04

Happiness is a natural by-product
of doing the things that make
our little heart sing
and our little toes dance.

Having our heart in what we are doing
is all there is to it.

How hard could that be?

When is the last time your heart was in
what you were doing?

Why did you stop?

What are the blocks,
the stops,
the barriers
preventing us from living 
with our heart in what we are doing?

Conduct an inquiry.
Get to the bottom of it.
Why are we not living
with our heart in what we are doing?
What would have to happen 
in order to be able to live that way?

What does our heart want
that we aren't giving it?

Why are we holding out 
on our own heart?

Whose side are we on?

–0–

03

There are the Who, What, When, Where, How questions
to be answered.
The Tao and the Atman team up
for the them all,
with The Atman being
the essential Self/Soul/Essence/Being
(the Who)
within all living things,
and the Tao being
the Right way (How) to do What needs doing,
and When to do it.
And Where is always here and now.

Throwing or lot in
with the Tao and the Atman,
leaves us with only having to
develop our relationship
with both
in order to follow the flow
of life from beginning to in.

The only catch is 
that we have to play our part
as it needs to be played
and get out of the way
in each situation as it arises.

It means sincerely being devoted
to serving the true good of the whole, 
with no contrivance
and no interest in the outcome.
We just do what is ours to do,
with nothing to gain or lose,
and it all works out just peachy
for all concerned.

We have everything we need
to do what is called for 
in all conditions and circumstances 
of life.

What could be wrong with this plan?

–0–

02

There are eight tools
for getting us through anything/everything,
and for getting us in the center of the sweet spot
of where we need to be
in every time and place of our living.

They are:

1) Compassion --for ourselves,
and for one another
(that would be for all others)--
and for our circumstances/situation in life.

It begins with compassion
and flows from compassion,
and depends upon compassion.

Compassion is unconditional
and equally applicable to all things
everywhere,
any time.

It is the ground of our existence.
If we do it without compassion,
it won't be worth doing.

If you are going to practice anything,
practice compassion--
for everything
throughout your day
all day long.

2) Awareness takes everything into account,
contains everything,
considers everything,
with compassion (of course),
and without judgment,
opinion,
or expectation.

All things are just as they are, 
"Thus Come,"
"right out of the box."

Awareness receives everything
in a "This is the way things are,
and this is what can be done about it,
and that's that"
kind of way.

Awareness is without emotional attachment
or reactivity.

Awareness is the operational attitude
of emergency room personnel,
or emergency medical technicians,
triaging a situation
and responding to it
in ways appropriate to the occasion
in each situation as it arises.

Awareness is the primary
and absolutely essential attitude
for sizing things up
and dealing with them
as they need to be dealt with,
one after another,
moment-by-moment,
day-by-day,
all our life long.

3) Acceptance greets everything
with Rumi's warm welcome
expressed so well in his poem, "The Guest House"
(Googleit).

Everything is exactly what we need
to grow up some more again.
And growing up some more again
is "what it's all about."

Growing up some more again
is the essence of the Hero's Journey,
and the Spiritual Journey,
and every other journey there is or may ever be.

We are never Grown Up.
We are always growing up.
Evolving,
becoming,
moving,
developing,
shifting,
changing,
showing ourselves who we are
and what we are made of.

There is more to us than meets the eye--
any eye,
especially our own eye!
And our life is exquisitely designed
to provide us with the experiences necessary
to bring us forth,
expressing, 
exhibiting,
incarnating
who we are 
in each time and place
(here and now)
of our living.

So, greet the day,
and make it welcome!

4) Silence is the sine qua non for 
balance,
harmony,
spirit,
life,
vitality,
virtue,
character,
Original Nature,
and living centered
in the sweet spot of who we are
and what is ours to do.

Everything flows from Silence!
Imagination and creativity
are grounded in Silence!
All that we as a species
have ever produced
came right out of Silence!

Meeting what meets us in Silence
is the necessary ordeal
for meeting what meets us 
in the world 
of ordinary, apparent, reality.

The Silence is practice
for the Noise of the 10,000 things,
for the Dust of the World.

As we learn to appreciate,
embrace,
yearn for,
enjoy,
relish Silence,
we prepare ourselves for all that waits
in the situations and circumstances
of our daily life.

Silence is the source of all that we need
to find what we need
to do what needs to be done
and what needs us to do it
in each situation as it arises forever.

We cannot be anything worth being
until we can be quiet.

On a regular basis
throughout the time left for living.

5) Perspective is how we see
what we look at.

How we see determines what we see
when we look at what we look at.

How we see is conditioned/controlled
by the 10,000 things.
The way we see things 
is determined by where we have been
and what has happened to us
from birth to here and now.

We all are at the mercy
of the way we see things.
Programming the way things are seen
is the aim of all propaganda,
and everything that has come to us
about how to see what we look at
is a form of cultural propaganda--
stemming from the people we hang out with,
socialize with,
associate with,
that form our culture-within-the-culture.

When the way we see things changes,
the people we spend time with is likely to change.
And if we change the people we spend time with,
we are likely to change the way we see things.

All of which is a result of awareness,
particularly as it relates to #6 below.

6) Self-transparency is seeing ourselves seeing.
Seeing ourselves thinking.
Feeling.
Knowing.
Acting.
Doing.
Living.
Being...

We do not move,
psychologically,
emotionally,
spiritually,
until we see ourselves moving--
until we know what we would
go to hell for--
until we know where we stand
and what we stand for,
"Without hope,
without witness,
without reward"
(Steven Moffat, Doctor Who).

Self-transparency is not kidding ourselves,
but knowing ourselves as we are,
"just so,"
"Thus Come."
With the kind of compassionate
awareness
and acceptance described above.

This kind of knowledge 
of our essential selves,
lends itself to a budding knowledge
of our Self--
The Atman within--
and positions us to live
aligned with ourselves,
with our Self,
and in accord with the Tao.

7) Sincerity (Non-contrivance) is the basic
requirement of self-expression.
We live to be who we are--
for no reason other than being who we are.

We do not live to get anything out of it
beyond the experience of being fully alive
by being who we are in the moment of our living
in each situation as it arises.

When we meet the moment
and respond to it
by offering/doing what is called for there
as only we can,
with the gifts/daemon/genius/virtue/character/grace
that are peculiarly ours to offer,
we have done all that anyone can do,
and that is being as alive to the moment as possible. 

8) Spontaneity is acting without contrivance,
without agenda,
without motive,
without plans,
or schemes,
or strategies,
or intentions,
or purposes,
or ideas,
but simply rising to every occasion
by offering what is called for,
and letting that be that.

Live in the service of these eight tools for living,
and you will be
where everyone has been searching for
from the beginning of the species,
and, maybe, before.

–0–

01

What comes packed in our DNA?
How did it get there?

I talk a lot about our Original Nature.
What is constant in everyone's DNA,
and what is inherited from our parents,
unique to us alone among all people on earth for ever?
How did it get there?
How often do new things get there?
What is the process of transmission?

How do innate releasing mechanisms
get into our DNA?
Can new ones ever come along?
When in the history of our DNA
did they first occur?
How does "experience" become "inherited"?

Does the idea of God
predate the experience of God?
Where do ideas come from?
Can we experience anything
that is not "expected" by our DNA?
What can we not experience?
Why not?

We are born into a culture
of assumptions and expectations.
How could we ever know 
that a response to our environment
is inherited via DNA
or originates in the sea of cultural
assumptions and expectations
that immerses us at birth?

It feels (to me) as though 
the Tao and the Atman 
are explanations/grounds of experience,
but experience could just as easily
be based on the cultural
expectations and assumptions
of Tao and Atman.

Experience is created by expectation
and explanation.
That is the foundation of superstition,
horoscopes,
black magic,
voodoo
and religion.
If we take anything on faith
it is instant and everlasting
that whatever we take on faith
becomes an irrefutable fact
like that (snaps fingers).

We are susceptible to suggestion,
and cannot separate 
culturally created expectation
from personally experienced reality.

How objective can even science be? 
Isn't that the very ground of the
"hypothesis not fact" presumption
that serves as the basis of all scientific endeavor?
We have to constantly check our own observations
because we cannot trust ourselves to see what is there
and not what we expect to be there?

How do our expectations have us where we are?
How can we free ourselves from our presumptions,
assumptions
and expectations
in order to see reality
separate from our presumptions,
assumptions
and expectations?

How do we know we aren't just making up
everything we think we know to be so?

Truth and illusion are separated by what?
"The edge of the coin"?
(Ortega y Gasset)

03

Allowing our life to take its own shape
around our interests
and our involvement with things that evoke
our vitality, zeal and enthusiasm
is a track different
from going where the money is--
and we have to make a decision
at some point
about what is going t0 be the central concern
that directs our choices
and rules our life.

We can have a "cookie cutter life,"
with the shape being determined
by our social group,
or by the group we would like to be our social group,
and we do all the things 
members of our group do,
going the same movies,
eating at the same restaurants,
watching the same TV shows,
living the same life.

And we can live "a life apart,"
in the sense of not minding
that we are on the outside
of all social circles,
letting our direction in life
be determined by the things we like to do
regardless of whether anyone else cares
that they exist.

What guides our boat on its path through the sea?
What kind of boat are we riding in?
Whose idea is it that this is the boat we ought to be riding in?
What gives us our sense of direction?
Our idea about what is good and what is not?
Who are we living to please?
What do we need to be happy with the life we are living?
What kind of life do we need to be living
in order to be pleased with how things are?

The idea that "this boat won't take us there,"
gives us some sense of how our life needs to change
to get us "there"
if "there" is some place we would like to be.

Or, if we like "this boat" so much
that wherever it takes us is perfectly fine with us.

Living the life that fits our idea of how life should be,
and what needs to change to have a better fit--
the life we are living,
or idea of how life should be--
gives us something to consider
as we work to blend happiness with our life
and how we are living it.

What is important?
How do we decide?
How do we know when we are right
and when we are wrong?

–0–

02

The future is fluid,
pliable,
capable of being shaped
and molded.
We create it in every moment
by the way we respond to
what is happening
and to what is being called for.

We bring the future on ourselves
by the way we live,
by the choices we make,
in each situation as it arises.

We influence, 
impact,
create the next situation,
and all those following it,
by the way we act in this situation.

The present moment is a fulcrum,
and we lever the future into place
one moment at a time.

In every moment we make choices
that form the matrix
for all the choices we will be able to make
in all future moments.

Here is the organizing idea for ordering 
your response to every choice you are offered
in all of your moments yet to be:

Ask of what is before you,
"What is the life-quotient for me
and/or others in the options before me?

What is the level of vitality,
enthusiasm,
zest,
excitement,
joy and delight
in each of them?

What is their degree of radiance,
transcendence,
rapture,
elation,
exhilaration,
inspiration?"

Go with what has life for you/others.
And if it comes down to a choice 
between you and others,
be clear about the sacrifice
you are being asked to make,
and choose carefully.

Sometimes it will be you that is sacrificed
for the sake of others,
and sometimes it will be others 
that are sacrificed
for the sake of you.

Do not hesitate to choose in your favor!
Just be clear of the choice you are making.
Sometimes you will "die" either way,
just "die" in the service of life every time!

–0–

01

Four statements say it all: 
Promote the General Welfare,
Provide the Common Defense,
Insure Domestic Tranquility, 
Preserve, protect and defend...
against All Enemies Foreign and Domestic.

These are not only in the Constitution,
but are either stated or implied 
in all the oaths of office
taken by people holding office
as US Government officials.

These four statements provide the foundational
Constitutional authority
for declaring every act of the US Government
from its inception
that violates any of the four
to be unconstitutional
and therefore illegal.

Making the forthcoming appointment
to the Supreme Court
unconstitutional and illegal.

Making canceling the Voting Rights Act
unconstitutional and illegal.

Making Citizens United 
unconstitutional and illegal.

Etc.

Making lobbyists
unconstitutional and illegal.

Etc. 

Making all of Trump's executive orders
and all of Congress' actions
that violate any of the four statements
unconstitutional and illegal.

Etc.

Everything the US Government does
has to meet the standards
set forth by the four statements.

Environmental protection
is guaranteed by the four statements.

Individual human rights
are guaranteed by the four statements
(And where abortion is concerned,
life begins at birth with the first breath,
and has been held to be so
since the beginning of time,
so we celebrate birth days
and not conception days).

Health care, etc
are guaranteed by the four statements.

Etc.

These four statements provide 
all the grounds needed
to oppose and invalidate
all US Governmental acts
that violate any of the four.

The Atman has been recognized
from the beginning of human history
as the Essential Self,
the True Nature,
the Original Nature,
Universally across all time and space
of every living thing,
and is violated,
desecrated,
dishonored,
blasphemed
and destroyed
when any of these four statements
are so treated.

Therefore, not only the Constitution,
but also the very essence of life,
are done grave damage
by the flippant disregard
of the sacred foundation
constituting our life together
as citizens of the United States of America.

And we are called forth
to resist,
repudiate
and repel 
all attacks upon us
and our holy bond
with all living things,
now and forever.

04

Joseph Campbell, 
speaking about his college days
on the tract team at Columbia,
"I lost two races that were very important to me
because I lost the still place.
The race meant so much
that I put myself out there
to win the race
instead of to run the race,
and the whole thing got thrown off."

When we lose the still place,
we lose the rhythm,
the dance,
the balance and harmony
of ourselves in this moment in time,
where we act out of the stillness,
sincerely and spontaneously
offering what is needed
moment-by-moment,
without thought of gain or loss,
without thinking anything,
just being in the moment,
free to be who we were being called to be
by the time and place of our living.

We lose that by trying to force a win,
by pushing our agenda,
by living from a motive of profit
and the desire to win.
That is to be out of accord with the Tao,
and it all goes south like that
(Snaps fingers).

We are here simply to run the race,
to live from the still place,
and offer what is called for
in each situation as it arises.

We are here to attend the moment.
To see what's what,
and know what is happening
and what is needed,
and how we can help with that
out of the gifts/genius/daemon/character/talents
we have to offer--
remembering Lao Tzu's advice,
"Do your work and step back,
and let nature take its course."

That's all it takes,
but it takes it day in and day out.
Forever.
We are in it for the long haul.
The Hero's Journey never ends.

Get your game face on
and don't take it off.

–0–

03

You can lead a horse to water,
and if on the way you stop for a while
at the salt block,
you can pretty well guarantee the horse will drink.

What's the equivalent to a salt block
on the spiritual journey?
What can we do to prepare ourselves 
for the serendipitous moment of illumination?
How can we put ourselves in the way of enlightenment?
How can we assist seeing,
hearing,
realizing?
Satori hinges on what? 

It often takes nothing more "spiritual" 
than a dead end.

Come to the end of your rope,
and there is the light.

Joseph Campbell liked to say,
"Where you stumble and fall,
there lies the gold."

And we've all heard the axiom,
"It's always darkest just before dawn."

All that we try that doesn't work
is cleaning the windows of perception.
"Not this, not this, not this...
is all important knowledge
on the way to knowing "This is IT!"

It is all preparation.
Nothing is wasted on the path to realization.
We hurry up awakening
by doing everything with our eyes as open
to what's what as they can be.

We can only see what we see,
but we can be conscious of looking,
and ask the questions that beg to be asked
about everything in each situation as it arises--
and say everything that needs to be said,
trusting the "click" to happen 
in its own time.

–0–

02

Where is your zeal in the matter?
Any matter?
What matter holds the most zeal for you?
Enthusiasm?
Heart?
Life?
What brings you to life?
Calls you to life?
Infuses you with life?
Begin there.
Go there.
Do that.

I'm better off walking around
looking for photos,
or sitting with my computer
processing photos,
or writing,
or reading,
or cooking,
or playing at playing my djembe drum,
than most any other where
in my life.

Those are the things that ground and center me
and restore my balance and harmony.
If I am away from them for longer than I like,
I drift over into crotchety and snarly
and people start saying,
"Why don't you go find something to photograph?"

It's important to know where our zeal lies, 
and feed it what it feasts on as often as possible. 

–0–

01

The Buddha is recognized and revered
as "The One Thus Come."
The Christ belongs in that category as well.

As do all who are just who they are--
with neither pretension nor aspiration,
just so,
just this,
just thus.

Which is to say, naturally exhibiting
"the face that was theirs before they were born."

All natural things are Thus Come.

Rocks and waves,
wind and turkeys,
gold nuggets and porcupines...

The natural world is Thus Come.
Only human beings have the capacity
to be other than they are
in striving to create a future to their liking.

All humans Thus Come
are content with the way things are,
and have no need to transform things
into their idea of how they ought to be.

They do not walk around
with an agenda in hand
and a plan for everything in their life.

In trying to arrange a particular future,
we arrange ourselves in particular ways.
Terrible Twos are so called
because children at about that age
react violently when the way things are
is not the way they want them to be.

No puppy, kitten, bear cub or penguin chick
ever cried, kicked, screamed, bit their parents
or rolled on the floor
because things weren't going their way.

People in their eighties 
can still be in their Terrible Twos.
They are Thus Come in a way
different from the Buddha and the Christ,
and are avoided by everyone in their vicinity
for being the way they are.

Being our natural self
puts us in accord with the natural world,
and we live out our lives 
smoothly choreographed with the movement
of life around us.

This is to be aligned with the Tao
and at one with the times and places of our life.

It is to say "Yea!" to life as it is,
and to find ways of folding ourselves into 
our circumstances
and make a way for ourselves within the confines
of "what's happening now,"
in a "Okay, now what?" kind of way--
while those in the Terrible Twos Stage
are going,
"NO! NOT THIS--THAT!"
NO! NOT THAT--THAT OVER THERE!"
all their life long.

03

Martin Palmer said that the Tao
is simply getting things done in the right way--
the right way of going about doing something.
Anything.
Everything.

The only thing standing between us 
and doing things the right way
is us.

Before we do anything,
we only have to stop and remember
to do it the right way,
the way it is to be done,
the way it needs to be done.

And do it that way.

This is not hard.

We only have to get ourselves out of the way.

Why wouldn't we do that?

–0–

02

We gather ourselves
and step into the day.

What do we mean by that?
What do we intend?
What's the point?
What are we going to do with this day?

Each day is an addition
to our body of work.
What do we mean by that?
Intend?
What is the point of our body of work?
Who are we showing ourselves to be
in our collection of days?
What theme are we developing?
What is the nature of our life?
Who are we becoming?
Who have we become?

I look at the various segments
that make up my day
as mirrors reflecting me to me.
I see myself in the ways I respond
to what meets me in a day,
and evaluate my responses
in light of my Ideal Me--
the Me I wish I were--
the Me I live to be.

Each day is a practice run
toward the Me I would like to be,
one situation at a time.
It goes better
when I take my time,
embrace the silence,
remember my breathing
and know what I know.

When I step back,
and allow Me to lead the way,
surprising me with spontaneous
responses to the developing situation--
which is quite different from knee-jerk reactions--
things develop a flow
that I am proud to be a part of
even as I marvel at how this remark
or that action
could come from me.

Where did that come from?
is always a joy to find myself asking,
and I think I keep living
just to see what I will do next!

Coming to trust myself 
to know what to do
has been the blessing
and the grace
of life through the years,
and I face the future
with the confidence gleaned 
from having faced the future
into the fourth quarter
of my seventy-fifth year.

–0–

01

Everything turns--for better or for worse--
on our being right 
about what we call good.

How good is the good we call good
is always the question.

Our idea of the good
can be anything but good.

It is up to us to know what's what
with the good we call good.

How do we evaluate our values?

What guides our boat 
on its path through the sea?

Can it be trusted to know True North
from Due South?

How do we have our alignment checked?

What's a valid plumb line in the arena of the Good?

Whose word do we take?

What makes us think they know
what they are talking about?

What is the source of our certainty?

How often is it calibrated?

Against what standard of accuracy is it measured?

Who does the measuring?

How good is the good we call good?

Who says so?

If you are going to assume something,
or take it for granted,
don't let it be the goodness
of your idea of the good!

05

Always the first response,
regardless of what happens:

"Well, now. What can we do with this?"

Everything about our life is given to us 
so that we might play with it
and see what we can make of it--
of what we can become thanks to it.

Everything is a vehicle for our own becoming.

Nothing is wasted.
Nothing is worth nothing.
Nothing is for nothing.
Everything is going to impact us in some way.
Is going to make some sort of difference in our life,
in our way with life.

Our place is to oversee the impact,
to moderate the effect,
for the good--
using it to shape ourselves in ways
that enable us to better be who we are,
clarifying us,
if only to ourselves,
defining us,
refining us,
bringing us out,
bringing us forth,
showing us,
and others,
who we are.

Our life sets us up for the things that come our way.
We bring it on ourselves
as a gift from ourselves to us
to round us out,
complete us,
grow us up.

It is all a gauntlet, of sorts,
an initiation process,
an induction into the way of things,
a test of our mettle,
of our spirit,
to show us what we are made of,
and build our confidence in ourselves
and in our ability to deal appropriately
and successfully
with anything that comes our way.

Our role is to meet what meets us
as though we welcome the challenge,
and are looking forward ourselves 
to seeing what we will come up with next,
how we will handle this,
of all things,
and what it has to teach us about ourselves.

Practice the line until you can say it like you mean it:

"Well, now. What can we do with this?"

–0–

04

For those of you interested in 
living out of your own center
in the service of the work that is yours to do
in the life that is yours to live,
Joseph Campbell has this to say
(From The Mythic Image, p. 178, hardback edition):

“There are three points of accord that make it possible to speak of modern depth psychologies in the same context with yoga.

First, there is the idea that the fate of the individual is a function of his psychological disposition: he brings about those calamities that appear to befall him.

Next, there is the idea that the figures of mythology and religion are not revelations from aloft, but of the psyche, projections of its fantasies: the gods and demons are within us.

And finally, there is the knowledge that an individual’s psychological disposition can be transformed through controlled attention to his dreams and to what appear to be the accidents of his fate.”

Our life is a meditation.
Asking the questions that beg to be asked
and saying the things that cry out to be said
enable the reflections
that lead to new realizations
and "create doors where we 
did not think there would be doors,"
and opportunities for life
in what we took for a barren wasteland.

–0–

03

We say what is ours to say,
do what is ours to do,
in the times and places of our living,
and are gathered to our ancestors,
and the world goes on
as it always does.

We speak truth to power
and power has the leverage
and the privilege
and does what it always does.

Nothing changes.
"The more things change,
the more they stay the same."
The things Jesus and the Buddha said 
in their time
still need to be said in our time.
What?

Here is the truth that is as true
as the truth has ever been:

The work does not depend upon the results!
We say what we have to say--
what we MUST say.
We do what we have to do--
what we MUST do.
And let that be that.
What comes of it is not our concern.
Our only concern is to be true to ourselves,
to what is ours to say and to do,
and let the outcome be the outcome.

We gauge success by the degree to which
our life incarnated/reflected/exhibited/expressed
who we are 
and what is ours to say and to do.

What comes of it is just what comes of it.

Our task is to be true to ourselves
and to our work--
the work of expressing ourselves
in the life we live.
Beyond that,
it is out of our hands.

So, as Joseph Campbell said,
"Get in there and do your thing,
and don't worry about the outcome!"

–0–

02

We cannot impose our will for our life upon our life.

We "take our orders" from a source other than ourselves.
We align ourselves with "God's will for our life."
We put ourselves "in accord with the Tao."
We seek to follow "the path that calls our name."
We say "we are not our own to do as we will."
Then we tell people they are going to hell 
if they don't do it like we do it.
Which way is it?

We shun people,
ostracize people,
have nothing to do with people
who don't do it like we do.

We "say" in a thousand ways daily,
"I am the way, the truth and the life,
and  no one comes to the Father but by me!"

All of the self-help books ever written
boldly proclaim:
"If you want to be happy,
you have to do it like I do!
And herein is the recipe!"

What outlandish arrogance!

Everybody finds their own way.
Everybody has to do their own work.

Joseph Campbell declares that the way
is a different way for every individual,
which is the meaning of the word "individual."

Carl Jung says the same thing.

Campbell:

"The knights entered the forest at the point that they had chosen, where there was no path. If there is a path, it is someone else’s’ path, and you are not on the adventure. Now, what are you to do about instruction? You can get clues from people who have followed paths, but then you have to carom off that and translate it into your own decision, and there is no book of rules."

Jung:

“It is the individual’s task to differentiate themselves from all the others and stand on their own feet.”
“The development of personality means fidelity to the law of one’s own being.”
“Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own.”
"The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are."

Our burden is our glory:
Finding and living the life that is ours to live--
at the expense of the life we wish were ours to live.

This is the working out of those age old themes,
"From bondage to freedom."
"From death to life."
"Death and resurrection."
"Darkness and light."
"Asleep and awake."

The ultimate duality 
is created by those who declare
"There are no dualities!"

The ultimate illusion
is created by those who declare,
"Duality is an illusion!"

"No one is as blind
as those who declare:
'I see!'"

Seeing is borne out by the way
in which we live our life.
If seeing sees anything 
it sees all the ways in which 
it does not see at all,
and does not boast of 
the great clarity of its vision.

We find our own way.
We do our own work.
It is all up to us.
All of our problems
are simply doorways to realization,
pathways to the Land of Promise,
to the Farther Shore,
which is always beneath our feet
all the time.

Like the man on his ox,
searching for his ox.

Like the woman holding her car keys
looking for her car keys.

Like the person moving the butter out of the way
looking for the butter.

We don't have to go anywhere 
to find what we are looking for--
we only have to realize
that we are it.
Just as we are.
"The one thus come."
"The father and I are one."

Right here, right now.

–0–

01

We cannot impose our will for our life upon our life.

We certainly cannot impose our will for someone else's life
upon their life.

These are the two fundamental/foundational principles of life
that must be honored and respected,
embraced and acquiesced to 
by all people great and small
across all times and places
in order for life to be lived
the way life needs to be lived
for the true good of all concerned,
including ourselves.

These two principles are the center and ground of democracy,
and set it apart from all other ways of life together
throughout the universe and all dimensions
within which life might be lived.

They are the end of caste systems
and jihads,
discrimination
and injustice,
and require us to live together
in ways that are in accord
with the Tao of all sentient beings,
Tao being the name for The Spirit of the Times,
in the sense of there being a time and a place
for everything in its own time and its own place
over all times and places,
with the essential question being,
"What is it time for in this place,
here and now?"
in every time and place.

Balance and harmony,
spirit,
vitality,
virtue/character,
integrity
and sincerity
become the central features
of life together for all concerned--
and we all live in ways
that honor them 
and call them forth
in our life and the lives of others.

The Buddha and the Christ
represent the end of all caste systems
and the imposition of dharma/duty
limiting people to prescribed places
in the social order,
and invite everyone to follow
their own sense of the Spirit 
that is like the wind,
blowing where it will,
not knowing itself what it will do next
over the full course of their life. 

The charge, "If you meet the Buddha/Christ 
on the road, kill him!"
captures the essence of the matter.
Each person is responsible for their own life
and the development of their own potential
for realizing,
expressing,
incarnating who they are
and what they are to be about--
and no one can escape that
by doing what someone else tells them to do.

We are the Buddha!
We are the Christ!
And our life is the matrix
within which we work out the implications
of knowing and being who we are
and are capable of being/becoming--
the first order/obligation being 
the creation and maintenance
of an atmosphere/environment
in which everyone realizes
what is expected of/incumbent upon them
and lives their life in accord
with the Spirit of the Times
in all times and places
of their coming and going.