03

Martin Palmer said that the Tao
is simply getting things done in the right way--
the right way of going about doing something.
Anything.
Everything.

The only thing standing between us 
and doing things the right way
is us.

Before we do anything,
we only have to stop and remember
to do it the right way,
the way it is to be done,
the way it needs to be done.

And do it that way.

This is not hard.

We only have to get ourselves out of the way.

Why wouldn't we do that?

–0–

02

We gather ourselves
and step into the day.

What do we mean by that?
What do we intend?
What's the point?
What are we going to do with this day?

Each day is an addition
to our body of work.
What do we mean by that?
Intend?
What is the point of our body of work?
Who are we showing ourselves to be
in our collection of days?
What theme are we developing?
What is the nature of our life?
Who are we becoming?
Who have we become?

I look at the various segments
that make up my day
as mirrors reflecting me to me.
I see myself in the ways I respond
to what meets me in a day,
and evaluate my responses
in light of my Ideal Me--
the Me I wish I were--
the Me I live to be.

Each day is a practice run
toward the Me I would like to be,
one situation at a time.
It goes better
when I take my time,
embrace the silence,
remember my breathing
and know what I know.

When I step back,
and allow Me to lead the way,
surprising me with spontaneous
responses to the developing situation--
which is quite different from knee-jerk reactions--
things develop a flow
that I am proud to be a part of
even as I marvel at how this remark
or that action
could come from me.

Where did that come from?
is always a joy to find myself asking,
and I think I keep living
just to see what I will do next!

Coming to trust myself 
to know what to do
has been the blessing
and the grace
of life through the years,
and I face the future
with the confidence gleaned 
from having faced the future
into the fourth quarter
of my seventy-fifth year.

–0–

01

Everything turns--for better or for worse--
on our being right 
about what we call good.

How good is the good we call good
is always the question.

Our idea of the good
can be anything but good.

It is up to us to know what's what
with the good we call good.

How do we evaluate our values?

What guides our boat 
on its path through the sea?

Can it be trusted to know True North
from Due South?

How do we have our alignment checked?

What's a valid plumb line in the arena of the Good?

Whose word do we take?

What makes us think they know
what they are talking about?

What is the source of our certainty?

How often is it calibrated?

Against what standard of accuracy is it measured?

Who does the measuring?

How good is the good we call good?

Who says so?

If you are going to assume something,
or take it for granted,
don't let it be the goodness
of your idea of the good!

05

Always the first response,
regardless of what happens:

"Well, now. What can we do with this?"

Everything about our life is given to us 
so that we might play with it
and see what we can make of it--
of what we can become thanks to it.

Everything is a vehicle for our own becoming.

Nothing is wasted.
Nothing is worth nothing.
Nothing is for nothing.
Everything is going to impact us in some way.
Is going to make some sort of difference in our life,
in our way with life.

Our place is to oversee the impact,
to moderate the effect,
for the good--
using it to shape ourselves in ways
that enable us to better be who we are,
clarifying us,
if only to ourselves,
defining us,
refining us,
bringing us out,
bringing us forth,
showing us,
and others,
who we are.

Our life sets us up for the things that come our way.
We bring it on ourselves
as a gift from ourselves to us
to round us out,
complete us,
grow us up.

It is all a gauntlet, of sorts,
an initiation process,
an induction into the way of things,
a test of our mettle,
of our spirit,
to show us what we are made of,
and build our confidence in ourselves
and in our ability to deal appropriately
and successfully
with anything that comes our way.

Our role is to meet what meets us
as though we welcome the challenge,
and are looking forward ourselves 
to seeing what we will come up with next,
how we will handle this,
of all things,
and what it has to teach us about ourselves.

Practice the line until you can say it like you mean it:

"Well, now. What can we do with this?"

–0–

04

For those of you interested in 
living out of your own center
in the service of the work that is yours to do
in the life that is yours to live,
Joseph Campbell has this to say
(From The Mythic Image, p. 178, hardback edition):

“There are three points of accord that make it possible to speak of modern depth psychologies in the same context with yoga.

First, there is the idea that the fate of the individual is a function of his psychological disposition: he brings about those calamities that appear to befall him.

Next, there is the idea that the figures of mythology and religion are not revelations from aloft, but of the psyche, projections of its fantasies: the gods and demons are within us.

And finally, there is the knowledge that an individual’s psychological disposition can be transformed through controlled attention to his dreams and to what appear to be the accidents of his fate.”

Our life is a meditation.
Asking the questions that beg to be asked
and saying the things that cry out to be said
enable the reflections
that lead to new realizations
and "create doors where we 
did not think there would be doors,"
and opportunities for life
in what we took for a barren wasteland.

–0–

03

We say what is ours to say,
do what is ours to do,
in the times and places of our living,
and are gathered to our ancestors,
and the world goes on
as it always does.

We speak truth to power
and power has the leverage
and the privilege
and does what it always does.

Nothing changes.
"The more things change,
the more they stay the same."
The things Jesus and the Buddha said 
in their time
still need to be said in our time.
What?

Here is the truth that is as true
as the truth has ever been:

The work does not depend upon the results!
We say what we have to say--
what we MUST say.
We do what we have to do--
what we MUST do.
And let that be that.
What comes of it is not our concern.
Our only concern is to be true to ourselves,
to what is ours to say and to do,
and let the outcome be the outcome.

We gauge success by the degree to which
our life incarnated/reflected/exhibited/expressed
who we are 
and what is ours to say and to do.

What comes of it is just what comes of it.

Our task is to be true to ourselves
and to our work--
the work of expressing ourselves
in the life we live.
Beyond that,
it is out of our hands.

So, as Joseph Campbell said,
"Get in there and do your thing,
and don't worry about the outcome!"

–0–

02

We cannot impose our will for our life upon our life.

We "take our orders" from a source other than ourselves.
We align ourselves with "God's will for our life."
We put ourselves "in accord with the Tao."
We seek to follow "the path that calls our name."
We say "we are not our own to do as we will."
Then we tell people they are going to hell 
if they don't do it like we do it.
Which way is it?

We shun people,
ostracize people,
have nothing to do with people
who don't do it like we do.

We "say" in a thousand ways daily,
"I am the way, the truth and the life,
and  no one comes to the Father but by me!"

All of the self-help books ever written
boldly proclaim:
"If you want to be happy,
you have to do it like I do!
And herein is the recipe!"

What outlandish arrogance!

Everybody finds their own way.
Everybody has to do their own work.

Joseph Campbell declares that the way
is a different way for every individual,
which is the meaning of the word "individual."

Carl Jung says the same thing.

Campbell:

"The knights entered the forest at the point that they had chosen, where there was no path. If there is a path, it is someone else’s’ path, and you are not on the adventure. Now, what are you to do about instruction? You can get clues from people who have followed paths, but then you have to carom off that and translate it into your own decision, and there is no book of rules."

Jung:

“It is the individual’s task to differentiate themselves from all the others and stand on their own feet.”
“The development of personality means fidelity to the law of one’s own being.”
“Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own.”
"The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are."

Our burden is our glory:
Finding and living the life that is ours to live--
at the expense of the life we wish were ours to live.

This is the working out of those age old themes,
"From bondage to freedom."
"From death to life."
"Death and resurrection."
"Darkness and light."
"Asleep and awake."

The ultimate duality 
is created by those who declare
"There are no dualities!"

The ultimate illusion
is created by those who declare,
"Duality is an illusion!"

"No one is as blind
as those who declare:
'I see!'"

Seeing is borne out by the way
in which we live our life.
If seeing sees anything 
it sees all the ways in which 
it does not see at all,
and does not boast of 
the great clarity of its vision.

We find our own way.
We do our own work.
It is all up to us.
All of our problems
are simply doorways to realization,
pathways to the Land of Promise,
to the Farther Shore,
which is always beneath our feet
all the time.

Like the man on his ox,
searching for his ox.

Like the woman holding her car keys
looking for her car keys.

Like the person moving the butter out of the way
looking for the butter.

We don't have to go anywhere 
to find what we are looking for--
we only have to realize
that we are it.
Just as we are.
"The one thus come."
"The father and I are one."

Right here, right now.

–0–

01

We cannot impose our will for our life upon our life.

We certainly cannot impose our will for someone else's life
upon their life.

These are the two fundamental/foundational principles of life
that must be honored and respected,
embraced and acquiesced to 
by all people great and small
across all times and places
in order for life to be lived
the way life needs to be lived
for the true good of all concerned,
including ourselves.

These two principles are the center and ground of democracy,
and set it apart from all other ways of life together
throughout the universe and all dimensions
within which life might be lived.

They are the end of caste systems
and jihads,
discrimination
and injustice,
and require us to live together
in ways that are in accord
with the Tao of all sentient beings,
Tao being the name for The Spirit of the Times,
in the sense of there being a time and a place
for everything in its own time and its own place
over all times and places,
with the essential question being,
"What is it time for in this place,
here and now?"
in every time and place.

Balance and harmony,
spirit,
vitality,
virtue/character,
integrity
and sincerity
become the central features
of life together for all concerned--
and we all live in ways
that honor them 
and call them forth
in our life and the lives of others.

The Buddha and the Christ
represent the end of all caste systems
and the imposition of dharma/duty
limiting people to prescribed places
in the social order,
and invite everyone to follow
their own sense of the Spirit 
that is like the wind,
blowing where it will,
not knowing itself what it will do next
over the full course of their life. 

The charge, "If you meet the Buddha/Christ 
on the road, kill him!"
captures the essence of the matter.
Each person is responsible for their own life
and the development of their own potential
for realizing,
expressing,
incarnating who they are
and what they are to be about--
and no one can escape that
by doing what someone else tells them to do.

We are the Buddha!
We are the Christ!
And our life is the matrix
within which we work out the implications
of knowing and being who we are
and are capable of being/becoming--
the first order/obligation being 
the creation and maintenance
of an atmosphere/environment
in which everyone realizes
what is expected of/incumbent upon them
and lives their life in accord
with the Spirit of the Times
in all times and places
of their coming and going.

02

Trump is forever whining about how 
unfairly he is being treated.

I take that to mean he thinks he should be 
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize,
and be accorded the honor and admiration 
he thinks he deserves.

Whatever he thinks,
he recognizes the importance of fairness
and bemoans not being granted his share.
It is a justice issue.
Trump quickly recognizes injustice
as a recipient. 
He has no awareness whatsoever of injustice
as a dispenser. 

"I acknowledge no responsibility!"
That's Trump's trump card.
Trump trumps everything playing that one.

I wish I had a trump card like that.
It's not fair.

But I recognize the absurdity of thinking that 
wanting something has some mystical association
with receiving the thing.
That kind of thinking comes with wealth and privilege.
More wealth and privilege than I'm interested in.

An aside: Some people can't get enough wealth and privilege,
others need only enough to get their work done.
The people who can't get enough,
have no work to do.
Apparently, their idea is to avoid all work entirely,
and go through life wallowing in wealth and privilege.
As Jesus might say, "They have their reward."

All I want is enough wealth and privilege to do my work.
Not enough wealth and privilege is a distraction,
and too much wealth and privilege is also a distraction.
The sweet spot, you might say,
is enough to buy the tools our work requires
but not so much that it gets in the way.

And we have to know what our work is,
what we live to do,
and be about it.
Joseph Campbell said the blessing of getting older
is the ability to refine what is truly important
down to the absolute essentials
and the time to spend your life with those things.
He was absolutely correct about that,
and I relish each day as another opportunity
to enjoy the presence of those things which matter most.

May you be blessed in a similar way
throughout what remains of the time to be lived 
on your life!

–0–

01

Wanting what we have no business having
is the bane of our existence.

Desire,
Fear,
and Duty
burden us with concerns
that are not our concern.

Contriving to have something else,
something better,
something more
keeps us from the joy 
of the day-to-day.

We are our own worst enemy.

Nothing can happen to us
that we can't make worse
by the way we respond to it.

If we are ever going to be happy,
contented,
well-pleased
and at peace,
it is going to start right here, 
right now.

The only thing keeping that from happening
is the way we think about things.

Our judgments.
Our opinions.
Our evaluations.
Our expectations.
Our default dissatisfaction.
Combine to prevent us 
from being able to delight
in simple pleasures,
and dismiss
concerns that are not our concern.

An old Taoist self-help manual says,
"Noble people are calm,
joyful,
and not contrived,
without cunning or ulterior motives.
This means being empty and plain."
And,
"Private interest is what corrupts the world."
And,
"What is not one's path is not taken,
even if profitable."

2,000 years later,
they still ring true.

04

The work is ours to do alone.
Sitting.
Listening.
Looking.
Seeing.
Hearing.
Feeling.
Trusting.
Risking.
Doing.
Being.
Becoming.

We grow up on our own.
Against our will.
Because it is called for.
And is the best
of all our available options.

All that we have been told
about how things are
is not how things are.
This is how things are:
There is the way things are,
and there is what we can do about it,
and that's that.
And that is how things are.

Part of what we can do about it
is squaring ourselves up
with the difference between
how things are 
and how we wish they were,
or how we want them to be.

Coming to terms with how things are
is being okay with things
not being okay.
And letting things be
because they are.

Within any context and all circumstances,
there is what we can do
and what we cannot do.
Refusing to let what we cannot do
keep us from fully exploring what we can do
is the creative response
to our situation,
no matter what it is.

Always the strategy is:
Ask all of the questions that beg to be asked!
Say all of the things that cry out to be said!
Listen to everything!
See what we look at!
Feel what we are feeling!
Know what we know!
Bear the pain
and keep on going!

–0–

03

Martha Graham's dance, "Lamentation," says what words cannot
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgf3xgbKYko),
and in reflecting on her performance,
she said about it and all of her performances,
"The is always one person to whom you speak
in the audience. One."

That took me straight to the one disciple of the Buddha
who "heard" his Flower Sermon.
Mahākāśyapa is in every audience,
as male or female.

Do not think,
"No one hears"
(Or cares).

–0–

02

Believe in what you are doing
and do it!

If you are going to believe in anything,
let it be what you are doing!

Why would we do anything we don't believe in?
Yet, how many of us are doing things we don't believe in?
Going through the motions.
Paying the bills.
So we can go through the motions.

Wait!!!
Time Out!!!
It's one thing to go through the motions
to pay the bills--
but we can't pay the bills
to go through the motions!
We have to pay the bills 
to do what we believe in doing!

Are we doing anything we believe in?
Anywhere in our life?
If no,
that's a problem.

How can we live without believing 
in what we are doing?
Without believing in the life we are living?

We can't just go through the motions!
Our heart has to be in something 
we are doing,
else our life is a sham,
a lie,
an empty balloon on a stick
and we are dead people walking around
blank-eyed and soulless. 

Sound like anybody you know?

The cure is to get our life back
by finding something we believe in
and doing it
while we pay the bills any way we can.

Where do we start finding something
we can believe in?
What was the last thing you believed in?
What happened to that?
What are some things you think 
you might be able to believe in?
If you were going to believe in something,
what would it be?
What would it take to be able to do it?
If you can't do it,
start dreaming about doing it.
Imagine doing it.
Watch videos about doing it.
Pretend to be able to do it.
Start collecting items that are related to it.
Read about it.
Write about it.
Build a fantasy life around it.
Believe in your fantasies!
If you can't go to the moon,
make a life around studying everything
about going to the moon!

Work something you believe in into your life!

Without something to believe in,
we are just marking time until we die.

We may as well be in prison.

Do not die before you are dead!

Promise me you won't!

–0–

01

This is my credo,
my statement of faith in what I am about:
"I do not know what the hell I'm doing,
and I am going to do it to my dying breath!"

Two things flow from this.
The first is the old saw/observation
that people spend their entire lives 
climbing the ladder of success
only to discover at the end
that it was leaning against the wrong wall.
I have every confidence that my ladder
is leaning against the right wall.

The second thing is my essential belief
in the importance of muddling around in the middle,
holding all of the extremes,
all of the opposites,
all of the contradictions,
all of the polarities
all of the variant points of view
in view
and bearing the agony/anguish of that tension,
waiting for the mud to settle
and the water to clear
to see what happens.

I'm not here to make anything happen,
but to assist the happening
of whatever needs to happen.

If you bear the tension long enough,
something shifts,
the mud settles,
the water clears.

The worst thing is to push for a solution
that solves nothing
and only temporarily eases the tension
of mutually exclusive opposites.

No pushing!
No forcing!
Wait to see what needs to happen,
and assist its happening
by calling attention to it
and maintaining the tension
of irreconcilable polarities!

Give equal voice--
equal attention--
to all concerns.
Do not dismiss,
discount,
disregard,
deny,
ignore anyone's rights,
and bring the weight of realization--
of clarity--
to bear on the issues at hand.

The issue of abortion,
for instance,
would take on an completely new shift
if all of those clamoring for an end to abortion
suddenly became pregnant.
That is making the heart of the matter
painfully apparent.

When all of our polarities
become painfully apparent,
attitudes,
viewpoints,
and perspectives shift,
and things change.

Muddle around in the middle long enough
to be clear about what's what,
and things change.
Of their own accord.

There is nothing like clarity
for illumining the way.

03

Waiting for the mud to settle
and the water to clear,
it is important to exhibit
the kind of stillness
and confidence in the process
that creates the atmosphere
in which the mud can relax
and trust itself to gravitational forces
it cannot understand,
but can allow to work its magic
in assisting things seeking to find their place
and give themselves to doing 
what they do best.

The forces at work in our own life
are not different from the gravitational force
at work in the service of clarity.

We belong to the things that stir us to life
and call us forth
to find what best suits our gifts
and interests,
and our deepest love--
a love we know noting of
until it claims us
and graces us with its call to service
in devotion and loyalty to its needs
and interests.

We find our way to what owns us
bit by bit,
allowing "one book to open another,"
and always listening for what calls our name
in each situation as it arises,
allowing ourselves to be led--
even when we don't know we are being led--
to sacred places
"transparent to transcendence,"
with nothing special about they
that would set them apart,
or suggest the wonders hidden
from those who look without seeing
what we behold.

Swaddled in amazement,
we feel ourselves carried
from one wonder to another
in a life that is merely following the flow
from one day to the next,
without a plan in mind,
or an agenda directing the action.

All we need do is listen and look,
as we wait for the mud to settle
and the water to clear.

–0–

02

Faith has nothing to do with belief.
Faith is faithfulness.
Keeping faith with oneself and one another.
Being faithful to one's center, core, foundation--
in the company of those 
who are being faithful to themselves,
to their center, core, foundation--
and to one another.

Faith as faithfulness is the center, core, foundation
of ourselves 
and of the right kind of community.

It has nothing to do with what we believe,
and everything to do with what we know to be so
because it forms the ground of our experience,
and is the very essence of our being/doing.

"Thanks be to God I am who/what I am!"
(Paul of Tarsus)

"What I do is me/for that I came!"
(Gerard Manley Hopkins)

Belief is a substitute for faith,
a surrogate for the lived experience
of ourselves in the world.

"Know Thyself!"
(The Delphic Oracle)

"To Thine Own Self Be True!"
(William Shakespeare)

Our faith is in who we are
and what is ours to do.
Our faith is our life.
Our life is our faith.

The content of our faith
is the body of work
we create/produce
as a testimony to who we are
through the way we live our life
and bring ourselves forth
within the context and circumstances
of the times and places of our living.

The content of our faith
is how we live our life.

–0–

01

Purity is the great enemy of truth.
Purity is truth to the far extreme.
Truth without contradiction.
Truth without contraries.
Truth without truth.
A mockery of truth.
An imposter of truth.
A pretender of truth.
A sound-alike.
A wanna-be.
A Lie.

Watch the flow of the game
over the next 10 to 20 years.
Keep your eye on the ball. 
The truth is that
"extremes beget extremes."

Those who remain steadfastly in the center
become the enemy 
of the opposite poles.
Yet, the center is the fulcrum,
the pivot point,
"the still point of the turning world"
(T.S. Eliot).

The center is our only hope.
The cross of Christ
bearing the pain
of his own self-realization.

"You shall know the truth,"
he said,
"and the truth shall set you free."

The truth of what?
Free from what?
Free for what?

The truth of the moment.
Of this moment.
of this here-and-now.

Free from/for what?
Free from denial/mindlessness/unawareness/blindness/stupidity...
Free for doing what needs to be done here and now,
in this moment just as it is.

Free for responding appropriately
to the moment as it is being lived
in seeing/hearing what is called for
and providing it, 
doing it,
regardless of what you might have said/done
in the last moment,
or any previous moment--
or what you ever imagined that you would do
in any moment.

Freedom to be who you are,
living out of your own center
in response to the craziness--
the madness--
of a world gone to the extremes,
where:

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity"
(W.B. Yeats, "The Second Coming").

Freedom to be what is needed 
even there,
especially there,
in the heart of anarchy 
amid the Clashing Rocks
and the Heaving Waves
of the Wine-Dark Sea.

02

The  most important commandment in the Old Testament
didn't make the top ten,
though it lends itself to an interpretation
that makes it #1 even there.

Seeing "The Lord Thy God" in each of our neighbors
would put "Thou shalt have no other gods before me"
in the place of, as Jesus would say,
loving our neighbors as we love ourselves,
and as the most important commandment puts it,
"Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark."

Honor thy neighbor's right to themselves
and to all that belongs to them!
Do not mind thy neighbor's business!
Do not violate thy neighbor's boundaries!
Do not invade thy neighbor's sacred space!
Do not denigrate thy neighbor in any way!
Respect thy neighbor as thou desireth to be respected!

Know where you stop and your neighbor starts
and do not step over the line!

How may ways did Jesus say that?
He made it the central element in what he had to say.
Everything comes down to seeing our neighbor
as equal to us in every way.
And to seeing everyone as our neighbor.
And everyone is Every. Single. One.
We are to be everyone's neighbor,
treating them all as though they are our neighbor.

Why is this hard?
Why is it not being done?

–0–

01

We do not receive the help we need.
And if it is offered,
it isn't what we have in mind.

Given the choice,
do you go for feeling better
or getting better?

When the treatment is worse than the disease--
or worse than the symptoms--
what do we do?

Where do we go with the pain
of damned if we do and damned if we don't?
With the agony of endless agony?
In the meantime, what?

When there is no balm in Gilead,
where do we go for relief from our anguish?
For alleviation from our pain?

Where do we find what we need
to do what needs to be done
about any of it?

Therapy is found in the damnedest places.

The dairy barn at the Louisiana Central Hospital
brought people back to life
by giving them cows to milk and feed,
to pasture and tend.

What does a cow have to do with our problems?
Who would ever think,
"A cow is just what I need"?
How long would a physician last
who prescribed a cow to care for
to those seeking solace for the burdens they bear?

Don't disparage cows!
Seek out their equivalent in your own time and place!
You who have needs,
lend yourself to the service
of that which has need of you!
You who languish for a lack of help,
provide help to that which languishes
for what you have to offer!
Be good for someone,
some thing!

The world will shift on its axis,
reorient itself in its orbit.
All because you dared
to love a cow!