Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

All forms of religion are ridiculous.

In Buddhism there is no duality,
but there are eight fiery hells and ten cold ones.

In Christianity God's love is unconditional
and God will send you straight to hell
if you don't believe it.

In Judaism you are to do unto others
before they do unto you.

In Islam it's one thing for you
if you are a woman
and another if you are a man.

In all of them, 
believers are asked to believe incredulous things
as though no one will notice the absurdities
because everyone else is believing them.

Why don't we just stop it?

It seems to be stopping it 
is a choice for an increasing number
of drop-outs and never-mind-its worldwide.

There are better things to do,
and more interesting things to think about.
What's the appeal of self-duping religion?

I think it's a keeping up appearances thing.
It's expected of us.
Easier to go along winking and nodding
than not.
Especially if it is the cultural and political
thing to do.

If Trump is elected,
evangelical Christianity
will be the official state religion
and I will be on the run.

Reflection and realization, kid.
Reflection and realization.

This is the sum total of the spiritual life.

Taking vision quests.

Sitting in the emptiness/stillness/silence.

"Waiting for the mud to settle
and the water to clear."

Asking, seeking, knocking.

Thinking about our thinking.

Seeing our seeing.

Feeling our feelings.

Holding everything up to the light.

Turning the light around.

Flipping the normal and customary
to see what we may be missing
in what we are taking for granted.

Being curious about it all.

Questioning everything.

Taking Joseph Campbell's observation,
"Where you stumble and fall,
there is the treasure,"
to heart
and opening ourselves to the truth
of our experience in all times and places
in a "What am I missing here, now?"
kind of way...

Reflection and realization, Kid.
Reflection and realization.

Our best hope of influencing the future
is how we respond to the present.

What we do here has an impact there.
The quality and degree of impact
is determined by countless factors
at work within the circumstances of the moment,
but.

We increase our chances of a future better
that it would otherwise be
by the way we live 
in each situation as it arises.

The old Dharma/Tao concern for right action--
doing the right thing,
at the right time,
in the right place,
and the right way--
being the surest method of achieving
the highest good of all concerned
remains the case through all eternity.

Taking care of the moment impacts infinity.

And if it doesn't,
it doesn't harm anything to be found there.

When we are being swept along
by circumstances,
it's best to go with the flow
and attend our intuition
so that we know when a door opens
and we can walk through.

At times such as these,
just waiting it out 
makes as much sense 
as anything else.

It helps to wait it out
in the company of the right people.

And it is not unusual
for people in similar situations
to keep their heads down for years.

Making a run for it
presumes having a place to run to
where we would be better off
than remaining where we are,
and that is a dicey call to make,
in times such as these.

Settling in and staying in touch
with family and friends
is a strategy for the long haul,
perhaps longer than any of us might imagine. 

We will never keep better company
than our own intrinsic intuition.
Making a pact to remain close
could be the best deal we ever make,
short or long term.

Being forever best friends with our intuition,
puts us in good stead for as long as we have left!

"We know when we are on the beam
and when we are off it (Joseph Campbell),
and we are the authority
determining what does and does not
constitute the way, the truth and the life
for us,
and we don't have a clue.

We had better get a clue,
and a good one.

Here is a hint:
We are looking for a solid relationship
with our intrinsic intuition.
Our intuition is the only one who knows
what is and is not the way, etc. for us.

And, as luck would have it,
here is a link for you:
https://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/activities/exercises-developing-your-intuition

Christianity needs to dump theology
and believing,
and go back to being who Jesus was,
an intuitive fully human being,
with his eye on doing what needed
to be done
in each situation 
as it arose,
trusting himself to realize/know
what that was
without any reference to codified instructions
in the matter.

Simple.
Clear.
Timely.

No?

I was standing in a cotton field
during planting season
with a farmer-member of my congregation
in Batesville, Mississippi
where the hills meet the delta,
in a wide-ranging conversation
dealing with race relations and gay rights
when he said,
"Hell, Jim! This isn't the way I SEE things--
THIS IS THE WAY THINGS ARE!!!
And I said,
"And that's the way you see things!"

We laughed together and went on 
about the business of seeing things
the way we see things.
And doing what can be done
about the way things are.

It is on-going work.
Unchanging.
Never-ending.

Living in light of the way we see things
regardless of how things are.

The way we see things governs
how we live 
and what we do in response to what happens
and what we think needs to happen,
and makes things as they are.

We get our ideas about the way things are
and the way things need to be
from the people we live with 
from birth to death--
but it isn't automatic,
that we see things
the way things are being seen around us.

There is something in us that knows
things aren't what they are said to be.
We have our own way of assessing 
how we are told to think/see.
We can over-ride some things,
perhaps all things,
particularly if we take it into the silence,
and wait there for clarity.

Intuition has something to say about 
the things we hear/see.
"Truth denied is still the truth,"
as the civil rights activists have proclaimed
in all generations.

We can know the truth,
and the truth can set us free
to ask, seek, knock on our own
our entire life long.

Free to be different from those around us.
Free to follow our own sense of direction.
To be who we need to be,
not knowing how we know.

Something knows.
Intuition is a reliable guide,
piloting our boat on its path through the sea.

We would do well to know
what our intuition knows,
and to follow where it leads
with fealty,
liege loyalty,
filial devotion
all our life long.

How are you coming with that?

We are always trying to turn things
to our advantage.
And here we are.

We are here, now,
with things just as they are,
because we, as a species,
are always trying to turn things to our advantage.

Call it "The Profit Motive."

We want what we want,
when we want it,
where we want it, 
the way we want it,
for as long as we want it,
and then we want something else.

Always wanting.
Always having to have.
And this--look around--is the result
of generations of people 
wanting and having to have.
Or else.

The world as we know it
is the result of wanting gone amok.

What's the cure/fix?

Buddhism claims to have the cure/fix.
But it isn't catching up with the disease.

Indigenous people didn't have the cure/fix.
They were engaging in human sacrifice 
up to the modern era.

I think the cure/fix
does not exist on a corporate, collective, level.
Individually, we can develop our own cure/fix
by adapting a version of Buddhism
for our own personal use,
and living to be true to our original nature,
our inherent virtues (The things we do best
and enjoy doing most),
and our intrinsic intuition
in the service of what needs to be done
in each situation as it arises,
forgetting the profit motive (What's in it for us)--
but our chances of impacting
even the lives of the members of our family
are too slight to matter.

The species planet-wide is suffering
from the wanting/having disease,
and it is terminal.

Don't tell me.
Let me guess.
You want not to hear that, right?

The path unfolds before those
who start walking
in the service of their intrinsic intuition,
with no outcome
or destination 
in mind.

To walk as a devoted partner,
not as a way of getting somewhere,
is to be mindfully aware
of each moment
and what is called for there
as the purpose of the journey.

This here, this now, is the point!
How faithfully do we respond to what is needed?
Is liege loyalty and filial devotion apparent?
Is fealty afoot?

Not where we are going,
but HOW we are going,
is the question of the way
that is asked of all travelers.

Be prepared for the question
every step along the path.

You know what the problem is?
We could call it the human problem. 
We are the problem.

We know what we want,
but we do not want know what we ought to want.

And even if we did,
we would not do what we ought to want.

Which is to say,
we would not do what we ought to do.

We would not care about
what we ought to care about.

And that is exactly why things are the way they are.

And that is only true of the conquistadors. 
Before colonization, the natives have things under control,
and things are operating exactly as they should,
with people doing what should be done.

But, you know how it is:
If a profit can be made,
a profit will be made,
and the world goes straight to hell--
"as straight as a martin to its gourd." 

We have lived to witness that truth
with our own eyes.

No?

The Things I don't know anything about
would fill the cosmos,
and do.

I am the Puer Aeternus,
and you may be as well--
unless you are female, 
and then it becomes puella aeterna,
the eternal child,
innocent of guile and deceit,
pure and well-intended,
with a gentle heart,
and no chance of ever 
growing up,
and sizing things up,
and winning the day.

But,quite capable of stumbling into
a series of propitious accidents
that turn out to be
exactly what is needed
to win the day.

We have to know what we are cut out for,
and what we are not cut out for.

Centerfield for the Yankees isn't for everyone.
But Yogi Berra had his place,
and so do we all.

And it is up to us to play our part well,
because we are built for it,
and no one can do it like we can.

He said,
with a wink and a smile,
and spinach between his teeth.

A raccoon has its business
and it goes about it every day
as best it can.

It has preferences but no opinions,
no agendas, no greed, no angst...
It just deals with what comes up
in each situation as it arises,
and lets that be that.

Every natural thing is that way.
Even me and you.
But we aspire to be more
than a bird in the air,
a fish in the sea.

We have plans. Ideas. Intentions.
Interests beyond doing what is called for,
day after day.

We invented addiction and denial.
And war.

And what's a war without nuclear weapons?

So we invented them, too.

For the lack of anything better to do.

A raccoon would have gone fishing.
Or taken a nap. 

I'm turning things over to
emptiness, stillness, silence
and my intrinsic intuition,
and letting them take it from here.

We all should have done it that way
from the start.