One Minute Monologues 054

January 30, 2020  —  February 29, 2020

1. 01/30/2020 —  Knowing what to do
   in any situation
   is a matter of opening ourselves
   to the situation-as-it-is,
   to the situation-as-a-whole,
   and seeing what arises,
   what occurs to us,
   within.
   
   Living well flows
   from living as objectively as possible
   in each situation as it arises.
   
   The more subjective,
   judgmental,
   opinionated,
   insistent on having our way
   we are,
   the less likely we are
   to be taken for someone
   who lives well
   and does what is right
   moment-by-moment-by-moment,
   situation-by-situation.
   
   This is not to say that we
   never act with our own personal good
   in mind.
   If we are true to ourselves
   and true to the good of the situation-as-it-is,
   we will sacrifice the situation
   to serve our good
   a high percentage of the time.
   
   But, this is to say that our own personal good
   is nothing personal,
   and we don’t serve it
   as a way of having our way
   and getting what we want.
   We serve it because our good–
   our integrity,
   our vitality,
   our virtue,
   our energy,
   our spirit,
   our identity,
   our personhood
   our heart/soul/self
   is at stake and on the line,
   and if we do not take up our own cause,
   who will?
   
   Our good is equal
   with the good of the situation as a whole.
   We serve both,
   and when there is a conflict,
   we choose where the priority lies,
   as objectively as possible.
   
   Which makes us largely unpredictable,
   and means that we are often curious ourselves
   about what we will do,
   and have to wait and see
   when the time for acting is upon us.
   
   
2. 01/30/2020 —  Thunder Ridge 10/29/2019 07 Panorama — Blue Ridge Parkway, Milepost 74.7, Virginia, October 29, 2019
   
   Culture is the Great Enemy of Truth.
   
   Everywhere I have been,
   culture proved to be invincible and immune to Truth.
   
   Culture is “the way we do things.”
   “The way things are done.”
   “The way things are.”
   “The way things are supposed to be.”
   
   Remember the Hippies
   and the protests of the 1960’s?
   What changed?
   The music, a little, maybe.
   Slavery gave us the Blues and Jazz,
   and the 60’s gave us Rock-and-Roll.
   Cotton is no longer King,
   but Money still rules with an iron fist.
   
   Money creates poverty,
   requires poverty,
   and takes no notice of the poor.
   The culture is great about looking away.
   
   All cultures have what they look away from.
   Ask any member of any culture,
   “What do you not look at,
   refuse to see?”
   The Untouchables and Invisibles are everywhere
   in every culture.
   
   Truth will never bring down the culture,
   any culture.
   All those revolutions that have occurred
   throughout history?
   They may have replaced the culture,
   but they didn’t change it.
   And the replacement culture
   was as impervious to Truth
   as the replaced culture was.
   
   The culture of the church
   is impervious to the Truth of the church.
   The culture of Buddhism
   is impervious to the Truth of Buddhism.
   Etc.
   
   Truth doesn’t have a chance.
   Truth’s place is never with the culture,
   but always with the individuals
   within the culture.
   
   The hope of the world are the people
   living as individuals,
   as single, solitary,
   truthful
   and Truth-loving individuals
   within the culture.
   
   All of the Heroes of history
   are truthful individuals
   acting out of their own understanding of Truth
   in opposition to the culture of their day.
   
   And the culture crushed them,
   but.
   The light was not extinguished.
   The light never goes out completely,
   but remains forever alive,
   living in the individuals who awakened
   to see, and hear, and know,
   and carry the light through another generation
   in the darkness of the surrounding culture.
   
   So, live on!
   In light of what you know to be so!
   In light of what you now to be Good!
   And True!
   And Beautiful!
   
   As we live in the light,
   we attract those who are capable
   of seeing the light,
   and being bearers of the light,
   and challenging the Culture of Darkness
   at every point
   in the eternal dialectic of Good/Evil,
   Right/Wrong,
   Truth/Culture
   through the ages.
   
   
3. 01/312020 —  Last Days of Fall 11/03/2019 29 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Bass Lake, Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, November 3, 2019
   
   Everything is worse waking up at 2:00 AM.
   
   That’s because our conscious mind
   is still asleep,
   and our unconscious mind is running the show.
   
   We live between rational and irrational,
   and when our rational mind goes to sleep,
   our irrational mind takes over.
   
   You know all those crazy dreams
   that are so real
   you wake up wondering
   if they are so?
   Straight out of irrationality.
   And the case is so strong,
   you live for days in the shadow
   of that possibility.
   
   The irrational world was our only world
   for thousands of years.
   In those days, the gods (or God)
   would talk to us,
   and say the damnedest things–
   and that world
   is the world we sleep in every night.
   
   And we cannot
   talk our way out of it
   at 2:00 AM.
   Some of us cannot
   talk our way out of it
   at all, ever.
   
   Approached rationally,
   at, say, 10:00 AM,
   the irrational world
   can be a healthy balance
   to the world of logic,
   reason,
   think tanks
   and 5-year plans.
   
   Consciously engaging our unconscious mind
   in a collaborative communion
   of equal partners
   is a wonderful way
   of finding the Middle Way
   between two worlds,
   and our scariest dreams
   are our unconscious mind’s way
   of getting our attention
   by shouting, “HEY! WE HAVE TO TALK!”
   
   And the work of being helpfully conscious
   is the work of learning to talk
   to our unconscious mind–
   learning the language of soul–
   understanding that the unconscious mind
   is pre-verbal,
   and speaks with images,
   symbols,
   metaphors
   and emotions,
   which we have to translate
   into conscious concepts
   and realizations.
   
   Our unconscious is not a tool
   we can use to achieve our conscious desires,
   but a vehicle of perception
   enabling us to see what we are doing
   from a wider perspective
   than the one we operate out of
   during our waking hours,
   where we create the real nightmares
   for our soul to have to deal with
   when we go to sleep.
   
   
4. 01/31/2020 —  Curves 10/29/2019 08 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia, October 29, 2018
   
   We live to serve the Good of the whole–
   of the present generation
   and of generations yet to be–
   as well as we can perceive that good
   as best we can.
   
   And when we see that Good
   being slighted and denied,
   by those intent on serving their own good
   and their own greed,
   we call it out
   and serve the Good of the whole
   to the best of our ability,
   anyway,
   nevertheless,
   even so.
   
   And when we fail to do that,
   we fail humankind
   and all sentient beings–
   and gain absolutely nothing
   for our refusal to serve that Good.
   
   In so doing, we deserve
   the contempt and condemnation
   of the ages,
   and bear the weight of that judgment
   throughout eternity.
   
   
5. 01/31/2020 —  James River 10/29/2019 06 — Big Island, Virginia, October 29, 2019
   
   Everyone has to find their own
   way of being in the world.
   
   And bear the pain.
   
   Nobody want to bear the pain.
   
   Everybody wants what they want,
   with no pain attached.
   
   The fundamental truth of existence–
   of being in the world–
   is that we have to give up this to have that.
   
   We pay a price for drawing lines,
   and we pay a price for not drawing lines.
   So, where do we draw the line.
   
   Fraser Snowden said that
   “Is the only true philosophical question.”
   We each have to answer it for ourselves.
   *Have* to.
   To not answer it is to answer it.
   To not decide how we are going to be
   in the world,
   is to decide how we are going to be
   in the world.
   
   Deciding consciously,
   and choosing what pain to bear,
   and bearing it consciously,
   is a more grown-up,
   self-determined,
   decision,
   than being blown about
   through life
   by the ways and will of someone else.
   
   We have to summon the courage
   to make our own mistakes,
   and rectify them as best we can
   by finding our own way
   of dealing with them.
   
   “Get in there and do your thing!”
   said Joseph Campbell,
   “and do it again and again
   in dealing with all of the outcomes!”
   (Or words to that effect).
   
   But, don’t let me and Joseph Campbell
   tell you how to be in the world.
   Choose for yourself what you need to do,
   and do it.
   And bear the pain of having done it.
   And choose for yourself what you need to do about it.
   
   
6. 01/31/2020 —  Goodale 10/25/2019 23 Panorama — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
   
   We have to face up to the fundamental fact of life:
   It is up to us!
   It is all up to us!
   What we believe.
   How we see things.
   What we think.
   How we act.
   What we do.
   How we deal with our life
   and the things that happen to us,
   or fail to happen to us,
   or fail to happen at all…
   
   Our life is up to us.
   How we respond to our life is up to us.
   What we do about what happens,
   or doesn’t happen,
   is up to us.
   
   It is all up to us!
   We have to stop taking everybody’s word for anything!
   We have to face up to everything ourselves!
   We have to decide for ourselves what it means,
   and what we are going to do about it.
   
   No one can live our life but us!
   
   So here’s what–
   do this or do not do it,
   it is up to you:
   
   Imagine you are putting everything you have been told
   on a table.
   Everything you have been told is true.
   Everything you have been told to believe.
   Everything you have been told about anything.
   Put it on the table.
   Now, sweep it all off the table.
   And put on the table things you know to be so
   out of your own experience.
   What is worth believing?
   What is worth your time?
   What is worth having?
   What is worth doing?
   What is important?
   What doesn’t matter at all?
   
   Do this with everything you think
   matters enough to go on the table.
   
   Spend some time with this.
   It is an imaginary table,
   so you can call it up as you go through your day
   and add something else to it
   that you know to be so out of your own experience.
   
   We are piling everything on the table
   that you know to be so.
   That you know to be valid.
   That you know to be real, actual, true.
   
   If you put God there,
   don’t put the God other people told you about
   including the people who wrote the Bible.
   Put the God there that you know to be God
   out of your own experience.
   
   This is your table.
   Add to it over time.
   
   
7. 02/01/2020 —  Eastern Bluebird 01/27/2020 — Scenes From My Camp Stool, Zen Glen, Indian Land, South Carolina, January 27, 2020
   
   There is no better way of dealing
   with what is coming
   than by becoming a Zen Master
   in our own life
   and developing the skills–
   “the science of mind”–
   that allow us to take what comes
   without being knocked off-center
   or off the path of our own becoming.
   
   Here are five book recommendations
   for facilitating the transition
   from where you are
   to where you need to be
   in order to dance with what you meet
   along the way:
   
   Jon Kabat Zinn, “Wherever You Go, There You are”
   Jon Kabat Zinn, “Meditation Is Not What You Think”
   Thomas Cleary, “Instant Zen, Waking Up In The Present,”
   
   And my book on the end of the church/Christianity
   as we know it: “A Handbook for the Spiritual Journey”
   
   And my follow-up book on how the church/Christianity
   needs to transform itself to offer what is needed
   in a world where instability and uncertainty reign:
   “An Old Preacher’s Manifesto”
   
   My books are available for free on my WordPress web site,
   https://jimwdollar.com/home/
   and as Kindle books from Amazon.
   
   We do not get to a place of balance, sanity, equilibrium, peace, stability, equanimity, composure, etc.
   by thinking about it
   but by adopting the perspective,
   the awareness,
   “the mind”
   required to be unmoved and unmovable
   in a world that changes by the hour.
   
   The sooner we take up that practice,
   the better off we will be–
   and the better off the world will be
   as a result of our being better off.
   
   What we do not want to deal with
   is barreling toward us “at the speed of life.”
   Get your Dealing Clothes on
   and smile at the idea
   of living out the rest of your life
   on “the heaving waves
   of the wine-dark sea.
   
   
8. 02/01/2020 —  Road Through Fall 10/28/2019 05 Panorama — Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia, October 28, 2019
   
   If you are not firmly attached
   to your Sacred Core,
   you are well-past time
   to begin making that connection.
   
   Working to establish,
   maintain
   and live out of our relationship
   with our Sacred Core
   is the task of life,
   the nature of the journey,
   the hope of the world.
   
   Our Sacred Core needs our protection
   as much as we need its guidance
   and direction,
   its consolation
   and reassurance,
   its peace
   and safety.
   
   Our Sacred Core is who we are.
   It is our Original Nature.
   Our essence,
   our Essential Self.
   It is what remains of us
   when all else has been taken away
   by the natural erosion caused
   by the weight of our circumstances
   over time.
   
   Our Sacred Core is what Carl Jung
   was talking about when he said,
   “We are who we always have been,
   and who we will be,”
   and,
   “There is within each of us
   another whom we do not know.”
   
   We owe it to ourselves
   to find out who we are at the Core,
   and live in ways that affirm and express,
   serve and exhibit,
   our Core Identity
   throughout what remains
   of the time left for living.
   
   Hints and suggestions,
   evidence and indications
   lie all about us.
   Anybody who knows us
   even reasonably well
   can say about us,
   “Isn’t that just like Jim?”
   They can tell us who we are
   at the Core.
   It shines through!
   
   Are you more like a trash can
   or a bicycle?
   A lawn mower or a beach ball?
   
   Make your own list of objects
   that you cannot imagine being like,
   and you will find that you belong
   to one and not the other.
   For your entertaining pleasure,
   I am more like a bicycle and a beach ball.
   
   This exercise points to our Sacred Core.
   We are more one way than another,
   across the board,
   around the table,
   up and down the line.
   
   There is an “I” in there, in here,
   that will not be bent,
   and shaped,
   and formed
   into anything other than itself,
   and we not only waste our time
   trying to bend, shape and form,
   but we also lose precious time
   in the work to find, serve and be
   who we are.
   
   We only have this lifetime to work with.
   Everything rides on how we spend the rest of it.
   Getting to know and be who we are
   is the choice to be preferred and served.
   
   Let those with ears to hear
   be listening!
   
   
9. 02/01/2020 —  At Mabry Mill 10/28/2019 04 — Blue Ridge Parkway, MP 176.2, near Meadows of Dan, in Floyd County, Virginia, October 28, 2019
   
   No cutting and running!
   No hunkering down!
   No hiding out!
   No sniveling and shaking!
   No worrying and fretting!
   No seeking refuge and safety!
   No turning to alcohol and opioids,
   addiction and denial!
   
   Stand up!
   Stand grounded on the bedrock
   of what is truest,
   best,
   and eternal and everlasting
   about you!
   Grounded in the values,
   character,
   and qualities
   that set you apart from all others
   and identify you unmistakably as YOU!
   
   Step forward!
   Meet what is coming head-on!
   Face-to-face!
   Eyeball-to-eyeball!
   Rise to the occasion!
   Every occasion!
   Say, “NO!”
   to what must be opposed,
   and “YES!”
   to what must be championed,
   defended,
   protected and served
   with liege loyalty
   and filial devotion!
   
   Do not hold back now!
   Now is the time to be bold
   and assertive
   in honor and allegiance
   to what matters most
   moment-by-moment-by-moment,
   day-by-day-by-day!
   
   Live like it all depends on you,
   on us,
   because it does!
   
   

02/02/2020 —  Goodale 10/25/2019 22 Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, October 25, 2019

One of the foundational ideas
of Zen is Working Distance.

Working Distance is the 3rd Way,
the path between Too Close
and Too Far Away.

It is the right distance between us
and all that is going on around us
and within us.

It is the correct amount of distance
required for perspective and action,
for seeing and doing,
in ways appropriate to the occasion,
on every occasion.

Zen doesn’t operate out of a list of commandments,
duties, obligations, responsibilities.
It is quite content with doing what needs to be done
in each situation as it arises.
Jesus couldn’t do better than that.
Jesus would have been a wonderful Zen Master
(He said, “Why don’t you
decide for yourselves what is right?”).
When the disciples took over
Christianity took an immediate
shift toward worse
(They said, “Do what we say is right!”).

All that sin and salvation,
deserving damnation
and earning forgiveness!

Zen has none of that.
With Zen it is just seeing and not-seeing,
knowing and not-knowing,
and living appropriately,
spontaneously,
in response to each situation
as it arises.
Too much thinking,
planning,
scheming,
conniving,
contriving
and you have stepped away
from Working Distance
and stopped seeing what needs to be done,
and are acting to get something
or avoid something,
regardless of what needs to happen.

So, Zen is not Christianity
(and it is not Buddhism either),
and would say
“If you go to hell
for doing what needs to be done,
in each situation as it arises,
then go happily to hell–
and live your life knowing
all the things you would gladly go to hell for,
and doing them the way they need to be done,
when they need to be done,
the way they need to be done,
every time they need to be done,
and carry that mode of operating
with you
straight into the jaws of hell!”

• 02/02/2020 —  Swan Lake 10/25/2019 26 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  I would go to hell for supporting my child’s,
  or your child’s,
  or your,
  right to be gay,
  right to have an abortion,
  right to be ____
  just fill in the blank
  with all the human rights
  that come down to
  the right to be oneself
  without interfering with
  anyone else’s right to be themselves.
  
  I would gladly go to hell
  for supporting/defending those rights.
  Including the right to do
  what needs to be done
  in each situation as it arises–
  however “sinful,”
  “outlandish,”
  “appalling,”
  “blasphemous,”
  etc.–
  it may seem to someone else,
  or actually be, for that matter.
  
  Hell is not the worst thing imaginable.
  The worst thing imaginable
  is refusing to be who we need to be
  in the situation as it arises
  because being that
  would prevent us
  from having, getting, attaining, keeping, etc.
  something we stood to gain
  (or keep from losing)
  by ignoring what the situation needs us to do.
  
  Because failing/refusing to do that
  time-after-time
  in each situation that comes along
  in serving our personal good
  at the expense of the good of the situation,
  makes us more important than any situation,
  and creates hell on earth for us all,
  making the threat of hell
  just an excuse that allows us to justify
  creating actual hell
  by the way we withhold ourselves
  from life in order to have what we want
  and avoid what we don’t want.
  
  Living to not go to hell
  is the ultimate justification
  for conspiring,
  conniving,
  and contriving
  to have our way
  at the expense
  of what needs to be done
  in situations as they arise,
  and puts our personal good
  over the good of someone else,
  or the good of the whole.
  
  And is nothing more than a way
  of avoiding living our life
  the way it needs us to live it.
  
  
• 02/02/2020 —  Dome Sunset Abstract Panorama — Clingman’s Dome, September 19, 2001
  
  Jesus said, “Why don’t you
  decide for yourselves what is right?”
  
  And told a man he saw working on the Sabbath,
  “You better be right about that!”
  
  I take it from these two statements
  that we have to decide for ourselves what is right,
  and be right about it.
  
  And when it turns out that we are wrong,
  we have to recognize that,
  change our mind about what is important,
  and decide for ourselves in this situation
  what is right,
  then live to see if we were right about it.
  
  We do that with every situation
  that comes along.
  
  We decide what the right response is,
  and if we are wrong,
  we decide what the right response is
  to *that* situation…
  And follow that pattern
  throughout our life.
  
  We live our way to being right,
  by deciding for ourselves what is right,
  one decision at a time.
  
  
• 02/02/2020 —  Beidler Forest 11/22/2019 — Francis Beidler Forest, Audubon Center and Sanctuary, Four Holes Swamp, Harleyville, South Carolina, November 22, 2019
  
  The Church, every church, all churches
  should be more like an AA meeting
  where all members are working a program
  to be Zen Masters
  instead of being sober and saved and going to heaven
  when they die.
  
  If we were all Zen Masters,
  sobriety and salvation
  would take care of themselves.
  
  And if we were working the program
  to be a Zen Master,
  we would be helping each other
  work their program to be a Zen Master,
  and everything would fall out around that.
  
  Nobody would be minding anybody else’s business
  or telling other people how they ought to work
  their program,
  or what they ought to believe,
  our how they ought to behave.
  People would be saying what they had to say
  about their experience,
  saying what was proving to be helpful to them,
  saying what was proving to be difficult,
  and no one would be trying to help them
  along with advice and direction
  beyond saying, “If that were my situation,
  I would do such and such,”
  and not telling anyone what they should,
  or should not, do.
  
  It would be a listening station,
  a saying station,
  a “This is how it is with me right now” station.
  
  There would be studies of Zen writings
  of the Old Masters and the Current Masters,
  and discussions about what is helpful
  and not helpful about the readings.
  
  Nothing would be sacrosanct.
  Everything would be open to question.
  Everybody would be asking all the questions
  that beg to be asked about everything,
  and saying all the things that cry out
  to be said about everything,
  and working to be clear about
  what their practice was asking them
  to be and to do,
  and spending time in silent reflection
  and introspection
  in the service of self-transparency
  and self-realization.
  
  And nobody would be harping on “the way”
  for anybody else.
  Everyone would be walking their own path,
  their own way,
  in the company of everyone else.
  
  That would be my kind of place.
  
  
• 02/03/2020 —  November 4 11/04/2019 12 — Old Saddle Mountain Union Baptist Church, Blue Ridge Parkway, Ennice, North Carolina, November 4, 2019
  
  Zen is not a religion
  in the usual and customary
  sense of the word, but.
  
  It is the essence of good religion,
  in that it sustains,
  supports,
  and guides us
  in the truth of our own experience,
  and that is the heart
  of true religion
  everywhere,
  throughout time.
  
  Teva and Zorba the Greek
  were Zen Masters,
  as were Yoda and Obi-wan Kenobi.
  As are Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt.
  Though none of them need ever have read
  the first word of Zen,
  they all have lived enlightening lives
  in light of the truth of their experience.
  
  All it takes is seeing what you look at,
  hearing what is being said in word and action,
  and responding to your umwelt
  in ways fitting to the occasion
  all your life long.
  
  
• 02/04/2020 —  Four Mile Creek Wetlands 02/03/2020 01 Panorama — Mecklenburg County Parks and Recreation, Charlotte, North Carolina, February 3, 2020
  
  Enlightenment,
  Realization,
  Right Seeing,
  Right Hearing,
  Right Understanding,
  Right Knowing,
  Right Being
  Right Doing…
  
  Is like playing.
  
  Children don’t cry
  because they don’t know
  how to play.
  
  They don’t read books on how to play.
  Or watch videos.
  Or listen to lectures.
  Or go in search of the right teacher.
  Or spend long hours practicing playing,
  hoping to get it right at last.
  
  They do not ask their parents to
  “Tell me again how it’s done.”
  Or, “Show me one more time!”
  
  They do not wonder, “Is this it?”
  “Am I doing it right?”
  
  Enlightenment, etc.
  is playing with perception
  and perspective,
  and possibilities–
  asking all of the questions
  that beg to be asked,
  and saying all of the things
  that cry out to be said,
  in each situation
  that arises.
  And waiting for the dawning,
  when we know after many falls
  how to walk,
  or ride a bike
  or skateboard…
  
  The dawning comes in its own time
  to those who know it takes time,
  and requires the right time,
  and keep looking,
  wondering,
  asking,
  seeking,
  knocking,
  with no idea of what they don’t know,
  or what it is going to do for them,
  or to them,
  or ask of them.
  
  In the meantime,
  they wait,
  and watch,
  and wonder.
  
  
• 02/04/2020 —  Last Days of Fall 11/03/2019 28 Panorama– Bass Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, November 3, 2019
  
  Zen provides working distance,
  working room
  between the impact
  of what is happening
  and what needs to be done about it.
  
  Zen is a perspective
  which allows/demands
  the conscious formation
  of a perception
  that takes everything into account
  and listens/watches/waits
  for the right response
  to emerge from “the din of confusion”
  and bless the situation
  with action fitting the occasion.
  
  Zen cannot be hurried.
  It bides its time,
  waiting for the time to be right
  for doing what needs to be done.
  
  Any light can be the right light
  for some scene,
  but any light will not work
  for all scenes.
  
  The light chooses the right scene,
  the scene demands the right light.
  The photographer waits.
  Watching.
  Looking.
  For the time to be right.
  
  That is Zen in action.
  Refraining from acting
  until the time is right.
  
  Zen is intently aware
  of Kairos,
  Tao,
  Dharma,
  Grace–
  the elements at work
  in every situation
  calling forth
  the Virtue,
  Vitality,
  Energy,
  and Spirit
  of the Zen Masters
  present in that moment,
  that they might read the moment
  and respond appropriately
  in a timely manner.
  
  Zen has no agenda,
  and no will to impose
  on any situation,
  but responds to every situation
  with exactly what is needed
  in the time and place of its living
  and serving the true good of the moment
  and of all impacted by the moment,
  with the right word,
  the right deed,
  fitting to the occasion.
  
  Zen is a way of life
  that is concerned for
  the way life needs to be lived
  moment-by-moment-by-moment,
  no by applying rigid standards
  and codes of behavior,
  but by listening,
  seeing,
  knowing,
  understanding
  what’s what and what is to be done about it
  here and now
  in each situation as it arises.
  
  Zen is alive to the moment of its living,
  responsive to the moment of its living,
  dancing with the moment of its living,
  knowing that “there is only the dance”
  (T.S. Eliot).
  
  
• 02/04/2020 —  Swan Lake 10/25/2019 18 Panorama — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  In any now, we don’t know what is next.
  
  In striving to arrange what we want to be next,
  or avoid what we do not want to be next,
  we step out of the flow of Tao,
  which is domain of time (Kairos)
  and place (Dharma),
  and falls within the sphere of Grace.
  
  And, we operate as a Rogue Predator
  in the here and now of our living,
  creating karma,
  drama,
  entanglements,
  chaos,
  trouble
  and woe.
  
  Better to live aligned with ourselves,
  in sync with our Sacred Core
  and Natural Order,
  attuned to the moment,
  waiting for the time to act
  in the service
  of what needs us to do it,
  in light of the best interest
  of all concerned,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment.
  
  
• 02/05/2020 —  Beidler Forest 11/22/2019 20 Panorama — Francis Beidler Forest, Audubon Center and Sanctuary, Four Hole Swamp, Harleyville, South Carolina, November 22, 2019
  
  The trick is to live engaged with our life
  without being entangled,
  enmeshed,
  embroiled.
  
  That is “the slippery slope,
  the dangerous path,
  the razor’s edge.”
  
  The trick with pulling off the trick
  is to be present
  without being hijacked,
  commandeered,
  confiscated,
  held hostage
  and compelled
  to act against
  our self-interest
  and the best interest
  of the situation as a whole.
  
  To be present to the extent
  of being able to assess the situation
  and live there in light
  of what needs to be done
  because it needs to be done,
  without having anything at stake
  in the outcome.
  
  We buy a plant, say.
  And put it in the ground
  in the flower bed in our backyard
  according to established
  horticultural procedures,
  and water it, fertilize it, tend it,
  and it lives two years and dies,
  while all the other plants around it
  are doing fine.
  We replace the plant
  until we find one that has what it takes
  to flourish where we put it.
  All the while,
  going on with our life.
  
  And we work to have the same relationship
  with the other aspects of our life
  as we have with the plants under our care.
  
  There is distant.
  And there is close.
  And there is too close.
  
  Physicians work out the proper distance
  between themselves and their patients.
  Teachers do the same thing with their students.
  Parents do the same thing with their children.
  Etc.
  
  When the fortunes of our favorite football team
  take over our life,
  it is time to re-examine
  our relationship with our favorite football team.
  Etc.
  
  
• 02/05/2020 —  Peaks of Otter 10/29/2019 07 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Abbot Lake, MP 86, near Bedford, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  We all know what symptoms are.
  
  Symptoms can be physical and/or emotional.
  Emotional symptoms will become physical symptoms
  over time.
  Physical symptoms will become emotional symptoms
  over time.
  Symptoms can destroy our life.
  
  Symptoms of any kind
  at any level of disturbance
  to our way of life
  (And if we are aware of them,
  they are disturbing our way of life–
  and they may be disturbing our way of life
  without our being aware of them–
  denial works that way),
  indicate that we need
  to change our relationship
  with our life.
  
  Symptoms are our body’s way,
  our psyche’s way,
  of getting our attention,
  of saying,
  “Houston, we have a problem.”
  
  And it is up to “Houston”
  to work with “us”
  to fix the problem.
  
  As “Houston” we go about our business
  oblivious to “the problem,”
  until “we” (our body/psyche)
  call out to “us” (our conscious,
  everyday,
  normal
  way of going about our business)
  by way of symptoms
  to say,
  “We have a problem!”
  
  The problem always, always,
  can be traced back to
  our relationship with our life.
  
  As long as our relationship with our life
  is humming right along
  with the proper amount of attention
  being devoted to all aspects of our life,
  and nothing is being neglected
  and ignored,
  and we are at-one with ourselves
  on all levels,
  self-aware,
  self-transparent,
  in touch
  and in tune
  with ourselves,
  and each situation as it arises,
  meditatively,
  introspectively,
  intuitively,
  mindfully,
  consciously
  present with all that is going on
  within and without,
  alert to what impact we are exerting
  on our life,
  and what impact our life is exerting
  on us,
  on top of it all
  and tending it all
  as it needs to be tended–
  close enough but not too close–
  things are fine
  and we are as symptom-free
  as a cloud in the sky
  or a wave upon the water.
  
  But.
  When we stop paying attention,
  and drift off into Fantasy Land,
  and begin living in ways
  that cut us off from our life,
  our life sends us symptoms
  to say “We have a problem,”
  and it is up to us to read
  the symptoms,
  not as something to cure/fix
  so that we can get back to life
  as we want to live it,
  but as something pointing out
  that we need
  to change our relationship with our life,
  and get back go living in ways
  that represent a collaborative,
  united,
  good-faith effort
  to be consciously at-one with ourselves on all levels
  all of the time.
  
  If we aren’t doing that, Honey,
  we are going to have problems
  until we start doing that.
  
  
• 02/05/2020 —  Parkway Overlooks 10/29/2019 09 Panorama — Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  Clarity and stability have an antithetical relationship
  with each other,
  and can peacefully co-exist
  only in people who are so well-grounded
  in their core identity
  that they are incapable
  of being knocked off-center
  by the ebbs and flows,
  weal and woe,
  of their life.
  
  Clarity destroys stability
  in seeing all things as they are,
  and rocking the world
  of those who “can’t handle the truth,”
  sending people “over the edge,”
  who cannot bear the full weight
  of life as it is.
  
  Stability requires those people
  to have steady and reliable
  access to denial.
  
  They can be stable
  only when they are unclear
  about how things stand
  and what is going on,
  and can be clear
  only by being always on edge
  and in danger of “losing it”
  at any moment.
  
  We can gauge our degree of “groundedness”
  by how much clarity and stability
  we can maintain
  at any particular time,
  or knowing how much our stability
  depends on not knowing
  what is going on.
  
  
• 02/06/2020 —  Mabry Mill 10/28/2019 06 — Blue Ridge Parkway, MP 176.2, near Meadows of Dan, in Floyd County, Virginia, October 28, 2019
  
  In any situation,
  there is what can happen,
  what we want to happen,
  what needs to happen
  and what has no business happening.
  
  Our place is to be aware
  of the situation
  and the dynamics at work there,
  and to live in the service
  of what needs to happen
  in light of what can happen–
  putting what we want to happen
  and what has no business happening
  well outside the realm of consideration.
  
  In order to do that,
  we have to grow up some more again
  in each situation as it arises.
  
  Trying to force what we want to happen,
  not caring what does happen,
  and/or living in the service
  of what has no business happening,
  has our life,
  and the world,
  exactly where they are today.
  
  We easily,
  routinely,
  live out of the orientation
  of thinking that what we want to happen
  is what needs to happen
  whether it has any business of happening,
  or any possibility of happening.
  
  Forcing our way to what we want
  and refusing to be saddled
  with what we don’t want,
  no matter what the situation needs most
  is the sure recipe for symptoms
  and suffering
  for ourselves and myriad others.
  
  Growing up some more again
  situation-by-situation-by-situation
  is the only hope
  for ourselves
  and the world.
  
  
• 02/06/2020 —  Goodale 10/25/2019 21 — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  Zen is great for getting to the heart of the matter.
  
  One of its observations:
  “When the student is ready,
  the teacher appears.”
  
  Which is easily broadened to:
  When the student is ready
  everything is a teacher.
  
  When the student is ready,
  the teacher is everywhere.
  
  When the student is ready,
  the student teaches the student.
  
  Etc.
  
  The catch is that readiness
  is beyond the reach of the student
  and the teacher.
  
  All we,
  either as student
  or teacher–
  and who isn’t both at once?–
  can do is wait
  for the time to be right.
  
  (On a personal note here,
  I spend most of my time
  waiting for the time to be right
  for the next thing.
  So do you.
  Whether we realize it or not.)
  
  When the time is right,
  magic happens.
  
  The time is always right for something.
  Maybe, waiting.
  
  
• 02/06/2020 —  A River Runs Through It 02/06/2020 — Zen Glen, Indian Land, South Carolina, February 6, 2020 — 3 inches in 6 hours looks like this in the Glen.
  
  The primary thing wrong with most of us
  is the quality of our relationship with our life.
  Improving that relationship improves everything,
  like that (snaps fingers).
  
  The quality of our relationship with our life
  improves like that (snaps fingers again),
  once we become aware of it.
  
  Mindfulness that is compassionate
  and non-judgmental
  is the solution to all of our problems today,
  any day,
  every day.
  
  Being aware of the moment
  and our response to it
  leads to being aware of all moments
  prior to this one
  and our response to them,
  leads to seeing how we got to be
  the way we are,
  leads to seeing how that impacts
  the way things are,
  and how that impacts us.
  
  Simply sitting in awareness
  of this here,
  this now,
  leads to expanding our awareness
  of all things great and small.
  And that changes things.
  
  Seeing things changes things.
  We may sense that on some level,
  and refuse to look.
  
  
• 02/07/2020 —  Beidler Forest 11/22/2019 — Francis Beidler Forest, Audubon Center and Sanctuary, Four Hole Swamp, Harleyville, South Carolina, November 22, 2019
  
  We live within our circumstances
  in the time and place of our living,
  and understand “circumstances”
  to always be “more than meets the eye.”
  
  We live in a time and place
  that has a place
  within the times that have their own
  nature,
  spirit,
  vitality,
  and energy,
  and are driven by
  forces that characterize ages
  and encompass cosmic
  and geological time.
  
  We are carried along
  in our individual lives
  by the possibilities
  available to us
  in the time of our living,
  and have to come to terms
  with that
  in adjusting ourselves
  to the full context
  of “the present moment.”
  
  We live in times
  that have their own
  thrust,
  drift
  and direction–
  and it is all a mixture
  of synchronicity,
  grace,
  destiny,
  fate
  and timing.
  
  A little humility,
  wonder,
  recognition,
  realization,
  awareness,
  awe,
  reverence,
  amazement
  and regard
  for the all-ness
  within which is nestled
  this time and this place
  of this particular here and now
  would certainly be
  an appropriate aspect
  of our response to it–
  and would temper our
  arrogance and our tendency
  to be disgusted with,
  and undone by,
  the inconveniences
  and vexations
  of the everyday.
  
  Recognizing our place
  within the times that are unfolding
  according to necessities
  even they do not comprehend,
  opens us to the importance
  of cooperating with the moment
  on all levels,
  and allowing ourselves to be led
  along paths that open before us
  to what is beyond all imagining
  and to adventures that have to be lived
  in order to be believed.
  
  
• 02/07/2020 —  Four Mile Creek Greenway/Floodplain/Wetlands 02/03/2020 02 Panorama — Mecklenburg County Parks and Recreation, Charlotte, North Carolina, February 3, 2020
  
  How we meet the day,
  day-after-day-after-day,
  says all there needs to be said
  about us–
  all there is to say about us.
  
  How we get up
  and go again,
  day-after-day-after-day,
  is our opus,
  our work,
  our lived expression
  of who we are
  in the day-to-day unfolding
  of our life.
  
  How we carry ourselves
  through the day,
  every day.
  How we bear the weight
  of having lived up to this point,
  this day,
  every day.
  
  How we square up to
  the facts that define the day,
  every day.
  
  How we face up to
  how things are
  and how we have contributed
  to their being as they are,
  and what we do about it
  all day,
  every day.
  
  How we work
  with the hope
  that is ours,
  with the prospects
  that are ours,
  with the options and choices
  that are ours
  every day.
  
  How we go about the business
  of being who we are today,
  every day.
  
  Says all there is to say about us
  each day.
  
  Want to know who you are?
  Look at how you live each day.
  Want to change who you are?
  Change how you live each day.
  
  Most of us want to change
  what happens to us.
  Few of us want to change
  how we deal with what happens to us.
  Few of us want to live better
  with what we have to live with
  every day.
  
  We want our life to be better,
  while we stay the same.
  
  The road to a better life
  is walked by those
  who are becoming a better person
  day-by-day-by-day.
  
  Better how?
  Better how we meet the day.
  Day-after-day-after-day.
  
  
• 02/07/2020 —  Cotton in the Field 10/25/2019 01 Panorama — Back roads, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  It is all absurd,
  outlandish,
  ridiculous,
  extreme,
  appalling,
  atrocious,
  abhorrent,
  abominable,
  disgusting,
  etc.
  
  And everybody is saying
  “It isn’t MY fault!”
  And they all are right.
  
  We are awash in circumstances
  that have no discernible cause
  and no available solution,
  remedy,
  fix,
  cure.
  
  The disease will have to play itself out.
  The affliction of the times
  will have to run its course.
  
  In the meantime,
  our work remains
  what it always has been,
  and always will be:
  
  To see what is happening
  in each situation as it arises,
  and to do what can be done about it
  with the gifts and resources we have to offer
  in light of the old prescription:
  Those who need help
  should be helped,
  and those who can help
  should be helpful.
  
  While we wait for the tide to turn,
  we do the work that needs to be done
  whether the tide is coming in
  or going out,
  or turning around.
  
  Our work remains our work
  through the ebbs and flows
  and the slack periods in between.
  Our work never changes.
  It is the stable constant in our life,
  holding things together
  when things are falling apart.
  
  
• 02/07/2020 —  Curves 10/29/2019 01 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  If you were to change your relationship with your life,
  and live aligned with your Original Nature,
  which I understand to be equivalent
  to your Core Identity,
  the Source of who you are
  and who you are called/meant to be,
  you might begin
  by sitting quietly
  with compassion
  and non-judgmental acceptance
  for everything that arises in the silence,
  and observe all that comes to mind.
  
  Do not engage any of it.
  If you find yourself responding emotionally,
  or being carried away
  on a train of associations,
  bring yourself back to the silence
  by remembering your breath,
  and breathing slowly and deeply,
  pausing for a count of 5 between exhale and inhale,
  until you have restored your composure,
  and can resume simply observing
  what arises in the silence.
  
  Hold everything in your awareness,
  and end the session when you are ready.
  
  Carry the memory of this exercise
  with you through the day,
  and as other things come to mind,
  add them to all that you are collecting
  in your awareness
  to reflect on as you have time.
  
  This is called “Listening To Your Life.”
  The things that come to mind
  are “food for thought,”
  for reflection,
  exploration,
  investigation.
  
  The key to this
  is to reduce your emotional reactivity
  and to increase your curiosity.
  Your role is to ask all of the questions
  that beg to be asked,
  and to say (to yourself)
  all of the things that cry out to be said.
  And to ask all of the questions that arise
  from your questions and statements.
  You are airing out the things that arise
  for your consideration.
  You are interviewing your Core, your Source.
  You are listening for what you need to hear.
  
  Do not take any action of any kind
  beyond listening, inquiring, exploring,
  seeing, hearing, knowing, understanding,
  putting two-and-two together,
  seeing how things interrelate
  and impact one another.
  
  Sit with the realizations that arise
  and explore the experience.
  
  You may want to write things out,
  or paint things out,
  our dance things out,
  or give physical expression
  to the emotional experience
  of hearing what you have to say.
  
  Your nighttime dreams may present
  additional material for you to explore,
  and this process has no end.
  You are listening to what you have to say to you,
  and listening to what needs to happen
  in response to hearing it,
  knowing and understanding what’s what with you.
  
  Responding to all of this with compassion
  and non-judgmental acceptance
  creates a space for on-going reflection
  and realization–
  which will have implications
  for the way you live your life,
  and change your relationship with your life.
  
  And, it will be a process you engage in
  for the rest of your days.
  
  
• 02/08/2020 —  Road Through Fall 10/28/19 06 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia, October 28, 2019
  
  The U.S. Park Service has posted signs
  around Yellowstone National Park
  that read: Your Safety Is Your Responsibility!
  
  As the conscious, aware aspect
  of your physical existence,
  you have two responsibilities.
  
  Your first is keeping your whole self safe
  in the physical world
  of normal, apparent, reality.
  
  The other is living in the physical world
  aligned with your invisible Core,
  Core Identity,
  Original Nature,
  Inner Self.
  
  You have to learn to do both
  of those things at the same time!
  
  To connect with your Core
  and keep yourself safe,
  I recommend watching
  all of the Jon Kabat-Zinn YouTube videos
  (the shortest ones first).
  
  Become a Master of Mindfulness,
  living mindfully,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment,
  and you will be keeping yourself safe
  and bringing yourself forth
  in living your life
  aligned with your Core Identity.
  
  Jesus couldn’t do it better!
  No one could do it better!
  It is all anyone could ask of you!
  
  In simply being who you are
  at your Sacred Core,
  in each situation as it arises,
  you are providing
  each situation exactly what it needs,
  and you are being exactly
  what you need most to be.
  
  Merely being you here and now
  is the Superpower most essential
  for life on the planet.
  
  Why would I lie?
  
  

02/08/2020 — 

Last Days of Fall 11/03/2019 27 — Bass Lake, Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, November 3, 2019

Where do you go to experience–
and what do you do to maintain–
a grounding sense of harmony,
balance,
confidence,
peace,
serenity,
tranquility,
at-one-ness,
at-home-ness,
all-right-ness
and well-being?

How often do you go there?
Do that?

The Old Zen Masters
spent a lot of time
talking about the importance
of virtue and sincerity.

They understood these terms
to mean “living in relationship
with our Sacred Core–
with our Original Nature,
our Vital Center,
our Bedrock Identity.”

The Old Greek Oracle at Delphi
advised, “Know Thyself.”

Shakespeare got into the act
(Act 1, as a matter of fact,
scene 3, *Hamlet*),
saying, “To thine own self be true!”

Jesus said, “Why don’t you
decide for yourselves what is right?”

When we live in harmony with ourselves,
with our Core Self,
nothing can knock us off
that ground of our being.
Live from there.
Instant peace of mind–
of mind at-one with itself.

• 02/08/2020 —  Last Days of Fall 11/03/2019 20 — Linville River, Linville Falls Visitor Center, Linville Falls, North Carolina, November 3, 2019
  
  We think we know ourselves.
  We know what we want
  and what we don’t want.
  We know what we like
  and what we don’t like.
  We know what is important
  and what is unimportant.
  We know how we see things,
  and what we think about things,
  and where we stand on things…
  
  But. We don’t know why or how
  we know any of these things.
  
  What makes us think that the way we think is the way to think?
  What makes us think that we are right about how we see things?
  What makes us think that our opinions are worth having?
  Where do our ideas come from?
  Why do we think the way we think and not some other way instead?
  
  How different can we be?
  
  Why can’t we want what we ought to want?
  Why can’t we change our mind about what is important?
  Why are we stuck with thinking the way we think,
  and feeling the way we feel,
  and believing what we believe,
  and liking what we like,
  and living the way we live?
  
  We talk about being free to do as we please,
  but, we are not free to choose what pleases us.
  We talk about being free to do what we want,
  but, we are not free to choose what we want.
  Why are we pleased with what pleases us?
  Why do we want what we want and not something else instead?
  
  Why are we the way we are and not some other way instead?
  
  What is the source of our tastes,
  and interests,
  and attractions,
  and enthusiasms?
  
  For all that we know about ourselves
  there are more things that we don’t know about ourselves.
  So, how can we think we know ourselves?
  There is more to be known than is known.
  
  And so begins the Quest:
  To know and to be who we are!
  
  
• 02/09/2020 —  Last Days of Fall 11/03/2019 26 Panorama — Bass Lake, Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, November 3, 2019
  
  How much do you enjoy about your life?
  
  How much kindness do you express in your life?
  
  Enjoyment and kindness are the basic elements
  in my consideration of a life well-lived.
  
  My paternal grandparents were the exemplars
  of those qualities,
  and graced their world with exhaustible displays
  of both.
  
  They had no more reason for joy and kindness
  than anyone else on the block,
  in the town,
  in the country,
  or the world.
  They were simply joyful and kind.
  For no reason.
  
  Joy and kindness seem to have a plastic quality
  about them in my current experience of life,
  as though people have to remember
  to be joyful and kind.
  Have to think about it.
  It isn’t second-nature to them.
  
  Artificial,
  contrived,
  joy and kindness
  as a way to something
  more important than joy and kindness
  is a sad substitute for the real things,
  and the legacy of lifeless living.
  
  How many people do you know
  who are joyful and kind for no reason–
  and certainly not because they “ought to be”?
  
  Spontaneous joy and kindness
  erupting without warning
  from souls glad to be alive
  is evidence of a life well-lived
  and a blessing upon all other lives.
  
  What is blocking it,
  do you think,
  from bursting forth in those other lives?
  
  
• 02/09/2020 —  Curves 10/28/2019 05 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia, October 28, 2019
  
  We can talk ourselves
  into and out of doing anything.
  
  “Why am I doing this?”
  “Why am I doing that?”
  “I ought to be doing something
  better with my time!”
  
  Why *do* we do what we do?
  And not do the things we don’t do?
  
  We have to find good-enough reasons
  to justify spending time the way we do.
  
  Why?
  Why does it matter “Why?”
  
  What would we just do,
  spontaneously,
  autonomously,
  if it weren’t for keeping score
  and trying to please unknown critics?
  
  Whose business is it
  what we do and why?
  
  In retirement, I have the luxury
  of uninterrupted free time
  in which I can do whatever
  I determine needs to be done.
  I spend a lot of time waiting to see
  what I will do now.
  Something always arises.
  And, it’s time to go to bed before I know it.
  The best thing is
  that I don’t have to justify
  doing or not doing to anyone.
  
  I just do or not do as the occasion requires.
  The occasion required this piece of writing.
  I don’t know why.
  
  
• 02/10/2020 —  At Mabry Mill 10/28/2019 05 Panorama — Blue Ridge Parkway, MP 176.2, near Meadows of Dan, in Floyd County, Virginia, October 28, 2019
  
  Some people do things
  the way they are supposed to be done.
  Some people do things
  the way they need to be done.
  Some people do things
  the way they feel like doing them.
  Some people do things
  any-old-way-at-all
  just to get them out of their way.
  
  What we do and how we do it
  makes all the difference–
  in the outcome of the moment
  and in our own personal outcome
  of all the moments we live.
  
  How we do things impacts our life
  by virtue of casting a certain “stigma”
  or “aura,”
  or “scent,”
  or “indicator,”
  or “finger print,”
  or “signature,”
  like the Lone Ranger’s silver bullet,
  and being the eternal representative
  of who we are
  long after we have “left the scene.”
  
  We create karma,
  not only by what we do,
  but also by how we do it.
  By what we intend,
  by what and how we do things.
  
  Think of karma as “momentum,”
  or “attitude,”
  or “style,”
  which generates an environment
  that conditions us to continue
  the “mood” we cast by the way we live,
  and shapes/creates our future
  by being the extension of our past acts.
  
  We impact the world
  by the way we live,
  and we impact our life
  by the way we live.
  
  And this gets us to the Bahgavad Gita
  and to Zen.
  
  Joseph Campbell said
  that the moral of the Bahgavad Gita is
  “Get in there and do your thing,
  and don’t worry about the outcome!”
  
  The relationship between “us,”
  and “our thing,”
  and “the outcome”
  in each here and now of our living,
  is the story of our life.
  We impact that story
  by the way we live
  moment-by-moment-by-moment.
  
  Zen frees us to live *our* life
  by connecting us with the Dharma
  of our Original Nature
  (“The Face That Was Ours
  Before We Were Born”),
  and calling us to live out our Original Essence
  (To do “our thing”)
  in each here and now,
  each time and place,
  of our living.
  
  This becomes a problem for us
  by bringing up in each moment
  the contradictions,
  the conflicts,
  the dichotomies,
  the agonies
  between who we are
  and who our circumstances
  would have us be.
  
  How we bear the pain of that impasse
  through all of the times and places
  of our living
  tells the tale.
  This is the cross Jesus is talking about
  when he says, “If you are coming with
  me you have to bear your own cross
  every day!”
  
  We bear the pain of being who we are,
  where we are,
  when we are,
  every day.
  
  “Get in there and do your thing,
  and don’t worry about the outcome!”
  What we do and how we do it,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment,
  makes all the difference.
  
  Savvy?
  
  
• 02/10/2020 —  The Last Days of Fall 11/03/2019 25 — Bass Lake, Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, November 3, 2019
  
  “I plight thee my troth,”
  would do well
  as a pledge to one another
  across the board,
  around the table,
  around the world,
  up and down the line,
  and to the planet as a whole
  and all living things
  as long as I live.
  
  I promise you my loyalty,
  devotion,
  fidelity,
  unending care,
  tender mercy,
  truthfulness,
  good faith,
  good will,
  best effort,
  continuing presence,
  abiding love,
  enduring faithfulness,
  forever.
  
  Enough of this forsaking
  one another
  and all living things
  in the unending pursuit
  of personal profit at any price!
  
  We all are together in this time and place!
  
  Why not live as though we are?
  
  
• 02/10/2020 —  Beidler Forest 11/22/2019 18 — Francis Beidler Forest, Audubon Center and Sanctuary, Four Hole Swamp, Harleyville, South Carolina, November 22, 2019
  
  There is only this moment
  and what needs to happen
  here and now.
  
  Who can tell us what that is?
  Who knows better than we do
  what is happening
  and how we need to respond to it
  out of our own gifts,
  and knacks,
  and resources,
  and interests,
  and abilities
  and ways of doing things,
  ways of being “us”
  in ways appropriate to the occasion
  in every occasion that arises?
  
  Who can be “us” but us?
  
  We see what is happening
  here and now
  and we respond to it
  as only we can.
  
  We don’t follow any code,
  or commandment,
  or law,
  or duty,
  or rule,
  or direction.
  
  No doctrine.
  No dogma.
  No theology.
  No ideology.
  Just us.
  Here and now.
  
  We do not do what anyone tells us to do.
  
  We live out of our own heart,
  out of our own Original Nature,
  out of our own alignment with the Tao,
  the Dharma,
  the Virtue,
  Vitality,
  Spirit
  and Energy
  of our being who we are
  in the time and place of our living.
  
  Each moment is the Great Conjunction
  of what needs to happen
  here and now
  and how we are capable
  of reading and responding to
  the moment of our living.
  
  This is where we shine.
  This is where we were born to be.
  We were born for this moment!
  It is ours!
  
  Moment-by-moment-by-moment.
  
  All our life long.
  
  
• 02/11/2020 —  Cotton in the Field 11/22/2019 02 — Hwy 267, Lone Star, South Carolina, November 22, 2019
  
  Hope is over-rated.
  
  What keeps us going is service to the Core
  when things are favorable
  and when things are unfavorable,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment.
  
  What is called for here and now?
  Do that–
  without any consideration
  of what we stand to gain or lose,
  and no contrivance involved
  in trying to arrange a future
  grounded on what is advantageous to us,
  at the expense of whatever is in our way!
  
  How often do we live like that?
  Who do we know who lives like that?
  Everybody is always taking polls
  to tell them how to present themselves
  to gain the greatest advantage
  over all those they are competing with
  for the greatest advantage
  over everyone else.
  
  No one has any concern
  for what needs to be done,
  much less for what needs them to do it.
  
  Where is the advantage?
  Where is the profit?
  Where is the gain?
  What’s in it for me?
  
  No wonder “the center does not hold”!
  The center is ignored and forgotten!
  Talk of our Sacred Core,
  of our Original Nature,
  of “the face that was ours before we were born”
  is nonsense.
  All that matters is what we stand to gain
  or lose.
  
  “Houston, we have a problem.”
  
  Bill Kristol quotes a friend of his as saying,
  “Donald Trump is to modern conservative politics
  what the prosperity gospel is the Christianity.”
  
  And what that is is “Live for the Gain!”
  “Profit At Any Price!”
  
  “Hope” is based on our chances
  of achieving a favorable outcome.
  If we have no such chance,
  we have no hope.
  
  We turn this around when we become
  the hope of the world
  moment-by-moment-by-moment.
  
  The hope of the moment,
  living for the good of the moment,
  in each moment that comes our way.
  Trusting that if we take care of the moment,
  the moment will take care of us–
  to the extent that we find what it takes
  to live moment-by-moment,
  day-by-day.
  
  We like to think of having a guaranteed future
  for as long as we can see.
  
  But here is the absurdity of “guaranteed futures”:
  Billionaires have more money than they can spend,
  and they are afraid they do not have enough,
  so they arrange a life
  in which they do not pay taxes
  and make investments
  that guarantee more money tomorrow
  than they have today.
  
  When is is possible to relax?
  Never!
  Billionaires have no hope
  of ever being able to relax
  and be generous
  moment-by-moment-by-moment.
  They worry about having enough
  as much as homeless people do.
  
  Who has the best chance
  of becoming the hope of the moment,
  moment after moment?
  
  What chance do we have
  of becoming the hope of the moment,
  moment after moment?
  
  
• 02/12/2020 —  Goodale 10/25/2019 12 Panorama — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  It doesn’t matter what happens.
  What happens next matters most.
  
  How we respond
  to the events and circumstances
  shaping our life
  makes all the difference
  in light of what the moment needs,
  and in light of the shape our life
  will take over time.
  
  We are molding who we are
  moment-by-moment-by-moment
  by the way we respond
  to what is happening
  in each moment
  all our life long.
  
  Here is the crucial point here.
  Pay attention.
  
  There are two factors at work
  in every situation
  which determine the meaning
  and impact of each situation.
  
  We have to live there in ways
  that are true to our Original Nature,
  to our Core Identity,
  to our Essential Self,
  to “the face that was ours
  before we were born.”
  
  AND
  
  We have to live there in ways
  that acknowledge and acquiesce to
  the nature of the times,
  governing what is allowed to happen
  in each situation.
  
  We have to know what time it is
  in terms of what is called for,
  demanded,
  required–
  and in terms of what is prohibited,
  forbidden,
  impossible.
  
  We cannot force a situation to be
  what is out of the question
  in that time and place.
  
  “There is a time for every matter
  under heaven.”
  But. That time is not just any time.
  It is not all the time.
  We have to be sensitive to,
  alert to,
  aware of,
  what these times
  in this place,
  sanction
  and what they forbid.
  
  And, walk the slippery slope,
  the dangerous path,
  the razor’s edge–
  being true to ourselves
  while acknowledging the reality
  of the time and place of our living.
  
  This is the agony
  that grows us up
  against our will.
  The contradiction
  we never out-grow.
  The cross we must bear
  if we would be the blessing
  we are born to be
  across all times and places,
  through all situations and circumstances,
  of our living.
  
  We bide our time
  according to the times,
  and walk two paths
  at the same time
  all of the time.
  
  
• 02/12/2020 —  Swan Lake 10/25/2019 17 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  We wake up to how things are
  with us
  and around us
  all of the time.
  
  Waking up here, now
  is always a pertinent possibility.
  There is no better place to do our waking up.
  We are always and forever
  waking up
  some more
  again.
  
  And we cannot wake up
  some more
  again
  without growing up
  some more
  again.
  
  Waking up and growing up
  are the same thing.
  We cannot wake up without growing up.
  We cannot grow up without waking up.
  
  Waking up is growing up.
  We are no more “enlightened”
  that we are “grow up.”
  We are always and forever
  waking up/growing up.
  Some more.
  Again.
  
  There is always more to know
  than we know.
  More to see than we see.
  More to understand than we comprehend.
  The work is never done.
  
  Uncertainty is lack of clarity.
  All things become clear over time.
  Just wait.
  Just watch.
  Just wonder.
  
  Ask the questions that beg to be asked.
  Say the things that cry out to be said.
  And wait.
  And watch.
  Allowing things to emerge
  in their own time,
  in their own way.
  
  There are no final,
  absolute,
  realizations.
  Except for this one.
  
  
• 02/12/2020 —  Peaks of Otter 10/29/2019 13 — Peaks of Otter 10/29/2019 07 – Blue Ridge Parkway, MP 86, near Bedford, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  In acting in the here and now,
  we do so in alignment
  with ourselves
  and with the moment.
  We are at-one with ourselves
  and with the moment of our living.
  
  This oneness is shattered
  with having something at stake
  in the outcome of our acting–
  with have something to gain or lose
  based on what we do.
  
  To have an interest in the situation
  beyond being at-one with ourselves
  and at-one with the situation
  is to lose the center
  between the good of the self
  and the good of the whole,
  and introduces conflict,
  contradiction,
  disharmony,
  chaos,
  trauma
  and drama
  into the moment,
  and it all goes to hell right quickly.
  
  We live from the center
  by acting with Virtue/Truthfulness
  (Being true to ourselves
  and to the situation),
  Vitality/Creativity
  Energy/Enthusiasm
  and Spirit/Mindful Awareness,
  aligned with the good of self/situation.
  
  And when the good of one
  interferes with the good of the other,
  we sit
  and wait for the muddy water to settle
  and for the way to appear.
  
  When the door opens,
  we walk through.
  
  
• 02/12/2020 —  Last Days of Fall 11/03/2019 24 — Bass Lake, Moses H. Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, November 3, 2019
  
  I have a friend who sailed during the years
  between college and marriage.
  He told me he became a sailor
  when he realized the sea was out to get him,
  and it was up to him
  to not allow that to happen.
  
  Here’s one for you:
  The world is out to get us.
  It is up to us to not let that happen.
  
  We have to devote ourselves
  to the art of living our life
  in an adversarial environment.
  
  Stop expecting life to be fair
  and do not think the “Universe”
  is going to be on your side!
  
  Start honing your skills
  of perception and awareness.
  
  Concentrate on reading the signs,
  listening to your body,
  and your heart,
  and your nighttime dreams,
  knowing what’s what
  and what you are being asked
  to do about it
  in each situation as it arises.
  
  Be clear about what resonates with you,
  and what is telling you
  to get yourself turned around
  and walked right out of
  places you have no business being.
  
  Don’t miss the signals!
  Trust yourself to know things
  you don’t know how you know.
  
  Look at everything
  until you can see
  what you are looking at.
  
  If you aren’t clear about
  what to do in a situation,
  stop and listen.
  Wait for guidance to emerge
  from the silence,
  a “holy nudge,”
  a slight pull toward one particular option.
  Trust your sense of direction
  until it becomes apparent
  that you made the wrong choice,
  and then trust your sense of direction
  in deciding what to do about that.
  
  Grace is certainly a part
  of our life experience.
  But.
  Grace is more likely to bless those
  who know the difference
  between trusting their luck
  and pushing their luck–
  and live in ways that do not cross that line.
  
  
• 02/13/2020 —  Earth Shadow 12/18/2012 — Lake Brandt, Bur-Mil Park, Greensboro, NC — December 18, 2012
  
  Things are not as they appear to be,
  and it is our work
  to see things as the are–
  and to respond to them
  in ways that are appropriate
  to the occasion.
  
  The “such-ness” of things,
  the “such-as-it-is-ness of things,
  the “just as it is-ness” of things,
  the “lion-ness” of lions,
  and the “whale-ness” of whales,
  and the “Jim-ness” of me,
  and the “You-ness” of you…
  
  Jim being Jim,
  You being You,
  all subjects,
  all objects,
  being just what they are,
  completely transparent to every observer
  and to themselves…
  
  How would that change
  the way things are done?
  
  We change the way things are done
  by seeing things as they are
  and responding to people and things
  as though they are who they are,
  what they are.
  
  No bullshit that isn’t seen as bullshit
  and acknowledged to be such
  by everyone seeing it for what it is.
  
  That would change the world.
  
  And that is what we are to be about.
  That is our work.
  Ripping the facade off the world
  and showing it to be what it is–
  treating it as though it is what it is–
  responding to it on the basis
  of the truth of what it is.
  
  Saying what is so.
  Getting to the heart of the matter.
  Revealing the truth of the situation
  in each situation as it arises
  all our life long.
  
  Looking at what we look at
  until we see what we are looking at.
  Asking the questions that beg to be asked.
  Saying the things that cry out to be said.
  
  Changing the world
  by the way we see the world,
  by the way we respond to the world,
  one situation at a time.
  
  The trick is to do it with kindness and compassion,
  as an accepting presence
  in the lives of others.
  
  Which is a great movie,
  by the way.
  “The Lives of Others.”
  
  It is about kindness and compassion
  changing things as they are
  by responding to them as they are
  and not as they pretend to be.
  
  The work we are all called to do.
  In each situation as it arises.
  All our life long.
  
  
• 02/13/2020 —  Last Days of Fall 11/03/2019 22 — Blue Ridge Parkway near Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina, November 3, 2019
  
  Doing what Jesus would do
  is such the cop-out.
  We have to do what WE would do
  in each situation as it arises,
  and if it becomes clear
  that we goofed and did the wrong thing,
  we have to do what WE would do
  then, in that situation.
  
  It’s like this:
  Jesus raised the dead
  and Jesus left the dead to bury the dead.
  
  Jesus forgave a woman guilty of adultery
  and cursed a fig tree for not bearing figs out of season.
  
  Jesus said, “Whoever is not with me is against me,”
  (Matthew 12;30)
  and, “Whoever is not against us is with us.”
  (Mark 9:40)
  
  With Jesus it is always,
  “Sometimes it is like this,
  and sometimes it is like that.”
  
  How do we know when is which?
  We decide!
  It is all on us!
  In each situation as it arises,
  we size things up,
  we see what’s what,
  and what needs to be done about it,
  and do it.
  
  What do we say?
  What would we do?
  
  Or, as Jesus liked to say,
  “Why don’t you decide for yourselves what is right?”
  (Luke 12:57).
  
  
• 02/13/2020 —  Adams Mill Pond 11/2014 06 — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, November, 2014
  
  We know how to find a comfortable sleeping position.
  We know when we are hungry
  and when we have had enough to eat.
  We know what is right for us
  and what is wrong for us.
  We know what it is time for,
  and what it is not time for.
  Etc. ad nauseam.
  
  And we do not now how we know
  any of this.
  Nor can we say what we know,
  only that we know,
  and do not know the process
  for arriving at what we know.
  
  It is an unconscious,
  intuitive,
  communion
  between our body
  and our conscious mind.
  
  We trust our body to know things
  we do not know
  and do not know how our body knows.
  
  This same kind of knowing
  can be counted on for guiding us
  throughout our life.
  Our conscious mind has to be still
  while we wait to know what we know.
  
  The Knower within communes with us
  by way of feeling/sensing,
  like knowing a comfortable sleeping position,
  and knowing when to change it.
  
  At times, we can be so focused
  on some task
  that a foot, or leg, can “go to sleep”
  without our knowing it,
  so we can not-know what we know.
  
  We have to attend our body
  and tune into our feeling/sensing
  to know what the Knower within
  would have us know.
  
  What we need to know and trust
  is that we have a knowing-function
  that is capable of leading us through the day
  if we will take the time
  to listen to what is being said to us
  on the feeling/sensing level.
  
  
• 02/13/2020 — Last Days of Fall 11/03/2019 19 Panorama — Linville River, Linville Falls Visitor Center, Blue Ridge Parkway, Linville Falls, North Carolina, November 3, 2019
  
  It depresses me to know
  how close we are to,
  and how far off we are from,
  having a country
  we all could comfortably share
  and live in.
  
  All it would take
  is an equitable tax structure
  and a good faith commitment
  among all concerned
  to live together in ways
  that honor and serve
  the Constitution
  and its Bill of Rights.
  
  That is ridiculously easy
  and impossible.
  
  And, here we are.
  
  

02/14/2020 —  November 4 11/04/2019 04 — Goshen Creek, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Boone, North Carolina, November 4, 2019

My hates and loves come in pairs
and stretch into infinity
(For instance,
I hate hate and fear,
I love kindness and compassion).

I am repelled by and attracted to
a lot of things.
Which is another reason
to retreat into solitude.
There is much less extremism here,
and I can be moderately balanced
and in harmonious accord
with my life.

In the best moments
of my good days.

Marianne Moore said,
“The cure for loneliness is solitude.”
Solitude is also a nice fix for over-stimulation–
which is where the culture we have created
to keep us from confronting the truth
of our own silence
keeps us
to save us from the pain
of knowing who we are
and how it is with us.

But.
Realness and authenticity
“lie far back
in the darkest corner
of the cave
we most don’t want to enter”
(Joseph Campbell).

“Hello Darkness, my old friend…”
(Paul Simon).

“Darkness is the cradle of light…”
(Rumi).

And we are left with looking into it all,
to see,
and know,
what is there,
what’s what,
what we are all about,
and how it impacts our living,
and what we might do about it.

“Hold it all in awareness,”
Jon Kabat-Zinn says.

Recognition and realization
are the heart of enlightenment,
and transform our life
just by being present
with us
forever.

We don’t have to *do* anything
to be awake/aware/alive.
It’s more like we have to stop doing
all the things we are doing
to avoid being awake/aware/alive.

Ah, but.
That would be to enter the cave
we most want to have nothing to do with.

It’s called “The Hero’s Journey”
for good reason.

• 02/14/2020 —  Thunder Ridge 10/29/2019 08 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Milepost 74.7, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  We cannot do anything about most of it.
  
  Carl Jung said that none of the important problems
  can be solved–
  they can only be out-grown.
  
  We have to wait it out.
  
  And, if we run out of time,
  it can’t be helped.
  
  While we are waiting,
  we tend to our business
  and do what we can,
  and let that be enough
  because it is all we can do.
  
  Two more things I hate:
  Impotence and Immaturity
  
  

02/14/2020 —  Parkway Overlooks 10/28/2019 21 — Blue Ridge Parkway near Roanoke, Virginia, October 28, 2019

There is a sense in which there is nothing to gain
and nothing to lose.

And, there is a sense in which there is everything to gain
and everything to lose.

As perspective changes,
everything shifts,
nothing,
everything,
nothing,
everything.

Which way is it?
Nothing.
Everything.
That is the way it is.

We have everything to gain
by understand we have nothing to gain
and nothing to lose,
and we have everything to lose
by failing to understand that.

Which is beautifully,
wonderfully,
paradoxical and contradictory–
which makes it the essence of truth,
and meets the essential requirements
of a good joke,
which is also the essence of truth.

And, Yoda was a highly advanced spiritual being
who lived in a hole in the ground–
so what is enlightenment good for?

What do we hope to gain?
What are we afraid of losing?

• 02/14/2020 —  Goodale Mirror Panorama 01 — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina
  
  Our life improves
  with fewer opinions.
  
  That is a proposition
  you can easily validate
  for yourself.
  
  Notice how often you have an opinion
  about what is happening
  in the situations that develop
  during a day.
  
  And notice how your opinion
  about what is happening
  creates more turbulence
  in the situation
  than what is happening generates.
  
  And notice how different
  things are in the next situation
  when you refuse to react
  with an opinion
  regardless of what happens.
  
  If someone asks for your opinion,
  say, “I don’t have an opinion about that.”
  If they ask, “Why not?”
  say, “I have an opinion
  about having opinions,
  and my opinion is they give you worms.
  Or worse.”
  
  If they ask you, “What could be worse than worms?”
  Say, “I’d rather not say.”
  
  
• 02/15/2020 —  Parkway Overlooks 10-29-2019 Panorama 10 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  The Rule of Law is grounded upon
  the good faith allegiance of the people.
  Without filial devotion
  and liege faithfulness
  to a cause greater than their own,
  personal,
  good,
  no rule is valid,
  no power is supreme.
  
  To find favor with the King
  is no mean thing–
  for it we will go to war.
  
  We will lay down our lives,
  and sacrifice
  all we ever loved,
  and more.
  
  But, the King’s broad appeal
  only manages to be real
  because of those
  who call him Lord.
  
  His great personal power
  disappears in the hour
  the enchanted ones
  perceive the fraud.
  
  
• 02/15/2020 —  Last Days of Fall 11/03/2019 18 — Linville Falls Picnic Area, Blue Ridge Parkway, Linville Falls, North Carolina, November 3, 2019
  
  What is the foundation of your life?
  The bedrock of your existence?
  The unmovable center,
  core,
  essence of your identity?
  
  What does it all come down to
  with you?
  Upon what does your “you-ness” depend?
  
  What are you grounded upon
  to such an extent
  that nothing can knock you off of it,
  shove you aside from it,
  pay you to betray it,
  prevent you from honoring it?
  
  What goes with you everywhere?
  Is true about you in all times and places?
  Conditions and circumstances?
  Contexts and situations?
  
  Make that consciously,
  intentionally,
  deliberately
  and unashamedly,
  evident
  in the way you conduct yourself,
  transact your business,
  do what you do.
  
  Live there defiantly,
  determinedly,
  proudly,
  boldly,
  unwavering.
  
  Be.
  Who.
  You.
  Are.
  
  Or, as Joseph Campbell said,
  in talking about the moral
  of the Bahgavad Gita,
  “Get in there and do your thing–
  and don’t worry about the outcome!”
  
  
• 02/15/2020 —  Swan Lake 10/25/2019 10 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, October 25, 2019, an iPhone Photo
  
  It is not enough to be who we are.
  
  Two-year-olds in the throes
  of the Terrible-Twos
  are being who they are.
  
  Who we are must always be
  considered in light
  of who we also are–
  in light of who we are capable
  of becoming
  in rising to every occasion
  and dealing appropriately
  with the contexts
  and circumstances
  of our life.
  
  Joseph Campbell said,
  “It took the Cyclops
  to bring out the hero
  in Ulysses.”
  
  Who we also are
  is a mystery
  waiting to be revealed
  by the nature and conditions
  of our life
  in the moment-by-moment
  experiences of our living.
  
  We live to see,
  to discover,
  to realize,
  to recognize–
  all of which are characteristics
  of enlightenment–
  and to be
  who we also are
  and what we are capable of doing,
  who we are capable of being,
  in response to
  what we are asked to do
  by the here and now
  in each situation as it arises.
  
  
• 02/15/2020 —  Beidler Forest 11/22/2019 16 Panorama — Francis Beidler Forest, Audubon Center and Sanctuary, Four Hole Swamp, Harleyville, South Carolina, November 22, 2019
  
  I want you to understand this
  on a level as deep as you can go:
  
  The racists,
  and the white nationalists,
  and the Trump supporters,
  and the enemies of democracy,
  and the GOP,
  and the descrators of the Constitution,
  Etc.
  cannot help being who they are.
  They cannot help seeing as they see.
  They cannot help feeling the way they feel.
  Their life and their perspective,
  and their way of being in the world
  is not their fault.
  
  They were raise to be who they are,
  or the tilt of their circumstances
  and the context of their life,
  made it easy, if not inevitable,
  that they are who they are.
  
  And the same can be said
  of each one of us.
  
  We look eyes that see what they see,
  but why do they see the way they see
  and not some other way in stead?
  
  I lean toward compassion and kindness,
  my father was an angry,
  insecure, bully during my childhood and youth.
  How much am I the way I am
  because he was the way he was?
  I did not make me the way I am.
  I am no more responsible for me
  than Donald Trump is responsible for himself.
  
  Our responsibility is limited to
  seeing who we are and how we are canted
  to respond to our circumstances,
  and willingly–willfully–assisting,
  or resisting,
  our natural bent.
  
  We have to make it easier for ourselves
  to do what is helpful for everybody
  and difficult for ourselves
  to do what is harmful to anybody.
  We have to live in light of the true good
  of all concerned.
  Everything depends upon it.
  
  We have to wake up!
  Wake up!
  Wake up!
  
  But we cannot hold it against those who don’t.
  We can only make it easier for them to wake up,
  and difficult for them to remain asleep.
  
  And we have to know,
  they cannot help being who they are.
  Neither can we.
  
  
• 02/15/2020 —  November 4 11/04/2019 08 — Doughton Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Milepost 238.5 – 241, Virginia, November 4, 20129
  
  Our perceptions of reality
  have nothing to do
  with reality as such–
  with reality as it is.
  
  Reality’s “as such-ness,”
  its “such-as-it-is-ness,”
  is independent of us
  and our perceptions of it.
  
  We impose our perceptions on reality,
  and live as though things are
  the way we consider them to be.
  
  “Hell, Preacher!
  This ain’t the way I *see* things!
  This *is the way things ARE*!”
  
  Our lives are awash in reality,
  but.
  Our judgment,
  interpretation,
  understanding,
  impression,
  perception
  of reality
  is what positions us
  to deal with it
  the way we do.
  
  Perception (What we see)
  is a function of perspective (How we see).
  A shift in perspective
  changes our perceptions,
  changes our world.
  
  Seeing ourselves as a conscious perceiver
  and an unconscious perceiver
  sharing the same body/brain,
  with the joint task of communing
  and communicating
  with each other
  as we make our way through reality
  and bring who we are forth
  in the process of meeting “the world,”
  will help considerably
  in our work to “meet the world.”
  
  We have a partner!
  A lifelong companion!
  We are a little like Don Quixote
  and Sancho Panza.
  
  If you can buy into this way of looking
  at reality,
  your perspective is shifting,
  and your perceptions will take on a new quality
  as you begin to think about “the world”
  as two people and not one person.
  
  
• 02/16/2020 —  Peaks of Otter 10/29/2019 10 — Peaks of Otter 10/29/2019 07 – Blue Ridge Parkway, MP 86, near Bedford, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  We cannot help how we see things.
  We see everything in ways peculiar to us.
  We get along together
  by agreeing to grant one another latitude
  with regard to the way we see things,
  and by agreeing to do some things
  the same way regardless of how we see them.
  
  We don’t have to agree about
  how we see coffee
  or how we like to drink it.
  
  We do have to agree to stop on red
  and go on green
  no matter how inconvenient that happens to be
  or how incensed we are about it being in our way
  to stop when we want to go.
  
  Marriage is an arrangement
  we enter into with another person
  agreeing to live together
  in ways that enable both of us
  to live the life that is unique to us–
  which means a lot of flexibility
  on the part of each of us
  with regard to the differences
  between us in how we see things
  and what we think is important.
  
  When children are born,
  parents and children have to work out
  the differences between how they see things
  and what is important,
  and what they have to do
  no matter what they think about it
  or how they see it.
  
  We are all here to help one another
  live the life that is peculiar to each individual
  without interfering with the life
  that is peculiar to each individual.
  
  We do not have to agree
  about how we see things,
  or about what is important,
  but we have to agree about
  what we will do
  and when and where and how we do it.
  
  Agreeing about what we will do
  is the most important aspect of living together
  in ways that are good for the life we each are living.
  
  We cannot impose restrictions on others
  in areas we all agree are private
  and solely up to the individual alone.
  Not even people who are married
  can force the other to do things
  that are contrary to their inner sense
  of what is right for them.
  
  We grant each other the latitude
  of determining what is right for ourselves
  within certain categories,
  designated “Your Business,”
  “My Business,”
  “Our Business,”
  “Everybody’s Business.”
  And there have to be broad common agreements
  as to what belongs in each category,
  with the highest, over-arching, agreement
  being that we are all here
  to live our own peculiar life
  and help each other live their own peculiar life
  without interfering with the way
  each other lives their life.
  
  We respect each others’ right to their own life.
  What is personal?
  What is private?
  We have to work it out
  in ways we all agree to.
  No one can impose their idea for my life on me.
  I cannot impose my idea for someone else’s life on them.
  
  The most important commandment
  in the Old Testament did not make it into the Top Ten.
  “Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor’s land mark.”
  It remains throughout the ages
  as the most important commandment there is.
  
  
• 02/16/2020 —  The Bridge at Baxter Creek 11/07/2007 — Big Creek Campground, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, NC/TN, November 7, 2007
  
  The work of the artist
  is not to pave the way of the artist,
  but to serve, perhaps save, the world.
  
  We cannot abandon our work
  because it isn’t paying the bills,
  or even meeting expenses.
  
  Our work is our work.
  If we don’t do it, what will we do?
  Our work is our gift–
  the gift we receive and the gift we offer.
  
  If we neglect, or abandon, it,
  what will take its place?
  
  Our art is in the service,
  not of ourselves,
  but of beauty and truth.
  
  We bring beauty and truth to light,
  to life,
  in our art.
  
  We are mediums through which
  beauty and truth are realized,
  recognized,
  acknowledged by those
  who live with us in this place.
  
  We wake people up to
  what is all around them.
  
  We open eyes that are blind.
  We raise the dead.
  We bring life to life in the world.
  
  When the times are bare
  and darkness settles over the land,
  the artists tend the flame
  that warms the souls,
  cheers the hearts,
  and makes life possible “between the times.”
  
  
• 02/16/2020 —  Thunder Ridge 10/29/2019 08 Panorama — Blue Ridge Parkway, Milepost 74.7, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  There is only so much that can be done
  about any of it.
  
  The best goal I can imagine
  is to position ourselves
  to respond appropriately
  to the moment
  of our living.
  
  What happens after that
  and where that leads is all there is.
  We position ourselves to respond appropriately
  to the moment of our living.
  Everything falls into place around this.
  
  This approach nicely dispenses
  with our agendas,
  our schemes,
  our plans to retire by 45
  with no financial worries for the rest of time.
  
  We can’t take care of the moment
  and take care of our future.
  But, I’m sure you have noticed
  that we don’t seem to be able
  to take care of our future
  no matter how we strive
  to achieve that end.
  
  Maybe we should try taking care
  of the moment
  and letting our future be our future.
  
  It comes down quite nicely to this:
  Do what you are doing
  and see where it goes.
  One thing will lead to another,
  and like that (Snaps fingers),
  it will be done.
  
  
• 02/16/2020 —  Swan Lake 10/25/2019 04 — Swan Lake Iris Garden, Sumter, South Carolina, October 25, 2015
  
  What does a pencil,
  a tree frog
  and Donald Trump
  have in common?
  
  This isn’t a joke.
  It’s a question about seeing
  and meaning.
  
  If everyone in the U.S.
  answered the question
  for themselves
  out of their own experience,
  what are the chances
  that any of their answers
  would be exact?
  
  Add a house cat,
  a Sunday School teacher,
  and a hubcap
  to the list,
  and what chances
  would there be to that?
  
  I’m suggesting here
  that we are incredibly different
  in our ability to ascribe meaning
  to experience.
  
  I’m saying that we find meaning
  to our experience out of our experience.
  Having someone tell us what the meaning
  of a pencil,
  or a tree frog,
  or Donald Trump is,
  and how they are all alike
  in some way
  is not going to be what
  the three of them mean to us
  and how we find them to be similar.
  
  We make our own meaning,
  and live out if it in ways that are meaningful.
  
  We can all look at the same things,
  say a pencil,
  a tree frog,
  and Donald Trump,
  and see different things.
  
  Yet we wonder how we cannot
  see Donald Trump for what he is.
  It’s easy.
  We are seeing Donald Trump
  for what he is to us–
  for what he represents to us.
  How we see Donald Trump
  says more about us
  than it says about Donald Trump.
  
  The same thing goes
  for the pencil
  and the tree frog.
  
  When we talk about any of the three
  we are talking about ourselves,
  about our perceptions,
  about our inferences
  and our values.
  
  We respond to our world
  based on what is important to us,
  based on what we are afraid of,
  based on what we desire/want/cherish.
  
  When we talk about anything,
  we are talking about our reaction
  to the thing.
  We are talking about
  what the thing means to us.
  
  We are the subject
  of all of our discourse.
  
  Listen to your conversations.
  Meet yourselves,
  perhaps for the first time.
  
  
• 02/17/2020 —  Peaks of Otter 10/29/2019 11 — Peaks of Otter 10/29/2019 07 – Blue Ridge Parkway, MP 86, near Bedford, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  I have no idea of what
  would be truly helpful
  in this situation.
  
  I lean toward looking and listening,
  seeing and hearing–
  and bearing the pain
  of knowing what’s what,
  and how things are.
  
  So much of our culture–
  and our life–
  is geared to not-looking
  and not-listening,
  and not-seeing,
  and not-hearing,
  and most certainly,
  absolutely,
  definitely,
  and utterly
  not-bearing-any-pain-ever.
  
  It sickens me to know
  where we are as a nation,
  and to know how many people
  don’t see what they look at,
  don’t hear what they are listening to,
  don’t put two and two together,
  but repeat their mantras
  and embrace their addictions,
  dismissing,
  disregarding,
  denying
  the truth of their experience every day.
  
  Because to do the opposite
  would be too painful to bear.
  
  Bear The Pain!
  Is the foundational step in AA.
  The other 12 are contingent
  upon that one.
  
  Every one of us would do well
  to join AA
  because we all are addicted
  to avoiding the pain–
  some how, some way all the time.
  
  “I’m Jim,
  and I can’t handle
  the pain of the truth
  of knowing how things are!”
  
  It helps just to write that out.
  
  Bearing the pain
  means talking about
  how difficult it is
  to bear the pain–
  in the company of those
  who know what I’m talking about.
  
  We pick up our pain–
  the cross Jesus was talking about–
  and carry it with us through every day.
  
  And do there
  what we can imagine doing
  to help one another
  carry the pain they are carrying.
  
  One day at a time.
  
  
• 02/17/2020 —  Thunder Ridge 10/29/2019 09 Panorama — Blue Ridge Parkway, Milepost 74.7, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  In any moment,
  there is what the moment
  needs of us,
  which is what we need to do
  in order to do right by the moment.
  
  In any moment,
  we only need to be clear
  about what that is
  and do it.
  
  Moment-by-moment-by-moment.
  
  Savvy?
  
  Oy?
  
  What stops that from happening?
  
  
• 02/18/2020 —  Glade Creek Mill — Babcock State Park, Clifftop, West Virginia, October, 2005-ish
  
  Seeing/hearing is exhausting,
  depressing,
  inadequate,
  frustrating,
  demoralizing…
  The list is long.
  
  Everybody who sees
  has enough
  after a while.
  
  Jeremiah broke out with,
  “Land, Land, Land!
  HEAR what I’m saying!”
  (Or words to that effect)
  
  Jesus came out with,
  “How long am I to be with you?
  How long am I to bear with you?”
  
  Lao-tzu just said to hell with it,
  and went off into the wilderness
  to get away from it.
  
  I process each day’s experience
  by ending the day early,
  at 4 PM,
  and writing what I write here,
  reading what is helpful
  in settling myself down
  and coming to terms
  with the truth of how things are,
  and opening myself to my nighttime dreams,
  listening to what they have to say
  to me about me,
  and getting up early
  to square myself up with it all,
  and start over again with another day.
  
  I do not find much of what I need
  outside of myself,
  so I have to bring it up consciously,
  intentionally,
  mindfully,
  from within,
  relying on The Other Within
  to help me to know what I need to hear/see
  and come to terms with how thing are with me
  and with my life.
  
  I don’t know how you do it,
  or will do it,
  but I trust you to find your own way
  of bearing the burden of seeing/hearing,
  a way that enables you to know what’s what
  and what to do in response to it,
  to restore your harmony,
  your balance,
  your relationship with the bedrock
  of your life,
  enabling you to face each day
  standing on your own two feet,
  grounded in who you are
  and what matters most to you,
  and able to live out of that foundation
  in meeting all that comes your way,
  processing it as you go,
  tucking it all away in your awareness
  to consider,
  look into,
  see/hear/know,
  and fold into being who you are
  contemplating who you are,
  “circumambulating” around
  who you are becoming
  toward who you have yet to be,
  through each day,
  all your life long.
  
  
• 02/18/2020 —  Otter Lake 10/29/2019 02 Panorama — Blue Ridge Parkway, Milepost 60.9, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  Notice what catches your eye,
  what stirs an emotional response
  (positive or negative),
  what stands out about your day,
  about the moment.
  
  Make a point of sitting with it
  when there is time.
  Calling it to mind,
  turning it over,
  mulling its meanings,
  seeing what train of associations
  it brings to mind,
  how your mind leaps about around it,
  what it stirs to life within you,
  what memories come to life,
  what feelings awaken,
  allow it all to flow through you,
  holding it all in your awareness,
  just watching,
  just seeing,
  just noticing what impacts you,
  what realizations dawn,
  what connections you make,
  where the ruminations take you,
  what other ruminations they spawn…
  
  The smallest thing
  is a doorway to 10,000 things,
  each of them a doorway itself
  to 10,000 more things.
  
  All of which need an audience with you.
  Be their audience.
  They have come to tell you
  things you need to hear.
  To disclose things
  you need to know.
  
  
• 02/18/2020 —  Swan Lake 10/25/2019 06 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  We cannot do anything
  about the things that matter most.
  
  What do we do about that?
  
  Come to terms with it!
  Let it be
  because it is!
  Don’t take it seriously,
  just like we don’t take seriously
  the other facts in our life.
  
  It’s raining,
  or it’s not raining.
  Etc.
  
  We note it,
  and go on with our life,
  and go about our business,
  in light of the facts,
  but not controlled,
  mastered,
  owned
  by the facts.
  
  We cannot do anything
  about the things that matter most.
  What can we do?
  
  Racism has been with us how long now?
  How long have we talked about equality?
  Women’s rights?
  LGB-ETC rights?
  Human rights?
  How much closer are we to realization
  of what ought to be anywhere
  than we were when we started talking?
  
  Democracy was to be the place
  where everyone had an equal opportunity
  to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
  How did that work out?
  
  What can we do?
  
  Live in the service of what matters most
  to us individually and collectively–
  without thinking that everybody
  has to do it like we do it.
  
  Stand for what is right.
  Do what is right.
  Live in the service of what is right.
  As you understand what is right.
  Be unflagging and relentless
  in your work for what is right.
  And let that be that.
  
  We are here to do what is right
  as we understand what is right.
  Not to achieve Nirvana
  or impose our idea of what is right
  on everyone else.
  
  We cannot use the fact that no one else
  cares about what is right as we understand it
  as an excuse to be lax
  or to quit
  in our service of what is right
  as we understand it.
  
  The outcome of our work
  cannot influence the effort
  we put into our work.
  We do not gauge the value of our work
  on the basis of the successful realization,
  completion,
  of our work.
  
  The work is never done.
  We are always doing it.
  That’s it.
  Carry on! Carry on!
  
  
• 02/18/2020 —  Parkway Overlooks 10/29/2019 20 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  Zen Koans put an end to the conversation,
  in service to Sheldon Kopp’s observation,
  “Some things can be experienced,
  but not understood,
  and some things can be understood,
  but not explained.”
  
  Carl Jung said,
  “None of the important problems
  can be solved–
  only outgrown.”
  
  The same rule applies to the important questions–
  they cannot be answered,
  only outgrown.”
  
  Zen is an orientation to experience
  that sees and understands and knows
  what’s what
  and what can be done about it,
  that cannot be understood or explained.
  
  After awhile,
  if you are awake enough,
  you “get it,”
  you see what is happening,
  and know how to respond to what is happening
  in ways that are appropriate to the occasion,
  in each situation as it arises,
  forever.
  
  You “get it,”
  but you can’t “tell it”
  to anyone
  in a way that enables them to “get it.”
  
  Get it?
  
• 02/18/2020 —  Thunder Ridge 10/29/2019 10 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Milepost 74.7, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  How many have there been?
  How many are yet to be?
  Gimmicks, I call them.
  Quasi religious/spiritual/kooky/woohoowoohoo…
  ideas for turning our life around
  and ushering in “Serenity Now.”
  
  I remember Glossolalia/Speaking in Tongues/Tongues,
  and “The Prayer of Jabez ,”
  and “The Law of Attraction,”
  and “The Book of Miracles,”
  and “The Power of Positive Thinking,”
  and “Astrology,”
  and “Crystals,”
  and “The Rapture,”
  and currently there is “Gratitude”
  and “Ascension”
  …
  
  The list is endless and on-going.
  
  All serving up denial,
  buffering reality,
  giving us something to do,
  to think about,
  other than the things
  we don’t want to do,
  or think about…
  
  How much religion
  is escape
  from a life–
  a way of living–
  that is traumatic
  and unbearable?
  
  “Pie in the sky by-and-by.”
  “Anything but here and now.”
  
  Life is bearing the pain
  that must be borne
  in the service of the things
  that need to be done.
  
  Life is squaring ourselves up
  with how things are
  in order to deal appropriately
  with what’s what
  with the gifts, genius, abilities
  that are ours to share
  in the service of the best
  we can imagine
  in each situation as it arises
  all our life long.
  
  What helps with that work?
  What hinders that work?
  What takes our mind off that work?
  What keeps that work from being done?
  
  What enables us to be who we are?
  What prevents that from happening?
  
  
• 02/18/2020 —  Beidler Forest 11/22/2019 17 — Francis Beidler Forest, Audubon Center and Sanctuary, Four Hole Swamp, Harleyville, South Carolina, November 22, 2019
  
  There is an assumption,
  particularly popular among
  those belonging to Left-leaning political groups,
  that if people “just had what they needed,
  everything would be fine.”
  
  Everything would not be fine.
  If people had what they needed,
  they would still want more.
  
  “More” is the never-ending quest.
  Billionaires attest to that.
  People can’t get enough
  of what they don’t have.
  
  Jerry Seinfeld had to buy
  another parking garage
  for his antique car collection.
  Where does it end?
  In the grave, it is said,
  but who knows even that much?
  
  What we can surmise,
  based on what we observe,
  is that there is a greed-gene
  within us.
  
  We are possessed by the desire to possess.
  
  We are born seeking something,
  we don’t know what,
  but, we are insatiable
  and dissatisfied,
  and always one acquisition
  away from happy at last.
  
  What would it be like
  having nothing left to want?
  Like being dead, no?
  Maybe that’s the origin
  of the idea of the grave
  being the end of wanting,
  though it is the reverse that is
  more likely so:
  The end of wanting is the grave.
  
  As long as we are wanting something else,
  we at least know we are still alive.
  
  
• 02/19/2020 —  Swan Lake 10/25/2019 07 Panorama — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  It has been called
  God,
  Our Original Mind,
  Our Natural Self,
  Our Essential Self,
  The Two Million Year Old Man/Woman/Self,
  Our Buddha Mind/Nature/Self,
  Our Christ Mind/Nature/Self,
  Our Original Essence,
  Our Higher Power,
  The Tao,
  The Way,
  The Face That Was Ours Before We Were Born,
  The Face That Was Ours Before Our Parents Were Born,
  The Unconscious,
  The Psyche,
  The Self At The Center,
  Our Sacred Core,
  The Center,
  The Bedrock,
  The Ground,
  The Foundation,
  Herman,
  Martha
  and Cedric.
  
  Just to mention a few.
  
  Living out of our relationship
  with whatever name you prefer
  makes all the difference
  in our life.
  
  It only takes believing it is so
  to know that it is.
  
  
• 02/19/2020 —  Beidler Forest 11/22/2019 01 — Francis Beidler Forest, Audubon Center and Sanctuary, Four Hole Swamp, Harleyville, South Carolina, November 22, 2019
  
  Three stories from the Old Testament
  capsule who we are
  and how we got here.
  
  Adam and Eve.
  Cain and Abel.
  Jacob and Esau.
  
  All of the other stories ever
  are extensions
  and elaborations
  of these three.
  
  Donald Trump and the GOP
  are merely repeating
  the age old themes,
  worn bare with retelling.
  
  New generations
  have been coming along
  for eons.
  Not one has been new.
  
  “What to to? What to do?”
  
  Take care of your business each day.
  Rise to meet every occasion.
  Bring your best to bear
  on each situation as it arises.
  “Do justice,
  love kindness.”
  See what you look at,
  know what’s what
  and what can be done about it,
  and do what you can do
  as best you can,
  moment-by-moment,
  day-by-day.
  
  No one can do more than that
  in any context or circumstance.
  
  The times come and go.
  Some are better and some are worse,
  but the response of the people to the times
  is always the same:
  Stop and see what is happening
  and respond in ways
  that are fitting to the time and place
  of your living.
  
  Moment-by-moment,
  day-by-day.
  
  
• 02/19/2020 —  Cotton in the Field 11/22/2019 03 — Hwy 267, Lone Star, South Carolina, November 22, 2019
  
  When we know what’s what,
  and what’s happening,
  and what needs to be done about it
  in each situation as it arises,
  we know all we need to know–
  and nobody told us any of it.
  
  We didn’t get the knowledge
  from reading books,
  or listening to lectures,
  or being preached to,
  or memorizing doctrines
  or sutras.
  
  We received our knowledge
  of the moment
  and what is happening there
  and what needs to be done in response
  by stopping to listen,
  to look.
  By seeing and hearing,
  right here,
  right now.
  
  That is all we need to know.
  How to respond appropriately
  to the occasion
  in each situation as it arises.
  
  Savvy?
  
  Oy?
  
  
• 02/20/2020 —  Thunder Ridge 10/29/2019 11 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Milepost 74.7, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  Everyone who knows
  this kind of thing,
  knows how hard Steph Curry works
  to be Steph Curry.
  
  And they know how hard LeBron James works
  to be LeBron James.
  
  These guys don’t just show up at game time,
  shooting 3’s,
  making steals,
  creating the flow of the game.
  
  Dak Prescott joins them
  in putting as much–
  if not more–
  into preparation
  as he puts into playing.
  
  How hard do you work at being you?
  
  You have to work harder at being you
  than anybody you know
  works at being who they are!
  I have to work harder at being me
  than anybody I know
  works at being who they are!
  
  That is, as they say,
  the key to the game.
  Any game.
  Every game.
  
  It takes hard work–
  conscious work–
  mindful work–
  compassionate,
  kind,
  unrelenting work–
  to be who we are
  in each situation as it arises,
  looking/listening,
  seeing/hearing,
  knowing/doing
  what needs to be done
  in bearing the pain
  that must be borne,
  and rising to the occasion
  with exactly what is needed,
  time-after-time-after-time.
  
  Reflection,
  contemplation,
  concentration,
  introspection,
  non-judgmental,
  compassionate
  awareness,
  awareness,
  awareness
  and application,
  application,
  application–
  throughout each day
  all our life long.
  
  I have to distance myself
  from the trauma and drama
  of life to do it.
  I don’t know what your
  approach and regimen
  will be.
  We each have to work that out
  for ourselves,
  on our own.
  
  Trial and error, Kid.
  Trial and error!
  
  
• 02/20/2020 —  Swan Lake 10/25/2019 09 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  Zen doctrine is as convoluted,
  contradictory,
  and self-destructive
  as Christian doctrine is–
  as any doctrine is.
  
  You know how it is with doctrine.
  It all rests on “faith.”
  “You just have to take that part ‘on faith’!”
  is the shut-off to all inquiry
  into the impasses
  and incongruities
  and one thing canceling out another.
  The Zen formulation of taking things “on faith,”
  is, “The master’s intuition is the final authority”
  And, everyone has to “take that on faith.”
  
  There is no Final Authority!
  It is all open to question and revision!
  The ground is what we,
  or someone,
  says the ground is,
  but it is being held up by “faith.”
  
  It comes down to “what we take on faith.”
  
  I propose that we ground our faith
  in our ability to know what’s what
  and what needs to be done about it
  out of our own experience with our life
  as we live it.
  
  Our life shows us what works
  and what does not work,
  and in what situation it works
  and does not work.
  
  First our pants,
  then our shoes.
  
  Through our everyday doing
  of what needs to be done,
  when it needs to be done,
  where it needs to be done,
  how it needs to be done,
  we find authentic values,
  direction,
  guidance
  and our original nature–
  what our gifts,
  genius,
  knacks,
  talents,
  abilities,
  proclivities, etc.
  are.
  
  Just doing what we are doing
  with our mind on what we are doing
  and our eyes open
  to how that is working,
  and how it might be better done,
  or what else might be done instead…
  And letting that be that.
  
  And moving on to the next situation,
  where all this is repeated,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment,
  situation-by-situation
  all our life long.
  
  Savvy?
  
  Oy?
  
  
• Goodale 11/22/2019 02 — Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina, November 22, 2019
  
  The moment is packed with a blueprint
  for the future.
  When we take care of the moment
  the way the moment needs to be
  taken care of,
  we are laying the foundation of a future
  that is crying out to be realized.
  
  In each moment,
  there is a future crying out to be realized.
  
  We think moments are throw-a-ways,
  in-our-ways,
  standing between us
  and the future we want for ourselves.
  Or, we are Adam and Eve
  in this regard.
  David and Bathsheba.
  Throwing away the future
  for what we want in the moment.
  
  We are for the moment.
  The moment is not for us.
  How we live in the moment
  positions us for the future
  that is crying to be realized.
  And we have to take the chance
  that our position in that future
  will be better than our position
  in the future we create
  by living for ourselves in the moment
  or by disregarding the moment
  in trying to arrange a future to our liking.
  
  It is always just us and the moment,
  this moment,
  the present moment,
  here and now.
  How we live in it tells the tale.
  
  Putting ourselves in right relationship
  with the present moment
  creates the potential
  for the future that is crying out to be realized.
  In taking care of the moment,
  we are taking care of the future.
  And trusting that we will be fine,
  no matter what.
  
  As all the old Zen masters liked to say,
  “Columbus took a chance.”
  
• 02/21/2020 —  Swan Lake 10/25/2019 21 B&W — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  There is no carry-over
  from moment-to-moment
  except in the realization
  that nothing learned
  in this moment
  can be assumed in the next moment,
  and in the sense that it is the same
  in every moment:
  
  Stop and see.
  Stop and hear.
  Ground yourself on the bedrock
  of your own identity.
  Know what’s what
  and what is happening
  and what needs to happen in response.
  And serve the moment
  as though it is your last.
  
  Read And Respond, Kid.
  Read And Respond.
  
  Moment-by-moment-by-moment.
  
  It doesn’t get easy.
  We can’t fly on auto-pilot
  in any moment.
  We can’t take a moment off.
  No matter what happened
  in the last moment,
  get up,
  get ready,
  here comes the next one,
  get set,
  GO!
  
  
• 02/21/2020 —  The Viaduct Variations 10/15/2008 03 — Blue Ridge Parkway near Grandfather Mountain, October 15, 2008
  
  Desire fuels fear and anger,
  terror and rage–
  and throws us into calculating,
  conspiring,
  conniving our way
  through our life.
  
  “If we only do this,
  and that,
  like so,
  we can avoid this
  and achieve that,
  and acquire that over there!”
  
  And that is the formula
  for creating the heaving waves
  upon the wine-dark sea.
  
  Desire complicates everything.
  We have a stake in all of it.
  There is something to gain or lose
  in every moment.
  We cannot see the moment
  for being afraid and angry
  in response to the threats
  posed by the moment
  to our sense of well-being
  and our peace of mind.
  
  Seeing the moment
  means having nothing
  on the line in the moment.
  
  EMT’s can triage the situation
  and assess what needs to be done first
  as long as they don’t have a family member
  in the wreck.
  It goes all to hell
  when we have a vested interest in the outcome.
  
  Our desire for a situation
  leads us to manipulate the situation
  for our own good
  in stead of responding to the situation
  in light of what needs to happen
  for the good of the situation as a whole.
  
  The subjective overrides the objective.
  The partisan rules out the non-partisan.
  And we live like the beasts in the jungle
  to have what we want
  at the expense of every other thing.
  
  We have to grow up
  and be aware
  of all that is at work within us
  and with the situation at large–
  and act in light of it all.
  
  Growing up and living with (non-judgmental,
  compassionate) awareness
  is the solution to all of our problems today–
  and to many of those that don’t belong to us.
  It is the crucial first step
  to being the change that needs to happen
  in the here-and-now of daily life.
  
  
• 02/21/2020 —  Baxter Creek Bridge Panorama 11/11/2008 — Big Creek Campground, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, NC/TN, November 11, 2008
  
  My short history of Zen
  
  The Bodhidharma was a Buddhist missionary who brought Buddhism from India to China at the end of the 5th Century and the beginning of the 6th. He died in 540 C.E. His teaching was called Ch’an Buddhism indicating a filtering process through its encounter with the Confucianism and Taoism that were entrenched in the Chinese people.
  
  The Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution reached its height in 845 C.E., and it was after that that the remnants of Ch’an were further molded into what became Zen in China and Japan. And, thus, it is said that “Zen is what happened when Buddhism met Taoism.”
  
  Three excellent summations of this process are to be found in Thomas Hoover’s two books, “The Zen Experience” chronicles the development of Buddhism, Ch’an and Zen from India to Japan through the lives of the people who were instrumental in its transmission. This book is not to be missed (as are the remaining two!) and the best thing about it is that it is free!
  
  All of Hoover’s books are free on the Kindle Store at Amazon. And Amazon provides a free Kindle App for Android or Apple/Mac operating systems. So you can download the free App, and download the free books (this one and the next one). The third book will cost you.
  
  Hoover’s other Zen book (He has written a number of free historical novels, said to be good (I’m saving those for my really old age)) is “Zen Culture,” wherein he discusses Zen philosophy and its history in Japan.
  
  The third book is “The Tao of Zen,” by Ray Grigg, $7.47 Kindle price. It’s an excellent book on both Taoism and Zen, and I re-read it annually just for the pleasure of revisiting Grigg’s writing.
  
  That’s it. You are three books away from a shift in the way you look at your life and your place in it. You are standing on the brink of a “new world, Golda”! Happy trails!
  
  
• 02/21/2020 —  Thunder Ridge 10/29/2019 Panorama 12 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Milepost 74.7, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  My favorite Zen story
  has a master and one of his disciples
  crossing a bridge
  when the disciple asked,
  “What is Zen?”
  
  The master picked up the disciple
  and threw him in the river–
  and shouted:
  “That is water!
  Swim in it,
  bathe in it,
  drink it
  or drown,
  but don’t talk about it!
  To talk about water
  is to not-know water!”
  
  The same would apply
  not only to Zen,
  but to any religion
  there has ever been.
  
  Talking about the moon
  is not the moon.
  Don’t think you know the moon
  until you have camped there
  and watched the Earth rise and set.
  
  
• 02/22/2020 —  Swan Lake 10/25/2019 25 — Swan Lake Iris Gardens, Sumter, South Carolina, October 25, 2019
  
  There are two things that are absolutely critical:
  
  Being who we are
  from the ground up
  and the inside out
  in each situation that arises,
  
  And being who,
  doing what,
  the situation needs us to be/do
  in each situation as it rises.
  
  We have to be true to ourselves
  and we have to do what needs to be done.
  All of the time.
  
  There are a couple of catches here.
  
  It is very often that what the situation requires
  is for us to not be true to ourselves.
  Anybody who has ever been married
  or had children,
  or worked for a living,
  or had parents,
  knows what I’m talking about.
  
  We sacrifice ourselves 10,000 times
  between getting out of bed
  and brushing our teeth!
  
  The other catch is
  that we don’t know who the hell we are–
  which one of us is the true us?
  We can’t decide what to order for lunch!
  What chance do we have
  of being who we are
  in every situation that arises?
  There are 10,000 of us in here
  at war with each other.
  
  It is no simple matter
  to be true to ourselves
  and do what needs us to do it.
  
  And it is absolutely critical.
  
  How we do it is a three-step process.
  
  Stop. See. Hear.
  
  That’s the first step.
  
  Negotiation and Compromise, Kid.
  Negotiation and Compromise.
  
  That’s the second step.
  
  Bear the Pain.
  
  That’s the third step.
  
  In every situation that arises.
  
  All our life long.
  
  
• 02/22/2020 —  Cotton in the Field 11/22/2019 Panorama 04 — Hwy 267, Lone Star, South Carolina, November 22, 2019
  
  The number of moments
  contained in a situation
  is a function of the situation.
  
  Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner–
  or a cocktail party, etc.–
  is a situation that lasts forever
  and presents an infinite number of moments
  requiring us to be awake, aware, alive,
  when the default position
  is to be dead, dead, dead.
  
  We have to bear the pain.
  Suffer the occasion.
  And respond to what is being asked of us
  in ways that bring the best we have to offer
  to the time that is at hand
  (Which includes excusing ourselves
  and getting ourselves walked out of there
  as quickly as possible
  to a better place to be).
  
  We make the call regarding
  what is being asked of us
  and how best to deal with it
  moment-by-moment-by-moment
  in each situation as it arises.
  Which means being attuned to
  ourselves and the moment
  constantly, continually.
  
  It isn’t as exhausting as it sounds.
  It is simply a matter of awareness.
  Of being here/now,
  taking everything into account,
  and receiving it into our awareness,
  and letting ourselves respond to all the input
  spontaneously,
  naturally,
  impromptu–
  dancing with the moments
  and the conflicts and contradictions
  that come with them
  throughout our day.
  
  We might think of ourselves
  as emergency room staff
  receiving everything that comes
  through the door
  in an eight or twelve hour shift with:
  Awareness.
  Assessment.
  Action.
  Review.
  Revision.
  
  And, thus, the importance
  of rest, relaxation, recovery,
  proper nutrition and hydration,
  care and maintenance
  of mind and body,
  virtue, vitality, energy and spirit.
  Day-to-day-to-day
  throughout our life.
  
  
• 02/22/2020 —  Chester State Park 11/25/2019 09 — Chester County, South Carolina, November 25, 2019
  
  Wealth and prosperity seem to have
  The Purpose Of Life thing
  “Roped, tied and branded.”
  Game over.
  
  The problem is wealth and prosperity themselves
  are far from being “roped, tied and branded.”
  
  Everybody dreams of wealth and prosperity,
  but starting salaries in the $28-35,000 range
  bring reality to bear.
  It takes two of us at that rate
  to make a house payment
  and a car note,
  and start a family.
  And then,
  how do we cover the down payments?
  
  So, we dream of winning the lottery,
  and settle for opioids,
  because apart from wealth and prosperity
  what are we left with?
  
  It’s time the culture sits itself down
  and rethinks meaning and purpose.
  But the culture is here to soak us
  to the limit–
  not to help us live purposeful,
  meaningful lives.
  
  We have to understand,
  the economy looks to us
  to keep it going,
  and stokes the idea of wealth
  and prosperity
  to fuel the gerbil-in-the-cage
  burn-the-candle-at-both-ends
  effort to chase down
  wealth and prosperity
  in our lifetime
  as a way of keeping
  the grande illusion going.
  
  What if we stopped chasing
  the empty promise?
  
  What if we got our own feet under us
  and realized for ourselves
  what we are here to do?
  And how much it will take
  to pay the bills
  that enable us to do it?
  And forgot about wealth and prosperity,
  and lived in the service
  of what is ours to do?
  
  What is ours to do?
  Where do our interests lie?
  What makes our little heart sing?
  What gets our little toes a-tappin’?
  Think along those lines,
  and re-think the whole
  meaning and purpose thing.
  
  
• 02/23/2020 —  Landsford Canal 11/25/2019 09 Panorama — Canoe/Kayak Launch, Landsford Canal State Park, Catawba, South Carolina, November 25,2019
  
  Everybody seems to be living
  to get what they can while they can.
  
  Wealth and prosperity
  are things we acquire, amass, flaunt
  and fear we will lose.
  
  Everything about us is this way.
  We strive to get it and worry about losing it.
  
  What a way to live.
  
  Let me have some of that!
  
  No! Wait! Stop!
  We do not have to live this way!
  
  Living To Get/Have does not have to be
  our default mode of operation.
  
  We can Live To Be And To Do.
  
  No kidding.
  
  Talk about changing our relationship
  with our life!
  This would do it!
  This would be the shift heard ’round the world!
  
  Being who we are.
  Doing what needs us to do it.
  In each situation as it arises.
  All our life long.
  
  Doing what needs US to do it
  means acquainting ourselves
  with the gifts/genius that are ours
  to offer to the time and place
  of our living.
  
  They are going to be associated
  with what we love most to do.
  We love to do what we can do well–
  with all our heart.
  
  How long has it been since you’ve done that?
  Let’s live to make-up for lost time!
  Shall we?
  
  We have all the time left for living
  to excel in being who we are,
  doing what we do,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment!
  
  Batter Up!
  
  
• 02/23/2020 —  Lake Crandall 11/19/2019 02 Panoama — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Adventure Road Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, November 19, 2019
  
  Growing up is squaring up
  to how things are
  and what can be done about it.
  
  Our vulnerability is at the top of the list.
  
  Brooks Vance told his wife Louise,
  “Don’t consider the odds, Louise,
  or you will never get out of bed”
  (Or words to that effect).
  
  We all ether find our way
  to making our peace
  with our lot in life,
  or we hide out in the 10,000 addictions
  to feel better about our plight
  or deny that things are as they are.
  
  Life is out to get us.
  We can be smart,
  see what’s what,
  and be as safe as we can reasonably be,
  and it is still going to get us.
  We can’t let that get us down.
  “Don’t consider the liabilities, Louise,
  it will only depress you.”
  
  Until Life gets us,
  we go about our business,
  doing what we can
  with the things that come our way
  offering assistance to those with us
  along the way,
  being as good a sport about it all
  as we can manage,
  and letting things fall into place
  around that.
  
  We partner up with our vulnerability
  and step into the day.
  Every day.
  
  
• 02/24/2020 —  Thunder Ridge 10/29/2019 Panorama 13 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Milepost 74.7, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  Balance is balance.
  Harmony is harmony.
  Homeostasis is homeostasis.
  Living aligned with ourselves,
  at one with our life,
  in full accord with the time and place
  of our living
  is all there is to it.
  
  What’s the problem?
  
  Where are you off-center?
  Out of plumb?
  Off the path?
  Away from the way?
  Out of sync
  with the time that is at hand?
  Out of touch
  with the ground of life and being,
  with the sacred core
  at the heart of all living things?
  
  When the path requires you
  to go where there is no path–
  when the guide says,
  “You know the way,”
  what do you do?
  
  Always the Golden Rule:
  Stop. See. Hear.
  
  Why are we always
  running through stop signs,
  with our eyes closed tightly
  and our fingers pressing in our ears,
  saying, “I don’t know!
  I can’t see!
  I can’t hear!?
  when we know
  we aren’t looking,
  when we know we
  aren’t listening,
  when we don’t care?
  
  What directs our boat
  on its way through the sea?
  Who is at the helm?
  Who is checking the compass,
  reading the constellations?
  Seeing?
  Hearing?
  Feeling?
  Sensing?
  Intuiting?
  Knowing
  when it doesn’t know
  how it knows
  what it knows?
  Who is listening?
  
  Who is the guest?
  Who is the host?
  Who is the student?
  Who is the teacher?
  
  Who are you?
  What is yours to do?
  Who is to say?
  How do they know?
  
  
• 02/24/2020 —  Landsford One 11/25/2019
  
  Looking north, Catawba River, Landsford Canal State Park, Catawba, South Carolina, November 25,2019
  
  Everybody has something to say.
  
  Has something else to say.
  
  Has something more to say.
  
  There is no last word.
  
  We speak/write
  to hear what we have to say.
  
  Only we know what needs to be said
  because only we know what needs to be heard.
  
  People who talk all the time
  without saying anything
  know they cannot bear to know
  what arises in the silence.
  
  People who never have a thing to say
  and never say anything that hasn’t been said
  know if they start talking
  they will never stop
  and say things they cannot bear to hear.
  
  The first rule of life is
  Bear The Pain!
  
  The second rule of life is
  Ask All Of The Questions
  That Beg To Be Asked!
  
  The third rule of life is
  Say Everything That Cries Out
  To Be Said!
  
  Keep the rules
  and you will be just fine.
  
  And, you will walk with a limp.
  
  
• 02/24/2020 —  Landsford Two 11/25/2019 — Looking south, Catawba River, Landsford Canal State Park, Catawba, South Carolina, November 25,2019
  
  We do not get there by thinking about it.
  No matter where “there” is
  as long as it is somewhere
  we have never been.
  
  As long as it is somewhere–
  some thing–
  new.
  
  We do not get to anywhere,
  anything,
  new
  by thinking our way there.
  
  We play our way there.
  
  We play with ideas.
  We play with possibilities.
  We play with absurdities
  and obscenities,
  and monstrosities,
  and ludicrous,
  outlandish,
  preposterous,
  impossibilities!
  
  That’s how new comes to be.
  
  Playfully.
  Not rationally.
  
  We do not play around enough.
  And, it is showing.
  
  
• 02/24/2020 —  Landsford Three 11/25/2019 — Looking south, Catawba River, Landsford Canal State Park, Catawba, South Carolina, November 25,2019
  
  What governs your response?
  That is what leads you along the way.
  
  What do you have at stake in the outcome?
  That is the source of your motivation.
  
  What are you trying to get or avoid?
  There is your reason for living.
  
  
• 02/24/2020 —  Lake Crandall 11/19/2019 03 Panorama — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Fort Mill, South Carolina, Adventure Road Access, November 19, 2019
  
  Can you agree with this?
  
  People should be able to live their own life
  without interfering with
  other people living their own life.
  
  If you agree,
  we have common ground,
  and can proceed.
  If you do not agree, we will have to talk about that.
  
  Assuming you agree,
  what do we do about the people
  who say they agree,
  but refuse to abide by the agreement–
  and about those
  who refuse to agree?
  
  This is the pivot point
  upon which the future
  of the world turns.
  
  
• 02/24/2020 —  Chester State Park 11/25/2019 01 Panorama — Chester County, South Carolina, November 25, 2019
  
  The elephant walks through the high grass.
  The monkey swings through the tall trees.
  
  Everything flows from this.
  How can the elephant
  justify,
  defend,
  explain,
  excuse
  walking through high grass
  to the monkey
  who can only think
  in terms of swinging through tall trees?
  
  How can the monkey
  justify,
  defend,
  explain,
  excuse
  swinging through tall trees
  to the elephant
  who can only think
  in terms of walking through high grass?
  
  Must the elephant try to convert the monkey?
  Or, the monkey the elephant?
  Do they hate one another?
  Make the other their mortal enemy?
  Declare war?
  Drop bombs?
  
  How does the monkey
  allow and begin to comprehend,
  appreciate, honor, respect
  the “elephant-ness” of the elephant?
  The “just-so-ness” of the elephant?
  
  And the elephant with the monkey?
  
  Could you do that with your father-in-law?
  With your father?
  With Donald Trump?
  
  And they with you?
  
  How do we live together in ways that allow
  our differentness to stand
  without demonizing,
  dehumanizing,
  denigrating,
  or interfering with the right of the other
  to live their own life,
  while honoring the “just-so-ness” of the other
  and without impacting the other’s life for ill?
  
  How does Trump’s “base,”
  and Sander’s, say, “base”
  do that?
  
  How do we all do that
  across the board,
  around the table,
  up and down the line?
  
  
• 02/24/2020 —  Day’s End 10/28/2008 — Pamlico Sound, Ocracoke Island, Outer Banks, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, October 28, 2008
  
  Our Ego comes in two manifestations,
  the unconscious Ego
  and the conscious Ego.
  
  As a conscious Ego,
  we work to develop our relationship
  with our Unconscious Mind,
  or Soul,
  or Psyche.
  
  We have no way of knowing
  what’s what with what
  we cannot be conscious of,
  but we can experience
  our Unconscious
  (So called because we are unconscious of it)
  at work in dreams,
  urges,
  realizations,
  synchronicity,
  etc.
  
  I think of the Unconscious Source
  of my life/awareness
  as my Sacred Core,
  my Spirit Center,
  and as a conscious Ego,
  I work to align my conscious self
  with my Unconscious Spirit,
  and trust that alliance
  with filial devotion,
  liege loyalty,
  and faithful allegiance.
  
  Forming an intuitive bond
  creates a bedrock foundation
  that grounds me in all situations
  and circumstances,
  and provides a perspective
  enabling me to see what’s what
  and allow things to be as they are,
  which offers a significant degree
  of leverage in the moment
  by having little or nothing at stake,
  and permitting me a “this means that”
  objective take on whatever happens.
  I don’t have to have things one way
  or another,
  but can respond appropriately
  to whatever happens
  without trying to force the moment
  to have an outcome that is
  advantageous to me in some way.
  
  “I” am a conscious “I”
  and a very present “Spirit I”
  which “I” can be aware of
  in an intuitive sense
  from moment-to-moment,
  often in an
  “Okay, now what?” kind of way.
  
  We do not work to realize or will
  particular outcomes,
  but to serve our preferences
  (We enjoy solitude and silence)
  and see what happens.
  
  I think we all share a physical body
  with an invisible, spiritual, self,
  and the more conscious we can be
  of our relationship
  with our “Invisible Friend” within,
  the more interesting our life becomes
  like that (Snaps fingers, and winks).
  
  
• 02/25/2020 —  Thunder Ridge 10/29/2019 14 Panorama — Blue Ridge Parkway, Milepost 74.7, Virginia, October 29, 2019
  
  Finding what we need
  to meet the day,
  day after day
  can be a test of our mettle
  some days.
  
  Then what?
  
  Trial and error, Kid.
  Trial and error.
  
  What works depends upon
  factors beyond counting.
  What worked the last time
  might not work this time.
  
  Breathing is important
  all the time.
  Maybe we make it our goal
  to just keep breathing
  until the shift occurs.
  
  The shift when everything
  that was so undoable,
  becomes doable
  like magic.
  
  A shift in perspective–
  which we do not control
  or command–
  snaps everything into place,
  and it is as though
  the constellations realigned their orbits
  and our day becomes
  just another normal day.
  
  How does that happen?
  Now we can do it,
  now we can’t do it,
  now we can do it…
  
  To be at the mercy of can and cannot
  is something no one can understand,
  comprehend,
  who hasn’t experienced it.
  And, may no one experience it ever!
  But, a lot of us do way too often.
  
  What helps?
  Besides breathing and waiting?
  Everybody whose life includes
  the experience of the ebb and flow
  of normal living
  has their own personal repertoire
  of what helps.
  Walking, talking, writing, hot showers, chocolate…
  
  Or, just watching our perspective,
  our attitude,
  our frame of mind.
  Just being curious about what it emphasizes
  and what it ignores-dismisses-discounts-disregards…
  What is going on with our perspective?
  It is as though it has a mind of its own.
  
  What are you up to?
  What is your game?
  Whose side are you on?
  Perspective!
  I’m talking to YOU!
  
  Putting perspective under the microscope
  and getting to the bottom of what’s what
  with our perspective,
  making inquiries,
  launching an investigation,
  interviewing witnesses…
  can be an entertaining
  bit of comic relief,
  and perhaps all the help we need.
  
  
• 02/25/2020 —  Blue Ridges 06/26/2009 Panorama — Roan Mountain, Tennessee, June 26, 2009
  
  When the norms
  and standards,
  codes and practices
  that hold society together disappear,
  and “the center fails to hold,”
  we are left with living
  out of our own center,
  out of our own sacred core,
  out of our own bedrock foundation
  of principles,
  chracter
  and value.
  
  So, we better be firming up
  our relationship
  with the grounding,
  guiding,
  truth
  of what we know to be right,
  and just,
  and good.
  
  It comes down to us
  and the Sermon on the Mount
  before theology got to it–
  just doing right by one another,
  doing justice,
  loving kindness
  and walking humbly
  with that which has always been called God.
  
  Good people have always lived
  in light of what they know to be good.
  
  We can count on that always being so,
  and do our part in making sure that it is so
  by committing ourselves to living in ways
  that make it so
  in our service to the good that is forever good
  regardless of our circumstances
  or how life is being lived around us.
  
  We can form and find communities
  of like-minded people
  who know the good and do it,
  and live as sources of blessings and grace
  in the lives of all who come there way.
  
  In so doing,
  we can hold things together,
  no matter how they seem to be
  flying apart,
  doing what is good
  whether it does any good or not,
  and finding our strength and courage
  from the source of life within us
  for the work that is ours to do
  in each situation as it arises
  all our life long.
  
  
• 02/25/2020 —  Clingman’s Dome Sunrise 10/15/2006 — Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Cherokee, North Carolina, October 15, 2006
  
  Fear and desire give rise to
  hatred and greed
  and here we are.
  
  This is the real
  “old, old, story.”
  It is as old as Adam and Eve,
  Cain and Abel.
  
  And as old as the refrain
  that goes with it:
  “When will they ever learn?
  When will they ever learn?”
  
  A coke bottle is tossed
  out of an airplane
  in “The Gods Must Be Crazy,”
  and war breaks out
  in the Kalahari tribe that finds it,
  over who gets the prize.
  
  Everyone is crazy.
  And, we are not going to fix it.
  The best we can hope for
  is to be intently aware of it,
  to keep our eye on it,
  or, oops, there we go again.
  
  
• 02/25/2020 —  Lake Crandall 11/19/2019 08 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Adventure Road Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, November 19. 2019
  
  If you are waiting for things to make sense,
  you are standing in the wrong line.
  That line forms in another dimension.
  Here, things do not make sense,
  and the contradictions
  are thresholds to new perceptions
  and astounding realizations.
  
  Contradiction is the doorway to enlightenment.
  
  Back in the day
  when I was reading the Bible,
  I looked for contradictions.
  They were everywhere.
  It was the work to live between the contradictions
  that expanded my awareness
  and stretched my boundaries
  and woke me up
  to the truth of how things are
  and also are.
  
  Now that I’m reading Zen,
  I follow the same strategy.
  Look for the contradictions!
  They are everywhere.
  
  Zen makes much of duality,
  as in denying it
  and demanding that “all is one.”
  Well.
  Only in a sense.
  All is also not one.
  As Zen knows very well,
  pointing out the difference
  between our Reality Body
  and our Celestial Body,
  our Ordinary Mind
  and our Buddha Mind, etc.
  
  Zen makes much of attainment and acquisition,
  as in denying them.
  “There is nothing to attain,
  nothing to acquire!”
  But.
  Everybody is after enlightenment,
  satori,
  nirvana,
  Buddha Mind,
  dharma, etc.
  
  Look for the things that make no sense,
  and stand among the contradictions,
  waiting to see what they have to show you.
  
  
• 02/26/2020 —  Chester State Park 11/25/2019 19 Panorama — Chester County, South Carolina, November 25, 2019
  
  There is our experience
  and there is our interpretation
  of our experience.
  
  There is seeing clearly what’s what
  and there is self-deception and denial,
  illusion, delusion, hallucination,
  paranoia and pretense.
  
  “Is it real or is it Memorex?”
  
  Con men and women
  are masters at creating false reality.
  Alcoholics trick themselves always,
  and their spouses, sometimes,
  with, “I swear, Honey, I’m never drinking again!”
  
  “You can fool some of the people all of the time,
  and all of the people some of the time,
  but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”
  
  What is the difference?
  Why do some people catch on to the act?
  And why do some never get it?
  
  It is the ruse of sincerity.
  
  I watched a boy
  stick a juicy wad of bubblegum
  in a girl’s hair.
  She shrieked and named him
  as her attacker on the spot.
  The authorities were quick to react.
  His tearful denial was so sincere
  and his protests were so genuinely heartfelt,
  I began to question my own sense of reality.
  Had I really seen
  what I thought I had seen?
  
  Fathers beat their children,
  and their mothers say
  “You know your father loves you!”
  
  Donald Trump lies with gleeful abandon.
  His minions create diversions,
  and accuse Democrats of false accusations.
  “You know the President wouldn’t lie to you!
  And you know the Democrats would!
  So, who are you going to believe?”
  
  Every con counts on sincerity to seal the deal.
  Every mark is an easy sell.
  
  There is our experience,
  and there is our interpretation of experience.
  
  And the difference between the two
  is how things are the way they are.
  
  
• 02/26/2020 —  Blue Ridge Rhododendron 06/26/2009 –Lindville Falls, Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina, June 26, 2009
  
  What do you need?
  
  You will know it when you see it.
  
  What then?
  
  That’s the question.
  
  What happened the last time
  you knew what you needed?
  
  
• 02/26/2020 —  Cotton in the Field 11/19/2019 06 — Hwy 267, Lone Star, South Carolina, November 22, 2019
  
  Think equilibrium.
  Let equilibrium be a goal.
  Live toward equilibrium.
  
  Imagine a pendulum,
  hanging perpendicular to the horizon
  and perfectly still.
  Let that be absolute equilibrium.
  
  Decide how much movement
  you feel is necessary
  for appropriate equilibrium
  in all circumstances.
  The arc of the pendulum
  will need to be greater
  in some situations,
  and lesser in others.
  Equilibrium is a function
  of time and place,
  and you determine what
  is appropriate
  in each time and place
  of your living.
  
  Being aware of your responsibility
  for living with appropriate equilibrium
  in each situation as it arises
  increases your chances of doing it.
  
  Think across all of the situations of your life.
  Where are you most out of your own idea
  of what constitutes a “Normal Equilibrium Response Arc”
  in each situation?
  
  Where do you go,
  what do you do,
  to bring your response level back
  to an appropriate response arc?
  
  How do you maintain your equilibrium
  at an appropriate level
  across all situations?
  
  How will you remain appropriately
  composed and responsive
  to each situation as it arises?
  
  How will you remain aware
  of your response arc
  in each situation as it arises?
  
  How will your awareness moderate
  the swing of your response arc?
  How will you restore your equilibrium
  to a level appropriate to the situation?
  
  
• 02/26/2020 —  Lake Crandall 11/19/2019 09 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Adventure Road Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, November 19, 2019
  
  We have to be able to bear the pain
  in order to face what must be faced,
  see what’s what
  and what can be done about it–
  in response to it–
  and what we can do about that
  with what we bring to the time and place
  of our living,
  such as we are,
  in each situation as it arises,
  all our life long.
  
  This is our role,
  our duty,
  our bit,
  our place.
  
  To see what needs what we have to offer
  and to offer it as best we can,
  and let that be that,
  here an now,
  because another situation is on the way,
  and we will be meeting that situation
  on its terms,
  seeing what it needs to offer,
  and offering it as best we can,
  and letting that be that,
  then and there,
  because another situation is on the way…
  
  We meet the situation
  with what we have to offer.
  
  And that is all anybody can do.
  
  Jesus could not do better.
  The Buddha could not do better.
  It cannot be done better.
  
  Stop. Look. Listen. See. Hear.
  Ask the questions that beg to be asked.
  Say the things that cry out to be said.
  Do what needs to be done
  out of what you have to offer.
  And let that be that.
  Because another situation is on the way…
  
  We are emergency room technicians,
  and we live in an emergency room.
  And we have a specialty
  that is exactly what some situations need.
  And not at all what other situations need.
  
  We have to read the situation,
  see what’s what,
  and what can be done about it…
  Etc.
  Forever.
  That’s it.
  
  
• 02/27/2020 —  Thunder Ridge 10/29/2019 15 Panorama — Blue Ridge Parkway, Milepost 74.7, Virginia, October 29, 2109
  
  We have to believe in ourselves
  and we have to believe in our work,
  and we have to believe in the 10,000 things
  that support,
  encourage,
  enable,
  create
  and sustain
  us and our work.
  
  We are not alone.
  The experience of meaningful coincidences
  throughout our life
  is relentless evidence
  of our being nestled
  and nourished
  by more than meets the eye.
  
  It takes only looking to see.
  It takes only listening to hear.
  It takes only asking the questions
  that beg to be asked
  and saying the things that cry out to be said
  to know that it is so.
  
  We run from the questions.
  We hide from the statements.
  We cover our eyes,
  jam our fingers in our ears,
  and have nothing to do with ourselves
  or the work that is ours to do,
  and live alone,
  cut off from the world of wonder and bliss,
  because we refuse
  to take the chance
  of believing it is real.
  
  
• 02/27/2020 —  At the Dock 02 11/01/2002 — Silver Lake, Ocracoke Island, Outer Banks, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, North Carolina, November 1, 2002
  
  My world is shrinking with age.
  “I don’t get about much anymore.”
  Not as much as I used to, anyway.
  But.
  I have more to say than ever.
  
  The words of Heraclitus come to mind:
  
  “You will not find the boundaries of soul
  by traveling in any direction,
  so deep is the measure of it.”
  
  Nor will you say all there is to say,
  or ask all the questions
  that beg to be asked!
  
  It is enough that we say
  all that is to be said
  in a day.
  That we ask all the questions
  that beg to be asked
  right here,
  right now.
  
  I can do that sitting by the fire,
  drinking coffee.
  
  
• 02/27/2020 —  Lake Crandall 11/19/2019 10 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Adventure Road Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, November 19, 2019.
  
  We have to change our relationship
  with our life.
  
  Alcoholics start drinking
  because their relationship
  with their life isn’t working.
  Alcohol takes the edge off
  their pain.
  It is a way of refusing to suffer
  the pain of their life.
  Then alcohol becomes a greater pain,
  so they sober up.
  But.
  Their life still isn’t working.
  Now what?
  
  Bear the pain!
  And let the pain guide us
  into transforming our relationship
  with our life.
  
  Here’s the catch.
  It all has to go.
  Everything.
  Every. Thing.
  Everything we ever thought
  about the way things are.
  Has to go.
  
  We have to sit in the silence,
  and trust ourselves to the questions.
  You know the ones I mean.
  The ones that beg to be asked.
  All of them.
  
  We ask the first one or two
  and stop
  because the pain is too great,
  and we are terrifying ourselves
  asking questions
  we think we know the answers to.
  
  “What’s the point?”
  We ask it,
  assuming there is no point.
  It’s too much.
  We stop asking the questions.
  Asking the questions gets us to
  “What’s the point of having to have a point?”
  
  “Why bother with this–it’s all meaningless anyway?”
  gets us to the question,
  “If it is all meaningless, meaning is meaningless,
  so why bother with being upset
  over a lack of meaning?”
  “And if it is meaningful that everything is meaningless,
  everything is clearly NOT meaningless,
  so why not explore what else might be meaningful?”
  
  Asking the questions that beg to be asked
  changes our relationship with our life
  by calling into questions our grounding assumptions
  about our life,
  ourselves,
  all of life,
  and opening us to new possibilities,
  and inviting us to play with all of them.
  
  We play our way to healing and wholeness.
  We do not think our way there.
  
  
• 02/28/2020 —  Thunder Ridge 10/29/2019 16 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Milepost 74.7, Virginia, October 29, 2109
  
  Taoism is unique among spiritual practices
  in having no myth about the afterlife
  to encourage its practitioners on
  through the hard truth
  of their daily grind.
  
  Taoism talks about things being easier
  when we are in accord with the Way,
  and focuses on “being here now”
  in a way that honors the contradictions
  (Yin/Yang) and seeks harmony and balance.
  
  Hinduism gave rise to Buddhism
  over the difference in their views
  on suffering–
  Hinduism with its Caste System
  and eternal cycle of karma and fate,
  Buddhism with its Four Noble Truths
  offering an escape from suffering
  through its Eight-fold Path.
  
  When Buddhism met Taoism,
  Zen was produced
  and the Way became the way
  to Nirvana,
  and the Pure Land,
  and the Farther Shore,
  and the Celestial Body, etc.
  
  But, at its core Taoism
  is just about getting through the moment,
  the day,
  the month,
  the year,
  the life–
  by simply “being here, now,”
  and living here/now
  in accord with the Way
  of being who we are,
  when we are,
  where we are,
  and letting that be that.
  
  No theology.
  No doctrine.
  No dogma.
  Just the experience of the moment
  and of ourselves in the moment,
  allowing the moment
  to call forth our response
  out of our repertoire
  of gifts, genius, talent, proclivities, etc.
  in “chopping wood/carrying water,”
  “eating when hungry, resting when tired,”
  from the eternal depths
  of our original nature.
  
  We are built to meet the moment,
  any moment,
  every moment.
  To rise to any, every, occasion.
  To do what needs to be done
  as it needs to be done
  with what we have to work with.
  
  So, what is all the whining about?
  Why the moaning and complaining?
  What do we have to be afraid of?
  There is only trusting ourselves
  to ourselves,
  in doing what is ours to do,
  the way only we can do it.
  
  And letting that be that!
  
  
• 02/28/2020 —  Lake Haigler 11/24/2019 06 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Lake Haigler Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, November 24, 2019
  
  What do you expect to get
  from a life well-lived?
  
  What is the point?
  The purpose?
  The outcome?
  The reward?
  
  Why live well?
  What are we living well for?
  
  I put my best effort into every photograph I take.
  Why?
  
  Every homily I write every day
  is the best I can do.
  What do I get out of it?
  
  So what? Who cares? Why try? What difference does any of it make?
  
  Why bring forth our best to meet the moment,
  moment-by-moment-by-moment?
  
  What do we stand to gain by doing so?
  What is in it for us?
  What do we care?
  Why should we care?
  What do we expect to get?
  What do we expect to come from it?
  
  Peggy Lee’s “Is this all there is?”
  Begs the question,
  “What did you expect?”
  
  What do you expect?
  
  
• 02/28/2020 —  Chester State Park 11/25/2019 20 Panorama — Chester County, South Carolina, November 25, 2019
  
  What do you do with all your heart?
  How often do you do it?
  
  What do you do halfheartedly,
  or with your heart not in it at all?
  How often do you do it?
  
  What is standing between you
  and wholehearted living?
  Make a list.
  
  What binds you to the list?
  What keeps you from being alive
  in the life you are living?
  
  What are you sacrificing yourself to serve?
  Do you see an end-point
  to that sacrificial service?
  
  Live to increase the amount of time
  and the frequency of occurrence
  that you spend doing things with all your heart.
  
  
• 02/28/2020 —  Castle Mountain 09/21/2009 — Banff National Park, Banff, Alberta, Canadian Rockies, September 21, 2009
  
  Our mindset,
  our culture,
  our way-of-being-in-the-world
  is linear,
  sequential,
  first-this-then-that,
  one-step-at-a-time,
  from-here-to-there,
  to the end of the line
  and the full realization
  of our dreams.
  
  How else would you get there?
  
  Know what you want,
  know how to get it,
  Goal
  Strategy
  Tactics.
  Mission accomplished.
  Job done.
  
  Heaven?
  Ten Commandments.
  What’s next?
  
  That’s how we do things.
  And, we assume,
  that is how things are done,
  and are to be done.
  
  Not so.
  
  Becoming who we are
  is nothing like that.
  Incarnating who we are built to be
  lies in an entirely different dimension.
  There are no Ten Commandments
  for that project.
  No instruction book.
  No step-by-step guide.
  
  We dream our way there.
  We play our way there.
  We feel our way there.
  
  We listen to our body.
  We listen to our heart.
  We listen to our bones.
  We listen to our stomach.
  We listen to our nighttime dreams.
  We listen to whatever catches our eye.
  We listen to what we are saying.
  We listen to everything.
  We read the signs.
  We dance to the music.
  We see what’s what
  and what needs to be done about it.
  
  Awareness, awareness, awareness!
  Connecting the dots.
  Putting two and two together.
  Getting it.
  Like a joke.
  “Oh, NOW I see!”
  
  What’s the strategy for getting to
  “Oh, NOW I see!”?
  
  It is not a straight line for here to there,
  from now to then,
  from who we are
  to who we are built to be.
  
  It is a wobbling, curving, bumping, jagged, ragged,
  circular, spiraling, up-and-down-and-sideways,
  back-and-forth, circumambulation
  of where we are going.
  
  We don’t know where we are going,
  or what to do next,
  or when we will arrive.
  
  We never will arrive.
  Always the path which is no path.
  We each make our own path.
  None of us walks another’s path.
  Only we know what fits us.
  Only we know what we are built for.
  What we are made for.
  Only we know what it means
  to do it our way.
  To do it the way we have to do it.
  And we have to do it in our own way,
  in our own time,
  however long it might take.
  
  Whatever you say is right
  is something you say is right.
  You are the authority of your own life.
  What is right is what you say is right,
  no matter who else may be saying it is right,
  it doesn’t become right for you
  until you say it is right for you.
  
  If you are doing what your mother says do
  with your life,
  you are doing it because you say it is right
  for you to do it that way.
  
  You decide what is right for you.
  The catch is that you have to be right about it.
  
  If you are doing what is wrong for you
  because someone else tells you it is right for you,
  and you say, “Okay, what the hell?”
  Or if you are doing what is wrong for you
  because someone tells you something else is right for you
  and you aren’t going to do it just because they said to,
  the burden is on you.
  
  You have to be right about what is right for you.
  
  Stop. Listen. Hear. Look. See.
  
  Ask the questions that beg to be asked.
  And don’t stop until there are no more questions.
  There will never be no more questions ever,
  only no more questions for now.
  
  
• 02/28/2020 —  Lake Crandall 11/19/2019 11 — Anne Springs Close Greenway, Adventure Road Access, Fort Mill, South Carolina, November 19, 2019
  
  The Way that is the way
  to who we are and also are
  is the way of improvisation,
  spontaneity,
  intuition,
  and play.
  
  It is the way of knowing
  when it is time for a cup of coffee,
  and when we have had enough coffee.
  
  The way of knowing
  when it is time for a nap,
  and when it is time to wake up from a nap.
  
  No book can tell you these things.
  
  We do not go to the toilet
  by looking at our watch.
  We don’t choose our friends
  by using some formula
  in a book on How To Find Your Friends.
  
  How do we know what matters?
  What is important?
  What we need to do?
  Need to do not?
  
  We don’t know how we know.
  But.
  We know that we know.
  We need to know what we know,
  and allow that to lead us into what we do
  about it.
  
  That would be to follow the Way
  to being who we are,
  and also are,
  and incarnating that
  in the way we live our life.
  
  
• 02/29/2020 —  Thunder Ridge 10/29/2019 17 — Blue Ridge Parkway, Milepost 74.7, Virginia, October 29, 2109
  
  Stop. Look. Listen. See. Hear.
  
  Inquire. Inspection. Introspection.
  
  Exploration. Examination. Evaluation.
  
  The eleven steps to realization.
  
  Apply them throughout the day.
  
  Start with your nighttime dreams.
  See what they have to say.
  How do they impact you?
  How do you perceive them?
  What do you make of them?
  What is their overall tone?
  Their residual feeling?
  Their theme?
  Their message?
  
  Do this with the things that attract you,
  that repel you,
  that catch your eye,
  that stir your emotions,
  that bring up a reaction,
  that initiate a train of associations,
  that trigger memories,
  that hijack you
  and carry you away,
  that interfere with your life in some way.
  
  Do this when your mind wanders,
  when you day-dream,
  when you drift off into flights of fantasy,
  when you get stuck in trauma/drama.
  
  Your life is a source of meditation,
  reflection,
  contemplation.
  You are attempting to commune,
  to communicate,
  with you all day every day.
  
  Start paying attention.
  And engaging the eleven steps to realization.
  
  Put two and two together.
  Make the connections.
  You are a mirror
  waiting to reveal who you are
  to you–
  if you will only stop.
  And look.
  And see.

02/03/2020 — Life traditionally, throughout the ages, begins with the first breath.

A heartbeat without a brainwave is nothing.
A brainwave without a heartbeat is nothing.
A brainwave with a heartbeat without breathing are nothing.

Life does not begin hooked up to machines.

Life begins with a cry of protest for having to do it all on our own.

And if we don’t do it on our own,
we never have a life of our own.

Life begins when we come to terms with the fact
that it is up to us
and we are on our own.

Life begins when we live our life
the way it needs us to live it.

Until then, we are only faking it.

02/09/2020 — Enlightenment is over-rated.
Awareness has much more going for it,
and is available to all of us
without the investment of years
seeking the source of seeking
and the mysterious origin
of our Original Nature.
Awareness is interested in what’s what.
What’s happening here and now?
What needs to be done about it?
What is the situation-as-it-arises
asking of me?
How am I being asked to rise to the occasion at hand
and offer what I have to give
out of my stash of resources and knacks?
Enlightenment that cannot respond
appropriately to its circumstances,
is just another way of weaving and dodging
in the service of diversion and denial.

02/12/2020 — We set ourselves free from being white
by realizing how white we are
and how that shapes us unconsciously
and prevents us from being true
to the democratic values
of liberty,
justice,
equality,
truth
that we profess
and pretend to embody.

The Civil War continues to be fought
over the question
of how white we will be
and at whose expense.

Those who can wake up
and be aware,
and live with awareness,
must wake up,
be aware,
and live with awareness–
at the expense
of waking up,
being aware
and living with awareness.

Share this:

• Press This
• Twitter
• Facebook

Customize buttonshttps://widgets.wp.com/likes/index.html?ver=20200826#blog_id=91364836&post_id=2056&origin=jimwdollar.wordpress.com&obj_id=91364836-2056-5f7874f593c48&domain=jimwdollar.com

Related

One Minute Monologues 021In “One Minute Monologues”

One Minute Monologues 022In “One Minute Monologue 022”

One Minute Monologues 013In “One Minute Monologues”