Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

This is a link to Truman Capote reading his “Christmas Memory” and is not to be missed!

If we changed our mind 
about what's important,
the world would be transformed
immediately.

Perspective/perception 
are the Elder Wand.

And we are not in control
of how we see what we look at.
Or of what anything means to us.
We are slaves/victims of our own way
of assessing what we asses to be reality.

Propaganda and indoctrination
make fools of us all.

Our mind is not our own,
but is owned by the forces
in charge of what we see and hear,
with "in charge" being in quotes
because no one is in charge
of their own perspective/perception.

Everyone is driven by what they think
they want,
but they are not in charge of
what they think or want.

No one is.

Everything is as it is
because everything is as it is
and has been so forever.

Circumstances begetting circumstances
carry us all away
and create the forces determining
where we go and what we think/do
all along the way.

No one is in control.
Everyone is responding
to impulses generated by
their environment
triggering their emotions
producing their thoughts/actions
randomly creating low-level chaos
throughout the systems
governing life in the world.

No one gets to choose their choices.
No one knows what they are doing,
or what to do 
about the way things are.

It is like stopping a tsunami.
Or a glacier.
Or keeping a glacier from melting.

"This is the way things are,
and this is what you can do about it,
and that is the way things are."

I recommend observing what you think/feel/do
and exploring where the motive/impetus
to think/feel/do that
came from--
and see what you think/fee/do
in response to that
(And explore where the motive/impetus
to think/feel/do that
came from).

–0–

What do you live to do? 

What engages you?
Enthuses you?
Enlivens you?

What are your passions?
What is your bliss?
The source of your radiance?
Your joy?

What do you do with all your heart?

Live the remainder of your life
so that everything else
falls into place around these things.

Devoting yourself to these things
with filial devotion
and steadfast loyalty
will enable you to live in light of
what matters most,
and be clear about what needs to be done
in each situation as it arises,
no matter what.

And that is all you need.

–0–

We come to life
within the context
of our lived experience,
complicated by our wants and wishes,
fear and desire,
perceptions, perspectives, opinions
and expectations...

We are hardly a "blank slate,"
and need to erase much of what is there
to have a chance of waking up
and doing what needs to be done
without getting in the way.

Psychotherapy is about erasing 
what's there
and replacing it with what would be helpful
in the work to be who we are
here and now
in the time left for living.

Reducing (instead of increasing)
the noise and complexity
of living
by examining our options
and the choices we make
is a giant step toward
balance and harmony,
integrity and sincerity
oneness and peace
"upon the heaving waves
of the wine dark sea."

And that requires examination,
reflection, awareness of and attention to
what we are doing
and what happens when we do it
and what we might do instead
to restore the connections 
with heart and soul,
enabling us to live soulfully
with our heart in what we are doing.

Partying hardily
and letting the good times roll
is not the recipe for mindful living.

Walks in the woods
along streams,
by ponds
and the sea,
Baroque music 
and retreats into silence
help to offset the tenor of the times
and enable us to resonate
with the inner voice
of wisdom and grace,
putting us back in touch
with our original nature
and innate virtues/attributes,
making a new life possible
in relationship with ourselves.

–0–

Live to see what
you are capable of.

Live in the service
of the best you can imagine.

In each situation 
as it arises.

Without caring what your chances are.

With no interest in 
having your way,
or getting what you want,
beyond having your way
being living in the service
of the best you can imagine,
and getting what you want being
what needs to happen
in the situation at hand.

No matter what.

All your life long.

Simple enough a child could do it.

No?

–0–

Finding our place
within what is available
and what is permitted
and what is required
is a dance that goes on
throughout our life.

What we can get away with
changes with our context
and circumstances,
and they are always in flux
as the times are constantly a-changing.

War and natural disasters
create their own vortex,
impacting our world 
in ways that demand transitioning
in mid-stride.

Being able to impose our will
and do what we want
isn't in the playbook,
but conferring 
with the emptiness/stillness/silence
is always appropriate
to every occasion
in a "Okay, here we are, now what?"
kind of way.

Being able to listen
and take direction
are talents tailor-made for survival,
and we never out-grow their place
in growing up
and doing what must be done
here and now.

As the world gets crazier,
we have to become quieter
and increasingly centered/grounded
in our original nature
and the virtues/attributes
coded into our DNA,
as we adjust and readjust
to what is being asked of us
and handed to us
in the day-to-day dance with time and place.

–0–

People who are afraid to die
have never lived.
They have been dead all their life.
And know it.
And never had the courage
to say, "To hell with being dead!"
Because they were afraid to be alive.

Fascists fit nicely into this category. 
Fascists are afraid of everything.
Hence their infatuation with AR-15's,
and their need to kill everyone
not like they are.

And when they get that job nicely done,
they will splinter into groups
and kill each other.
Because they are afraid of everything.

The solution, of course,
is to grow up.
Which, of course,
is out of the question.
And so, the problem.

Growing up is the solution
to all problems everywhere.

Shut up.
Sit down.
Be quiet.
Grow up.

The four steps to enlightened living.

And the shortest self-help book
ever written.

Which never made anyone's 
Best Seller list.

Because there is a little bit
of fascism in all of us.

Which makes it so hard to uproot
and be done with.

The best of us are ashamed of that
and keep it under wraps.

The worst of us are proud of it
and would make Hitler blanche.

Shutting up.
Sitting down.
Being quiet.
And growing up.
Are the most anti-fascist things
we can do.

And are the foundation of democracy world-wide.

–0–

People go on pilgrimages to sacred places
to find God,
or to find themselves,
or both.

As though God is hard to find
and they are hard to find as well,
never mind that Jesus is said to have said,
"The kingdom (of God) is spread out over all the earth,
and people don't see it."

God is as much in our back yard
as anywhere,
and we are right here all the time.

What's with going to look for God?
Going to look for ourselves.

All it takes is being still and quiet.
But, it is easier for some people
to go across the sea
than to sit still and be quiet.

What are your questions?
Start there,
sitting still and quiet.
Meditate on your questions.
Wonder about your questions.
Write them down.
See what questions your questions
bring to mind.
Write them down.
See what questions they bring to mind.
Write them down.

Take up the quest of asking questions.
See how many new questions you can ask
in a day.

In a week.

In a month.

In a year.

Fill up a journal with nothing but questions
that are your legitimate questions.

God is in the questions.
You are in the questions.

Your Meditation on Questions
leads to both God and you.
It's like going on a pilgrimage 
without leaving home.

–0–

Pray without words.

Commune with The Mystery
with a silence too deep for words.

Pray this image, for instance.
Or the impact it has on you.

Pray a memory.
A dream.

Pray your feelings.

Your predominant emotion.

Your rarely felt/experienced emotion.

Your entire range of emotions.

Pray emptiness.
The dearth of emotions.

Pray aloneness.

Pray beauty.

Pray horses,
and dogs.
Cats and whales.
Hippos and marbles.

Pray your day
as you live it,
walk through it,
contemplate it...

Pray you at any moment
throughout it.

Invite The Mystery 
into your life.

Welcome The Mystery.
Allow The Mystery
to pray itself to you.

–0–

I recommend you follow this link to my published works,
and give A Handbook For The Spiritual Journey a once over:

https://jimwdollar.com/

I hope it will be worth your time.

–0–

Community interferes with our development
as much as it assists and enables it--
and we have to walk the line
between too much community influence in our life
and too little.

You might sit down with
the Westminster Confession of Faith
some rainy afternoon,
for an encounter with what 
too much community can do.

A slow walk in the rain
through a patch of local woods
would do more good for your soul
than a session 
in the company 
of the Westminster Divines.

So, when we talk about 
the importance of community,
we have to qualify that with 
"the right kind of community"
and "the right kind of influence."

Anything that would replace
our individual/personal sense 
of our own integrity
with it's view of how our life
should be lived,
oversteps the Old Testament commandment,
"Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark!"
And robs us of the joy of our own discovery
of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.

Emptiness,
stillness
and silence
remain the three best teachers
when it comes to knowing what's what
and what to do in response,
where, when and how,
and cannot be replaced with any form of community
influence or instruction.

Give the neophyte a Zazen cushion
with directions to meditate on their questions
and leave the room.

And then, bring them all together
in a community of peers to talk about
their experience
and expand their list of questions.

Follow that with more community insight and sharing
and more questions
ad nauseam
and you have introduced them
to the place of community in their lives.

If anyone tries to force their answers
onto anyone else,
those doing the forcing have to leave
the group and meditate on what they are doing
and where that comes from
until they think they are ready 
to rejoin the community.

In this way, there is no excommunication,
just directed reflection/realization.  

–0-–

Stop right now 
trying to arrange
the life/life style
you want to live.

And trust yourself
to the Mystery!
Better yet,
thrust yourself
into the hands of the Mystery!
And live from there
in all that you do!

The Mystery is beyond words.
Beyond concepts.
Beyond grasping.
Beyond understanding.
But.
Quite capable of being known.
And trusted.
And loved, revered, adored.
And realized/recognized
as one with us
when we are living
at one with the Mystery.

We all are the Mystery made apparent,
become real, actual, present...
We are aspects of the Mystery,
and are,
when we are living at one with the Mystery
transparent to the Mystery,
and are,
for all intents and purposes,
the Mystery actualizing the Mystery ourselves.

To be that,
we have but to get out of the way.

Lay aside our plans,
agendas,
schemes,
strategies,
ideas,
timetable
for ourselves,
and place ourselves 
in the service of the Mystery
from this time forth
and forevermore.

It is as simple as saying,
"Okay. Let's go."
And getting out of the way.

Replacing our way
with emptiness/stillness/silence,
and waiting there for something
to arise/appear/emerge on its own,
and allow it to take it from there.
No matter what.

–0–