Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

We are all we have--
we are all we need!
But.
It takes realization,
awareness-attention
to make it so.

There is no father-god out there.
The God we seek is in here:
In our body,
mind,
intuition,
virtues (The things we do best
and enjoy doing most),
original nature.

We laugh "and say "No way!"

YES WAY!!!

All it takes is waking up
to know that it is so.

We all know that it is so,
and are afraid that it is so.
Afraid because that leaves it
all up to us.

We do not want the burden--
the responsibility--
of being holy, sacred divine!

Who would?

So here we sit.
Waiting to be rescued
by a squad of UFO's.

If that isn't sad,
I don't know sad.

We all have the power of God
and don't use it 
because we are afraid.
And want to believe in a God
who gives us things
and takes care of us
so we pray to the hills
from which comes our help,
and refuse to help ourselves.

Of all the things in the cosmos,
we are the most to be pitied. 

"They were of God--
and refused to help themselves
or each other!"

The epitaph of the ages.

Bringing to life the holy within us
and living as the divine in human form
puts us in the league with the Christ
and requires the same of us
that was demanded of him,
namely that we live without concern for
profit or gain,
advantage and advancement,
exploitation and prosperity...
and simply do what is called for
in each situation as it arises
with the gifts of our original nature,
innate virtues
(The things we do best 
and enjoy doing most),
and our intrinsic intuition,
in the service of what needs to be done
for the joy of doing it
and the satisfaction of having done it
throughout the time left for living.

Amen! May it be so!

We have to drop into emptiness (stillness/silence)
on a regular basis
to just breathe
and wait for "the mud to settle and the water to clear,"
and to see what meets us there.

To see what arises there
to catch our eye,
get our attention,
and send us back into the field of action
with a sense of what is called for
to live in the service of what needs to be done
in each situation as it emerges
from the circumstances of our life
with the gifts of our original nature,
our innate virtues (What we do best
and enjoy doing most),
and our intrinsic intuition.

To live this way, 
dropping into the silence (emptiness/stillness)
and rising up into the field of action,
is to follow the path of Tao
in living aligned with the flow of life and being,
at one with who we are
and what is ours to do.

This is balance and harmony,
integrity, sincerity, spontaneity,
without any interest in what is in it for us,
beyond the joy of living like this
and the satisfaction of having done it.

Living at one with the time and place
of our living.

One day at a time.

Things have to get worse 
before they can get better.

An entire generation of greed-fueled 
dumb-asses has to die off
in order for intuition to have its say.

As the old Taoists said,
"Circumstances create circumstances."

War, weather and disease are circumstances'
three favorite tools to use
in crafting something better
out of something worse.

All it takes is time.

And it takes time all the time
because memory is short
and greed is everlasting.

Trust your own intuition
to show you the way
in each situation as it arises.

IT. IS. THAT. SIMPLE.

It is hard to tell how old
a rock is.
Not that it matters.
No one cares.
Not even the rocks care.
We all have more important
things to do.
Well, maybe not the rocks.
Caring doesn't count with rocks.
Everything is equally insignificant
to a rock.

Leaving me to wonder
at what point do things
begin to take on significance for us?
And fade into insignificance?
What leads us to rank things as we do
on our own personal/private
significance scale?

How do we determine what is important
and what is unimportant?
Who says so?
Do we say things are important
that don't matter to us at all?
And we say they are 
because we are supposed to
in order to please someone
to whom they are important?

Who would be pleased with us
for saying some things are important
and other things are not important?
Is it important to us
that we live to please someone other than us?
Who(m) are we living to please?
What makes that important?
Who says so?
How do we know what is important?
How do we come to value what we value?

Who(m) are we living to please?

The things that interest us.
The things that ignite our enthusiasm.
The things we enjoy doing.
The things that are meaningful to us.
Are the things that bring us to life.

Without them we are dead,
just whiling away the hours
until the county coroner makes it official.

I was born into an atmosphere
where everyone was dead,
going through the motions of life,
waiting for the declaration affirming
what had been the case for years.

You may know what it is like
being a baby,
then a child,
among the dead and dying
back in your little town.

If so, you remember the gloom,
astounded into your old age
that no one ever
awakened to the problem
and did something about it.

Why remain forever dead
when it is only a matter
of looking until you find something interesting
and allow it to bring you to life? 

I never heard anyone in my little town
ask a question fresh from the womb
of curiosity and wonder.
Even their questions were dead.

Real questions were forbidden,
for they would have required thinking,
and dead people are beyond thinking,
or caring about anything 
but the announcement freeing them
from the burden of pretending to be alive. 

Doing what is called for
in each situation as it arises
is all it takes.

We get distracted  by desire, fear and duty,
and 10,000 other things.

But the basics remain the same over time
throughout the ages.

Focus and presence, kid.
Focus and presence.

We live to discover who we are
and what we are about,
simply by being who we are,
doing what we are about.

Keeping an eye on our original nature,
our innate virtues
(What we do best and love doing most),
and our intrinsic intuition.

Being here, now, 
is openness to here, now--
without prejudice, favoritism, preference or opinion. 
Just seeing, just hearing, 
just perceiving, just knowing, 
just doing what is called for 
when, where, how it is called for. 

How would you improve this process? 
Why would you think it needs improvement? 
Just being "as one thus come" 
here, now and doing what is called for in response:
Chopping wood, carrying water. 
Eating when hungry, 
resting when tired... 

"Improvement" is interference! 
Let things be as they are, here, now, and forever,
and doing what is called for, 
when, how and where.

No one can do more.

In The Fellowship of the Ring,
Gandalf said, "All we have to decide 
is what to do with the time that is given to us."

And we have help with that.
Our intrinsic intuition is with us
to guide us all along the way.

All we have to do is dispense with ambition,
aspiration, intention, desire and the will
to have our way no matter what.

Once we get that out of the way
and open ourselves to the emptiness/stillness/silence
(One thing not three)
we wait there for our intuition to nudge us
in the direction of what is called for
in each situation as it arises.

At that point,
we turn to our original nature,
our innate virtues (What we do best
and enjoy doing most)
to see what we have that might be helpful
in the work to do what needs to be done
here, now.

What to do with our life
is not a problem to be solved,
but a joy to be experienced
by doing what we are good at
in ways it is needed.

Life comes to us with its needs
and we serve it with our gifts
(Once we get our plans, agendas
and timetables out of the way).

All of my seminary professors 
were brilliant people.
They talked about God loving us unconditionally
against the backdrop of the Vietnam war
and the assassination of Martin Luther King
the the bit about being sent to hell for not believing
the bit about God's unconditional love.

As though there were no contradictions, 
discrepancies,
inconsistencies within the mix of the times.

They were brilliant without awareness
of the dichotomies at work in their lives.

A ten year-old Sunday School student
asked me,
"When am I going to understand
what's going on around here?"
I don't remember what I told her,
but I wish it had been,
"If you are looking for things to make sense,
you have to throw something out."

That's what I would tell her now,
for sure.

We have to throw out the nonsense
and see what we can do with what remains.

No God, no theology, no doctrines, no dogma,
no dharma, no creeds, no catechisms...
just you and me
and our original nature,
our innate virtues--
the things we do best and enjoy doing most--
and our intrinsic intuition.

Our virtues include our creativity,
the arts, literature, poetry, music...
all the good stuff humans are capable of producing.

The good stuff holds it together
when the bad stuff threatens to destroy it entirely.

With the good stuff at the heart of our life,
and living to serve our intuition
and do what is called for in each situation as it arises,
for the joy of doing it
and the satisfaction of having done it alone--
with nothing in it for us
but the wonder of being who we are.

The old Taoists built the spiritual foundation
of their existence out of no more than that--
doing what needed to be done
when, where and how it needed to be done
all their life long.
Because that is who we are.
That is what we do.

There doesn't need to be any more to it than that.