Monthly Archives of: November 2022

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Consciousness… just a Sequence of Patterns?…

November 24, 2022
8 comments

— Happy Thanksgiving! —

To a great extent, the perceiver is not (psychologically) separate from the perceived. If we go through life merely as a sequence of patterns (i.e., from one set of fragmentary psychological patterns to another… which is time), then are we truly living as a bona fide whole?

It may be that to be timelessly alive, one often exists beyond the patterns and the mere robotic recognition of patterns.

A poem by Wallace Stevens:

The Indigo Glass in the Grass

Which is real…
This bottle of indigo glass in the grass,
Or this bench with the pot of geraniums, the stained
mattress and the washed overalls drying in
the sun?
Which of these truly contains the world?
Neither one, nor the two together.

Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2022
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Compassion is Great Intelligence

November 17, 2022
15 comments

One may ask, “Is compassion very significant in life?” Yes, compassion is immensely significant because it reflects and is a wonderful radiation of the whole. That whole has its own intrinsic, organic intelligence (of which compassion is a very big component). A fragmented, isolated consciousness, that merely perceives with self-idolizing boundaries and cold distance is, unfortunately, not of compassion. Such a debilitated mind is distorted and is not of the whole. Such a mind is isolated and apart. It may be intelligent in a very mechanical, crude, and limited way, but it is not intelligent in a living and wonderfully dynamic way. The isolated mind’s intelligence is — being limited — like that of a programmed, mechanical, robotic computer.

A mindful consciousness is of the whole. Such a dynamic, living mind sees beyond “learned distance” and learned isolating patterns. It is not like a left hand that is attacking the right hand; it sees that both hands — and all organisms — are of the same body. A mind of the whole has great intelligence (because it is of “right relationship”). Majestic love involves all (i.e., the whole) and it is not just yours or mine. A mindful consciousness is the whole.

A short poem by E.E. Cummings:

love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places

yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds

Skilfully Curled … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2022
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Thanking your food…

November 10, 2022
31 comments

When i eat a meal, i usually mentally thank the food; (i guess it is much like the way the very wise Native Americans used to do… and still do). All food — whether plant or animal — had to die for us to eat it.

And when i walked out of the grocery store today, i thanked the (past) poor creatures who had to die (and lose their land) such that the vast grocery store parking lot could be formed for our polluting cars… not to mention the endless lifeless, paved streets and the area that my home exists upon (though i do have a lot of aquarium fish and critters inside).

I bet that not many people ever thanked the creatures who used to live where that lifeless parking lot is. And now, writing this, it reminds me of that song, “They paved paradise, put up a parking lot (ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop)”

We so-called modern humans need to be a lot kinder and more compassionate to nature. That is easier said than done.

“Hey farmer, farmer put away that DDT now
Give me spots on my apples, but leave me the birds and the bees
Please

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot”

Living in the Green … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2022
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The limitation of Thought/Thinking…

November 3, 2022
20 comments

There are no real boundaries anywhere in the cosmos, except those invented and perceived by thought.

Beautiful Damsel … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2022