01

Sit with these words and phrases
and mine them for their gold
as a regular and on-going practice.

Treat them as guides to the way,
and companions along the path.

Tend your relationship with them
with filial devotion,
allegiance,
and loyalty.

Emptiness, stillness and silence.

Balance and harmony.

Sincerity, integrity and self-transparency.

Spirit, energy, vitality.

Virtue, courage, resiliency, faithfulness.

Original-nature.

Grace, compassion and peace.

Live aligned with them.
in light of them,
forever.

–0–

02

T.S. Eliot wrote in "The Four Quartets,"
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."

His idea that "we shall not cease"
and "at the end" 
we will arrive at the beginning,
connects me with Carl Jung's idea
of "the circumambulation of the self,"
where there is no direct way
to what we seek--
which is to know ourselves
and to live in accord with our original nature
through all of the conditions and circumstances
of our life.

Seeking to be is, itself, being,
and being here, now,
is all we can ever hope to be,
and "realized eschatology" is
comprehending that the "coming one"
has always been with us,
and is us,
just as we are,
particularly just as we are,
as one "thus come,"
like the Buddha under the Bo Tree,
right here, right now,
and on we go
being ourselves,
true to our original nature,
in every here and now
throughout time
and beyond time,
just by being where we are,
doing what needs to be done
the way we would do it,
knowing there is nothing more to it
than that. 

–0–

03

"What's worth your time?"
is the easiest question to be wrong about.
Look around.
Everyone you see is wrong about the answer to the question.
Being right about the answer
would be bad for the economy.
Very bad.

The culture is geared to giving us 10,000,000...
(The zeros go forever)
wrong answers to the question
to keep us chasing after all that does not satisfy
and keep the cash registers on full ca-ching mode. 

What's worth your time?
You are afraid nothing is, right?
Nothing comes to mind,
so it must be that nothing is worth our time.
And we are stuck in a life
with nothing to live for
and nothing worth doing,
so pass the opioids 
because why not?

Because that is so stupid
it's nauseating. 
I'm throwing up just thinking about it.
"I don't know what's worth my time,
so it must be nothing. Pass the pills!"

"Pass the pills" is the quick fix
to the pain of being alive
and not knowing why we are alive
or for what we are alive.

Bearing the pain is the solution
to all of our problems today.

Sit still.
Be quiet.
And empty yourself of your fear
of emptiness,
of your fear of pain.

Open yourself to the silence,
and wait.
Waiting is a test of your mettle. 
We have to have what it takes
to do what is asked for,
and siting in the silence
is easy compared to 
doing what needs to be done
"without hope,
without witness,
without reward."
(Steven Moffat, "Dr. Who"),
which is what doing what is worth 
our time requires.

We have to bear the pain all the way.

So, open yourself to the silence and wait.
You can go about your life while waiting,
but remember you are waiting.

You are waiting for something to stir
in the silence,
for something to arise, appear, emerge,
wink at you and whisper your name.

And, like that, it's gone,
and you are left to wonder if something happened,
or if you just imagined it.

This is another test,
because you are as likely to dismiss
what occurs as it is to flash out of sight.
It's playing with you
to see if you can be trusted.

By now, you have rejected it 1,000...
(And all those zeros) times,
and it is tired of being ignored.
This is called pay-back time.

Keep sitting, waiting, watching.
As you go about your life.

It may appear in a dream,
the kind of dream that cannot be ignored,
or forgotten.

It may appear out of nowhere,
as you turn a corner,
and drive past it,
and are unable to get it out of your mind.

This is destiny crossing your path.
We don't go seeking our destiny,
we wait for it to come seeking us,
and we prepare ourselves to know
an open door when we see it,
by looking at every door that comes along.

When the door with our name on it opens,
we walk through.

The first step is the hardest.
The next most important thing
is refusing to quit in the service
of that which calls our name.

"Whoever puts their hand to the plow,
and looks back, has to remember how essential 
it is to not turn around,
but to trust themselves to the path
that is their path no matter what."

Living with troth for and trust in the way
brings help where we didn't think help would be,
and invisible forces seem to be protecting us
and guiding us along the way.

We cannot push our luck,
but we can trust it,
and we will find confirmation in 1,000...
(And all those zero's) ways
all along the way.

All it takes is trusting that it will be so,
and when the door opens, walk through.

01

One of our superpowers 
is bearing the legitimate pain
of being alive.

When we carry the pain 
that is ours to bear,
we know that we are one
with all others in the experience
of the pain of life.

That knowledge is the source
of our identification with one another
and all human beings--
all beings--
who know the awful, grounding, truth
of life's grief and sorrow.

No one escapes the pain of living,
and in the end we all die.
The experience of that reality
makes us all one.
We face the ultimate loss of everything
together, as one.

At its heart,
compassion is the recognition
of our identity with one another
in our vulnerability and anguish.

Compassion makes life under these--
under any--
circumstances possible,
livable,
even enjoyable,
joyful.

The superpower is joy 
in the midst of sorrow.
Saying, "YES!" to life
on life's terms,
in an "anyway, nevertheless, even so"
kind of way
(Which is the very same as,
the "Thy will, not mine, be done,"
kind of way,
with the "Thy" understood to be
"The Way Things Are."

We are all born into a similar fate,
we have no say as to the time and place and parents
of our birth
and the conditions/circumstances of our life.

Our destiny is what we do with the givens,
how we respond to the here and now,
regardless of what it is--
with how we bear the pain of being alive.

A compassionate embrace of life
and of everyone living under the curse of life
(We are all going to suffer and die),
transforms the nature of the situation
much like the Elder Wand,
or a superpower, 
would do.

And from there, anything can happen,
along the path that constitutes
the Adventure of Being Alive.

How well we bear the pain
tells the tale we are here to tell.
It all comes down to,
and flows from, 
that one thing.

–0–

02

Everything is grounded on chance
all the way down--
the chance that our parents were our parents,
the chance that we were born when and where 
we were born,
the chance that we are male or female,
or male in a female body,
or female in a male body,
or that a war came along
to ruin our chances at pitching in the major league...

All of it is based on chance.
What are the chances
of the way things are
being the way things are?

Whatever those chances are,
they improve considerably
based upon our attitude/perspective
which guides our response
to what they are,
when they are,
how they are.

We have a better future
based on how we react to our present.
Every here and now is a fulcrum,
a turning point,
upon which the future is shifted
into position.

The next moment flows from
this moment.
How we live here determines--
or strongly influences--
what we live with there.

We improve our chances
by the way we approach/deal with
our chances--
the chance that this is what
we have to deal with
and not something else instead.

What gives us the best chance
of improving our conditions/circumstances
within the conditions/circumstances
of our living 
is to empty ourselves
of desire/fear/anger/hatred/duty/agenda/opinion/emotional reactivity/
and sit/stand in the stillness and silence
what needs to be done arises/emerges/appears/occurs to us
to call us--thrust us--
into action.

When we do the right thing,
at the right time,
in the right place,
in the right way
because it is the right thing to do,
for nothing but the joy of doing it
and the satisfaction of having done it
in mind,
we transform the time and place of our living,
one situation at a time,
improve our chances and our choices,
and have it made,
as much as we can have it made
given the nature and conditions/circumstances
of our living,
and open ourselves fully to the adventure of being alive.

–0–

01

We all have 24 hours each day.
What we do with them tells the tale.
The tale we are here to tell
by the way we live our life.

That is what our life is for:
To be lived in the way
that tells our tale. 
The tale we are here to tell.

How do we know what that is?
By listening to our heart.
Listening to our body (symptoms),
Listening to our soul.
By emptying ourselves 
of everything that would 
interfere with hearing
what our heart, body (symptoms) and soul
are saying.
By sitting in the stillness
and the silence
and listening/looking/
hearing/seeing
what's what
and how it is with us
and what we need to do
in the service of what needs to happen
here and now
for the next 24 hours.

Are we living the life 
that is ours to live,
or the life we want to be
ours to live?

What is guiding our boat
on its path through the sea?

What is motivating us?
Driving us?

What are we serving?
Seeking?
Chasing?
Trying to be/do/have
before we die?

Have we settled for 
serving our addictions
and to hell with everything else?

What are we doing with our life?
With our days?
With the next 24 hours?

There remains,
even yet,
even now,
even so,
an adventure with our name on it.

All it takes is emptying ourselves
of all that stands in our way,
and listening to our heart,
listening to our body (symptoms),
listening to our soul,
in the stillness
and the silence
and trusting ourselves
to what arises there
and calls our name.

–0–

02

All it takes is stepping aboard the train
with your name on it,
on the tracks that are your life to live,
and trusting yourself to the journey,
for doors to open where there were no doors before,
and help to come from sources that were not there before,
and for joy and consolation 
to comfort and confirm your choice
of the way that is your way.

Things fall into place in ways that are amazing,
inconceivable and unpredictable.

Magic happens.
And will continue to happen
as long as you refuse to take control
and force the turns you want to take.

The trick with the magic happening
is that you can't try to make it happen
the way you want it to happen,
when you want it to happen,
how you want it to happen,
every time you want it to happen.

You have to trust the magic to happen
the way it needs to happen,
and forget about the magic happening.

You have to focus on doing what is yours to do,
when it needs to be done,
where it needs to be done,
the way it needs to be done
in each situation as it arises.

We do what is ours to do
and let the magic happen as it will.

We are just along for the ride!
And must trust ourselves to the ride!
And live with the wind of the spirit
that blows where IT will,
always in our hair!

And we will have it made.

Starting right now.

–0–

03

It is not too much to ask
to ask, 
"What's wrong with looking at it this way?"

We are here to be the best we can be
at exhibiting our original nature
in the work to be who we are
in the time and place of our living,
by using the gifts/daemon/genius... 
that came with us from the womb
in doing what needs to be done,
when it needs to be done,
the way it needs to be done 
in each situation as it arises--
without interfering with anyone else
doing what is theirs to do,
in any way.

That seems to be basic to me.

To live like that is,
in my view,
to be a true human being.

No one could do it better than that.

"Not nobody, not no-how."