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?
Lake Andrew Jackson 08/22/2019 — Andrew Jackson State Park, Lancaster County, South Carolina
Turning ourselves over to our intuition means living without plans, agendas, schemes, plots, dreams, desires, greed, fear, terror, dread, duty, obligation, guilt, etc. running/ruining our life.
With intuition in charge, we would live from circumstances to circumstances, letting our original nature and our innate virtues (The things we do best and enjoy/love doing the most) create our way of being on the earth, which would shape our way of doing, our way of living, at the direction of our intuition in each here, now of every situation as it arises.
It would be a different way of doing life.
Like the Buddha and Jesus (etc.) did theirs.
And one whose time has come for us and all others.
Goodale 20/29/2019 — Adams Mill Pond, Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina
Doing the right thing at the right time in the right place and the right way is getting out of the way and allowing our intrinsic intuition take the lead.
One way to do this is to simply sit in the emptiness, stillness and silence, waiting for the mud to settle and the water to clear and seeing what arises to call us to action on the field of action, and to follow our calling from one thing to the next.
This is to live without profit motive or agenda, but simply being open to the moment with a gentle, noble, heart, fealty, liege loyalty and filial devotion to the work at hand, and seeing where it goes.
Lake Crandal 11/17/2019 B –Anne Springs Close Greenway, Fort Mill, South Carolina
The right way to do things is death to the spirit across time and place.
Dharma is doing what is expected of us exactly as it has always been done through the ages.
Insisting on "exactly" evolved into the caste system of modern India, and the goosestepping "Heil Hitler" of Nazi Germany.
Those were the ways to do it that stifled life wherever they took root.
Sitting and not thinking because thinking is "monkey mind," and destroys Pure Mind and Pure Consciousness and we must do it right if we hope to attain enlightenment and satori.
And all the people shouted, "Amen! We Must Do It Right-- as it has been done before us throughout the ages-- and before time began!"
Sidewalk Display 07/10/2010 — Blowing Rock, North Carolina
David Brooks suggests that we ask, "How did you come to believe the way you do?" when accosted by someone pushing their view upon us or attacking us for our views.
It is a beautiful shift in direction.
When we tell our stories-- even partially, with only a sentence or two-- everything changes.
Story is magical in this way. We are no longer in attack/defense mode. We are sharing who we are with others, with strangers, acknowledging that we all share common ground.
The more common the ground, the less bitter the confrontation.
I spent the first six years of my life largely in Itta Bena, Mississippi. Ten miles from Greenwood, where I was born because that is where the hospital was, and still is.
You can Google map Itta Bena on street view, and what you see isn't much different from the way it was nearly 80 years ago.
In Itta Bena in the late 1940's, my adult friends were black men, Matt White, Shorty, and John Taylor. John Taylor did not live in Itta Bena. He and his wife Annie lived on my uncle's plantation near Inverness, Mississippi.
Anne left John and moved to live with relatives in Chicago in the late 50's. I expect it was a better life.
The three black men were my friends, and the friends of other boys my age in Itta Bena. We all shared the common fate of being treated with no respect by the white men in town.
The black men taught us how to dig for worms and fish for bream (Sunfish) in Roebuck Lake, which had a large fish population in the days before Round-Up was used to kill weeds growing in the cotton fields, and was washed into the lake by summer showers, killing everything with gills.
All of the Delta lakes died that way, Three Mile, Six Mile, Mosquito, Macon, and hundreds of others I never knew.
Part of me died there, too. The innocent part. The trusting part. The best part. And I am much more like I am now than I was when I got here back then. And the black men (and women, boys and girls) had it much worse than I did. I still cry for us all, as I am now.
Hemlock Islands 10/10/2010 — Penobscot Bay, Deer Island, Maine
Paul Watzlawick wrote a book entitled "The Situation Is Hopeless, But Not Serious."
It is a title for our times.
Rumi said, "If you are not here with us in good faith, you are doing terrible damage."
Good faith cannot be compelled to come to the table.
Trump and everyone in Trump's sphere ooze with bad faith. No one can do anything about that. Electing Kamala Harris is our only hope.
We can't get Trump, etc., to care about what they do not care about and to not care about what they do care about. And if Trump is elected, it will be a hopeless situation that we cannot take seriously.
We will have to act as though it matters what we do-- anyway, nevertheless, even so-- and continue to work for equality, justice, freedom and truth no matter what our chances are.
We will have to do what we care about, while not-caring how unlikely our actions will have any impact.
Just so you know, the Chinese terms for this are: Guanhuai (Caring) Buzaiho (Not caring).
We have to vote as those who care because not caring is not an option.
Hemlock Islands 10/10/2010 — Penobscot Bay, Deer Isle, Maine
We have no need of plans and agendas-- a sense of what is necessary is enough to steer us through circumstances and situations as they arise.
It has been that way with us as a species since time began.
"If you meet an elephant coming toward you on the path, GET OFF THE PATH!!!"
This is not difficult. We make too much of it.
Siting in the emptiness, stillness and silence waiting for clarity and the spontaneous arising of intuition urging action in the field of action guides us into doing what needs to be done when, where, how it needs to be done, and it's back to waiting for clarity.
It is the way they do in on the islands, and the way indigenous peoples have done it through the ages.
Assembly lines, punching in and meeting quotas ruined a good thing.
Lake Andrew Jackson Mirror 02 2018 — Andrew Jackson State Park, Lancaster County, South Carolina
Liberty/freedom/liberation are over-rated. Balance and harmony are under-appreciated. What can we do with our choices? In light of what--toward what--do we live? What are we doing with our life? What guides our boat on its path through the sea? What do we have to work with? What are we here to do? What brings you joy?
Assume with me that we are here to serve our original nature, our innate virtues (The things we do best and enjoy/love doing most), and our intrinsic intuition (That which keeps us on track, on the beam, at one with ourselves and our life), while maintaining our balance and harmony, peace and joy.
We are born with all we need to find what we need to do what needs to be done-- when/where/how it needs to be done-- in each situation as it arises all our life long.
We have to let greed, fear, loathing, duty go, and embrace the right kind of emptiness, stillness and silence, waiting for the mud to settle and the water to clear, in order to see/sense/serve the way that arises spontaneously to call us to action upon the field of action in doing what needs us to do it here, now in light of all of the above, in each situation as it arises.
We do this with no plan, no agenda, no strategy, no tactics, no goal, no expectations, no ideas, no will, no purpose, to have/impose/force/apply.
We wait to see what is called for and how we might best use the tools/skills we have to offer in doing what needs us to do it, honoring all that needs to be honored, and let that be that, moment by moment, time after time.
Lake Andrew Jackson Mirror 01 2018 — Andrew Jackson State Park, Lancaster County, South Carolina
The old Taoists said "circumstances beget circumstances," and it is our place to respond to what's what here, now, in ways appropriate to the occasion.
That cannot be spelled out in advance. We cannot know beforehand what to do when and where.
We respond to every here, now, here, now.
To have any success with this process, we need a strong relationship with our intrinsic intuition, in order to "feel our way along," reading the moment, getting out of the way with our ideas of what to do, and relax into our intuition, doing what arises of its own accord in a "spontaneous arising" kind of way, so that we find ourselves acting in the field of action without knowing why, just being as pertinent and as in touch with what is going on as we are capable of being. Saying and doing what is called for as directed from within, as the moved responding to the mover.
This what intuition is for, the role intuition is expertly tuned to handle.
With a little practice in getting out of the way, we come to look forward to seeing what we will be doing next-- with a nod and a bow to the mover guiding our boat on its path through the sea.
"I don't think that's going anywhere," could be said about everything. Along with it's corollary, "Where do you think you're going?" And, "What do you think you're doing?"
These are all statements that could be at the heart of Zen.
Along with the following:
"Those who say, don't know. Those who know, don't say."
"The Tao that can be told/explained/said is not the eternal Tao."
A Zen master and a novice were walking across a bridge when the novice asked, "What is Zen?" Whereupon the master picked him up and threw him into the river below, saying, "That is water! swim in it, bathe in it, drink it, or drown-- but do not talk about it! To talk about water is to not know water!"
Those of us who know what we are doing, know that we don't know what we are doing, and sit in the emptiness, stillness, silence, waiting for the mud to settle and the water to clear, so that our intrinsic intuition might guide us into doing what needs to be done, where, when and how, and then we drop back into the emptiness, etc. for another round, and so on, for as long as life shall last.
All Aboard! — Jasper, Alberta, Jasper National Park, Canadian Rockies
What do you think about as you are driving trains through Canada?
What do you think about when you are not?
What do you think about?
What we think about tells the tale.
One thought tends to lead to another, particularly when we are thinking about our thinking. Being curious as to why we think the way we think and not some other way instead-- and thinking about some of the other ways available to us, and wondering why we have never thought that way.
Or thinking how the way we think is so much like the way people think around us.
Who in your family of origin thought the way you think? Who in your family of origin did NOT think the way anyone else thought?
Who has been the freest thinker you know? What books did they read? What did they do to pay the bills? What did they pay the bills to do? How was their life different from the way life was being lived around them?
How is the way you live different from the way life is being lived around you?
How is the way you think different from the way people around you think?
Crescent Beach Panorama — Ecola State Park, Oregon
Aligning ourselves with our original nature, innate virtues (The things we do best and enjoy doing most), and our intrinsic intuition, puts us at "the sweet spot" of our life, on the beam, at one with our destiny, and in accord with the Tao of life and being.
You would think, that with all that going for it, more people would be faithfully engaged in centering themselves with themselves, and living with the plumb line of their personal integrity always in mind, being true to who they are in each situation as it arises all their life long.
It is an eternal puzzle that we are not.
Just sit down, shut up, and focus on what rings true.
Get up and do what needs to be done, when/where/how it needs to be done.
Repeat this process/practice throughout the time left for living.
Lake Chicot 06 2015 — Lake Chicot State Park, Ville Platte, Louisiana
If you choose to go the Non-Christian/Non-Buddhist route, you get to throw out all the theology, doctrines, dogma, dharma, sutras, rituals, catechisms and creeds, and focus exclusively on being the best Jesus and/or Buddha you can be, simply by sitting in the right kind of emptiness, stillness and silence, waiting for the mud to settle and the water to clear, reflecting on, contemplating, considering, exploring your original nature, your innate virtues (The things you do best and enjoy/love doing most), and your intrinsic intuition, and waiting on/watching/listening for what arises in the silence with an urgency about it that cannot be denied to thrust you into the field of action, calling you to do what needs to be done, where, when and how it needs to be done, in each situation as it arises.
And when you see that through to completion, drop back in to the emptiness, stillness and silence, waiting for the mud to settle and the water to clear, etc, just as before, throughout the time left for living.
Just like Jesus and the Buddha did it all their life long.
The key is being true to your original nature, your innate virtues, and your intrinsic intuition.
These comprise the Holy Trinity of the Non-Christian and Non-Buddhist life.
They come to life in the emptiness, stillness and silence (The second Holy Trinity), and off you go! Into the Great Adventure of Being Alive!
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 