We wake up each day to the adventure of seeing what the day has in store for us, wondering what awaits. Unless we are bound to a daily schedule, a monthly regimen, a sacred yearly routine we call “going to work.” In which case, we have to live around our obligations, duties, requirements, looking forward to sleeping late over the weekend, squeezing in what joys and delights we can manage after working hours and on holidays. Drudgery. Hum-drum. Tedium. Wondering how we can find life in our lives.

Escapes can be everywhere awaiting vision and imagination via Emptiness! Silence! Stillness! Drop into the quiet and see what meets us there after things settle down and the fairies have a chance at us to show us what we have been missing. The pixies and pucks know where the gold is hidden, and we only need give them the go-ahead to find the adventures awaiting on the far side of the everyday for those who are open to the game that is always afoot to the willing and the wondering. How long has it been?

We belong to the time and place of our living. We are not here on vacation. We have duties and obligations in line with bringing ourselves forth, being who we are and doing what is ours to do here, now in each/every situation as it arises.

What needs to be done? What needs us to do it? With the gifts that are ours from birth? The questions are guides offering purpose and direction. Inviting us to pause and consider, “Who are we? What are we to be about?”

The answers assist us in the unfolding of our life in this time, this place, here, now. Which is how we find our niche, our shtick, our Thing and do it for life, with all our heart, and mind, and soul, and strength.

How long has it been since we lived with our heart in what we were doing? How much longer will it be until we do? It only takes turning to the silence (emptiness, stillness) and asking, “What do you want me to want to do?” Then waiting for the mud to settle and the water to clear.

This is 058 of “200 Zen Thoughts #3 by Jim Dollar” on my WordPress Blog:

The power to be who we are lies latent within us all awaiting our waking up to the truth of our own being and living in ways that are aligned with the thrust of our own heart and soul. The thrust of our own heart and soul is the drift and flow, the Tao, of our Psyche/Self which is inherent within us all, calling us to wake up, see, hear, know and understand who we are and what is ours to do in the time and place of our living. This is what enlightenment, awakening, realization comes down to. We live to wake up to ourselves and bring ourselves forth in the life we are living as a blessing and a grace upon all who share the word with us for as long as we live. Amen! May it be so!

Donald Trump is an evil man. He thrives on the pain of others. And has gathered around himself a cadre of people who thrive in an environment of hatred, ruthlessness and cruelty imposed upon a wide range of people who share one trait: They are not like Donald Trump and his co-hearts. To be different, socially, racially, financially, etc. is to be despised. The Trump regime will do all it can to impose misery and suffering upon all those it despises, and they be many. Throughout history people have been hated by those who have power over them. It is our place as victims or as witnesses to the victimization of the innocents to know what’s what, what’s happening and what is called for and to take no rest nor allow the perpetrators to rest until they have met with justice and paid the full price of their appalling treatment of those who have no protection or peace.

We do not need theology! We need only to drop into the silence (Emptiness, stillness and silence are one thing, not three. Naming one of them implies the other two). We can drop into the silence anywhere, any time, and breathe three slow, deep breaths, and step back into the life we were living throughout each day, having touched base with the foundation, the Tao, the Psyche, the core of life and being, remembering what’s what and what is happening and aligning ourselves with what is called for, giving ourselves to its service all day long every day. And that simple act will make all the difference. No kidding.

We live our life in the service of having our way and getting what we want. Why not? What alternative is there? All life, every living thing, throughout the Cosmos lives to have its way and get what it wants. Flip it to not have our way and not get what we want. We would be wanting to do that, no? We are stuck. We cannot get away from living to please ourselves. The best we can do is to want what the situation calls for and do that when, where, and how it needs to be done, and to be quite content (happy) with the outcome. Wanting what needs to be wanted, doing what needs to be done, in each situation as it arises, all our life long, puts us in the eternal and everlasting position of seeing, hearing, knowing, understanding, doing the right thing at the right time in the right place and the right way, no matter what, all the time, forever. It is the Way. Let’s be up and about it!

We learn util we die because we forget what we know all along the way. The guides who lead us have to be long on patience and short on disgust to stick with us and see us through to our final breath. They have my deepest gratitude and appreciation for their work which provides the foundation of my realization that our faith has to be in ourselves, not in some loving god on high. Our help is found within, picking us up, dusting us off, saying “Don’t let it get to you, keep it up, you’re doing fine,” again and again over long years of stumbling, tripping, falling, apologizing and starting over times beyond counting. We have what we need. We only need to know it, remember it, count on it, and start over again every time we miss a turn. It isn’t as though we don’t know how to do it or have never done it before. By now, we are experts at Re-Doing, picking ourselves up and getting back in the game. No?

It matters how we live our life.
It matters how we treat one another.
Babies matter.
Children matter.
People matter.
It all matters.
What we do and leave undone.
What we love and what we hate, despise, detest matter.
And it is up to each of us to live as though it is so.
To live as though life matters.
Even though Donald Trump and his minions refuse to do so.
It is up to the rest of us to pick up their slack
and to care about the way we live upon the earth
Because it matters how we live with each other and all others.
No?

Living from the inside out is done by dropping into the silence and waiting for clarity regarding what’s what, what’s happening, what’s called for, when, where and how and taking our body’s lead from there. It is called “Getting out of our head and into our body.” Not allowing what we want/desire/fear/dread enter into the conversation. It is about having no plans beyond having no plans, having no intention beyond having no intention. Merging with the here, now to the point of being one with the here, now and waiting for an impulse to action to direct us in the service of what is called for here, now, from one here, now to the next. The natural world doesn’t wake up knowing what it is going to do today, any day. It doesn’t operate out of a social calendar or a to do list, and yet everything gets done every day. Our daily role is to see how close to that we can come, day to day.

This is from my WordPress Blog “200 More Zen Thoughts From Jim Dollar #3”

006. Different choices, different outcomes. Sounds easy. The problem is that we want particular outcomes. Servants of the Outcomes is the role we want ours to be. As though we know what is best for us. We only know what we want for us, and think that is best. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” It is all about wanting. Wanting outcomes directs our choices. Only we have no idea what outcomes would be right for us and what outcomes would be wrong for us. We are flying blind, pretending we know what we are doing. We do not know what we are doing. That should be our daily mantra repeated throughout each day. “I do not know what I am doing.” That would remind us to “Seek the light.” The light being Flow, Drift, Inclination, Psyche, Tao, Intuition. Tuning within, listening to the Inner Guide. Listening to our gut. Because we do not know what we are doing.