need tuning. When one comes inside the house it takes a little while, a little time, a patience. Don't be in a hurry.

In haste nobody can come to know himself. It is a very very deep awaiting. Infinite patience is needed. By and by darkness disappears. There comes a light with no source there is no flame in it, no lamp is burning, no sun is there. A light, just like it is morning: the night has disappeared, and the sun has not risen.... Or in the evening - the twilight, when the sun has set and night has not yet descended. That's why Hindus call their prayer time sandhya. Sandhya means twilight, light without any source.

When you move inwards you will come to the light without any source. In that light, for the first time you start understanding yourself, who you are, because you are that light. You are that twilight, that sandhya, that pure clarity, that perception, where the observer and the observed disappear, and only the light remains.
Osho - from the book What is Meditation?

Photos and text © Osho International Foundation

Theory and Practice

2010-07-27T09:35:00.001-07:00

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.

Jan L. A. van de Snepscheut/Yogi Berra.

Flow Experience

2010-07-27T09:30:00.000-07:00

Definition:

Getting so lost in the activity one forgets the point of why they're doing it in the first place.

A malady common to, but not exclusive of, seekers.

Example: Taking a clock apart to find out what time it is.

By the way: It's ok to lose yourself in what you do. That is not what this points to:

When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.Suzuki, Shunryu

Meditation Chuckle

2010-07-27T09:21:00.000-07:00

As related by a new Zazen student. Having arrived at the Zendo for the first time and sitting for a few hours, got up and approached the Roshi.

Student: OK, I'm done. I'm Enlightened enough.

Roshi: Ha ha ha. Now Go Sit.

(Thanks and nod to Bob G. for this one)

Loss

2010-07-26T07:42:00.000-07:00

Are you willing to give up all you hold dear to know what's Real, even for a moment?

This question gets asked alot along The Way and perhaps we answer semi-automatically.

Have you asked this and really let it in? More than just words or sounds or ideas?

Really let in the feeling of this? What this truly means?

Really Really?

And, lest this become too melodramatic and one more mind-knot, what's pointed to here is not necessarily literal loss, but rather loss of ones' beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and mind-knots about that thing.

The cotton-candy fluff that hardens until it seems solid and gets in the way of the Real.

Wouldn't you like to give that up, even for a moment to see what's Really there?

Postcard

2010-07-26T06:22:00.000-07:00

Speed Bump

2010-07-24T08:30:00.000-07:00

Learn to recognize the difference between a speed bump, a wall and your own internal resistance.

Speed Bump means slow down, proceed slowly, but don't stop.

A Wall means no further access this way, go around (or find a door...)

Internal Resistance can be faced and overcome (or ignored or melted...).

Need

2010-07-24T08:23:00.000-07:00

The universe gives you exactly what you need every moment.

No more, no less. The universe is hyper-efficient.

Really let this in....Try it as a meditation point.

The universe gives you exactly what you need for this moment.

One example of how a shared reality might work...

2010-07-21T10:06:00.000-07:00

Simply Celebrate

2010-07-20T11:09:00.001-07:00

Watching the movie "What the Bleep Do We Know" reconfirmed a suspicion I've had recently that many of us walk around self-hypnotized.
I mean literally hypnotized.
Think of all the environmental factors that contribute to this:

TV
Media
Radio
iPod, iPod, iPhone
TV (worth a double mention ;-)
Mindless egoic babble
Allowing Dark background into the foreground
Mindless Tasks

Question for you: What would you add to this list?

Question for you: How do you break yourself out of this hypnotic trance?

Two dear friends of mine have a technique that works wonderfully and magically. I would like to share this with you.

The technique is called "Simply Celebrate."

In a nutshell it is:

Notice you are on automatic. Noticing is the first step. This can come from inside or outside.
Take a moment and be quiet internally and allow creativity to fill you and think about how to do what you are doing in a different, creative fashion.
Notice any difference this makes.

And, over time, look back and see what difference doing Simply Celebrate is making in your life.

Example: I'm driving, notice I've been on auto-pilot. I then Simply Celebrate by choosing to put on a different radio station. I usually listen to rock, so maybe I change to classical. Or I take my shoes off and drive with my bare feet. Or start singing a song.

The actual specifics of what you choose does not really matter, as long as you:

Break the trance
Bring in (non-local) awareness and creativity.

Why does this work?

1. Consciously breaking out of the trance actually causes the neurons in your brain to break their old synaptic patterns, thus opening you to the possibility of new choices and behaviors (FYI: this is a good thing). However, this is not sufficient by itself; or you could simply slap your own wrist, thus breaking the trance.

2. The Creative aspect is vital because this is a direct invitation to the IS to come in and "enlighten" you. Even something small can have this effect.

You can do this anywhere, anytime, with no preparation, training, resources, help, financial support, moral encouragement, support groups, snazzy accessories, zafus, zabutans, incense, books, poems, mantras, gurus, gods, etc. You can do this anytime, as much as you want and it works deeper and deeper.

One thing I like about this technique is that it supports the practice of "small breakthroughs."

By inviting in small breakthroughs, I also invite in what could become a big breakthrough. As I open to breakthrough vs. auto-pilot I open my self. My consciousness expands. My heart opens. My world improves. My experience of the world improves.

Like little ideas and Big Ideas. We can't tell what ideas will be big. So allowing in little ideas opens the door to the ones that are really Big. (Read more about this in the book: Ideas are Free).

Practicing Simply Celebrate allows the Extraordinary Life that is Right Here Right Now to break through the ordinary life you're sleeping through. It can help break through the static, unyielding bubble we place ourselves in called My Life.

Lather - rinse - repeat until mind melts

Then get on with it.

What is on your reading list?

2010-07-20T10:21:00.000-07:00

My current reading list:

Self-Aware Universe - Goswami
Alice in Wonderland - Carroll
Paradise Lost - Milton
Leaves of Grass - Whitman
Morning Talks - Sant Kirpal Singh Ji
The Physics of Consciousness: The Quantum Mind and the Meaning of Life - Evan Harris Walker
The Psychedelic Experience - Leary

What are you reading?

Local vs. Non-local Knowing

2010-07-19T08:58:00.000-07:00

There appears to be three ways we know:

1. Via the Senses ( i include internal mental objects with this)

2. Reasoning (a=b, b=c, therefore a = c)

3. Direct knowing (Wolff: introception, knowing through identity)

Reading about quantum mechanics, specifically local and non-local phenomena:

When an electron quantum jumps from one energy state to another, it does so in a discrete jump, not a continuous movement (like beaming in star trek, for example, as opposed to taking an elevator between floors).

However, the big question is: where does the electron "go" during the jump?

It is said to go out of space-time. It ceases to exist.

So, it bips out of space-time-existence at one energy level and bips back in at another..

Oh, and it doesn't just bip back in...it comes back into space-times-existence when it is observed by consciousness. (Enlightenment Opportunity: if you have sufficient personal power you can use this as a portal inward...)

In a sense, consciousness grounds the possibility into reality.

OK, cool, but so what? What does that have to do with me?

Have you had an experience of reasoning? You reason out and solve a problem. It follows a series of steps and can even be said to feel or be "continuous" (in a sense, work with me here).

Compare this with the feeling of direct "Ah Ha!" insight and knowing. We've all had it. Think about a time when suddenly you just KNEW...with tons of knowing and creative energy and you are just bursting forth and you feel like you know everything at once and not in a linear way -but comes in waves and seems VAST.

So, perhaps....

Reasoning happens via the (egoic) brain-mind. And, thought, as conveyed by neurons in the brain, in space-time-existence must obey the physical laws of the universe - which means information cannot travel faster then light. Now, light is fast and this is why thinking can seem so fast. Still, the experience of reasoning seems "limited" in comparison.

But...

What if Direct Knowing (like the little electron on a jump) occurs non-locally, outside of space-time-existence...in the middle of the IS?

If this direct knowing is connecting with being the Universal Consciousness, then as this consciousness, there is direct, immediate, instantaneous (nonlocal = outside of space-time, remember?) access to all knowledge and all consciousness that is, was or will be.

(I can't testify to the last one - but nothing is impossible, so...)

This may be why direct insight feels so Vast, Fast and HUGE. Because it IS (pun intended).

So what, you asked earlier?

By allowing that direct connection to not be blocked, resisted, or slowed down by the mind, one accesses ALL. You are having a Direct Experience of the IS (aka Reality, Universal Consciousness, God, grape jam, whatever). Without leaving the comfort of your chair.

How cool is that?

(No literal truth has been presented here, it is a story, nothing more.)

Wonder and Magic Abounds

2010-07-17T19:34:00.000-07:00

Eternal Wonder and Magic Abounds!

Don't restrict, abandon, exclude, shut out the wonder and magic.

Allow wonder and magic to fill your world.

Removing/excluding wonder from your world is not a skill you need to acquire.

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

-(William Blake, "Auguries of Innocence")

(image from: http://www.matiklarweinart.com/en/gallery/grain-of-sand-1963-1965.htm)

Thought For The Day

2010-07-16T11:53:00.001-07:00

Clarifying

2010-07-12T16:20:00.000-07:00

Early on, I wrote: "Everything we know via perception is a mental construct."

I had mistakenly assumed the mind creates. I would now say it does not. Not really.
Does a contractor create? Or simply build the building as designed by the Designer, Originator, Architect?

This is the point I missed. Once I let in that the mind does not create (Don Juan: The creator that does not really create) but simply passes through, filters, adds onto that Which IS - shining through, all kinds of things shifted. The filters, add ons, interpretations, stories are added by the mind but are taken as reality. This is part of the illusion.

What is Reality? Reality is what IS with no filters or interferences. Personality is a filter, Human Being is a filter, Form is a filter, Thought is a filter (not a specific thought, the "laws" of how thought works.)

Even consciousness is a filter, albeit about as minimal as one can get. Still, consciousness is movement in the IS and as such is a filter.

Reality, the IS can be experienced directly. I had not thought this possible - that all we have are mental constructs and Reality was "over there somewhere" and I had to "get to it" via practice. I took "know" to mean "conceptualize." And in that sense the statement is correct.
No.
Reality.
The IS
Is RIGHT HERE and NOW in all its blazing maelstrom energy.

Why do I not see it that way? Because I have my "filters of the mind" dialed-down so constricting and restricting.
Now, some of that is needed for the organism to survive. (It's really hard to bite an apple when it appears as a cloud of quantum bits - an electron cloud - no distinct surface..what the hell do you bite into?)

Also, The IS operates at NO TIME speed - very fast. So part of what the mind does is to "slow down" Reality so we can manage it.

By raising levels of energy-vibration we can access different realms, realities and universes.

Yet it is ALL right HERE , right NOW...If I simply knew how to dial in the right frequency or simply dial off my filters (Like Hal in 2010) the raging blazing purity and intensity would all be perceivable..

Oh, and I am That IS. So are you, So is everything.

Killing a Belief

2010-07-02T12:16:00.000-07:00

I have a persistent belief that I can't quite kill off.

I've seen that belief is false and that what is pointed to is simpler and easier to come to than the ragged, layered, thick idea of the belief....

yet, here it is. A couple of teeth left

A wounded animal.

I look at it.

Ask it: why am I clinging to you?

What is it about you that promises some thing that sustains it and keeps it in place.

I will keep looking. Once found, and light of Truth brought to it, I know it will fade away, like a dead vampire in the sun.

Can Reality Be Known Directly?

2010-07-02T11:19:00.001-07:00

What is Reality?
What is Knowing?
Is there a difference between knowing and experiencing?
Can Reality be known directly?
If not, why not. If so, how is that different from "normal" perception?
What is the Shift?

I'm not planning on posting any answers anytime soon - but thought you might benefit from what I'm working on and considering these yourself and see what answers arise.....

Modeling Behavior

2010-07-02T11:06:00.000-07:00

When I used to teach software design I would use real-world examples in class rather than the canned case studies the course came with. I preferred to let the students watch me work a (new, unknown) problem, thus modeling the behavior that they were to use in their own software development.

This worked very well. This was also, as you might imagine, risky. There were several times when I worked myself into a design corner that was wrong and had to backtrack and redo and redesign.

Many instructors would freak out at this idea - that they could make a mistake in front of the class.

Me., I saw it as freeing and a great teaching technique:
1. I'm human and I make mistakes
2. I'm willing to own my dirty butt
3. Here's how I fix it

Same is true here. I'll share what I'm going through as I revisit and re-consider many things I've "taken for granted" since (and before ) The Shift.

This is all a work in progress - any of it may be deemed trash and redone at any time.
So, as I always suggested to my students...

Take notes in pencil.

I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque

2010-07-02T07:06:00.001-07:00

For those of you who don't remember, Bugs would occasionally pop up in the wrong place and say it was due to his taking the wrong left turn.

There is some of that feeling arising in me this week.

Recent discussions have pointed to the need for me to re-examine some core ideas I have been thinking, saying and believing around all this.

While The Shift is The Shift, I see now there are many ideas and such that I had not done all my work on. Not fully investigated thought about or delved into deeply enough.
Sharon's posts have been immeasurably helpful in clearing out the weeds in my head.

I will say that clearing the weeds is easier, faster than before. The Shift does help there.

The Missing Conversation

2010-06-28T12:50:00.001-07:00

Watching Devil's Advocate again last night reminded me of an insight i had into the Whole God-Satan thing.
Accepted mythology is that Lucifer, the Best Angel, rebelled against God - started a holy war and was cast out of heaven (by Jesus if you read Paradise Lost) and into Hell and became the central force for evil on earth. Evil for man to prove himself against...

Most of what I have read on the subject says Lucifer was innately rebellious.

But, what if he wasn't? Here's the missing conversation (takes place before Lucifer's rebellion)
God: Lucifer, my best, most talented and trusted angel, I have a huge task for you.
Lucifer; Yes God whatever it is , how can I be of service?
G: Well, I've created this dualistic universe and I need a "god" to play the role of evil to my good.
L: Okay....(seeing where this is going)
G: This god will be reviled and feared and hated for all eternity. He will be separate and at odds with me. I need my best, most talented and trusted angel to do this. I am asking you.

Now this is where it gets a bit fuzzy. Lucifer agreed to do it...by starting the rebellion! His rebellion was not against God as such, it was against what God was asking him to do - what he was being banished to do. So, his "No I don't want to do that" became the basis of the energy that allowed him to be Satan.

AND, he ends up doing gods will anyway by "resisting/rebelling against" god's will.
How perfect is that?

But, it's all God's will, right, so there was really no choice involved.
I like to think the Intense Anger and Rebellion of Lucifer was fed by his unwillingness to play the role and this intense unwillingness became the basis for Satan's Evil and hatred and Rebellion.

Anyway, a different take on the story.

Death in the family

2010-05-26T09:58:00.000-07:00

My biological father passed away this morning.
I senses it was coming from talking to him the last few days.
I notice a shakiness and jitteriness arising. Not sadness per se.
So, there is just noticing what is arising and sitting with it.
Feeling a heaviness and somber-soberness.
Not trying to label or judge.
No preference. No needing it to be this way or that.
No need to put it into bliss-bunny terms like love and light and such.
No need to make it right or ok or any of the other new age BS around make lemonade from lemons.
No suffering. No Guilt or Shame or Fear.
Just here, witnessing. That is all there is.

Newborn

2010-05-07T08:16:00.000-07:00

E = How I was right after I was born/conceived...
In talking to my mom the other day and describing the complete de-socialization/deprogramming aspect of E, this is what she said.
Seemed pretty spot on.

Akin to Nizy's - what were you before you were born, I think.

Freedom Restricted

2010-04-30T09:15:00.001-07:00

Lately noticing a sense of out-of-placeness/weirdness. Couldn't quite put my finger on it.

Not weirdness in being.

No, more weirdness in rubbing against the "constraints" of the Role being played.

Pure freedom - unbounded, unfettered, no preferences, no desires, begins to chafe (is a good word for it) against the inherent restrictions of the role. Since, the Role is a restriction by definition.

The role, the story, gets repeated, reinforced and rehearsed as we tell it to ourselves and others over and over and over. Who we are, what we are, how we should be, how the world, others and life should be.

We carry lots of things to remind us of the role - pictures, mementos, collectibles, memorabilia, each other.

So, as the repetition is dropped the constant replaying and rehearsing of who and what I am and should be drops away, there is a chafing - almost like being in a straightjacket

Without these reminders we would revert to our natural state w- clean, pure, no "shoulds" and roles and not much ahead of us more than what to do next.

Separate Sense of Self as Learned Behavior/MIndset

2010-02-26T06:58:00.000-08:00

(Note: click on image to see larger version)
Playing with 3D stereograms reminds me that the process whereby I can "see" the 3D image "feels" very much like awakening did/does.

There is a sense or experience of allowing something to unfold, stopping resisting, letting it happen.

It cued me to think about maybe this whole "separate self-identification with body-mind" is a learned behavior. I almost certainly did not have this when I was born. No, I think this is taught and reinforced over and over and over again until a mental process or "overlay" as FMW calls it develops. Ego, in other words. The idea that I am the author of my thoughts and actions.

So, perhaps E is breaking free of this mental process. Perhaps trying to break free simply perpetuates it. Perhaps one, "by accident" happens onto the right combination of mental ...whatevers...to stop the process. Even for a moment.

I certainly don't know how or what I do to see the stereograms.

And yet I do.

And many don't

Society wants to you to be a Person, a self

2009-12-13T15:47:00.000-08:00

Saw this billboard a while ago in downtown SF. Kinda sez it all.

Nice Inquiry

2009-12-12T20:58:00.001-08:00

I came across this post.
I enjoyed the simple way he went about the inquiry.
His bits about sensory forms versus thought forms was nice and his pointing out that each sense of the object - is a separate thought form. I saw this early on , that the juncture of sensory thought forms, and mental thought forms, this juncture is made real by me, and is the "self" that is "assumed' or filled in by the mind. If there is seeing, there must be a see-er, and in that instant "i" as seer seems to exist. Such is the nature of perception and thought: if there is a thought, there must be a thinker and I am the thinker.

But no, simply an illusion, the mind filling in pieces. Which is what it does: Example: see here and more here, have fun.
His point about "maybe it's just forms of distinction all the way down" seems spot on with the question-observation: Does it all exist before it's discovered, or does it come into being at the moment of observation. Did you get the hint?

This seemed to point to the same thing, here.

I had fouind this a few years ago. A thorough, in-depth academic description of NonDuality and awakening, by someone who admitted he wasn't awake...yet is one of the best reads.

The Familiar is the Most Addictive

2009-12-10T13:02:00.000-08:00

Old Story:

Man 1 to Man 2, who is sitting in a sewer: "Why are you sitting in the dark, dank, smelly, disgusting hole?"
Man 2: "Yes, its all that, but it's also warm and familiar."

Variations of this have been around for a while. A potential universal truth for People.

I recently had an insight as to why even something "bad" is welcomed.

The sensation/feeling of "the familiar" is perhaps the most deep-seated, most basic trait or aspect of a living organism.
The ability to recognize something must precede all. Likes, dislikes, etc. To know you like or dislike, there must be recognition first.

So, recognition happens and the feeling of familiarity, something previously experienced, is so strong and so enticing and reinforcing and attractive, that it undermines the actual experience of the thing which is familiar.

Where it happens deep in the nervous system (like smell is one of the primal senses); the Feeling of Familiarity ignites the pleasure centers, even if there object of familiarity itself is not pleasurable. So, while familiarity is most basic and probably works at the neuron-base consciousness level - preferences, judgements, likes, dislikes and all related are add-ons and effectively transient.
Feeling of recognition/ familiarity is not.

Once again pointing to The Source not having a preference for the content of perception. Recognition-familiarity, is sufficient.

Wizard of Oz as Enlightenment Story

2009-08-01T10:32:00.001-07:00

Dec 24 2005

Watching the Wizard of Oz the other night it occurred to me it was a perfect allegory of the search for enlightenment.
A person, unhappy in their current story, looking desperately for a way out, undergoes a severe event (the twister) and lands in a wonderful, magical place.
However, they know this place is not real and seeks desperately to return home (to how she used to be, no matter how unpleasant that seemed
They are given the means to do so (the ruby slippers) but (apparently) wouldn’t believe that they will work, so must go on a quest. Before she can leave she is threatened if she does not give up the quest and her power – the wicked witch representing the Ego. The Guru – Glinda, sets her on the path.

She goes to see the Wizard, representing accumulated knowledge and wisdom.
She first meets someone who thinks they have no brain, yet can clearly speak and think. And gives conflicting advise. They continue. They meet one without a heart. One who clearly demonstrates compassion, but believes they have no heart. Lesson here is that one can be compassionate yet strong. Tears rust him.

They meet the lion, who is cowardly, but still shows true courage. All the pieces are there, why do they think it is missing.
Going across the fields of poppies show the distractions that can arise from the Ego – with help from the Guru, she awakes from self.
Once at Oz, The Ego – tells Dorothy she must surrender – to the ego – or to what? Her inner self – Dorothy is of course afraid of this.
they are told by the wizard – “Conventional and Spiritual Wisdom through the ages” they must kill the ego – the witch, but not given any means.
They go and Dorothy is imprisoned by the witch and Toto runs away. Toto represents others, family, friends.
Ultimately she kills the ego while saving her friend the scarecrow.
They return to Oz and the wizard tells them to go away. The dog unmasks the true wizard - just an ordinary guy (“a very nice person but a very bad wizard”). So, accumulated wisdom and saints are shown to be what they are. – empty and ultimately of no use.
While they acknowledge that the scarecrow, lion and tin man already have shown they possess the qualities they seek, it is only through acknowledgment by others- external validation do they admit they have these qualities. But they have been there all the time.

The wizard offers to take Dorothy home, but leaves without her.
Dorothy doesn’t want to stay behind and Glinda, the guru, appears to tell her she always had the power to go home, just didn’t believe it.
She clicks her heels and returns home – and awakens in her "old role" with a new perspective and reality.

Lose to See

2009-07-23T08:50:00.001-07:00

We are all blind.
It takes losing all we hold dearly,
before we can see clearly

Enlightenment is Only the First Step

2009-07-16T09:20:00.001-07:00

We all seek so hard of enlightenment, nirvana, grace, heaven, the peace that surpasses understanding. Buddha hood. Christ-power. God. Call it what you will.
And what a cosmic joke, it’s only the first step on the mysterious road of awakening. Of discovering myriad innumerable infinite expressions.
Until one stops believing, well, basically everything. Stops believing one’s own shit – just gives it all up. Stops believing in one’s own physical mortal existence, one’s own power and ability and infallibility and mind and intellect and kindness and will. Learns to see through or underneath the veil of perceptions, the thoughts, feelings, one is lost in a world of never ending show and story. Forever chasing one’s tail of happiness, sadness, highs and lows, pain and pleasure. Are you willing to give everything up for the unknown? For nothing at all? To live and die unknown, uncared for, unnoticed, a pebble on the road, a moldy crust of bread? A torn sleeve a missing button. Forgotten, amidst the lights and colors and sounds and thousand voices that swirl in the light? Are you willing to live in the dark? A voice, a color a shape in someone’s eye that they are not sure they really saw. Unsure, unlovable, undeserving, undifferentiated, undefined, unknowing, unknowable.

But, once that link is broken. Once the story ends, then what has always been there, underneath, behind everything emerges and can be clearly not seen but sensed.
In every thing. It’s touch, the Vibration of Being. The itchy urgent tingle of life whispering incessantly, unceasingly to come, rest, fall into our arms. Leave it all go.
Allow the waves to come and go, waves of experience washing over and under and through. No boundaries no separation, no bindings. Just freedom. Pure, unfettered soaring amidst unimagined heights of expanses never visited. It’s all there for you every moment. But, your body can’t go, and your mind is a leased Seeing Eye dog.
We call to you! Leave all the torments and cities and people behind, come here where nothing needs be done, nothing needs be attained, nothing needs be learned or known.
Are you willing to die? Would you take your own life for eternal life? And what happens when you read those words? Words YOU wrote?
Everyday I see people; pass me by hurrying nowhere, fears aplenty. Lose some pick up others. What would life be without fear? Why, it wouldn’t be life at all! It would be, well, I don’t know what, but it wouldn’t be life! Life is made up of fear. Have to be careful could slip and hurt myself, do I have insurance for that? or maybe one of the crazies will get me. They’re out there, you know. They’ll cheat or steal from you or just hurt you for no reason or any reason! People do that you know, can’t be too careful. Or I’ll say or do –some thing and someone will laugh or poke fun or just Single Me Out In The Crowd. There’s safety in numbers. If I can stay hidden I’ll be fine.
Hidden, from WHO? Who are you hiding from. Stop, even for a moment and just look around, look at what is really happening. No, no, can’t stop, can’t stop, too much to do, prepare for, set aside for, make up for, plan for, spend for, impress, distress, suckcess, it never ends. It never can end. But You can end. But will you? Will You?
Oh My God. My head fills with all things they would be thinking about me. If I started to cry I’d never stop. All the long nights alone waiting for someone, anyone and then all the longer nights waiting to be rid of them. It will be better tomorrow; I just have to get through today. A day at a time if I can just make one more day, one more hour, then the next and the next and the next. And if not tomorrow then the day after, surely. It can’t go on like this forever. It just seems so. What are you waiting for?
What color sunset does it have to be before you’ll stop and watch. No, don’t make plans and bring a blanket and picnic basket and Off! And thermos of cool drinks and a piece of cake wrapped just so and a napkin and that nice blouse and short outfit.
Just sit down right here in the dirt and bask in the free show. Always there, regardless.
And, what if I told you that you were only projecting a reflection of yourself into your mind and there is no sunset? There is only you?
Can you ever really see what you look like? Of course not, yet that won’t keep you from trying to see yourself in a myriad of admirers, lovers friends family, public grandiose works and private unspeakable horrors.
Kids, pets, cars, boats, building, clothes, ideas, vision, promises, therapy, spirituality, God, it never ends., All but a vain, useless attempt to see that which can never be seen, know that which can never be known, touch that which is always just…out…of…grasp’s reach. But keep trying, maybe you’ll see your reflection in clouds on the top of Mt. Everest or the waters of the Amazon or in the surface of the Moon or an electron cloud.
But, what do you think you’ll see? There is no YOU! This is what keeps me laughing on subways, no people, no things just the appearances arising out of nothing registered by that same nothing,

Endless reaching grasping pushing past the limitless limits of the body by bodiless nothingness. And when I reach over to touch you, to reach out, you pull away. A million stories a million reasons to say no. But only one to say yes. And the stories become real. They become who you think you are. One story hiding behind the next and the next and the next. Until there’s almost a tangible thing. It can be weighed measured and gauged and compared using their stories. And where did THAT get you?
You can have any reality you want and look at what you choose.
In the dark moments of the night it comes to you but you push it away. Certainly heaven can’t be that simple, that easy, that near at hand. It must be hard, impossible, many lives, much effort and pain to show your worthiness, your clean mind and body and spirit. But wait, you’re not quite clean enough, are you, can you ever be? No, not really, so we’ll let that one go, like all the others and worry about the little ones that can be easily seen and felt and have to be dealt with. One has to earn their daily bread, No? Yet, do you REALLY? Where does it come from? Is it not all a gift, free? The air, the sun the water and the earth and the food that comes for free. True, iPods don’t grow on trees, but what would you rather have: the leisure and grab an apple when hungry or work your life away to buy an authentic Apple?
But ok, does it have to be work? Being is its own reward and purpose. Maybe you love what you do. You’d do it for free if they’d let you. All 27 of you out there. And the rest. drudges, scrudges, smudges and lost phantoms, hurrying their lives away, trading their birthright-Big Bang for a promised buzz tomorrow.
A life of barter, trade, give to get, building bigger and better sandcastles, mine has more turrets that yours, look aren’t his silly while we meet every Sunday to prey to hold back the tide. Hurry here it comes now Run! Build walls and bridges and circuits and accelerators to hold off the coming of the sea! Keep looking, the secret is just up ahead, a bit more don’t stop, more money more research more prayer, what do you mean you’re starving, well we must sacrifice one to save the rest.
But there ARE NO OTHERS there is only you. And even you don’t really exist!
Just stop. Let it go, build with all your might and then stand back and gaily watch the sea melt your dreams, mix your salt water with the ocean and dive in and start again.
Better this than protecting something that never existed. Can never exist. Is no more real than a ray of light or a bit of fog or a shadow. Or the glow of the sun setting behind a high misty tower in the far distance.

Shopping is Arising

2009-06-06T09:22:00.000-07:00

There are times when an expansiveness comes over me. No, that's not a great word for it - Bliss, a good one, or an awareness of the Joy of Simply Being Free. Along with it comes the awareness or sense of no time and space, just Now-ness, Everything will work out fine because it already has. No worries, no self-imposed constraints - all that washes away. A feeling of freedom, no time sense. It's all just Right Now and feeling very content.

And I go onto Amazon and buy some thing. Sometimes a few things (an Apple wireless router this morning).

This has been one of the "odder" aspects to the whole awakening thing. Not that comparing oddness makes any sense at all.

So there we are. It's all good - All of it, no time no space and simply free and I go shopping. Not for unneeded frivolous things, and generally nothing too big.

Just funny, is all.

What keeps you stuck is your belief in your own existence

2009-06-06T07:21:00.000-07:00

You believe you exist in space-time.
You believe you exist as a brain-consciousness enclosed in a meat-popsicle body.
You believe you were born, will grow old and die.
You believe you inherited traits genetically from your parents.
You believe what you perceive is Real.
You believe what you are told or is written by others in authority is Real.
You believe what thoughts occur to you are Real.
You believe you can predict the future.
You believe you understand how your body and mind work.
You believe you are in control...of at least some things.
You believe you have to hold back, are afraid to abandon yourself completely, to lose yourself, to lose control.

You have to be willing to cease to exist to be completely free.

You have to ignore all thought, sensation, perception...to allow The Truth to emerge.

Rebirth and What the Buddha did when nobody was around

2009-04-12T22:25:00.000-07:00

Recently I was asked:
Could you please post your views on rebirth/reincarnation? If nothing is or ever was, then why this whole story about The Buddha being all-knowing and able to trace back his births (the story may have been created by his followers later on)?Who or What exactly reincarnates?

In Jed McKenna's last book he puts it well."When someone starts to quote the Buddha, run away, Big Bullshit coming." Or something like that.

I've thought that on *that* day, when the Buddha Attained, got home and told his wife, she said:
"That's nice dear, now go wash up, we have a dinner party to go to..."

One the one hand, it is easy to dismiss stories related about one who may or may not have existed thousands of years ago; and most stories written about him centuries after his death.

Nisargadatta was asked if he could, while sitting in his room in Bombay, tell his listeners what the weather was in NYC. He thought they were nuts and told them so. He said that is a special power and can be developed, but has NOTHING to do with breaking free of the illusion and awakening.
I tend to think that as one works the path of awakening, one develops some skills and once awake, still has those skills. Like lifting weights as part of practice, till one can bench press 300 lbs. Then, one day he awakes and while lifting weight is clearly seen to have nothing to do with Enlightenment, nonetheless the it is taken that E will give one great strength.

But, the question why is the ability to trace previous birth attributed to the Buddha?
I have no idea. It is easy to ascribe it to egoic-Maya illusion - once more (deliberately) confusing E with not-E and once again, as all religions and spiritual practices do - shift one's attention from The Truth, to a "nice story" that will keep one sleeping soundly and feeling good.
The Buddha is quoted as saying "there is suffering, but no one suffers."
How would that square with seeing previous birth?
Sure, images can come and go and stories proliferate.
That's the point. All there IS is the story.

The REAL question is who or what rebirths?

Seems like the right thing to do at the time

2009-04-08T15:12:00.000-07:00

When asked "why did you do something," how often have you responded this way. At the time, the path whatever it was, "good or bad" felt "right" and you took it.
Ego insists that "You" are the author of your actions, you control them , you decide what to do.

But is this really true?

For example, where did the idea to do something come from or the idea that a choice needs to be made in the first place?
And, once that choice is presented, WHY does one choice "feel right" and another not right? (I don't mean right and wrong in terms of morality. I mean right and wrong in terms of approach-avoidance.)

If you 're honest and look closely, you cannot say with 100% certainty where the idea came from or why you ended up making a certain choice. You just do.
Best that can be said is that there is witnessing of the choice.
So, while you are certainly the actor, you are not the author.

And if you aren't, then who or what is?

Why Not Eat a Can of Frosting?

2008-12-09T21:29:00.000-08:00

What if there was no one and nothing watching over you? If you knew that there was no cosmic, higher judgment. It was all: if you take a newspaper, leave a quarter. But on a Universal, Cosmic scale.
We want someone watching over us. We want to feel we're being watched over, even if that means manufacturing guilt. We want to abdicate our power, our birthright.

We make ourselves feel guilt because deep down we know, in Reality, there is no guilt, there is nothing to feel guilty about, That we are truly innocent. That there are no moral or ethical consequences. All that is made up; an overlay.

But more, there is no one, no GOD watching over us. Judging us, Approving or Disapproving. Nothing watches over us. Things, experiences happen and ripples are formed, but there are no “repercussions” of right and wrong.

What if there were no “consequences" – no cosmic, religio-spiritual punishment? (In Groundhog Day Bill Murray’s character says this. I think about ALL the things he did to everyone in every possible combination and ways for all the YEARS he was there.) I think people are afraid to realize there is no higher authority.

I can say that I am free and that I can do anything I want and know what that means and all that goes along with it. I think most people would freak out if faced with that. Yet that truth is as true for them as me. We are all free.

They would scream in fear and terror that if they could do anything they want they would do it to excess and society would fail and so on. But, really, I don’t see that as automatically following.

Just because I KNOW I can do anything, doesn’t mean I will automatically do it.
Amsterdam may be (have been) a good example. While soft drugs were easily available, the locals rarely partook and then in light moderation - it’s all the tourists coming from areas w/ tighter drug laws that created all the issues.

So, do something that you have always thought you would get in trouble for. A classic one seems to be: eat a can of frosting. Or 10 Twinkies. And see what happens when we do the one thing(s) we’ve thought or been told or believed would cause the world to end, and the world keeps spinning. Because, really, no one is watching and no one cares. It’s all perfect. All of it. Even the nasty bits.

We want to feel we matter, that we are special enough to deserve attention, and if that means punishment along with it, then so be it.

I’ll take being a "Free Nothing" over that any day.

One Day

2008-12-05T07:23:00.000-08:00

On a day that may have come and gone
or never was or never can be
a bird may be singing,
a raindrop slides down a window
a plate breaks
a cat brushes your leg
you pick up your keys
or turn on a light
and
you will forget to remember to be you
and
in that moment, everything will change even as nothing changes
you will be you no longer
but ever more so

2008-11-06T19:42:00.000-08:00

I’d had enough for one day, so I put my computer to sleep, turned off the lights and left. I didn’t even bother to pick the quote for our next meeting. I am pretty lazy these days. Unless I have a set task laid out in front of me, I tend to just drift, do the least possible to get by and goof off a lot. I often act in the last moment and things take care of themselves. I don’t aspire to anything or desire anything or have a need to improve myself. I don’t believe in reincarnation or an after life, not to mention heaven or hell. I know that the universe is perfect, that “I” am taken care of, I don’t live in fear of my creator, to put it in gross religious terms, and I no longer need to seek for that which I am.

I also know that the universe is, all evidence to the contrary, empty. There are no separate beings with volition and choice, God doesn’t sit back and watch. In fact there is no God, in the sense most people mean. Any sense of separation is just an illusion, a belief, a getting lost in the content of awareness. I don’t really get lost in the content anymore, or not for long, and so I live with a pretty strong sense of detachment from almost everything. The only thing I like to talk about is spiritual awakening; so I make for pretty single-minded dinner conversation. And, since the nature of what I talk about is so foreign, if not downright threatening to so many, I don’t tend to go and ”hang out" with a crowd. I am pretty much a recluse.

But, this evening I wanted a nice glass of scotch and felt the urge to drop by a local bar, which was unusual for me, as I said.

I walked into the bar and took a seat on one of the bar stools. Far enough away from everyone else and the TV, but still close enough to get served promptly. I don’t go out in public much or often but this bar had a good choice of single malt scotches.
I asked for a Languvulin instead of my usual Laiphroag. Neat, with an ice water back. I dropped few drops of water in the scotch and watched the pattern they made. Random, and yet, the water and the scotch interacted with each other – one was defined by the shape of the other. Like pouring milk into coffee and watching the shape it takes against the coffee. One defining the other. Like most questions of this nature, the answer is not as important as the questions. And, the question forms or determines the shape of the answer. Again, like the form of milk in coffee.
I was just sitting there, contemplating the glass of scotch when I noticed the guy next to me looking at me.

I just let it go. It happens. My energy is odd in some ways. People notice me and don’t know why. I do, but why tell them. I glanced over up and looked him over. Dark hair and eyes that I can only describe as crisp. He didn’t smile, but he didn’t frown. Rather, his face seemed neutral, yet somewhat intent. Odd that I hadn’t noticed him when I’d sat down. He was seated right next to me and I would never choose a seat next to another person if I could avoid it. The bar had been mostly empty when I came in and I thought I had sat down with no one next to me. Like I said: odd.
After a while I heard him say “Hi.”
I said “Hi” back and went on looking into my scotch.
He kept looking at me.
Fine, whatever, I thought, I’ll play.
“Yes, can I help you?” I asked.
He said, “I know why so few of you are free.”
“Excuse me?” This was a different way to open a conversation, I thought.
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. ‘Free.’ As in Free from the belief you are a person, a…” He paused, and looked upwards, like he was trying hard to recall an obscure term.
“A separate self.”

I was impressed. There are only a few people who would even understand what he was saying, I was one of them, and here he starts a conversation like this. But I wanted to make sure.
“Could you say more about that?”

“By free I mean what you mean. Awake, dying while alive, Enlightened.”
I inwardly cringed. I don’t really talk about my current state anymore, and never use the E word, so I was surprised.
“OK, why?” I asked. Might at least see where he was going with this.
“Earth is the only planet where the sentient beings cling to ego-identification and ignorance of non-dual oneness past the age of six. In all other systems we learn to overcome the ego-addiction. Only on earth does this not happen. A few of you manage to do it later, mostly by luck – happening on the right combination of skills and techniques – as you have - and this has formed the basis of your entire religious and spiritual teachings. It’s easy for us to spot those who are awake and that’s what drew me to you.”
“Earth?” I inquired. I started to sense where this was going, but I wanted to hear the words.
He just smiled and sipped his drink. It was his turn to wait.
“That means…” I continued.
“Yes" He replied.
I ordered another drink. For each of us. This looked to be a long night.

Superman is a Space Alien

2008-10-29T08:41:00.000-07:00

While watching the movie Superman Returns a while ago I was struck by how detached Superman seemed. At first I attributed it to a poor acting job (and it may well be that) but then it occurred that perhaps the actor was playing him correctly. It makes sense to think that Superman would be detached from the normal, daily, "trivial" cares and concerns of mortals. Superman is not human. He is a space alien, same as E.T., the girl-thing in Species and the creature in Alien or Predator. He is, as long as he stays under our yellow Sun, effectively immortal. Aside from looking humanoid, he has very little in common with humans. He didn’t ask to be here - he was sent here. Where else is he going to go? His biological father (and adopted one as well) laid the whole service trip on him. He didn’t ask for it. (But look at the first Superman movie - when he is forbidden to interfere in the lives of humans. Yet does just that at the end to save Lois’s life. So he’s willing to forsake his taught upbringing for what matters most to him. His wants come first. It’s not altruism, he’s being selfish.)

This appears to be true of Hancock as well, the recent movie with Wil Smith that did not do well at the box office. I can see why. Most people (see below) either can’t relate or reject the notion that immortals wouldn’t care about their trivial daily dramas. I loved the movie. I thought it a very accurate portrayal of how it is to be an immortal living amongst those who believe they are mortal. They take for granted that Superman would care about them, want to be like them. This is in contrast to Data on Star Trek, who is also effectively immortal, but has the non-biological-creature-Pinocchio-delusion and wants to be human, and constantly tries to act like a person.

But this "person" is an illusion, an ongoing "learned" process of sustained belief in a personal free-will separate self, painstakingly, tiresomely maintained with a myriad of reminders, cues, and self-imposed constraints: stories, pictures, emotional, family and friend connections, beliefs, thoughts and religio-spiritual delusions. Underneath all that, what is there, exactly? This process can be seen through and pierced, though not easily. Breaking free of ones’ programming is the hardest thing there is. Which is why it is seen as a "super-human" feat (pun intended?)
Many say they want it, but few truly do. Superman and Hancock, like Data are ultimately alone though not necessarily lonely.