Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

I recommend you follow this link to my published works,
and give A Handbook For The Spiritual Journey a once over:

https://jimwdollar.com/

I hope it will be worth your time.

–0–

Community interferes with our development
as much as it assists and enables it--
and we have to walk the line
between too much community influence in our life
and too little.

You might sit down with
the Westminster Confession of Faith
some rainy afternoon,
for an encounter with what 
too much community can do.

A slow walk in the rain
through a patch of local woods
would do more good for your soul
than a session 
in the company 
of the Westminster Divines.

So, when we talk about 
the importance of community,
we have to qualify that with 
"the right kind of community"
and "the right kind of influence."

Anything that would replace
our individual/personal sense 
of our own integrity
with it's view of how our life
should be lived,
oversteps the Old Testament commandment,
"Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark!"
And robs us of the joy of our own discovery
of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.

Emptiness,
stillness
and silence
remain the three best teachers
when it comes to knowing what's what
and what to do in response,
where, when and how,
and cannot be replaced with any form of community
influence or instruction.

Give the neophyte a Zazen cushion
with directions to meditate on their questions
and leave the room.

And then, bring them all together
in a community of peers to talk about
their experience
and expand their list of questions.

Follow that with more community insight and sharing
and more questions
ad nauseam
and you have introduced them
to the place of community in their lives.

If anyone tries to force their answers
onto anyone else,
those doing the forcing have to leave
the group and meditate on what they are doing
and where that comes from
until they think they are ready 
to rejoin the community.

In this way, there is no excommunication,
just directed reflection/realization.  

–0-–

Stop right now 
trying to arrange
the life/life style
you want to live.

And trust yourself
to the Mystery!
Better yet,
thrust yourself
into the hands of the Mystery!
And live from there
in all that you do!

The Mystery is beyond words.
Beyond concepts.
Beyond grasping.
Beyond understanding.
But.
Quite capable of being known.
And trusted.
And loved, revered, adored.
And realized/recognized
as one with us
when we are living
at one with the Mystery.

We all are the Mystery made apparent,
become real, actual, present...
We are aspects of the Mystery,
and are,
when we are living at one with the Mystery
transparent to the Mystery,
and are,
for all intents and purposes,
the Mystery actualizing the Mystery ourselves.

To be that,
we have but to get out of the way.

Lay aside our plans,
agendas,
schemes,
strategies,
ideas,
timetable
for ourselves,
and place ourselves 
in the service of the Mystery
from this time forth
and forevermore.

It is as simple as saying,
"Okay. Let's go."
And getting out of the way.

Replacing our way
with emptiness/stillness/silence,
and waiting there for something
to arise/appear/emerge on its own,
and allow it to take it from there.
No matter what.

–0–

Trial and error, kid. 
Trial and error.

Feel your way along,
learn what works when/where/how--
and what doesn't.

Dance with your life
and the music of the moment,
becoming one with time and place
in doing what is called for,
when/where and how,
and not what you want to do
regardless of the occasion,
in spite of the circumstances.

Will is never free,
but is always to be spent
in the service of what needs to be done
in each situation as it arises
and is obvious to those able to read the umwelt,
and respond in ways appropriate to the context
and in accord with the Tao/the flow of life
here/now.

Learning to read the signs and know what's what
and what to do when/where
is a matter of experience and reflection,
sensing and feeling,
looking and listening,
seeing and hearing,
and has nothing to do 
with wanting/desiring,
fearing/hating
forcing/demanding,

We live in the moment
like emergency room personnel
waiting expectantly and prepared
for whatever walks through the door.

–0–

Finding our way
is a matter of allowing our way
to show us the way
instead of figuring out what it is.

Our way shows us the way
by letting us walk into stone walls
and blind canyons,
and take dead end roads,
and wander forever in wastelands,
and realize again
that we do not know what we are doing.

The lesson is to be awake to, aware of,
what we are doing
and be right about when it is time
to do something else,
and be awake to, aware of that,
until it turns out to be wrong,
and then do something else...

A life time of wrong turns taken with awareness
will narrow our field of choices
until we begin to make better ones
just by having reduced the number of bad possibilities.

If we live long enough,
we will get it right over time,
just by paying attention to what we are doing.

We shorten the time it takes to wake up
to what we are doing
by taking regular retreats 
into emptiness/stillness/silence
and listening/looking there
for the guidance/direction
that arises/emerges/appears out of nowhere,
and allowing that to guide our boat
on its path through the sea.

And begin to do what our life needs us to do
instead of trying to force our life
to be what we want it to be.

–0–

He is walking into his life
for the joy of it,
for the thrill of it,
for the satisfaction of it,
and to be able to talk about it
for the next 50 years.

We all should live like this everyday.
Except for the talking about it part.
Everyone would be talking about it.
But to be able to talk about it,
about doing what our life is calling us to do,
the way it ought to be done,
when and where it ought to be done,
every day!

That would be something!

But wait!
Today is right here, right now!
Let's get started!

–0–

It has taken me a long time
to learn that it comes down to,
depends upon, 
flows from,
integrity,
sincerity,
spontaneity,
emptiness,
stillness,
silence,
listening/hearing,
looking/seeing,
knowing/understanding,
what is called for
and doing what needs to be done about it
in each situation as it arises,
all our life long.

For the joy of doing it
and the satisfaction of having done it.

No matter what.

I see Jesus' death on a cross
to be equivalent to
the Buddhist monk immolating himself
in Vietnam.

A protest against being ignored,
dismissed,
discounted,
unseen,
unheard
in their work to 
turn the light around
and have people realize 
what they were doing
and do what needed to be done instead.

The light still needs to be turned around.

Ignorance and greed,
hatred and fear
are the four horsemen of the apocalypse,
riding through the ages,
leaving atrocity and devastation 
in their path.

Integrity/sincerity/spontaneity,
emptiness/stillness/silence
must rise against them.
Time after time.

The time is always here/now. 

–0–

What would be most helpful to you
at this point in your life?

What is most helpful to me
is communion/conversation with people
who are interested in the questions
I am interested in--
and reading what they have written
is a form of communion/conversation.

Native Americans are saying things I'm interested in.
And old Taoists from 500 BCE.
And Japanese poets from 1200 CE.

Life hasn't been the way people want it to be
from the beginning.
How they deal with that,
put themselves in accord with that,
live with that,
interests me.

They work on adjusting their response
to things they cannot impact or change,
folding it into their life
and living around it, with it,
"anyway, nevertheless, even so."

They change themselves 
in relation to the things 
they cannot change.
They change their mind,
their perception,
perspective,
and live on as best they can,
moving if need be,
following the food supply,
going where water is to be found,
for instance,
wandering,
rambling,
looking for some better place to be...
throughout time.

And withdrawing from people
who are not good for them 
to be around.

Mormons know about that,
looking for a place to settle down
where people will allow them to be 
who they are.

We all know about that.
Looking for safe places to be.
To be who we are.

I relish the company of those
who allow me to be who I am.
And are glad to find a place in my company
that allows them to be who they are.

The craziest people I have known
couldn't allow themselves to be who they were.
Who couldn't fit their idea of who they ought to be.
Who were never "good enough"
to be acceptable to themselves.

We all have to make peace with ourselves
before we can make peace with our life
and our place in life.
Everything flows from there
to wherever it is going.

And we just tag along,
looking for a safe place to be,
that is comfortable enough to stay for a while.

–0–

Ode to Donald Trump

To find favor with the king
is no mean thing--
for it, we will go to war.

We will lay down our lives
and sacrifice all we ever loved,
and more.

But, the king's broad appeal
only manages to be real
because of those 
who call him, "Lord."

His great personal power
disappears in the hour
the enchanted ones
perceive the fraud.

Good-bye and good riddance
is only a matter of time.
And, time is on our side.
We can wait you out.
The clock is ticking.