Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy
Finding our way to The Way one situation at a time. I don't know how great it will be, but I expect it will be interesting, and I look forward to it going on past all reason because wonder is just that way. Are you coming or not?
The sure way to get what you want is to change what you want. Changing our mind about what is important makes an immediate improvement in our attitude which makes an immediate improvement in our life. Most of our problems are the result of the way we think-- what we think about and how we think about what we think about. When we change the way we think we change everything about us. Something to think about.
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No one can do better than doing the right thing at the right time in the right place and the right way. And no one can think that into place. Yet, it happens all of the time, and not nearly often enough. Because we have our mind on other things. Our attention wanders, our focus slips, we are somewhere else, not here/now. Being aligned with the Tao is a matter of being at one with the situation as it unfolds before us in all of its random wonder. The trick is just being mindfully aware of all that is going on, disengaged from and disentangled by anything that is going on, being fully present without being hooked by any of it. Making that kind of presence, attitude, perspective, perception, frame of mind our working default over all times and places is the key to making the right response to what is going on here/now, moment-to-moment, day-to-day, with nothing to gain and nothing to lose any time ever. Knowing that we are not here for what we can get out of it. We are here to be here/now for the good of the situation as it arises, regardless of what that means for us personally. Get that down, and the world is a better place to be like that (Snaps fingers).
Finding things to do that we enjoy doing is a high priority item in each stage of life. Reading, writing and photography have comforted/focused me through several stages over 60 years, and they remain my grounding/centering activities I coalesce around them, express myself through them, take refuge in them, and find in them my deep joy and eternal habitation. They are where I belong and where I enjoy most being. I hope something like them for you. But, the things we belong to are like the wand that chooses the wizard. We don't think them up so much as realize what they are. We don't intend them, or wish them into being, there they are, in a "Why certainly, of course," kind of way. Words of Carl Jung come to mind here: "We are who we have always been, and who we will be." And our "things" are our things for always. Good luck with realizing yours!
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Jesus was thrown to the wolves by the orthodoxy of his day. His disciples followed in quick succession: "Young John who trimmed the flapping sails, homeless in Patmos died, "Peter who hauled the teeming net, head-down was crucified" (William Alexander Percy). And the 13th disciple, Paul, met a similar fate in Rome. The "new thing" that stirred to life in Jesus was met with harsh opposition by those who knew a better thing when they saw one-- the better thing being their own spin on sin and redemption, with them holding "the keys to the kingdom" in their tight control. Power is always political, whether in church or state, and the power to say what's what and what needs to be done about it or else is the prime power all are seeking. So came the persecution of the heresies and the heretics, the burnings at the stake, the destruction of alternative ways of thinking about Jesus and what it means to be the Christ for those who would be his followers. What it means is how we meet and manage the contradictions at work in being alive, and being human in a Christ-like way as called for by the circumstances at hand. The Christ-like thing about Jesus was the way he handled contradictions, and created them, by seeing what was needed here/now and doing it, no matter what. With Jesus, the right thing to do was organic, of the moment, and the spirit was like the wind, blowing where it will. Nothing could be more antagonistic and detrimental to the church of rules and regulations, stipulating exactly how to do things "decently and in order," imposing its ideas of how it ought to be done on all situations and circumstances throughout time and place. To be Christ-like is to be UN-christian. And it is to die in the service of Christ-like-ness in taking on the contradictions inherent in the process of being alive, and bearing the pain of their opposition through all of the times and places of our life. Col. Nathan R. Jessup, the Jack Nicholson character in "A Few Good Men," and his telling line, "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!" is the living epitome of the contradictions to be borne in the service of truth. We are here to balance the contradictions of life, the way Jesus did, damned if we do and damned if we don't, and dying metaphorically/symbolically and rising from the "dead" to "die" again and again throughout our life in bearing consciously the contradictions at the heart of having life abundantly, "pouring over, spilling out" all our life long. We make the peace by taking the way things are in one hand, and the way things need to be in the other hand, and getting the two hands together in each situation as it arises in every moment of every day. This is what the old Taoists meant by harmonizing Yin and Yang. We balance the opposites. We unite the contraries. We merge the polarities. We die metaphorically, and sometimes actually, as Jesus did, and all his disciples after him (Except those who claim to be disciples with no clue as to how to go about doing it) in saying "Yes!" to life just as it is, in a "Thou Art That" "Neti Neti" kind of way to everything that comes our way, all our life long. Handling the truth of internal/external opposition to truth in dancing to the music of every occasion, and laughing with the joy of knowing how things are in all their absurdity and glory every step of the way that is the way everlasting.
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We have to pick and choose among all of the things that are said in finding what we call truth, but who is to say if we are right or just making things up some more again? How do we know what we claim to know? "In my heart I know," fuels all the gamblers in all the casino's worldwide, and all the horoscope readers and writers, and all the sorcery, charms and spells of voodoo and witchcraft... We say what is so and what is not so based on our experience and our best guesses, but it all comes down to "So it is said." Who said so? Who says who said so? "I plucked it from the wind, my friend, as it blew in from Neverwhere, or Neverwere, and then it was gone wherever it will, and we are left with that, to make of it what we will." And everything hangs on what we make of it. We are the ones who say so, as though we are the ones who know so. We are the origin of it all. Or so it is said.
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How's your balance and harmony? Your stability and security? Your integrity and sincerity? The three pairs work together to ground and center you and send you into each day in search of what needs to be done in each situation as it arises to do it and to bring yourself forth in so doing to delight and amaze yourself and discover things about yourself you never knew you were capable of. The day assists us in this way, unveiling our unknown depths and revealing our knacks and shtick in the mundane and the marvelous to show us who we are and remind us again that we have nothing to worry about, and are well-equipped to handle whatever comes up in the spirit of Odysseus and Sisyphus, handling boulders and Cyclops' with equal ease and aplomb, day in and day out forever.
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How things are do not reflect my idea of how they ought to be very often for long-enough periods of time. I do not allow that to stop me from making the best of things to the fullest extent that I am able. I take it to be my duty to make the best of all things in every way possible in each situation as it arises all my life long. Anything less than that is to disparage my ancestors and to dishonor the faith they have in me to uphold the good and to stand for Truth, Justice, Freedom, Equality in all matters great and small throughout the time left for living. It is a small thing to do what needs to be done, when, where and how it needs to be done, and anybody can do that much. Why not?
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I hate every mistake, snafu, wrong turn, bad choice, etc. I have ever made, and there be many, yet, each one of them factored into who I am. Where would I be-- who would I have become-- without them? I am my adjustments/corrections/reversals/alterations. And you are yours. The way we have responded to the errors of our ways has produced all that we are. No one knows what all to avoid without the trials and errors. We need to be prouder of our limps and scars, and the price we have paid to be here/now. And kinder to ourselves for not knowing more sooner. It is all a part of the way! Live on! Live on!
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Do you think bears think of quitting? Or, considering their chances and thinking of folding up? Checking out? Because it's just too much? Or pelicans? Chipmunks? Things aren't going their way? Do you think they ever think about things not going their way? I think they just wake up and go meet the day, every day, for no reason, without ever thinking about reasons for what they do. They just do what needs to be done. Every day. Do you think it is harder to be us than it is to be an elephant? Do walruses ever cheer themselves up by saying, "At least I'm not a human being!"?
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What I know of monastic life consists of chants and prayers, sitting zazen, daily chores, eating and sleeping. It's pretty much busy-work to keep their mind off their life in an "idle hands are the devil's workshop" kind of way. How to fill the time is every teacher-master's nightmare. There is only so much to say, then there is getting it/doing it in ways that express/exhibit it while "holding body and soul together." It is boring beyond bearing. Beyond imagining. Beyond belief. And is only done for lack of anything better to do. The monastic life reminds me of the AA life. After sobriety, what? We go to meetings to stay sober to do what? Go to more meetings to stay sober. What are we doing with sobriety? What are we doing with spirituality? Self-realization-expression-exhibition. That is what our life is about. Self-realization-expression-exhibition. What are you doing, regularly, steadily, reliably that falls into the category of self-realization-expression-exhibition? That's it! Keep it up! Life is the opportunity for self-realization-expression-exhibition!
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We live our life finding our life and living it. Seeking our life and settling into it. Coming to be who we are. This is the Tao at work in our life, getting us together with our life, over the time left for living. Teaching us the keys to balance and harmony, knowing when we are within the Zone of Awareness, At One With Who We Are, and when we are outside of it, looking for it, not clear about what it is and what it isn't, seeking the boundaries, the landmarks, the lines separating us from not-us, living between Yin and Yang, narrowing the distance, expanding our horizons, becoming one with all things by being just as we are, with our "just so-ness" merging with everything's "just so-ness," and being at peace at last, in a "This Too, This Too," "Thou Art That," "Neti Neti," kind of way.
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We keep hoping to find it, when it is all a matter of being it. We bring it forth. We do not stumble upon it, dig it out of the ground, find the buried treasure. We are the treasure. The treasure is buried in us! We have to turn the light around and get busy living in light of a different goal. The goal of aligning ourselves with our original/essential nature and the innate virtues/character that are ours from conception. Being who we are! Listening to our heart, to our stomach, to our bones, to our nighttime dreams-- all of the things arising from within, from our own body! Our own soul! Bringing those things to life in our life. Learning to dance and play, laugh and sing, enjoy our lives, ourselves and one another. Just being ourselves just as we are, alive in our life, and glad to be here, doing our thing as only we can do it, all our life long. Living like that is having it made!
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Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy