There is what we want to do, and there is what needs us to do it whether we want to or not. How do we pare our life out between what we want to do and what needs to be done? How do we decide when to do what? I never go anywhere without myContinue reading “July 26-A, 2022”
Author Archives: jimwdollar
July 25-C, 2022
Our choices determine, or strongly influence, our choices. In any situation, we are where we are by virtue of the choice we made to lead to this point. We can’t keep making the same choices and have a different life. What are the themes running through our choosing? In what ways are we predictable? InContinue reading “July 25-C, 2022”
July 25-B, 2022
The Eternal Moment is any moment that connects us with eternity, and we know “This is IT!” in terms of THIS being the microcosm of the macrocosm. The Eternal Now is the representative encounter with the experience of wonder characteristic of eternity. Where the transcendent and the imminent are one, and the world is seenContinue reading “July 25-B, 2022”
July 25-A, 2022
The basic life strategy is not to avoid the pitfalls. It is to see what we are doing and what needs to be done in each situation as it arises, and live to be what the situation needs us to be with sincerity and integrity, in the service of our original nature and the innateContinue reading “July 25-A, 2022”
July 24-C, 2022
The seasons come and go. Our place is to let come what’s coming and to let go what’s going, without attachment or affiliation. Without preference or partnership. No expectation. No agenda. No plans. No opinion. Or, better, perhaps, to love each one for what it is, as one might love their children, without thinking thatContinue reading “July 24-C, 2022”
July 24-B, 2022
“Light is dying to the west…” “An end to another day…” “Leads us all to wonder, how many are left…” Are all so melancholy, gloomy, depressing, sad, typical of our predictable way of assessing our situation. Sunset here is sunrise there. Going is always coming. The end of the rainbow fails to imagine the continuationContinue reading “July 24-B, 2022”
July 24-A, 2022
If you want to feel better on every level stop what you are doing 10 times a day and do nothing but breathe for 5 minutes, or, you could stop 5 times a day and breathe for 10 minutes. Just breathe, and be conscious of your breathing. And pause for a count of 5 betweenContinue reading “July 24-A, 2022”
July 23-C, 2022
Everybody wants to be happy. What does wanting know? Without wanting, everybody would be happy like that (Snaps fingers). Wanting is the source of our problems. Suffering is a perspective. It is the result of the way we see things. Sift the perspective, and POOF! goes the problem. The art of perspective shifting is theContinue reading “July 23-C, 2022”
July 23-B, 2022
Our primary obligation is to our life. To live it as fully as possible, as well as possible, as long as possible, toward the end of expressing, exhibiting, knowing ourselves as completely as possible. We are here to discover and incarnate who we are in the here/now of our living. Our life is the mediumContinue reading “July 23-B, 2022”
July 23-A, 2022
Zen is what happened when Buddhism met Taoism, and the more accurate term would be “Zen-Taoism,” not “Zen-Buddhism,” because Zen is more Taoist than Buddhist. If you are interested, check out “The Tao of Zen” by Ray Grigg, hardback or Kindle at Amazon. With both Taoism and Zen you get the doctrine: “It doesn’t matterContinue reading “July 23-A, 2022”
July 22-C, 2022
The point of life is to be fully alive in the time and place of our living– in each here/now of our living. What interferes with that, prevents it? Wanting more of this and less of that, and something else entirely. The here/now is rarely good enough just as it is. Our preferences get inContinue reading “July 22-C, 2022”
July 22-B, 2022
“The peace of wild things” (Wendell Berry) is found in letting things be what they are, and not incessantly willing things to be different than they are. Life protests its surrender to life, but it recognizes inevitability when it sees it and acquiesces to the circumstances without holding grudges, planning its revenge, or endlessly bemoaningContinue reading “July 22-B, 2022”
