Buddhism is big on avoiding suffering.
The Four Noble Truths are the Buddha's recipe
for doing so.
Buddhism lends itself to escape from suffering
by denial of suffering.

Chanting,
memorizing the Dharma,
adhering to the directions of teachers,
sitting in meditation,
concentrating on breathing,
ignoring the thoughts coming to mind,
thinking only of the Buddha
and the practice of Buddhism,
keep one from dwelling on one's suffering--
but suffering is as close
as wanting,
desiring,
fearing,
duty and obligation.

The emphasis on avoiding suffering
is a reflection of the Buddha's neurosis 
developing from his shock 
over encountering the reality
of sickness, suffering, dying and death,
and spending his life making peace
with this simple fact of existence:
Wanting and not getting-having result in suffering.

The appalling impact of unmet desire
has two alternative options:
Growing up
and Denial.

The Buddha opted for the latter
and created a religion based on escape and denial.

Growing up has much to commend it
as an alternative to suffering.

Carl Jung said, “It is the individual’s task to differentiate themselves from all the others and stand on their own feet.”

And: “The development of personality means fidelity to the law of one’s own being.” 

“Fidelity to the law of one’s own being” is being true to our Original Nature, our innate virtues (The things we do best and enjoy doing most), our inherent imagination, and our intrinsic intuition, and living the truth of those things out within the context and circumstances of our life throughout our life.

Although Buddhism would never embrace it, our Original Nature virtues, imagination, intuition are individual across all of humanity. We do not share the these traits with anyone. We are indistinguishable from one another. We are a multiplicity!

Our Original Nature, etc. are Original with us! These qualities are uniquely our own, just as our fingerprints and the cones of our irises are unique to us. We are not all One in the sense of an undifferentiated mass. We are One in the sense of sharing in the plurality of humanity. We all have similar characteristics but not the same characteristics. "We are all one--but not the same one!"

Carl Jung calls us to embrace our own person-hood with these statements:

 “At bottom, there is only one striving, namely the striving after your own being.”

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”

"To find out what is truly individual in ourselves, profound reflection is needed."

“Our visions will become clear only when you can look into our own heart."

“Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own.” 

“Trust that which gives you meaning and accept it as your guide.”

“We only gain merit and psychological development by accepting ourselves as we are, and by being serious enough to live the life we are entrusted with.” 

"Turning the light around" for Jung means "looking into oneself. Discovering yourself provides you with all you are, were meant to be, and all you are living from and for.” 

Jung said, “Wholeness is not achieved by cutting off a portion of one’s being, but by integration of the contraries.”

“In the final analysis, we count for something only because of the essential that we embody. If we do not embody that, life is wasted.” 

The essential that we embody” is our Original Nature, etc. They constitute the “Face that was ours before we/our parents/our grandparents were born.” 

And we all grow up against our will. Growing up requires us to part ways with our desires, fears, even our sense of duty to our parents, say, or the systems governing life and being, and to Buddhism. Growing up is saying "No!" to ourselves in doing what is called for in each situation as it arises, regardless of its implications for us personally.


Jung saw The psyche, the unconscious, as standing in opposition to our agendas, desires, self-interests, will, aims, ambitions, etc. And is forever calling us back to our Original Nature, etc., to serve the cause of the self-realization of our own self via self-expression, self-exhibition, of the truth of our own being—who we always been and who we will always be—in the moment-to-moment reality of the circumstances comprising each situation as  it arises, all our life long.

It is only by bearing the pain of our own polarities, which cannot be reconciled/integrated, but must remain in eternal suspension, with each individual standing in full awareness of the two opposites that are mutually exclusive and both true expressions of how things are: This is how things are and that is also how things are--and THAT is how things are! And that is the grounding foundation of the suffering of existence! Wracked between incompatible truths of our own being, requiring realization and acknowledgment of irreconcilable opposites at the heart of existence--for example, I want to be the best father in all the world, and I do not want to be a father at all.

We must not seek to escape the pain of suffering, but rather to bear the unbearable by embracing the burden of legitimate suffering, so that we say along with Odysseus, "I will bear with it and endure, and when the heaving sea destroys my raft, then I will swim!"

Jung said, “Psychological or spiritual development always requires a greater capacity for anxiety and ambiguity.” This is the ability to bear the pain of our existence in each situation as it arises for as long as life lasts.  

We have to bear the pain, or experience the pain of our refusal to bear the pain, brought forth in the form of symptoms as the natural result of our refusing to live consciously within the tension of our immutable contradictions.

“Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering," said Jung. And, "There is no coming to consciousness without pain." And, “The development of consciousness is the burden, the suffering, and the blessing of humankind.”

Suffering is our calling. We will not grow into our potential as human beings without answering that calling and living fully aware of our responsibility to bring ourselves forth in meeting our life full-on and doing what is called for in each situation as it arises to the best of our ability, time after time.  

On the one hand, this. 
On the other hand, that.
Sometimes we do it this way,
and sometimes we do it that way.
And that is how we do it.

The Buddhists say there is no duality.
There is duality
and there is denial of duality.
Which is duality.

The Taoists say it is Yin/Yang all the way.

Jesus said doing unto others
as we would have them do unto us
is the second greatest commandment.

Then he tells the story 
about the unjust landowner
who pays his workers the same wage
for different amounts of work,
saying, "Shall he not do what he wants
with what is his?"

Immediately raising objection:
JESUS!!! What happened to
"Do unto others as you would 
have them do unto you"???

To "Love your neighbor
as you love yourself"???

Remembering you said in answer
to the question, "Who is my neighbor,"
"YOU are the neighbor!
GO BE ONE!!!"

"What do you mean, Jesus?
What is going on?"

In reply, Jesus merely tells the story
of the wise and foolish bridesmaids,
with "You go get your own oil!"
as the way the wise treat the foolish.

WHAT? "Love your neighbor," unless you 
are a wealthy land owner?

"Love your neighbor" unless you are 
awaiting the arrival of the Groom Lord?

And let's not forget 
Jesus cursing the fig tree
for not having fruit out of season!!!
When "YOU BE THE NEIGHBOR--GO BE ONE!"
is the burden carried by us all,
even you, Jesus!

What gives here, Jesus?
You sound as one who does not know
whether he is coming or going!

And, I posit that this is the case!
Jesus does not know whether
he is coming or going,
and he recommends this way of being
to all who would walk with him
along the way, saying,
"Do not let your left hand
know what your right hand is doing."
(And how can we do that but by
not knowing ourselves what we are doing?)

And he adds emphasis to this not-knowing
recommendation by saying,
"The Spirit is like the wind
that blows where it will,"
meaning that the Spirit does not know
what she is doing 
any more than the wind knows what it is doing--
and neither know what they will be doing next!

Sometimes we do it this way,
and sometimes we do it that way.

It all depends upon what is called for
by the situation at hand.

Sometimes we love our neighbor
as we love ourselves,
and sometimes we do not.

Sometimes WE are the neighbor,
and sometimes we are not.

And that's the way it is.

And when do we do what,
and how do we know when to do what
where and when?

What guides our boat 
on its path through the sea?

Each of us can count on three guides
throughout our life

There is our original nature.
Our innate virtues--
and our virtues are the things we do best
and enjoy/love doing most.
And our intrinsic intuition.

When we live in intimate harmony
with these three aspects of ourselves
we are at one with who we are
and are able to love from this core
in dealing with what comes our way
and doing what is called for
in each situation as it arises.

This is the pivotal point
in "knowing what to do when, where and how."

In living out of who we are
in relationship with what is called for here, now,
we find ourselves doing spontaneously 
what the circumstances are asking for from us
as a "direct arising" in the moment that action is required--
without knowing why or how we know what to do.

Sometimes we do it like this
and sometimes we do it like that
and we don't know why, or where, or when.

I lifted this from carnaval.com :

"The earth's axis wobble that causes the precession of the equinoxes is given as 25,920 years. Divided by the ancient number called "soss," 60, which was used in calculations, results in 432. This number according to Joseph Campbell is a mythical archetype capable of appearing in anyone's dreams.

A well-conditioned human has a heart which beats once per second, 60/minute, 3600 beats per hour and 86,400 beats per day. The diameter of the sun is 864,000 miles (2 x 432). The diameter of the moon is 2160 miles (432 / 2).

Since the rate of the precession could be approximated at fifty seconds of arc per year, to precess a full minute of arc takes slightly more than a year; and to precess one full degree of sixty minutes takes seventy-two years. A full cycle of 360 degrees thus requires 360 X 72, or 25,920 years. But the natural revolution of the Earth around both the sun and its own axis describes a complex pattern of perturbations. It has long been known that one of the periods of oscillation is approximately every 432 days, while another--related to variations in atmospheric pressure--lasts about a year. Yet, only recently atmospheric scientists determined that the great cycles also manifest as harmonic oscillations at higher frequencies, with fluctuations from several months to a cycle of only two weeks.

The earliest widely acknowledged appearance of the number referencing the precession of the equinoxes is by  Bel-usur aka, Berosus, Berossus, Berossos, Berossos, the much quoted Assyrian priest of Bel in Babylon from 3rd century BC. In his second book, a Greek a synopsis of Babylonian myth and history, he describes a period of 432,000 years history, up to the Flood. The ancient Sumerians also had a festival calendar which was reckoned by five-day periods or weeks. There are 72 such periods in 360 days. The extra five days in a year were considered special, not part of the regular 72-week cycle. In 72 years, the length of time for the earth to precess one degree, occur 72 X 360 = 25,920 festival weeks, the same as the number of years in the precession of the equinoxes. Also interesting, are the "lost" days. Five each for 72 years is the magic number of 360, and another full festival year. Both the Egyptians and the Mayans had yearly calendars of 360 days with 5 festival days which can reasonalbly be considered the first Carnavals

Mythologist Joseph Campbell noted that the current estimate of 4.5 billion terrestrial years (TY) for the lifetime of the Earth is very close to the pure unit 4320 found in Hindu mythology and other cosmological systems. 4320 occurs in several variations. By one reckoning, 4,320,000 years is one "Day of Brahma," that is, one vast cosmic cycle. Ancient calculations extrapolate 4320 into tens and hundreds of billions of years. 4320 is also the breakdown of the four Yugas or cosmic ages in sacred Hindu (Brahmanical) chronology."

Mathematics provides us with the number 432 and its derivatives which form the foundation of the universe as we know it, and are one pole of the grounding dichotomy of existence--the duality/contradiction at the heart of life and experience--of Yin and Yang.

The opposite pole is poetry. Art. Creativity. Imagination. The awareness of the "rightness of beauty and being."

Between the poles of mathematics and poetry (Etc.) life is lived, consciously and unconsciously--another polarity within the polarity of the cosmos (And there be many).

It is the place/work of poetry/art/etc. to harmonize, to balance, Yin and Yang, the polarities of existence.

It is the place/work of consciousness to make conscious the unconscious by exploring consciously the realm of mathematics and poetry (etc.).

The work of the early (Classical) Taoists in recognizing the Tao as the source of the source, and Yin/Yang as the polarity grounding the Cosmos, and human beings as the means of bringing harmony and balance to the whole is brought forth in the Tao te Ching (AKA "The Lao Tzu")in this way:

The Tao gives birth to the One,
the One gives birth to the Two,
the Two gives birth to the Three,
the Three gives birth to every living thing.
All things are held in yin and carry yang,
and they are held together in the Ch'i
of teeming energy. (Chapter 42)

The Tao begets the One, the origin,
the Origin produces the two, yin and yang,
yin and yang bring forth the Three,
heaven, earth and human beings,
which create all things.

Human beings carry the responsibility of living in accord with the Tao, which can be understood as "the right way to do things," in doing the right thing, in the right way, at the right time. When we live like this, we are aligned with the right order of things, and all is well, with balance and harmony resounding throughout the universe, in the service of the true good of all things.

When we fail to live aligned with the right order of things, we wander, looking for the point, for the purpose, for the way in the wasteland of lost causes and forgotten dreams. And Joseph Campbell reminds us, "That which you seek lies far back in the darkest corner of the cave  you most do not want to enter."

All it takes is growing up against our will (Which is the only way to grow up), and doing what we don't want to do in the service of what we all are seeking.

1. There is a time and place for everything. It’s all a part of the path. So don’t rule out Gay Paree. Jesus was called a glutton and a winebibber. Don’t be afraid to eat and drink. No one is taking names. Who are you trying to please? Whose side are you on? It is your life to live all the way. Who do you think knows better than you how to do it, or what needs to be done? Live to know what you know, and trust yourself to know what you need to know to find what you need to do what needs to be done!
   
   
2. The requisite attitude is one of attentiveness, awareness, openness—to the possibilities, to the circumstances, to the situation as it arises, to what is happening, and needs to happen, and can happen. From right seeing comes right doing and right being. And, of course, from right being and right doing comes right seeing. It’s a circle, you know. It’s all one, with one thing leading to and flowing from another. World without end. Yin/Yang forever. Amen.
   
   
3. Right being comes from the center, and is not a steady-state (death is the only steady-state, and that is questionable), but a momentary alignment with the heart of being, from which right action (and right seeing is an aspect of right action—it’s a circle, you know) springs, flows.
   
   
4. Right being, right doing, are not steady-states. Life is not a steady-state of being, but a fluid, moving, interchange between the dynamic core, center, heart of being, and the moment-to-moment experience of life, which is the experience of the requirements and possibilities of existence in this moment right now.
   
   
5. How much life is exhibited in our living? How alive can we be in the time left for living? How in sync with the dynamic heart of being can we be within the context and circumstances of our life? The answer changes as each situation presents us with different options and possibilities. We can be more alive in some moments than others. Being alive is not a steady-state of being.
   
   
6. How do we know what to do, what needs to be done, when to do it and how? How do we make sense of our life? Of life? How do we know what is truly valuable? In light of what—toward what—away from what—do we live? How do we evaluate the validity of what we hold to be valid? We answer these questions, again and again, over the course of our life, over the course of the life of the species, in conversation with one another, out of our experience with life. The answers change with the time and place of our living.
   
   
7. We have to recognize and honor the stages of development at work in each age of our life. We have to live in ways appropriate to the time and place of our living. Young adulthood is different from middle adulthood, is different from old adulthood. We have no business living at 60 as we did at 20 or 45. We have to do what needs to be done in each stage of life, and move on to the next stage, letting go what’s going and letting come what’s coming. This is the natural order of things.
   
   
8. It is not enough to do “what happens naturally.” It was “natural” to own slaves and treat women and homosexuals as inferior. What is “natural” is not always so good. What the fox does to the rabbit is natural, but not good for the rabbit. What is good on one level, from one perspective, is not good on another level, from a different perspective. Whose good is served by the good we call good? Whose bad?
   
   
9. Good is not a steady-state of being. Being is dynamic. Vibrant. Alive. There is no steady-state of being.
   
   
10. We can hope to be guided by a sense of the ought-to-be-ness of things which leads us in responding to the circumstances of our life, if we approach our circumstances with eyes that see, ears that hear, and hearts that understand.
    
    
11. It is the arrogance of those who think they know in the service of their ideas of how things ought to be that obscures the good, and violates the sacred nature of what truly ought to be.
    
    
12. Those Who Know Best And Must Be Pleased screw it up for everyone. Those who have all the answers are asking the wrong questions.
    
    
13. Whom can we trust to know and do what truly ought to be done? We bring it forth out of the communal search for the good in conversation, reflection, realization, and experimentation over time.
    
    
14. There is no harmonious accord in the natural world. Planets collide. Stars explode. Volcanoes erupt. Earthquake, fire, flood, famine, you know. Dinosaurs become extinct. People wage war… Uncontrolled chaos is more apt a description for what passes for “the way things are” than “harmonious accord.” It’s a mess out there. We bring what peace there is to life through the quality of our engagement with life—by the way we live, and the way we live with one another.
    
    
15. The sage lives the contradictions, and does not try to reduce things to a harmonious whole. There is no static, steady-state, of being.
    
    
16. We give up this to get that. One thing rules out another. Trade-offs and compromises characterize the work of life. The way things are live in tension with the way things also are. We live on the boundary between Yin and Yang. Sometimes this, sometimes that.
    
    
17. Negotiation and compromise, kid. Negotiation and compromise.
    
    
18. Some things must be forced, like a nail into wood. Some things cannot be forced, like the ripening of a peach. It is important to know what we are dealing with.
    
    
19. The oneness, the wholeness, is not harmonious but contradictory, oppositional, dynamic, discordant and interdependent. Yin/Yang at the core.
    
    
20. You cannot “follow your bliss” without caring about your bliss—without being attached to your bliss. Detachment is not a steady-state. Attachment to the right things, detachment at the right time.
    
    
21. Pace and timing, Kid, pace and timing. And luck. Don’t forget to be lucky. And remember that luck is dependent upon the way we see what is happening. Good luck is always aligned with our wants, wishes and desires. Bad luck is always contrary to what we would like to have. Change your mind about what is important, and you luck will always be good. And when something does not go your way, think of it as the luckiest day of your life—and live as though it is, and it definitely will be. That is how to always be the luckiest person alive.
    
    
22. How often do you do what makes your little heart sing and your little toes dance? How long has it been?
    
    
23. What excites you? What stirs you? Calls your name? How often do you do those things?
    
    
24. Look closer at whatever catches your eye.
    
    
25. Notice every time you dismiss or discount something that calls your name.
    
    
26. The way is the way of being in relationship with the way things are, not the way of achieving things or having what we want.
    
    
27. Joseph Campbell said that primal societies always understood that the invisible world is the foundation of the visible world. Grounded in the visible world, we have no support, and are left to our own devices. Grounded in the invisible world, we are at one with our life, and able to offer what we have, in doing what is called for in every situation as it arises.
    
    
28. There is no static way of being, no steady-state. Everything is on the way to something else, somewhere, else. We cannot make things what we want them to be for long.
    
    
29. All paths walked with awareness lead to the center, where all are one (“But not the same one”).
    
    
30. There is nothing to do but wake up, nothing to be but awake, nothing to have but awareness.
    
    
31. In any situation, what we need for living appropriately in the situation and offering what is called for by the situation is available to us. Help is available if we open ourselves to it, and avail ourselves of it. It may not be what we want, or have in mind, but it will do quite nicely.
    
    
32. Our task is to know what is important and to do it. That is the Great Work. Everything else will fall into place around it. Or, as Jesus said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and its righteousness, and all that you need will be yours as well” (or, words to that effect).
    
    
33. Speaking of God, we are responsible for knowing the Sacred, the Numinous, the Ineffable through the way we engage the experience of being alive. Art, music, nature, beauty, creativity, curiosity, and exploration have always been avenues to wonder, amazement, awe, and encounters with More Than Words Can Say. We are seeking the experience of the moved with the mover, the seeker with the sought, the dancer with the dance.
    
    
34. When your emotions are aroused, positively or negatively, delay your response. Take a long walk. Think things through—wait to be settled, centered, clear.  The old Taoist practice of “waiting for the mud to settle and the water to clear,” is always an appropriate response to attraction and repulsion.
    
    
35. Do not allow the world to create your response to the world. Live in the world out of your attachment to, and awareness of, the core of what matters most. Respond to the world out of that attachment.
    
    
36. Of all the possibilities for response to the situation, which is on the beam for you? What does it mean for you to live on the beam in this situation? The beam runs through all situations, though we may be distracted and lose the way in any situation.
    
37. “The Beam” is also known as “The Tao.” “The Flow.” “The Path.” “The Way.” Our place is to align ourselves with the referent of all these terms, and live aligned with it, in sync with it, through each situation as it arises. This starts with being aware of the referent, of the experience of the referent, so that we know when we are on “The Beam” and when we are off it, and learn through trial and error what to do to get back on it and maintain our relationship with it in an “On again, off again” way all our life long.
    
    
38. Doing what we think is important with awareness is the only way to get to what is important. Knowing what is working, and what isn’t working leads us to the center. If we want to find the path, we only have to be sensitive to the difference between what works and what doesn’t work.
    
    
39. “It works.” “It isn’t working.” That’s all we need to know. We find what works by knowing what doesn’t work. We find the way by knowing what is not the way.
    
    
40. If we don’t know whether something will work, we only have to give it a spin. Everything becomes clear with time, even to those seeped in denial. Start walking with awareness and the path will open before you—and if the path you think is the path turns out to not be the path, sit with emptiness, stillness and silence until something arises that beckons you, and start walking. If that turns out to not be the path, sit with emptiness, stillness and silence until something beckons you and start walking… And so on, for the rest of the time left for living.
    
    
41. We can wake ourselves up by taking up the practice of emptiness, stillness, silence, awareness, seeing, hearing, knowing, doing what needs to be done when, where and how it needs to be done, no matter what, in each situation as it arises, for the joy of doing it and the satisfaction of having done it–or, if we live long enough, our life will wake us us up if we don’t opt for dying in denial. It’s always easier to be dead than alive. And the light comes on of its own accord, even if we take up the practice of emptiness, etc. We live waiting for the time to be right for waking up. Waiting to see, hear and understand. And, in the meantime, doing what needs to be done, anyway, nevertheless, even so.
    
    
42. There are two worlds, the visible world and the invisible world. Within this world, there is that world. Within that world, there is this one. We live in this one on the basis of that one. We pull that one into this one. We find what we need to live in this one on the strength of our association with that one. This is called Walking Two Paths At The Same Time.
    
    
43. All of the epic hero stories are about us, our gift, and our life. We struggle to bring forth our gift (our art, our genius, our daemon, our shtick ), within the context and circumstances of our life the way Ulysses struggled with the Cyclops. The context and circumstances of our life are the Cyclops standing before us in each situation as it arises. Trials and ordeals, Kid. Trials and ordeals.
    
    
44. Five synonymous terms for “Gift” are “Art,” “Genius,” “Work,” “Life,” and “Destiny.” Our Gift is our  Art is our Genius is our Work is our Life is our Destiny. The world around us has no conception of Art, Gift, Genius, Work, Life, Destiny. In the world, Wealth, Prosperity, Profit, and Money are the things it understands. We are not here to convert the world, to wake the world up. We are here to be awake ourselve4s, to be alive, and to do our work. If the world wakes up, fine. If not, fine.  
    
    
45. Live as much of the Life that is yours to live as can be lived—share as much of the Art, the Gift and the Genius that are yours to share as can be shared—within the context and circumstances of life as it is, and let that be that.
    
    
46. It comes down to this: Wake up! Grow up! Square yourself up to the difference between the way life is and the way you wish it were! Get up and do what needs to be done! The way it needs to be done! Because it needs to be done! In every moment, each situation as it arises, whether you want to or not, whether you feel like it or not, whether you in the mood for it or not. And let that be that.
    
    

1. We achieve balance by being connected with all things, and caring about all things equally—with no agenda, will or opinion, but with direction-that-can-be-changed and preference-that-can-be-laid-aside. Thus balanced, we are able to go in any direction, and do anything, in order to assist what needs to be done.
   
   
2. We can make too much of balance, and erect it to the position of unquestioned status quo. In so doing, we lose the balancing influence of subversive vitality. Creation and birth are chaotic upheavals, and disruptions of balance and order, which maintain balance and order.
   
   
3. Symmetry, harmony, balance, order and stability are ways of talking about opposition, dichotomy, contraries, conflict and contradiction. The difference lies in perspective. Things are what we perceive them to be—what we say they are.
   
   
4. Joseph Campbell said, paraphrasing the Bhagavad Gita, “Get in there and do your thing, and don’t worry about the outcome!” That is as succinct a summation of the task before us as you will ever find.
                 What is our thing? What is our original nature? Our innate virtues? Who are we apart from who we think we ought to be? What is ours to do? What is our life to live? How do we know? How can we be sure? Emptiness! Stillness! Silence! Are the way to Clarity.
   
   
5. There is no highest good. Sometimes, we are the water. Sometimes, we are the rock. There is a place for the softness of water and the hardness of rock. We are to be what is called for in the situation as it arises.
   
   
6. There is no highest good. It is a circle. A mess. Everything impacts and influences everything else. Different goods come to the fore in different circumstances. If you say, “Oh, love, love–compassion, compassion is the highest good!” Consider that Jesus raised the dead and left the dead to bury the dead. That he left the “foolish maidens” to go to town for more lamp oil and miss the bridegroom when he appeared. That he allowed the landowner to treat his workers unjustly because he was the landowner and could do as he pleased. Compassion and love doesn’t mean what we think they mean. God doesn’t pick sides or play favorites. Then, what good is God, right? Open that door and see where the path leads.
   
   
7. It all comes down to being alive in the time and place of our living. Alive is all there is to be.
   
   
8. Chaos is order from a different perspective. Order is chaos. All is one. Everything moves in oneness, and there is winning and losing, joy and sorrow, resentment and resistance, disillusionment and despair, hope and resiliency. Opposites. Contradiction. Extremes. Symmetry. Harmony. Balance. Dichotomy. One.
   
   
9. Oneness is duality, polarity. Yin, yang. Oneness is Twoness.
   
   
10. Those who are impartial cannot be partial to being impartial, and must be able to be partial as the occasion requires. We have our preferences, our chosen way of being in the world. Only the dead don’t care. And the dead can also care too much for their idea of what is important, and refuse to consider other options, even though they may need consideration. Preferences, not agendas, is the key. And being light on our feet and sitting loose in the saddle.
    
    
11. Desire-less-ness is not the highest good. If we don’t care what happens, one thing is as good as another. If one thing is as good as another, the illusion is as good as enlightenment. Which, of course, it is. But everyone has to draw their own lines.
    
    
12. Impartiality is not the highest value. Life requires investment, caring, living in the service of that which matters.
    
    
13. Live the contradictions! Eschew certitude! Embrace conundrum! Relish paradox! Honor ambiguity! Keep everything in solution! It is the way of life!
    
    
14. Order or upheaval, it all depends on your point of view. Harmony is only harmonious from a particular perspective. How foxes and rabbits relate is a beautiful way of maintaining the harmony of balance within the food chain. Rabbits can be excused for failing to see the beauty of it.
    
    
15. People are easily bored, and create their own excitement by fighting to the death over things that don’t matter.
    
    
16. See into the heart of things, and live like you want to!
    
    
17. Carl Jung said, “There is no ‘how’ of life, one just does it… Follow your nose! That is your way!” And the KISS slogan of Alcoholics Anonymous applies: “Keep It Simple, Stupid.”
    
    
18. We are not after a steady-state of tranquility and contentment with the way things are. We are after dynamic, vital, engagement with the way things are—not passive acceptance and bland acquiescence! Passionate engagement! Active resistance! Viva Revolution!
    
    
19. There are those who resist resistance. “What we resist, persists,” they say. That is a dictum that applies to unconscious symptoms. We have to assist, accept, and embrace what comes from the unconscious, get to the bottom of it, reconcile ourselves to it, and consciously integrate it into our life. On another level, the status quo needs to be resisted, and the tendency to shoot ourselves in the foot—even as we work to understand what is behind our tendency to shoot ourselves in the foot!
    
    
20. Nobody is where they are. Everybody is on the way to somewhere else. Where would you like to be right now?
    
    
21. What is there to be upset about? How things are is how they have always been. Something is always coming. Something is always going. Nothing lasts. We assist this and resist that without knowing what is best, or how it is going to work out. We live toward our best guess of what needs to happen, and let that be that.
    
    
22. The more we try to make something like we want it to be, the less there is to like about the way things are.
    
    
23. Nothing is the origin of all that is—but it is a special kind of nothing, filled with possibilities.
    
    
24. There is no lasting advantage. We live toward the best we can imagine, doing what needs to be done in each situation as it arises, and let that be that.
    
    
25. We would always be better—or worse—off somewhere else, in some other situation. But, here we are, now, and something needs to happen. What will we assist? What will we resist? What will we do, here, now?
    
    
26. We do not know where the line lies until we cross it. No one can be so wise, so careful, as to know when the line is coming up before it is crossed. Wisdom is living with our eyes open, and stopping when we go too far.
    
    
27. Settle into your life. Assist its unfolding, and allow it to carry you where you need to be. Trust yourself to the next step, with everything hanging in the balance, and always on the line.
    
    
28. There is only life, living, and being alive. There is only seeing, and hearing, and understanding. When we see, and hear, and understand, we see, and hear, and understand what needs to be done in the moment of our living. When we do what needs to be done, the way it ought to be done, when it ought to be done in each moment of our life, that’s it. You’re done, take a nap. If that would be appropriate for the occasion.
    
    
29. Right seeing, right hearing, right understanding, right knowing, right doing, right being arise in the moment of our living, when we are open to the possibilities contained in each situation. Sometimes, right action is no action at all. Sometimes, nothing can be done but to wait for another situation to develop in which something can be done.
    
    
30. Doing is the source of being. When we do what needs to be done in each situation as it arises, we become who we are born to be, who we are called to become.
    
    
31. Grace and disgrace, fortune and misfortune are the functions of perspective, of selecting aspects of our experience, emphasizing this, and dismissing that, and failing to take that over there into account. What we see is the result of how we look. So, look for “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, whatever is excellent and worthy of praise” (Philippians 4:8). Look for what is joyful, and open yourself to the wonder of the experience of being alive.
    
    
32. There is no right way of seeing. Everything is unimportant, without value, from some perspective. The idea that only the constant and eternal matter is just an idea. Sex is great, though it does not last. So is ice cream.
    
    
33. When we stop looking at things as steps on the way to something else, and can be content with simply being where we are, doing what needs to be done just because it needs to be done—watering the flowers, for instance, or feeding the birds—the world is not threatened by us, nor we by the world.
    
    
34. Power, wealth, privilege and honor are not the highest values. There is no advantage to having all of the advantages.
    
    
35. We seek enlightenment, thinking it is going to do something for us.
    
    
36. We make it all up. When it seemed that sacrificing bulls and virgins worked, we sacrificed bulls and virgins. We have to trust something even if it is nothing—the great emptiness from which everything arises. So, we make up what is trustworthy, and trust ourselves to it. Of course, it works for a while. When it stops working, we have to make up something else.
    
    
37. We perceive the mystery, the magic—and having done our part, can relax into its presence and trust ourselves to the wonder of its unfolding.
    
    
38. May it be said of us that we danced beautifully with what life brought us.
    
    
39. May it be said of us that we did what needed to be done in the moment of our living—that we offered what we had to give to each situation as it arose.
    
    
40. It takes a revolution, or the threat of one, to move things along.
    
    
41. Throw yourself into doing what needs to be done as well as you can make those things out, and take the next step as well as you can make it out, and so on, all the way. Don’t worry about the rest of it.
    
    
42. Those who are into seeing constantly call into question what is seen. Makes them a pain in the collective neck. Often, they are dismissed, discounted, or ignored. Sometimes, they are crucified, or burned at the stake.
    
    
43. Everything is equidistant from perfect union with the Divine, bliss, oneness, transcendence, absorption in the Absolute—whatever it is that we think we are after. If you leave here and go there, or there, or there, you are no closer to “it” (however you think of it). “It” is right here. Right now. Seeing it or not seeing it has nothing to do with its proximity or its availability to be seen. See?
    
    
44. One thing leads to another. If we stick with what we think is important, it will lead us to what is important. We can begin anywhere, any time, with anything because everything is equidistant from what is important, and everything will lead us there if we live with our eyes open. Our eyes aren’t open if we cannot change our mind about the meaning–about the importance–of what we see.
    
45. Where do we get those open eyes? Now they are open, now they are not. Are. Not…
    
    
46. Sometimes things work out like we want, and sometimes they don’t. There is no strategy for having our way, or for knowing what should happen, or how things should be. We live, as we are able, toward the best we can imagine within the givens of our circumstances, and let that be that.
    
    
47. There is no strategy for having it made.
    
    
48. We are always confusing what is with what seems to be. We are always talking about what seems to be as though it is.
    
    
49. Things are what they are, and what they also are. Everything comes with everything else attached. Nothing can be taken at face value. All is one. But, as they say, not the same one.
    
    
50. “You can’t keep them down on the farm—or on the path—once they’ve seen Gay Paree!” The farm/path has so little to commend it. It is so plain, so commonplace, so mind-numbing, tedious and dreary. It’s more of the same old same old. Today is like yesterday and tomorrow. We get up and do what needs to be done. Where’s the fun in that? Where’s the life in that? Show me a sage who ever had a good time! Show me a saint who knew how to live! The sage is the most boring, lifeless human being in the history of human beings! May as well be a rock, or dead! The saint does not have a life, and is afraid to be alive. Emptiness is the sage’s companion. Fullness of life and joy of living are the friends of fools. So. We have to be a different kind of sage. A saint of an unusual hue. Bring on Zorba the Greek, or Tevya from Fiddler on the Roof! Or Chauncey Gardner. They can teach us a thing or two about sage-hood and saintliness—about farms and paths!