01

We find the way to The Way,
and remain on it 
through the practice
of the right kind of
emptiness,
stillness
and silence.

The practice of 
the right kind of 
emptiness,
stillness
and silence
is not only 
the way to The Way,
it is also
the solution to all 
of our problems today,
everyday.

We have to empty ourselves
of our idea about how 
our life should be,
and of all of our ideas
of what should be,
and should not be,
in order to see what should be
in each situation as it arises,
and do it.

Action that does not flow
from the right kind of 
emptiness,
stillness 
and silence
creates the kind of world
we live in,
and blocks the way
to the kind of world
we should be living in.

What we do about that
is up to us.

–0–

02

I wish benevolent intention 
could be assumed across all lines.
How many lines are there?
How many different ways 
to calculate Us and Them?

We are always deserving.
They never are.

We are always Right.
They are always Wrong.

We are always Us.
They are always THEM.

How far back would we have to go
to not find the Us/Them designation?

How can we distance ourselves from it
and refuse to be a party to it?

And make benevolent intention
a characteristic everyone can count on
from us!

01

There is a fine line
between caring enough
about the right things
and caring too much 
about everything.

Jesus and the Buddha advised
knowing what is important
and caring about that
and letting the rest of it go.

"Why worry about tomorrow?"
they asked,
"Or about anything out of your control?"
they implied,
"Let today's trouble be sufficient
for today!"

Know what matters,
and deal appropriately with that.
And let that be that.

Or, as Lao Tzu suggested,
"Do your work and step back.
Let nature take it's course."

Striving to make happen things
that can't happen,
or have no business happening,
is dangerous and wrong-headed.

Stick with what needs to happen--
and even with that,
let the outcome be the outcome,
and keep doing what needs to happen now,
with this outcome.

It is called "Making your peace
with your life,
and doing what you can
with what you have to work with."

All our life long.

–0–

02

We take our comfort and consolation
where we can find it,
and it is important that we find it,
a place "to recover from the past
as store up for the future,"
as Robert Ruark's grandfather put it.

Too often, we go in for denial and addiction,
which was Robert's downfall,
and that of too many others of us
who are up against it,
with nowhere to turn.

We have to have a turn-to place
that won't turn-out to be 
worse than what sends us running to it.

Where do you turn in times of trouble?

Joseph Campbell was fond of asking,
"What do you turn to
when you have nowhere to turn?"
He followed that up with,
"There you find the stabilizing myth
that grounds you and supports you
through the ebbs and flows of life!"

What sustains us, nurtures and nourishes us?
What keeps us going?
We persist and find our way
in the strength of what?

Money won't do it.
Money pays for our addictions--
IS an addiction--
and enables our denial.
Money is a cheap substitute
for a grounding, sustaining, myth
at work in our life.

My myth is my belief/trust/confidence
in the holy trinity of
emptiness,
stillness 
and silence,
and in the abiding presence 
of the Inner Other
that Carl Jung was talking about 
when he said,
"There is in each of us,
another,
whom we do not know."

He referred to this Inner Other
as "The ten-million year old person"
at the heart of our DNA,
coming to life in response
to circumstances which awaken him/her
and call her/him forth
to enable us to face what must be faced,
and to do what needs to be done,
in the here and now of our life.

I take comfort in this belief-that-becomes-experience
through the daily encounters
with more than words can say
and more than I could manage on my own--
and I strengthen connection 
with the source and foundation of my life
with regular returns 
to emptiness/stillness/silence,
where I find what I need
to stand up and do what needs to be done,
moment-by-moment,
day-by-day.

–0–

03

The Practice is repetition and return
to the Source
and the grounding foundation--
the ground and foundation--
of emptiness/stillness/silence,
sincerity/integrity/spontaneity,
spirit/energy/vitality,
having/doing/being,
balance and harmony,
what is called for,
what needs to happen,
here and now.

The Practice is the 
organizing principle
around which our life revolves
and everything falls into place.

Without the Practice--
apart from the Practice--
there is only the clamor and chaos,
the noise and complexity
of the 10,000 things
to shatter our peace,
disrupt our flow
and disorder our life.

Remembering our breathing
and engaging the Practice
restores our perspective
and reorients us 
to see and to do 
what needs to be next,
here and now.

01

There is the inner world,
and there is the outer world.
Inner and Outer.
Think of them as another aspect
of Yin and Yang.
We have to balance them with each other
and harmonize them both 
with the context and circumstances
of our life,
moment-to-moment,
day-by-day.

All our life long.

Balance and harmony
flow out of emptiness,
stillness and silence.

Outer is grounded upon
and flows from Inner.

Without Inner,
Outer is hell on every level.

Nothing goes well with Outer
until everything goes well with Inner.
If our Inner life is even just a little bit off,
our Outer Life is in shambles.

If we are ignoring,
dismissing,
disregarding,
disrespecting,
neglecting,
failing to honor
emptiness, stillness and silence,
it shows.
In every possible way,
on all available levels.

First Inner, then Outer.

We can't do yoga once a week,
or twice a day,
and think we are doing our part.
It is showing,
and we are pretending it isn't,
and refusing to look.

We cannot smile and nod to Inner
and have Outer like we want it,
much less, how it needs to be.

Inner "is a harsh taskmaster,
planting where it does not sow,
and harvesting where it does not plant."
It doesn't work to think we can "fool Mother Nature."

Emptiness, stillness and silence, Kid.
Emptiness, stillness and silence.

–0–

02

It is our place
to work out the proper ratios
among having, doing and being--
with who we are being the central focus,
and having and doing falling into place
around being.

The old Taoists wondered,
"What was your face
before your grandparents were born?"

They knew that living to serve,
honor,
reflect,
exhibit,
express
our original nature
is the fulcrum
which levers our life into place.

What we have is a statement
about who we are.
What we do reveals and announces
who we are.

In knowing and serving who we are
with filial devotion,
fealty,
fidelity,
loyalty
and allegiance,
we establish
the center around which
having and doing revolve and evolve.

And that's the alignment
that brings our best to bear
on each situation as it arises
for the highest good possible
under the circumstances.

01

Effortless action is action that arises
in the moment of its doing
and flows spontaneously from us
to the situation calling for it
to be done,
at the time it is called for,
in the way it is called for.

It happens frequently 
through those who are attuned
to their circumstances
and are living without agenda
or opinion,
with nothing to gain or lose,
free to do or to do not
according to the need of the moment.

Being empty of motive,
fear, anger, desire or duty,
frees us to be present
and able to move with the circumstanes
as they develop
toward the response they require,
without thinking,
plotting,
scheming 
or planning--
like dancers who dance
without imposing their will
on their movement,
and move without intention
beyond intending to disappear
into the music
and stay out of the way
until the music is done with them
and what they bring to the moment.
And wait for the next moment
for the dance to go on.

02

The freedom to be what is needed
in each moment that arises
in every situation that develops
is the freest freedom there is.

And it is all that is asked of any of us.

Ever.

That is the freedom that sets us free
from expectation,
aspiration,
ambition,
fear,
anger,
will
and desire,
and invites us to dance
with the music
of the time and place
of our living.

We are not free
until we are free
to live like that.

01

We would transform the world
just by living out the role
of the Prodigal's father
(Google "The Parable of the Prodigal Son),
and greeting everyone we meet
as though they are our long-lost child.

This is only a matter of attitude
and perspective,
and it would make all the difference.

Attitude and perspective are superpowers
available like that (snaps fingers)
to everyone,
and impacting every moment
of everything we do,
our future,
and that of the entire cosmos.

The way we live matters
on multiple levels--
and how we see,
think, evaluate, assess
and feel about 
our circumstances,
moment-to-moment,
in each situation as it arises,
directs our action
throughout our life.

It is all interpretation!
Something happens and we immediately--
instantaneously--
ascribe meaning to it,
and respond to it 
out of our assessment of it.

In so doing, we are reacting to US!
To ourselves!
To our own perspective and attitude!
Our action flows from 
what we say it means 
that something happened!
And we blame whatever happened
for making us do
whatever we do
in a "It's people like you
who make people like me
hate people like you" kind of way.

That has to stop!
And it stops with us,
and with our being aware
of the power of our own
perspective and attitude.

Seeing what we are seeing
and how we are seeing it
changes everything.

Taking the time to see our seeing,
to see what and how we are seeing,
and the way we are impacting ourselves
with our interpretation/evaluation/
assessment/response/perspective/
attitude/etc.--
and taking the time necessary
to empty ourselves of all of that
is to stand in the stillness and silence
before what we are seeing,
so that we are just seeing
what we are looking at
just as it is.

Being empty and living from emptiness
in this way,
makes possible a brand new,
never experienced,
world of wonder and possibility,
in which "the old has passed away,
and the new is increasingly real."

And all it takes is seeing
what we look at.

–0–

02

A plausible case could be made
for Jesus being a schizophrenic
with a messiah complex--
and it would be on a foundation
more stable
than what has been passed along to us
as "the gospel truth" for 2,000 plus years.

Which is to say,
it does not matter what we believe.
It matters what we do.

If we do the right thing,
at the right time,
in the right way,
in each situation as it arises
all our life long,
we can believe anything we choose--
as long as it results
in doing the right thing,
at the right time,
in the right way.

And, "What is the right thing?"
Time will tell.
As Jesus said,
"Wisdom is known by her children."
And, sometimes, it is by her grandchildren,
or her great grandchildren.

And here is the really tricky part:
"The right thing"
comes in and out of favor
over time!
What appears to be right today,
appears to be wrong tomorrow,
and right again the day after...
So what is it really?
It is a matter of who says so when.

Which brings us back to the here and now
and the question of what is the right thing to do.
Who is to say?
WE are.
And we have to be right about it!
But how do we know?
We sit/stand in the stillness
and wait in the silence
for what arises/emerges/appears
to guide us in knowing/doing.

And if it turns out that we were wrong,
we do what can be done to redeem our action,
making amends and doing penance,
and striving for a better outcome next time. 

Living from the heart
toward the best we can imagine/envision
and the good of the situation as a whole,
moment to moment
is the work of every human being.

How well we all do that
tells the tale.

01

People pushing religion through the world
come to my door from time to time,
and when I tell them I am not interested,
they ask me, "Why not?"
I tell them, "I don't care why."

And I don't budge from that position.

If they say, "But, I want to know why!"
I say, "I don't care about that, either."
And if they say, "But, you should care,"
I say, "I don't care about that, either."

If they try to change the subject,
and ask me if I know Jesus,
I hold up an index finger,
and say, "Jesus and I are like that."
Their interest begins to wane about then,
and they go to the next house.

If they tell me I'm going to hell,
I tell them, "I don't care about that, either."

–0–

02

Emotional reactivity limits our ability
to respond appropriately
to each situation as it arises.

And it increases the level
of noise and complexity in our life.

The path to balance and harmony
is walked best by those 
who live with the proper degree
of separation between themselves
and their circumstances.

Joseph Campbell was a world class
distance runner in his college days
at Columbia.
He attended a track meet later in life,
and said he had to refuse future repeats
of that experience
"because it created too much within
that I had to control."

The Dalai Lama maintains his composure
by not attending automobile races,
among a long list of other activities.

Emotional arousal and reactivity
are addictions rivaling alcohol
for number of participants 
on a regular basis.

People cannot sit still and be quiet
for long, or often,
"because it creates too much within"
they can't control.

We are responsible for the life we live,
and for the life we refuse to live.

Who we are is who we will ourselves to be.

We live for the action,
or for the stillness and the silence.
And the choices we make
tell the tale.

–0–

03

We cannot see anything
without interpretation,
evaluation,
judgment,
opinion,
association,
reaction...

Without concealing it
beneath ideas about 
what it is
and what it is not.

We cannot see what it is
for seeing what we see that it is.

We know all we need to know about it
before it says, or does, anything.

So much for impartiality
and nonpartisan,
open mindedness
and unbiased appraisals
of everyone and everything in existence.

01

We have to be living in the service
of the right ends.
Making More Money isn't it.

Bringing our original nature 
to life in our life is it.

How would we do that?
A. What is our original nature?
("What is the face that was ours
before our grandparents were born?")

B. How can we live to express/
exhibit/explore/align ourselves with
who we are born to be
within the limitations and restrictions
of the context and circumstances,
the here and now,
of our life just as it is?

Answer those two questions correctly,
and we have it made.

–0–

02

What do you need to hear
at this point in your life?
To realize?
To know?
To do?

What are you waiting for?
What is waiting for you?
Upon what does your future depend?
What would it take
for you to know "That's IT!"?

Going in search of your destiny
isn't as smart
as making yourself available
and allowing your destiny to find you.

How would you make yourself available?
A. Empty yourself of all expectations
and requirements
regarding what an acceptable destiny would be.
B. Open yourself fully to the experience
of your experience.
C. Become self-transparent
so that you are hiding nothing from yourself,
without judgement or opinion,
as one who is just who you are,
waiting for a destiny
that needs what you have to offer,
with no demands or requirements
regarding what that has to be--
a door open to what is seeking
what you can bring to life in the world,
curious about,
and wondering what that might be.

–0–

03

Knowing what you need to know
hinges upon knowing what you need to know.
Can you make sense out of that?
Do you have what it takes 
to sit with it
until the light comes on?

What do you need to know?

How specific/precise can you be?

The clearer the question,
the better the answer.

The exact question
answers itself.

If you want to know 
what you need to know,
know what you need to know.

I believe in the truth,
in knowing the truth,
being the truth
and living truthfully.

Living truthfully implies
living with integrity
and self-transparency,
so that we are not kidding ourselves,
or living cut-off from
the inner alignment of self
with the outer world of reality,
so that there is a clear
relationship between what is "I"
and what is "Not I,"
and the ability to judge accurately
how to make life choices
that balance appropriately
the needs of the "I"
and the requirements of the "Not I"
in living successfully in the world
of physical reality.

This is as fundamental,
as sound,
as central,
as necessary to life
as breathing.

And it is missing in too many of us.

Jacob Bronowski said,
"In order to know the truth,
we have to live in certain ways."

We have to live truthfully.
With integrity and self-transparency,
not kidding ourselves,
in balancing our relationship
with our original nature
and our relationship with the demands
of the context and circumstances 
of our life.

No one can do that for us,
or tell us how to do it.
It comes from our ability
to be aware of what is true within
and what is true without,
and making the relationship 
between the two "worlds"
work for the good of both.

Will Rogers is said to have said,
"It is always the right time to shut-up."

I amend that to read,
"It is always the right time 
to sit down
and shut-up."

Sitting quietly
and opening ourselves
to the silence.
Emptying ourselves
of all judgment and opinion
regarding what arises
in the silence,
just watching,
just listening,
just being aware--
like the Buddha under the Bo Tree--
enables the awareness
that leads to reflection
and realization
that balances and harmonizes
the two "worlds,"
makes for peace
and enables us to live
as one whole person
within the time and place
of our living--
with integrity
and self-transparency.

And everything falls into place
around that.

–0–

02

Self-awareness and self-transparency
lead the way
in balancing inner and outer,
consciousness and unconscious,
physical and spiritual,
ego/desire/fear/anger/duty 
and psyche/heart/soul/mind...

Wholeness/oneness/integrity
is a balancing act
on a high wire
with no safety net below,
and not a steady state of being.

It is a dance with mood/emotion/nutrition/hydration
and the complexity of context and circumstance
at play in each moment
of every situation as it arises.

We have a lot going on.

To think we can pull it off
without regular/routine returns
to stillness/emptiness/silence
is to be a kidnap victim 
of denial and arrogance.

Returning to the silence
(stillness and emptiness)
is a return to the source,
center, foundation, core
of who we are
and what we are to be about.

Emptiness is about stepping 
away from judgment,
opinion,
desire/wanting
and duty/ought/should/must,
and being quietly aware
of all that is crowding in upon us
without being emotionally hooked,
hijacked, reactive, controlled
by any of it.

Emptiness is the sine qua non 
of stillness and silence,
allowing us to step away 
from the noise and complexity of life
to perceive/sense/intuit what's what
and what is called for in response
in light of our balance and harmony
and our ability to live as a whole,
united, entity/person
within the situation/circumstances at hand.

Emptiness is my personal equivalent to prayer.
Prayer for me is emptying myself
of all the noise and complexity
that interferes with my ability 
to be a whole person
responding from my original nature
to the here and now amid
"the dust of the world"
and the "ten thousand things."

A life without prayer in this sense of the word,
is a life that is swept away
upon "the heaving waves of the wine-dark sea"
into "the clashing rocks"
and "the howling winds of the wasteland"
and "the endless freefall of the Void"
and a different kind of emptiness
characterized by lostness, aloneness,
hopelessness and despair.

The right kind of emptiness is protection against,
and a shelter from,
the wrong kind of emptiness,
and it is made possible by 
our trust in ourselves
to have what we need to find what we need
to deal with whatever comes our way--
and in our ability to bear the pain
that must be borne in the meantime.

There is no smooth, easy, pain-free
path to bliss and nirvana. 

Balance and harmony,
wholeness and integrity
depend upon our being who we need to be
in order to do what needs to be done
here and now,
moment to moment,
through all the situations of life
for as long as life is possible.

And self-awareness and self-transparency
lead the way.

01

We make out as best we can
in the work to be true to ourselves--
to be who we are capable of being--
within the context and circumstances
of our life
in each situation as it arises.

It helps to be aware of 
in light of what are we living.
What is guiding our boat 
on its path through the sea?
What does integrity demand?

What does it take for us 
to be pleased with what 
we are doing/have done?

How well are we living aligned
with who we would be proud to be?

What do we let ourselves get by with,
time after time?

What do we ignore,
dismiss,
discount,
disregard,
deny
about the quality of our response
to what is happening now?

What standards do we require
ourselves to meet
in terms of the responses we make
to the moment of our living?

What is below us, beneath us?

What do we expect of ourselves
as far as our response to the day goes?

How often do we look ourselves in the eye
in a day?
Commend ourselves on our performance?
Tell ourselves to do better?
Call ourselves to task?
Pat ourselves on the back?

How often are we pleased
with how we deal with the day's deliveries?

What would it take to be pleased
more often?

How often do we hold ourselves to the light,
see what's what,
and do what needs to be done about it?

01

What needs to happen now?
Is our guide for life.
What needs to happen now in light of what?
Narrows our options down
to a final few choices.

In light of what do we live?

The Democratic quadrangle
enclosing democracy works for me:
Liberty!
Justice!
Equality!
Truth!

These four cornerstone values
give rise to the rest of the guides:

Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Compassion,
Generosity, Gratitude, Graciousness,
Mercy, Noble, Right, Pure, Lovely,
Decent, Admirable, Excellent, Praiseworthy...

Living in the service of these 
guiding lights
leads the way through 
the dilemmas, quandaries,
and predicaments of the day. 

And when any of these values
are clouded by circumstances
to the point where doing good here
results in bad there
in a damned if we do
and damned if we don't
kind of way,
we wait in stillness
to intuit the choice
which creates another situation
in which we have to decide
what needs to happen then, there.

One choice leads to another,
with "What needs to happen now?"
leading us all the way.

It is the only important question,
and we answer it all of the time.
Being aware of it being asked
and of how we are responding
makes all the difference.

If we are going to be right
about anything, 
let it be that question,
always
(Knowing that what is right
in one moment may be wrong in the next, 
and vice versa)!

–0–

02

We do what we determine needs to be done
and see how it plays out,
doing what we determine needs to be done
at each stage of each situation as it arises
all along the way.

"Do your work," said Lao Tse,
"and step back.
Let nature take its course."

"Let the outcome be the outcome."
"See how it plays out."

Vaxers and anti-vaxers face off,
reading the facts and the evidence
in light of different evaluations
of the validity of the other side's
view of what is a reliable fact,
what is reliable evidence,
and step back
to see how it plays out.

Time will tell.
Truth will out.
It is only a matter 
of waiting and seeing
who is right 
and who is wrong.

Answer the core question,
"What needs to be done now?"
as only you can,
and see how it plays out.

–0–

03

Nurturing/nourishing our relationship
with Heart/Soul/Mind--
with our Psyche Self--
with The Invisible World,
the Spirit World,
the Spiritual World--
with The Other Within
Carl Jung spoke of when he said,
"There is within each of us
another whom we do not know"--
provides us with ready access
to an Inner Guide, 
with whom collaboration and respect
provide us with all we need
to find what we need
in living aligned with our original nature
through all of the circumstances of life.

Our original nature 
and The Other Within
are our contact points 
with spiritual reality--
the source of instinct, 
intuition,
imagination,
insight,
awareness,
vision,
creativity,
inspiration,
realization
and all those "sixth-sense" functions
that are the essential aspects of Mythos
that are required to balance
the input of Logos,
reason,
logic,
rationality,
intellect,
analytics...
and enable us to live 
as a fully integrated whole person,
with Psyche and Soma combining
to guide and direct us
through the choices and decisions and responses
of life within the here and now
context and circumstances
of day-to-day life
throughout our physical existence. 

Bringing Psyche/Mythos to life in our life
as a full partner with Soma/Logos
is the work of the Hero's Journey
in the time left for living.

–0–

04

The Tao is like this: 
It took everywhere I’ve been to be where I am. 
I regret that but. There is no other way. 
It is so with all of us, 
and is an allegory of the way life 
is throughout the Cosmos. 

There is no plan. 
Everything is working its way to where it will be 
on a path that stops but never ends.

The Tao is like this:An Irish pub serves the public
with a staff of six servers
and a bartender,
two cooks
and a host/hostess.
There is no manager,
and the staff is trusted
by the owner
to do what needs to be done,
when it needs to be done,
the way it needs to be done,
in each situation as it arises,
daily.

The servers take care of their own tables,
and keep an eye on each other.
If one server has a party of 6 or 8,
other servers help out with drink refills.

If the bartender needs a restroom break,
the server with the fewest customers
takes over the bar.
During lulls in the action,
a cook may tend the bar.

The flow of food and drink
is steady
and everybody assumes their role,
and helps others as needed with their role.

The floor is concrete
and hard on the feet and legs 
of everyone who works there.
The pay is reasonable
and the tips are what might be expected,
and turnover is low but regular.
New hires fit into the system,
or not--depending on their personality,
their maturity, grace, generosity
and awareness,
and people who do not belong there
do not stay around long.

The pub is an example of the Tao at work in the world,
as is an emergency room,
or an intensive care ward,
or a hospital,
or an elementary (etc.) school,
an airliner,
an airport...

Any place where needs are served
in a particular way
toward a particular end
in a particular manner
and within a particular time--
the what, when, where and how
that have to be right
according to custom and expectation,
is a place where Tao can be experienced
in each situation as it arises
on a daily basis.

Applying this kind of attitude and presence
within our life
throughout our life
transforms the world.