001. We don’t know before hand where we are better off, thus the saying, “A path that can be discerned as a path is not a reliable path.” The path that is a path can only be known in hindsight. We cannot look ahead in our life and know the route that is right for us, but we can look behind and be amazed at how things have fallen into place and worked out well for us. This places the emphasis on the here, now. Feeling our way into the present moment and knowing what it feels like here, now, and what feels “Yes” and what feels “No” is the surest route to doing what needs to be done than trying to think our way forward with a dozen good reasons for doing what we do and avoiding what we do not.
I had two classmates as a junior in high school who were dating and had a baby, setting themselves up for a series of choices and decisions they would have preferred to not make, but. The Dad avoided a tour in Viet Nam because of his status as a father, and may have avoided something much worse than changing diapers and making ends meet with a baby to care for.
We take what comes and do our best with it and see where it goes, refusing to make any judgment calls at any point along the way. Just seeing what is called for here, now and doing what needs to be done about it all the way to the end of the line.
002. It occurs to me from time to time, like a flash of realization, that this experience of being alive here, now is a once in forever experience. After death there will be nothing like this, so we better be soaking this up, relishing 13 degree weather, loving everything and everyone because everything here, now is irreplaceable and more precious that we ever imagine. So, start imagining! Start seeing the wonders on all sides! The beauty of all of it! Celebrate with joy the wonder of life! BE HERE NOW! While we can!
003. I am in my 83rd year and am experiencing what I call “lapses.” I have to stop on my way to the kitchen, for example, and think “What am I doing here, now” and pause while I wait for things to click into place, knowing there will be a time when they do not click into place.
I consider the wonder of what I am doing here, now, typing these words, saving them to my WordPress Blog, wherever that is, organizing things relating to this Blog so that you are able to find what I am writing and read it–and I am overwhelmed by it all, and I cannot think how it is that it happens, and trust myself to know how to work the systems that make it happen, knowing there will come a time when I cannot trust myself to do this.
And tears come to my eyes because it saddens me to know what I know. And my hope is that when I don’t know these things any longer, I hope that I don’t know that I don’t know these things any longer. But I am afraid that I will know, and miss it terribly in the aloneness of knowing with no-one with whom to share the agony/anguish of the burden of knowing. Ultimate loneliness, I call it. which will be so much different from the experience of solitude which I so enjoy, and always have. And that deserves another tear or two. Maybe three.
004. Where do we go from here? What is called for, here, now? That is the only thing we need t be clear about. What is the occasion, the situation, asking of us? Waiting to see what needs to be done is always an appropriate response to uncertainty. If we don’t know what to do, we wait to see what we do and allow circumstances to unfold from there.
005. Awaiting clarity is always on the table. Dropping into the silence and waiting for something to arise, appear, emerge to call us into action and to direct our steps is an appropriate response to not knowing what to do. If there are no clear guidelines and/or if there are contradictory instructions/orders, we have to ask ourselves what we would do if it were up to us and see what we determine to be called for and do that until it becomes clear that something else is called for and then do that until the situation is resolved to our satisfaction. When we are the authority determining what is to be done here, now, we have to act out of our own sense of what is called for and take what comes.
006. Different choices, different outcomes. Sounds easy. The problem is that we want particular outcomes. Servants of the Outcomes is the role we want ours to be. As though we know what is best for us. We only know what we want for us, and think that is best. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” It is all about wanting. Wanting outcomes directs our choices. Only we have no idea what outcomes would be right for us and what outcomes would be wrong for us. We are flying blind, pretending we know what we are doing. We do not know what we are doing. That should be our daily mantra repeated throughout each day. “I do not know what I am doing.” That would remind us to “Seek the light.” The light being Flow, Drift, Inclination, Psyche, Tao, Intuition. Tuning within, listening to the Inner Guide. Listening to our gut. Because we do not know what we are doing.
007. Being one with that which is with us always in a knowing, confident way, is the best gift in the entire pantheon of gifts–and it is always right here, right now. What do we need here, now? We need to be aware of that which is with us always, here, now. Everything flows from there. It is the way of ducklings with their mother. The way of bees in their hive. The way of birds on a wire. Trusting themselves to here, now, and letting come what comes, confident that we will find a way to manage by dropping into the silence and breathing, open to what meets us there as comfort and guide, always present as a very present help in all times and places.
008. We are all one and find what we need in each other’s company to meet what needs to be met in each situation as it arises and to do what needs to be done with it, about it, here, now, throughout each day forever. It only takes remembering this to know that it is so.
009. Wanting takes priority/precedent over every other thing. Without wanting, there would be only doing what needs to be done in light of what is called for, in light of what is being asked of us, in each situation as it arises, no matter what, all our life long. Which is nature’s way. The natural world does what is called for here, now. Only human beings impose their will for the world upon the world. Everything else does what needs to be done, and lets that be good enough.
010. I sit looking out the window or reading, or working on images, waiting for something to call me to action in the field of action in doing what needs to be done here, now. Then I drop back into the silence and wait for the next thing that needs to be done then, there, and so on throughout the day. Waiting, doing, waiting… It has a rhythm about it, a harmony and a pace that is as comfortable as a warm blanket in a drafty room. My way of passing the time.
011. There is how things are, and there is how we want things to be–how we wish they were–and we have to work out the incongruities among these things. Things are not how we want them to be–how they ought to be by any sane, morally balanced, standard of right and wrong. What do we do about the discrepancy? How do we live with the contraries, the contradictions? How do we make our peace with how things are, and also are?
These are the questions of the ages. They have been around from the beginning. Life is lived under their weight and in light of their incontestable nature. They form the ground of our existence, the foundation of our world, our life. The injustices surround us, encompass us, mock us, haunt us, torture us forever without ceasing.
Live eats life. Make that right. Speaking of right, there is also “Right forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne” (James Russell Lowell). And yet, and yet… Good and evil are not so easily separated, no? Who is so gifted with the purity of sight so as to know precisely where to draw that line? Good is evil and evil is good depending on our perception and perspective, and opinions vary according to what we have at stake in the determination of the outcome. How should the colonizers divided up the land mass that was the continental United States, being completely fair to the Native Americans? Or, would the fair thing have been not been not colonize at all? And then what? How do we all live together in ways we all like, or can at least tolerate? How different can we be and still “get along”?
Life itself is a terrible thing. No life at all would be the right thing to do. Life is a mixture of right and wrong, good and bad, with no one being able to agree about the ratios and the actuality of their expressions. And so, the inevitable: “There are none who do right–no, not one!” And we have to live with that if we live at all.
012. How do we deal with the inequities? There is no reconciling the inequalities on every level of life. So, we are left with agreeing with this assessment and living on, anyway, and any way, nevertheless, even so. Shrugging and going on, as well as we can given the lot that is ours to bear, saying, “Peace, peace when there is no peace.” And so it is throughout the ages, with everyone making out as best they can.
013. We find our own way as best we can. I think it helps–I find it to be helpful–to be open to the stirrings within, to everything that stirs within. And to sit with that, simply observing, embracing, being aware of, and seeing where it goes. As the Tao Te Ching suggests, “Do your work and sit back, stand aside, and see where it goes.” Let it be and see what happens, what is called for, what needs to be done even yet, even so, even here, now. And after that is done, and after that… On and on through out the time left for living.
014. There is no end to it. Our death is not an ending, but a transition, after Einstein’s announcement, “Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed or converted.” We are all forms of energy on our way to being transformed or converted. How we experience that, or if we will experience it at all, is awaiting revelation. We do our work and stand aside.
015. Look around. Take it all in. Sit with it. This is all there is. This is how it is. What are we going to do about it? With it? What is our relationship with it going to be? What is our response to it going to be? My response is going to be doing what is called for here, now with the gifts, perspective, perception that are mine to offer each moment of each situation as it arises, as my experience alters and transforms my gifts, perspective, perception over time, and my response to my experience changes as I age. And, I notice that my judgment of my surroundings, my relatives, my life becomes harsher and not softer over time. I have less in the way of patience and more in the way of expectations–with no foundations that I can make out, more like growing tired/weary of the choices I have and the possibilities that are mine to work with, along the lines of “Is this all there is?” In the way of, “After all this time why is this the best we can do with what we have to work with?” “Why are we no bigger than this?” “Why can’t we do better than this?” I am worn out with it and find no enthusiasm for the tasks at hand. I go through the motions with no expectation of a better, or even different, outcome. Yet, I remain interested in seeing what I can do with it, make of it, anyway, nevertheless, even so.
016. Giving instruction on meditation and how to do it properly, the Buddha simply said, “Peaceful abiding, here, now.” We can drop into meditation anywhere, any time, for any length of time, simply by being here, now and taking three slow breaths, allowing “the world” to fall away and experience the here, now as all we need it to be here, now, free from all intention and purpose, desire and anxiety, from everything that crowds in upon every here, now to take the present away from us and take us away from our life. We take the present back by dropping into the moment and being here, now for three slow breaths, a wink and a smile then back to attending the moment and doing what is called for when, where and how it is called for in each situation as it arises until we drop back into the moment to peacefully abide here, now, throughout the day for the rest of time.
017. God as a spiritual being is a popular fiction, but That Which Has Always Been Called “God” is a fundamental, foundational principle of reality. Other names for this aspect of “God” are Psyche, Intuition, The Flow of Life and Being, Tao, The Collective Unconscious, Our Gut, Our Active Imagination, Etc. Take all the theology away from “God” and what you have left is That Which Has Always Been Called “God.” All of the churches need to approach “God” from this standpoint. That would instantaneously be a great help for everyone in the entire world. Theology is THE PROBLEM! Dump theology and everything is better just like that (Snaps fingers)! No?
018. I threw theology away about 3 years into my ministry of 40.5 years. In the Sacrament of Communion I used the words, “The cup of suffering is the cup of salvation. The bread of affliction is the bread of life.” We don’t need the business about resurrection and atonement in a sacrament about suffering and affliction. We can keep the church in place just by changing the focus. Jesus was a reformer, not a savior. No one needs to be saved. Everyone needs to wake up. Jesus was a reformer, not a heretic. And we need a new Reformation, one that gets it right. And we will need a lot of new hymns because every hymn book is a Book of Doctrine put to music.
Doctrine is out, personal experience is in. What do we know of God that we did not get from some other source, including the Bible? We begin our exploration with that question (“And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time” (T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”).
019. How we live makes all the difference in the way life is lived around us, in the way the wold works, in how things are for ourselves and the rest of us. It matters who we show ourselves to be, who we are and how we go about being who we are in relation to one another and all others. It is essential that we believe this and live as though it is so. Because it won’t be so if we do not live as though it is. No?
020. It comes down to how we respond to how things are here, now. We respond to here, now and here, now responds to us. It is a dance all the way to the grave. How we dance influences how here, now shifts and changes, becomes and is. Our guiding light must be maintaining troth with ourselves, remaining true to ourselves and our insight into how things ought to be. How we live expresses who we are throughout our life. We live to serve, express, exhibit what matters most to us here, now, all our life long. And so, the importance of clarity and reflection, realization and comprehension, seeing, hearing, understanding, knowing, doing, being in light of what is called for in each situation as it arises–in a “Here we are, now what?” kind of way.
021. Our relationship with what we want/desire is the determining factor in how we live our life. Are we living to get, arrange, have what we want? Or, are we living to serve, honor, align ourselves with, what is called for here, now regardless of what we want? This is the essential question deciding the quality and direction of our life all along the way. Whose side are we on? The one who wants? Or the one who serves what is needed and called for no matter what we want? Or, to put it another way, will we live in light of, and as a servant of, what we ought to want or of what we want whether we ought to want it or not? How do we live in relation to what is called for in each situation as it arises?
022. Living to do what is called for no matter what is preferable to living to make happen what we want to happen no matter what. In light of what do we live? This is the essential life question. The next question in line is, Whom can we trust? If only we could know that from the start! But, no. We makes our choices and takes our chances, and makes our best of what follows. Making our best of what follows is what all our lives come down to. And that comes down to “the luck of the draw.”
023. What governs our actions? What determines what we do and what we leave undone? How do we know what to do? What is our guide? Where do we turn for guidance? How do we decide? I drop into the silence (emptiness, stillness), and wait for clarity, being aware of everything that emerges, arises, unfolds, stirs, etc. while I wait. Being aware of all that influences me to do one thing or another while I wait. Just waiting, watching, reflecting, awaiting realization. And, if someone asks, “What are you going to do?” while I’m waiting, I tell them, “I am awaiting realization.” And, after a certain point in the waiting process, I recall, “When you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t, be damned and be done with it,” and choose the choice that I choose to choose, taking my chances and hoping to be lucky, and going with that all the way. We take what comes and do the best we can with it. And let that be that.
024. There is no hurry, except of course when there is, as in when the house is on fire and we have to leave the premises. Waiting as long as the situation allows to determine the best course of action here, now, enables us to sit, waiting, watching, until time to act, and then we do what we feel is called for and take our chances, hoping to be lucky and going with that as though we know what we are doing, trusting ourselves to “that which knows within” to be present and directing the action, and doing what is called for in each situation that follows all the way.
025. Being lucky is a highly desirable quality and seems to me to flow from being in sync with the here, now–with the rhythm and flow of the time and place of our living. Which is about reading the signals coming from the situation at hand and adjusting ourselves accordingly to meet the demands of the moment and assist with what is called for when, where, and how it is called for, moment to moment, all along the way. When we put ourselves in accord with the moment, aligned with the rhythm and flow of the situation, at one with the here, now, magic happens, though it may not happen in the way we would like for it to, it happens, nonetheless, and positions us to benefit in ways we might not initially take to be beneficial, but we trust ourselves to the outcome anyway and are likely to live to see ourselves blessed over the long run.
026. In every situation there is what we want to happen and there is what needs to happen, what is called for, here, now. In assessing each situation we read it for what we want and what is called for, and wait to see what we actually do in response to the moment that is upon us here, now. I am often completely surprised at what I find myself doing and/or saying. I generally act unconsciously rather than rationally, and cannot predict my behavior, which is part of the intrigue of daily life for me.
027. I would like for things to be what they appear to be, what they are said to be. As advertised. That isn’t asking too much. Yet, it isn’t how things are. We don’t know what we are getting when we get out of bed and leave the house each morning. And those of us who catch on to how things are reduce the scope of our life and limit the number of people we are tight with, lock our doors and install security systems because the world is just that way. No? Neither the Buddha nor Jesus were “hale fellows well met.” And both likely knew they weren’t meeting who they were meeting in all of their relationships. Always the mask, it seems, never the reality. Appearance, not truth. Who is on the other side of the handshake? And who is on this side? We would be right to wonder, no?
028. Diversions, distractions, denial constitute a way of life for some of us, substituting for an authentic what’s called for here, now and how can I help out with that using our own personal gifts that include our original nature, our innate virtues (The things we do best and enjoy doing most), our inherent intuition and our intrinsic imagination, etc.
Taking the time to drop into the silence-emptiness-stillness and wait there for “the mud to settle and the water to clear,” in order that we might know what’s what and what’s happening, and what needs to be done about it no matter what in each situation as it arises throughout each day. This practice tunes us into the time and place of our living and puts us in touch with the rhythm and flow of the here, now each day and how we might be of help there in doing the right thing at the right time right time in the right place and in the right way.
Doing this deepens, enlarges, expands, broadens our awareness and our skills in meeting the day as the day needs to be met and helps us avoid dwelling on our wants and desires and the drift of our moods and emotions and state of mind, in order to be present here, now, ready to do what is called for, alert and able to help the day along its way as best we can, day by day.
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Jim Dollar's Published Works 