04
I would like to sit down one-on-one with everybody, and hear what they had to say. I think that is all anybody needs. Someone to hear what they have to say. Everybody wants to tell people what they need to hear. Nobody wants to hear what people have to say. I would like to change that. I've been doing it all my life. I've also been saying what I have to say. I don't hold anything back. I'm doing it here, now. I do as good a job listening and speaking as anyone I know. It's what I do best. Along with seeing. Not that I don't miss anything. Yesterday, I moved the butter out of the way looking for the butter. And last week, I left a crutch at the nursery (I was one crutching it-- I use crutches to get about because of osteoarthritis in both knees, but my left knee is worse than my right one, so I can manage for short distances with a forearm crutch on my right arm, and got distracted with buying the plants my wife and I purchased, and left my crutch behind). I didn't miss it for a couple of days (Don't use it around the house), and had no idea where it was. So, today, it occurred to me to ask at the nursery if it were there. And happy the reunion was. All of which is to say I miss things all the time. Without thinking anything of it. I keep looking and seeing, and not seeing. Listening and hearing, and not hearing. It's what I do best, and enjoy most. And I look forward to continuing to do it for long years into the far distant future. Holding the butter looking for the butter was great. I am very Zen-like some days.
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03
All religious wars are fought between/among disciples of a particular idea of religion. They are fighting over their understanding of theology, doctrine, dogma, creeds and catechisms. Over words about their religion. They disagree about what words are true and what words are false. They disagree about what they believe to be so-- to be factual, actual, real and, thus, true!-- because someone has said so. All of this changes like that (snaps fingers), when we shift from talking about belief and start talking about experience. Separate yourself from everything you have ever heard about God from all other sources including the Bible, and focus exclusively on what you have personally experienced of God in your own life. What do you know to be so because you know it is so, and not because you believe it to be so, or have heard it to be so? When we talk of our experience of God, we do not speak of the God of theology and doctrine, but of the Numen beyond all words and reason, beyond all logic and intellect. The experience of the Numen sits us down and shuts us up. Wonder and awe, amazement and fascination, do not lend themselves to words. Lao Tzu said all that can be said: "The Tao that can be said is not the eternal Tao!" There are neither wars nor disagreement among those who experience the Numen in art, music and nature, with childbirth and falling in love, or being smitten by the encounter with another human being, all being as natural as nature can be.
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02
Friedrich Nietzsche said the goal of the maturation process is to become "a wheel rolling out of its own center." I envision a gyroscope turning out of its own center as it moves in a direction suited to its purposes, stabilizing itself in tune with its own balance and harmony, and serving its own Original Nature with sincerity and compassion in all that it does. We are our own authority. We govern our own actions. We evaluate our own values. We live to ask the questions that beg to be asked in each situation as it arises. To say what cries out to be said. And to do what needs to be done here and now-- without contriving or deferring, seeking to please or fearing repercussions, but living to express our own heart and soul, and being true to ourselves in all times and places. We stand on our own feet, live out of our own center, with loyalty and devotion to our own nature, and let the outcome be the outcome. To do this, we have to devote time and attention to cultivating our relationship with ourselves so that we know who we are out of our on-going experience with what is deepest, truest and best about us all our life long.
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01
What keeps you going? You live in the service of what? What is your shtick? Your thing? Your art? Your genius? Your gift? What are you here to do? To bring forth? Exhibit? Express? Love with all your heart? Who are you here to be? No matter what? Do not stray from that! Do not wander away from the center! The core! The essence! The qualities that constitute your Original Nature! Be you wherever you are! Regardless of your circumstances! Bring your perspective forth! Dance your dance! Love your life! Love being alive! Let your love for life show! Why hold anything back? Let your little light shine! Let your little toes dance! Let your little heart love what it loves! While it can!
