All Posts Filed in ‘Inspiration’

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Aloofness and Indifference of the Mind

April 15, 2018
26 comments

 

Many people in this very rotten society, these days, have aloofness.  Most, unfortunately, are caught up in the superficiality of things.  They are impressed by pseudo-realities and they seek power that really isn’t power.  They seek exciting things and places (the more far off and “exotic,” the better).  Can jaded minds, secondhand minds, no matter how much they earn, no matter how far off they travel, no matter how huge a home they can acquire, find lasting joy and profundity?  Many seek happiness by reaching outwardly.  Is real harmony and bliss what can be obtained by effort outwardly, or is it what must take place because of inner order and wisdom?

Aloofness often involves a separation, a lack of awareness or concern.  Indifference requires separation, distance, walls of space.  A mind of indifference is a compartmentalized mind.  Such a mind may be good at certain mechanical, computer-like things but is often duplicitous to itself.  Such a mind has accepted fallacies and misrepresentations about a separate self, an isolated center.  It operates in piecemeal ways and it depends upon piecemeal systems.

A sapient mind is not duplicitous to itself.  Its timeless profundities exist beyond any false center or fraudulent effort from such a center.  It naturally helps others while not merely seeing them as “others” at a distance of separation.  It is of compassion and does not turn its back on others (including other species).  It reaches out, not merely to get.  Beyond piecemeal ways, it operates from a wholeness that is beyond demarcations and borders.  It is global, not national.  Without physically moving far whatsoever, it goes way beyond the ordinary, way beyond what is thought of as possible… yet it is never stagnant.  It sees the false as the false and it flowers beyond the antiquated known.

Of the two aforementioned minds, one is always reacting, always shuffling around as the shadows of the learned, dead past… and it often exists in a melancholy way; it is always calculating to enhance its phony center.  The other of the two goes beyond secondhand shadows, beyond the rotten edicts/proclamations of society, beyond the suffering that an isolated self intrinsically manifests as.  One of the two is far beyond what description is capable of.  One of the two is imprisoned in (and “as”) ordinary falsehoods.  Most will not be very interested to go beyond the type of mind that they already are; indifference has a lot to do with it.

 

[Note:  The photograph is a close-up of Lichen in its symbiotic relationship involving a combination of primitive fungus with algae.  This Lichen was growing on a small Oak tree branch.  One suspects that the recent discoveries that trees and other plants communicate with (and share food sources with) fungal mushrooms are related to this — more primitive– symbiotic relationship.  Life has very interesting things going on all around us!]

Lichen and Algae Close-up… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Once Upon a Twice

April 13, 2018
12 comments

 

 

once upon a twice we sang and we cried
until gradual came quickly and the bigshots lied
there until a here was distance shut still
i’ll achieve perfection was perfection going nil

dark until some light we groped then we stared
until illusion died clearly beyond the visually impaired
here until a there was distortion made blind
when much of maligned mankind became carelessly unkind

no until a yes we loved and we hugged
twice a robber robbed himself of wisdom and the thief got mugged
theirs upon a hear as the songs played on
leave delusion in the night and be the light of dawn

 

[Note:   The following is a photo of a 24K Goldenback Shrimp that is one of the three varieties that i keep and breed in aquariums.  A previous posting of mine had Painted Fire Red Shrimp photos in it.  This particular shrimp is a female and she gave birth to most of her young.  However, if you look closely, you can see — behind her hind legs in what is called the skirt region — a few young still being carried in egg sacs.  When the shrimp are born, they are tiny versions of their parents, but only around the size of a comma in a sentence.]

 

24K Goldenback Shrimp (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

24K Goldenback Shrimp (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

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This is no Real Spring Haiku

April 11, 2018
32 comments

 

 

Here I sit broken
hearted, as I wished for spring
but only farted.

 

[Note:  Photo was taken on 4-9-18 when the weather was much colder.  Now the weather is actually getting to be more spring-like; some wishes do come true!]

Frozen PseudoSpringtime… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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The Human Condition

April 8, 2018
9 comments

 

We humans — most of us anyway — have a preoccupation with forms which rely on demarcations and which distinguish surfaces.  We react to parameters just as we were instructed to, and we are satisfied to allow our brains to remain within those circumscribed fields.  Even the so-called great scientists are immersed in the same methodologies and modes of perception and analysis.  Most conform to standard patterns, even when they think that they are sophisticated and free.  Most have been taught not to trust experience and feeling until they have passed through (and have been filtered by) the organizing chambers of rational thought.  Most, rather like computers, have become mere information processors and, therefore, pitifully impoverished organisms.  

We still — most of us anyway — have subject and object, self and other, man and nature.  Most have very separative minds seeing things fragmentarily (with separation and division).  Concepts and conditioning can never perceive the truth, yet most, even the professional scientists, remain caught within the realm of concepts and conditioning.  Such conditioning can be modified and can evolve some, but it will never perceive and understand the whole over time… and conditioning and evolution are time. 

Is it possible for the mind to change radically, such that it goes beyond all influence and all authority of the past?  Tribal authority is “the past,” the past which is old, stale, and antiquated.  Many can reason very cleverly, very precisely, about a lot of complicated things; but that reasoning inevitably is the essence of a background of a particular conditioning.  Truth can manifest when influence and conflict cease, but any methods, beliefs, or systems directly employed to get there will be an extension of the same old game.  There is no recipe, in time, that takes one to the timeless.  The fabricated/learned psychological self depends upon conflict and time — actually, the separate self is conflict and psychological time — and most people will likely not care to significantly end conditioning; most will want to remain in (and “as”) that conditioning, yet conditioning binds and is suffering.  True silence is deep awareness, a selflessness, a timelessness… and true silence is not what the conditioned mind can cause to happen at any particular point in time; the silence of awareness is beyond the self (and self-effort).  Most are afraid of allowing the self to come to an end psychologically.  Only in the nullification of the false is there the whole blessing of truth and real insight.  Compassion and that truth are not two separate things, as is the “perceiver” and “that which is perceived.”

 

 

clinging to surfaces… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

in the heart of the tree… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Tinge of Spring

April 6, 2018
21 comments

 

 

the mightiest miracle that ever was
poured forth as love in endless spring
way beyond unfeeling indifference and hateful ways
far from the fallacies when the coldhearted cling

as ziggy went zaggy while up followed down
as dizzy was dazzy while on-hold with a phone
flowering be beautiful without perfect face
kitelike insects kept ringing wisdom to alone

unknowable joy peace truth radiant bloom
mediocre fight hates minds with delight
you are the light at the apex of noon
holding onto sorrow being blindness loving night

 

 

 

Springtime Tinge (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Springtime Tinge (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Mother Goose Haiku

April 4, 2018
32 comments

 

 

Without a compass
the geese fly in perfect form
True north stands wisely

 

 

With Mother Goose… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

 

 

 

 

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Pristine Perception… (and Proto-Primate Jaw)

April 1, 2018
19 comments

 

[Note:  The pictured fossil is no April Fools joke.  If you’d like to get a good laugh for April Fools Day, once, years ago before i retired, when i worked as a teacher for the multiply handicapped –on April Fools Day —  i was putting a slice of pizza into the microwave at work.  It was from a sack lunch that my wife, Marla, packed for me.  It looked rather sad, for a pizza. I took it out of the aluminum foil wrap and put it on a paper plate and was putting it into the microwave; it looked stale or something!  At the last second, before putting it into the microwave, i turned it upside down.  It said “Mattel” on the bottom; it was plastic!  The fries in the lunch were plastic!  The broccoli was plastic!  The chocolate in the lunch was plastic!]

 

 

Pristine perception takes place when the mind is not tarnished by the methodologies and forms that were manmade and injected into one over time.  It is a timeless seeing that is spotless and fresh.  Things that were poured into you (over time) by others are all of the past; as such, they — for the most part — are old, residual, and secondhand.  A distorted mind does not see clearly; it is swayed by misinformation and tarnished contamination. 

One may ask, “How am I to clean my mind to enable it to see clearly?”  However, who is going to clean such a mind?   Is the “cleaner” going to be something that is somehow magically different from what needs cleaning?  Then there are those who say, “Well, I’ll meditate to make my mind still and empty.”  Is meditation a mere result, a product (via effort) of a mind that is (itself) full of distortion and fallacies?  Any such so-called meditation — fabricated by a distorted mind — will inevitably be an extension of that distortion, no matter how wonderful or relaxing it may feel.  Most human brains are so wrapped up in the deception of a supposedly dominating “center” or “me” —  a supposed “center” which intrinsically creates false separation and supposed control — that any action or inaction that is created generally extends the deception… and indifference and ignorance inevitably continues.   (The old, distorted instrument cannot be fundamentally changed by perpetually clinging — even subtly — to the old, distorted mental misusages.)

Any movement or effort of a distorted mind clinging to information of the past limits it to what was poured into it by (constrained) sequential events in time.  Distortion and psychological time exist together as one.  Once adulthood is reached, insight, love, and profound intelligence are not a matter of psychological time.  Physical and evolutionary time are another story.  

How do you look at life?  Is it seen through (or “with”) a screen of learned separation?  

 

 

The photograph is of a proto-primate jaw (with a premolar and two molars).  There is a good possibility that it is from what evolved into you and your family… or, at the very least, that it is your distant cousin.  (Take a good look at great, great grandmother!) 🙂  The photograph is of a post-Purgatorius species that evolved from Purgatorius following the Cretaceous mass extinction.  Mammals — after the mass extinction — began becoming larger, and this one is no exception.  It is from the Fort Union Formation of Montana and is 62 to 63 million-years-old.  The entire jaw is a little over 5 centimeters long (or 1.96 inches).  The teeth are jet black due to millions of years of permineralization, wherein local minerals are permeated into the teeth.  See the following for more information:   http://www.paleocene-mammals.de/primates.htm

 

Proto-primate jaw, post-Purgatorius Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

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Changing

March 30, 2018
12 comments

 

 

Among the many “here”s
           within the many “there”s
           a confusion quite precisely
           drinking coffee stirred by nows

Within the trodden whiles
           absorbing many styles
           a delusion so pretentiously
           through dirty-window-hows

But then unfathomable why
           no shredded bits of get
           a sunburst of entirety
           a placid joyful yes

Like two white(fluffy) socks
           outside the darkest day
           an immeasurable perpetuity
           Untold poetry’s best

 

 

Shrooms … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Who’s Your Daddy Haiku

March 28, 2018
31 comments

 

Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs
sweet wise legs quickly outrun
gross shoe hit-and-run

 

Daddy-Long-Legs … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Thinking and Harmony

March 25, 2018
20 comments

 

[To find great Turkey Tail fungi, one must go deep into the woods.  To really understand truth, one must go very deep.  With the later, most people are not passionate enough regarding going there; they, unfortunately, are too fixated merely within the well-trodden paths and routines.]

 

Thinking and complete harmony: can the two exist together (as one) or are they what cannot ever be united?   There is a type of harmony of thinking in poetry.  Likewise, there is a type of harmony, involving thinking, in songs and music.  A truly wise man’s words, of course, can reflect a holistic harmony (to a limited point) in a very possibly pertinent sense (if one is intelligent enough to perceive the depth that is there).  However, no words can ever come even a little bit close to reflecting the whole. 

The tool of thought/thinking can try to point to the whole, try to point to the immeasurable.  However, it may be that thought/thinking is not (and never will be) a integral part of the true whole.  What is virtual, what is fabricated, (what is spurious in essence) may think and insist in (and believe in) all kinds of sensible and nonsensical things… but it cannot ever be one with what is truly whole.  

A mind of inattention, of self-delusion — such as what most minds consist of — cannot decide when to meditate.  The sloppy mind, the mind of disorder, cannot decide to be what order is.  True meditation is not the absurd result of a concocted will; it is never the result of a traditional, bourgeois ego or of a learned (spurious) central-self. 

When healthy and necessary things need to be done prudently, compassionately, with care and consideration, thinking is oftentimes very beneficial.  Other than that, it is usually indicative of inattention and non-harmony.  For instance, if one is walking through a park and the mind is chattering away about all kinds of silly things (as so many brains incessantly and habitually do)… that “thinking” is indicative of inattention/non-harmony/unintelligence.  The fragmentary nature of thinking has, as its intrinsic value, incompleteness (which is incapable of total harmony on its own).  A vast amount of human thinking consists of inattention/incompleteness/unintelligence.  Throughout the day, thinking — which is, more times than not, superfluous — is often a very good indicator that inattention and incompleteness are taking place.  If any movement of thinking, no matter what it is, is incapable of that immense intelligence beyond mere fragmentation, then any movement of thinking, no matter what it is, is indicative that holistic completeness is not taking place.  Though it might sound silly, “thinking per se” (in a very wise mind, throughout each and every day) can be an excellent gauge or indicator of incompleteness/non-harmony.  Thought (no matter what it is or consists of) can never really adequately point to the whole… because thought is limited, fragmentary, with a profound essence of delusion and disorder.   Additionally, the whole is not composed of united fragments… (fragments that the distorted mind has accepted at legitimate); the whole is not the mere opposite of any fragments.  For the whole to occur within the human organism, there can be no fragments.  Illusory fragments within the mind, however, do not prevent the whole from existing; illusory fragments are virtual (i.e., unreal) and the unreal doesn’t supersede truth in any real sense whatsoever.  

From old Confucius:    

“When the wise man points at the moon, the one who is unwise remains with the finger.”

 

The following is an excerpt from the poetry of R.D.Laing (whom one read way back in 1972)…I was appreciative of the poetry of Laing’s Knots but never read (or cared to read) anything else by him.  

 

A finger points to the moon

 

Put the expression

a finger points to the moon in brackets

(a finger points to the moon)

The statement:

‘A finger points to the moon is in brackets’

is an attempt to say that all that is in the bracket

(…………………………………………………………………… )

is, as to that which is not in the bracket,

what a finger is to the moon

 

Put all possible expressions in brackets

Put all possible forms in brackets

and put the brackets in brackets

 

Every expression, and every form,

is to what is expressionless and formless

what a finger is to the moon

all expressions and all forms

point to the expressionless and formless

 

the proposition

‘All forms point to the formless’

is itself a formal proposition

 

Not,

…….as finger to moon

…….so form to formless

but,

…….as finger is to moon

…….so

………….[all possible expressions, forms, propositions,

………….including this one, made or yet to be made,

………….together with the brackets]

…….to

 

What an interesting finger

let me suck it

 

It’s not an interesting finger

take it away

 

The statement is pointless

The finger is speechless

 

 

Turkey Tails (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Turkey Tails (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

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Viva Sweet Spring

March 23, 2018
30 comments

 

 

Spring rides the steep entrance
                     beyond cold death’s down
                     She is everywhere growing joyfully

Green groping marvels reaching
                     not muchtheworseforwear
                     Innumerable gladnesses bursting gleefully

Fearless emerging singingly feels
                     far from icecold nothing’s heels
                     Flames of jubilant splendor

 

Spring (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Spring (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Eyes for You Only Haiku

March 21, 2018
45 comments

 

No Optometrist
needed but can someone help
shave these hairy legs?

 

Phiddipus Jumping Spider… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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(ReBlog): Learn Fun Facts’ Blog Party: Share Your Blog Here (March 2018)

March 19, 2018
18 comments

Add your Blog and get in on the Party! 🙂  (This is just a reblog; go to the original posting to add your blog.)  … and thank you, Edmark!  🙂

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Awareness

March 18, 2018
10 comments

 

 

‘Aware,’ in the dictionary, is defined as ‘having knowledge,’ or ‘well-informed.’   A mind that is aware just in terms of the dictionary’s definitions of awareness, is a rather mechanical, robotic mind (of which there are, unfortunately, plenty).  Awareness is so much more.  Awareness that exists within the superficial limitations of knowledge is a confined and reaction-oriented, mechanistic kind of consciousness.  Fortunately, there is an awareness that goes far beyond the realm of knowledge and memory retention.

When one was in the fourth grade, one partook in an awareness that was not merely within the realm of knowledge and thinking.  It was an awareness beyond thought.  It happened spontaneously, without one ever being told about letting or making such a thing happen.  At the time, one immediately understood that it was something entirely different than normal (everyday) consciousness; one realized that it was something very special.  It, way back then, seemed rather instantaneous and did not seem to require time.  (One, back then, didn’t label it as anything because it didn’t require a label; really, it is beyond all labels anyway.)  Now, years later, at the age of 66, one is still very appreciative of it.  “Thinking,” indeed, takes time; “thinking” is sequential and is a series of conditioned responses.  “Thinking” is involved with information collection and information processing; thinking depends upon psychological time.  The other, that awareness, was (though rather indefinable) more about aliveness and holistic perception beyond limited boundaries.

The awareness that is beyond mere thinking is involved with sensitivity and understanding.  It is not aloofness (that so many, unfortunately, have); it is not indifference (that so many, unfortunately, have); it goes beyond the formulations and molds (of the past) that have structured the endless reactions of man.   A mind without such awareness is trapped in the virtual realm of thought/thinking, endlessly reacting somewhat like a programmed robot, endlessly seeing through preconceptions and presuppositions (which isn’t really seeing whatsoever).  A mind that merely recognizes according to what it has been taught is a very secondhand, automaton-like mind.

It is very simple, really.  To see the unlimited, the whole, the mind cannot merely remain in (and as) the limited.  The limited mind cannot, under any circumstances, make itself be beyond the limited.  Effort and will have nothing to do with it.  Effort and will are within the realm of thinking and sequential memory; besides, will is a fallacious supposition based on a fictitious (but highly “believed in”) center or controller.  (As was pointed out in previous postings, human brains have been surgically divided in living human subjects, leaving two separate — viable — fields of consciousness within one braincase.)  The sacred, despite what a lot of very self-deceitful and guileful people claim, may not at all be what thought/thinking can summon or conjure up.  The sacred is not what thought (which is virtual and limited) can ever grasp.  Thought/thinking — and all misconceptions about a “controlling center” or of a “‘me’ manipulating thoughts from a distance” — must come to an end for that sacred immeasurability and impersonal intelligence to be.  In fact, when it visits, it makes thinking extremely difficult and rather impossible… much like when the light of the brightest sun annihilates all dark shadows; other physical changes to the body also occur for a while, among other things… but don’t just take my word for it.  The sacred and what is secondhand and virtual do not meet and will not ever meet (or combine).  Those charlatans who claim that their thoughts, manmade temples, secondhand methods, and mantras (or any thoughts, writings, or sayings) are sacred… are full of drivel.

Beyond categorization, beyond mere recognition and reaction (such as what ideas are) there is a deep, immeasurable dimension (that is not a mere dimension).  It will not and cannot ever meet with what is false; the false must die for it to be; such psychological dying is real living.  It is not a mere fabrication of the brain.  Awareness includes compassion, sensitivity, real curiosity, love, caring, and perception beyond the secondhand garbage that people so easily swallow.

 

 

 

Crab Spider on Lichen (1)
Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

Crab Spider on Lichen (2)
Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

 

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Froggy

March 16, 2018
23 comments

 

 

Fast not last
and ditty dance
circulated bound

Not slow or first
or spongy thirst
or rivulet round

Not here just there
not underwear
resplendent like a clown

Just slippery soggy
not so groggy
a leaping up and down

Hop and jump
splash cur-plunk
a wishy-washy sound

 

 

 

Leopard Frog Ribbit Ribbit (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Leopard Frog Ribbit Ribbit (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

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Haiku Beyond Little Miss Muffetism

March 14, 2018
32 comments

 

One little me there
No prejudice of you here
Rare magical we

Female Wolf Spider on Garage Floor… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Distorted Mirror Distorted Mind

March 11, 2018
11 comments

 

A perfect mirror has no distortion.  It shows what is really there.  Can the mind be like that?

A distorted mirror, just like a distorted mind, twists things around such that reality seems askew and misrepresentation and untruth run dominant.  Fortunately, most people realize what the situation actually is when they are gazing into an intentionally distorted (circus) mirror.  Unfortunately, many people perceive via minds that are of distortion, deception, and perversion, yet they continue to think that they see things rightly.  Many of us put up a facade, for others to perceive, of what we want them to think we really are.  Many of us deceive not only others… but ourselves.  Society tends to instill various forms of distortion into the minds that partake in its offerings, and such minds then zealously accept such distortions and falsities as the truth.

Many people are overly concerned about how they (physically) appear to others.  Few people are prudently concerned about perceiving themselves as they actually are… internally, without any distortion whatsoever.  A mind that is passionate about going beyond distortion is a very scientific and spiritual mind.  It seems that very few have actually done it (i.e., gone beyond distortion) to any very significant extent. (There are ways to test this out, for accuracy; however, we will not go into that here.)  Great clarity and immense understanding are needed to see the whole.  Most, unfortunately, still function with (and “as”) symbols and fragmentary parts.  If the tools and the processes of the mind are distorted and partial, then the outcome — the results — will be equally askew, equally incomplete.  Before we accept and cherish methods to get out of this distortion, we should question whether they are possibly an extension or continuity of the same-old fallacies, which most are.

Without method, without depending upon the process of psychological time, is it possible for the mind to observe without merely utilizing the past tools (of symbolic thinking, abstraction, analysis, and image-building)?  Can the mind perceive without always carrying the burden of past formulations?  It may be the influential formulations of the past that prevent pristine perception.  We can be choicelessly observing with an intense awareness that includes all of the senses working harmoniously together as a whole, without limited thoughts always interfering… (and all thoughts are limited).

A mind that goes beyond distortion sees deeply.  Such depth goes far beyond the ordinary, far beyond the mundane.  Many cling (knowingly or unknowingly) to the ordinary, yet wish to experience what is beyond the ordinary.  What is truly beyond the ordinary may not at all be what can be categorized or placed into the realm of “experience.”  If an experience is recognized (as most are), it usually consists (more or less) of a rather mundane occurrence that the brain “recertifies,” “acknowledges,” and “classifies” via (and according to) prior memory images, prior mental retentions, and symbols.  Recognition and the reaction to things have their place, but so does an unadulterated awareness beyond mere reaction and conditioned responses.  Full enlightenment/satori — should it ever occur as a blessed visitation by that ineffable, holistic energy to a human being — may be far too immense for any kind of full mental grasping, retention, or remembrance (by the brain) to take place.  However, should it actually happen — and don’t be foolish enough to crave what you suspect that it might be — the brain will have recalled small snippets of that profound event, though what is retained is rather like mere shadows of the actual occurrence.  Great wisdom, unlike distortion, never needs to ask about whether the sacred truly exists.

 

 

 

Polished Jurassic Dinosaur Bone, with crystal fortification, from Utah (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Polished Jurassic Dinosaur Bone, with crystal fortification, from Utah (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Facts and Ants

March 9, 2018
43 comments

[Note:  Some people are changing their ways, using green energy, staying local instead of mindlessly vacationing via terrible fossil fuel aircraft and diesel ships, recycling, being vegetarians, and creating more drastically needed environmental awareness.  However, not enough people, by any means, are changing.  Most mindlessly stick to the bourgeois status quo… needlessly flying in jets all over the place (to relax), using huge cruise ships, and not doing much to help the environment.  All major mass extinctions on earth occurred when CO2 levels exceeded a thousand parts per million (ppm).  Carbon dioxide levels are now changing about 25,000 times faster than in known geologic history; methane, too, is being released at unprecedented rates.  We must do better as a species or the following poem, unfortunately, will hold true.]

 

natural business

no plastics

no foul fossil fumes

not just on and under terra firma

arboreal too

 

six legs

hooded antenna

agile cooperative stealthy curious

will be here long after

the foolish bipedal apes

destroy their world with indifference

and chemicals

 

 

 

 

ant business (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

ant business (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Curiosity

March 4, 2018
39 comments

 

 

In that last prose piece that was written, profound curiosity was mentioned.  Very many of us, when we were very young, had immense curiosity.  This curiosity was a natural investigation into the nature of things.  This curiosity concomitantly involved a lot of questioning.  Most of us, as we aged — as one can see by observing the adults that one interacts with — have lost a lot of this innate drive to discover; unfortunately, too, the questioning has subsided and (instead) many just (more or less) accept what was poured into them.  Then most look at things the way that they were programmed to look… and they end up fitting in quite nicely.  This “fitting in,” however, can often be equated with stagnation, blind-acceptance, dull mediocrity, and imprisoned, bourgeois mentality.  When the mind merely looks with (and “as”) the accumulated “known,” then one gets very bored, stagnant, dull, and sorrow and depression easily manifest.  Many, unfortunately, have quite cadaverous minds, though they are not yet six feet under.

Real discovery, real learning, (and joy), if one is wise, is endless.  Such learning, such discovery does not involve mere accumulation.  It goes far beyond the mere accumulation of information and beyond the mere reacting (of that accumulation).   Curiosity, if it is deep enough, even questions the parameters, nature, essence, and attributes of the very means by which it probes and discovers.  Such curiosity, if it is deep enough, may even go beyond the tools that were provided (by society) for it to operate (as).  These tools, as can be seen, largely consist of thought and thinking.  Most have heavily relied on (and depended upon) thought in their endeavor to assimilate things and figure things out.  However, here is the rub:  If the tools are limited, if the tools themselves have a propensity toward distortion, if the tools themselves are fragmentary and concocted… then the outcome will (pretty much inevitably) be limited and askew.

It may be that there is a profound learning and a profound curiosity that (together) occur beyond mere accumulation.  Such a movement does not depend upon psychological time nor on what others have poured into one.  Perceiving beyond lines of demarcation, beyond circumscribed parameters of thought, beyond constrained methodology, beyond the norm, takes great care and intelligence.  Yet so many remain in ruts and everlastingly function in (and from) such limitation.  Many will easily claim that they are not in a rut (as they robotically keep digging).

Profound insight, deep intelligence, holistic perception, and real compassion occur when the mind is beyond what a stale, rotten society has dictated.

 

 

 

Curiosity (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Curiosity (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Today is World Wildlife Day!

March 3, 2018
19 comments

 

 

On 20 December 2013, at its 68th session, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) proclaimed 3 March, the day of signature of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), as UN World Wildlife Day to celebrate and raise awareness of the world’s wild animals and plants. The UNGA resolution also designated the CITES Secretariat as the facilitator for the global observance of this special day for wildlife on the UN calendar. World Wildlife Day has now become the most important global annual event dedicated to wildlife. 

It would be a good day to join (or donate to) the Sierra Club or any similar animal/plant loving, environmental organization; additionally, it would be a great time to think about doing more environmentally-friendly action.

 

http://www.wildlifeday.org/

 

 

Here’s looking at you! … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Eyes for you! Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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So many “here”s and so many “there”s

March 2, 2018
33 comments

 

 

So many “here”s and so many “there”s
                 scurrying like little ants to their “anywhere”s
So many whens and so many hows
                 rushing to work or driving their plows

This many fingers how old am eye
                 that many soaring jets polluting the sky
Which way is right when all ways are wrong
                 beyond the grip of time need not move along

So many wants and not many whys
                 running for cover telling their lies
So many sorrows and not enough joys
                 too many war rifles making dead boys

This many dollars and not enough love
                 that many looking down but not up above
Which crazy leader as they kiss his hind end
                 damning the environment without earth as a friend

 

 

[Note:  The photographs are of Painted Fire Red Shrimp that i keep as pets and breed.  No, we do not have a name for each individual shrimp; however, you are welcome to try!  🙂  They do not need a heater — liking cold water — and eat very little, having a very low bioload.  They are becoming increasingly more popular as aquarium pets.  I really like them, as they are very interesting, comical, and do not fight amongst each other.  In the lower photograph, many are grouped together in one corner of the aquarium; that is because it is feeding time, and that area is where i feed them twice a day.  Note that some have cleverly discovered that they do not have to share the little sinking, white food pellets as much if they can snatch them off of the bottom and take them up the walls of the Matten Sponge Filter.  I also have (in other aquariums) a couple of other varieties.  One variety is called Snowball Shrimp; the females carry, for over a month, many white eggs (inside of them, that you can see), and they look like pure white snowballs.]

 

 

Painted Fire Red Shrimp (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Painted Fire Red Shrimp (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

 

 

 

 

Post

Thought and Thinking

February 25, 2018
44 comments

 

[2-26-18 Flood Update:

The river is receding well.  We are OK but have a ton of cornstalks in our yard.  I am elderly and have arthritis so may have to hire people to remove it.  Marla says that there is more rain in the forecast (coming soon).  We don’t have hydrophobia yet but we are getting there!

Excerpt from Emily Dickinson:

You cannot fold a Flood—
And put it in a Drawer—
Because the Winds would find it out—
And tell your Cedar Floor—     ]

 

 

[Note:    Update on our River Flooding:    The river remains very high.  Our house is OK so far, except for some very minimal water in a small section of our crawl-space that a sump-pump has been taking care of.  Many local rural homes and nearby towns are flooded severely, unfortunately.  Our neighbor told us that her son had to rescue his mother-in-law from her rural home.   Her son’s mother-in-law’s home is surrounded by water and is severely flooded within the living area.  At first, his mother-in-law refused to leave… much like the couple that i mention in my update within the Flooding posting that i submitted.  Please refer back to that recent posting for that update.  We had more severe rain last night for a time; i hope that that will not cause the river to rise; it shouldn’t.   Some large logs have been hitting the horizontal I-beams that support the nearby bridge, as the water level is so very high.  Thanks again to many of you for your heartfelt comments and concerns.]

 

 

Thought/thinking is always, as we have often said, an extension or protrusion from the old storehouse of memory.  Thinking is a form or representation and symbolism used in order to achieve desires and wanted outcomes.  Interestingly, when thinking occurs in (and “as”) the brain, it often exists (mimicry-like) as a sequence of words (which are a simulation of one’s actual talking voice); thinking can also occur as a sequence of stored images that are pictorially oriented.  Thinking is essentially all virtual; even the simulation of one’s actual voice, used as internal verbal thought, is virtual.  Yet so many of us cling to (and exist “as”) this virtual, spurious pseudo-reality. The essence of thinking is reaction, mimicry, symbolism, categorization, interpretation, restructuring, recollection, recognition, abstraction, and finding meaning.  Additionally, thinking can help with real curiosity.  Profound curiosity, however, goes beyond thinking and is never merely tied to any superficial motive (such as how to make more money).  It is interesting that those of us who think better than others are (oftentimes) given better (and higher paying) jobs.  Society tends to worship complex and intricate thinking.  Ironically, it may be that the wisest minds go beyond mere motive; it is motive (and robotic reaction) that corrupts the perception (the availability) of the whole.

What we are suggesting here is that, perhaps, it is not merely the most complex thinking mind (with the most thoughts) that is to be admired.  A mind that functions as thinking when it is necessary but that often prudently goes beyond thinking may (indeed) be admirable.   Unfortunately, the brain that thinks endlessly is a very mechanical, robotic, materialistic brain.  A prudent mind that often goes beyond thinking is not the opposite of the “endlessly thinking brain” but it is (fortunately) different.  Of the two aforementioned brains, one of the two endlessly depends on being reactions and on receiving endless stimuli to feed those reactions.  The other of the two often goes beyond the realm of “reacting”; interestingly, it can — and does — function as awareness without the need for exclusively being reactions… without the need for exclusively categorizing endless stimuli.  One of the two craves experience in order to function.  The other of the two partakes in experiencing but also can function without mere dependence on experience.  Of the two, one must stay — and endlessly remain — within the field of the known.   The other of the two dwells in the field of the known but is not merely tied to that very limited domain.   All thoughts are fragmentary symbols, and the essence of the sequential arrangements that they are always involves limitation.  Profound curiosity — if it really has true depth — is not foolish enough to be satisfied with remaining in (and “as”) a limited domain.   Not enough of us question the essence of the domain that we function in… and not enough of us intelligently consider going beyond the domain that we function in; the domain we are referring to is, of course, “thinking.”  The mind can be fully aware, alive, and sensitive without needing to rely on thinking and time (though often, of course, thinking is very necessary).  Mere constant recognition is, each and every time, limited reaction as part of motives.  Each and every limited reaction with (or “as”) a motive is inaction regarding holistic perception; this inaction denies that holistic energy. 

The known cannot penetrate into (and understand) the true unknown.  The unknown, however, can flower within a mind that does not merely exist as endless reaction (i.e., endless responses of the old); a sapient mind often does not merely function with (and “as”) the known.   Deep insight and profound enlightenment/satori can only occur when the known is not functioning (as the old repetition and habitual sequence that it is).  What is truly new, what can never be recognized as the same thing over and over again, can never be experienced by the old past (i.e., by the known).  The dead known can never enter into the measureless and timeless beauty of the living unknown.  What is fallacious cannot remain what it is and enter truth. 

The beauty of real mindfulness and meditation is that they are not what can be practiced via any methodology.  All methodology relies on the known and exists within the field of time.  Time is not a path to the timeless; measure is not a means to the measureless.   Mere experience (or trying to go beyond experience) is not a path to that sacredness that is beyond all the senses. 

 

 

 

Curious Ant (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Curious Ant (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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The River we live on is Flooding! & Update

February 23, 2018
49 comments

 

Our home is right on the Iroquois River and, currently, the river is rising to a record high.  It is going around 23 feet above normal, and we are due for even more heavy rains.  Flood stage is 16 feet above normal.  The engineers have said that if it rises 8 more inches — which is possible, as it has not crested yet — the cement bridge (that we live adjacent to) could float away.  We are lucky so far, as we are on very high terrain… but the water is getting precariously high and close; neighbors, to the south especially, are lower down; unfortunately, they are getting inundated.  

A little humorous poetry from Art Carney (from the Honeymooners Show many years ago) cheers me up a bit at this dangerous time:

When the tides of life
turn against you,
and the current upsets your boat,
don’t waste tears on what might have been,
just lay on your back and float!

Update (at 8:47PM Central Time, Feb.24th):

Thank you, everyone, for your heartfelt concern, good wishes, and comments.  The river remains very high.  According to charts, it has crested and is supposed to be receding very soon.

Last night, i spent a lot of time getting the container — that our sump pump was in — better situated; plus i drilled a lot of holes into side of the container (higher up towards the top).  Our crawl space was dry — you can’t have basements with living on the river — but there was water in the sump hole about seven inches from the top of the gravel.  Today, we had company coming over (including my mother-in-law… it is mother-in-law’s birthday, she is 93).  However, i noticed a patch of water in one (apparently) low section of the crawl space some distance from where the sump pump is.  Before the company arrived, i was busy frantically digging a trench for the water to flow to where the sump pump was.  I put some PVC piping into the trench by the sump to help with the flow.  It worked!  The crawlspace is mostly bone dry… and the small wet areas have subsided well.

Our elderly neighbor — whom i take the mail to, since she cannot make it to the rural mailbox — said that her son stated that an elderly couple who lives not far from us, by an old iron bridge, was surrounded by water.  They refused to leave.  Their kids (now adults) called 911.  Rescuers used a boat to try to get to them but couldn’t get through due to tons of corn stalks blocking the way.  A man with a better boat was contacted and he managed to get through.  However, the husband refused to leave!   Only his wife evacuated.  The next day, the husband changed his mind and they had to go in again to get him!  Geesh!

My posting for Sunday will still occur.  I schedule my blogs (and usually am about a month ahead).

Thanks again everyone!  (We all need to do way better with the environment!  Weather conditions are going bonkers, worldwide.  When are we going to finally wake up?!  When it is too late?)

 

Flooded River (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Flooded River (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Glas Kristall Garten

February 23, 2018
11 comments

 

 

When lucid ways mutate into wing
             in a glass crystal garden
there
             where four legs not six legs cling

Only a short mayfly shimmer of time
             in a lush limpid garden
where
             fragile crystalline things hang and delicately rhyme

If all of the mirrors vases and glasses went crashing
             in a perfect world so wonderfully and glaringly clear
there
             would always be your beaming beauty ever so smashing

 

 

 

Crystal Winged Mayfly (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Crystal Winged Mayfly (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Short Video of me Curling at the Winter Olympics

February 20, 2018
19 comments

 

I take Curling very seriously.

Even my potato chips are into Curling.

So far i am in line for winning Silver… a silver set of hair, that is!   🙂

Notice that my sweeping technique is not top-notch Gold; (i am not foolish enough to let Marla think that i am good at sweeping!)

Besides, who needs to sweep if there is a Roomba in the area?!

 

 

Post

Depression and Sorrow

February 18, 2018
28 comments

 

 

 

Many people suffer from depression and sorrow. Many take pharmaceutical antidepressants and regularly go to clinics to receive therapy. Most, when they were much younger, did not have such issues; in youth, they were filled with wondrous curiosity and inner, refreshing vitality.  Many, as they age, become jaded and unhappy, bored with the same-old-things and with the gray monotony of it all.

A large part of the problem lies in wrong education. Most, throughout their education, were not encouraged to be keenly aware of their own minds… to be aware of the essence of thought and thinking and to explore beyond the realm that thought and thinking manifest as. Most, from society as it currently is structured, were taught to cherish and exclusively dwell in (and “as”) the process of thinking; it was taught that the more thinking and the more reaction… the better.  Few were encouraged, in their youth, to question everything and to be free from mere standard ways/procedures. These days, almost all of us are immured within the walls of thought/thinking. Many exclusively dwell in (and “as”) thought/thinking… and very few value going beyond that very circumscribed domain. Most have put all of their eggs into that one basket; in that, they dwell.  (Ironically, though most everyone exists as “thinking,” few are in a direct, intimate relationship with such thinking, such that they can go beyond it; they see “thinking” as what some alleged independent center is “using from some sort of internal distance.”)  Some delude themselves, by others’ methodologies, into practicing going beyond thinking (which is, in reality, an extension of thinking and, each time, a self-imposed hoax); a concocted silence that is part of a perpetuation of backward and spurious ways is not any kind of legitimate silence at all, though many believe that it is.   

As one has said so many times before, thinking is always symbolic, always second-hand, limited, and merely representational. Yet so many cling to thinking and unquestionably exist almost exclusively as what it is. Even when most of us look at things, we are looking with (and through) the screen of thinking; such thinking involves labeling, categorizing, classifying, identifying, and pigeonholing. When many look at things, they are mostly looking with the memory bank (i.e., through retained knowledge). Such a memory bank is from the past and is always old, always of stored data. Many look with (and from) the stored (old) past… and they inevitably get bored while they feel stale and full of the mundane. With this situation, antidepressants and clinical so-called experts can only help so much.  The selfish “I” is created via concocted psychological distance and learned walls of demarcation; this distance and these very walls are an incarceration that ensures that suffering will continue.  

A mind of constant thinking is a mind of sorrow.  A mind of deep awareness, however, can often perceive without merely using  (and being) the storehouse of old and stuffy memory. To perceive without relying on the storehouse of dead memory and to perceive without depending upon the stale patterns of remembrance is a living art.  There is no method or blueprint-oriented practice to this art. It does not involve old patterns that you can absorb to improve yourself with over time.  It does not involve intentionally sitting crosslegged for long periods of time, mesmerized by some kind of self-fabricated so-called silence.  Being aware (without method) throughout each and every day, being “thinking” when it is necessary but often effortlessly going beyond it, the wise mind sagaciously realizes that profound bliss is not a mere remembrance.  Profound joy is not labeling everything and then looking at everything through (and “as”) dead labels. To perceive without the burden of the past is real living. Real living is not the past perpetually relabeling things (with endless symbols) into, and through, the present and future. The mind that goes beyond “perception through mere symbolism and fragmented mental constructs” is a liberated, whole, caring, free mind… full of joy.

 

 

 

Family Photo (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Family Photo (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

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Luminous Tendril of Celestial Wish

February 16, 2018
25 comments

 

 

At that place
where there is no i…
just place

In that magic
where time doesn’t matter…
so measurelessness

From no beginning
entwined without ending…
just eternity

 

 

 

Luminous Tendril of Celestial Wish (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Luminous Tendril of Celestial Wish (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

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Knowing Yourself…

February 11, 2018
21 comments

 

 

There have been blogs, by others, wherein they write all about themselves.  They write about their likes, special preferences (such as favorite foods, books, and movies), social relationships, and so on and so forth.  Others write about the need to love oneself; they write about the beauty of really caring about oneself (first and foremost).  

What is oneself?  Most of us, one suspects, were educated to see the self as we were all programmed to see it.  This education is often very similar to the education that other countries have stuck to in the past, even the one which Adolf Hitler emerged from (who, by the way, loved himself dearly and who passionately encouraged others to adore him too).   

So, what is the self?  Is the self an autonomous entity separate from the environment, the whole, the rest of mankind, the animals?  When a person says that he knows himself, what does he — actually — know?  Is such knowledge a lot of recalled patterns of bygone preferences, tendencies, opinions, images, and methodologies that have occurred in (and “as”) the past?  Recalled patterns (of the past) are from the storehouse of memory.  Recollections, from (and “as”) that memory, are always old (i.e., of the past), limited (i.e., snap-shot-like), partial, and (therefore) incomplete.  Those recollections of self, additionally, are heavily influenced by the past education and culture in which one was raised.   One’s fundamental conceptions of self were poured into one (and absorbed) during one’s youth.  Recollections and labels “about the self” are always of the past.  They are images or linguistic symbols from (and about) “what was.”  

Many people feel empowered by an elevated sense of self.   Many are enamored about themselves and they write about themselves a lot (either positively or negatively), or they are very obsessed about their physical appearance.   However, the self may not necessarily be what society has had each of us accept and take for granted.   There is a very good chance that a lot of primitive miseducation has taken place for many years.  

Unfortunate is the man or woman whose self is a fenced in, segregated, walled-off conglomeration of past images and symbolic thoughts convinced that a special space isolates what they are (or what “one is”) from the rest of life on earth.  Being walled-in is a surefire recipe for depression, no matter how financially fortunate one’s life has been, no matter how wonderful one may (superficially) think one appears physically.  To have private dominion apart from the rest of life, as something special and separate, is no cup of tea that real perception is interested in sipping.   It may be that real liberation does not come from coddling and worshipping the isolated self, as so many immature and egocentric people tend to do, but (instead) comes about when the self is understood and joyfully transcended.   The circumference around an egocentric mind is always limited, primitive, self-concocted via absorbed patterns… and is standardized, mediocre, and regimented.  Most people are very immersed in (and “as”) such a circumference; very few of them will care anything whatsoever about prudently going beyond it.  A limited, walled-in circumference inevitably brings sorrow.  All of the psychological therapy and superficial entertainment in the world will not put an end to that sorrow.

Instead of coming up with notions about “oneself,” go out (for an enlightening change) and perceive without the separative boundaries and isolated perspectives that were implanted in (and “as”) the past.  Is the perceiver so very separate from the perceived?  Walls of delusion may experience a lot of things; however, walls of delusion will never understand and see the uncontaminated truth and the eternal.   Real understanding, bliss, and balance are not of dead limitation, stale recognition, and segregation.

From the poetry of Stephen Crane:

 

The sage lectured brilliantly. 
Before him, two images: 
“Now this one is a devil, 
And this one is me.” 
He turned away. 
Then a cunning pupil 
Changed the positions. 

Turned the sage again: 
“Now this one is a devil, 
And this one is me.” 
The pupils sat, all grinning, 
And rejoiced in the game. 
But the sage was a sage. 

 

 

Super Thin Model (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Super Thin Model (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

Post

Two Different Minds

February 9, 2018
22 comments

 

 

When wily mediocrity mingled

           impressing dozens of cadaverous friends

When superficiality stagnated

           content with parts and very dead ends

 

Where innocence’s insight fully flowered

           near caring doubt’s entwining now

With timelessness everlastingly

           not separate from the whole of life somehow

 

 

 

 

Soldier Beetle in Chives (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Soldier Beetle in Chives (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Group Mentality

February 4, 2018
30 comments

 

 

Scientists say that we evolved from fish (over millions of years of evolutionary time). Many fish remain together in large schools.  We, as human beings, still cluster together in groups (often, just as the fish do, out of fear or out of the desire to be associated with something more substantial). When one “belongs” to a sizable group, it allows one to identify oneself with (and “as”) something larger and (apparently) much more significant. One identifies with (and becomes) the group. “It is ‘my country'”… which is so vast, powerful, and beautiful… and, so they say, “It is what I am willing to die for.” The aforementioned sentence is a typical thing stated often in various countries, each thinking that their ways and systems are better and more righteous.

Similar things happen with political parties and organized religions. Each person identifies with that large organization (which takes him away from his obscure, unsung, little self). Or, similarly, one identifies with one’s images of God; one identifies, then, with images (that one is) of something powerful, large, and almighty. People identify with something larger that is (they believe) “protecting them,” keeping them safe in a world of full of disorder and chaos.  Some people — full of indoctrinated prejudices — exclusively identify with their race, culture, political group, or family units (apart from all others).  Often, unfortunately, it is mostly about their race, or their culture, or their political group, or their family… and the rest can (more or less) go to grass.  Few of us identify with the little, poor woman or man who labors all day in the vegetable fields under a very hot sun and who gets next to nothing for payment; few actually see a little, defenseless animal as a reflection of the whole.  

Many of our man-made groups, however, are usually not as safe or as necessary as we have been lead to believe. People clinging to individual countries and religions have created wars (against each other) for millennia. People have fought about their different projections of God — and about their little idealistic groups and separate systems — for eons.

Fortunately, there are those who see beyond mere boundaries and groups and who simply help all others.  This affection and care for all others goes beyond the realm of humans and extends into the beautiful realm of animals and plants.  Some help, with real action, not for mere monetary reward but, instead, because they have real love in their hearts for all (beyond what any herd-mentality dictates).  

Can real intelligence stand alone? Without being a hermit, can one not identify with — or belong to — anything (i.e., to anything that, through limited groups and systems, separates man)? It may be that real and lasting peace may come when we go beyond the limited groups, systems, and images that we — so robotically — identify with. The mind that is seriously and intelligently aware transcends separative borders and, hence, goes beyond conflict.  (This “going beyond borders” goes beyond mere external borders and, additionally, involves transcending internal borders, false separation, and internal mental conflict.)  Such a mind, if it is truly intelligent and pristine, is beyond belonging to separative groups that cause havoc, friction, and indifference in the world.  (Our inner conflicts and separations project out into society as outer conflicts and separations.)  Prudent emptiness (which is freedom beyond being lead) — beyond crude traditions and beyond images of the past — does not need to identify with anything. Humility and real innocence need not clutch at (and identify itself with) something “larger.”  Profound innocence is a vulnerability that does not merely turn to violence (i.e., violent ways) to achieve continuity.

 

 

Group of Aphids (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Group of Aphids (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

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Mushrooming Love

February 2, 2018
26 comments

 

 

The magical multiplicity of nature

           needs integrity and care

           not ramshackle mumbo jumbo

           from insipid intellectualism sitting in choice underwear

 

A gustatory dive (without papaya or mangoes)

           of simple mushrooms and assimilated provisions

           can be polished off near a larder and fridge

           without cold emptiness’s voracious decisions

 

Mushrooming love

           There’s plenty of room for more

           not emaciated hate and indifference

           Pass on a plate to feed the poor

 

 

 

 

Mushrooming Love (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Mushrooming Love (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

Post

The Internal Psychological Division that Wastes Energy and Time…

January 28, 2018
8 comments

 

 

 

As we were suggesting in recent previous posts, when things — such as fears or desires — are seen with a psychological distance, then that very (separative) perception reinforces the (supposed) gap between the perceiver and that which is perceived.  When, for instance, fear is seen as something that one “has,” it is usually seen as what is manipulated (from a distance) by an internal, psychological “I” or “me.”  In actuality, the mind (the entity) is not something separate from what the fear is.  The fear is what you “are”; it is not merely what you “have.”  Perceiving fear from a psychological distance — such as what most minds do — tends to firmly reinforce the notion of a manipulating “I” or center who (supposedly) can, over time, deal with the fear.  The fraudulent thing regarding that, though, is that — in reality — the fear is not (whatsoever) separate from what the mind is.  Looking at the fear with internal distance, from a supposed internal “I” or “me,” reinforces the assumption of an “I” or “me” that is separate from what is perceived (internally); such an assumption, used habitually, as it is, is imagination reinforcing itself.  Perceiving, for instance, fear, sadness, or desire, from a psychological distance — as most people do — reinforces and actually helps fabricate a separate “I” or “me,” (who allegedly “has” those things).

Internally developed fear, per se, depends upon psychological time; without psychological time, internally developed fear would not exist.  And we think we can (from an internal distance) understand, over time, psychological fear!  We create a separate “analyzer” who is going to analyze internally.  However, the analyzer actually is the analyzed.  Analysis takes time; additionally, time is required to manufacture a separate “I” who is different from the fear.  Does one just want to “get rid” of fear?  It may be one part of the mind trying to get rid of another part… being in conflict with it.  It may be far more prudent to understand it (i.e. the fear which is yourself), and it may be that one cannot fully understand it if one thinks that it is separate from what one is.

Someone might say, “What is the benefit of seeing all this?”  If, for instance, fear takes place and there is an acute perception and accurate relationship regarding (and “as”) that fear… then it can be fully perceived as it is, and not with some extraneous images or imaginings of a separate “I” who is somehow separate from it and in conflict with it.  (Conflict is friction and may not solve anything fundamentally.) The extraneous images — of a separate controller or of a separate “I” or “me” — disallow the full perception of the fear as it really is… and tend to waste time by projecting a separate image (or images) that supposedly will do something about the fear.  Fear is what one actually is; then a separate image is created by the mind to get rid of, suppress, overcome, analyze, or somehow adjust to the fear.  This creates duality and conflict in the mind that essentially leads to friction, limitation, and time wastage.  False, inner fragmentation, no matter how sophisticated it may be, is fundamentally (in most cases) what contributes to friction, and it is essentially a waste of time and energy.

People erroneously associate going beyond a central “I” or “me” with a lack of security, with a lack of inner integrity.  On the contrary, real integrity exists in perceiving things as they actually are, without introducing fallacious images and a lot of primitive rigmarole into the picture.  Bliss and understanding the essence of real eternity can exist only when one psychologically dies to the ungrounded and phony images that one, unfortunately, has been taught (over time) to carry.  Such psychological dying is what is truly living, and such living involves direct, untainted, pristine, beautiful perception.  It may be that real baptism occurs when one’s consciousness is washed clean of cold deception, false accumulation, and dead tradition.

 

 

Wasp in Chives (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Wasp in Chives (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Purity beyond Corruption

January 26, 2018
22 comments

 

 

We twotogether as one

          beyond the red insidious wars

          and wrinkled reasons that send sweet smooth youth to die

We touch sweet nature and are sweet nature

We do not travel on polluting jets or diesel cruise ships to visit and 

          see distant nature

We are softly purely content with what and where we are

          (truly close to nature)

And where we are is together

          purely together beyond hard human hypocrisy and

          adulterating contamination

We twotogether as one

 

 

Twotogether as One (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Twotogether as One (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Perceiving with True Innocence

January 21, 2018
16 comments

 

 

To look with real innocence is to look, to perceive, with (and “as”) a pristine purity that is uncontaminated.  Looking with what is jaded, distorted, and fallacious, of course, certainly won’t cut it.  Many have assumed, with their preconceptions, that they observe correctly and rightly.  Many end up in conflict, worldwide, over what they consider is right… religiously, politically, economically, nationally, socially, and within the psychological realm… all this involving limited, sequential (learned) patterns.  Multitudes cling to their patterns, their traditions, their customs, their absorbed ways of seeing the world according to the programming which they were taught (from fragmentary groups).  The world ends up with conflict, friction, wars, and endless bickering (as is currently going on).

Some of our learned patterns have been useful medically and also somewhat within technological realms.  However, beyond that, psychologically and such, we have clung to traditions, beliefs, precepts, and patterns that tend to cause friction, separation, and conflict.  The question is:  Can one, without needing time, wash the slate (of the mind) clean so that one can look purely (without what one, psychologically, has accumulated)?  However, who is going to do the cleaning?  Is the “cleaner” actually separate from what is being cleaned?  If the cleaner is not really separate from the content of the rubbish (that needs purging) will the cleaner be cleaning according to the content that was previously implanted in (and “as”) his (or her) consciousness?  Can the conditioned mind perceive that the very images of self and of psychological control may be part of the content, part of the conditioning?  Since all (conditioned) beliefs, precepts, psychological traditions, and customs take time — including the supposition of a special internal center controlling thoughts from some kind of psychological distance — can the mind look without time (without depending on sequences of conditioned patterns)?  This would mean that the mind would look without functioning with (and “as”) past accumulations.  All accumulations from the past are “from time” and “involve time.”  To innocently perceive — without any fallacious center (that takes distance and time to look) and without any limited, accumulated, sequential patterns that were absorbed — does not require time… does not require practice.

One cannot practice meditation.  One cannot practice real love.  Both involve an intelligence beyond time and sequential conditioning.  It may be that real innocence exists when there is no psychological “me” put together by accumulated boundaries, separations, images, and traditions formulated of limited (symbolic and sequential) thoughts.   It has been accumulated boundaries, separations, and traditions that fabricated images of the “me.”  The limitless of eternity is never seen by any conditioning that is limited, bounded, fragmentary, and that is merely an accumulation within (and part of) a learned sequential movement through (and “as”) space/time.  Insight is beyond the accumulated.  Insight is beyond the limited.

 

 

 

On the River Bank … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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At Rainbow’s Edge

January 19, 2018
23 comments

 

 

 

At rainbow’s edge

           deeper than dawn’s iron light

           sweeter than sideswiping dominoes falling

           Silence is

           and distance and measure are nothing

 

Kiss unfolding bloom from the night

           Dark lies forever shattered and tattered

           The smiling fragrance of your while

           purer than sorrow that worries as

           thoughts of tomorrow

 

 

 

Unfolding Roses (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Unfolding Roses (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018 .JPG

 

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Directionlessness

January 14, 2018
13 comments

 

 

All of us function, in life, with regard to various motives.  We react in (and “as”) conditioned responses involving these motives.  Each motive gives us a certain direction to move in; we follow these specific directions, based on motives, throughout life (just as we were taught to).  Very few of us have considered directionless.  Very few have inquired into the possibility of perceiving without being constantly influenced by motives or directions.  Each of us has motives and directions that each one clings to and functions from, (even the so-called great scientists).  Often, these motives conflict — with the motives or directions of other people — and friction ensues.  Desire and greed are often involved with the motives that people have (and desire and greed tend to function from — and “as” — the reactions that they are psychologically).  One’s mind, too, can harbor conflicting motives… conflicting directions to pursue or go in.

A very wise mind, however, is involved with a measureless directionlessness.  To observe purely, without tainted motives or covert conditioning influencing what is seen, requires a highly unprejudiced mind that does not merely perceive via fragmentation and limitation.  Looking in a certain direction — which most all of us tend to do — by its very action (or, rather, reaction) precludes other directions and is always limiting and partial.  Even precise scientists are limited — in their own fields and by their own (learned) processes, habits, prejudices, and procedures — and most would likely laugh if one suggested that they consider directionlessness.  However, a truly sagacious mind would perceive the limitation and fragmentation that motives and directions inevitably bring with them; such a wise mind may then go beyond mere motive (and beyond mere direction).

A mind that perceives beyond merely having a “motive” or “psychological direction” must be a very dynamic mind.  To look (at times) beyond mere motive or beyond specific desire takes tremendous intelligence and great purity.  Directionless is not a stagnant state that one mesmerizes oneself in; rather, it is a causeless explosion of awareness without mere motive and without the influence of psychological conditioning.  It truly is an explosion without any cause.  It is a movement without any direction.  Greed and desire have nothing to do with it; greed and desire are of motive; greed and desire always involve a specific direction.

There is a vast difference between a mind that often is of directionlessness and a (common) mind that always functions by way of motive and direction.  Of the two mentioned in the aforementioned sentence, one of the two always (without exception) reacts (via motives and directions set up by limited influences); the other, of the two — though it also often reacts and is choicelessly aware of the reactions — may often go beyond that… such that it exists with (and “as”) motiveless perception (beyond borders).  Only one of the two can ever perceive and understand the whole (instantly, without mere sequential process); the other must be caught in time-bound, sequential parameters that manifest as fragmentation and limitation.

The beauty of real ecstasy occurs only when harmful (i.e., fallacious) ways are finished while true joy blossoms without motive. 

 

 

 

 

Jagged Ambush Bug in Cone Flower (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Jagged Ambush Bug in Cone Flower (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Blue

January 12, 2018
15 comments

 

 

Blue skies

           quick upon a florid day

Sun swell

           in a sea of shine

Still fate

           frozen beyond nowhere bound

End sorrow

           in a jaunty rhyme

See far

           beyond horrid dream

Love lots

           perennial sunbeam

 

 

 

 

Blue Damselfly Sunbathing (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Blue Damselfly Sunbathing (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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We all want security…

January 7, 2018
14 comments

 

 

We all want security or some kind of stability in life.  If someone asks you — such as is done in this blog — to consider transcending beyond the image(s) of a central “I” or “me,” it is normal to have reservations about doing that.  Since very early childhood, images of there being a central “I”, “me,” or “central controller,” have been poured into us and have been heavily reinforced.  People have a psychological defense mechanism regarding protecting that supposed “center” that allegedly controls everything that each one does or decides upon.  That defense mechanism is built around the need for stability and security.  The “I” or “me” seems quite permanent and seems to be what one can always identify with (and depend upon).

For centuries, many of us have each existed in a country that we identified with and looked to for security.  “Our country” will keep us safe; “our country” is better and has the right systems and traditions.  “Our country” is protecting us… providing the necessary security for us.  However, these countries, worldwide, have not really given us security to any very significant, long-lasting degree.  The world remains full of conflict.  Crazy leaders, who are power-hungry and who have child-like minds, still (in this so-called modern age) pull people into deadly wars.  Separative countries, for eons, have contributed to conflict and wars between humans.  We are so programmed into following leaders (who promise security) yet who merely maintain the separative division that puts man against man.  Countries are essentially, by the way, manmade.  There really isn’t such a thing as Scotland; it is what man concocted.

Organized religions, too, are what man concocted.  Just like with countries, they have plenty of leaders who (like deceptive politicians) offer you security (especially in the after-life or in their “here and now” that is promised).  Like the image of a central “I,” one’s religion is what one can identify with and depend upon. Like with countries,  organized religions have caused much friction between human beings.  There have been many wars in the name of religion.  This still goes on.

These things that promise security may, with closer more vigilant observation, not provide much real security at all.  The world is not a safer place to exist in currently (with these manmade systems full of rigid practices and formulations that separate one group of humans from another).  Ignorance constructs walls and barriers to separate people and this inevitably causes conflict.  It may be, in reality, a small world… a global world.

Many may easily think that going beyond the concept or idea of a central “I” will somehow negate our security.  We are afraid of giving up what we think is so fundamental, so very permanent and lasting.  That “I,” however, creates psychological walls (and a bounded circumference) that can (and easily do) cause conflict in the world (and internally).  It may be that real security and real relationship with eternity can take place, however, without the illusory (limited) circumference and psychological wall that the image of “I” or “me” manifests as.  The reaction of “I” or “me” is a new projection or reflex of thinking each time it takes place, yet we take it to be the same-old, reliable (egocentric) essence of what we are.  Like a cigarette lighter flame repetitiously brought into existence, the flame is new and a bit different each time it burns; however, we tend to identify with it as being always the same, permanent thing…  which it isn’t.  The “I” causes walls of indifference, walls of callousness.  Intelligence and a real sense of bliss and eternity can live quite nicely (thank you) without dependence upon the “I,” “me,” or a spurious center… (except during times of superficial conversation where it is still commonly used).

Beyond its limited circumference exists what is beyond borders and concocted walls.  Real love transcends the “I,” transcends walls and borders that divide and cause conflict.  

 

 

 

Captured but Plant-based (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Captured but Plant-based (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

 

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One littlest why

January 5, 2018
17 comments

 

 

One littlest why came up with a how

         and said “You shouldn’t”

         but then a could gleefully said “Sure we can”

Suddenly a reflective tear cheerlessly cried “Please don’t”

         and then cold terror screamed “Oh this is going to be gruesome”

                                                                                           (Snakes are often Ben

Next a placid smile grinned a reassurance

         while impatience glanced again at the clock

Understanding suggested “Prejudice and hate can end… or end us”

         while fear nervously shouted “What will happen to us?”

Separation coldly looked with indifference

         and absorbed habit answered repetitiously

Sequential words swiftly scanned this poem

         as wonder why magically dropped in

                                                                                              eficial and not nearly as dangerous to
the earth’s health as man)

Wisdom transcended unwhole fragmentation

         while ostentatious showed off his clever intellect

 

 

 

Midland Brown Snake (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Midland Brown Snake (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

 

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The Passion of Awareness… (and Happy New Year!)

December 31, 2017
21 comments

 

[Special Note:   Happy New Year everyone!  Though we need to go way beyond “happy” into deep perception, compassion, and environmental awareness (that matters).]

 

The passion of awareness — real awareness, not all of that phony stuff — perceives beyond the known.  The known consists of preconceptions, traditions, and limited patterns of the past.  Profound awareness goes beyond all those things.  It goes beyond the mundane and commonplace.  It is not enmeshed in repetitive, rather mechanized habits that dull the mind and expand sorrow.  (Most people are caught in sorrow and perpetually try to run from it.  Interestingly, they always run from sorrow in a particular direction, and that direction is always limited; then, sorrow remains.)  Awareness is a motiveless inquiry without superficial direction or desire.  Any inquiry with direction is calculated and limited.

Many people have preconceptions about the way things are; with (and “as”) those preconceptions, they look.  What they see, then, will inevitably be limited, predetermined, and partial.  To perceive without conclusions is real humility, real innocence in action (beyond mere reaction).  The constant labeling of things, mentally, is a repetition of memory and the known (which is the past recurring).  All thoughts are symbols that are both fragmentary and limited.  Limitation can never see the whole… but so many cling to their limited preconceptions and fragmentary patterns of thought/thinking… just as they were taught to.  Many remain circumscribed within the limits that were given to them as their foundation.

Recently one saw a science program about artificial intelligence.  In the near future, there will nanorobots (nanobots) — at sizes smaller than the cellular level size — that will enter the brain and connect with the neural pathways.  People then will be composed of minds that are part computer… part machine.  Ray Kurzweil, who works for Google, and other computer experts/entrepreneurs claim it can begin happening very soon; the year 2029 has been pinpointed as a date for when it can really (more fully) take place.  All kinds of beneficial things are allegedly supposed to happen because of this.  However, one questions whether is it taking us to a better place.  Human minds are heavily conditioned and mechanical enough; implanting the brain with machines will only make them more robot-like… more prone toward programming by the powers that be.  Some scientific reports maintain that 50% of the earth’s wildlife has been killed off by humans in the last 40 years.  Immersing ourselves in virtual worlds, which is what computer implants will likely do to us to a significant extent, will not help wake us up to what is alive and precious in the real world.   Additionally, people wishing harm to others will — more easily — access ways to make deadly viruses and nocuous substances.   We need to intelligently put a leash on technology; however, that is unlikely to happen unless more of us wake up; the leash, so far, is on us.  

Awareness, real awareness, is action… not merely secondary reaction.  Very many of us habitually react all day long (like robotic, mechanized, programmed instruments); and they want to implant more mechanicalness, more man-made concoctions into our (already programmed) brains!  

It is only the uncontaminated, pristine, innocent mind that can be entered by the whole, the timeless.  That which is limited, fragmented, sequential, partial, and prejudicial, is not open or unbounded enough to be visited by that miraculous, impersonal intelligence.  

 

 

 

Bee Flight (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Bee Flight (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

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Kind to Nature

December 29, 2017
24 comments

 

 

kind to nature

not so many fossil fuels

or be blind

and heartless fossil fools

 

plant trees grow flowers

nature a blessed event

or view the world through brainwashed lies

cover everything with dead cement

 

 

 

Dragonfly poising (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Dragonfly poising (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

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Happy Holidays!

December 24, 2017
21 comments

 

Special Note:   Happy Holidays to everyone worldwide!

 

We sure hope that the coming new year brings, with it, more sense and more compassion in people.  People, unfortunately, are very gullible and it is easy for the fat-cat bureaucrats to get people to believe just about anything.  Please do not get all wrapped up in belief; please intelligently go beyond all belief and tradition-oriented presumption.  Do not ever merely believe what i write within this blog; i do not wish to be your authority.  (There are plenty of charlatans out there who will gladly be your authority, if that is what you wish.)  Each one of us has to deeply question things and look beyond all of the propaganda.  If the world has any hope at all, we need to go beyond the ruts that we are mindlessly entrenched in.  Governments that rob the poor to feed the filthy rich (and that neglect environmental health and global unity) need to be radically questioned/altered.  The world is very small and fragile and it will not last — in its balance naturally as it has — if we continue to lack seriousness and continue to act with negligence regarding the delicate whole.   Despite what you were “taught,” you may not be anything separate from all of the fragile creatures and humans of this planet; it may be that you are them.  If you do not care — and continue reacting as the fat-cat bureaucrats want you to — it may be like the right hand not at all caring about the left hand (and thinking it is separate).  

Alleged saying of Jesus… from the ancient Nag Hammadi Gospel of Thomas (that the hierarchical fat-cats rejected):

Jesus said:  “The dead are not alive, and the living will not die. During the days when you ate what is dead, you made it come alive. When you are in the light, what will you do? On the day when you were one, you became two. But when you become two, what will you do?”

 

Do not ever think that you are something separate.  Wash clean of cold deception, false accumulation, and dead tradition.

Mostly alone… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

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The Light of Shine

December 22, 2017
4 comments

[Addendum:   We saw the movie “Wonder” the other day; it was excellent; highly recommended!]

******************************************************************************************************************************************

 

 

But here

amongst 

the light of shine

why couldn’t

when arcing was

as shading stared 

even when

something moved

ever so

graciously

amid

perceptions reactions

and you’re

blinking

 

 

Amongst the Light of Shine (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Amongst the Light of Shine (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

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Humans’ Psychological Walls…

December 17, 2017
18 comments

 

 

Everyone seems to exist with many psychological walls.  In the aforementioned sentence, the word “exist” was used and not the word “live.”  One is not sure whether existing with all of the psychological walls (that society had us absorb) is really living.  We… early in life — in grade school and similar places — learned how to incorporate these walls into (and “as”) our consciousness.  As adults, these walls have become heavily imbued into each one of us.  We perceive — without even realizing it — with (and from) these walls of separation.

What do these walls consist of?  They consist of a myriad of things; however, they are essentially ingrained thoughts.  We perceive largely via separation and a wall of division.  Each one takes for granted that the perceiver is separate from the perceived.  Many of us think that humans are somehow separate from the animals.  Many function with separative countries, religions, and traditions, and such people then look  — despite saying that they do otherwise — with division and fragmentation.  We were taught that we are separate individuals.

When a psychological fear takes place, if it is seen via psychological distance, then a manufactured psychological wall exists.  That wall divides the perceiver from the fear.  In actuality, the perceiver is not something separate from the fear.  The fear itself is a protrusion or swelling of consciousness… a consciousness that one is.  If jealousy takes place, the average mind sees it as something that it “has,” not as what it actually is.  “Having” the jealousy — in the mind — puts it at a psychological distance.  A psychological wall, in (and “as”) the mind seems to place the perceiver at a distance from “his jealousy.”   That very wall, which separates something from the jealousy, helps manufacture the image of a separate perceiver.   That may be a waste of energy; the perceiver is not (in reality) something separate from the jealousy.  (This is not to say that a human being is just jealousy; that would be ludicrous; each of us is a unique dynamic).   So, what is rather ludicrous — which, unfortunately, most people do not see — involves looking at what you actually are from a distance (as if it is not actually what you are).  This is really not complicated.  When you look in a mirror, you do not think, “There is a separate image at some distance,” … do you?  Yet, partly because of faulty education, when hatred occurs, most people see it as what they “have” and as what they control from a “center” at a distance.  We extend that inner separation outwardly (into the world, so to speak).   We were taught that each one of us is an individual and that each one of us is separate from all other life forms in the whole world; that may not be true whatsoever.  Manufactured walls, however, make it seem true.  (Transcending the falsehood of separate individuality, by the way, does not negate the beauty of eternity for us whatsoever.)  The world is in real chaos/decline because of accepting many (false) deluding walls as things that are true.

Many people can look at a hurt animal without any empathy.   Such people inevitably look with a callous wall of indifference.  That wall involves space.  It is a very limited, distorted space.  It is a very confined, circumscribed space that “exists,” and one would not immediately jump to call it “living.”  There is, in most of us, a sensed distance between “you” and “what is seen.”  This applies internally (such as involving fear) and externally (such as seeing a creature of nature).  Either way, that sensed distance (too) makes up the consciousness that you are (and so does the image of what is seen); so there really is no wall, especially internally where the fear or hatred is an extension of the mind.  

Though he harms others, even an extremely cruel man — in his isolated, cold existence — usually takes great pains not to harm himself.  However, for such a man, false walls have isolated that so-called self to a very disconnected, limited (fallacious and fictitious) realm.   We need to be more intelligent as a species; we need to go beyond our primitive walls and limited boundaries and stop butchering each other in archaic wars; we need to stop polluting the whole of nature, which we are not segregated from.  We can be truly intelligent and live in the holistic eternal.

 

 

 

Jumping Spider (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Jumping Spider (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

 

 

 

 

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Serendipity… (when there may be no you mindlessly separate from them)

December 15, 2017
15 comments

 

 

One

       pink day

             in a curious

                   we kind of way

                         the camera landed

                               near what insects were focusing on

 

 

 

 

Serendipity (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Serendipity (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

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Imprecision of the Mind

December 10, 2017
19 comments

 

 

It is important to have a mind and body that (together) work with great precision.  Many people do not take great care of their bodies; nor do they delve into the nature and essence of their minds a great deal.  Such behavior is often negligence.  A body that consumes many foods that are not conducive to good health is operating in a way that is not harmonious, not orderly.  Similarly, a mind that is operating with a lot of inner conflicts, resistance, fears, delusional manipulations, and a fanciful administration of power, is not being harmonious nor orderly. 

A mind that is a hodgepodge of absorbed (i.e., learned) conditioning consisting of false psychological separation, inner conflict, inner resistance, and spurious (internal) domineering power can seemingly create a meditative silence that it may think is divine.   However, a mind full of inner limitations, conflicts, suppositions, and learned attributes can easily deceive itself; such a silence is (inevitably) as limited as the mind that fabricated it.  It may be that a truly profound and precise silence is never the product of a calculating mind.

A mind that is aware of itself, each and every day, without the stagnant patterns that society has impressed upon it, may (without effort or spurious inner dominating factors) function with (and “as”) real order, precision, and harmony.  Thinking and the thought process is often used by (and “as”) such a mind; however, the thinking process is seen to be the limited tool that it is; the sagacious mind realizes that it need not exclusively cling to that limited domain.  There is a cessation of thought/thinking that comes uninvited, that comes unprovoked; it is not the hypnotic, limited kind of fabricated silence that so many unfortunate minds have learned to materialize.  

A mind that has profound awareness functions without a fictitious and misleading center (such as the kind that the majority have learned to accept and take as genuine).  Most, with that misleading and inaccurate “center” that each takes to be genuine, function — especially internally — with fraudulent space and with fanciful separation.  The fraudulent, limited space and fanciful separation are involved with protrusions of thought that are given (false) credit for being the source of power and domination (of the so-called other thoughts).  Then, such minds of imprecision think that they can intentionally meditate, creating or concocting a space of true and legitimate silence.  Does one see the absurdity of it?…  A mind of delusional, distorted separation and fictitious space thinks it can fabricate a true silence (of vast space).  What it produces will be an obtrusion (i.e., an extension) of its own inherent disorder and imprecision (and, therefore, will inevitably be of the conditioned and/or false).  It is so easy for distortion to bamboozle itself into thinking that it is free, or whole, or divine (when it is not).  Only an innocent, honest, truly humble mind (of real clarity and precision) is beyond self-deception. 

A mind that examines without the burden of false values and the stale conditioning (of the past) can flower beyond limitation, internal imprecision, and fallacious separation (such as misrepresentation as when, in the mind, the so-called “controller” is misconstrued as being somehow separate from “thoughts seen with psychological distance”).  Profoundly intelligent observation must be pristine, uncontaminated, undistorted, and beyond measure.   It is very possible for the truly serious mind.  Only a mind of real clarity and precision can see and understand the whole. 

 

 

 

Green Lacewing… Predator of many harmful insects… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

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We moved

December 8, 2017
12 comments

 

 

We moved and in that moving looked

                     and in that looking many things were seen

and in that seeing labeled things were from the storehouse of memory

We re-cognized from patterns of the past

We saw everything the way we were instructed to see

We looked from (i.e., as) the screen of conditioning

We never looked originally spotlessly wholly 

?Can the yes of awareness be beyond stagnant lies of no

                     as magic beautifully flowers

 

 

 

Depth with superficiality (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Depth with superficiality (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

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Ideals (What are they and why do we “have” them)…

December 3, 2017
13 comments

 

 

We have had ideals for centuries.  Yet mankind goes on, with all kinds of corruption and distortion.  Ideals seem to help but, in the long run, do not change much whatsoever.  When one has an ideal, it is a projection or obtrusion (of the mind) regarding what one “ought to be.”  That “ought to be,” that “what one should be,” is a pattern that one has accumulated — over time — from others’ teachings or from experiences (of the past).  It is a protrusion of the past into the present, concerning what the future “should be”; such a process is a sequence in (and “as”) psychological time.

Profound awareness is not what occurs when the present (in its wholeness) is constantly contaminated by past fragmentary symbols and patterns.  People are energetic, habitual, lightning-quick “reacting organisms,” and learned, fragmentary symbols and patterns — of the past, like any “should be” — are usually not enough to entirely tame the deeply ingrained emotions/desires/reactions that “people are” (and to significantly change those reactions).  So the projected “‘should be’s” from the past, are (for the most part) never enough to fundamentally alter behavior.  Whenever what one “should be” is projected — in (and “as”) the mind — from the past, it is at odds with what “actually is.”  The “ideals” and the “actualities” are often in conflict with each other; a mind that habitually feeds internal conflicts is not a healthy mind… it is a mind of friction and internal resistance.  When the present time actually takes place, such internal friction and resistance prevent profound awareness.  When one portion of the mind is at odds with another portion of the mind — which is so often the case with minds that harbor (and consist of) ideals — then such internal conflict prevents pristine awareness and holistic energy.  When pristine awareness takes place, it has its own (unimposed) natural, intrinsic order; then there is no need for symbolic ideals or many regulating laws.  Great, sagacious passion sees clearly (without distortion); that very seeing is its own order and compassion.

The wise mind does not merely carry and project ideals but, rather, sees what it actually is from moment to moment.  If jealousy is taking place, in such a mind, it sagaciously perceives that jealousy (as what it actually is… not merely as something that it “has.”)  Perceiving without “learned-accumulated space,” learned-accumulated patterns of what “should be,” and learned-accumulated patterns of “psychological effort” may enable the mind to be deeply aware beyond the realm of mere fragmentation and sequential expansion; then real insight and order can take place.  Such order would not be merely manmade or imposed.  Order that is imposed is never lasting and is never what can fundamentally change a person.

Innumerable people are the “should be” or “ought to be” images (of idealism) that they harbor.  People who hold many ideals actually are those ideals (and are not something separate from them).  The mind does not merely “have ideals”; in many, whether they realize it or not, ideals are what they actually are (at least partially, of course).  They are (additionally) a lot of reactions and movements at odds with the ideals; so there is real friction and struggle within.  Inner conflict doesn’t easily allow fundamental learning (beyond mere accumulation) to take place.  Wisdom goes beyond separation, beyond fragmentation, beyond internal struggle and conflict, beyond very primitive ways of dealing with things.  The passion of very intelligent awareness is an explosion beyond the dead sequence of psychological time and distortion; only then can a deep form of timeless compassion and intrinsic order manifest.

 

 

Mushrooms without ideals Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

 

 

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That Sacredness

December 1, 2017
15 comments

 

 

There is an immeasurable energy

       a sacredness that cannot be created or destroyed

       and it is a field beyond thought/thinking

Its essence is an indescribable eternity that is

       beyond words and mere mental patterns

It rarely visits the realm of man

When it visits

      it fills the cup of the mind/body for a while

       and departs as quickly as it arrives

       but leaves some perfume of itself

        that forever affects the mind

Its intrinsic order will not visit a concocted silence

        nor any copied meditation

       nor any secondhand distortion or twisted corruption

It is of an immense intelligence

       beyond fragmented limitation and stagnant beliefs

It is not of the separative fabricated religions and countries

        that divide man

Thinking is always “about” energy

Thinking is never (the actual boundless energy

        with all of its holistic beauty)

Thought/thinking is limited fractional

        and symbolic

 

 

 

 

Lichen near a pond (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Lichen near a pond (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

 

 

 

 

 

Post

Mediocrity and the Unconditioned

November 26, 2017
13 comments

 

Most of us, i feel, were educated to accept innumerable fallacies as facts and as ordinary phenomena to be taken for granted.  These have been presented to us since birth and, although it wasn’t deliberate indoctrination, the word “indoctrination” is very applicable to what actually has largely taken place.  In our youth, we were not encouraged to deeply question society’s values, doctrines, principles, beliefs, and systems (and go beyond them).  We were molded to conform, to remain with (and “as”) the status quo, to accept competition… and deviating from that (significantly) was definitely not tolerated.   Some people, reading or hearing about this, would say, “Yes, I know,” or “Yes, I realize that.”   It is unlikely, however, that many have even the foggiest idea of just how vast the conditioning (and indoctrination) runs into their lives.   We were not brought up to be truly open, creative, questioning, deeply insightful human beings; we were, for the most part, programmed to be copiers, replicators, and obedient parts of the machine.    

Most of us do not see the world as “one organism”; we perceive the many parts, many species, many others, many sections.   We’ve used thought (as we were taught to) for advantageous purposes, yet most all of us greatly overuse it (dwelling, almost exclusively, in that realm).  (Some of us who absorbed calculated methods to go beyond thought, by sitting on mats and all such planned nonsense, have substituted mere glorified hypnotic technique to displace thinking, all the while thinking something great has been accomplished.)  Very few of us have intelligently seen the limitation of thinking and have truly (intelligently) gone beyond that limitation.   Thinking, being the sequential arrangement of symbols (that it is)… is always partial, always very limited.  Thinking is a very necessary tool, a necessary instrument that is extremely useful (at times); however, at other times, it is unnecessary to remain in (and “as”) the realm of thinking.  Need the mind always merely exist as symbols, as sequential tokens to attain (or “represent”) something?   The very supposed core of most people’s selves consists of fragmentary images and symbols (such as “me” and “I”) that they have absorbed from others.  So many are existing in a virtual world of man-made images and fabricated constructs that consist primarily of mere representational ideas and habitually learned patterns.

 Real perception, real intelligence goes beyond all this — and that is where the real bliss and eternity exists — not by accumulating more methodologies, not by absorbing more systems and patterns, not by blindly adhering to more authority.  The truly perceptive mind looks without outward and inward authority.  It sees beyond the symbolic, the partial, and the taught.  Such a mind is of real bliss and order.  It has no teacher, no resting place, no anchor that others have provided in (and “as”) the past.  Without looking with (and “as”) the dead past, such a mind may be truly free, pristine, and unspoiled.  There is no procedure or “how” regarding getting there.  A lot of people prefer to comfortably remain in the leftover debris that was shoveled to them, and they call it “security” and “wellbeing,” yet they remain full of anxiety, uncertainty, and sorrow.   Real (fundamental) security and genuine bliss, however, go beyond the residual norms of a fragmented, nocuous society.     

 

 

 

Together … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017