Makes a living by searching for nectar
Sleeps where it eats
Doesn’t have to pay taxes
Doesn’t have to worship at stone temples that replaced nature
Doesn’t need to propound fancy opinions
Doesn’t ruin the environment by traveling in fossil fuel vehicles
Is a pacifist and has no crazy leaders
Common Blue / Spring Azure Butterfly and a scrawny caterpillar … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
Getting better through time. What does that entail? One may get “better” physically, with getting a more appealing job, a “better” house, an environmentally “better” car, “better” health, or “better” food. Getting better physically has its place. Psychologically, we think we get “better” by, perhaps, being more generous, more kindhearted, more honest, and/or happier. A number of people think that things will be “better” in a future heaven that they imagine or cling to, promised by past traditions, past cultural-social inheritances.
These cravings and desires, concerning the future, that people have, if examined deeply and not merely superficially, are all extensions of thought and conditioning. Physical “betters” are one (frequently necessary) thing, but our psychological “betters” are often a postponement; they are not the actuality of what is really taking place at the moment. You are lying now but, regarding the imagined future, protrusions of thought/thinking maintain that “fewer lies will be told”; such a psychological “better” is often a form of hypocrisy or pretense. “Eventually, I won’t lie so much.” (Additionally, such psychological “betters” feed the misconception that, for instance, one is — at a distance — psychologically separate from what the lying actually is.) Past education (or miseducation), social interactions, and suggestions/behaviors observed from elders (over time) have largely influenced us regarding our (psychological) “betters.” In actuality, is one really separate from what the lying is (while lies are told)? (We separate ourselves from the lying — in the present — and then are projections of thought — from the stored memory bank — about some improved future.) Projections about the future always stem from (and consist of) thought/thinking. This thought/thinking is conditioned and is primarily what most people habitually consist of (and actually are). It is essentially the “past” (as past accumulated thought) that is reformulating. To dwell as a lot of “craving things about the future” is to, in reality, be living in the past. Past images (from the stuffy memory bank) formulate what is craved. However, “living” in the past is a rather inefficient way of putting it; dwelling often as extensions from the past is not really living whatsoever.
It is what we are now (in the true present) that is important. This does not mean that one just self-indulgently fixates on all kinds of pleasurable things; conditioned cravings (from the tainted past) and misconceptions can infiltrate and distort the true now and holistic compassion; real order, real insight, is instantaneous, holistic, and timeless. Real wisdom sees the present as it is (without distortion) and, with that, real learning and understanding take place. The stale past and the projected future — that “future,” which is really an extension from the (mental) accumulated past — have their place, but far too many people get enmeshed in the two and do not live in the beauty and flame of the one. Instead, many dwell in (i.e., “as”) the residual smoke.
One last note: This planet (this life) may not merely be a stepping stone to something better. This is it. This is it.
Woodland Wildflower with small, young Ladybug. Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
In the stark contrast of things
beyond the darkness and light
beyond the good and bad
see something whole glowing beyond mere conflict
beyond the world of the opposites
Mayfly in June … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
Quietness and awareness often go together, like a sweet aroma and a flower. A mind that is constantly chattering to itself, repeating what it has learned or absorbed… and then merely habitually re-repeating such things in (remembered) altered mental arrangements and recollections for itself, does not have the pristine energy to look freshly and directly beyond the known. The known is the past — as stored, old patterns of memory — and the beauty of real “newness” cannot take place when mere repetition from (and of) the memory bank takes place.
One cannot practice awareness any more that one can practice real quietness. A profound and living awareness/quietness is never the mere outcome of repetitive, learned procedures or known systems. Profound innocence can occur when one is not filled with what others have taught you to do. It is a motiveless looking, and most people, unfortunately, merely look with (and from) motives. Most are caught in a cause-and-effect framework; they live that way, they work that way, and they are programmed exclusively in that. Real joy seldom occurs in a mind trapped in such repetitive cause-and-effect oriented motives. In the sequence of things, the cause becomes the effect and the effect becomes another cause. To merely be one conditioned after-effect (after another) throughout life (in such a robotic sequence)… may not be real living whatsoever. (It would be wonderful if we could easily disinter such rather cadaverous minds out of the conditioned quagmire that they are in but, alas, it is not easily done.) Of course, we must engage in (and “as”) cause-effect occurrences often; however, to merely be stuck in that mode is a shame. An innocent (naturally quiet) mind can look beyond the crude sequence of things and that is when wholeness (beyond mere ordinary effects) and love really blossom.
Beyond the crude sequence of things… small Eastern Gray Beardtongue wildflower on the forest floor. Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
Three beautiful blue wishes,
circumscribed by a rigid limitation.
Soon they will emerge beyond
weakness and constraint
and will fly free enchantingly.
Do you think that you are beyond your
enclosing limitation?
Most are circumscribed by more
rigidity than these three ever were.
Most will never break free
but
because of blind beliefs
darkly will remain
bound in rigidity forever.
Three Beautiful Eggs from Mother Robin … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
Most people are deeply afraid of intrinsically being nothing. They, deep within, have enormous fear about existing as emptiness. They’ll “try” various meditative techniques to “attain some kind of emptiness that they can control,” but these techniques all depend on time (which is merely a postponement and — really — a duplicitous psychological excuse to use a so-called psychological center to continue to be manipulating and “getting there”). They may conjure up a fabricated emptiness (under their control) and continue to pretend that it is something special (that “they” have); this further reinforces internal possession and, with it, the “I” of domination/possession. Profound emptiness is not merely brought about by any psychological cause, by any psychological effort. However, the exclusive cause-effect mentality has been deeply ingrained within us. That is how most of us operate and that is the only way most of us know how to operate. Psychological — not physical — ending to the known neither requires effort, technique, nor time; really, it is timeless living. Regarding psychological emptiness, it is foolish to run away from it (and it is foolish to fabricate it). (Accurate thinking has its place, but it is only a tool; one part of a conditioned “network of tools” identifying itself as “the controller” is a form of crudity and ignorance.)
The nothingness that most conjure up, unfortunately, is a fabrication. The beauty of true nothingness/emptiness is that… when it actually occurs, the magnificence of wholeness and profound eternity exists. To be deeply afraid of that, then, is delusive and fallacious.
There was a man
who was afraid of the emptiness of a flower
He ran from that emptiness
Ignorance fled from what was the door to immeasurably immense beauty
Flower Power (Emptiness) … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
My favorite walk
is when I am not there
but is when everything around
is what one is not separate from
Then there is no I
but only the wonderment of eternity
and everything about
is magical splendid mysterious
whole
Open and Alive … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
“I love you in a place where there’s no space or time.” — Kodi Lee
We saw the extraordinarily talented Kodi Lee the other night on America’s Got Talent. Kodi reminded me of a lot of the very fine and wonderful students that i used to have when i was a teacher for the multiply handicapped (before i retired). Seeing Kodi perform brought tears to my eyes. The students that i had were a delight to be around. Some were very gifted. When i was a teacher, we had students, for example, who were very mentally handicapped but who could play the piano flawlessly. One fellow could be shown a complex scientific book (or complex passages on whatever subject); the book could be opened at any section, with both pages flashed (even upside down) in front of his face for a fraction of a second. He then would recite the entire content — from memory — of both pages… word for word, perfectly.
Kodi has autism and autism is increasing worldwide (especially in developed countries) at alarming rates. The adjuvants in vaccines, increasing pollution, fragmented-unhealthy GMO foods, and food additives are possible contributing factors to autism’s increase, i think.
For many years, our classrooms were situated right within the elementary school building and it was a good thing for so-called “normal” children to often interact with those who had severe handicaps. Such a close relationship between these two groups of children benefited those who were handicapped and helped the so-called “normal” population develop empathy, compassion, and understanding concerning the handicapped. Some of my students, by the way, had regular IQs but, because of very severe physiological problems, were quadriplegic and could not control their arms or legs whatsoever. (Real meditation is not merely sitting around being quiet. Compassion is a vital component, and if you don’t have it, the sacred — that timeless enormity that man has sought after for eons — will never visit you.)
My wife and i went to Navy Pier, in Chicago, a few years ago, and we saw and heard some visiting classroom of kids making fun of (and taunting) some other children who were there (who happened to be handicapped). Such callousness is sad and disgraceful. The so-called president of the United States — before he was elected — in his ugly callousness, hateful nature, and typical nefarious manner, mocked and made fun of a gentleman who happened to be mentally handicapped. (Google that!) With his neglect for others having misfortune, and with his gross neglect about the health of nature and the environment, Donald Trump’s behavior is a disgrace to humanity.
(See the short video of Kodi below.)
Gifted Sweat Bee going after the gold while surrounded by tons of adoring fans … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
How important is it to perceive deeply in life? (Have you ever asked yourself that question?) Is the essence of all life and existence rather meaningless and superficial, such that no matter how deeply one perceives, it (i.e. such perception) may be essentially a waste of energy in the long run? Could it be that there is something in life that is immensely profound, such that looking deeply allows great, eternal treasures to manifest and blossom?
A broken mind, a mind crippled by such things as bad dietary habits, poor sleep, and by propaganda media designed to mold minds (for ulterior reasons), of course, would not be able to look deeply (if true depth really exists in the first place). It would likely be content with living a superficial, second-hand life that would accept within the limits of that superficiality (though, to it, such superficiality would seem plenty deep enough). Through miseducation, stagnation is often learned, absorbed, clung to, and cherished.
To go through life merely believing in something without ever having actually perceived it (without delusion) is a tragic thing. A belief that something does not exist, (without ever having perceived wholly), is an equally tragic thing. Both are — despite people arguing otherwise — empty acceptances. Stagnant minds cannot perceive because they have been shaped and molded by other minds that (also) are limited. Minds can change, however; the mind is a dynamic and wonderful thing (if real care is taken). Stagnation can end. Contamination can end.
There are plenty of gullible people deluding themselves (and others) about having had experienced something profound or “otherworldly.” However, i would suggest waking up and discovering and passionately finding out for yourself. Look with every fiber of energy that you have. No one else is going to do it for you; that is for sure! How critical, how important is this “discovering and passionately finding out (for ourselves)” in our lives? Personally, i feel that it has profoundly immense and eternal consequences. Of course, there might be a chance that i am very wrong, but find out; there may be real magic out there!
[Note: Marla is out of the hospital — after her fourth reconstructive shoulder surgery — and is doing well. I am acting as her nurse and am helping her with enteral feedings and other medical-oriented things. She is calling me “Nurse Matilda”! 🙂 ]
Miniature Wildflower – Purple Deadnettle (3/4ths of an inch long total for full arrangement)… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
Two buttons, at the beginning of life,
to select from:
One, if pressed, makes you (for the rest of your life) an
extremely rich person (monetarily) with not much
wisdom and compassion.
The other, if pressed, makes you
a not so rich person with
much wisdom and compassion.
Which would you press?
Which would you be?
You can’t press both;
you can never press both.
Button Mushrooms with Dew … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
Spring involves renewal, growth, and new life. The mind can be like spring… growing, blossoming, becoming more alive and vibrant. That cannot happen if the mind remains like the frozen, hard crystals of winter, clinging with coldness and frozen in rigid beliefs, dogmas, and ideologies. The truly blossoming mind must be alive, unassuming, dynamic, perceptive, flexible, and truly vibrant. Those set in their ways may be like dead concrete, full of stale blindness toward life as it really is.
Deep perception and compassion are not two separate things. Profound (alive) insight and psychologically dying to stale beliefs are not two separate things.
Hyacinth with Early Spring Insect … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
When you reach out to others
you are reaching out to yourself
When you help beautiful nature
you are healthfully curing yourself
When you reach out to the lost
you are finding you’re found
When truly one with nature
you are color and sound
________________________________________________________________________________________
[Note: My wonderful wife, Marla, will soon again be having major shoulder surgery — for the fourth time on her problematic shoulder — and i may not be able to reply to my blog (or visit other people’s blogs for a while when that happens); my postings are all prescheduled, so they will continue to appear, only i will not be available to comment on them;please keep this in mind. Thank you!!!]
Reaching Out to Yourself … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
The emergence of Sweet Spring
one purplish thing
beyond all of the sorrow and sting
that sullen contrived fear must bring
The Emergence of Spring … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
We were miseducated to look with separation. For eons, we have looked from (and “as”) separation. For eons, we have looked from (and “as”) separative beliefs. Beyond empty, limited separation is wholeness, beauty, and full compassion. One of the attributes of limited, learned separation is indifference. Many people have (and “actually are”) cold indifference; many people’s minds are based upon the acceptance of separation; they look from (and “as”) separation. It’s easy for cold indifference to point a gun at what it considers to be “others who are separate from oneself.” It is easy for cold indifference to look the other way and not help. If the essence of your consciousness is based on separation — as most are, these violent days — then you will go on in the old ways, old habits, and old mundane routines.
There is a profound reality of wholeness with its natural integrity of real beauty. It cannot be touched by what is distorted and corrupt. Separative beliefs can never be one with it. Its beauty is beyond the learnable, beyond the merely absorbed. Profound goodness is not the mere opposite of the bad. There is a wholeness that is beyond the opposites and beyond measure.
Blossoming Beyond Separation … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
Spring Beauty
you are always
(timelessly there)
and so amazingly new
in your selfless sharing
You help make the woodlands
simply magical
Your fragility
transcends transience
with joyous eternity
___________________________________________________________________________________________
[Note: The common name for this Illinois woodland wildflower is Spring Beauty. The entire width of the flower is less than 1/2 inch (around one centimeter wide). This wildflower is still rather common throughout Illinois. It, fortunately, can survive more environmental disruption than most wildflowers. Its eternal essence has nothing to do with its persistence in Illinois or elsewhere.]
Spring Beauty … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
In order to have psychological fear, psychological time is a fundamental necessity. (Thinking and psychological time are not two separate things.) Without some protrusion of thought about some distant event in the future, there would be no psychological fear. That distance (that the mind fabricates about the future) necessarily involves space (and sequential duration)… which are projected by (and “as”) the mind. “In the future, something terrible might happen.” “In the future, I might not have enough friends.” There may be innumerable fears, such as the two aforementioned ones, that can plague a human’s mind. Then one may say that one would like to get rid of the many fears that one has. Somewhat ironically, the very desire to get rid of these fears is (in a real way) an extension of fear; it (itself) is, in a big way, an extension of (or precursor to) more fear.
Who is dealing (internally) with the fears? If one is looking at the fears with a feeling of control or manipulation, then one is assuming that the fears exist at some distance (to somehow “manipulate”). However, (psychologically, whether we like it or not) the manipulator is not separate from the manipulated; the two are both part of the thought/thinking process… and (in a big way) are not two separate things. Trying to “get rid” of the fear causes the mind to fabricate the controller, the “I” or the “me” who is allegedly separate from the fear.
Many types of sequential thinking (i.e., many forms of sequential thinking) — in most people — trigger thoughts that project (often needless) fear about what may happen in the future (along with thoughts of an “I” or a “me” that will be dealing with things). (Sequential thinking that reflects order is very good; sequential thinking — especially the muddled, psychological kind learned from miseducation — that reflects disorder is bad.) A keen perception that observes this whole process (and that goes beyond fabricating a separate “me” apart from the fear) has gone beyond friction and then has tremendous energy, wholeness, and insight. Insight is timeless energy; most people, unfortunately, waste energy. Timeless energy is beyond the chaos that manifests as mere psychological time. (In true silence there is great energy/insight; however, there is no “I” or “me” who can take one to that silence through the process of sequential time.)
Drops from Above … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
People who are not serious will not care about this. The turbulent mind, the mind that is constantly reacting, constantly chattering (internally), constantly being agitated, is much different than a placid mind of true quietude. A quiet mind is analogous to a small boat in the middle of a pond, with little haphazard movement, with its oars still and not disturbing the water. Then, in such stillness, the surface of the water may be mirror-like, accurately reflecting everything. Contrastingly, the constantly chattering mind, the agitated mind, is like a small boat — in the middle of a pond — that is endlessly rocking, rowing circuitously, and splashing. Then, in such unending agitation, very little of the water’s surface reflects accurately; then there is a great deal of distortion; this is when a lot of twisting takes place; this is when a great deal of misrepresentation and misinterpretation can take place.
I will not offer you (like so many of the charlatans do) concrete methods and techniques — meditative or otherwise — to make the mind still and quiet. Any such concrete techniques (that you can practice) will only make your mind more mesmerized, more robotic and dull. For many, the “I” or “me” can allegedly “make” the mind quiet. However, the “I” and the “me” are protrusions of thought/thinking; any such “quietness” that they supposedly conjure up is inevitably an extension of a false and deceptive process. One conditioned reaction cannot make other conditioned reactions quiet, at least not in any legitimate sense; one form of agitation cannot cause similar forms of agitation to be quiet by using “control” as a means to an end. Only natural, simple, unpremeditated observing of what is going on (without dependence on antiquated patterns and suppositions) may — perhaps — allow an effortless, non-concocted quietness (beyond gross separation) to take place. Deep intelligence perceives the whole. Thought/thinking is primarily choppy, primarily fragmentary.
First Butterfly — a Red Admiral — of the season; they were eating sap dripping down the Birch bark. … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
We won’t ever have a clean planet — free from dying and mass extinction — if fracking is more important for creating jobs and oil than green energy is for world health.
True meditation lies beyond mere practice, beyond calculated methodology toward an end, beyond sequential, conditioned reactions.
John Lennon hit the nail on the head when he said, “If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.”
When the idealism of politicians takes precedence over truly caring for all of the people, then chaos and confusion ensue.
The living, dynamic, moving sacred can neither be retrieved like a stagnant memory nor lead to by a dead, organized path.
The epiphany of profound insight may occur when the mind is naturally quiet without effort.
One of our pet Pearl-scaled Philippine Blue Angelfish … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
One might say that the Iris flower in the accompanying photo is very beautiful. However, real (profound) beauty surpasses what is superficially evident. Profound beauty goes far beyond mere recognition and superficiality. Hitler, for instance, loved flowers; he often gave them to others as gifts. Most of us see, but don’t see. Most of us are neither dead nor alive. It is very ironic, actually. We take for granted that we can see… perceive. We look with separation — between a so-called “center” and “what is seen.” Is seeing partially, seeing fragmentarily, seeing with tainted (i.e., corrupt) eyes… really seeing at all? Most of us accept the authority of others and we look at things in the ways that authority has dictated. We have wholeheartedly accepted a life of imitation, slavishness, being tied to systems, jobs, and routines that are making us more and more robotic, more and more mundane; and we automatons don’t see anything wrong with it. We perceive what we were programmed to perceive; we accept what we were programmed to accept; we fear what we were programmed to fear; we loathe what we were programmed to loathe. We dupe ourselves into thinking that we are somehow out of the box when, all along, we are firmly inside the box. We are the box. We fit into the pattern — that they fabricated — quite nicely, and then we die. That is how most of us (supposedly) live.
That can change if one is serious enough. The integrity and health of the world depend on such seriousness and profundity. Oneself and the world are not two separate things.
Flowering out of the box… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
Frivolity, caught in the little
details of the competitive games
and traditions,
never was
the serious pondering about the whole.
That’s why it remained
as frivolity.
Frivolity can wear awesome shoes.
Frivolity can wear a first-rate hat.
Frivolity can appear to be intelligent,
in frivolous ways.
Mushroom Gills … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
It is so easy to psychologically get into a muddle with things and (still) think that one is doing well. We get situated in a psychological morass without suspecting that that is the situation. We continue to feel that we are performing sufficiently. Self-deception is so very easy, so very possible (with dire consequences), yet few of us look deeply into it and investigate whether it is affecting us. In my blog, for instance, sometimes existing beyond the “self” or existing beyond the supposedly central “I” is sometimes discussed. Many people tend to shun such talk; it makes them feel less comfortable, less psychologically secure, less self-asserting. Ironically, however, it may be metaphorically like remaining in bed all day (under the sheets) to keep oneself “safe” and “unharmed.” However, all the while in such a situation, one is not getting the exercise and joy in life that is there (and the body ends up perishing sooner with many problematic issues).
It is so easy to be duped in life… so easy to be misled. Miseducation has a lot to do with it, and miseducation is rampant in most societies. Learning to be a nurse or a carpenter is one thing (which is good), but many — if not most — of us are brought up and miseducated in ways to bind us to psychological mayhem. One thinks that one is separate from the fears that occur, for example; then one tries to control the fears from an (internal) distance. That very distance reinforces the concept of “I” that thinks that it is separate from the fears. Many fears are protrusions of thought/thinking about what the future might be; the concept of “I” (or “me”) is also a protrusion of thought/thinking. One protrusion thinks that it must control another protrusion; one conditioned reaction projects that it must control another reaction. However, there is a fundamental absurdity with this.
Fear dissipates (fundamentally) not by pseudo-manipulation by a false process but by deep understanding and penetrating insight. The utter chaos, friction, indifference, and violence of our current society is a projection and reflection of the inner disorder within each one of us. Hate is not something that one merely has; it is what one actually is. When hate is a reaction (in one)… one is the hate… one is not merely something that has hate. Hate involves separation, friction, and distance… much like the separation, friction, and distance between the “I” (or swollen ego) that thinks that it is different (or apart) from the fears that take place.
Many of us can transcend the muddle that we are in — that we exist as — and that takes understanding and insight… not mere internally deceptive effort. Don’t be bamboozled by false processes that were absorbed in (and “as”) the past.
Blossoming beyond friction… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
Wars, for humankind, have been going on for eons. War is where and when we often spill each other’s blood over systems and ideas. Apparently, in war, systems, ideas, (and control) often become much more important than any universal brotherhood, any universal oneness.
Countries of the world are divisive and most are based on (and extensions of) an antiquated feudal system; “you pay us money (i.e., taxes) and we’ll protect you from ‘others’; we’ll be your ‘leaders’ with power and authority.”
It is so easy to be lead by ignorant men who, themselves, have little or no deep understanding about order and the wholeness and fullness of life. It is so easy for sloppy disorder and hatred to trump order and compassion and then be “followed” by others. We aren’t solving the fundamental problems concerning human against human friction, overpopulation, and environmental degradation but, rather, are chaperoned to dwell in relatively superficial realms that deal with barbaric, mundane things. We were miseducated to stay quiet and to keep quiet and to “fit in” and keep our mouths closed. Most of us merely blindly conform and see nothing wrong with it. It is easy for dullness to accept dullness. It is easy for mediocrity to accept mediocrity.
Crab Spider with Butterfly Prey … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
We all need to question more. Many of us, as we get older, lose the joy of deep questioning and become dull and stagnant. Many of us, as we age, begin to merely accept what others have poured into us. Then we look with secondhand eyes (which is really not any kind of real looking). Boredom and mediocrity, then, set in.
If a philosophical question is merely a spring-board to get a result (i.e., a quick answer), then it is giving more emphasis to the end rather than the beauty of the means. Real questions have a life of their own; they are not merely a shallow means to an end. The indoctrinated, the blind, do not question deeply enough. They have embraced superficial answers and have become hardened by inflexible, statue-like, rigid traditions and old, stale viewpoints. Then they become rather apathetic, indifferent, and subservient. Of course, they’ll come up with a million reasons to “justify” such behavior. Blind conditioning works in ironclad (though malignant) ways.
If questioning is merely limited by the language (or languages) that one happens to use, and limited by traditions, then such questioning is very circumscribed and tainted. Deep questioning goes beyond the cage-like barriers that language impales, beyond the confines of tradition. Profound questioning — being true intelligence — is often accompanied by deep empathy. What is pure and unsullied often naturally radiates compassion.
Crab Spider in Wildflower Foliage … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
To be one series of conditioned responses after another, each and every day — and please excuse me for saying so — is a rather lackadaisical way to be. It merely entails letting what was poured into you (over time, by society) internally flutter around to emerge out again (externally) slightly modified, slightly altered (but essentially being the same-old-thing). It is the way most people are, and it is the way the bureaucrats want you to remain. They want you to emit what was injected into you. The powers-that-be don’t want any Walt Whitmans, John Lennons, or Rosa Parks questioning things. No way! The powers-that-be want to everyone to robotically conform and nicely fit into their prearranged patterns. Period. They want everyone to remain being the cogs in the nice prearranged machine. The powers-that-be are themselves part of that humongous machine and they will use domination, force, and will blindly do anything to preserve it. Reacting, day in and day out, only like you were programmed (or miseducated) to react… is a very mechanistic/machine-like way of being. Most people do not question enough. Most people do not perceive enough.
Real freedom exists beyond mere conditioned responses. To dwell in (and “as”) real freedom may be an arduous task that may not (at all) be possible for the halfhearted. Real freedom may involve getting laughed at, ridiculed, hated, spit on, and ostracized. Real freedom may involve going beyond a fallacious essence that was given to you to exist as. Real freedom is a precious jewel that no money can buy, that no amount of bartering can acquire.
Spider Web Sugar Candy … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
Let us go then, you and I,
Eliot said, and so we went,
After the cups, the marmalade, and tea,
Beyond the porcelain, beyond the talk of you and me,
When the evening was spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
We went, we went through certain half-deserted streets.
We went to the bright retreats that muttered endlessly.
Some overwhelming question always had to ask,
Though it didn’t have to ask, “What is it?”
We went along and made our visit.
And at the first turning of the second stair
We turned and saw below, not far from the rose garden,
A familiar shape twisted on the banister
Under the vapor in the fetid air
Struggling with the business fool of the stairs who ascends
The deceitful steps of hope and despair.
At the second turning of the second stair,
We left them twisting, turning below;
At the third turning of the third stair
We finally went past all of the melodious distraction,
Music of the flute, stops and steps
Of the mind over the third stair,
Fading, fading; wisdom beyond hope and despair
Climbing and being the third stair.
We were the stairs,
We were the shapes and distractions,
And at half-past one,
The street-lamp sputtered
The street-lamp muttered,
The street-lamp said, “Regard that woman
Who hesitates toward you in the light of the door
Which opens on her like a grin.”
My visit with Tom in the rose garden never came to an end.
Jumping Spider in the rose garden, near the door we never opened. Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
No doubt, a large number of people will dismiss this or merely become irritated by it. Very many of us — most all of us, really — assume that we have a free will that freely does whatever it “wants” to. Suggesting otherwise tends to offend people, annoy people, and ruffle their feathers. However, the decisions we are involved in are all largely governed by the chemical processes in the brain, the physiological/biological/neurological networks and systems. Conditioning — by past sociological structures, such as education, religion, and other social networks — also, of course, plays a big part in this. It may be that your decision to read this blog up to this point was as inevitable as hydrogen and oxygen combining at a certain point to form water. Billions think and feel that they have free will.
It may be that any thought or any manifestation of thinking that one exists as, no matter what it is, is inevitably involved with conditioning. So, where is freedom in all of this and is there any chance for true freedom? Real freedom, perceptually, may come when the mind is of a stillness, a wholeness, that (at times) is beyond the sequential patterns and frameworks of thought/thinking. It involves awareness beyond what was merely taught or absorbed. It is of a newness that shatters all conceived and preconceived patterns. When it occurs, there is an intelligent cessation of thought/thinking; without inevitable, conditioned thinking, there is no learned, false center as the “me” or “I” being projected. Regarding true freedom, one cannot merely “know” that one is involved with it. Only a healthy brain can allow it to manifest but it is not what depends upon a healthy brain. It is not yours or mine; it is of a vastness that transcends all borders.
Royal Catchfly (Silene regia) This red blossomed plant is a very rare wild plant of the United States Midwest; it is very endangered in Illinois, for example. Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
[Note: My wife Marla’s shoulder replacement surgery went well (so far, it seems) but she still has a long way to full recovery. She must have strong PICC Line antibiotics given to her intravenously via syringes multiple times per day for 6 weeks (and i am the one giving her these). Additionally, i am helping her with her enteral feedings (via tube feedings to her stomach) multiple times per day (because, at the current time, she is unable to do them herself, with only one functional arm.) The shoulder replacement that they put in is a special antibiotic-emitting kind and she will likely need a whole other “regular” shoulder replacement done (in the same shoulder), with a steel replacement, once this temporary antibiotic replacement fully heals and is bacteria-free. Apparently, the infectious bacteria that caused trouble in the first place — and that is hard to eradicate (since it lodges deep within the joint) — is a type of acne bacteria (which baffles us as to how she got it). Since i will be busy taking care of Marla for the next few weeks, i will likely not do postings after my already scheduled 01/02/2019 blog/posting; i will not have time to read others’ blogs or correspond with others re their blogs or my blogs. Hopefully, i can soon get back into blogging again once things settle down and i find more time to do so. Peace!]
What is a New Year?… and is it really new? We humans, most of us anyway, have a very superficial sense of time, a very linear, rudimentary perspective regarding time. Many of us, even when we think that we are dwelling in (and “as”) the present, are, in reality, conceiving of (or recognizing) that “present” via past images, old, learned perspectives. So, it really isn’t “the present” at all (due to recognition via old, stored mental images). If one really often lived timelessly in the present, there would not be any concrete recognition of the present as the present (as something separate from the past and the future).
So many of us live almost exclusively in (and “as”) the past. Our recognition of things, our labeling of things, our habitual (repetitive) chattering of thoughts and mental images, are all fundamentally protrusions from the learned past. We have allowed our minds to become reacting mechanisms; reactions are essentially secondhand and mechanical (being part of a cause/effect continuum). If we have reduced ourselves to that — which, unfortunately, so many have — then we will remain as parts of a rather mechanical, sequential process (which is rather limited).
Can one look without the past dictating? Can one perceive, not fragmentarily, but wholly, beyond mere limited, learned reactions? One says that it is possible. Will a step by step method, that you absorb from others, get you there? Of course not! A radical revolution in consciousness has to take place. Will it take time to (eventually) get there. No.
Happy New Year! (ahead of time)! (… though, for decades one has realized that there is really nothing new about it.)
Lichen at the end of the “New Year” … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
[Note: My wife Marla’s shoulder replacement surgery went well (so far, it seems) but she still has a long way to full recovery. She must have strong PICC Line antibiotics given to her intravenously via syringes multiple times per day for 6 weeks (and i am the one giving her these). Additionally, i am helping her with her enteral feedings (via tube feedings to her stomach) multiple times per day (because, at the current time, she is unable to do them herself, with only one functional arm.) The shoulder replacement that they put in is a special antibiotic-emitting kind and she will likely need a whole other “regular” shoulder replacement done (in the same shoulder), with a steel replacement, once this temporary antibiotic replacement fully heals and is bacteria-free. Apparently, the infectious bacteria that caused trouble in the first place — and that is hard to eradicate (since it lodges deep within the joint) — is a type of acne bacteria (which baffles us as to how she got it). Since i will be busy taking care of Marla for the next few weeks, i will likely not do postings after my already scheduled 01/02/2019 blog/posting; i will not have time to read others’ blogs or correspond with others re their blogs or my blogs. Hopefully, i can soon get back into blogging again once things settle down and i find more time to do so. Peace!]
The following poem has nothing to do with Marla’s shoulder surgery, by the way…
When everything without feeling happened for quite some time,
feeling came along and tried to make a difference,
but it wasn’t easy.
On the Forest Floor … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Happy Holi
days! 🙂
(Don’t forget what it’s really all about.)
It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
An inquisitive, young woman approached Lo Zu and asked him, “Why do you leave our village every day and go wandering off into the mountains?”
Lo Zu, the great sage, answered, “I have talked to all of you many times about ‘no mind’ and that, in essence, I do not really exist as anything concrete internally. Yet, you all continue to see me as just another man.”
The inquisitive, young woman then pensively exclaimed, “I do not understand!”
Lo Zu then stated, “When this body is in the village, you say ‘Lo Zu is here.’ When this body is in the mountains, you say, ‘Lo Zu is not here.’ At least when one is in the mountains, you (in the village) speak the truth.”
Lichen … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Highwire acts are a breeze
(as long as it’s not too breezy)
in this world of the (unfortunately) mentally unbalanced
The Great Unbelievable Highwire Act … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
A mind came upon a wall
and the wall necessitated separation.
That same mind came upon some
people of a different skin color…
and the “learned psychological prejudice”
necessitated separation.
Now here is the tricky bit:
The first separation was
natural and factual.
The second separation was
manmade and illusory.
A lot of people were taught to
look through psychological walls
of separation.
It’s so easy to deceive oneself,
to see what one was
programmed to see.
One man looked at a tree,
and only existed as an image of a “re-cognized,” distant tree,
supposedly separated from a learned image of “self,” apart
from everything else.
Another man looked at the same tree,
and there was, beyond stored images,
a bonding, blending, and sharing.
Bonding … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Explanations smell like hell
because words (being mere symbols)
pour out hypocritic gross empty spell
We’ll joyfully play beyond described sand
jump beyond reason
and hide from what old bureaucrats demand
Hiding from Bureaucrats … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Imperishable insight is life that perceives its true reality (far beyond the limited, dead norm).
If you try to anchor the ship of your mind in the supposedly safe harbor of orthodox security (i.e., traditional beliefs)… you’ll stay shallow and never go deep.
The wise mind goes beyond constant symbolic thinking; it does not necessarily always need to be recognizing things as it was taught.
The watery pool of the astute, reflective mind must be still to mirror the absolute truth. A mere agitated mind, merely full of turbulence and turmoil, reflects nothing.
To a truly wise mind, many supposedly tantalizing sensations are rather trivial and somewhat meaningless… because a truly wise mind is content in itself, not needing extraneous stimuli to (eventually) make it happy.
Movements can claim to be solid entities. Mere reactions can claim to have freedom. Few truly evolve.
Nature’s Bounty … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Well, it’s a good thing
that matter solidifies as it does
and a miraculous thing that water flows at it does
and a wonderful thing that
the earth is just the right distance from the sun
and a crappy thing that
mankind pollutes the
skies and the oceans
Sweat Bee Study … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Plenty of lenses to see
what seeing has to offer
Plenty of directions
to move as life’s parameters
Will wholeness see
or merely the fragments?
Black Horse Fly Eye Study … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
from Kobayashi Issa (c. 1818):
“Never forget:
We walk on hell,
gazing at flowers.”
from Thomas Peace:
One of the problems about hell
is that most who are in it
do not realize that they are in it.
One of the problems of hell
is that a few in it
(realizing they are in it)
are not listened to or
understood by those
in it (not realizing they are in it).
Who in the hell has
all of the right answers?
Nobody!
Ant on Stella Daylily … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
To wake up unaware
remaining unaware
is a pseudo-blissful ignorance
which lasts lifetimes
until
it is
far
too late
to bury
the sealed
casket of
hell
Wild Grain Happening … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Looking is easy. Anyone can (and anyone does) do just that. They can easily look at separate things…. things at a distance. But seeing is another matter. Seeing — real seeing — involves perception beyond all of that separation that you genetically inherited over eons of time (i.e., generations of experiences) or obtained from storing what was personally learned; it exists beyond what was gathered from accumulated learning. Seeing is not from accumulation; it surpasses and is phenomenally much more than what mere accumulation can offer. Most people look at what they were taught to recognize. Seeing cuts through barriers, surpassing them. Seeing puts the unfeeling, obtuse notion of “me” separate from “everything else” aside. But a lot of people are afraid to feel. They don’t have the courage or the moxie to feel. Real perception melts away the self and allows compassion to flower (beyond a dead consciousness). Real living involves real seeing… real perception.
Looking is easy. People, who merely look, throw bombs. Real perception — instead — is deeply compassionate.
Don’t be just anyone.
Silver-Spotted Skipper with extending proboscis … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
But if all haves
could seldom
see
past twisted crime
maybe some living compassion
could
free some dead slaves
from
time
Stink Bugs Feeding from Petiolar Glands (that emit nectar) from Wild Chamaecrist fasciculata Plant. (It was Linda, ‘shoreacres’, who found out just what these strange sections of the plants were… regarding an earlier article/posting we had on them. Note how the bug is using its proboscis to feed from the gland of the plant. ) … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Between)the great purchase
of life’s parameters,
the price was everything
while the cost was nothing…
and we had plenty of nothing to give,
since it constituted everything,
(such as the space between
protons and electrons)
which seems to begin
to sum up the whole thing.
Just don’t squabble about the price,
since it cost you nothing(while
rattling in pockets
is change
Southern Cloudy Wing Skipper … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
It’s no mere coincidence that a narrow-minded brain can only see partially. Look with wide eyes.
Plurality won the referendum over “holistic insight and oneness” (because unity had insufficient votes).
If you were duped by miseducation and are cut off from the whole of life… then you don’t mind being indifferent to (or to be malevolently maltreating) “others.”
Don’t fall for all of the insincere claptrap which propaganda-oriented news and which commercialism provide; be an oasis from society’s calamity.
If you seek the truly unknown via a system or formula, you will have remained in the “known” patterns and methodologies of others.
This isn’t a fly-by-night universe (after all); what each of us does has infinite implications/consequences.
Mushroom Umbrella (with dew) … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
One must put up barriers to keep oneself in time.
Wild Chicory … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
the favor.
The day we kissed everything,
everything kissed us back,
and
since
we are everything,
we
returned
Kissing Mushrooms … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
We so habitually separate. We, psychologically, separate the perceiver from “that which is perceived” so readily, so habitually, just as we were taught… and just as primitive conflicting, opposing factors (over eons) have dictated. Time, additionally, is separated. Of course, chronologically, actual physical time (in many, limited respects) has sections, but we, psychologically, almost constantly live in (and “as”) the past, as learned (stored) symbols, words, and concepts (of the past) that we constantly use (and are protrusions of what was poured into us). What is projected internally (psychologically) is what we are (i.e., what we actually are) fundamentally. If we remain in the old and limited, we remain old (internally) and limited. Even our concepts about the future are extensions of past accumulated (old) symbols/patterns. (Even when we think that we often live in the present, we — in actuality — do not.)
One can’t choose to perceive correctly… any more than one can choose to be wise or choose to be a genius. Choice and will are not keys to vast understanding. Understanding takes place when limited perception and fragmentation are not dominating factors. Will and choice are crude extensions of limited fragmentation; the chooser separating himself (or herself) from the choice is a mere continuity of primitive, illusory, fragmentary opposites. When fragmentation and limited perception no longer dominate, then there is a wholeness that is not the result of a mold or a mere blueprint.
Wildflower Flower Pods … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018 .JPG
An indelible, sacred energy
that rarely visits…
Its immensity surpasses all
things within the world of the
opposites.
Though ineffable, it is the real flame beyond
all of the smoke,
the true light beyond all shadows.
Do not take my word for it.
Find out!
Looper Moth on Clover Flower … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
It’s a wonderful day
to look beyond the crime of politics
and, instead, perceive things without measure,
while realizing that simple, pure things are
(the only real treasure).
Common Blue … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
When there is the negation of what order and love are not, perhaps love will be there. There is no “you” that wills that negation, for the very self itself (i.e., the “I” or the “me”) must be part of that negation… not merely controlling it from (or “as”) a distance. Of course, we are not suggesting harm to the body in any way; such harm would not entail love. Love is not merely measurable (i.e., not merely of measure), so one cannot merely “know” that one has it. Thinking and time are of measure and a mind that is merely caught up in thinking and measurement (in and “as” time) cannot love deeply (though it can easily think that it can). Clinging to an isolated concept of “me” (apart from all of life) requires distance and a measurement of opposites. Psychological distance and measurement create the “I” and the “I” would not exist without such psychological distance and measurement.
A lot of people say “I love you” very easily (as if one knows that one “has” it… as if it entails an absolute separate subject and object). Is there really an “I” that is separate from what the whole world is? Is there really an isolated “you” — that is looking from a (learned) distance, an accumulated psychological space — that is separate from what the whole world is? Psychological separation, isolation, and conflict depend upon limited thought/thinking, and without limited thought/thinking, such separation wouldn’t exist.
Our minds are often so very distorted and not whole. The grocery stores, these days, are chock-full of fragmented, over-processed, pseudo-foods. And, in the United States, for example, there is more obesity and more cancer (and strange, deleterious syndromes popping up) than ever before. Too few of us eat real, whole foods like our grandparents did; we assimilate garbage both mentally and gustatorily, and we don’t mind being normal (and swallowing it all) one bit.
Yellow Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
While it occurs
one feels
a trillion times
more alive than
one has ever felt
before
Afterward
one doesn’t forget
the answer to the question
of whether the
immeasurably sacred
exists
or not
Lichen on Tree Branch … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
Don’t be a second-hand, hodgepodge mix of what others (in your life) programmed you to be; perceive directly, without mere conditioning/reaction.
Quixotic, extremely idealistic behavior is often based on dead, old patterns; look at life afresh, without dead blueprints.
Don’t merely pigeonhole others with an old, categorizing-oriented brain; perceive with fresh and lucid eyes.
Many of us take immaculate care of our overly fancy cars while we guzzle sugar, starch, alcohol, and processed foods like there’s no tomorrow.
To habitually take refuge in old-fashioned beliefs may be like finding protection in a rainstorm by depending on an old, torn, metal umbrella.
Roses are red and violets are blue… wake up and realize that what you perceive is you.
Female Monarch Butterfly … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018
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