Take refuge in your original nature
and in your innate virtues.

These are our superpowers,
and our ever-present help
in time of trouble.

We sink into who we are
and do what is ours to do,
becoming who we are uniquely
suited to be
in each situation as it arises,
like Clark Kent
becoming Superman.

Doing it like it needs to be done
the way only we can do it.

This is the way that is The Way
in all of the times and places,
conditions and circumstances,
of our living.

Our place is to know who we are
and what is ours to do,
and what we have no business doing,
following the adage of the old shaman,
"We are who we always have been, 
and who we will be."

We only have to solve that riddle
to claim the boon 
as a blessing and a grace upon the land
and all who live therein.

–0–

Doing things that matter to us,
that are important to us,
and doing them well,
is good training/practice
for doing things that matter to others,
that are important to the way the world works,
and doing them well makes all the difference.

Find the things that matter to you and do them.
Do the things that are important to you,
and do them well.
Every day.

Do the things you love to do,
and it will spill over,
spread out,
catch on--
and other people will spontaneously
start doing what they love,
and it will be a new world like that
(Snaps fingers).

The same thing goes with laughter.
Start laughing
for no reason
throughout your day.
If you start laughing,
you will begin to find reasons.
Things will start being funny
that you never noticed.

Things can change for the better
for no reason at all.
We can start feeling better
for no reason at all.

Laughter turns the light around.

–0–

"Om Mani Padme Hum"

Is a Buddhist chant,
containing all of the sutras and the Dharma
in six syllables--
and which can be further reduced
to a single "Om," or "Aum." 

Joseph Campbell said,
“AUM” is a symbolic sound 
that puts you in touch 
with that resounding being 
that is the universe. 

If you heard some of the recordings 
of Tibetan monks chanting AUM, 
you would know what the word means, 
all right. 

That’s the AUM of being in the world. 
To be in touch with that 
and to get the sense of that 
is the peak experience of all. 

A-U-M. 
The birth, 
the coming into being, 
and the dissolution that cycles back. 

AUM is called the “four-element syllable.” 
A-U-M—and what is the fourth element? 
The silence out of which AUM arises, 
and back into which it goes, 
and which underlies it. 

My life is the A-U-M, 
but there is a silence underlying it, too. 
That is what we would call the immortal."
(Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers 
book, p. 230).

The chant, "Om Mani Padme Hum"
can be understood to mean,
"The Jewel is in the Lotus
("The Jewel" is the Buddha),
and the complete phrase implied 
in these six syllables is,
"and the Lotus is in the Slime
at the Bottom of the Pond."

In the world of non-duality,
where all is One,
The Jewel is the Buddha is the Lotus
is the Slime.

And Jesus and the Father are One.
And Jesus said,
"In as much as you have done it
to the least of my brothers and sisters,
your have done it to me."

Jesus and the Father are One,
and Jesus and the poor are One,
and Jesus and the people of color are One,
and Jesus and the LGBTQ population are One...
and all are one with Jesus and with the Father
and with each other.

Om Mani Padme Hum makes us one with all people
and all things.

All our dichotomies are false dichotomies.
All our distinctions are illusions.
All our caste systems are abominations.

All of that is present in
"Om Mani Padme Hum."

We incarnate that reality
when we chant the chant
and realize we are one with all that is. 

See?

–0–

These are not peaceful times.
How do you find your peace
when there is no peace?

Just breathing helps me.
"Just breathing" means
just breathing.
No thinking.
No worrying.
No anxiety.
No drama.
No what-if's.
No...

Just breathing.

Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Count to five
in sync with your heart beat.

Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Count to five.

...

Like that.

Just breathe.

Let that be your substitute for peace
until peace returns.

–0–

We make our way through the world,
generally following 
"the course of least resistance,"
like water on its journey to the sea.

In similar situations,
we do similar things--
things that have worked before,
and we assume will work again--
and over time we create patterns,
or ruts,
and fall into habits 
of mindlessly repeating what has 
gone on before,
thinking that is how things ought to be,
too preoccupied with other matters
to give what we are doing much thought,
or even stopping to see what we are looking at,
and call that a life,
and call that being alive,
when it is being mostly dead.

Who are we?
What are we about?
What is ours to do?

Do we just make up something here?
Are we free to fill in those three blanks
with anything we feel like saying 
at the moment?

Are we clearly one set of things
and not other sets of things?

Are we about certain specific
behaviors and actions
and not about others?

Are we obligated to do
what we are uniquely suited to do,
or free to think we can be an opera singer
if we want to be?

What are our responsibilities to ourselves?
To each other?
To all others?

Do we have a way to follow specific to us?
Are we free to live any way at all?

Is one way of life as good as another?

Does it matter how we live?
Does it matter what we do with our life?

To whom does it matter?
Whose business is it how we live?
What we do with our life?

Is it our business?

Do we have any business
living any way we want to?

Or, is our business seeking the life
that is ours to live, 
and living it to the best of our ability
with the gifts that are ours to serve and to share?

And if that is our business,
how do we go about doing it?

–0–

As far as I can see, 
everyone has taken up
the alcoholic's quest for "smooth and easy,"
(Ogi Overman's phrase),
and alcohol isn't the only path they take
in trying to find it.
They take every path,
and call it "bliss,"
or "having it made,"
or "escape from suffering..."

But it all amounts to "smooth and easy."
And, comes down to "having our way."

All of the self-help books 
come down to having our way
and getting what we want.

When has that ever resulted in bliss,
having it made,
and escape from suffering?
For how long?

There is nothing wrong with any of us
that changing our mind about what is important
wouldn't fix,
like that (Snaps fingers).

That's the one thing we cannot do
apart from the complete loss of everything.
Without hitting the wall,
getting to the absolute end of our rope,
and running out of options--
but even then there are no guarantees
that we will change our mind 
about what is important
(and be right about it this time).

Being right about what is important
and serving it with our life
is the most important thing.

Everybody thinks they are doing just that.
And a high percentage of everybody
is trying to push doing it their way
onto everybody else.

And I will leave you with that,
suggesting that you sit yourself down,
and figure it out on your own,
what is important
and what to do about it,
in each situation as it arises,
all your life long.

–0–

Iris DeMent's "Let the Mystery Be,"
should be required singing
throughout the land.

It's all Mystery.

The Mind is a mystery.
Everything seems to participate in Mind.
Viruses and flocks of birds and schools of fish...
The people who vote for Trump
are of one mind,
and the people who vote against him
are of another mind,
but "mind" is beyond definition
or understanding.

My body has a mind,
my life has a mind of its own.
It's all Mystery.

So is everything else.

Anger.
What goes into being angry?
Into getting angry?
Why aren't all people angry
about the same thing?

There is so much we will never
get to the bottom of.

I'd much rather "let the Mystery be,"
than wax eloquent about things
we do not, cannot, comprehend.

Like dark matter
and what squids do on their day off.

–0–

All transitions have something in common
with the butterfly's exit from the chrysalis,
which, you will remember,
but a step in the process of its transition
from caterpillar to butterfly.
And is thoroughly amazing--
and not much different from our transitions
through all of the stages of our own development
all along the way.

And it is crucial that we participate in that process
as willing partners in the work of 
being/becoming who we are
and doing what is ours to do.

The process and all of its transformations
are built into our DNA
and into "the way of life in the world,"
which has been called "The Tao of life and being."

We only need to relax ourselves into it
and cooperate with it
from stage to stage,
transition to transition,
trusting it to know what it is doing
as a continuing and wonder-filled source
of blessings and grace all along the way.

We can willingly participate in the process,
or we can buck and snort,
resist, moan and wail throughout it.
Our response to our life
and the experience of being alive
makes all the difference.

Our attitude changes things--
for better and for worse.
It is a superpower
bestowed upon us all at birth.
What we do with it is up to us.

–0–