Step One: Remove the Wrapper

Following religious protocols without doing serious personal inner inquiry, on one's own, is like eating a piece of candy without removing wrapper. The accoutrements are only the surface skin and have no substantial flavor or value by themselves. They are there to entice us into trying the goodies inside. I don't know if the fact that this truth gets lost is more a result of institutional or personal short comings. I suspect both.

It's difficult to describe fresh air to someone who's never been out of the big city. It's even harder for them to imagine it. It's the same with spiritual, or non personal, experiences. There's a way of being that is open, expansive, all inclusive, loving and compassionate. There is no sense of identity when there, only the experience of being. It doesn't translate to the mundane mind. We can try to explain it using words and terms familiar to the ordinary mind. But the words are inaccurate as they leave our mouths, and become even more so, when the listener hears them using their own definitions, and needing to fit such ethereal notions into their existing fixed conceptions.

“The “you” that you think of and feel as being your self, doesn't really exist as an enduring entity.” How can people long removed from the experience of untainted awareness receive these words? Methinks they can't. Square peg, round hole. “What do you mean? I can feel my emotions and hear my thoughts. I assure you, they're quite real.” Yes, the thoughts and feelings are real. But the assumption that they constitute individual beings is misguided.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Thoughts and feelings are merely inner actions. They don't define us in any concrete way. They don't determine who we'll be in the future. And they don't just happen to us.

We commonly preform outer actions without conscious guidance. Think, tying your shoes, petting the dog, scratching an itch, flushing the toilet, gazing out the window, saying “Thank you. Have a nice day”, etc. Even driving a car. Whether it's due to daydreaming, talking, rehashing a recent conversation or whatever, while driving. Often the body is left to drive on its own, as the mind frolics elsewhere.

After years of letting the mind run amok, it seems obvious that, that's just the way it works. Further more, it typically seems like these thoughts and feelings happen to us, which is fairly funny, when paired with the assumption that they are us.

So, after peeling off the wrapper of religious facades, we find that we then need to peel off our own wrappers of mental activity and learn to watch and guide from our rightful roost, outside of those processes.

Life is sweet, when you get down to it.

Question(s) d'jour:

What nourishes your soul/spirit/core being?

The “S” Word

Stress is healthy.
Chronic stress is debilitating.

Assignment d'jour:

Stop, watch and put yourself into the mind of any wild animal(s) you see. Imagine its life, family, aspirations and struggles. Allow yourself to feel compassion and empathy. See it as kin, or a kindred spirit.
Then consider your/our influence on this one's environment, life and its species way of life.

Amazing Gracelessness

It's miraculous how intelligent we've become as a species.
Flying machines, super computers, medical marvels, ...
I can only hope that our wisdom catches up, soon.

Question(s) d'jour:

Take a few moments to think back to your earliest memories of yourself.
Is there any part of that person still living in you today? If so, what?

Invisible Cables

The jumper cables had been hanging on a hook that holds up a ladder on the wall in my shop. They'd hung there for months. My eyes had ingested them hanging there countless times.

Need to use them.
Not in this trunk …
or that one.
Must be in the shop.
With the power cords?
Under that pile by the door?
Head scratched.
Cables spotted.
How did I not know?


So, my question is, to leave that lay and let you draw your own conclusions, or to express my thoughts on the occasion? Both?

Spoiler Alert!
Further reading may hamper your personal quandary and interpretation.


At some point, the familiar frequently blends into the background. It's not a failing. The world just has too much in it. There's no way anyone can absorb and contain all that there is, in any moment; let alone, the flowing moment. The mind simply has to choose what of the “too much to take in and hold on to” is the most important. And that constitutes our personal experienced/know worlds.

Assignment d'jour:

Do a kindness or good deed for someone without their knowledge.

Question(s) d'jour:

If you were to die right now, what would be left undone? What would your biggest regrets be? And, how can you work to rectify them now?

Assignment d'jour:

Go out and instigate a real conversation with a complete stranger.

Question(s) d'jour:

If you could give millions of dollars to supporting any cause, what would it be?
And, is there anything that you can do for that cause now?

Run Away Stagecoach

Two horses, intricately, intimately
lashed together, and to the carriage.
They know, only to go.

Head and heart

The passenger sees the world rolling by.
Looking out the window, clearly,
the horses are in charge.

So it seems

Landscapes lure,
yet the coach rolls
along and away.

Livestock oblivious

Shouting at the steeds
seems no help.
Head out window, should be louder.

Wind whips

Screaming.
Seeing,
A seat, atop.

Dare to venture

Inside to out
Passenger to coachman
Raging to reigning

New roost, new eyes

Each equine's soul
one per palm
Lines evaporate

three and one

Carriage and team
Captain and occupant
Traveler and journey

New world

Seeing
Doing
Being

Attuned

Unknown

If you want what visible reality
can give, you're an employee.
If you want the unseen world,
you're not living your truth.
Both wishes are foolish,
but you'll be forgiven for forgetting
that what you really want is
love's confusing joy.

- Rumi

Question d'jour:

Why is it that the emptier my mind becomes the more expansive I feel?

Assignment d'jour:

Take two pieces of paper
On one, write down all of the best qualities and traits you wish that you could embody.
On the other, write down all of the qualities and traits that you'd like to shed.
Hang the first on your mirror or fridge.
Throw the other one away.

Be the Being, Not the Thinking.

What is left after you've taken off all of your hats?

Give up or Lose

We lose control of our thinking mind when the thinker refuses to relinquish control.

Whoddhism

I'm a Buddhist - just not a practicing Buddhist

Excuse me?

I mean I don't really meditate, as a dedicated practice, but I really resonate with the teachings I've heard. I went on a Buddhist retreat, read a few books and I have a meditation CD set by … I just don't make the time to sit and get quiet, on a regular basis.

Hmm. I see. Well … I'm on this polo team, but I really don't swim; although, I've watched lots of games, many in person, I know all the best players and coaches, and I'm a regular subscriber of “WP Weekly”. I'm also in the pilot's union, although I don't actually fly. But I have heard several pilots talk in great detail about what it's like to do so and what they'd learned while doing it. And as soon as life settles down a bit I plan to ...

Oh, come on. That's not the same at all.

Because?

Because I'm talking about a religious conviction.

So, you profess a conviction to your religion – which, as it so happens, is built around fostering beneficent attitudes and ethics by means of Self exploration and discovery through the regular practice of meditation – and you don't meditate.

Look. I try to speak kindly to others. I recycle. I'm a regular donor to the “Save the Opossums” foundation. And I've even been thinking about knocking the cobwebs off of my bicycle to lesson my carbon footprint.

Excellent. Following the “rules of conduct” is a good place to start, but it's so easy to get mired in the rules, rites and protocols that you lose touch with the core intentions of the tradition.

Isn't meditating just another rite?

Yes. The same way that reading is an archaic ritual for those who subscribe to the news paper.

But you have to read if you want to learn from the paper. There's lots of ways to learn about Buddhism.

But learning about Buddhism's not the same as learning about your inner most nature, is it?

No. I suppose not.

And the intention of Buddhism is for one to do just that, is it not?

Well, primarily. But just look around. How many people profess an allegiance to other religions and only attend to the most superficial levels of their traditions? Aren't you applying higher standards here, than you would to them?

Not at all. Anyone who exhibits a shallow display of conviction is in the same boat. And, the “He was doing it, too.” argument didn't fly with your mom. What makes you think it'll work now?

Geeze! Why am I defending myself here?

My apologies. I really don't intend to be offensive. I'm just trying to make sense of your fist statement - “I'm alive, I just don't breath”.

(The evil eye is cast.)

OK. I admit it. That was a bit of a poke. I just couldn't resist.
Joining any religion should be about more than merging into a crowd and following the rules. Ideally, it should be about fostering a yearning to know the “mind of god” and diligently pursuing this ever evasive end.

But that kind of open ended pursuit sounds really extreme and grueling to me.

It does seem that way to one quadrant of the mind. But this is the same part that imagines stability everywhere, in a world where everything is always changing. Life is a mystery. The universe is unfathomable. So a major component in any religious quest is to come to terms with the constantly fluxing and ungraspable nature of reality.
Seeing the truth of universal interconnectedness and feeling compassion to every single being are two other major facets. These tend to come naturally to those who step behind the curtain of their constructed selves and free the divine spark that fuels their own being.

Why do I feel like you just dropped an anvil on my brain?

(Laughs) Because you're trying to take it all in through your intellect, which doesn't do unfathomable.

But that's how I process things. I mean, how else am I supposed to think?

Hmmm, I see. If you want the answer to that, perhaps you should consider practicing meditation.

Looking Up

I was sitting at a light, front of the line, left turn lane in my Falcon van. The light changed, I dropped it in gear, gave it a little gas and went to let out the clutch. As the clutch was sticking at the time, it held and then let go in a lurch, causing the engine to stall. Not the first time, so I wasn't surprised or upset, but did have a knee jerk “Doh!” moment.

Within seconds, I fired it up, put it back in gear and started pulling into the intersection ... just as a big white van came barreling through the red light, narrowly missing my nose.

Why, I wonder, do I thank the sky?

Reploying

I know that many consider my words to be dry and exceedingly intellectual. In fact, I'm very passionate about what I say. I just choose my words and organize my thoughts carefully. Because, dealing with such ethereal and esoteric subjects, it's natural and easy for the reader to bend my meanings to conform to their own preconceptions. So, I endeavor to be as clear and concise as possible. But I fear that I fail to really connect with many of my readers, because my writing sounds overly heady.

Obviously, I can't force feed knowledge and/or understanding to anyone. Some may be seeking what I have to offer and benefit from hearing it, or re-hearing it in another way. And for most of them, I'd like to imagine that my traditional course of delivery would still work fairly well. But that's a pretty small segment of the population. Some have seen glimpses of the un-self within, but don't feel coaxed into pursuing its wonders; and, some simply have no idea that there's another way of seeing and being, at all. Both of these latter groups would most likely walk right by my teachings with out so much as a glance. (It should be understood that I don't expect the average Joe to absorb everything in my weightier writings immediately, or the first time through. And I hope that they're thought provoking enough to inspire re-readings to clarify and congeal their messages.)

Others verbal interpretations of their unspeakable experiences can be clarifying and reassuring, but if one's not familiar with such experiences, the words may confuse more than communicate. My recent thinking is that it's more important for me to convey inspiration than facts. After all, it's well known that learning is more effective when one discovers the lessons on their own. In fact, some things can't be taught - only experienced.

What I need to do is inspire whimsical curiosity and a thirst for knowledge. To make people want to connect to themselves, their lives and other beings. To entice them to feel more fully and to share of themselves more freely. To shift their focus out of their minds and into the world, out of their little lives and into the greater unfolding.

So, how to generate emotional inspiration in others? How to touch the right brain by communicating to the verbal left? How to express the expansive nature of being in the moment to those who only live inside of their heads? How to awaken, in others, what they've forgotten is their natural state? How to easily break the news, that the self who was tempted into the journey has to surrender its heavy handed command before the promised rewards will be received?

And, if I'm to be a hard core pitchman for self exploration and discovery: How do I maintain my sincerity and integrity as I fabricate lures designed to invite people into finding the genuine articles that the lures pretend to be? I've seen what this can lead to. Clearly, I'm treading along the rim of a steep precipice here. The more fanciful and enticing I make the lures, the more the intangibles appear to be a part of the ordinary world, and the greater the illusion that it's all for, and accessible to, the ordinary mind.

So, I'm stoking the fires under my creative juices, even as I write this. It's unlikely that I'll discard my old ways entirely; but please, do pardon my play as I experiment with other modes of delivery.