Finding our way to The Way one situation at a time. I don't know how great it will be, but I expect it will be interesting, and I look forward to it going on past all reason because wonder is just that way. Are you coming or not?
A Flight of Geese 11/14/2010 Oil Paint Rendered — Bur Mil Greenway, Lake Brandt, Greensboro, North Carolina
What stirs your interest?
Piques your curiosity?
Ignites your passion?
Catches your eye?
Calls your name?
Encourages your participation?
How many of those things
are in a day?
A week?
A month?
How can you restructure your life
to include more of those things
in your days,
weeks,
months?
If you are plodding through
too many days that are just alike
with little in them that stirs you to life,
it's time for a shift in direction.
Give your interests,
your curiosity,
your passion,
your eye
the driver's seat
and invite them to take you
where they would like to go.
Sit back and enjoy the ride.
Big Creek 11/07/2007 Oil Paint Rendered — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Waterville, North Carolina
The worst thing that ever happens to us
can also be among the best things that ever happens to us.
Our worst experiences
can be our best experiences.
Bad can also be good.
Good can also be bad.
Things are not one way only.
We have to expand our mind
to take into account
the allness of everything,
to be done with the straight and narrow
and to understand the place
of crooked, contrary and contradictory
in the way life is.
We over-think everything,
and have to learn to dance
without thinking anything ever at all.
Dancing is all grace and forgiveness,
laughter and magic.
Things thinking knows nothing about,
with its straight lines
and narrow margins for error.
We do not think our way into heaven.
We live our way there
by dancing with what life brings us,
eschewing expectations, regimentation
and regulation
by allowing things to be what they are
and seeing what they have to show us
about generosity, kindness, mercy
and peace.
It comes down to allowing things
to be how they are
and letting them show us
how they also are.
Polarities are not so different
after all.
Early Light 11/04/2006 Oil Paint Rendered — Down East North Carolina Cypress Pond
There is nothing
we cannot deny.
Denial keeps us where we are.
If it weren't for denial,
where might we be?
Denial is a superpower in a negative sense.
Recovering alcoholics know about
the power of denial--
and the power of looking denial in the eye,
facing the truth of
the legitimate pain of life,
and doing what must be done
in the way of acceptance and adaptation,
working to put ourselves in right relationship
with the truth of how things are,
and the truth of how we wish things were,
and the work it is going to take
to accommodate ourselves to the reality
of the discrepancy between what we want
and what's what--
and get up and do what needs to be done
every day.
Anyway!
Nevertheless!
Even so!
Every day!
Castle Mountain 09/21/2009 Oil Paint Rendered — Bow River, Canadian Rockies, Banff National Park, Alberta
The culture/the world is in hot pursuit
of the perfect means
With no idea of an end worthy of it.
I wish I remembered the name
of the photographer
who said,
"The more equipment you have,
the fewer pictures you take."
Fine clothes and tattered lives.
We draw the wrong lines
in the wrong places.
Native Americans would go on vision quests,
which amounted to days
of emptiness, stillness and silence--
time spent waiting for things to become clear.
How much time in a week
do we devote to clarity?
We think we are clear enough
about what is important,
we just need better means (more money)
to get what we want.
It is what we want that is lacking.
We need better wants!
We are confused, conflicted and unclear
about what matters most.
First, we have to be right
about what we need.
Then, we can worry about the wherewithal
to acquire it.
Camden Harbor Sunrise 09/23/2006 Oil Paint Rendered — Camden, Maine
Meeting the day
without expectations,
agendas,
opinions,
intentions,
demands,
attitudes,
judgments,
plans,
designs,
programs,
and ideas for the way things should be,
is to be ready for anything,
except, perhaps, a test
on any of the above.
To walk unprepared into the day,
just as we are,
as ones thus come,
waiting to see what the day asks of us
and how we respond,
is to drop like Jesus
or the Buddha,
or Lao Tzu
into the day.
And the day will not know
what to do with us.
It will likely look at us with side eyes,
walk around us,
suspicious of our intent,
of which we have none,
and sit down,
waiting to see what we do.
I suggest that we sit down as well,
and wait to see what the day does.
We could practice our breathing:
Inhale for a count of five, remember.
Exhale for a count of five,
pause for a count of five between breaths,
repeat for as many rounds
as it takes for the day to get bored
and start pestering us
just to see if we are alive.
And we can swing into action,
watching what is happening,
looking for what needs to be done
in response,
and we are off!
"The game is afoot!"
Matching wits with the day
is the greatest sport there is--
and the best thing about it is
no keeping score!
Just doing what is called for
in each situation as it arises,
through lunchtime,
dinner,
shower and bed,
dreaming of what tomorrow might hold.
What a life that would be,
eh, Gibbs?
And quite the life for me!
This figure represents for me the essential qualities we are each/all called to exhibit on our way along The Way. The meditative posture suggests emptiness, stillness and silence--essential preparation for standing up and meeting each situation as it arises. The golden color suggests "Om Mani Padme Hum," "The jewel is in the lotus" which spontaneously calls for the antiphonal response "And the lotus is in the slime at the bottom of the pond." The jewel is in the slime. The Jewel IS the slime! Buddha Mind is in everyone! There are no distinctions! Oneness is the way of The Way.
Just so, gold not only represents ultimate value, but the cost of extracting gold is the cost of thousands of lives of indigenous peoples and the loss of their way of life. What is valuable is not worth the cost of possession/ownership, therefore, the Buddha-minded have to "flip the script" and know that supreme value is completely valueless on the level commonly understood in the world at large. Real value and apparent value have to be seen/known/understood, and enlightenment is the path to true value and away from what the world calls valuable.
Also, the image is unbounded, with the suggestion of unbounded darkness surrounding the seated Buddha-mind. We live as lights within the darkness, yet see the darkness as no threat, but just the place where we "do business." So, we are not to take it seriously, but live doing what needs to be done "Anyway! Nevertheless! Even So!" Embracing emptiness, stillness, silence, and rising to meet the moment in each situation as it arises.
And all of this is tucked into this image of the sitting Buddha.
Grand Prismatic Spring Detail Oil Paint Rendered 06/29/2011 — Midway Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
We make it up as we go,
dancing with what the day brings,
maintaining our balance and harmony
as best we can,
looking for what needs to be done
and doing it
using the gifts of our original nature
and our innate virtues/specialties/things we do best
and enjoy doing most,
guided by what resonates with us,
catches our eye,
sparks our interest,
calls our name.
Like a cinnamon roll
and a cup of coffee.
This is not hard,
and there are not enough days.
Reelfoot Lake 11/04/2015 Oil Paint Rendered — Reelfoot Lake State Park, Tennessee If you are a subscriber and getting only the image and not the narrative, you can get both by going to this link and clicking on the “Spring Months” menu choice:
Long Desert Highway Series from Mexican Hat to Monument Valley –The Forrest Gump Highway–Arizona
What's it mean?
What's it matter?
Who's to say?
How do they know?
It comes down to us and this moment,
here/now.
Are we going to rise to the occasion, or not?
Are we going to step into this moment
and do right by it, or not?
Why? does not matter.
Of all the things that do not matter,
Why? is at the top of the list.
We can have the worst motive in the world
for doing right by this moment,
and what matters is doing right by this moment,
and all the moments following this one.
Do that and let Why? go.
When the baby needs to be fed,
feed the baby!
It doesn't matter Why?
Trust things to work out on their own,
without anybody in charge,
overseeing,
directing,
ordering,
commanding,
demanding...
"Eat when hungry,
rest when tired."
When it is time for lunch,
do lunch.
Do not wander around in Why?
Just do lunch.
Here we are.
Now what?
What is called for here/now?
Do that.
It will lead to the next thing.
Do that.
If you don't now what is called for,
wait.
It will become clear with time.
Do it.
Where, when and how.
Don't worry about Why?
Why? Disrupts the flow.
Why ask Why?
What? is the question.
What needs to be done here/now?
Get that right every time,
and that's it.
No one could do more.
What's up?
Do it.
Where, when and how
it needs to be done.
That's all there is to it.
Circumstances are always coming along,
crashing into circumstances
already in place,
creating new circumstances on the spot.
Circumstances have been here from the start.
There never was a time
before circumstances.
Circumstances generate circumstances
as a perpetual motion machine,
never stopping,
always going,
spinning out more circumstances
at days end
than there were at the beginning.
Where do circumstances come from?
From circumstances!
And we will do well
to stay out of their way,
as much as possible!
They have a life of their own,
coming and going,
like galaxies and planets,
animal species
and mountain ranges.
I could sit and watch them
for eons and ages,
looking out some window.
Lake Francis 02 10/31/2015 Oil Paint Rendered — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Fort Mill, South Carolina
The way we see things
has implications for
the life we live
and for the lives being lived
about us.
I recommend seeing the way we see things
and reflecting on that
in emptiness,
stillness
and silence,
and seeing how our seeing
impacts our seeing.
Bringing intentional reflection
to bear on anything
changes our relationship with it.
We change our relationship with ourselves
by being aware of it,
and in so doing,
we change ourselves
by the simple act
of being aware of ourselves.
We change the way we swing a tennis racket
merely by becoming aware
of how we are swinging the racket.
Awareness transforms our life,
transforms our world,
the world,
and the impact it has on us,
and we on it.
The best thing you can do
for your life
is to be aware of it.
It is also the best thing
you can do for yourself.
Days End 01 10/31/2008 Oil Paint Rendered — Ocracoke Island, Pamlico Sound, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, North Carolina
The fascists among us hate us
because we are not fascists.
The fascists feel safe
only among other fascists.
Everybody else exists to serve them.
If they can be of no service,
they are fit for nothing other than death.
That is how fascists think.
The fascists are arranging things politically
so that they win every election.
Gerrymandering works that way.
It is a slick trick
for defeating democracy using the tools of democracy.
When the fascists own the polling places
and own the courts
they will own the country.
Our only hope is to vote in large numbers
in every election,
and to not vote for the fascists
in any of them.
Fascists call themselves "Republicans,"
thinking the rest of us
are too stupid to know the difference.
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 