All Posts Tagged ‘philosophy’

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The Controller of Thought

November 29, 2019
13 comments

[This post is very similar to a recent post, but reiterating some things is necessary (for it to possibly “sink in”); there are also some new twists.

This will end my posts now for a while (as i had scheduled them); i will take a break (after my recent heart attack) and will not be posting for a while. My cardiologist said that my heart sustained minimal damage, which is good. He said, “Let this be a warning sign.” Warning sign! I was living like a monk and doing everything right! Hopefully, the medication that they are giving me will help keep the bad things from progressing… even though i am no huge fan of Big Pharma.]

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Is there a separate controller of thought? Or is such a “separate controller” a product (an extension) of thought itself? Despite what we were taught, it really is the latter. Thought/thinking is a field or sequence of reactions. Positing that a separate controller exists just extends one’s (learned) attachment for some dominating factor, imagined powerful center, or “internal boss.” A very orderly mind can function quite nicely, thank you, without believing in some fictitious (imagined) boss as its “center.”

When someone states “I meditate for 20 minutes a day,” it implies, for one thing, that meditation is something that one can “decide” to do, and it additionally implies that there is a separate “controller” or “regulator,” a dominating entity that makes decisions controlling the thought process.
However, the real facts may be that all thoughts are totally conditioned reactions (i.e., symbolic responses to stimuli) and that positing a real “center” or “controller” directly contributes to crude, limited fields of separation. For example, there is the supposed separation between the controller and his or her thoughts. But the inner “controller” is an extension or protrusion of thought and is not at all separate from what thought is. (As we’ve said before, when one speaks to others, one must occasionally use the words “I” or “me,” even though such usage is rather primitive and involves a rather barbaric language system.) However, often thinking (or projecting) a central “I” internally tends to give one a fragmentary, separative view towards others, toward other life forms, and it even creates internal separation/conflict: “me” and the separate thoughts that “I” manipulate. This internal separation then (obviously) extends outwardly into the world. “I” am separate from their suffering… or nature is separate from “me.” The aforementioned sentence is an example of a very primitive, distorted, mindset; such mindsets are, unfortunately, very common, hence all of the indifference and lack of love existing in the world.

True meditation does not occur as a result of some thought process. All thought processes are secondhand (conditioned) reactions (i.e., aftereffects) and a mere secondhand reaction (or set of reactions) can never decide to be what is whole and beyond reaction. Meditation is a thing that occurs uninvited when the mind is not foolishly trying to make it happen. Realizing that one is not something separate from a series of thoughts (as those thoughts are taking place) involves wisdom that allows true meditation to take place. And, as we’ve written before, one cannot merely “know” that one is meditating; it is beyond the field of the known.

The beauty of meditation is that its wholeness and purity may allow the mind to see and exist beyond limitation. That limitlessness is of the eternal, beyond distortion.

Ant on Wild Celery Plant … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
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Aloneness

November 22, 2019
7 comments

Real aloneness is that independence from all “influence.” It is that innocence that occurs when the mind is not tethered to achieving more and more and still more. It is to stand alone away from all influence, from all beliefs, traditions, suppositions, habits, fears, and conclusions. (Besides, beliefs and many iron-clad traditions tend to divide people and cause havoc in the world.)

Aloneness is when, without planning or effort, the mind is of an intelligent emptiness beyond mere thoughts and thinking. It does not occur when the mind consists of desires to get something out of such emptiness. Ambition and expectation have nothing to do with such emptiness manifesting. There is no acquisition or reaping involved with such emptiness. You don’t make yourself empty to “get something.”

When the limitations of thought/thinking in (and “as”) consciousness are intelligently seen, then there may be an abnegation due to seeing the false as the false. Clinging to falsities and limitations may involve effort akin to hugging onto shadows persistently.

That aloneness, that emptiness that is beyond falsities, is like an uncontaminated sky that is open, pure, and unspoiled by the activities of man.

An alone Grasshopper … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

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Wordless Wednesday … Not!

November 20, 2019
1 comment

All others are you.

All others are you. … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
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If one knows that one is meditating, meditation isn’t there.

November 19, 2019
4 comments

If one knows that one is meditating,
meditation isn’t there.
If one knows that one is whole,
wholeness isn’t there.
If one knows that one is humble,
humility isn’t there.
If one knows that one is quiet,
quietness isn’t there.
If one knows that one is spiritual,
spirituality isn’t there.
If one cultivates simplicity,
simpleness isn’t there.
If one cultivates perception,
insight isn’t there.

Who is pulling my leg from down there? Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

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Take one step at a time, they said…

November 18, 2019
7 comments

Take one step at a time, they said.
But the steps,
if one steps enough,
are not separate from time.

And one step at a time
is too slow and mechanical
and ordinary.

So, we flew beyond what they
said to do.
We flew beyond their stale,
traditional ways.

We didn’t do it one step
at a time,
according to the patterns
and points that they
all so narrowmindedly accepted.

Cabbage Butterfly (female) taking it one step at a time. … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

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Human Motives

November 15, 2019
8 comments

Much of what we do involves motive. Our reactions, throughout the day, largely emanate from motives. Oftentimes these motives are learned (i.e., absorbed) habitual responses, and the end-products (that they unfold into) usually are rather mundane and ordinary. The ramifications of this tend to be conformity, sameness, and a lack of real perception and real creativity.

Such sameness and conformity may not at all be beneficial for life as a whole. Superficial motives often keep one in stagnation, while imitating others. Such habitual motives are a form of inaction and are a wastage of energy. Beliefs stem from motives, and beliefs (with their separative groups) tend to cause division in the world.

The innocent/wise mind, throughout the day, can often look without mere motive. Such looking, such perception, is uncontaminated, whole, and pristine. Seeing beyond the ordinary, it flowers in insights and depth not merely dependent upon direction. Mere motive always has a direction. Such direction corrupts. Only what is beyond direction and motive can, perhaps, commune with the timeless, the immeasurable whole.

Hover Fly on Eastern Daisy Wildflower … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
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Today is my Birthday, and here’s a little, true story concerning it (that you can unbelieve). Two Photos…

November 4, 2019
33 comments

[First, a few quick notes: 1. Albert Einstein, a vegetarian, and pacifist, had some of the best ideas about how to end all wars. For instance, he advocated countries systematically, in an intelligent and coordinated fashion, exchanging military personal on an equal basis, thereby making invasions into other countries (because of nefarious goals) rather impossible. But people don’t tend to listen to pacifists.
2. Most people just do not see the gravity of certain things, the seriousness of certain important things; they are oblivious, conform and fall in line, and life passes them by… and the many miracles never happen.]
3. This may not have much to do with anything, but here are what i hear as lyrics in the YouTube video of the Dharma for One song, as sung by Jethro Tull (live) at the Isle of Wright Festival. (This song, played in their first album, did not originally have any words/lyrics.)

Dharma, seek and you will find
Truth within your mind, Dharma.
Dharma, each to his own we say,
Together we’ll end our stream, Dharma.
Dharma, mad-time confusion burns,
Seek-money never learns, Dharma.
Truth is like freedom, it doesn’t fool me,
Being true to yourself, never think that you’re free.
Dharma will come eventually, Tao.
Dharma, Dharma…
Dharma, each to his own we sing,
Together we’ll end our stream, Dharma.
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Today is my birthday. I was born on November 4th, 1951. When i was the age to be eligible to be drafted (or not) concerning the Vietnam war, i was very concerned about what my draft number — according to the U.S.A. Draft Lottery — would be. I was (and still am) a pacifist and was not at all interested in going to war; i am a vegetarian; i don’t even care to contribute to the killing of animals. The lower the draft number that one is assigned, out of 365 (366), the higher the chances of you being drafted. Draft numbers were selected and assigned, via a Draft Lottery, according to your date of birth; the Draft Lottery, which was held to determine the draft status for my age-group, was held on December 1, 1970. So what was my draft number — assigned to my date of birth — after the Draft Lottery was completed? It was 39. I detested that number. I still detest it. It, being a very low number, meant that i definitely would be selected to go to the war. I was very disquieted about my “very draftable” draft number of 39. Circumstances being what they were, i went to college, where a student deferment was applicable. Later, when student deferments were terminated, i had to — because of my low 39 daft number — submit extensive paperwork requesting conscientious objector status.

So, while in college, around the time that i was becoming a vegetarian, i was visiting a friend of mine in his dormitory room. He and i were both avid fishermen; we would often go fishing together (on the weekends). On that particular day, my friend was not feeling well, so he could not go fishing with me (after i had invited him to). Right before i left his room, he gave me — following our brief discussion about music — a large Jethro Tull LP record album that i had never heard or seen before; it was the first album that the group had ever made. Since i liked the group, i thanked him for lending me the album; i left his dormitory room, and put the album on my bed, face up. (I did not look at the back of the album cover.) I went fishing.

I went fishing, alone, at the campus lake. As i fished, i began feeling immensely connected with the fish. One began seeing them as not being separate from what one was. I began seeing their pain as my pain… (or, rather, the “I” was absent and one was everything that was around). Around the same time at the lake, i began feeling like someone or something was watching the fishing; it was a very definite feeling, and i felt very embarrassed to be “seen” fishing (although no one was physically around).

I went back to my dormitory room, without any fish. After a short while, after relaxing a bit, i went over to the record album, that was on my bed, that my friend had given to me, looked at it and (when about to play it) turned it around to look at the back cover. The following is a picture of the album’s back cover. The album, released in the U.S. in February of 1969, is titled “This Was.”

This Was … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

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To Exist as Nothing Psychologically

November 1, 2019
3 comments

To exist as nothing, psychologically, is not an unfavorable, weak state. Going beyond everything that you have been and believe in — instantly, without motive — is one of the most positive things, for it is of innocence, wholeness (beyond fragmentary reactions), and freedom. In fact, always continuing as mere reaction (from the old memory bank of stale ideas and images) is the continuation of sorrow. Sorrow must inevitably occur when mental things are second-hand and are constituted of mere reactions. Of course, thought/thinking must frequently manifest for one to do certain necessary things proficiently, with care. However, remaining in (and “as”) thought/thinking habitually, when such thinking is unnecessary, is sorrow and over-reacting. (It’s like endlessly clinging to a stream of shadows when — with deeper awareness — such shadows can be seen to be superficial and often rather insignificant.)

We, unfortunately, were miseducated to associate internal emptiness with internal poverty. Pure, uncontaminated, psychological emptiness is the most positive action, for it is of a pristine, orderly wholeness; merely being the reaction of thinking, however, is essentially inaction… dullness. Unfabricated emptiness is of a wholeness that is beyond mere sequential reaction in (and “as”) time; in that is vast energy, real freedom.

Monarch Madness … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
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Latest Sierra Club News as of October 2019

October 25, 2019
20 comments

(Please “like” this post if you perceive the seriousness of it, not because you like what is happening.)

The remote Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean are covered by 413.6 million pieces of plastic debris weighing 262 tons.

People around the world could be ingesting five grams of microplastic each week, the equivalent of eating a credit card.

July 2019 surpasses July 2016 as the hottest month in recorded history.

Emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane from ammonia-fertilizer plants are 100 times greater than what’s reported by the industry.

So far this year, 182 dead gray whales have washed up along the Pacific Coast, many likely having starved to death because of changing fish populations in warming waters.

In April 2019, for the first time ever, more US electricity generation came from renewables than from coal.

Human activity threatens 1 million species of plants and animals with extinction.

A heatwave bakes India. Temperatures in Rajasthan reach 123 degrees F, and the four reservoirs that supply Chennai (population 9.1 million) go dry.

Republican lawmakers in 18 states want to criminalize protests against fossil fuel infrastructure, like pipelines.

By the end of 2018, 11 million people were employed in renewable energy worldwide.

Current White House officials suppress State Department testimony that human-caused climate change will be “possibly catastrophic.”

More than 1.8 million people object to a Trump proposal to strip gray wolves of endangered species protections.

Wild Thistle … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
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Standing Alone

October 21, 2019
32 comments

 

I am not overly interested in the words that the Buddha allegedly said,
since, over long stretches of time, words and translations get distorted.
I am not overly interested in the words that Jesus allegedly said,
since, over long stretches time, translations go askew, words get added and distorted.
Even the early Coptic versions of the Gospel of Thomas (which many top scholars say preceded the other four gospels), and which the power-hungry Roman-appointed hierarchical bishops rejected, was not as pristine as the even earlier papyrus Greek fragments found of that cornerstone gospel.
I am not overly interested in the words that Lao Tzu allegedly said,
since, over long stretches of time, words and translations get distorted.  (And each of the many translations of the Tao Te Ching is different.)
I am interested in discovering spirituality on my own, and learning directly, without distortion, without merely depending on old words, organizations, translations, and ancient documents.
They tried to get Walt Whitman to alter his poetry; he wouldn’t.
They tried to get E.E.Cummings to alter his poetry; he wouldn’t.
They tried to get me to alter my poetry; i wouldn’t.
They like to stealthily insert their ideologies into the works of others,
to suit their own ends, to suit their own self-serving needs.
They often (over time) like to get their conniving, little hands into the works of others (and twist things around).  
    

The Monarch that stands alone. Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
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The Precarious Times We Live In…

October 18, 2019
13 comments

 

We live in extremely precarious times.  We need to go beyond mere depression about things; we need to act and not merely “go along indifferently.”  The planet is getting more and more overcrowded with people (and people are still cranking out more and more babies); there is less and less space (especially for animals and plants).  Extinctions in nature are occurring at an unprecedented rate (with over a million species going extinct lately).  There is much less healthy agricultural land (as pollution is creeping in everywhere imaginable).   Carbon emissions and plastics are ruining the globe, while the Amazon and Western U.S. forests (and other world forests) burn rampantly, while some flat-earth political groups deny global warming and heavily contribute to the deterioration of the environment.  There is less viable fresh water.  Guns and weapons of mass destruction are on the rise; unfortunately, with many not realizing it, germ warfare is a very real possibility.  Automated robots will soon be replacing millions of people in the workplace.  The over-use of unnatural, made-made food products and the over-usage of synthetic medicines is making the human population more and more unnaturally sick and corrupt, with immune function diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, autism, cancer, depression, mental problems, and such things as diabetes becoming all too common, with increasing frequencies of occurrence.  We are rapidly losing what little freedom we had; political figures are becoming more and more dictatorial and propaganda news channels (much like what Nazi movies did in the past) are making crass people believe very crazy/hateful things. 

What is one to do regarding all of this obvious insecurity?  Too many of us are looking at the problems fragmentarily.  The problems are not isolated; one problem is related to another problem.  There is a bigger picture that is more holistic, more comprehensive, insightful, and caring.  We must look beyond the $-oriented opportunistic greed that is contagiously expanding as if it (i.e., such greed) is an accepted disease (that is OK).  A holistic, truly compassionate, non-indifferent mind of wisdom and insight would not be a huge contributing factor (to the above terrible situations) and would even seriously try to help change things.  A mind that operates in the old, traditional patterns, staying fragmentary, staying comfortable and barbaric (full of bias, indifference, and callousness) would not significantly help with the earth’s present very serious problems and with the problems that human beings face; such an indifferent/crass mind would merely continue to make the earth a living hell.  We can be stable and holistic or we can be fragmented and uncaring.  We can, (in all of this danger, fragmentation, and disorder), be order, wholeness, compassion, and largely be freedom from fear. 

No matter how terrible or disorderly things may seem on the outside, wisdom would primarily be stability and joyous harmony on the inside, in consciousness; it’s wisdom’s responsibility.  It’s wisdom’s responsibility not to be sad in a sad world; it’s wisdom’s responsibility not to be nuts in a nutty world.  Empathy would still exist; we wouldn’t look away from the suffering of those (supposedly) at a distance, and we would act to help; it’s wisdom’s responsibily.    

 

Ants caring for their young (larvae). Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
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Eyes of Starry Nights

October 15, 2019
26 comments
 
 
 
Prepare the later afternoon of me myself—prepare my lengthen-
ing shadows,
Prepare my starry nights.   — Walt Whitman
 
 
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Being that
the perceiver is the perceived,
these soon to be starry nights
find themselves in your foreseeing eyes.
 
My long shadow and yours will coincide.
May we blend in a timeless wholeness
so very much vaster than mere ending
and so very truer than mere fragments.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Grasshopper Shadow & Eyes … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

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one budding diminutive why

October 14, 2019
17 comments

 

one budding diminutive why
staring at the sky
in that beautiful youthful wonderment of innocence
beyond piggish power
and far from cultivated fear
so beyond the grip of authority
beyond stuffy temples
and stale priests and gurus
beyond tests
and drunken parties

sweet sky staring
further than thought’s weary boredom
and so far away from cold shoulds and musts

alive
whole
and unprogrammed

also looking down
of course
at tiny grasshoppers and katydids

 

Sweet little Katydid … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
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Meditation

October 11, 2019
20 comments

 

I’ve read statements by people, in blogs and elsewhere, where they say, for example, “I meditate for 20 minutes a day.”   

Please!

Meditation cannot be practiced.  It is a quietude of the mind that is not made by some projected image of a central controller.  There is no central controller, or “I,” or “me” that can cause meditation.  Meditation is not a mere sequential effect or event (in time) brought about by some predetermined cause (i.e., by some form of causality).  True meditation is timeless and is not what can occur by any methodology in (and “as”) psychological time.  If you think that you are causing so-called meditation to happen for a specified period of time (each day or whatever), it is —  unfortunately — a form of glorified self-hypnosis. 

Real meditation is not even what one can “know” is happening.  It is beyond the field of the known.  One can neither practice it nor know that it is happening… and that is its beauty.  But most people are so addicted to their need to categorize and “know” things that they feel frightened or insecure with not existing (mentally) as the known.  They perpetually cling to the apron-strings of the known.  They have to know that they are meditating or know that they are practicing meditation… all of which are not real meditation whatsoever. 

Or they say such things as, “Well I am working on perfecting my meditation,”… or “I am practicing my meditation more and more each day.”  Who (or what) is this so-called “I” that is supposedly doing such things?  Really, if we are at all honest, it is a protrusion of thought (i.e., an image created by thought) that takes credit for being a central controller or central (mental) orchestrator, of which it is (in actuality) neither.  Most people — plain and simply — are afraid to transcend the false sense of security that the primitive notion of a central “I” projects as.   However, a false (fabricated) central “I” that thinks it is meditating is neither meditating, nor an actuality, nor truly central.  (Past blogs that one has written explain this more; read them if confusion exists at this point.) 

Real meditation may occur when the mind, without effort, is aware beyond superficiality.  That means that it is not merely attached to the field of the known.   The known is always limited; it is grossly circumscribed.  Wisdom is meditation, a non-concocted quietness, which may happen throughout the day without deliberate intent.  Then, perhaps, what is eternal, sacred, unlimited, and beyond words may enter.  But it does not enter if false notions, false practices, and false images are perpetually clung to.   

Real meditation can be a blossoming of the mind.   But if you (metaphorically) cling to fake, fabricated flowers all of your life, nothing profound will happen.

 

The Beauty of Real (not fake) Flowers. … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
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Fourteen Steps Climbed to the Top

October 8, 2019
26 comments

Fourteen steps climbed to the top
from the bottom
An hour and fifteen minutes moved a short hand
and a long hand
One fishing line ignorantly reeled in
what it thought it wasn’t
Three opinions typed what
was surely right
Seven sayings scanned the screen
in a zigzag fashion
Thirty-seven pieces of candy
looked forward to Halloween
Twenty-five Black-Eyed Susans were arrested
for trespassing

A breach on humanity. … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
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That Sacredness

October 4, 2019
13 comments

 

There is a vast, timeless sacredness that is beyond the illusory patterns of the world.  It did not create this world and it rarely manifests itself to those in it.  (The creation of the world or universe by a separate, calculating deity is a rather barbaric conceptualization inherited from our ancient forebearers.)   This sacredness is ineffable; it is beyond words and the representation of words.  (Most all words are symbols and are merely representations.)  It is beyond the framework of time.  All sequential patterns of words (and mental images) are time.  What is merely caught in time cannot touch or approach the timeless.  There is an innocence, a wholeness of mind, beyond thought/thinking, that can be open to a visitation of this timelessness, (and that can also involve insights that may be reflections from such timelessness).  Theories and beliefs have nothing to do with it.  

It can only visit you; you cannot visit (or approach it).  The “you” (i.e., that learned image of a “central me”), anyway, cannot merely exist as the illusion that it is (for a likely communion with that timelessness to take place).  Mankind, for the most part, being caught in rather vapid sequential symbols of thought/thinking, tends to go on suffering, go on in limitation and time.

 

Buckeye Butterfly in nice Fall colors … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
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Clock of Prejudice and Non-

October 1, 2019
30 comments

There was a clock
      with many hands

And the space between a certain hand
      at a specific area of the face
      (i.e., that limited space between the hand and the face)
      constituted a certain consciousness

Now each of the hands had different lengths and colors
      and different numerals and experiences upon the face
      to go through

There were black hands with long lengths
      there were white hands with short lengths
      there were wide little yellow hands
      there were thin long red hands

For one space of a hand to hate another space of a distant hand
      was insanity
      since each hand was a part of the same one clock

For one space of a hand 
      at four
      to want to eventually be wiser at eight
      was foolish
      since the space at four 
      could never really be the space at eight

Unless the space at four
      could fully realize that
      it was the space of all of the other hands

There is the limited little dull space of the segregated self
      and there is the not-so-limited timeless space of vast intelligence
      vast compassion

Which would you rather be?

One takes no time whatsoever to get to

Timely Droplets within Spiderweb … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
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The Sensitivity of Living Creatures

September 27, 2019
15 comments

 

Each living creature of life has a sensitive vibration of feeling, and many have a cherished awareness.  We human beings somehow think that ours is “superior,” better, and magnificent.  However, with much of our fancy ideas and thinking, we are destroying the ecological balance of the whole… of the globe.  We perceive and think in the ways that we were taught to perceive and think… primarily in parts, fragmentarily.  We see the so-called “outer environment” fragmentally, as what can be used piecemeal, to be exploited, manipulated, and used.  

However, the so-called outer is really not separate from the inner.  The observer is not separate from the observed.  Similarly, space and matter are not separate from what time is.  We are of matter’s (thought’s) doings; we are thought, time, and the movement of time.  The intelligence of meditation takes place when thought is not merely habitual and endless.  Thought/thinking is always partial, always fragmentary, and sequential.  Real meditation is consciousness beyond the stirrings of its content; it is an effortless, unplanned, holistic quietness beyond mere fragmentation and sequential patterns.   The timeless can only reveal itself when the mind intelligently perceives beyond the fragmentary movement of its content.  

 

Grasshopper enjoying the view … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
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Wordless Wednesday… Not!

September 25, 2019
25 comments

Are you a word, an image
     that you cling to,
     that is claimed to have “control of all the other words”? 

Bumble in the Jungle … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
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Winged and Ready

September 24, 2019
18 comments

Winged and ready
         to softly swirl
a long way off from
         man’s sad sordid fabrications and smoggy surgings

Bright eyes see
         beyond miserable madness(musts and can’ts)
and will fly
         beyond stale circumscriptions

Will we succumb to whirlwinds of hard
         indifference?
Will they plant their deadness into
         our innocent minds?

That is up to you

Winged and Ready (Painted Lady) … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
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We were Educated Wrongly

September 23, 2019
36 comments

We
             (too many of us)
have treated nature as
             a thing to be used
to be exploited

and not as a living beautiful delicate
             extension of ourselves

to be guarded cherished protected
            respected
loved

           and cared for

 

Cardinal Wildflower — Lobelia cardinalis … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
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Violence

September 20, 2019
14 comments

 

 

Violence not only involves shooting bullets, war, causing bloodshed, and physically abusing people.  It often occurs in (and “as”) more subtle or less obvious forms that people do not perceive as what is involving violence.   Conformity, remaining in a mold that you were programmed to be in, indifference, and imitation are indicative of violence.  Many lick the boots of authority, stay trapped in narrow, separative views about being a superior race, country, or religious group.  Many of these things tend to separate people socially, religiously, globally, psychologically and otherwise… and are (whether we like to admit it or not) forms of violence, conflict.  Many of us worship authority and power, the people with a lot of money and influence, and many of us ignore the person who is bereft of much intelligence and financial success.  Many of us are ruthlessly competitive, which is a form of violence (that we were miseducated to accept and think is normal and wonderful)… while real compassion, much cooperation, and holistic awareness (in the classroom) are still rarely touched upon.

Educating children in a run-of-the-mill, standard, ordinary fashion is a form of violence.  Cramming 30 kids in a stale classroom and indoctrinating them to conform to a lemming-like existence, to be slaves and victims of comparison, competition, and separative views, is violence.  

Mindlessly doing things that pollute the environment, without deeply considering the consequences or trying to alter one’s behavior, are forms of violence.   One can go on and on, further upsetting people about the forms of violence that they contribute to (or that they may be involved in).  What about violence ending?  Merely trying to control violence may not be a full, prudent answer to ending violence.  Psychologically, the controller is not really separate from the controlled.  A broken, miseducated, limited mind, trying to control violence, will only go so far… to a very limited extent.  It will operate within (and “as”) the confinements of its limitation.  For violence to fundamentally end, the mind must go beyond its conditioning and limitations; it cannot likely do that if it comfortably remains circumscribed by the limitation of others.  Most people, of course, will just not care about this.  Limitation, imitation, and mere conformity seem to be the norm. 

 

 

Long Dash Skipper Butterfly … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
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His inquietude made him what he was…

September 17, 2019
18 comments

 

 

His inquietude made him what he was…
     a repetitive jumble of endlessly clamoring
     mental symbols that were not realities
     (i.e., they were the typical unreal, fabricated images of the mind).

Her quietude was the immense beauty that she was…
     a comprehensive wholeness of undivided reality,
     actualities of timeless life movement beyond the known
     (i.e., beyond mere superficial symbols of thought).

 

 

Neural Networks Personified … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

 

 

 

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The Very Wise ToadMaster

September 16, 2019
35 comments

 

 

The very wise ToadMaster perched near the toadstool,
and with his croaky voice, he summoned all of the little tadpoles to swim up to the riverbank
to hear another lesson.

He, in his sagely way, bellowed, “Unfortunately, many of the upright, large apes — that we have mentioned in the past — foolishly refuse to judiciously see that they too evolved from swimming fish, even as you here, as swimming tadpoles (through a long passage of time), will soon be leaving your aquatic existence to join our terrestrial lot.  What is even more unfortunate is that the upright apes continue to mindlessly throw toxic debris into our water habitats and also
onto the beautiful terrestrial domain that you will all soon be graduating to.   
The upright, large apes continue to make things that destroy things.  The upright apes can be downright
destructive and dangerous, though some of them are very kind and considerate.  Overall, the whole world’s
life forms are all rapidly disappearing due to what these, large bipedal creatures are mindlessly doing.  Even as they claim that one of their kind is a God, they endlessly continue to pour cement and plastic over living things and spew out much toxic debris, killing our planet.  They often do what is called “mowing their lawn,” which they think is very beautiful (though such activity callously cuts and kills many precious creatures, including us amphibians.)  When you hop on land — which you all will be doing soon — do so with extreme caution, and avoid these large, bipedal creatures at all costs… and please
do your best to survive in the excessive heat (due to the climate rapidly changing).”

_____________________________________________________________________________________

If you have time, please watch the following 60 Minutes video on ocean plastic and pollution…

The Very Wise ToadMaster … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-great-pacific-garbage-patch-cleaning-up-the-plastic-in-the-ocean-60-minutes-2019-08-18/

Post

It is Friday the 13th, and it is very unlucky to remain as illusion…

September 13, 2019
17 comments

 

 

More, yet again, is presented here on psychological time.  Most of us still function — in the psychological-sense — as if we are in time, as if we are (somehow) something separate from (or apart from) time.  The best scientists, including Albert Einstein, have told us that time and space are not two separate things; they have told us that spacetime is one holistic thing.  Yet we go on in this barbarian, primitive way… acting as if we are merely “in time” and not acting with the intelligence that sees that we are indeed what time is.   The thoughts that we exist as actually exist as networks of neurons and neural components in (and “as”) matter in our brains.  Our thoughts emanate from (and depend upon) a very material process… involving matter.  This matter — this brain oriented matter — must be constituted of physical materials just like what is contained in stars and planets.  This matter is, per se, a form of space.  And space and time are not two separate things; they are one.  They are different in their aspects, but they are one.  We are time (not merely in time).  

Now here is the crux of the matter (that we are pointing to).  Let’s say you wish to (psychologically) “get better” in time.  That distance, that is from where what exists “now” to what “you say you ‘will be'” takes up psychological space.  It is a limited (psychological) space projected concerning a “here” to “there.”  When you see someone of a very different familial or racial heritage than you, there often exists — in each of many people — a psychological space between “you” and “them,”  between your group and their group.  What we are suggesting is that the limited space of “here” to “there,” with your “I” or “me” psychologically “getting better in time” situation, is remarkably similar to the space separation with your “you” and “them” situation.   We are all extensions of the same holistic spacetime movement, and “as it,” in reality, we are not separate things.  Some perceptive people will see this; others (i.e., most) will just go on being stuck in primitive perspectives and will go on being greedy about the future and indifferent about others.   You are time; space too is what you are… and if that space is limited and illusory, consciousness will be limited and illusory.  If you merely remain as that limited space between “now” and “tomorrow,” and if you merely remain as that limited space between “you” and “them,” then primitive illusion is what you are; and primitive illusion is not separate from what suffering and ignorance is.  

Right now we are a society that gobbles up tons of synthetic pills (instead of solving the real, fundamental problems about health and mental wellbeing); we overpopulate the planet and do all kinds of hateful and callous things to “others”… including “other life forms.”  Many of us were miseducated to be stuck in indifference, separation, and blindness… and the wealthiest powers that be (at the top) are delighted… (although, in reality, they are suffering and are a tremendous cause of suffering).  

That timeless and immense perception can only occur when limitation is understood… when limitation ends psychologically.

 

 

Wild Blue Vervain and Bumblebee … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Post

Whom are We Kidding?…

September 6, 2019
17 comments

 

 

Whom are we kidding?  Most people do not change fundamentally no matter what you tell them, no matter what you write about.  We are writing here about changing immeasurably beyond what most people consider “changing” to be.  I do blogging mostly for one reason only: to help people to explore their true relationship with everything and look into the possibility of discovering something really sacred (beyond what most of us merely conceptualize about by what was implanted into us by old traditions and antiquated customs).  Medals aren’t given to those very few in the world who were truly enlightened (i.e., visited by that ineffable, eternal energy).  Halos aren’t given either.   (Far too often, unfortunately, it is the blind leading the blind and it’s one hell of a mess out there; a lot of people assume that they can clearly see… according to what was spoonfed into them.)  Real perception is a radical and beautiful explosion beyond what you were merely taught.

Speaking of seeing, my macro-nature photos are all well and good but, fundamentally, they are two-dimensional snapshots of the past that are rather trivial in their own superficial way. (The photos are squat compared to the prose writings offered in terms of the possible value to people’s lives regarding going beyond gross conditioning and limitation.)  Much of what i write — we are referring to the prose stuff here —  is only mildly deep (i.e. we could go much deeper), though a good portion of it does go somewhat deeper.  Will what i write help many people to change fundamentally?  (Probably not.)  A real, fundamental change would leave a person totally shocked at what the implications are… and totally shocked by what actually, phenomenally happens; a totally different kind of human being, from the standard, same-old fare, would emerge.  But the chances of that occurring are very small indeed.  People, in this sense (i.e., the sense that we are talking about) — due to deeply ingrained conditioning, etc. — just do not change.  They basically (fundamentally) remain the way they were.  

 

 

Yellow Tiger Swallowtail … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

 

 

Post

Wordless Wednesday… Not!

September 4, 2019
27 comments

 

 

Resting on a leaf
                                   this Wordful Wednesday
and
                         being wordless doesn’t matter one damn bit if

           you don’t do very compassionate things

                                                                                           for people and for animals and plants

 

 

 

Damselfly Resting ..,. Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Post

Where when doesn’t matter…

September 3, 2019
9 comments

 

 

Here is a place
           where everything is not
           so everything is never here
           where delusive selfishness reigns in its spot

And timelessness an eternally sweet wholeness
           where when doesn’t matter
           while “getting to heaven” is foolish
           like tissue paper in busy rainfall clatter

 

 

Diminutive Leafhopper Nymph (just 2 or 3mm long) … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Post

Einstein, Spacetime, and the Fallacious Belief in a Central Ego…

August 30, 2019
18 comments

 

 

Hermann Minkowski and Albert Einstein taught us about how space and time are not two entirely different things but are, together, one.  However, most people just do not get what that means, psychologically and fundamentally, including a lot of supposedly smart scientists.  Years ago, when i was much younger, i used to hang around the quantum physicist Professor David Bohm, whom Einstein fondly called his “spiritual son.”  Bohm was a famous scientist in his own right and when we discussed things, i was already well aware of the implications of spacetime and what that meant psychologically and on a larger scale.

Space and time are not two separate entities; together they are one.  If you look at nature and people merely with psychological separation, with psychological space, as most people do, that very separation helps to support and produce an abstracted, psychological “I” or “me.”  If you perceived without such (learned) separation, the “I” or “me” need not exist (which would be fundamentally way more accurate).  If you say, “I will be trying to be ‘good’ so that I can eventually get to heaven,” you are supposing that you are something separate from time (in time)… rather than the actuality of being what time is.   Your brain consists of matter (which often functions to react as thoughts), and matter is space, spacetime.   Of course, we have to use time (in the physical world) to get to work on time or to be at a specified meeting on time.  To use time to get somewhere psychologically or spiritually, however, is largely fallacious.   Wishing to advance over time spiritually presupposes that you are “in time” and are not what “time is.”  Mentally manufacturing a separation between you and time (except for certain time-oriented physical things, like the ones mentioned… and for using our crude, unfortunate language system) is often a process of wasting energy and is inviting great deception.  Both the aforementioned psychological space separation and the psychological time separation are illusory; together, both help to create the fallacious and selfishly separate ego.  (One cannot be in communion with the timeless if one is a series of fragments of time that erroneously presuppose that they are “in time” advancing spiritually.)

Eternal and orderly phenomena can exist (in humans) without the ego (i.e., without any psychological center).  As we have often suggested, the central ego is essentially fallacious and illusory.  Habitually looking from (and “as”) it is an illusion; it is a fallacy that most people habitually cling to.  Like a man who thinks that he sees vast water in a desert — you know that age-old mirage — and insists on fishing in it non-stop, stay completely with the ego if you wish.

When discussing things in public with people, we can still politely use the word “I,” while (all the while) being fully aware of its fallacious and deceiving attributes; it is one of the misfortunes of living in a society with a barbaric system of language.  Professor Bohm diligently worked on helping develop a more accurate and scientifically evolved system of language, which he called the Rheomode.  Later in life, Bohm learned of the Native American Blackfoot language, and also of other members of this Native American language family, all of which are very strongly verb-based and do not divide the world into solid categories (i.e., nouns) but, instead, describe in terms of processes and related movements.   Link to short Professor David Bohm Video.

 

 

Green Treehopper … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Post

Trying to Get to the Top

August 27, 2019
25 comments

 

 

                                                                 O
                                                                 h $

                                                               that
                                                           top that
                                                       so many are
                                                   struggling to get to

                               Is it worth all of the time & competition?
      Is surpassing and suppressing those below and impressing those above worth it?
When you finally get to the top, is there really genuine happiness there or is it an empty lie?!

 

 

Getting to the Top … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Post

Global Dragonfly

August 26, 2019
30 comments

 

 

 

at the apex of this world’s littleness
perched in a carnivorous bigness
king of his airy domain
making a mockery of mere helicopters and planes

alert rascal of the skies
resting razing beyond gross separative nationality
and manmade stale flags of fabric
ation

 

 

Whitetail Dragonfly … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Post

Our Neural Networks and the fallacious “I”…

August 23, 2019
18 comments

 

 

Our neural networks — much like a computer — are hardwired and conditioned to accept and fully believe in a central (free-will oriented) regulatory  agent whom we call “I.”  This “I” to each of us, seems very concrete, dependable (i.e., always there to control), and stable.  We never deeply question whether such a “center” really exists in the first place.  I maintain that there is no legitimate “I,” which, of course, seems contradictory, (due to the crude structure and barbaric evolutionary phase of our current language system).  

When one talks to people about there being no “I” they tend to feel rather apprehensive, threatened, and psychologically uncomfortable.  After all, to them, one is threatening the very core of their psychological framework.  Our physical body, the organism, perceives largely through the eyes.  The eye tends to be what focuses on and examines things.  A similitude exists in us (mentally) between the physical “eye” and our concept of the “I” of the mind.  We say that the “I” examines; we say that the “I” perceives; we say it was decided by “me.”  The brain’s associative patterns are, in pretty much everyone, deeply hardwired and conditioned to constantly be referring to and depending upon this “I.”  (The physiology of the brain is much like a walnut, and scientists have — repeatedly,  in different human individuals — surgically divided the two halves, producing two separate fields of consciousness in each skull, each permanently existing with no clue as to what the other half is thinking.) Our conditioning for so many mental things is deeply pre-programmed in us, and many factors, including physical health, past education, brain chemistry, and genetic influences, pretty much nullify any real “free-will” completely, whether we like it or not.  We must act — not react — carefully and diligently, and we cannot do that if we believe in a lot of crap that isn’t true.  In 1932, Albert Einstein told the Spinoza society:
“Human beings in their thinking, feeling, and acting are not free
but are as causally bound as the stars in their motions.”

What we are saying is that this “I,” in a tremendous way, is fallacious and unnecessary.  Clinging to it is like clinging to that childhood Raggy Ann Doll that was mentioned years ago in one of my earlier blogs… clinging to it as if it was real, alive, and a dependable pal.  We could live perfectly, compassionately, and timelessly without clinging to our fallacious “I”s.  Scientists, as was mentioned before in my blogging, have suggested that our universe likely operates in a totally different way than what we think is happening now… and they, the writer maintains, are correct.  It was, many years ago, when i understood the fictitiousness of the “I” and the foolhardiness of the concept of “free-will,” when real security, profundity, insight into eternity, and real order came… (and not before).

This life is relatively short — in the few years that we have to live — and if you don’t get it right, via understanding and insight, if you (instead) continue to cling to a lot of rotten, crude fallacies, then the consequences are eternal (and not nearly as sweet as they could be).   There is great beauty and timeless splendor in life if life is seen without much illusion.  

 

 

Neural Networks or maybe just Queen Anne’s Lace … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Post

So here we are, Master FourEyes

August 20, 2019
17 comments

 

 

So here we are, Master FourEyes,
and i don’t think that what i write
will change things enough

and i don’t think that what you
nibble on will change things enough
… and that’s OK; it’s OK

And when we look at each other
each other we are
And when each other
we together look at oneself

Our unbelievable now is more timeless 
than any dead(stone-cold temple that replaced the prairies)
while Mr. Death — whom so many fear — has nothing on us

because we livingly understand him(and smile with and beyond him)
more than teardrops grow upwards
and flowers flow down

 

 

Master FourEyes… who happens to be a Milkweed Beetle on, of all places, a Milkweed Plant … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Post

Insights or Non- (Part 11)

August 16, 2019
18 comments

 

 

The comatoseness of the average-ordinary mind is the result of a cadaverous education.

Merely looking at life through a screen of symbols and labels — as most do — isn’t really looking at life at all.

Taking a shower isn’t good enough; cleanse yourself of the dusty, stale past.

One cannot be visited by that pristine ground of eternal sacredness unless one’s mind is of intense order and purity.

There is, despite what we were taught, no (real) separate ego or central “I” controlling thought/thinking; what occurs — other than what holistic insight and direct perception reveal — is mostly all conditioned reactions that one is not separate from.  

Being photogenic isn’t important.  Being whole, compassionate, and perceptive is important.

 

 

After a Shower … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

 

 

Post

I Had a Pet Frog (named Infinitum) but He Croaked… This Poem is Dedicated to Him…

August 12, 2019
24 comments

 

AD INFINITUM                                                        😦

 

My wonderful, magnificent
pet frog croaked, and i was very sad.
The next day, he was quite alive,
and i was very happy.
But then, my wonderful, magnificent 
pet frog croaked, and i was very sad.
The next day, he was quite alive,
and i was very happy.  
But then, my wonderful, magnificent 
pet frog croaked, and i was very sad.
The next day, he was quite alive,
and i was very happy.  
But then, my wonderful, magnificent 
pet frog croaked, and i was very sad.
The next day, he was quite alive,
and i was very happy.  
But then, my wonderful, magnificent 
pet frog croaked, and i was very sad.
The next day, he was quite alive,
and i was very happy.
 But then, my wonderful, magnificent
pet frog croaked, and i was very sad.
The next day, he was quite alive,
and i was very happy.
But then, my wonderful, magnificent
pet frog croaked, and i was very sad.
The next day, he was quite alive,
and i was very happy.
But then, my wonderful, magnificent
pet frog croaked, and i was very sad.
The next day, he was quite alive,
and i was very happy.
But then, my wonderful, magnificent
pet frog croaked, and i was very sad.
The next day, he was quite alive,
and i was very happy.  
Ad Infinitum…                                                                🙂 

 

 

My Eastern Gray Tree Frog named Infinitum … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

 

 

 

Post

on Experience

August 9, 2019
3 comments

 

 

Experience… what is it, and why do we exclusively depend upon it?  A lot of people say, “I’ve learned from experience”; or they say, “I will learn from my experiences.”  Many people go on expensive and lengthy vacations to far distant places to get “exotic experiences.”

Experiencing has its place.  However, it is very limited.  Many crave “new” experiences… but are such experiences — all based on patterns of recognition — really all that “new”?  I am suggesting that fundamentally, intrinsically, they are all very much the same and are not really so “new”; they all depend on — and add to — patterns within the field of the mundane known.  (That is why many of us retain a deep, inherent sadness, even though we travel to places that should seem new and exciting.  Merely existing as a brain that is based primarily on patterns and the recognition of patterns… is sorrow.  But that is what most of us were trained to exist as.)  Most of us were brainwashed to crave various “wonderful” experiences (i.e., more and more experiences)… through commercials, magazines, examples in books, and by what friends and relatives say and do.  (Experiences are never enough, though, because they are essentially limited.  But nobody tells you that.)

Evading experience (on the other hand) can be a very childish thing, wherein one endlessly sits cross-legged, for example, thinking that one is accomplishing something special.  (You know… all that phony so-called meditation stuff, which is really a glorified form of self-hypnosis.)

Is the experiencer all so separate from what the experience is?  If one examines intelligently, the answer is rather obvious: “No.”  We look with (and “as”) accumulated patterns and labels at things, pigeonhole them in the rather musty memory bank system and call the experience “new.”  To really see something new, perception itself must be dynamically new, fundamentally different, and not based on old, stale systems (and patterns) of observation.  Most people are incapable of that, and you don’t get it by sitting in a corner with your legs crossed.  Additionally, you don’t get it by reading traditional so-called “religious” books that have been severely distorted over time.  

There is a deep, orderly intelligence that is a true spiritual blossoming that is beyond the thoughts and fabrications of man… beyond all of the rituals, stone temples, and concocted patterns.  (Those fabrications are all old, and the timeless, miraculous new does not dwell as them.)  Deep intelligence is a dynamic harmony, a deep order that effortlessly flows between experiencing and going beyond experiencing.  (Constant experiencing and “accumulating” only builds up the illusion of the self.)  The “going beyond experiencing” factor (or dimension) is never planned or mentally arranged for.  Deep, spontaneous newness and dynamic creativity are never part of a plan or contrived methodology.

 

 

Wildflower Pods … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Post

Monarch Caterpillar

August 8, 2019
24 comments

 

 

In my beginning is my end.  — T.S. Eliot

 

 

[Note:   While photographing this Monarch caterpillar, it noticed the camera and suddenly went from high activity and movement to total stillness.  More of us would be better off by letting total stillness — of the mind — occur more often (even though it is not merely an occurrence and has nothing to do with time or effort).] 

 

 

Monarch Caterpillar … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

 

Post

Two Short Stories

August 6, 2019
33 comments

 

 

Once there was a very rich man who, every time he saw people in need, would quickly pass them by, saying, “Sorry, I don’t help strangers.”
Then, over a short span of time, the man lost everything.  When he reached out for help, the first person who passed him by mumbled, “Sorry, I don’t help strangers.”

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

There was a man who, every time he looked up, worried about what was down…  and every time he looked down, worried about what was up. 
He suddenly died.
They buried him way down in the ground, facing up of course.  

 

 

Monarch Butterfly on Cone Flower … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Post

Pseudo-alive

August 5, 2019
23 comments

 

 

A kind of postmortem examination
was done on him
long before his actual physical death

because unfortunately,
his brain became quite un-alive
after the innocent age of childhood.

Miseducation, brainwashing commercials,
propaganda-oriented news networks,
and being satisfied with remaining
in one dull routine after another

all contributed to his cadaverous pseudo-existence.
He often watches television and, of course, likes sports.
However, the little birds who nest in his yard
have far more compassion and life than he ever did.

 

 

Red House Finch Eggs … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Post

The Ecstasy in the Green Luscious Garden

July 29, 2019
18 comments

 

 

The ecstasy in the green luscious garden
flaps its wings in harmony
pert antennae sensing all the smells
in the rapture beyond the kitchen window

Lovely colors moving all around
flower to flower endlessly
cares not a bit about the past
or what the future might just be

Rubbing stamen amongst the stigma
in a style Oh so clean
purity in every blossom
here between the trees and golden honeybees

Collecting nectar sweet and no antiques
living fresh in every moment
time’s illusion not for me
beyond the world’s vast confusion

 

 

Ecstasy in the Green Luscious Garden … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Post

Beyond Merely Being a Marionette

July 26, 2019
21 comments

 

 

If one is merely a marionette, repeating what others poured into you, then what you say and do will usually be rather robotic, quite puppet-like… though it will seem quite pleasant and socially acceptable to you (while you feel quite unique).  There are so many standardized lemmings out there.  To question things fundamentally, deeply, with substantial passion, takes great intelligence.  That great intelligence (naturally) is largely constituted of immense vastness, which inherently includes compassion.  Compassion acts beyond many of the limits of ordinary perception.  It perceives beyond all of the mundane, superficial, circumscribed borders.  It is not tethered by stale, dinosaurian, antiquated beliefs.  Such intelligence (i.e., such profound, penetrating insight) is extremely rare in the world as it now exists; miseducation has a lot to do with it.  Acceptance of mediocrity has a lot to do with it.  

 

 

Wild Spiderwort … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

 

 

 

Post

May I Understand Why People Don’t Understand

July 23, 2019
17 comments

 

 

May i understand why people don’t understand.
And why is there such a disconnect in people’s minds
betweenthings,
between them and all other things?
They look with (and “as”) sep
             ar
    ­A
tion,
each from a center that never was a true center
and that never will be a true center…
like bubbles floating in a glass of milk
each thinking that they are separate from
the milkiness.  

 

 

Beyond Separation … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

 

Post

The Flower at a Distance

July 22, 2019
20 comments

 

 

The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence.
The flower at a distance always looks better than the one you are standing on.
Separation is a definite illusion.

 

 

Young Katydid pining for a distant flower … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Post

Jumping Spiders and Awareness

July 19, 2019
32 comments

 

 

Jumping Spiders, those very alert arachnids, you know, have many eyes.  Some of the eyes are at the back of the head.  Some even have extra eyes on the abdomen (i.e., their rear section).  One of the reasons that they have eyes in such places is so that they can more efficiently see moving prey (that they can capture to eat).  Another reason for having eyes in such places is that other Jumping Spiders (or other spider species or insect enemies) may try to sneak up on them (to devour them).  Seeing such “attackers” affords quick reaction involving countermeasures.  

We might think, “Oh, how very primitive these spiders are, to be attacking and killing each other with such violence.”  Our species, it can be seen, however, still often kill each other on the so-called battlefield.   “Battlefield,” by the way, is just a word or accepted term for where humans go to react ultra-violently (i.e., primitive-ass crazy).  Many of us periodically celebrate those who were the most violent, calling them “great heroes.”  We seldom celebrate — we rarely celebrate — those who were opposed to war.  (We, instead of observing through separative countries, religions, and tribes, need to observe holistically and globally — which would help to end all wars — but most of us won’t do that, because of being firmly and stagnantly stuck in separative ruts.  So the unending nonsense will continue.)  To really go beyond being primitive and violent, we must observe without all of the separations that were poured into us.   

 

 

Jumping Spider Observing … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Post

The Sunset Stared

July 15, 2019
9 comments

 

Part 1

The sunset stared at separate birds
as he pendulously walked into what he thought he wasn’t.
His disconnection with everything  — like the day — was ironically complete:
A separate “me” scratching an arm that was “his” and
there to use from a “distance.”

Part 2

She was the blossoms that she helped grow.
Their colors were colors that were of purplish her.
She was that towering Oak Tree
but to her, it wasn’t an Oak Tree;
it simply was what it was (beyond labels)
and was not separate from any “me” within her,
for she was beyond all “me”s.
She was the beautiful blossoming of wholeness.

 

 

a little bit of her … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

 

Post

Love exists beyond mere separation…

July 12, 2019
23 comments

 

 

Instead of being images “about things,” can the mind perceive beyond all of the absorbed mental patterns and labels that it has accumulated?  In actuality, most minds are a result of the accumulation; (i.e, they actually are the accumulation).  This “accumulation” often intrinsically involves “looking at things via separation” as one of its core attributes.

Perception beyond mere pigeonholing can take place.  (We are not suggesting that one should not label things; we are suggesting that one need not always be doing it habitually.  It takes dynamic intelligence to go beyond robotic habit.)  Real perception, beyond the mere separation between subject and object, can take place.  However, it takes real innocence, real simple-purity to do that and, unfortunately, the masses are (for the most part) incapable of that.  (However, corruption does have its trivial perks.)

 

 

Nothing between us… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

 

 

Post

So while looking into the mirror…

July 9, 2019
38 comments

 

 

So while looking into the mir-
ror at one
self,
one asks, “Did
I re-
member
to brush my
teeth this morning?”

Well then, “Oh, that’s 
right!  I don’t have any
teeth; I have a proboscis.”
Proboscises suck,
and it’s not that you “have them”;
they are merely part of what you are…

as are butterflies
and things to reflect on.

 

 

[Note: Butterflies use their long tube-like proboscises to suck nutritious nectar out of flowers.  They have a symbiotic relationship with flowers in that they help pollinate them by going from one flower to another.  Note the yellow pollen sticking to the “face” of this Painted Lady Butterfly.]

In the Mirror … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Post

The Patterns of the Mind

July 5, 2019
14 comments

 

The associative patterns of the mind, what are their functions?  Do they exist merely for us to acquire, accumulate, attain things (including food and shelter), and differentiate with (and from) an element of separation?  Do such patterns dictate — to us — what we see? 

We usually look at things through labels, through images that we have learned.  A person often distinguishes things (at a distance, separate from himself).  The patterns that we hold dictate what we see.  However, we are these absorbed patterns; we do not actually hold them; they are not separate from what we essentially are.  Real wholeness, real integrity, real love, may involve looking beyond the patterns, beyond the old, stuffy mental accumulations, beyond the labels, beyond the mental separative distance.

 

 

Three in One … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

 

Post

Goodness beyond the self…

June 28, 2019
12 comments

 

 

Unpremeditated goodness is often rather motiveless in that it disregards mere efforts to satisfy the self.  Satisfying the self is crude, gross, unevolved, and is what most people do.  There is a goodness that is unattached-spontaneous, free of the illusory ego, simple, beyond fragmentary thought, and innocent in the way it acts.  It is not a mere reaction but, rather, something else is involved.  That “something else” is the whole, or is a perception of and from wholeness.  Wholeness doesn’t depend upon illusory parts.  Parts and fragments — especially when they are illusory, and most of them are — are not what wholeness covets.  Wholeness is highly intelligent action, though not merely of the intellectual kind.  Wholeness is action, not mere reaction.   

Mere reaction feeds the self, with all of its gross demands.  The self, in fact, is a product of mere reaction.  Crude reactions nourish and sustain the self.  Without such reactions, the image and repetitious movements of self would not be.  Wholeness operates differently than what reactions and fragments entail.  In wholeness, a vast intelligence operates. There is little vastness/intelligence in what is fragmentary and isolated.

 

 

Orange Fairy Cup Fungus at the base of an Oak Tree, Illinois … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019

Post

There is no thinker without the thought.

June 25, 2019
30 comments

 

 

There is no thinker without the thought.
There is no observer without the observed.
There is no experiencer without the experience.

And if you think that the world and its creatures
are separate from what you are…
think again.

 

Far beyond separation … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019