What is your idea  
of the ideal Life?

The model life?
The life that is the way
a life ought to be?

The Way that everybody is always
talking about
is the way things ought to be--
need to be--
must be to make it right
that we are here/now in this mess
of a world
needing to know what to do
to make right what can be made right
in the time left for living.

What can we do to make tomorrow right?
To make each situation as it rises right?

How do we need to live
in order to make the next situation
as it arises right?
To provide what it needs from us
to be what it can be--
even now,
even yet, 
anyway,
nevertheless,
even so?

Yesterday's long quote from Lao Tzu
included this:

"Original nature can intuit all happenings. In original nature there is the essence of true goodness. Be natural in your actions and you will always be still and pure."

What we all need to be is "natural."
Just naturally be who we are,
and let things fall into place around that.
Let all things flow forth from that.

Merely by being ourselves, naturally.

That would be ideal.
The model life.
The life that is the life
that is the way things ought to be.

The life that the entire world is waiting
for somebody at last to live--
not trying to get anything,
but just naturally responding to circumstances
and trusting nature to take its course,
to take it from there,
nature meeting nature being natural,
world without end. 
Amen.

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Lao Tzu said (In the Wen-Tzu):

"Although we speak of attaining the Tao, there is really nothing to attain, since we possess it from the very beginning. We arise from the Tao. The Tao resides in us. We cultivate ourselves from within."

"The origin of purity lies in impurity. When impurities settle in stillness, purity emerges. Movement is the foundation of stillness. When movement settles in stillness, purity arises."

"If people can be pure and still, heaven and earth will return to their places."

"If you are able to control desire, the mind will be still. Clear the mind and the spirit will be pure. Stop craving and your foundation will be stable. When the foundation is stable, the mind can be still."

"Regard the Void and it is empty. In emptiness there is nothing. Yet, in each there is stillness. Emptiness and nothing are filled with stillness and are found through stillness. Empty yourself and there is stillness. Still yourself and there is emptiness. And nothing. In absolute stillness, how can desire arise? When craving does not arise, this is true stillness."

"Original nature can intuit all happenings. In original nature there is the essence of true goodness. Be natural in your actions and you will always be still and pure."

"Abide in stillness and you will enter the true way. When you enter the true way, this is called receiving the Tao."

Children may be able to do this easier
than adults.

The trouble with this is
children are raised by adults.

Thus, adults must learn to be like children.

So, Jesus could say,
"Unless you turn and become as children,
you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

We seek things out there
that can only be found in here.

Knowing where to look and how
is a matter of asking the questions 
that beg to be asked,
particularly of the answers,
and saying the things that cry out to be said,
particularly of the answers.
And listening within
to what arises in the emptiness/stillness/silence.

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A hammock is my version of a Zazen cushion.
Zen purists will have none of it,
but.
A Zen purist is an anomaly.
A contradiction in terms.
Purists have no pace within light years of Zen.
They cannot accuse me of Zenlessness
without establishing their own Zenlessness as well.

Zen popularized the phrase,
"If you meet the Buddha on the road,
kill him!"
The same applies to Zen purists.

Zen is where you find it
and how you practice it.

Sitting Zazen came into vogue
as a way of controlling adolescent practitioners of Zen 
who were placed in monasteries 
along with a sizeable financial donation
by wealthy parents hoping the monks
would be better parents than they had time or desire for.

Now everybody thinks sitting Zazen is a thing
Zenites do,
when it is only a thing
people seeking emptiness/stillness/silence/solitude do.

And hammocks work well in that regard.

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Jesus' question,
"Who do you say that I am?"
came immediately following,
"Who do others say that I am?"
And sets the seat of authority
squarely upon the individuals
he is addressing,
and not upon any self-proclaimed
contemporary authority, 
or any self-proclaimed "Orthodox"
authority that might appear
at any point in the future.

Jesus also left unasked the obvious
follow-up question,
"Who do you say you are?"
which is equal in every way to his,
"What do you think about me?" query.

We are the authority!
What we say about who Jesus is
and who we are
stands before us throughout our life
as the model guiding us 
through all situations/circumstances
in a "This is who I am,
and this is what I do,
and what I leave undone" kind of way.

Who Jesus is and who we are
are not far apart.
If Jesus can do it, we can do it.

We are the authority, remember.
If we decide to cast away sin,
and replace it with seeing,
so that realization becomes
more important than repentance and redemption,
we have the prerogative to do that.

And if we are challenged by orthodoxy
at any point along the way,
we can declare that we "Take it on faith"
that self-determination is as much our right
as it is a right of the orthodox
to determine what is proper and what is heresy--
not only for themselves but also for everyone else.

And if they call it heresy,
what of it?

We are in charge of our life
from birth to death.
To hand that position over
to someone else is a dereliction of duty,
and a failure to comply with the 
requirements of being a human being
at the deepest level.

We cannot be bullied into living
like someone--anyone--else
declares that we should live.

Be true to what is the inner you,
and live in sync with the guides within.

Who do you say that you are?
Live in light of that always,
in all matters great and small!  

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Coming to terms with the day--
with our life--
means seeing the day (our life)
just as it is,
and allowing that to be that
without any more emotional response
than that associated 
with letting a tree be the tree it is,
or letting a cloud be the cloud it is.

Seeing things as they are
and letting them be as they are
is enlightenment in its essential form.

Enlightenment is knowing what we know
and letting that be that--
and knowing what the implications are
and letting that be that.

The implications of anything
come down to the way we live
in light of the way things are.

It means what we do 
in response to things being as they are.

It means doing what needs to be done
in response to the way things are.

When it is cold outside,
we put on a coat.

Seeing/knowing/doing/being
is living an enlightened life.

Enlightenment has nothing to do
with wanting/getting/having/possessing/owning/wanting...

How much of our life do we spend
living to get what we want
and avoid what we don't want?

How much of our life do we spend
doing what needs to be done
regardless of what we want?

Can we even separate what the situation
is calling for--
what the situation needs to be done--
from what we want from the situation--
from what we want to be done within the situation?

Can we let things be what they need to be
no matter what we want?

Is what we want what we need?

Do we impose what we want upon the situation,
or live in the service of what needs to happen
in spite of what we want?

There is no difference between living 
an enlightened life
and growing up.

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I need the right kind of emptiness,
stillness and silence.

I am waiting on the next realization.

Enlightenment is realization.
We are enlightened one realization 
at a time.

There is no absolute state of enlightenment.
There is no end to realization.
We all are waking up to what's what
and what needs to be done about it
all of the time.

Situations and circumstances
produce conditions that have never existed.
The old is always passing away.
The new is always coming into focus.

The here and now is being transformed
as we watch,
and lasts only as long as it takes
the next here and now to emerge from 
the old one.

"It's a new world Golda" (Tevya) every second.

If you ever think you are enlightened,
have a conversation with your grandchildren.
They live in a world 
you can't visit,
much less comprehend.

And, the Buddha would be even more lost
than we are!

Enlightenment is a frame of mind
that expands by the moment.
Always catching up,
always falling behind.

Always needing the right kind of emptiness,
stillness and silence.

Always waiting on the next realization.

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Everything spins according to 
the outcome we want to achieve.

It's the Rorschach applied to dreams
and life.
What do we see when we look?
At whatever we look at?
What do we see when we look again?

What do we want to see?
What do we want it to be?
What we look at.
What do we want it to be?

We write the script.
We control the narrative.
We say what's what
and it becomes so,
like that,
just what we say it is.

But, what is it beyond our spin?
What is it to itself?
According to its own spin?

People of color
carry the weight of the white people's spin.
White people cannot see people of color
apart from white people's spin.

White supremacists,
racists,
will never see people of color
as anything other 
than what the supremacists/racists
say they are.

Our biases show us how we see.

How do we get away from our biases
in order to see what we don't see
when we look with the spin of our biases
blinding our eyes?

I recommend highly distancing ourselves
from ourselves.
Meet everything we say with questions.
Don't take anything we say as the truth,
but as spin.

We spin everything.
We live in a spin show.
If we are going to see,
we have to see our looking for what it is,
our spinning for what it is.

Vet everything we say,
everything we believe,
everything we think...

Get to the bottom of what makes you think it is so!
Do not quit until you see your seeing for what it is--
A spin show.
Spinning everything
to support your biases,
to save yourself the trouble--
the pain--
of changing your mind
about all of the things you think are so
without thinking about what makes you think so.

Emptiness, you know.
As empty of thought and emotion
as the place between breaths.

Breathe in for a count of 5,
out for a count of 5,
pause between breaths for a count of 5.
Be empty like the pause between breaths.

Stillness.
Silence.
Listening.
Looking.
Asking the questions that beg to be asked
of everything you hear and see.
Saying the things that cry out to be said
of everything you hear and see and ask
of everything you hear and see.

This is a meditation on spin.
Getting to the bottom of you.

If it becomes too much,
return to your breathing.
In for 5,
out for 5,
pause for 5,
as many rounds as it takes 
to become calm and balanced,
working on getting to the bottom of you
and the world as you spin it,
hoping to just see,
just hear,
just know,
in order to just respond to what is happening
with what needs to be done,
without getting in the way
with spins and scripts and narratives,
spun, written, spoken with biases in charge,
in control,
in command.

We are taking ourselves back
one round of 5 breaths at a time.

Letting our biases take a walk
away from our life
for what remains to be lived of it.

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