September 16, 2025

The Buddha saw "Peaceful abiding, here, now," as the foundation of "having life and having it abundantly." I call it "Looking out the window." 

When I sit, I sit looking out the window, at the focal point, the foundation, of "having life and having it abundantly." 

Everywhere can be the vehicle/Portkey/threshold/doorway to "peaceful abiding, here, now," "having life and having it abundantly."

Depending entirely on our perspective and point of view. How we see things IS how things are, in the sense that how we see things is how we respond to things, is how/what we take things to be. We are the fulcrum, the pivot point, from where things are to how things need to be. How/what we see when we look at it determines what response we make to it and where things go from here, now to what's next.

We make the world we live in by the way we look at it and what we say about it.

What do you say about the photograph above? What do you say about your life? Why that and not something else instead?

We are the Portkey to our future, here, now. Our perspective, point of view, way of perceiving, shapes and forms our world. We hold the power of transformation just by being aware of what we see when we look at anything, everything. Why that and not something else instead? 

How many different ways can we see things in a day? That's how many worlds we can live in in a day. No?

How many different ways can we see the photograph of hemlock islands in Penobscot Bay, taken from Deer Isle, Maine?

Marianne Moore said, and this is one of my favorite quotes, "Solitude is the sure cure for loneliness." We flip the switch on the photo above by seeing solitude or loneliness. No?

And so on, throughout the day, every day.

Of course, "seeing things as they are" is seeing things as they also are. Which is to say that nothing IS what it appears to be except in the eye of those to whom it appears to be that way. Which is to say that it is all a fiction, capable of being whatever we are in to mood for, or not in the mood for, in a particular time and place. Everything varies according to our "state of mind," whatever that means. It means that everything is a projection of ours onto whatever we are looking at here, now. We are making it all up all of the time. We can't help but make it all up all of the time. So that what we see is an extension of who we are at the time we see what we look at. Everything is a mirror reflecting us to us. When we start seeing us in the way we see everything around us, we will be on the right track at last, to realization, recognition, enlightenment, understanding, laughing, loving, being alive. No?