All Posts Tagged ‘meditation’

Post

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

Post

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Post

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

Post

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

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

 

Post

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

 

Post

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

Post

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

 

Post

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

Post

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

Post

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

Post

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

 

Post

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

Post

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

Post

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

 

Post

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

 

Post

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

Post

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

Post

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

Post

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

Post

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

 

 

 

 

Post

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

Post

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

Post

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

Post

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

 

 

Post

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

Post

Gold, the Eternal Treasure

November 24, 2017
7 comments

 

 

Denzel Epinstein ambled with a very crooked leg

         His perceptions,though,were not jaded and askew

Mary Whitnun power-walked with perfect knees and thighs

         Her subservient perceptions were full of broken fragments and distortion

 

Ed Sedentary was perpetually glued to his television

         Temporary things were seen with separation and phosphorescent isolation

Tina Flow appeared to be alone in the golden meadows of nature

         She wasn’t,however,apart from all of the wondrous and magnificent creatures

 

 

 

Grasshopper on Tugged Sunflower (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Grasshopper on Tugged Sunflower (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Post

Awareness vs. Conditioned Responsiveness…

November 19, 2017
21 comments

 

 

It is very difficult for people to fundamentally change.  One realizes, all too well, that whatever is written here, and in my other posts, will likely not have much of a meaningful impact for most who are reading this.  People cling to their traditions, to what they have absorbed in school and to what they swallowed from others in the distant past; they cling to deeply ingrained conditioning, and (though they claim that they are changing) they are unwilling to really drop all of that baggage.  It is unfortunate that most people cannot radically and fundamentally change.

If one merely reads these posts, accepts much of what is written, and builds a bunch of mental constructs out of it… it is not what is truly blossoming whatsoever.   Awareness flowers when there is a flowering beyond mere conditioned responsiveness.  That flowering has nothing to do with effort, agreement, absorption, practice, or dead tradition.  (There, of course, remain to be oodles of religions, armies, and experts who are all too willing to give you more of those essentially unflowering falsities.)

Most people are very good at responding and reacting.  That is what they were trained (i.e., indoctrinated) to do… and it is what they were trained to remain as.  Practicing something to “be” in some state beyond that may be a foolhardy waste of time.  As was written in the “Being and Becoming” posting:  “Being and becoming are essentially the same thing.  Being, as does becoming, reinforces the self, the center, with its dependence on sensations, pleasure, and time.”  

A person can go out in nature and then be a series of mere reactions… seeing everything through a screen of images and mental compilations that one has “absorbed” from previous others in (and “as” the past).  Then, a separate image of self is projected as a learned reaction, as an obtrusion of thought/thinking, and seemingly and pretentiously identifies that with images and with other mental compilations involving nature; it then claims “I am one with nature.”   Unfortunately, however, mere reactions and obtrusions of thought may not be “one” with much of anything.  Seeing with (and from) the past (i.e., from stuffy, old memory and imagery) is existing in (and “as”) the past.

As was written in the “Being and Becoming” posting:  The intelligent mind does not try to be in a state of being, does not try to be what is non-becoming, nor does it try to be in a state of non-being.  Such trying would be a further extension of becoming and would reinforce the self and its dependence upon time.  In (psychologically) not trying to be or not be… the mind may naturally blossom as what is beyond greed, dependence (on others for how to get there), and measurement.

Awareness involves a depth, love, and a total perception that the limited domain of mere reaction cannot fathom.   Such awareness, such love, and perception — though they are not separate things —  go beyond being, beyond becoming, beyond measurement.   Eternity is involved in such awareness.

 

 

Beyond words (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Beyond words (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Post

Without Make and How

November 17, 2017
14 comments

 

 

                                                                      Without

                                                              make and how

                                                      this lit

                                                 tlest no

                                            thing

                                      hap

                                 pens

                            be

                            yond

                                 being

                                      be

                                             coming

                                                   is

                                                         was

                                                                and(of course)

                                                                      will be

 

 

 

 

Male Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Male Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Post

Reactions and Beyond

November 12, 2017
17 comments

 

All of us, in (and “as”) a succession of moments, in a series or sequence, react.  In a very wise entity, however, these reactions are not always habitual, are not always the only activity taking place.  In most people, conditioned into habits, what they actuate is always caused by some prior (usually some group of) antecedent factors.  They may think and fully feel that they are dignified and elegant and in total control (for what they allegedly “choose”); however, they usually are a reacting part of a calculated, complex matrix devised by a larger society.  Many then get stuck in mundane, dull routines and then often try to find various escapes to temporarily pull boredom out for a while.  These escapes then create further reactions, many of which do not fundamentally benefit the earth nor those upon it.

What can go beyond this is real integrity, real wholeness, and soundness.   To perceive integrally is to perceive beyond the fragments.  Thought, being symbolic and partial, is inherently limited and fragmentary.  However, most are habitually composed of (and habitually dependent on) thought and thinking.  These habitual thoughts go much further (in their extent) than most realize.  Thought often separates one group from another, oneself from so-called others at a distance, and the so-called central controller from what is seen (from an alleged distance) as his or her fear.  

In a divisive, mad, chaotic world, can the mind exist as more than mere fragmented reaction?  There is a quietness, a vast humility, beyond the shadows of spurious control and manipulation.  That quietness is not the mere result of any kind of reaction, nor the product of any kind of intention or contrivance.   You cannot make yourself be quiet (as so many try to do); the so-called “maker” of the quietness is a protrusion of thought; the concocted reaction from a protrusion of thought can never be genuine quietness.   There must be a motiveless (effortless) perceiving without mere habitual rigamarole.  

 

Cloudless Sulphur Butterfly Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Post

Real Love

November 10, 2017
14 comments

 

 

Real love can’t be reasoned

        can’t be measured

                        can’t be sold

                        and doesn’t give a damn

              about having tons of $

or a stinking pot of gold

 

Genuine wisdom isn’t pompous

        isn’t pigheaded

                        isn’t forlorn sorrow

                        and won’t ever bring ecstatic truth

        eternal perception and blissful joy

if seriousness is 4 2morrow

 

 

Alfalfa Sulfur Butterflies (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Alfalfa Sulfur Butterflies (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Post

Second-handedness

November 5, 2017
24 comments

 

Real mindfulness, real meditation is not sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat.  Such sitting is calculated and is structured to gain something… (which is greediness).  On the other hand, innocent, pristine awareness throughout the day (that is not merely influenced by the patterns and symbols that others have provided) may be very prudent.  Is it real awareness when one is looking with what other people have poured into one?  Is real awareness, real living, what can take place through the secondhand edicts or patterns provided by others?  When perception takes place through mere symbolic images and via learned psychological separation, is such perception what was copied from others and (additionally) limited and superficial?

It may be that secondhand has little to do with actual living.  However, many rely on (and habitually exist “as”) secondhand, without question.   

 

 

0.5 cm Scarlet-and-Green Leafhopper (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

0.5 cm Scarlet-and-Green Leafhopper (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Post

Bipedal

November 3, 2017
13 comments

 

[Note:  The following poem is not about the Praying Mantis; it is about the species who manufactured the metal rail that the Mantis is walking across.]

 

Bipedal

Hairy

Tends to dominate other species

Some act with great order and understanding while many are indifferent and uncaring

Often fights other imaginary sub-groups of its own kind

Takes far more — in terms of the domain of other species — than its fair share

Overpopulates its own kind over the entire planet

Covers life-areas with dead concrete

Feels intelligent and superior (while it — all along — ruins the planet)

Most do not realize that they are not separate from the world as a whole

Some are very caring, considerate, and compassionate

Mentally feeds on symbols and images rather than reality

Often uses others for profit

Often blindly follows/obeys power-hungry tyrants in high positions

Some fire projectiles from held devices to put holes in  other species or in others of their own kind… rendering them lifeless

Some warmheartedly stay local, recycle, use alternative energy, and actually help nature and others of their own kind

Others hypocritically claim to love nature while they often needlessly fly for long distances in aircraft that spew out deadly fossil fuels in vast quantities

Most foolishly think that their species is separate from other species

Some refrain from harming multitudinous species who highly value their own existence

Some have real empathy while others are mere thinking/reacting machines

Most abandoned life in the trees and woodlands to become the obedient working slaves of others

Only an extremely small number have been visited by that sacred, eternal energy that is beyond the realm of standard causality and rigid boundaries

Many believe in a dominating super-organism who — up above — happens to be a tail-free ape like themselves

Most subscribe to the very primitive notion that the observer is separate from the observed

A small few exist beyond the shared madness

 

 

 

Shadow of Mantis in the World of Man (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Shadow of Mantis in the World of Man (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

 

 

 

 

Post

Halloween Time…

October 30, 2017
14 comments

 

 

Oh Tin Man

Being empty isn’t a bad thing

It’s a wise magical thing

that radiates compassion

The many that are so full of themselves

heartless

 

 

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

 

 

Post

True Simplicity

October 29, 2017
10 comments

 

Most of us each look with psychological space between a posited “I” and what that “I” — which is actually manufactured — supposedly sees from a distance.   Even when a psychological fear takes place, we each tend to see it from a distance, as what each one of us “has,” rather than seeing it as what we actually are.   (This psychological distance exudes a false sense of control.)  However, if that central “I” is spurious, is mentally manufactured and not really central… and is essentially a projection of the thought process, then erroneous perception is taking place.  An illusory “I” often may necessitate a concomitant illusory (psychological distance).  The absence of a central “I” helps to curtail unnecessary psychological distance.   

We are also separated by organized (concocted) religions, countries, cultural groups, rigid beliefs, systems, and prejudices… many of which we are willing to fight and die over.

Very few of us are truly simple (in an intelligent way) beyond the absorbed conflict, rifts, and illusory boundaries and spaces that were provided by way of direct or indirect indoctrination.  The wise mind that transcends the very crass and illusory notion of a central “I” or “me” will live among many who habitually cling to absorbed images of a central self.  Such a wise mind usually must function in a vast population of delusion and falsities.   It may be that the very essence of those habitually expressing unnecessary psychological space consists of duplicity and inaccuracy.  Deep compassion and profound holistic relationship occur not a moment sooner than when (psychologically) the limited “I” is wisely and fully transcended.   When the limited “I” is wisely and fully transcended, needless separation and wasteful conflict end. 

 

 

Snout Butterfly (Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Post

Many dead from the heart up…

October 22, 2017
19 comments

 

 

We exist in a world society that largely operates with a very amoral morality.  It’s a society where ruthless competition is so hammered into people that many do it without question.  It’s a society where it is largely accepted to destroy large parts of nature with chemicals, abuse, polluting fuels, and endless cement.  It is a society where little is said or felt about human population control (as humans, as a species, are taking way more than their fair share quantitatively/environmentally).  It’s a society where separation and division are often encouraged and reinforced.  It’s a society where it’s easy to fit in (and be accepted) if one is indifferent, barbarous, and manipulating.  It’s a society where, for example, one is often accepted and congratulated while one claims to love nature, all the while frequently flying long distances in fossil-fuel (very polluting) aircraft from continent to continent to take pictures of animals and plant life… although they are all are being choked off by pollutants and fumes.  Of course, there are some who are truly sympathetic and good (even in a society that, for the most part, is of corruption and chaos).  Many more are living in tiny houses, recycling, staying local, reproducing less, intentionally using less, using alternative energy, and are truly doing more to make a difference.

To really find out what happens at death, one must, first and foremost, understand life/living.  One isn’t, however, even actually living if one is a cadaverous clone of stale traditions and secondhand (accepted) suppositions.  Most were not encouraged to doubt, to question.  However, intelligent doubting and sensitive questioning may help an individual bloom beyond rigid, rigor mortis states.  Many end up being buried six feet down even though they were never fully alive in the first place, unfortunately.  To go through life merely reacting (from what was poured into one) may not be real living whatsoever.  Too many assume that they are actually alive.  It may be that if genuine enlightenment would ever happen to you, as a visitation by that sacred immeasurability, you would definitely realize that we truly live in the land of the dead.  Do not ever merely accept what i say or write.  Find out for yourself.  Please do not be like dead clay.

 

 

 

Buckeye Butterfly (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Buckeye Butterfly (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

Post

Let us go and make our visit…

October 20, 2017
19 comments

 

Thither we go
        into a half-baked poem
        hardly worth reading

We will continue to read it
        despite its repulsive tendencies
        to bring us closer to mediocrity 

unless we allow the eyes to feast
        on the accompanying photos
        which are not as puerile and spineless
        as the poem currently being read

Of course the poem can be
        memorized and recited
        if you’d like to fail to impress your friends
        (who are imprisoned in all standard misconceptions)

Any disreputable poem
        such as this one
        neglects to suggest anything profound
        and declines to mention
        the beauty of nature

You (Mr. Prufrock) heard them each to each
        Go ahead and eat your peach
        I too am an easy tool
        and i too grow old
        (the bottom of my trousers rolled)

 

Enfolded (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Enfolded (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

 

Post

Sensibility

October 15, 2017
10 comments

 

Sensibility can involve and does involve the ability to receive sensations.  We wholeheartedly pursue pleasurable sensations throughout our life.  We often avoid sensations that are unpleasant or uncomfortable.  Thoughts are often involved in the pursuit of pleasurable sensations and in the avoidance of uncomfortable sensations.  Reactions, as thoughts and feelings, often involve sensations of various types… and pursuit or avoidance involving them.  Many of the cravings and evasions of people are learned (i.e., absorbed from others).  What others — in overall society — pursue and crave is often examined and copied.  Needless to say, in this day and age, many are into heavy partying, exotic vacations, and all kinds of entertainment.  Much of this involves endlessly trying to find exciting and pleasurable sensations.  

One can go on, for many decades, perpetually pursuing one pleasurable experience after another (ruining the environment along the way)… just as one has learned to do by observing many others (who buzz along in large fossil-fueled vehicles).  It may be, however, that the values involved in a life of doing that kind of thing are rather superficial, without real depth.  To remain in such a state may be rather infantile.  Sensibility can also, beyond the aforementioned involvement with limited sensations, pertain to an acute awareness with an overall accompanying perception and intelligence involving what is significant and prudent. Real prudence involves sagacity and sensibility beyond what was merely poured into one by others.  Such prudence goes far beyond what is merely pleasurable into realms that help life and humanity (without getting anything in return).  The childish mind will be incapable of such prudence; real depth will elude such a mind.  

Endlessly pursuing one pleasure after another (without depth), and a donkey perpetually chasing a carrot suspended from a stick tied to its saddle, both have a lot in common.  Intelligence goes beyond mere reaction; it is not what is bound in (and “as”) endless reactions.  What is restricted and circumscribed is limited.  Sensibly going beyond the limitations of what is ordinary may be real intelligence.  The carrot is really not something that is truly separate from the donkey, though he thinks it is.  The next time desire takes place, please consider the possibility that it is what you actually are, not merely what you have.

 

 

Carrot Groping (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Carrot Groping (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Post

The leader and the lead… should be obsolete in this day and age.

October 13, 2017
8 comments

 

Here I am riding on the Solar Sunflower Express

        in first class.

Down below,in third class,a lowly soldier beetle rests;

        he has connections on the web

        but he is way below my esteemed riches.

I have my feelers out for the lush,green cash to be had,

        and I feel secure in my dominance and expertise.

As for the servile soldier beetle,well, 

        he better hope that he is fit enough to fight in the 

        battles that I decree.

Now please excuse me while I give some

        top-rate tobacco a little chew.

 

 

 

Riding the Solar Sunflower Express (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Riding the Solar Sunflower Express (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Post

What a lot of us go through

October 8, 2017
14 comments

 

A lot of us go through unbelievable hardships in life.  Very many of us have had to go through tremendous turmoil, unfortunate tragedies, and unbelievably tough times.   For some of us, maybe our parents were rather cruel and unstable; or perhaps such was the case regarding some of our teachers or classmates.  Or maybe some of us have had to deal with significant physical or socioeconomic handicaps.  Many of us have had to face real pain involving the loss of a loved one or dear friend.  Most of us were shaped to be programmed by a society that is competitive, money oriented, and extremely superficial (in terms of deep meaning and real integrity).  Most of us have been harmed psychologically (by cruelty and indifference); many of us do not even realize the vast extent of the damage that has been done to us.  Beyond the past, we all, whether we like it or not, are facing a very precarious future.  The world is getting more and more dangerous, more and more divided; we have not fundamentally changed (psychologically) since our early barbarian ancestry days.  And now, with nuclear armaments being able to wipe out billions and with germ warfare a real possibility, here we sit.  Violent winds and ferocious storms and wildfires are increasing as pollution gets far worse, as many politicians are indifferent, and as fossil fuelled homes and vehicles run rampant.

Given the aforementioned circumstances, it would be very arduous to be truly stable in such a tough, unstable world (such as it is).  It would be very easy to remain truly stale in such a tough, unstable world (such as it is).  One cannot really blame others for their staleness and lack of depth; they were educated and programmed to be that way.  Many cannot change; many do not want to change.  We were taught that we are separate from each other.  We were taught that we are different.  Within all of the vast darkness, there can be light and real intensity.  That light must shine from you; it cannot merely be given by another.  Such light is never really just secondhand; however, darkness can easily be secondhand (or of a residual, shadow-like, cold recurrence).   To be a truly bright human being, here, has little to do with intellectual capacity, with copying and mimicking.  

 

 

 

Struggling in Life (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Struggling in Life (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Post

The Reader is the Read

October 6, 2017
9 comments

 

 

 

In the reading of a poem
the depth of the poem may have meaning
which,coincidentally,depends upon
the depth of the reader
not that the reader and the poem
are necessarily two separate things

If superficiality is involved
it may be with regard to the poem itself
or it may involve the perception of the reader
not that the perception and the reader are separate
not that the poetry and the depth are necessarily separate
as when the reader and the read are not two separate things
which,in a world of tremendous conflict,friction,and division,
might not be a bad thing whatsoever

 

 

Fall (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Fall (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Post

Cessation

October 1, 2017
7 comments

 

There is a psychological cessation that is beyond the parameters of motivation, desire, or striving.  It involves a timelessness that is beyond sequential methodologies and practices.  Such a cessation is a discontinuance of the same-old mental symbols, same-old perspectives involving separation, and same-old mental traditions.  Such a cessation is natural, healthy, intelligent, and is not merely what can be measured.  Those who perpetually and habitually function in (and “as”) the parameters of thought (endlessly using dead sequential symbols to cogitate about things) cannot be of such a living timelessness.

There is no path to such a cessation, such a timelessness… for, if there was, it would be reducing such a timelessness to being just another part of the continuum of temporal manifestations; there are plenty of charlatan priests, gurus, and so-called religious masters who are all too willing to give you the path (and methods), however.  A lone Bumblebee went from flower petal to flower petal, caught in a sequence of endless reactions that never were transcended, never fully understood.

 

 

 

Immersed in reaction (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Immersed in reaction (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

 

 

 

Post

Inquiry into the Sacred

September 24, 2017
10 comments

 

 

In an intelligent inquiry as to whether or not there is anything really sacred, the mind must be free from limited patterns of conditioning and opinion.   For such an inquiring mind, there is no room for belief or conjecture.  Both belief and conjecture are based upon supposition or primarily baseless, unscientific conclusions.  This transcendence beyond the limitations of conditioned belief and conjecture additionally includes going beyond any formulated methodologies that one may be lead to believe are worthwhile.  Very many have, with blind faith, clung to the structured methodologies and ideologies that various organized religions — such as Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and others —  have provided over the years.  Asking people to go beyond the conditioning of these organized groups (with their leaders) usually falls on deaf ears.

In such an inquiry, the mind must be supremely healthy; additionally, it must be beyond being influenced or programmed by any group or by any person.  It may be that only a very healthy, balanced, unconditioned mind can discover what is truly sacred.  Such a mind brings about its own order (and not according to what someone else says).  It may be that to truly come upon the sacred, the mind must have its own natural, intrinsic order.  Such order may not be the result of mere accumulation.  No accumulation of beliefs, or structured methodologies to live according to, would be of interest to a truly orderly, unconditioned mind.  In a big way, perception without dependence on accumulation is perception beyond the parameters of time; all accumulated beliefs and structured methodologies require (and depend upon) time.  The timeless, unconditioned, truly free mind is beyond all of that (but don’t just take my word for it).

Can perception take place that is not the mere result of — and not dependent upon — past accumulation (as stored memory)?  It may be that if one looks without all of the past accumulated memories and hand-me-down patterns of others then such a one is stepping out of the confinement and incarceration of conditioning.  Such confinement was a limitation, a barrier; “mostpeople” refuse to let it all go.  They cling to their so-called religions, groups, beliefs, and methodologies and refuse to let them go.  The pristine, untainted mind goes beyond this conditioning and no longer uses others’ methodologies to “get something.”  I, for one, will not give you patterns to follow, edicts to live by, or beliefs to cling to. 

Accumulation, in any psychological form, is usually a manifestation of greed; greed, in any psychological form, likely negates discovery of the sacred.  When one — not theoretically or idealistically —  sees this, all organized religions and methodologies that are learned are out.  There is a non-concocted silence that can never be brought about by the accumulation of memory, nor by learned patterns, nor copied procedures.   That silence is not the result of conditioning and practice; it is not derived from greed or acquisition over time.  Don’t waste your time in believing in such silence.  Find out if there is such a silence, but not by mere abstraction, not by mere “idealistic image-projecting.”  That “finding out” may have nothing to do with what you were ever taught.  An elderly Great Blue Heron was looking for his next meal as the placid pond was getting ready to settle-in for the evening.

 

 

Great Blue Heron (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Great Blue Heron (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

 

Post

Trotting Beyond Limitation

September 22, 2017
12 comments

 

 

We trot in eternity

          though most see transiency

We move with infinity

          though most react temporarily

We silently sail among endless waves

          they thirst in thought’s bone-dry deserts

We are visited by the timeless

          they are late for their appointments

 

 

 

 

Beyond limitation (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Beyond limitation (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Post

Silence

September 17, 2017
6 comments

 

The silence of a very aware mind is not what can be measured.  Such pure silence goes beyond recognition; recognition (of separate things that the mind labels and pigeon-holes) is — or involves — measurement.  The mind can, at times, beautifully function without merely relying on measurement, without exclusively relying on recognition, patterns of experience, and interpretation of stimuli.  “Mostpeople” would not likely be involved with this immeasurable silence because remaining in sequential thinking, recognition,  and constant comparison and measurement are what they were educated (i.e., programmed) to be.  Leaving the domain of the known would seem frightening to a lot of people.  Many may equate such silence, such emptiness, with ignorance; however, a vast, immeasurable silence, in actuality, is profound intelligence.  “Mostpeople” rigidly cling to patterns of recognition, symbolic thought (and all thoughts are symbols), labels, and separative images.  Going beyond these would seem unthinkable to most.  

One cannot “know” that one is in such silence when it takes place, for such “knowing” would be in the realm of recognition and would negate the very essence of a silence beyond mere measurement.  Such silence is beyond merely calculated patterns and sequential formulations concocted by man; this is why gurus and so-called holy men who want to provide you with techniques to “get there” are definitely out (including the fees that they often fraudulently charge)!  One who is lucky enough to be involved with such silence is not in any way harmed but, rather, may be blessed to be in relationship with a timeless energy that is forever renewing itself.  Such silence can never be brought about by an act of will; will is (fundamentally) desire… and desire can never attain such unadulterated silence via effort of any kind.  It would be like trying to catch the wind (or catch love) in a bottle.  The highly intelligent mind, through seeing and understanding itself in relationship (and in seeing itself, without deception, in everyday occurrences) may, with understanding, move beyond the psychological dependencies and repetitious mental habits that most exist as.   Understanding transcends mere measurement and will.  The immeasurable may occur for the man (or woman) who goes beyond the limited, the merely symbolic, and the stagnant.   In the immeasurable, eternity abides.  The immeasurable and the eternal are without confining borders.  The gurgling sounds of the drinking Mallards are not something separate from a vast, immeasurable silence.

 

 

 

 

Mallard Ducks (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Mallard Ducks (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

 

 

 

 

Post

Basking beyond the need for belief

September 15, 2017
22 comments

 

 

A nonmediocre novelty lasted for relaxed nonseparative miles

     as we drove past steady sunflowers who sweetly worshipped the sun

In a divided disorganized planet of perplexed savage wars

     omniscient order majestically does nevertheless easily run

 

Multitudinous millipedes mingled in the downbelow grasses

     as businesslike bumblebees hurriedly bustled in blossoms far up above

And the saintly sun’s devotees seemed to move like precision clockwork

     with a passionate proclivity for life and for love

 

 

 

 

Sunflower Time (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017

Sunflower Time (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017