Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

What guides your choices?
Directs your actions?
Why do you do what you do
and not do what you don't do?

What is in charge of you?
Boss of you?
Telling you what is to be "Yes,"
and what is to be "No"?

Who--okay, whom--
do you live to please?
If you say you do,
who--okay, whom--
would be most pleased
with how you live?

Everyone talks about "freedom of the will,"
but no one is free to choose what they want.
When they say, 
"I am free to do whatever I want,"
they are not free to want what they don't want.

Where does what they want come from?
Why that and not something else instead?
What binds us to our wants?
Repels us from our "don't wants"?

When you get to the bottom of you,
who/what is flipping your switches,
pushing your buttons,
in charge of the way you live your life?
Compelling you to like, or not like, dogs,
and love, or hate, the ocean or the mountains?
Telling you you are free to do whatever you want?

Seeking Buddha. Seeking Jesus. Seeking God. Is seeking ourselves.
We are seeking ourselves.
We are the Buddha. We are Jesus. We are God.
Why do you balk at that?
Sit with it for a while
and you will see that it is so.

You can sit looking into a mirror,
or you can sit in the emptiness, stillness, silence.
As you sit,
you will eventually become quiet enough
for realizations to begin to arise, appear, emerge.
Of their own accord
out of the silence.

One realization will lead to another,
and somewhere in that process,
you will realize that Buddha, Jesus and God
all need to be fired
because if this is the best they can do
they have no excuse for continuing 
to hold the positions they hold.

The world is a complete failure
and they have done nothing to prevent
that development.
It will come to you as a bolt of lightening 
from a clear blue sky:
You could have done better!

What is it about that truth
that compels you to deny it?

What is it that you don't understand?
Sit with that question in the silence
and see what realizations it brings to mind.

What do you need to know that you don't know?
Why do you deny the truth of what you do know?
What are you afraid of acknowledging?

Is it that if you are Buddha, Jesus, God
you will be responsible for things you can now
ignore? That you will be "on the spot"?
And can no longer slide by with being "just you"?

The silence reveals all eventually
if you have what it takes to sit there
"waiting for the mud to settle
and the water to clear."

But then you will have to do something
with what you know,
and we do so relish lethargy and wishing
it were easier.

No?

What do we hope to receive 
from Christianity/Buddhism?
Eternal life?
Nirvana?
Really?

Those two religions have been
(And continue to be)
sold as ways to guarantee 
our eternal-everlasting happiness
for the low low price
of believing what we are told to believe.

Really?

I'm only looking for assistance
with balance and harmony,
serenity, tranquility, equanimity,
integrity, sincerity, spontaneity,
vitality, focus and clarity.

I only want to dispense with wanting,
and know what is called for
in each situation as it arises,
in order to do what needs to be done,
when, where and how it needs to be done,
here, now, all my life long,
and let that be that--
for the joy of doing it
and the satisfaction of having done it.

And being glad to let everything else
fall out around that.

And you?

Native Americans and People of Color 
have put up with/survived
vicious absurdity for 250 years.

They can be our everlasting succor
and guides
through the wilderness of fear and hatred,
boiling and seething,
can't-waiting until it can show us
what it has in store.

But, in truth, there is no
comfort and consolation--
and we all get to see 
what we are made of.

"I will stay with it and endure  
through suffering hardship,
and once the heaving sea 
has shaken my raft to pieces, 
then I will swim." -- Homer, The Oddesy
 

What forms do your addictions take?
I assume we are all addicted to something,
given the fact that our life consists
of obstructions and dead ends and barriers
on after another for as long as life lasts.

My father was addicted to nicotine and alcohol.
My mother, too.
I'm addicted to looking out the window,
writing and producing photographic images
by the boatload.
I also stop for books and nature.

Distractions, diversions, deflections abound.
Anything to take our minds off of 
our burdens and woes,
and provide a respite from the daily grind.

We can't keep going without regular departures
and interludes for breaks and recesses.

Enter emptiness, stillness and silence.
The oldest addiction there is,
and the most beneficial.

If only my father and mother had known that
from birth!
And, shared it with me!

It has taken most of my life for me
to stumble upon the wonders of emptiness, 
stillness and silence--
and the worlds they reveal, disclose, unveil!

Emptying ourselves of our fear
of facing the silence
reveals life at its finest
in the form of the Way
to realization and revelation,
and the secrets known only 
to those who have known through the ages,
and have looked forward to
being quiet some more again
all their lives long.

A lot rides on 
how well we square
ourselves up to,
come to terms with,
make our peace with,
adjust to,
how things are
and do what we can about it
without making things worse
and ride it out.

But.

When we have had enough,
anything goes.

And.

When the time is right
and "enough" is close enough,
we take our chances
counting on our determination
to make it work this time
and tell them we are leaving the rodeo.

Staying or going is always rocky.
Too often, there is no way to be sure
where we are better off,
and thinking it out can take us only so far,
so we trust ourselves to 
emptiness, stillness and silence,
listening to our body's signals
including our nighttime dreams,
and go with what feels right,
knowing that we might be pin-balling it
through the rest of our life
one day at a time
when that sounds better 
than where we are.

Sure things are hard to come by,
and taking our chances this time
can be a way of knowing better next time.

Being ready to deal with what comes
and being willing to grow up some more again
"anyway, nevertheless, even so,"
help with the "now what" about every "here,now."

I refuse to be a part of conversations
that have nothing to say about them.

If you sit next to me at the lunch counter,
I'm going to ask you how your balance and harmony
(One thing, not two)is going these days.

Depending on how you respond,
I'm going to ask you what the most meaningful
things you do in a day are.

That could lead us into
what is the last meaningful thing
you remember doing.

And that could take us into how many
meaningful things you recall
about your life up to now.

And that could lead us into
how you pass the time,
and what keeps you going,
and what your relationship is
with emptiness, stillness and silence.

And what leads you to think about things
the way you do,
and where you get your information,
and what guides your boat on its path
through the sea,
and what centers and grounds you
day by day...

All of which is contingent on
the degree of energy with which 
you carry on your end of the conversation
and on what kinds of things you ask me.

And at some point,
I could ask you where you go 
to explore these questions
and others like them 
in your life...

And on, like that...

1) Rocks do it for me. 
Ground me.
Center me.
Restore my balance and harmony.
Stabilize me.
Orient me to the best way
to here, now.
And, once I am here, now,
there is the matter of what is called for--
and doing that,
when, where and how it needs to be done,
puts us on a path to no telling where that may lead!

What does that for you?
What serves you 
as a threshold to balance and harmony?
To stability and a grounding orientation
to here, now?
Leading you moment-by-moment
into the life that waits to be lived,
one situation at a time!

2) Everything rides on
Integrity,
Sincerity,
Spontaneity,
Balance and Harmony,
Emptiness, Stillness, Silence,
Intuition,
and Good Faith,
(Rumi said, "If you aren't here
with us in good faith,
you are doing terrible damage).

Now take this list and decide for yourself
how Trump and the people around him,
and all those wearing MAGA hats,
measure up.

Waiting for the inevitable
is a great time for practicing
emptying ourselves of everything,
as empty as the space between breaths.

We do that by trusting ourselves
to our original nature,
our innate virtues--
the things we do best
and enjoy doing most--
and our intrinsic intuition.

These are our super powers
equipping us to face everything
that comes our way.

In their company,
we are capable of doing what is called for
in each situation as it arises,
and they are with us always,
to the end of our days.

By shifting our attention 
to our inner powers
we begin the emptying process,
and move from fear and anxiety,
to meditative contemplation
of our strengths.

Continue that drift of interest
by exploring your original nature,
becoming conscious of the things
that identify you and set you apart 
from all others.

What are the natural aspects of your identity?
The things that came with you from the womb?
Make a list of your natural characteristics,
and add to it as they continue to occur to you
over time.

The same thing goes for your inner virtues.
What do you do best?
What are the things you enjoy doing most?
Write them down.

And write your intuition a letter.
Asking questions.
Exploring possibilities.
Remembering times and places
when your intuition was guiding you
along the way.
As you write, let automatic writing
take over and allow yourself to be surprised
by the things you would never think to say,
but which are guiding your writing
in an intuitive kind of way,
so that your letter to your intuition
shifts and becomes a letter from your intuition
to you.

Play this way with your powers.
Open yourself to them throughout the day
and all the days ahead.

You Are Not Alone!
Exploring your inner world
introduces you to your own depths
and capabilities
in ways that invite you to know more
about yourself as you investigate
what you do know.

You have a world within.
Become best friends with it
and enjoy looking forward 
to what each day brings!

The end of Democracy is upon us.
Everyone who voted for Trump
will bear the stigma of their treason
through the endless night of the outer darkness
filled with weeping and gnashing of teeth
carrying the rest of us there with them
as witnesses and reminders,
yet one with them in the communal
AUM of grief and mourning,
remorse and lamentation
at the Wailing Wall of Eternity
for all that has been lost,
surrendered, given up, thrown away
by those who did not have what freedom called for:
commitment, sacrifice, growing up
in the service of what mattered most
no matter what.

The Founders are disgusted and ashamed.

And we will forever be the generation
that threw Democracy away.

Looking through my treasure-trove
of photographs of natural places,
I am awe-struck again at the number
of magical scenes in the world
that are "transparent to transcendence,"
enabling us to sense the presence
of more-than-words-can-say.
And connect us with the meaning of life
by being meaningful to us here, now,
day in and day out.

Sacred places are meaningful,
though we cannot say what they mean,
and it would be wrong to try.
Words are useless before the wonders
of time and place,
and so, the camera,
and our capacity to stand dumb
before the ineffable.

And damn us for talking about it!

Religion is nothing but talk, talk, talk!
About things that cannot be said!
Depriving us of our solitude,
without providing us with any companionship!
(Which is what Oscar Wilde said of Bores--
and who has not been bored with religion?)

Emptiness, stillness and solitude 
would be an appropriate substitute
for religion as we know it,
which makes the Quakers the only available
outlet for religion as it ought to be.
And a walk in the woods,
or by the ocean, would do just as well.