This is #22 of “200 More Zen Thoughts From Jim Dollar #1” on my WordPress Blog:

We are capable of realizing/recognizing the Buddha in the Buddha and the Christ in the Christ. If we can realize/recognize it in them we can realize/recognize it in ourselves if we would but get out of our way and see what we look at when we look at ourselves, and stop giving ourselves over to the un-Buddha-like and un-Christ-like aspects of ourselves, and thinking that is who we Really are. We are the Buddha, we are the Christ–all it takes is acknowledging/ realizing that it is so and living as though it is for it to be so. And if you are screaming “NOT SO! NOT SO!” now, I invite you to begin living as though it is so for it to actually be so. Do this for me: Live to see how close you can come to it actually being so in each situation as it arises for the rest of your life. How about it? What do you say?

In two weeks I will step into my 82nd year, with no health problems to speak of. I hope I have twenty more years with no health problems to speak of. With Psyche/Tao to work on, I will have plenty to be interested in, so maintaining a healthy body/mind relationship over a twenty year period will be a reasonable accomplishment if the necessary details fall into place. I am looking forward to seeing how far into twenty years I’m able to go. I hope you are with me all the time way to 2045 or 6 if we are feeling fancy.

Intuition takes the lead in knowing what’s what and what’s called for in each situation as it arises, but. Ambition and desire trump–the way Trump trumps the good everywhere he goes–balance, harmony and the flow of life and being in the unfolding of life as it could be, leaving us with the ruins of what might have been with wanting/striving/having to have out of the way. And so, the ancients could advise, “Don’t push the river!”, “Let Be What Is!”, “Trust the seed to know what it is doing without pulling up the sprout to check on its progress!” But no. We have to have what we want when, where and how we want it no matter what. Adam and Eve are eternal models of what knowing what we are doing and taking charge of our future can lead to when there is no rush and no reason to have it all NOW! beyond the press of wanting, wanting, wanting…

The way of Psyche/Tao is to let nature take its course and see where it goes while we wait to know what is called for when, where and how, trusting intuition not indulgence and knowing the difference between the two.

The natural world fluctuates around a “happy medium,” or “a bell-shaped curve” where daily things are mostly what they “always have been and what they will be.” Carl Jung said, “We are who we always have been and who we will be.” We belong to the natural world and are as it is, preferring stability, balance and harmony, to the disruption of earth quakes and hurricanes, tooth aches and war.

Getting back to and maintaining the rhythm of the centering AUM is the goal of life throughout the Cosmos. We know when we are there and when we are not, and we haven’t been there for much too long. “The news cycles” are about disruption and anomalies, and we have had enough. Each of us has to seek out our own refuge offering peace and quiet, stability and rest in doing what needs to be done to meet the requirements of daily life without being traumatized some more again today by the news of the day.

Emptiness, stillness and silence provide us with breathing room in which we can take stock, find our balance, seek out the rhythm and harmony of a comfortable routine within which we can reclaim our soul, “recover from the past and store up for the future” (Robert Ruark in The Old Man and the Boy).

May it be so often enough for all of us.

Doing what is called for in each situation as it arises, when, where and how it is called for, is all the is asked of us, and constitutes the flow of life and being. It is the way tennis players play the game, the way dancers dance and the way singers sing, hitting the right notes the way they need to be hit when they need to be hit. Disappearing into the moment at hand by being exactly what that moment needs, spontaneously, intuitively, instinctively, at one with the moment, with the here, now. And we do that not by thinking about it and trying to get it right, but by living like we breathe, without thinking about it, and doing it as it needs to be done even in our sleep. Live like we breathe in each situation as it arises all our life long. Disappear into the situation. Become one with the moment. Like a pitcher throwing a no-hitter, or a base runner stealing a base. Like a new born baby sleeping in its crib. A fresh hatched turtle making for the sea.

Let the sentinels who keep watch
take no rest nor allow him to rest
until he has remembered his promises
and returns to make us the boast of the earth!

Misplaced allegiances lead to a lot of grim realizations, no?
Leading to Now what? Where do we go from here?
The Silence is always with us.
We could go there and listen for what is called for here, now,
and do that
when, where and how it needs to be done.
And see where it goes.
There is nothing wrong with that for a life plan!

I have just published on my “Jim Dollar’s Published Works” blog on Word Press, “Three Points on Prayer” as an excerpt from my eBook, A Handbook for the Spiritual Journey II, available from Amazon Kindle with an internet search for “Jim Dollar Kindle.”

Jesus died at the hands of The Establishment embodied in the High Priest Joseph Caiaphas who saw Jesus as an enemy of the High Priestly way of doing things. The Buddha died from eating poorly cooked pork (How enlightened was that?). Both Buddha and Jesus were living their life as they thought their life needed to be lived–and would have lived out their lives without killing anyone they thought was interfering with them doing that. The Tao Te Ching precisely declares the destiny that awaits all of us: “Get in there and do your thing and don’t worry about the outcome!” (A paraphrase by Joseph Campbell).

Our truth is more important than our safety. How we see things is who we are. Regular retreats into the emptiness/stillness/silence enhance our chances at achieving clarity of vision. Being true to ourselves in serving that vision is “the secret cause” of our death according to James Joyce. Living in the service of clarity about who we are and what is ours to do in the time left for living is a cause worthy of us. With that in hand, we have what it takes to face every day all the way to the last one. May it be so said of all of us! A better epitaph I cannot imagine.

Finding and living out of our center, our core, our foundation is the essence of integrity and the guiding principle of our life. Is it Me, or is it Not-me? In what ways does this represent, reveal, exhibit, express who I am and aspire to be? In what ways does this deny, conceal, misrepresent who I am and aspire to be?

Parties, for instance are Not-me. Siting, looking out the window is Very Much Me. And the lists wind on from there.