01

No judgment.
No opinions.
Just seeing what needs to be done,
here and now,
in this context,
under these circumstances,
and doing it.

Moment-by-moment
in each situation as it arises.

We are not free
until we are free
from our wants
and don't wants.

That is the freedom
that allows us to look 
things over,
to see what is happening
and what needs to happen in response,
and to do it
to the best of our ability
with the gifts, proclivities, preferences,
traits, virtues, genius, daemon 
(sounds like "diamond"), original nature/
etc.
that came with us from the womb,
from one moment to the next.

What is possible, here and now?
What are our best options, here and now?
What is called for?
What is the thing to do,
all things considered?

Do that!
With nothing personal to gain,
and nothing personal to lose,
just being what the situation needs us to be,
here and now,
through all of the here and now's
yet to be.

Get that down,
and we have it made.

And the world will be a better place to be.

–0–

02

Freedom from bondage 
to our wants and wishes,
desires and cravings,
is the ultimate release
from captivity. 

We are not free 
until we are free to choose
what needs to be done
without being constrained
to obey our wants and don't wants,
our addictions and our disgusts.

Being "free to do whatever we want"
is not free at all.
It is being enslaved to our lusts and longings.
And tormented forever by the delights
that remain just out of reach.

Seeking our own good
at the expense of all other goods
is The Law of the Jungle
beating at the heart of civilizations
around the world over time.

When Jesus said,
"You shall know the truth,
and the truth shall set you free,"
he meant free from the blinders of desire,
and free for seeing and doing 
the right thing,
at the right time,
in the right place
and the right way--
with no concern for what is,
or is not,
in it for us.
And no intent to benefit,
profit,
or gain from our effort
to serve the good of the situation
in light of what it means
for all concerned.

Our life goal is to live
with complete sincerity
and without contrivance--
to do what is good
with nothing personally at stake
in the outcome,
and nothing to gain or lose
in the transaction--
moment by moment
in each situation as it arises,
over the full course of our life.

No one can do better than that,
and it is well within the reach of us all.

It only requires a slight shift of perspective
in the way we view what is important,
and a simple tilt of the will
to tip us in its direction.

And it is the transformation of life as we know it.

01

Check everything in light of your
emotional/psychological
(Where does that line lie?}
balance, integrity, harmony and stability.

You know when you are on the beam
and when you are off it.
When you are balanced,
inner with outer,
and when you are not.

When you are integrated, harmonized, stable,
at-one with yourself and the moment--
in the perfect position
to take what comes
and do what needs to be done with it.

And when you are not.

What are the balancing,
integrating,
harmonizing,
stabilizing
factors at work in your life?

What are the unbalancing,
disintegrating,
disharmonious,
destabilizing
factors at work in your life?

Is silence vibrantly,
vitally,
present?

Are your conflicts/contradictions/
opposites/polarities
clearly identified 
and in a steady state
of equilibrium--
well-within your normal range
of tolerance--
and at an acceptable stress level?

Are you able to pay the right bills?
Is your future relatively secure?
Can you count on things being
the way you need them to be,
day in and day out?

What needs to be done to move toward
balance/integrity/harmony/stability
and away from destabilization?

This is your core problem.
Get this resolved,
and you are ready for anything.

Once your base is secure,
and you are grounded/anchored
upon the fundamental requirements
for life,
and can pay the right bills,
you are set to step into the day,
every day.

Until then, 
"you are like a fiddler on the roof."

The single most important thing you can do
to introduce balance/integrity/harmony/stability
into your life is to make silence 
vibrantly,
vitally,
present
in a central kind of way.

Live from the silence.
Be guided by the silence.
Be always attentive to the silence,
at-one with the silence,
alive with the silence,
and you will move toward balance, etc.
and away from imbalance, etc.

This is called returning 
to your original nature.

–0–

02

We live too loudly to listen.

Noise is everywhere.
We are never noise-free.
Never quiet.
Never silent.
What does living noisily 
keep us from thinking about?

Keep us from facing?
Keep us from having to deal with?
Because we don't know how to deal with it?
What to do about it?

What is at the bottom
of all our striving?
What pushes us into the noise
that keeps us from breathing?

We live looking for action.
What kind of action?
Any kind of action!
In the meantime,
we will settle
for sex, drugs and alcohol,
though not necessarily
in that order.

That will keep us reasonably
sane until the right kind of action
sweeps us away.

We have no idea what that would be,
but we live seeking it
to get away from 
what's at the bottom
of our discontent.

What's at the bottom
of our discontent?

Go there.
Find out.

Enter The Silence
seeking the nature
of your discontent.

Don't leave
until you find it.

Disclosure alert:

Once you find it,
you will never leave The Silence.
It will be your home for life.
You won't be able to live without it.
It will be for you
life enabling life.

–0–

03

Everything in our life
has worked together
to be where we are,
here and now.

That is all we can say
about what happens to us,
it works together 
with all the rest
to get us where we are.

If we look for direction,
meaning,
and purpose 
in all of this,
we will be imposing
our desire for
meaningful structure
that is important
and exists only 
in our head.

Life just is.
No reason.
No purpose.
No meaning
beyond what we imagine
and impose.

We make things meaningful
(to us)
by the way we respond
to what happens to us.
We are the ones who determine
what is meaningful or not.

We are the conductor,
the choreographer,
the director
seeing meaning
in the thread
that runs through our life.

"Because of that,
THIS!" we proclaim.
Well, yeah. But.
"THIS" did not bring that forth.

It was not for "THIS" 
that that happened.
That "just happened,"
and here is "THIS."
Which is just happening.

Anything we make of it
is all our doing.
We make up the story
we tell ourselves,
the narrative we spin
about what happens to us
and how it all works together
to produce our life.

What happens to us produces us
and our life
because we respond to it 
the way we do.
But nothing makes us respond
the way we do.
In this sense,
we produce our life 
more than it is produced
by what happens to us.

How free are we to be
different than we are?
How different can/could we be?
We will never know,
and the question is moot.
What matters is what we do next
in response to what is happening now
and what will happen next.

And so, we are led,
moment by moment, 
situation by situation,
to wherever we will be 
when we get there.

All of which is to say,
it is important that we do our best
to make our best possible response
to whatever happens,
moment to moment,
situation by situation--
because what we do will lead
to what's next 
all along the way.

01

Goes the saying,
"Discretion is the better part of valor."

And another saying,
"Look before you leap."

Which is to say,
"Know what you are doing."

All of which are wasted
upon those who are all into
"Making hay while the sun is shining,"
and,
"Seizing the moment,"
and,
"Striking while the iron is hot,"
and, 
Not letting opportunity pass them by...

Which gets us back
to the relationship
between discretion and valor.

Courage is required from the start.
Courage is the ground floor of discretion.
We have to have what it takes
to look,
to see,
to know,
and to do what needs to be done,
which may be saying,
"I'm not going there."

Courage is the foundation. 

Without the courage
to draw the lines
that need to be drawn
from the start,
we are left 
with having to draw them
when it is too late
"to save the day."

"A stitch in time
saves nine."

Which leaves us wondering
where courage comes from,
and how to find it 
when we need it.

"The silence," of course,
is my answer to everything.

Sit quietly contemplating courage
and see what arises in the silence.
What occurs to you.
What comes to mind.
What appears.
What emerges...

It takes courage to sit
with the silence.
Just like it takes courage
to draw the first line.

We don't have to manufacture it.
It is already there.
Waiting.
For us to know that we need it
and invite it into our life.

Where do you need to be courageous?
Get out of the way,
and let yourself surprise yourself.

Surprising ourselves is what we can do best.
But it takes getting out of the way.

–0–

02

Regaining our sense
of our place in the moment
resets us in our position
of a wheel turning 
out of its own center,
like a gyroscope
moving through each here and now
with balance and harmony,
seeing what's what
and what needs to be done in response
out of its own inner sense
of what is most appropriate
for the occasion.

Each of us is a gyroscope
balancing the needs of body and soul
in harmony with the needs of here and now.

Integrating opposites,
honoring all perspectives,
listening to all views,
resolving all conflicts
that can be resolved,
exploring contradictions,
respecting the importance
of polarities,
and maintaining the creative tension
of life and being
on all levels,
in all ways.

This is essential consciousness,
crucial to the movement and flow
of every moment.

It is the work of healing,
restoring, revitalizing,
reimagining, and revolutionizing
the world,
one moment at a time,
in a "Here we are, now what?"
kind of way.

And it depends upon us
being fully present 
as mindfully aware human beings,
open to who we are and what we are about
in the time and place of our living.

We cannot do that
and be looking for how 
we can exploit the moment
for our gain,
our good,
our pleasure and glory.

Our choice in every moment
is the choice of Adam and Eve
in the Garden of Eden,
and the choice of Jesus
in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Here we are, now what?

–0–

03

The Silence is good for the right answers
to the right questions.
It doesn't care who is governor of North Dakota,
or how to spell Minneapolis,
but it comes alive
to who are we and what we are about,
what's happening and what needs to be done about it,
when and how.

The Silence is well-suited
for helping us find our life and live it,
to know what our shtick is
and ride it like a witch's broom
through all of the contexts,
conditions
and circumstances 
of our life,
in being true to ourselves 
and perfectly appropriate
in our response
to what the moment is calling for
in each situation as it arises.

Waiting in The Silence
"for the mud to settle 
and the water to clear,"
is, itself,
a centering, grounding,
experience.

We breathe ourselves back to life,
just sitting,
just watching,
just listening,
for whatever The Silence has to offer.

The Silence is home for our soul.
It is our origin and our goal. 
Living in right relationship
with The Silence
positions us to be what is needed
through all of the noise
of the 10,000 things.

And The Silence is always with us,
present for our good
and the good of the time and place
of our living.
It only takes being quiet
in the right kind of way
to know that it is so.

01

Following Joseph Campbell's lead,
it is ours to understand 
that it is not enough to live
a merely correct life,
but to aspire to live a life
that is perfectly apt,
moment to moment,
in each situation as it arises.

A perfectly apt life
requires us to be alive and alert 
to each moment,
like a cat stalking a bird,
or a bird searching for a moth.

A merely correct life
only has to make sure 
we have toed the right lines,
and made our mother happy.

To be correct,
we only have to know 
what is expected of us,
what we should do in this case,
or that one,
by the book,
following orders.

We don't have to have any idea
of what is being asked of us,
of what is called for,
of what is needed,
of what it is time for 
here and now.

A perfectly apt life
has to read each here and now.
not in terms of what ought to be done
to please some external authority,
but in terms of what must be done
to meet the moment's need
for the right thing
done at the right time
in the right way,
as a dancer might flow 
with the music,
or the cat might pounce
on the bird,
or the bird 
on the moth.

Aptness is a different level of life,
far removed from basic correctness,
and intent on achieving an Olympic Gold
quality of perfection
in being the unique answer each situation seeks
all our life long.

Aptness is not content 
to just "pass muster,"
but lives to be so attuned
to the situation at hand
that nothing escapes its view
or eludes its vision.

Seeing, hearing, knowing,
doing, being are its tools.
Eternal presence is its goal.
Tireless service in the sense
of filial devotion and liege loyalty
is its sole concern.

Every moment pines and languishes
for such attentive allegiance.
Few moments are so blessed--
leaving the great majority to lament,
"There is not one who does right--
no, not one!"
Yet, all the doers are sure they have
done well enough,
and wonder why the hue and cry.

–0–

02

When you don't know what to do,
wait to see what you are going to do.
Practice by standing before your clothes
on their hanger,
and without deciding what to wear,
wait to see what you reach for.

When it doesn't matter which road
you take to home,
see which one you turn onto.

Let yourself surprise yourself.

We learn to trust ourselves
to ourselves 
that way.

Our primary relationship
has to be with ourselves.

We have to be able to read ourselves,
know ourselves,
collaborate with ourselves.

The way opens before those
who are open to the way
without insisting upon a way.

Like deciding what to wear
or choosing a route to take us home.

–0–

03

Facts are the great enemy of truth.
Religion, to be worth anything,
has to be grounded in 
and based on 
the invisible world.
What world would that be these days?

There is no world but the world 
of concrete and steel.
Wall Street and Madison Avenue.

Our work is to create the invisible world!
To rediscover it!
To live in it and out of it!

How do we do that?
How do we live as though
the invisible world
is the Real World?

How do we resurrect the world of intuition,
instinct,
charm,
wonder,
magic,
delight?

How do we come to believe again
in invisible hands
opening doors,
and guiding our steps through our days?

We could do worse than
investing ourselves in the work
of establishing an intimate relationship
with ourselves!

No one is more invisible 
that the one Carl Jung was talking about
when he said,
"There is in each of us
another,
whom we do not know."

Humor me this:
The Other within is the source of our dreams,
our moods,
our spirit,
our lilt and our light.

We have nothing to lose 
by believing it is so
and making ourselves available
for communion with The Other
on a regular basis.

How would you go about this?
Ask The Other for suggestions,
and sit quietly
awaiting what arises
from the silence.

01

We get out of bed
and step into the day
each day
and the day takes over
from there,
delivering us back to bed
when the day is finished with us.

Our days have a mind of their own.

Our life is the same way.

We refer to it as "our life,"
but we belong to our life
much more 
than our life belongs to us.

We do not know what is coming,
or how we will respond,
or what will happen after that.

You might think,
given what we have been through
up to now,
that we would be a bit more humble
than we are,
and thoughtful,
and hesitant to rush about
in the service of our wants and wishes 
and ideas about how things should be.

Give me one example about how you think 
things should be
that actually are as you think they should be.
One thing that you have crafted 
to perfectly match up with your original idea
of how it should be.

Do you think Michelangelo wouldn't like to 
redo some aspects of the Sistine Chapel?  
Or, perhaps the entire work?

Yet we go on wanting and willing
as though we have ever achieved anything
that was/is the way we wanted and willed it to be--
confident, I suppose, that this time
we will get it right.

We are running from the truth that we are wasting our time
trying to make something of our time
and not waste any of it.

Sit down.
Be quiet.
Listen to the silence.
Wait for the shift to happen,
and for something to emerge,
arise,
appear,
come forth
that you did not expect,
to call you,
and claim you,
and make you its own.

–0–

02

The right thing to do 
in any situation
is likely to be the thing 
that occurs to you 
"out of the blue,"
and not the thing
you are trying to impose
upon the situation
out of some agenda,
plan or desire
you have in mind 
for the situation.

Take three slow, deep, breaths
and listen
for what is trying 
to get your attention.
Consider going with that instead.

Allow yourself
to surprise yourself.

And dance with yourself
through all of the moments
left to live.

–0–

03

Truth changes its appearance to fit the occasion,
to adapt to the time and place of its appearing. 

It appears differently to different people,
and to the same person at different points
in their life--
just as we are the same person we always have been,
and nothing at all like we were when we got married.
We are changing all the time,
and are quite recognizable over time.
Would the real,
authentic,
genuine us please step forward!
We all step forward.
None of us is left behind.

Our original nature
is shaped by the time and place
of our living
to become what it needs to be
to survive and adapt
and meet the needs of the moment,
and its own needs within the moment.

We all are "like the wind that blows
where it will,"
not knowing where we will go next,
with everything depending upon 
what happens here and now,
and what is necessary there and then.

I can't count the number of horses it took
to get me where I am,
but I'm here, now,
on my way to there, then,
amazed and lost in wonder
at the entire idea,
adrift on the sea
of complexity and contradiction,
beauty and truth--
a dance with life and being
to the music of the spheres,
and we are all a part of the movement
and the harmony,
the weave of the waves.

What's to be made of it,
who can tell?

Listening is enough,
and following the call
of what is called for
in each moment
of every situation as it rises
for as long as life shall last.

–0–

04

There are those who see
and those who do not see.

Those who do not see
do not see
that they do not see.

I was talking with a southern farmer
in his field about race relations.
During the course of the conversation,
he said, "Hell, Jim!
This isn't the way I SEE things!
This is the way things ARE!"

FM and AM cannot communicate.

Those who see cannot talk 
to those who do not see.

No one has ever been talked into seeing.
No one knows why they see the way they see.
People who see some things
do not see other things.

No one sees everything.

Seeing is an art that can be developed
by those who are far enough advanced
to see their seeing--
and their not seeing.

I do not see numbers.
Filing my taxes is done in the dark.
I do not follow recipes.
I get the idea and freewheel it from there.
Step by step organization,
"a place for everything and everything in its place,"
is my worst nightmare. 
I "file by stacks."
And get by just fine,
but cannot see the value of that other world,
and am not sure it exists 
(the value, not the world).

Seeing is not absolute and universal.
Neither is not seeing.
In areas of mutual interest
it helps if seers and not-seers
can agree about the importance
of the things they disagree about
and how they might resolve their differences
by "agreeing to disagree,"
and allowing people to manage their own private lives
to their own personal satisfaction
without the intrusive incursion of "nosy neighbors"
into matters that do not pertain to them.

The idea of religious freedom meshes well with this.
Your religion applies to you,
and my religion applies to me.
You have no right to impose your religious views on me,
and I have no right to impose my religious views on you.
And everyone has a right to their own life.
If your religion believes in slavery and human trafficking,
your have a problem with constitutional democracy and civil law,
not with me.
 

01

We have our will and our way
which we seek to impose upon our life.
And that is the source 
of all our problems.

No will,
no way,
no impositions,
no problems.

Want to die young and happy?
Discard your will, your way
and your propensity to impose
anything upon everything.

Dying old and reasonably content
requires a different approach.

Have only preferences,
and find ways of serving them
without imposing your will and your way
upon all that is in your way.

This is the art of living.
Caring just enough
about the right things.
Knowing when to say yes
and when to say no. 
Letting your yes be yes
and your no be no.
Drawing lines.
Walking away.
Standing pat.
Sitting tight.
Waiting for the door to open
and then walking through.
Seeing what you look at.
Hearing what you listen to.
Knowing what's what
and what needs to be done about it.
Doing what you can do
in the service of what needs to be done
with the resources available to you,
and letting that be that.
Guided by your preferences
and your original nature
through all your decisions and choices.
Walking two paths at the same time
with one eye on each path at all times.
Without judgment or opinion.
With compassion and kindness.
Moment to moment,
situation by situation,
day by day.
Your whole life long.
Like a stream
on its way to the sea.

–0–

02

Our ideas spring from the silence
or from the noise.

Where are we most comfortable--
with the silence
or with the noise?

The silence requires us
to take our contradictions
into account.

The noise glosses over contradictions,
conflicts, 
complications,
and complexity
in seeking better now no matter what.

Living well requires us to work with our
contradictions,
conflicts,
complications
and complexity
in balancing,
harmonizing,
and stabilizing
ourselves in relation to our life
before increasing the volume and degree
of the Big Four.

That work requires silence.

We have to work silence into every day.

Sitting still,
being quiet,
taking stock,
doing inventory,
seeing what is happening,
what is being called for
and what needs to be done in response,
day by day.

I call this
"Prayerfully considering our life
and our place in it"
at some point in each day.

I understand prayer to be the reverent
openness to what's what
and what needs to be done about it.
It is contemplation,
consideration,
reflection
in the search for new realizations.

We are praying when we stand still
and listen.
Not when we talk without hearing
what we are saying.

Prayer is where we explore 
our relationship with our life,
with all aspects of our life,
with what our life needs from us,
is asking of us,
and how we need to change
to be who and what our life needs us to be.

We always want our life to change 
in relation to us.
We never want to change 
in relation to our life.
And that is the kink in the hose.

–0–

03

Our place is to explore and express
our original nature
in finding our life and living it.

Not to exploit our gifts/interests/
proclivities/genius/daemon 
(sounds like "diaMON")/virtues/
character/spirit/etc.
that came with us from the womb
in the service of our ideas of 
success, gain and glory.

Having our way
and getting what we want
still get us kicked out of the Garden of Eden.

The way back to the Land of Promise
is the way of filial devotion
and liege loyalty 
to the work of exploring and expressing
our original nature
in finding the life that is ours to live
and living it.

Included in this work
is seeing what's what
and what needs to be done about it
in doing the right thing
in the right way
at the right time
moment by moment
in each situation as it arises
with the gifts, etc. 
of our original nature.

This is well within the reach
of every human being,
and it far exceeds our grasp,
as everyone who knows
has known.

Knowing what to do and doing it
remain the task of every life
throughout the time we have for living.

Contemplation and awareness, Kid.
Contemplation and awareness.

Courage and determination, Kid.
Courage and determination.

–0–

04

We put WAAAYYY!!! too much emphasis
on what we want and don't want,
and having our way.

We cannot have our way and grow up.
Growing up is bearing well 
the pain of not having our way,
of not getting what we want.
We grow up against our will.
It has been that way throughout time.

Theology is always at least two ages
behind the truth. 
Evolution for example.
Global warming for another example.
The equality of women for another example.
LGBTQEtc rights for another example...

These things have been true forever.
The Catholic Church
and 10,000 Protestant churches
haven't caught up.
They don't want it to be true.
Therefore they say it is not true.
Yet, it is true.

We grow up against our will every time.

We have to lighten up on what we want
and don't want.
We have to stop judging things we want 
or don't want as good or bad
based on whether we want them or not.
No judging!
No opinions!
Try that for six months or so.

Work in into your life.
Back off on the wanting and not wanting.

Practice growing up against your will.
Start doing things you don't want to do
as though you want to do them.
Stop doing things you need to not want to do
(Drinking, Smoking, Eating Hot Dogs)
as though you don't want to do them.

It will transform your life.
Give you a new perspective.
People will comment on how good you look,
and ask you if you have been working out.

No kidding.
Trust me in this.

01

There is what happens
and there is how we respond to what happens.

Between now and what's next
stands the swing point,
the axis mundi,
you/I.

The future rides on how we handle the present.

Everybody likes to think they don't mean anything.
They mean everything.

Each one of us is responsible for what's next
in our world.
We shift the future into place
by the way we respond to the present
in each situation as it arises.

We have to stop flipping off our place in time!
We are the crux of the matter!
Our life has placed us here, now.
What we do here, now
moves us and those with us 
into there, then.

How alert are you to the Power of You?
How alive to your place in the moment are you?
How attuned to what is happening
and what needs to happen in response?
How aware of what is called for?
How unaffected by what you want and don't want?
How free to be who you need to be
in each moment in every situation?

What do you think about
that keeps you from thinking about
what you need to be thinking about?

How do you interfere with your response-ability?
Your balance and harmony?
Your presence and influence?

What do you mean 
by allowing yourself
to be battered around 
by your circumstances
like a pinball,
spinning, 
rolling,
from one catastrophe
to the next?

You have two feet!
Stand on them!
Open your eyes!
See what you look at!
Hear what is being said!
Know what is going on
and what needs to be done about it,
and how you can step up, step in,
and help out
with the gifts/perspective/virtues/talents/
knacks/proclivities/character/daemon 
(sounds like "diamond")/spirit/shtick
that are yours from birth!
And summon the courage to do it!
For the good of the situation,
in all situations that come your way,
for the rest of time!

Why hold anything back? 

–0–

02

The silence has all the answers.
The silence knows.
Listen to the silence.

The silence is the opening 
to metaphysical reality.
There is nothing to believe.
There is no doctrine or dogma.
No theology.
No multilevel sequence of heavens and hells.
There is the silence 
encompassing all that is to be experienced
on the other side
of normal,
apparent,
rational,
logical,
physical,
reality.

All questions about the silence
are irrelevant and unanswerable.

Sit still.
Be quiet.
Wait for "the mud to settle
and the water to clear."
See/hear what arises in the silence.
What emerges.
What beckons.
What calls.
What occurs to you
as realization,
awareness,
knowing,
comprehension...

And how you respond to it
on the level of your heart,
stomach,
body.

Listening to the silence
and listening to your body
are the two-pronged path
to communion with the silence.

From there,
everything that follows
is up to you.

What you do about 
what you experience
in the silence
is your call to make.

"The bird is in your hands."

–0–

03

We live best from a position of
balance, harmony, stability--
which flows from and leads to
living in accord with the Tao,
the balanced center of Yin and Yang
throughout time and space
(The eternal here and now).

We live for pleasure and gain--
whether that serves
our balance, harmony and stability
or not.

It is better to live for
balance, harmony and stability
whether that serves
our pleasure and gain or not.

Live toward being a human gyroscope,
living out of its own center
toward the true expression of itself
in the service of what is called for
moment-to-moment,
as it is said of Jesus
that "he came not to be served,
but to serve and give his life
to set others free."

Free from seeking their own
pleasure and gain,
and free for balance, harmony and stability
in the service of what is called for
moment-to-moment.

Balance, harmony and stability--
allow us to be free from service 
to pleasure and gain,
and free for service to what is called for
moment-to-moment.

Living like this "turns the light around,"
puts us in accord with the Tao,
and opens the way for spirit and vitality,
rhythm and grace, 
to come to life in us,
and who knows where that will lead?

01

Theology comes to grief
on the rocky shoreline of truth.
As does philosophy.

Truth eats all pretenders alive.

Fraser Snowden nailed it
when he said,
"The only true philosophical question
is 'Where do you draw the line?'"

You have to be able/willing 
to pay the price
to play the ultimate game.
The price is your life
as the price of admission.

In other words, 
you do not escape with your life.

Jesus said it best:
"If you want to be my disciple,
you have to pick up your cross daily
and follow me."

The cross is not a metaphor
for dancing through fields
of fresh spring flowers.

It is the end of the line.

All truth leads to the death
of the truth-seeker.
They all die happy,
laughing,
satisfied,
at-one with the nature of the game.

The other side of Golgotha
is the Empty Tomb.
Good Friday is redeemed 
by Easter Morning.
But it's a ride that will
take the breath of life right out of you,
and give it back again.

Let me explain:
We think it is about one thing,
and it is about another.

We think it is about money,
but we only need enough money
to pay the right bills.
The right bills sustain life
and buy the tools our life requires.
Requires to live in the service of truth.
Any more than that gets in our way.

The truth is who we are
and what our circumstances call for--
what the here and now asks of us.
We only need enough money 
to be who we are 
and to do what is ours to do.

What is ours to do depends upon who we are
and what our circumstances require of us.

Who we are is our Original Nature,
our innate gifts/perspective/proclivities/
peculiarities/interests/traits/character/
virtues/disposition/daemon (sounds like "diamond")/
spirit/truth that came with us from the womb.

We betray our Original Nature shortly after birth,
opting for the shimmering,
shinning, wonders of the 10,000 things
that catch our eye
and snare our soul
with their promise of endless delight and glory.

Our story is the story of Adam and Eve.
And the story of Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus was called the Christ,
which is the Greek word for Messiah,
which is the Hebrew term for 
"the one who comes to set things straight."

Here is he sad truth for you:
We all are born to set things straight.
Setting things straight 
is our Original Nature,
betrayed and abandoned at the foot
of the Tree With the Forbidden Fruit,
which opens our eyes 
to the glittering promises 
of all that fails to satisfy. 

Setting things straight,
puts us back in the Garden of Eden
by way of the Garden of Gethsemane
where we hand over our way of doing things
for the sake of doing things
the way they need to be done
by dying eternally on the crossover
between the worlds of truth and deception/
falsehood/delusion/illusion/lie/Missing The Mark.

To know the truth is to be set free
from the fantasy of happy delight forever,
and to be set free for
seeing and doing what needs to be done,
the way it needs to be done,
here and now forever.

Our choice is the choice between
Dionysus and Sisyphus--
with the difference being 
that Sisyphus knows the secret
of the satisfaction of a job well done,
and Dionysus can only call for more wine 
throughout time.  

–0–

02

If we were talking,
I would ask you to tell me
about the places of complexity,
conflict and contradiction in your life.

"Where are you most conflicted?" I would say,
and sit back, listening.

Our conflicts and contradictions
and the experiences of complexity
rob us of our peace,
and take the life right out of us.

If we are going to get our balance and harmony back,
it will be by working consciously/mindfully
with the sources of conflict,
contradiction
and complexity.

It will be deciding where to draw the line
in a number of places
throughout our life.

We are going back to the two circles
touching each other externally
with a common tangent.

The two circles represent opposites/polarities,
mutually-exclusive contradictions:
You and your life.
You and your spouse/child/children/job/etc.
Or, now and what's next.

At the "T" point where the circles touch,
we live our life
to integrate/harmonize/compromise/make things work
between the circles. 

This is the place of the cross 
that is ours to bear.
The way of the cross
that is ours to traverse.

Think of the cross as the crossover point
between the circles of confusion/chaos/conflict,
where things are dark and murky,
difficult to sort out,
painful to deal with.

It's like the dark of the earth
surrounding the seed of life.
The dark of the tomb.
The dark of the womb.
The dark night of the soul
before the dawn of resurrection.

What we do with the dark,
in the dark
is the deed (seed) that tells the tale.

Here's my best advice:
At the conjunction of the two circles,
any two circles,
every two circles,
realize where you are
and know that it is your place
to walk two paths at the same time.

The path of who you are,
and the path of where you are.

What is yours to do 
is to be who you are 
where you are
when you are.
That is, here and now.

Being true to ourselves
and true to our circumstances,
here and now,
is the cross,
is the crucifixion,
is the path of transformation
and new life.

But, it will eat our old life alive,
as we work things out
between the poles
in the darkness of not knowing what to do.

The silence holds all the answers.

Sit still,
be quiet,
wait, watch,
for what stirs to life,
emerges,
arises,
beckons,
calls your name,
lights up the way,
as a naturally spontaneous impulse
experienced as the thing to do
in response to the moment at hand.

The first box to check off before doing anything
is the "Strive To Do No Harm" guideline 
that has survived the test of time.

The next thing to do is the thing that you know
needs to be done,
crazy as it may seem/be.

This formula fits all of your circles of confusion, 
and is your path to balance and harmony,
grace and peace.

–0–

03

When we are tuned in to our life,
living in tune with our life,
in accord with our life,
magic happens.

"Doors open," said Joseph Campbell,
"where you didn't know there were any doors."

Help comes from the most unlikely places.

We find what we need
when we didn't know we needed anything.

The cosmos is, for once, a very user-friendly place.

What is going on?
Don't pause to think about it!
Just live in wonder,
and go about doing what needs to be done,
the way you have been doing it.

Just listen,
just look,
just stay out of the way,
just continue doing nothing special
in that special kind of way,
like looking at stars
"out of the side of your eyes,"
because they blur and disappear
when you look at them directly.

See what you look at,
and look at everything.

Look closer at what 
catches your eye.

Attend your inner responses,
reactions, impulses,
and obey those impulses
that do no harm. 

Respond/react to the moment,
to the need of the moment,
to what is being called for
in the moment.

The moment is the birthplace
of soul.
Soul comes forth to meet the moment
at its most needy place,
in its most vulnerable and fragile point,
with exactly what is required,
spontaneously,
at exactly the right time,
in precisely the right way,
and then is forgotten,
except by those most moved.
It is never to be forgotten by them.

That is the dance of soul with Tao.
Evidence of the mystery
at the heart of life and being.
Available to be a part of
in every moment
of each situation as it arises,
to those with eyes to see
and ears to hear,
and hearts to comprehend.

01

We are living in crazy times--
uncertain times--
upside down times.

The landmarks are not to be trusted.
Nothing is.
What once applied
no longer applies.

It is all being made up as we go,
created on the run.
Why are we running?
What are we running to?
What are we running from?
Why run?

Sit down.
Sit tight.
Stand pat.
Be still.
Be quiet.
Breathe.
Slowly.
Deeply.
Take stock.

What is so with you?
What do you know to be so?
Pull that to you.
Surround yourself 
with what you know to be so.

What is missing?
What has been lost?
What do you long for?
What is to be grieved and mourned?
Invite that into your awareness.

Sit with it all,
just breathing,
just knowing,
just being present with
all that is present with you.

How things are is a product
of how things have been,
and an indication of how things will be
for longer than we want to be so.

In the midst of the upheaval,
floundering in "the heaving waves
of the wine-dark sea,"
we crave stability,
reliability,
certainty,
confidence,
clarity,
balance,
harmony,
peace...

And all we have is what's now
and what's next.
And we are the only thing
holding those two things together.

We are what is now.
We are what is next.
What we do matters.
What we do makes all the difference.

Imagine two identical circles,
side-by-side,
barely touching.
The two circles represent
the opposites/contraries/contradictions
at work in our life.

They can be past and future,
now and not-yet,
hope and hopelessness, 
good and evil--
whatever you envision to be the most pressing
opposition in your life here and now.

And you stand at their point of contact.

Call it the "sweet spot."
Call it the place of transformation.
Call it the doorway to the future.
Call it the place of crucifixion.
Call it the cross that is ours to bear.
Call it the work that is ours to do.

It is where we are asked to act
in integrating the opposites,
in merging the polarities,
in making the peace between two worlds.

We do that by being 
the balance and harmony
we seek. 

We do that by living out of our own center.
By standing on--
being anchored in-- 
the adamantine rock
of our own foundation.

By being who we are,
living out of our original nature,
out of our innate way of being
true to ourselves
moment-to-moment
in each situation as it arises.

We are what we seek!
We have what we need!
We are "the still point of the turning world"
"where the dance is"
(T.S. Eliot)!

And it is our place to dance with
what is happening
and with what needs to happen,
at the meeting place of
"the circles of confusion."

To do that, 
we have to seek our own center.
We have to know who we are.
We have to be true to our Original Nature,
to our innate virtues/gifts/character/daemon
(sounds like "diamond),
even here,
even now,
no matter what,
moment-to-moment,
in each situation as it arises.

Our work is cut out for us.
And we are cut out for the work
that is ours to do--
that no one but us can do--
here and now.

May it be so,
always and forever!

–0–

02

At what  point do we interfere in our life, 
to direct or oppose, 
and at what point do “go with the flow”? 

These things are judgement calls all the way.
 
By what authority do we do either? 
Who knows what to do when? 
And were does our “knowledge” come from? 

Certainly not from knowing what we are doing! 

We proceed, or interrupt, 
and deal with the fallout, 
with the outcome. 

How much of a mess can we make of things 
before we start cleaning up? 

Our life is an experiment with living. 
We try things out and see how they fit. 
See how it goes. 
Decide what to do next based on 
what we did last, 
or before last. 

We write the book 
of rules to live by 
as we go. 

We live our way to knowing what to do. 
We do not think our way there. 

And it helps to sit still, 
to stand pat, 
and listen, 
look, 
waiting 
for “the mud to settle 
and the water to clear.” 

To know what we know 
and what we do not know, 
and wait to know what needs to be done. 

The silence holds all of the answers.

–0–

03

Why do we see things the way we do?
How do we know what to do?
How do we decide what to do?
What guides our boat on its path through the sea?

The silence holds all the answers.

Knowing.
Wanting.
Doing.
Being.
What is the source of these things?
What is their goal?
Toward what do we live?

The silence holds all the answers.

How do we gauge better and worse?
Good and bad?
Right and wrong?
In light of what do we live?

The silence holds all of the answers.

"It is all grist for the mill,"
goes the old saying.
What are we milling?

Who says so?
Who knows so?
What makes us think so?
On the basis of what?

The silence holds all of the answers.

What is our Original Nature?
Our innate disposition?
Our psychological "type"?

What are our gifts/preferences/
proclivities/interests/
virtues/character/daemon
(sounds like "diamond")?

Start there.
Living to bring forth
who we are--
who we are capable of being--
within the terms and conditions,
context and circumstances,
of our life here and now.

Simply seeing.
Simply hearing.
Simply doing what needs to be done.
Moment by moment.

Knowing 
the silence holds all of the answers.

01

If you are not essentially happy
with yourself and your way with life,
you need to transform your relationship
with the way things are.

If you think you are not happy enough,
think that you ought to be more happy
than you are,
spend time thinking about your level
of unhappiness
and your desire to be happier,
you need to transform your relationship
with the way things are.

If you are thinking that no one could be happy
in a stinking old life like yours is,
living where you do,
with chances that alternate between fat and slim,
and prospects that are even worse than that,
you need to transform your relationship
with the way things are.

Specifically, you need to stop thinking 
that your happiness is dependent upon
and flows from the way things are,
and start thinking that your happiness
is dependent upon 
and flows from the way you think
about the way things are.

Change your way of thinking
and you improve your happiness quotient 
just like that (snaps fingers).

Step #1 is to stop thinking at all.

In order to do that,
we first have to slow our thinking down.
We do that by thinking about our thinking.
Sit still.
Be quiet.
Watch your thoughts.
Count the thoughts you have
over a span of sixty seconds.
This will be your reference marker.

Continue to watch your thoughts
and categorize them--
and as you categorize them,
notice what emotions are connected with them.
Which categories of thought
create,
or come with what emotions attached to?
Notice the instantaneous connection
between thoughts and emotions.

Become curious about that.
About the relationship between thoughts
and emotions.

What are your predominant emotions
throughout each day?
What thoughts generate those emotions?

Take up the work of separating
thoughts from emotions.
Practice having thoughts with no emotions attached.
Notice how changing your thoughts
changes your emotions.
Think of your breathing--
count your breaths to ten,
and start over if you think about something else,
and notice how your emotions change
just by focusing on your breathing,
paying attention to your breath,
and counting the breaths you take.

Notice how when you are not in the grip of emotions,
when your emotional level drops to nothing,
the default, residual, emotion is peace.

Peace is the absence of emotion,
and the foundation of happiness.
And it is strictly dependent upon
the type of thinking you do.

Step #2 is to think without judgment or opinion.

Think about the things that stir you to intense emotion.
And think about separating your thoughts
from your emotions.
Think the thoughts without judgment or opinion.
Do not judge or form opinions about having the thoughts.
Think them with no judgment or opinion at all,
on any level.

Take up the practice of thinking without judgment or opinion.
Think neutrally.
Think without taking sides.
Think without being shanghaied, 
kidnapped 
and held hostage
by your thoughts.
Think without judgment or opinion.

And let peace like a river carry you away
from the intensity of emotional involvement
with your thoughts
to the blessed place of having thoughts without 
emotions attached.

The more you practice separating your thoughts
from emotions,
the more peace you will experience
and the happier you will be.

The more you give yourself over to emotional thinking,
the less peace you will have
and the more unhappy you will be.

The Jon Kabat-Zinn YouTube videos
(Shortest ones first)
on Mindfulness Based Stress Reductiopn
are excellent sources
for learning to distance yourself
from your thinking
and from the emotions your thinking arouse. 

At this point in the program,
I turn you over to you.