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?
Appalachian Homestead 04/23/2012 Oil Paint Rendered — Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina
One of the things I would change
about my life
is the quality
of the preparation I had
for living my life.
They taught me how to tie my shoes.
Pretty much period.
Not a word about the importance
of curiosity
and the value of questions,
and what separates good questions
from bad ones
(They were all bad ones).
I received no instruction whatsoever
on seeing what I looked at.
On listening to how something was said
as well as to what was said.
(I picked that up on my own),
on how to read between the lines
and to understand what was being said
in light of what was not being said.
And to be very curious
about what was not being said.
My mother's family rarely laughed.
My father's family laughed all the time.
No one ever mentioned that discrepancy.
It was major
and needed to be probed, explored, understood
by everybody.
That would have made quite the difference.
What part does laughter play in your life?
Where was it absent?
Frowned upon?
Why?
Children were not to be seen or heard,
the more invisible they could be the better.
My opinions were not sought.
My perspective what discounted.
My original nature
and innate virtues/character
were non-existent.
I was told who and how to be.
I was told to listen to every adult
and to not listen to me at all.
Which was the greatest sin against me,
and took the longest time to unlearn.
Of course, they were only doing
what they had been told to do
and I hold that against them as well.
Authority existed to be obeyed.
Being out of line was the worst thing to be.
I wish my father had read poetry,
and that my mother had loved jazz.
Athabaska River Valley 09/26/2009 Oil Paint Rendered — Jasper National Park, Alberta
If we feel like we are nobody,
we have to prove that we are somebody,
by pushing somebody around
who we think can't push back.
Vladimir Putin comes to mind in this regard.
A little man who becomes smaller
by trying to look larger.
There is no limit to the amount of damage
he can do compensating for his
deficiencies in self-concept,
self-respect and self-control.
And the world pays for his emotional neediness.
And, there is Donald Trump,
dying for somebody to love him.
All the things he says about himself
are things he wishes someone else would say.
He will never live that long.
White supremacists only wish it were so.
Loaded down with weapons and vitriol
because of their insecurities and vulnerabilities,
they are certain everyone is out to get them,
and are determined to get them first.
People who belong in psych wards
are making laws and wielding power
and making the world increasingly unlivable
on every level.
What to do?
Find/create your community
of a small (3 to 10) group of people
who are good company
and well grounded and balanced,
and help one another toward stability and peace
by serving as sounding boards
and compassionate friends to one another,
doing what you can
to make the world as sane and as sensible
as it can be.
It may be a while
before the world
is what we need it to be.
In the meantime, we become what we need
with those who can join us in the work.
This is where we live,
and how we live there.
The background of this scene,
and several more like it,
is my interpretation of scenes
in the Namib Desert in Africa.
The foreground is my interpretation
of The Gateless Gate,
and represents the flip in perspective
that enables us to see beyond
what we look at
to the Also There that is a part
of every situation.
BREAK! BREAK! BREAK!
"The Gateless Gate"
and its companion volume,
"The Blue Cliff Record,"
are collections of Koans,
or Conundrums,
that were compiled by Zen Masters
and Taoist Sages
in the neighborhood of the 1st century CE
("What is the sound of one hand clapping?"
"Show me your face before you were born!"
"Does a dog have Buddha nature?")
whose purpose was to "turn the light around"
in the minds of those seeking enlightenment
in order to assist their "finding without seeing,"
or "understanding without thinking,"
because knowing what we need to know
is just there, right here, right now,
for those with eyes to see,
ears to hear.
And how do we get those?
By realizing they are right here, right now,
and always have been,
and always will be!
Because it is a shift in perspective
that is required,
like looking at an optical illusion.
END OF BREAK! END OF BREAK! END OF BREAK!
My interpretation of The Gateless Gate
is a part of every moment of every day,
there to be walked through
and transported instantly
to a different dimension
just by shifting the way we look at
what we see in this here, this now.
We live in the Wasteland
by way of the Gateless Gate.
My sister, Susan, killed herself
by starving herself to death
with a living will in one hand,
which specified, "No forced feeding,"
and Hospice in the other hand,
maintaining a "death watch"
until she died,
because she resolutely refused to live
life on its terms.
Agreeing to live life on its terms is
the universal covenant/contract
we all strike with life upon our birth.
We violate it to our eternal shame and chagrin.
Many of us don't care about that,
we have had enough and we are leaving.
Over my 40.5 years as an ordained minister
of the Word and Sacraments,
I officiated at the funeral of at least five people
who just weren't taking it anymore.
One was a dear child in her early twenties,
who could not bear the sight, or thought,
of roadkill,
and a squirrel committed suicide under
her car's wheels
as she drove to work.
She wasn't about to turn the light around.
My sister Susan had a PhD and two Masters,
and wasn't going to turn the light around, either.
We are all one slight perspective shift
away from having it made,
or losing it all.
There is always something to not like
about every situation.
How much emphasis we give to that tells the tale
in every situation.
My father would not live with out cigarettes
and died when he was 65 from emphysema,
hooked up to a respirator,
asking for a cigarette.
He wasn't about to turn the light around.
"Life on my terms, or not at all!"
Spitting on our compact with life.
Life is never on our terms!
Negotiation and compromise are required
in every moment,
in each situation as it arises!
We make our peace, again, with our life
all of the time,
doing what is asked of us--
required of us--
against our will
over the full course of our life,
and die when it is done,
weeping because it is done,
turning the light around
all the way.
The Middle Way is preferred
by all of the spiritual systems
I know about.
The lesson of the Greek myth
about Daedalus and Icarus is,
"Don't let your inflations
get you down!"
Balancing our highs and lows
is the true work of ego
in minding the emotional flow
and keeping it within
the normal and customary range
for reactions to the events
of our life.
Balance and harmony
is the true aim of life
according to the old Taoist sages,
and working to keep Yin and Yang
in sync
maintains the pace and flow of each day.
Regular times during the day
for emotional check-ins
helps with being conscious
of the state of our being,
and puts us in charge
of regulating our response
to the circumstances as they change
throughout each day.
Reducing noise,
complexity
and drama,
and increasing time spent
with emptiness,
stillness
and silence,
help to maintain our relationship
with the AUM of life
from situation to situation,
and positions us to be able
to respond appropriately
to rising to the occasion,
one after another.
Crabtree Falls 02 05/21/2013 Oil Paint Rendered — Blue Ridge Parkway, Little Switzerland, North Carolina
Fascist-Republicans are desperate
for fast solutions
that do not exist.
They want to believe that walls,
and guns,
and getting everyone to be just like they are
will make them safe.
They are fanatically insecure,
afraid of every future
that is not exactly like
the past which was 1950 wonderful
to their way of thinking.
To their way of thinking,
it all started with Social Security,
welfare and entitlement programs,
and they have been spoon fed
by the Fascist-Republican leadership
to not dare ask
how farm subsidies,
corporate bailouts,
tax-cuts
and incentives
are different from
welfare and entitlement programs.
Let's start calling tax-cuts socialism,
farm subsidies welfare,
and corporate bailouts entitlement programs.
The Fascist-Repubilican Machine
has long been equating infrastructure, health,
child-care, housing, the WPA/New Deal
expenditures and programs
as socialism and support
for the enemies of democracy,
when opposing such expenditures and programs
is the real enemy of democracy.
Deflecting the light from their work
to destroy democracy
and creating false enemies of the people
to blame for all of the ails and fears of the people
is the art and shame of the Fascist-Republican Machine,
and it has created a terrified foundation
of followers who are fundamentally insecure
and certain they are in constant danger.
The Fascist-Republican leadership
hoses down their base
with daily reminders
of all they have to fear
("They will take away your guns
and your stoves!"),
and keeps the beat going to the tune
of making everyone The Enemy but themselves
in an "Only WE can save you!" kind of way.
The steady repetition of that theme
has created a large swath of the population
of the world
that is "a nervous wreck"
and on the verge of "a complete emotional breakdown,"
from having to be on guard and at the ready
to fight for their lives on every front,
so we have the Mississippi legislature
banning Sesame Street,
and efforts to ban books across the country
because they pose threats to the existence
of all things good.
Keeping the people boiling
keeps them from thinking,
from connecting the dots,
from adding 2+2 and getting 4,
from seeing what's what
and what is going on,
and asking the questions
that beg to be asked,
and saying the truth
that cries out to be said.
And how this all plays out
remains to be seen.
In the meantime, the rest of us
have to keep doing what needs to be done,
saying what needs to be said,
asking what needs to be asked,
and understanding that we are dealing
with fear and hatred which has no rational/logical base,
and that (In the phrase from the 60's)
"Reason cannot uproot what reason did not plant."
Storm Clouds at Bath Creek 10/14/2013 Oil Paint Rendered — Bath, North Carolina
We are missing authenticity.
We can't be authentic
and play the game
of not playing the game.
The game of having our way
and striving to get it.
It is a game of 10,000 moves,
and much more intricate
than three dimensional chess.
It is played against everyone
in our field of action,
and each of them is playing it
against everyone in their field of action,
and we all swear we are not playing a game.
We are missing authenticity.
The authenticity of a Ponderosa Pine, say.
Or, everything in the world of nature, say.
Everything there is just what it is,
"As one thus come,"
and nothing is pretending to be something else.
Wolves in sheep's clothing
are not to be found
among actual wolves.
We cannot be authentic
and hide from our motives,
or from ourselves.
The joke here is on us--
how can we hide from ourselves?
That is the deepest kind of denial!
The kind that doesn't know itself
what it is doing.
And it happens all of the time.
Did someone say,
"Emptiness! Stillness! Silence!"?
Amazing!
I was just thinking that!
Emptiness, stillness and silence
are the way to authenticity.
We cannot kid ourselves
and tune into emptiness, stillness and silence.
We kid ourselves best
when we are into drugs and alcohol.
Emptiness, stillness and silence
don't stand a chance
against drugs and alcohol.
And authenticity doesn't depend on them
to get through the day.
No wonder that it is the one thing
most often missing from our life.
Sunrise at Thunder Hill Overlook 01/11/2012 Oil Paint Rendered — Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina
Our life is changing as we watch.
Hold it close,
let it go.
Getting from our life
all it has to offer
in between.
Where have we held back
from our life?
Refused to go where it
was taking us?
Not looking at
what it had to show us?
Trying to give us
what we would not have?
Where are we being obstinate?
Refusing to go?
Not looking?
Not having?
We are to look at this life
as the only on we are going to have,
as though it is unique to us,
and we to it.
This is our chance to see
what is to be seen,
to do what is to be done,
to experience what is to be experienced,
to know what there is to know,
to take what it has to offer,
drawing lines where they need
to be drawn,
and being who we are
as opposed to who
we have no business being.
Who is that?
Have we lived well-enough to know?
We have the time left for living
to be sure.
Why hold anything back?
Changing the way we respond to things
and think about things,
would improve our life
on a lot of levels.
Thinking differently alleviates
much of what ails us.
How would you go about thinking differently?
There is the what and the how.
We could change what we think about,
or we could change how we think about
what we think about.
I hardly ever think about chronic diseases
of India elephants,
and could research the topic
on the internet,
interview experts,
buy an elephant
and keep it in the back yard
under close observation.
Dealing with the neighbors
would give me a lot of new things
to think about.
And finding elephant-sized
doggie bags.
Our response pattern
sets us up for
the life pattern
that defines/expresses
who we are.
When we change/vary
the way we respond,
we change/vary ourselves
and create a new identity
for ourselves
just by responding differently
to the things that happen
in our life.
That would make all things new.
Congaree Panorama 11/07/2016 Oil Paint Rendered — Congaree National Park, Hopkins, South Carolina
The Guardians and Guides
must be recognized,
honored
and trusted
without being assumed
and taken for granted.
We all "get by
with a little help
from our friends,"
our friends being
the invisible forces/hands
at work in our life,
leading,
directing,
protecting,
defending
us against the forces
of greed and ignorance
that would lead us astray
as they did with Adam and Eve
in the mythical Garden of Eden.
We live between Eden and Gethsemane,
in the Wasteland of our discontent.
Finding the way that is The Way
is a matter of luck and perseverance,
sticking to it
when it looks to all the world
to be nothing more than the wind
that blows where it will.
We do it by enjoying the wonder
of the adventure,
and the thrill of the surprises
and turns
that accompany us through the waiting
and wondering
to the amazement of laughter
and delight
at the wonder of waiting and wondering
breaking in to encourage us
in the work of being human
between the worlds of reason
and the revered.
November Orchard 11/06/2015 Oil Paint Rendered — Springs Farms, York County, South Carolina
We have opinions that shut us off
from our life.
We do not live objectively,
open-mindedly,
mindfully aware of what is going on
within us and around us.
We are blind to the realities
in control of what we do
and do not.
Our nighttime dreams
try to get through to us.
Our slips of the tongue.
Our selective "forgetting"
things that reflect our ambivalence about,
or opposition to,
things we say we "love."
Contradictions that live within us
unnoticed/unnamed
determine choices we make
not-knowing why we make them.
We think we mean one thing
while doing another,
and do not know
who is "running the show."
Integrity/sincerity/spontaneity
require that we commune with ourselves
in an on-going and regular way,
so that we know what we know
and are clear about who we are
and how things are with us
on all levels
all of the time.
We do not kid ourselves,
fool ourselves,
deceive ourselves,
lie to ourselves,
tell ourselves what we want to hear--
but live as one with ourselves,
within and without.
Anything less than mindful oneness
will not do.
Listening to our dreams
and conducting routine hearing/listening sessions
with ourselves
regarding where we stand with all
that is at issue in our life,
are essential to a life well-lived,
in balance and harmony with ourselves
and our circumstances.
Knowing our own mind
is essential knowing.
We get there by hearing/listening
to ourselves.
Ducks at Scott Creek Oil Paint Rendered — Edisto Beach State Park, South Carolina
Everything I write is a George Carlin routine.
When you get to the end of your rope,
you have to change your mind
about what is important.
It's all about being right
about what's important.
All of our problems
stem from being wrong
about what's important.
We will know when we are wrong
about what's important
when our life brings us problems,
one after another,
and we turn to drugs/sex/alcohol/money
to relieve ourselves
of the exhaustion of existence.
Our life is here to wake us up.
To get us back on track,
in the service of what's important.
If we have problems
and are creating more problems
by the way we are dealing with
our problems,
we are in the grip
of the wrong things being important.
We have to sit down,
be quiet, still and empty,
and take stock,
see what we are doing
and change our mind about what's important.
When we finally figure it out,
and are right at last about what is important,
our life will smile,
everything will fall into place,
and be right with the world,
and we will be singin' and dancin' in the rain,
and the sunshine,
because nothing matters more
than being right about what's important
and living as though it is.
Dogwood 04/06/2018 08 Oil Paint Rendered — Andrew Jackson State Park, Lancaster County, South Carolina
The First Noble Truth of Buddhism is
"All life is suffering."
I say, "Stop right there!
Suffering is a frame of mind!
A way of seeing!
A way of evaluating what you are looking at!
An opinion!
"All life is an opinion!
The way to be free of suffering
is to change your mind
about what is important!
"The Eight-Fold Path
is nothing more than eight steps
to changing your mind
about what is important--
with 'Right Seeing' being the first one!"
Right seeing is seeing our seeing,
evaluating our evaluation,
having the Right Opinion
about all of our opinions
and maintaining Right Perspective
all along The Way.
We can come at this from a different perspective:
"It's all useless, hopeless, pointless,
futile and absurd--
and coming to a very bad end!
Everything DIES!
So why try?
Who cares?
What difference does anything make?
Nothing matters!"
To which comes the retort:
"You say, 'Nothing matters,'
in a way that suggests
it matters that nothing matters.
You are the very evidence you need
to change your opinion/perspective/point of view
about nothing mattering.
If it matters that nothing matters,
check out your breathing.
That is probably a second thing that matters.
And, before long, you will have a room full
of things that matter,
'Eating when hungry,
resting when tired,'
for example.
"So stop it!
Don't give me 'Nothing matters!'!
Change your mind,
your perspective,
your point of view
about how things are
and what can be done about them,
and turn the light around!"
Everything comes down to
turning the light around.
Absurdity.
Some people look at absurdity
and conclude that there is no reason
to go on.
Other people look at absurdity
and laugh,
and keep going.
Turning the light around on
"So what, who cares, why try, nothing matters,"
by asking of it,
"So what if no one cares,
if no one tries,
if nothing matters?
Let that not interfere with
the things that matter:
Cinnamon rolls fresh from the oven.
Chocolate shakes,
hot showers,
good company,
puppies and kittens and children's laughter...
The list is long,
so stand up!
Step into what needs you to do it,
and allow your life
to carry you into the next thing
that needs you to do it,
all the way to the last thing,
laughing and loving all that is to be loved,
enjoying all that is to be enjoyed,
seeing with right seeing
evaluating with right evaluation,
opining with right opinions, etc.,
all along The Way!
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 