Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

I have said here before
that my fifth grade teacher
told my mother in one of those
parent/teacher conferences,
"Jimmy looks out the window a lot."

A lot of that was because
Jimmy was safer out the window.
The adults in my life were intent
on molding me after their image of me.
So I withdrew without knowing what I was doing
like an oyster into its shell.

I read a lot. Mostly Hardy Boys and science fiction.
And spent a good bit of time wandering in the woods
near our house,
and building model airplanes and ships from plastic kits.
And fished with other boys my age.

I did not know an actual flesh and blood adult
who was any help to me whatsoever.

Mad magazine provided a foundation of sorts with satire
and humor, but I lacked any real sense of stability,
purpose and direction.

That began to take shape in the time I spend
reflecting on what interested me
and how I might make sense of things.

That really took off when I graduated from seminary,
and could get away from people telling me what to think
in order to ask my own questions and seek my own answers
to those questions.

My education began when I left school.

I read everything that caught my eye from all fields of study.
And everything raised more questions.
Even its answers raised questions.
And my experiences with life generated even more questions.
And here I am. Still asking questions!
I don't expect my death to slow it down!

I'll be looking out the windows still, even then.
But then, as now, with purpose and direction.

–0–

Doing what needs to be done 
when, where and how it needs to be done,
is the work that needs us to do it
with the gifts that are encoded in our DNA--
but we don't devote ourselves to that,
and while away the hours daydreaming
of smooth and easy,
having our way
and getting what we want.

Lethargy and laziness,
fear and desire,
have their way with us,
and our life never has a chance at us.

We are our life's only hope.
We have to wake up,
realize what's what,
hand ourselves over to our life,
say, "Okay. Now what?"
and sit in the right kind of 
emptiness, stillness and silence,
waiting for the mud to settle
and the water to clear
so that the way
(Which is the way to our intrinsic intuition)
beckons and we follow
in the service of that which is ours to do,
our life to live,
throughout the time left for living,
and far into what is beyond
for as long as time lasts.

–0–

We have to get into the habit
of taking stock,
or call it "taking a reading,"
or call it "tuning into our body,"
and checking out with our body
what's what,
and how are things going,
and what is our body feeling/responding/reacting
to the things we are experiencing
externally and internally here/now?

We let things "pass in review"--
things outside of us
and things inside of us--
to get a sense of how things are here/now.

And reflect on what we are responding to;
on what has had the biggest impact on our 
internal assessment system,
and what we might do in adjusting 
our response/reaction/attitude
to reduce our stress level
and calm ourselves down
and restore our balance and harmony.

We have to consciously help ourselves
regain our sense of stability and okay-ness
in responding to our life here/now
throughout the day
by checking in
to see how our body is reacting to things.
And perhaps doing some grounding/centering/focusing
work to get back on track,
in the saddle,
and underway again.

We have to monitor/moderate
our response/reactivitity
simultaneously as we are responding/reacting.
Tricky, but someone has to do it!

–0–

If we were only focused on
doing right by one another,
what a sweet world it would be.

What is so hard,
inconvenient,
undesireable
about that?

Where does the vitriol come from?

Whose idea is spite and viciousness?

Why try to make life as miserable as we can
for everyone not like we are?

I think we all should look in the mirror
for as long as it takes
to straighten ourselves out
and start doing right by one another.

–0–

There is wanting/striving/getting/having,
and fearing/hiding/running/denying.

And there is seeing/knowing/listening/hearing, 
and being who we need to be
to do what needs to be done--
and rising to meet the occasion,
time after time.

There is knowing what our business 
needs to be
and taking care of our business
the way our business needs taking care of.

And there is the old golfer's adage,
"The more I practice
(Or, "The harder I work),
the luckier I get."

The people who do their work--
who take care of their business--
and tend their intuition
are the luckiest people in the world.

Everybody hears something like that
somewhere in their developmental years.
Those who grasp it and apply it
find what they need to do what needs to be done
and are blessed by what appears to be magic
all along the way.

The trick lies in doing what needs to be done.
When it needs to be done,
where it needs to be done,
how it needs to be done,
as long as it needs to be done,
all along the way.

–0–

You can't plan it out.
You have to live it all the way through.
Not implementing strategies,
doing this so that will happen,
going here to get there,
like you are some kind of smoking genius
ringing bells and racking up the wins.

The people who know
answer the door
capable of saying "Yes"
to what needs a yes,
and "No,"
to what needs a no.

Get that down and you have it made,
as much as you can have it made,
on a moving scale
between abundance and want.

Being okay with enough
and true to your original nature
in service to your inherent virtues/virtuosities
(What you do best and enjoy doing most)
without undue attention to personal profit
and financial gain,
will place you close to the center
of the normal distribution curve,
and you can trust your intrinsic intuition
to bring you all the good luck any of us require
to keep us in the business
of doing what needs to be done
in the service of what is called for
in each situation as it arises--
and that is all that can be asked of any of us,
all our life long.

–0–

Inherent intuition is the guiding force
in the natural world.

Everything knows what to do!

Geese fly south in the winter,
and north in the summer!

Monarch Butterflies migrate to Mexico!

Plant a seed and it will grow upwards!

Babies know what to do with a nipple!

We know what is "us" and what is "not us"!

Where we belong and where we have no business being!

And we spend way too much time ignoring what we know
and doing what is wrong for us
because that's where the money is.

You can't pay a butterfly to not go to Mexico,
but you can pay us to work in a coal mine.
And on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

We dismiss, discount, disregard our intuition
time after time,
and wonder why our life stinks so.

We think we know more than our intuition knows.

I have lost count of the times I have heard,
"I knew it wasn't going to work when I married him/her."

It is time we start listening to what our intuition knows.
And has been trying to tell us all along.

No?

–0–

Nature has a way of working
things out.
Our life has a way of working
things out.
Thinking has very little impact
on how things are.

Things are just what they need to be
to get things done.

Everything is finding out
what it can get by with.

Everything has to take
something else into account.
Even black holes.

It is the way things are,
or, "It is the way,"
for short.

Which segues nicely into
the way of ebb and flow
that is called "the Tao,"
balancing and harmonizing Yin and Yang
throughout the universe.

The Tao can be thought of
as the source of Yen and Yang,
ebb and flow, 
or the result of Yen and Yang,
ebb and flow.

What comes first?
It depends on how we look at it.
Everything does.
Changing our perspective changes everything.

Things have been becoming themselves
over billions of years.
Cause and effect blur into each other
becoming effect and cause
to the point where it is impossible 
to know what was the first cause
not caused by some effect.

It has always been what it is
becoming what it is not
without reason or purpose or cause
because it can/must/can't help itself.

Which segues nicely into 
how do we organize ourselves around
what we need to operate smoothly,
flowing endlessly with balance and harmony
forever even through death and the hereafter?

It is hard to beat emptiness, stillness and silence
in sync with intrinsic intuition
(which is the hidden cause of everything)
for producing what we are capable of becoming
throughout the days of our primary existence.

Which segues nicely into where do we go from there/here/now?

–0–

Living in ways that do
what needs to be done
in response to what is called for
by what's what
in each situation as it arises,
meets what needs to be met
in ways it needs to be met.

Who can do better than that?

Circumstances are always begetting circumstances.
How we respond to them
determines the quality of our life.
Circumstances evoke our life
by calling us forth to meet the needs of the moment,
situation by situation.

If we are anxiety ridden
and fear bound,
our responses will not be guided
by our relationship
with our original nature,
our virtues and virtuosities
(What we do best and enjoy doing most),
and our intrinsic intuition.

We develop our relationship
with these grounding/guiding aspects
of ourselves
by reflecting on them regularly
in the right kind of emptiness,
stillness and silence.

And by practicing their expression
throughout the normal routines
of daily life,
as we are called forth to meet
the mundane needs of the moment
buying groceries,
getting the mail,
washing dishes, etc. 

How well do we meet our life?
What is our life calling for from us?
We can practice being who we are every day--
if we aren't wrestling with the day
in striving to impose our way for the day
upon the day!

What is the day asking for from us?
That is our question to answer.
What are we trying to get from the day?
Is not the way to deal with the day!

Our place is not to get more today
than we got yesterday!

Our work is to do what needs us to do it,
when, where and how it needs us to do it,
throughout the day 
every day.

Getting what we want is appropriate
to the extent that we need it.
When we are being driven by unwarranted desires,
we are getting in our own way,
and our life is drifting toward 
being addiction based
and not offering what is called for
out of what we have to give.

Getting my way NOW!
is exhausting before getting out of bed!

–0–

Do you have enough 
of the right kinds of things
in your life?

And not too much 
of the wrong kinds of things?

How do you arrange for that?
Maintain it?

I find that Focusing 
in Ann Weiser Cornell's kind of way
helps me with the balance and harmony.

Listening to my body/mind (intuition)
knowing when enough is enough,
and allowing my guides to guide me
without trying to force balance into place
(As if!)
and "going with the flow" of the here/now
in each situation as it arises
makes all the difference.

Allowing things to happen 
according to their need of the moment,
and dancing with what each day brings
works as well as anything I know.

This helps with knowing what it is time for
here/now, 
moment by moment,
situation by situation--
always with enough emptiness/stillness/silence
for reflection/realization/readjustment
all along the way.

No?

–0–

The source of hatred is beyond redemption.
And it is a hate-driven world.
All the talk is love, love, love,
and gratitude.
Yet, it is a hate-driven world.

Russia and Ukraine.
Israel and Palestinians.
White people and people of color.
White people and immigrants.
White people and Woke white people.

Republicans hate everybody not like them.

If I could,
I would give everybody an extended time out.
No social media.
No media of any kind.
No human interaction of any kind.

Everybody would spend their days alone
with a zazen cushion
observing their thoughts and their emotions--
without attachment to their thoughts or emotions.

With a long-enough time out,
there may be some shifts in attitudes
and points of view.

Ain't gonna happen.

It is a hate-driven world.

I have withdrawn from it 
as far as I can.
That is my recommendation
for everybody.

Put yourself in time out.

Zen is what happened
when Buddhism met Taoism.

It should be called "Zen Taoism"
in that it has much more in common
with Taoism than it does with Buddhism.

The differences between Buddhism and Zen
can be summed up in this way:

The heart of Buddhism is expressed/revealed
by the book "The Indestructible Truth,"
by Reginald Ray.
If you want to know Buddhism, 
read the book.

The heart of Zen is expressed/revealed
by our intrinsic intuition.
If you want to know Zen,
follow the truth of your own heart-knowing.

I'm thinking you won't make it 
through the first chapter of the book.