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?
Clingman’s Dome (Parking Lot) Sunset — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Gatlinburg, Tennessee
Truth is a perspective. Actually, an opinion. Temporary, distorted and subjective. Presenting, not only a point of view, but also exposing what some interested party has to gain or is afraid of losing, and revealing what they have at stake in some future outcome, inviting examination, inquiry, investigation, along the lines of "Who? What? When? Where? How? Why? Here? Now?
Every assertion/accusation/statement by Trump/Musk/DOGE/and friends presents opportunity for excavation and exposé by those interested in getting to the bottom of everything pretending to be truthful in the spirit of taking no rest and giving them no rest until what can be known is known and nothing remains to be poked and probed, following the dictum: "Don't Take Anything At Face Value--Everything Is More Than It Seems!"
Koi Fish 03/17/2025 — Pike Nursery, Charlotte, North Carolina
We cannot think up our associations. Association is not imagination. The associations we make with cigarettes, say, or pipe smoking, or alcohol, or cameras, or oceans... are ours alone to make.
No one can tell us what our associations are or ought to be. Our associations speak, reveal, disclose, display the truth of who we are.
What associations, if any, do you make with the above image? Do you feel attraction? Repulsion? Fear? What stirs to life within? What memories come to mind? Sit with the image and observe the train of associations that begins to form as the image generates associations that produce associations to the associations and your history takes form/shape as you become an audience of one as your life passes in review. What do those particular associations have to do with this particular time in your life? What is it about your here, now, that makes you susceptible to this particular train of associations? What are you saying to yourself? What are you needing to see about yourself, here, now. You are showing yourself memories/associations, here, now. Why these memories, associations, here, now? What do you need to be aware of it this moment in your life? What are you saying to yourself? About yourself?
Our associations are mirrors reflecting us to ourselves at particular points in our life. They are like nighttime dreams in this respect. We are attempting to guide/direct ourselves in response to our life, but we have to pay attention in an inquisitive kind of way to "get the message" and see what we have to say to ourselves.
As you move through your life, notice the things that catch your eye and look closer, becoming aware of the train of associations collecting around the source of attraction/attention. Hop aboard and see where it goes. Enlightening, exposing, unveiling, disclosing you to you.
Wild things have been accommodating civilization from the beginning of civilization. So we give the refuges and preserves. Until oil or goal is discovered there, and then we put up fences.
Sometimes we build land "bridges" over interstate highways to accomodate migration routes, and sometimes not. It is not wise to get in the way of progress.
And how many species are going extinct per month these days?
Civilization is not--make that people are not--good for nature. And anything that is not good for nature is not good for people.
Shooting ourselves in the foot in service of the profit motive is what we do best. If a profit can be made a profit will be made, you know, at the expense of whatever is in the way. If we are in the way, too bad for us.
We are too greedy for our own good. And always have been. We won’t be missed at all.
There are things we need to know and things we need to do. And things occur to us out of nowhere when we drop into the silence and wait for clarity and direction.
I do most of my growing up being quiet. It is amazing how much I realize just looking out the window.
Joseph Campbell said he adjusted to old age by letting come what was coming and letting go what was going like an old car disintegrating with time.
The rearview mirror falls to the floorboard, the front bumper drops to the ground. the right headlight dangles by its wiring...
It is the way of the cosmos. No point in being overwrought about things that have been going on for millennia.
It is as he said. We go a piece at a time. Watching ourselves disappear as we sit looking out the window.
Maintaining our equilibrium, regaining our balance and harmony, and recovering our peace of mind by reconciling ourselves with the way things are some more again today.
Reading through my old writings, I came across this gem of a dollarism:
"One of the 10,000 Spiritual Laws states, 'Our idea of God is not God.' the Bible can be seen as the history of the evolution of the idea of God. If we read the Bible carefully, noting inconsistencies, contradictions, incompatibilities discrepancies and divergent views, we will come across a number of different ways of thinking about God--many of which are mutually exclusive and can be squared with each other only after several rounds of single malt whiskey straight from the bottle."
There are, for instance two, at least versions of The Garden of Eden story, and five, at least, threads of the JEDP, or "Documentary Hypotheses," way of explaining the early differing views of God, but without squaring any of them, and are simply different ways people of biblical times thought about God.
Some compilers referred to God as "Yahweh," some referred to God as "Elohim," other writers were thought of as representing the "Deuteronomic" point of view, others the "Priestly" point of view, and then there are those representing the "Prophet" point of view, and the "Wisdom" writers had their way of thinking about God, all of which represent different gods or different ways of thinking about God.
For about sixty years after Jesus' death, the followers of Jesus and new converts to the Movement would have gathered regularly with worshipping Jews in the synagogues to worship (In addition to house gatherings for prayer and discussion) until it became unwise to associate with Jews because of the Jewish rebellion against Rome, and Christians begin to gravitate toward Christianity as a separate religion.
Jesus did not intend separation, or see himself as creating a new religion. His idea was to reform Judaism by modifying the institutional idea of God that was popular in his day.
The idea of God in the minds of the people continues to be modified through the centuries to our own time with the inclusion of female and gay clergy and God's position on war, slavery, alcohol, birth control, etc. Who God is and what God would have us do is still evolving, with no idea of where it is going or how it will end.
And we all debate the doctrines as though we know what we are talking about.
I am delighted that I got my going days done when it was time for going! It is a good thing that I did not wait until now! Grocery shopping is about it these days, which leaves me with time to re-process images I took in my not-so-long-ago, and to consider how much the days take out of us along the way. And how much it takes to do so little now.
It is a gift to be able to explore emptiness, stillness, silence as they needs to be explored, and to realize it falls to older people to do because the younger ones among us don't have the time or the inclination to drop into the stillness and wait for clarity to appear, arise, occur to show the way. Mining the treasures of tranquility and serenity is a pleasures of old age, and, "Peaceful abiding here, now," is a gift of the days that are upon me--and along with it the Buddha's other gift of "Listen to YOU!" is also not wasted on me.
In the emptiness there is none to listen to BUT me! And I am glad to be the recipient of my own realizations. Which was also one of Joseph Campbell's discoveries in his retirement, the way reflection results in new realizations. Gifts of the ages! To those at the right time of their life to enjoy the benefits of the years spent gleaning things to reflect on as the days pass, blessing all of us with new things to consider, all along the way yet to be lived into the far distant future stretching out before us all!
Blue Herons 08/05/2019 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina
I understand that astronomers are discussing a new theory proposing that our universe is contained in a black hole that is contained in another universe. We may live in stacked universes and black holes, perhaps infinitely deep, broad, expansive. Everything we think we know has to be re-thought. Meaning we have to come to terms with the (perhaps) fact that we don't know anything. What will structure things then? What will govern what we do then? Might/power/control will continue to make right perhaps with Fascism/Authoritarianism ruling the day, imposing "order." Restricting freedom... So much to wonder about, anticipate, wait to see. It's a Wowzier. Which may well change nothing at all.
Great Egret 06/01/2019 — Santee National Wildlife Refuge, Summerton, South Carolina
Drop out, drop in is the recipe for balance and harmony on the heaving waves of the wine-dark sea.
Dropping out of the here, now with its noise, clamor, chaos and terminal insanity, and dropping into emptiness, stillness, silence to regroup, recharge and recover is the most brilliant strategy ever devised for reorienting ourselves, regrouping and finding the way through the wasteland to "Peaceful abiding, here, now."
Both the Buddha and Jesus heartedly recommended the practice. Jesus with his, "Pray always," and the Buddha with his, "Listen to yourself," were advising, "Tune out, turn on, drop in, as the old saying goes (With a little tweaking)." Which is all the direction we need to find the way that is the Way of the Tao, Enlightenment, and life everlasting.
When we drop into the silence and open ourselves to what meets us there, we encounter the clarity that emerges, arises, appears to direct us along the path to doing what is called for in each situation as it arises with the gifts of our original nature, our innate virtues (What we do best and enjoy doing most), our inherent imagination and our intrinsic intuition--which is all any of us have ever needed to rise to the occasion and do what needs to be done, when, where and how it needs to be done, through all that comes our way in all times and places.
It is the universal practice for life everlasting, world without end. Amen.
Catawba River Flyover — Landsford Canal State Park, Chester County, South Carolina
Native Americans have been experiencing atrocity, cruelty and inequity since 1492. And People of Color have been subjected to it for as long as there have been white people.
Without recourse, protest, renunciation, repudiation. They just had to take it. For centuries.
This is beyond redemption, recompense, amends and compensation.
Self Portrait This is a screenshot taken with a background supplied by Zoom and adjusted in Photoshop.
We disappear pain and suffering and Donald Trump by changing our mind about our relationship with all three. The way we look at things determines what we see when we look. Seeing differently changes everything we look at. We do not have to respond emotionally about anything in our environment. We ascribe meaning to everything, and we can change the meaning of everything "like that" by changing what we say, how we interpret, all of it.
The Buddha's recommendation of "Peaceful abiding here, now," is just a matter of shifting horror and disgust into peace, and doing what is called for without allowing that to impact us in any way--as though we are emergency room personnel dealing appropriately with everything that comes through the door. Donald Trump comes through the door and we respond in ways appropriate to the occasion and let it go at that.
We have the power of perspective/perception/interpretation/ meaning over everything in our environment. We can change our mind about how we see everything. Nothing says we have to suffer. Nothing is stopping us from taking everything in stride and doing what is called for about all that comes our way no matter what every day.
This image of the Buddha free from all assumptions, inferences, projections, presuppositions, conclusions, impressions, etc., is just what it is, which is an accurate impression of the Buddha himself who was "One thus come," like a rock on the road or a wave on the ocean -- and anything more that is said about this image, rock, or wave, is something we add to the thing we see when we look at it.
Anything more than the image, rock, wave that we would say about it is ourselves we are talking about and not the image-rock-wave. To see what we look at it "as it is" requires us to see our seeing, and to empty ourselves of all that is not "there" before us, as it is.
What I see when I look at this image is serenity, tranquility, equanimity, peace, acceptance of reality "just as it is."
This image--which is of my statue of the seated Buddha--reminds me of, connects me with, the Buddha's statement about "How to meditate." He said, "Peaceful abiding, here, now." Implying that there is nothing more to Meditation than that. And suggesting (to me) that we can "drop into meditation" anytime, anywhere, just by entering the state of serenity, tranquility, equanimity, peace and acceptance of reality just as it is.
We step through an imaginary door and there we are. Just like that.
That is what comes to my mind when I see this image, view the statue. The image/statue is a doorway to the doorway. Reminding me, like a Tibetan Singing Bowl, to stop what I'm doing and drop into the silence, becoming serene, tranquil, at peace.
The trick is to do this with everything we see. We have to see how we are looking when we see what we look at, to make sure we are getting ourselves out of the way and seeing just what we look at "as it is," without our input jamming the signals coming from the thing to us.
What do you see when you look at at this image of the seated Buddha?
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 