All Posts Tagged ‘photography’

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Assumptions

July 22, 2018
25 comments

 

Many of us hold assumptions/presumptions, either consciously or unconsciously, that dictate how we observe and react.  These assumptions are what we have absorbed from others and may not be separate from what we are.  Many people assume that they are separate from others.  Many assume that they are separate from their so-called “own thoughts” and rule them from some kind of internal distance.  Many assume that the perceiver is (psychologically) separate from the perceived.  Many assume that their family consists of a few human beings.  Many assume that endlessly imitating others is safe, sane, and wonderful.  Many assume that they are fully autonomous and have absolute free will.  Many assume that they are dominant, both internally and externally.  Many assume that animals were put here for man.  Many assume that they have a right to destroy nature.  Many assume that someone who sees things very differently than they do is strange or wrong and should be avoided.  Many assume that degrees from universities are a sign of deep intelligence.   Many assume that thoughts are what they control by a central “I” or “me” that is not another thought.  Many assume that fragmentary, limited science has all of the answers.  Many take for granted that money and “showing off” are more important than caring.  

It may be that the very intelligent mind goes beyond absorbed presumptions.  Such a mind transcends fear, separation, prejudice, conflict, indifference, dead habit, delusion, and mediocrity.  It is likely that only such a mind may be visited by the ineffable and sacred eternal.

 

[Note:  According to the environment-oriented Sierra Club which we belong to and donate monthly to:   Monarch butterfly populations have been rapidly declining in North America since 1997.  In fact, the Midwestern United States have seen an 88 percent decline in the number of Monarchs, and a 64 percent decrease in the available Milkweed, which serves as the Monarch’s only egg-laying habitat and food source for Monarch caterpillars.  We need to stop denying man-made global warming and do much more.  I, myself, over the past years, have seen a dramatic decline in many butterfly and bee species.]

A Monarch Among Us… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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A Poem About my Camera… (or The Perceiver is not separate from the Perceived)

July 20, 2018
37 comments

 

 

 

As it fell from my
hands into the river,
my second-rate, semi-waterproof
camera was drowning.
I tried to give it mouth-to-
mouth resuscitation
but then received a
massive jolt of electricity
into my flared chops.
As I remained passed-out
on the riverbank, 
sweet images of beautiful flowers
crawled in my head
and I smiled,
realizing that a camera
was no longer needed.

 

 

Wildflowers and Soldier Beetle… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Talk regarding a spy within The United Society of Ants

July 18, 2018
42 comments

 

If there is a spy among us,
he shouldn’t be too hard to spot;
he’ll be at the top and have glaring eyes of red.

 

 

[Note:  These insects are on a wild Celery plant.  Wild Celery is very common in our area.]

Spy Among the Ants… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

 

 

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Limited Minds of Fragmentation

July 15, 2018
19 comments

 

Thought, being sequential and fragmentary, depends upon — and is — time.  A fragmentary, sequential process, as part of time, will never fully understand the whole of time.  Yet, the scientists continue to operate through sequential and fragmentary equations and analysis.  Space and time are an integral part of one another; they are not two entirely different things.  The space between the perceiver and that which is perceived involves limitation and fragmentation and necessitates time.  Scientists do not generally transcend that limitation; they keep projecting fragmentary equations, theories, and use analysis based on what they have learned before.   Many scientists claim that they are close to having a theory of everything, yet scientists do not understand what dark energy is (consisting of 68% of the known universe); they also do not know what dark matter is (consisting of 27% of the known universe); they do not understand a lot regarding the basic essence of the cosmos.   There is evidence, for example, that the so-called constant speed of light may be changing.  New tests are exploring this.  The whole of physics is predicated on the constancy of the speed of light.   (Scientists may, however, understand some rather remarkable things at this point.  Leonard Susskind’s Holographic Principle of the Universe comes to mind; however, even principles such as this are, of course, limited and fragmentary.  I used to hang out with Loren Billings, who ran the Museum of Holography in Chicago and, decades ago, way before these expert scientists came up with this holographic theory stuff, we used to have wonderful discussions about the likely holographic nature of the universe… about how a large amount of the entire universe functions much like a hologram.)

The structure of the perceiver (psychologically) being separate from the perceived… is what is formulated by limited thought.  This thought also sees the past as separate from the future.  Fragmentation will understand things only in very limited ways.  That very limitation, however, can (and often does) contribute to conflict, indifference, hatred, competition, and suffering.  To step out of all that may not require time, struggle, theories, religions, authorities, practices, or any other piecemeal processes.   There is a fundamental psychological revolution that is beyond the framework of fragmentation and conflict.  Currently, science is replacing religion as a major contributor of the worldview.  If science tends to stress fragmentation, which it (for the most part, but not entirely) has been doing, then people will, unfortunately, likely remain stuck in fragmentary frameworks.  

 

 

Eye of the Toad… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Photography Tip # 7 — Haiku

July 14, 2018
55 comments

 

PHOTOGRAPHY TIP #7:

When you see what you like,
there is a button on the top of your camera.
Press that button.

 

 

 

Photography Tip with Wildflowers… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

 

 

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Snakes Alive! Haiku

July 11, 2018
56 comments

 

          (thou)
                    gh
                        man
                      y hate
               you
             Some 
         see you
         r true
      full
             beauty.
                      That’s
                         all
                    th
                at
                    mat
                          ter
                       s

 

 

 

Bull Snake Admiration… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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The Inner and the Outer

July 8, 2018
9 comments

 

The separation of the inner from the outer involves standard perception which largely involves misperception and barbaric acceptances.  Such misperception involves conflict, separation, isolation, and distinct borders.  A prudent entity who intelligently transcends mere inner-outer frameworks of perception is not a dull mind that walks into walls or that steps into busy traffic.  Rather, such a person exists beyond old and cadaverous viewpoints and worn-out, primitive perspectives.  Only such a person can be of real order; only such a person can be fully genuine, deeply compassionate, and of vast integrity and virtue.  (By the way, idealistically saying that one is “one with nature,” which is all the fashion these days, is not it!  A limited, fragmented mind can easily identify itself with anything, but it still remains a fragmented mind.)

Thought and stored memory feed the separation of the inner from the outer.  Too many of us worship a false inner and are indifferent about the vast outer.  A separate perceiver cannot be the complete understanding of the whole as long as the fragmentary self-projected images and thoughts of an isolated, independent observer are maintained via learned effort.   Any state of opposition, such as what a concocted, separate “0bserver” brings about, further nourishes indifference and isolation.  Thoughts and “image making” form the perceiver, and without thoughts and mental images, without repeated effort and psychological struggle, the perceiver would not be.  The psychological ending of the so-called separate perceiver is not something to be frighted of; the true ending of limited images, symbolic patterns, and accepted barriers is not frightening; rather, it is liberation and involves profound insight.  Holistic insight does not occur often for conflict and misperception.

 

 

Katydid Nymph and Ladybug… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Lens of Awareness

July 1, 2018
11 comments

 

Many of us bloggers, who take pictures often, are scrupulously concerned about keeping our camera lenses clean and spotless.  Many of our minds (and concomitant actions), however, are not taken care of so very diligently.  We look at things through tainted, jaded, contaminated lenses, according to the way we were programmed to look.  We see what we were programmed to see.  We think what we were programmed to think.  Most merely react, very predictably, according to the ways in which they were molded to react by.  If one desires to clean the mind, to polish the lens of the mind, it is usually merely according to someone else’s system, methodology, or beliefs.  That may merely be an extension of the crass conditioning.

Before considering cleaning the lens of the mind, please consider who (or what) is doing the cleaning.   If the “perceiver” is not something separate from the perceived, then the cleaning itself may be part of the programming, part of the conditioning.  Yet, most will just want to go out and take some mighty fine pictures. 

I am quite aware that my blog only helps some people.  Most will not see the seriousness of it.  That lack of seeing the seriousness is what i have seen all my life, ever since childhood.  Our world is going under because of it and, in the long run, our superficial images of things won’t matter one damn bit.

 

 

 

Leopard Frog Time… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Our Internet is Down and Broken… & my Apologies…

June 28, 2018
20 comments

 

Our internet has been down a few days.  That is why i have not been responding to you guys, interacting, liking your blogs, or responding to your comments (which i apologize for).  They finally got it going again but our rural-area computer wouldn’t work with the new system and so they got it going for us with a very antiquated, dial-up-cretaceous system.  It is so slow that i have to wait a very long time just for one picture to download!  The internet service provider promised me that they would come back with a fast system for us again (but that they would have to order it and didn’t know how long that would take.) 

So, in the meantime, i will not even try to visit other blogs or do much online (unless it temporarily starts working faster, which one doubts will happen).  I schedule my blog postings about a month in advance, so my blog posts will continue to appear.  I will probably not — while this is super-slow internet is happening — continue to try to schedule many posts in advance, though i may continue with the mindfulness-philosophical prose stuff on Sundays, as i feel a responsibility to keep the significance of that going.   (If i do, i will probably use images already used and existing in my WordPress media file, since it would be near impossible to upload at this point.)  Hopefully, things will get back to technologically normal soon, and all of this will be just a bad memory!  🙂   Thanks much, all of you!   🙂  

 

 

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

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The Story of Lo Zu and The Young Man

June 22, 2018
28 comments

 

An inquisitive young man, along with some of his friends, went to Lo Zu, and said,

“Every time that I look east, the birds fly east, and every time that I look west, the birds fly west;

every time that I look up the birds fly up,

and every time that I look down, the birds fly down.  What does this mean?”

After a very long period of silence, Lo Zu, the great sage, finally answered,

“One must keep one’s mouth shut when inquiring within.”

 

They finally hatched!    🙂

Mourning Dove Fledglings… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Mushroom Protection — Haiku

June 21, 2018
41 comments

 

Let me shelter you
from the rain, from all the pain,
for all are brothers.

 

 

Mushroom Feelings… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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That Original Source

June 17, 2018
13 comments

 

 

That original source, if it is to be discovered at all, must be seen firsthand (and directly).  Seeing it through the second-hand scraps of another — including me — is never seeing it at all.  The mind must be free of the contamination of others — the second-hand rubbish of others — for that seeing to take place.  That seeing — of that wholeness — may have nothing to do with visual perception whatsoever.  (Don’t be foolish enough and greedy enough to think that closing your eyes and sitting with crossed, pretzel-like legs will get you there!)  Regarding this, the mind must be free of all the hand-me-down knowledge and systems of others and be of a sweet, pristine, innocent purity.  However, even that is not enough, for the human mind cannot ever be totally spotless and original, and if that miraculous immeasurability ever occurs, it is not ever because one made it occur.  It is much too immense, intrinsically intelligent, and freely mysterious, to merely be a shoddy effect from some paltry human cause.  It is (though words are never the actual thing) an ineffable, sacred whole beyond mere causality.  So many charlatans write in books and blogs and talk in temples about what they “think” it is.  Additionally, many claim that it does not exist.  Beware of all others and find out for yourself.  Inquire with profound passion and never allow that passion to be quenched by mediocrity.  

 

 

 

Fungus on Forest Floor… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

 

 

 

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Beddy-bye Haiku

June 13, 2018
12 comments

 

Wisdom will go to sleep
while understanding the whole.
Scientists will not.

 

Ant on Tree Blossoms… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Sensibility

June 10, 2018
28 comments

 

 

Sensibility implies the capacity to feel.  Most of us can react according to the ways in which we were miseducated to react; not as many of us, unfortunately, really (fully, independently) feel.  Deep feeling usually does not take place when the mind is imprisoned in limited labels, categorizations, systems, and robotic practices.  The aforementioned patterns tend to dull the mind, rendering it more programmed and less likely to feel.  Psychological borders, such as those that take place between the observer and the observed, also tend to render dullness in the mind, making it far less likely for things like profound empathy to take place.

A truly intelligent mind that is beyond superficial borders, childish beliefs, and “learned patterns of separation,” may be capable of profound feeling (which is far beyond crass indifference).

 

 

Sweet Dreams… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

 

 

 

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A Listening Happened Just Today

June 9, 2018
28 comments

 

A listening happened just today
     beyond the “shoulds” and frowns
 It curtsied and then ran away
     without the verbs and nouns

Then seeing came running past
     as lightning with the rain
All this will always ever die
     like laughter after pain

Then fragile touched a feeling thing
     as springtime slipped away
All this will always never die
     Whitman’s wink here to stay

 

 

Bumblebee Time… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Perfect Haiku… (Elephants wouldn’t have fit)…

June 8, 2018
14 comments

 

Oops, I tore my pants!
For syllabic perfection,
legs are swarmed by ants.

 

 

Ants getting ready to invade the legs of Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

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Count von Count

June 7, 2018
28 comments

 

Why should Haiku involve
the counting of syllables?
This isn’t Sesame Street!

 

Face to face with a Red Admiral… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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The Way Flowers Were Meant to Vaselessly Be Haiku

June 6, 2018
12 comments

 

Not decapitated
Not put in a coffin-like vase
to beautify hell

 

 

Midges with Tulip growing Outdoors… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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A totally different dimension of mind…

June 3, 2018
20 comments

 

A totally different dimension of mind can take place.  What nearly all people take to be reality is a far cry from what truly exists (beyond delusion).  Most are walking around oblivious to what is really possible.  They have accepted secondhand images, secondhand patterns, secondhand symbols, dissected labels, measurements, and cold statistics to be their reality; such reality is akin to taking shadows to be concrete substances, toys to be living things, silly iPhones messages to be substantive.  Even our images of self are essentially secondhand patterns that we have assimilated and absorbed.  Then, these images of self are involved with images of another (a spouse, for instance); one set of images is involved with what are considered images of another.  A (relationship between secondhand images of self and — then, also, down the road of psychological time — secondhand images of another) may largely be based on learned, sequential patterns (of recognition and categorization); such a programmed arrangement (based merely on absorbed patterns/symbols/images) may not be much of a relationship at all.  It is a relationship of secondhand patterns.  What kind of relationship is that?

Life is tremendously much more profound and deep than what learned symbolism, categorization, and information processing are involved with.  If you just stick to those three, that the previous sentence mentions, what you are is likely normal… but you certainly may not be what goes beyond the superficial.  People all throughout life are all too willing to tell you how to think, what to do, how to live.  So many, blogs included, want to give you spiritual templates, philosophical instructions.  There are infinite “expert non-experts” out there; just today, one saw a blog wherein the author stated that to fix our life problems, we have to find the right templates, the right instructions.  It may be, however, that real life is much too vast, flowing, multidimensional, and alive for any set of cooked-up “shoulds,” instructions, blueprints, or stale templates.   

You won’t be getting any die-hard templates from me.  It may be that the timelessness of real wisdom exists only when self-concocted effort and struggle cease (psychologically).  Such ceasing involves an ending that doesn’t take time, that doesn’t rely on blueprints, instructions, or processes.  Most, however, are frightened about psychologically coming to an end (i.e., about psychological dying); most continue to cling to potty little images of self.  Therein lies sorrow; the irony is that, without psychologically ending, their sorrow will never really end.   Many of us merely depend upon (and exist “as”) patterns and symbols.  Be certain here that we are not at all suggesting ending physically; physical existence is an opportunity and a privilege that can involve keen (unspoiled) awareness and dynamic flowering.  Physical death is not for me (except for the wonderful fossils that i collect).  Psychological dying, however, is a whole other ballgame.  The psychological dying to stale, secondhand, dead symbols and images is real living.

 

from E.E.Cummings:

 

dying is fine)but Death

?o
baby
i

wouldn’t like

Death if Death
were
good:for

when(instead of stopping to think)you

begin to feel of it,dying
’s miraculous
why?be

cause dying is

perfectly natural;perfectly
putting
it mildly lively(but

Death

is strictly
scientific
& artificial &

evil & legal)

we thank thee
god
almighty for dying
(forgive us,o life!the sin of Death

 

Wasp reflecting deeply… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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When this photo took itself

June 1, 2018
16 comments

 

When this photo took itself,
blossoms danced with joy,
pasts, presents, and futures
soundly did not employ

With this movement’s perceiving,
nature was at home,
politicians, priests didn’t matter,
Beauty was alone

 

 

Forest Floor Flowers… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Insights or Non- (Chapter 2)

May 27, 2018
28 comments

 

Intelligently go beyond what everyone has ever taught you about anything.  Reality is totally different from what society has thought it to be.

Much secondhand thought — and all thought is residual and secondhand — is an impediment to receiving direct insight, direct perception.

The caring, intelligent mind recycles and helps to keep our oceans more free of polluting plastics and unnatural debris.  The other kind of mind just doesn’t care.

True joy is walking through the woods, silently listening and effortlessly watching  — without separation — the creatures of nature. 

Forget beliefs!   Find out!

A closed mind, like a closed flower bud, isn’t there yet.

In compassion, there is no separate “you” and “I.”

Little birds who don’t joyfully tweet at the morning return of the rising sun… we call atheists.

Action and understanding are sometimes beautifully, wholly, one and the same thing; mere reaction, darkly, is not usually what involves deep understanding.

 

[Note:  Photograph is of tiny Spring Beauty Wildflowers (Claytonia virginica) in a wooded area.  Each flower is about 8 mm. (1/3″) across when it is fully open, consisting of 5 petals, 2 green sepals, 5 stamens with pink anthers, and a pistil.  The petals are white with fine pink stripes; these stripes vary from pale pink to bright pink.]

 

Spring Beauty Wildflower (Claytonia virginica)… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

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Scales on a Deceased Moth’s Wing Haiku

May 26, 2018
12 comments

 

 

Flying meant a lot
in the open air so free
Soaring meant a lot

 

 

 

Scales on a Moth Wing… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Cup Mushroom Encounter

May 25, 2018
20 comments

 

 

like a little there was here
far beyond time and fear
in a little cup up-spill
as all reactions went nil

then a little here is there
like a holding of the purest air
why a lot of hate and crime
need a lot more love and rhyme

 

 

Cup Mushroom in the middle of the woods… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Critters Pictures Haiku

May 23, 2018
36 comments

 

 

People don’t realize that I
take all my photos without a camera.
Photographic memory, you see.

 

 

[Note:  This is a shot of an Ivory Mystery Snail and some Painted Fire Red Shrimp in one of my aquariums.  I breed both the snails and the shrimp.  It is so cool about how the snails and shrimp get along with each other so well!  The snails often rise up to expose more of their bodies to the shrimp… in order to get groomed and get little parasites or debris taken off by the shrimp.  I’ll have to get a shot of that sometime! ]

Ivory Mystery Snail and Painted Fire Red Shrimp… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Fear, Understanding, and Compassion

May 20, 2018
22 comments

 

 

If psychological fear occurs and one tries to avoid that fear by indulging in all kinds of escapes, then the fear is never understood.  If one tries to suppress or subjugate the fear, then the fear is never fully understood… one is too busy being in conflict with it.   If fear arises and one has ideals about oneself being fearless, then those mental ideations prevent one from actually seeing the fear completely (because ideals and learned principles are getting in the way).  So, when fear arises, merely labeling it as something negative, or merely judging it in a “thumbs down” kind of way, clouds the full perception of the fear with secondary, learned reactions concerning it or against it.  Fear can only be profoundly understood when it is seen without extraneous factors, without learned reactions “about it.”  

Additionally, if the fear is merely seen fragmentarily, from a (learned) mental distance, then it will not be fully dealt with without friction and conflict.  Fear may not at all be what you have; fear (when it occurs) is what one actually is.  When there is no crass distance between the fear and some accepted, supposed center, then (and only then) can there be understanding without friction, without conflict; that understanding can be whole and of great intelligence.   The perceiver is not, psychologically, separate from the perceived.   So, the next time fear,  jealousy,  greed, or indifference show up in (and “as”) consciousness, can they be observed without prejudice, without merely labeling them, without denying them, without merely categorizing them with additional reactions (positive or negative), including reactions involving a separative space between the perceiver and that which is perceived?  Only then can deep learning and understanding take place.

You can’t understand something fully if you have no true relationship with it.  A relationship based on shadow-like ideals, concocted distance, and a learned and admired (though false) center, is really no relationship at all.  True and lasting compassion can only take place when real relationship exists. 

 

[Note:  The following two photos are of early spring beginnings of mushrooms.  The lower photo is of the mycelium which is, by and far, the main body of the mushroom (which grows underground).  The mushrooms we see above ground are merely the small, fruiting parts of the organism.  Mycelium — much like a neural network — in some mushrooms can spread for miles and connect with tree roots and other plants, trading nutrients and communication signals with them.  (See the movie Avatar.)  My theory is that primitive lichen, as a combination of molds and algae working symbiotically with each other… may have later evolved over time into these seemingly separate (but very connected) mushrooms-trees-and-plants.  The diminutive Lemon Drop Fungi (Bisporella citrina) are fruiting body parts of the mushroom; the Mycelium pictured are from these Lemon Drops.  The Lemon Drops are very small, each being only 1mm to 2mm in diameter.  Refer to the following blog for further interesting information on Mushrooms:  http://www.jingagustin.com/TheMushroomProject/mushroom-anatomy/ ]

 

Mushroom Primordia Caps… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Mushroom Mycelium… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

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The Poem of the Turning of the Key

May 18, 2018
28 comments

 

Once, I was the key and the turning of the key
Once, I was the lock and the unlocking of the lock
Once, I was the door and the opening of the door
Once, I was the light and the seeing of the light

             However, when the light was really seen,
             when the door was really opened,
             when the lock was really unlocked,
             when the key was really found:

There was no “I,” just the turning of the key
There was no “I,” just the unlocking of the lock
No “I” was there, just the opening of the door
No petty “I” was there, just seeing and infinite illumination

 

 

[Note:  This is another close-up of some Lichen on a small Oak branch.  I continue to suspect that the close symbiotic relationship between primitive algae and primitive fungus… such as in Lichen, tended to continue — because of its very advantageous aspects — throughout evolution with the higher evolved trees and mushrooms.  That is why, today, we are discovering that mushrooms and trees (and many other plants) share communication and nutrients with each other underground (even over vast distances).]

Lichen on small Oak branch… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Lichen Lava Haiku

May 17, 2018
8 comments

 

 

Lava Flow of Life
beyond growth’s shadow
and time’s ending

 

 

Lava Flow of Lichen… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Love…Beyond measurement

May 13, 2018
10 comments

 

 

The mind, for many, is incessantly measuring things, comparing, acquiring, accumulating and labeling.  Can the mind, without a continuing effort — which isn’t laziness — simply perceive without all those things habitually going on mentally?  Measuring and labeling have their place but there is also a time when they are not necessary and, if still used, are merely habitual and robotic in essence.  Total separation, between the “perceiver” and “that which is perceived,” demands measurement, requires a type of psychological wall and resistance.   Resistance occurs as an opposing force.  If you separate yourself from all other life forms, that is a form of resistance, a manifestation of conflict.   Indifference and conflict go hand in hand; there is so much of it in the world these days.

Perceiving without separation is not what most people are involved with.  Perceiving with (and “as”) the standard norms (that were taught), because of the conflict, because of the resistance, because of the robotic repetitiveness of it all, leads to depression and psychological suffering; then many turn to drugs or alcohol as an escape (which really is no escape at all).  There is an order that goes beyond all this.  Mere measurement does not take one to that order.  It is not within the realm of accumulating or acquiring, (yet so many are willing to pay money for instructions or systems to get there).  

Its beauty includes its being beyond mere accumulation and “getting.”  You can’t obtain what is beyond mundane getting, having, and measuring.  Real love is not merely a product of accumulation; however, if one is very fortunate, non-fragmented, and serious, it is there (beyond measure).  If one merely remains within the mental realm of getting, having, and measuring, one will stay miserable and secondhand (though one may erroneously think that one is doing marvelously).  Deep awareness and profound psychological transformation are not a matter of time.  Measuring and accumulation take time.

 

[A variety of crust fungus, Milk White Toothed Polypore (Irpex lacteus) seems to have “teeth” that, in actually, are tubes or pores in the spore-bearing surface which break apart with age and become tooth-like.  This is a very small fungus; it was on a small, dead tree branch; the pictured portion was around one centimeter long.]

 

Milk White Toothed Polypore Fungus… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

 

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Fear of Spiders Haiku

May 9, 2018
36 comments

 

A needless disease
is arachnophobia!
Get well soon, please!

 

 

Jumping Spider Time!… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Insights or Non- (Chapter 1)

May 6, 2018
15 comments

 

 

Most people are heavily conditioned by all kinds of absurd beliefs that divide them and that cause havoc in the world, especially beliefs involving nationalism, religion, politics, (and even science).  To question all beliefs, and to intelligently go beyond them, may be true wisdom.

First thing in the warm spring mornings, many birds sprightly sing to the joy of the new day, to the returning sun, and to the exhilaration of sharing! 

If many folks had Pinocchio noses, their heads would be perpetually tilted by the weight of their answers.

If you exercise the mind but not the body you are cheating a very significant and important part of what you are.

True divinity does not usually interfere with the natural laws of the cosmos… and that noninterference is, in a very real way, an expression of deep compassion.

On their way to the endearing burning candle of society’s tradition, people who look at the contrast between moths and themselves need not ignore the contrast within the moths themselves.

Divinity — though it happens very rarely in the very insane world of man — may enter and visit a very innocent mind… not ever the other way around.

Unfortunately, one doesn’t need to have “right education,” wisdom, halfway decent genetics, or even compassion, to be a parent.

Normality is a common type of insanity.

The truly intelligent human being is a blessing, not a malediction, in the lives of others and regarding the health of Mother Earth.

 

 

 

Desmia subdivisalis moth… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Once we looked at the tiniest little thing

May 4, 2018
22 comments

 

 

Once we looked at the tiniest little thing
it looked up with caring innocent eyes
its heart was bigger than what all words mean

Once perception was more than me
looking was deeper than distance and time
living was beyond becoming or be

 

 

Wildflowers with Beetles, deep in the woods … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Emerging Spring Haiku

May 3, 2018
17 comments

 

 

Its sweetness unfurling,
Spring beats the flags of nations.
No mindless borders.  

 

 

New Spring Emerging… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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First Photographed Butterfly of Spring Haiku

May 2, 2018
20 comments

 

First Spring Butterfly
wants to play hide and seek.
Alright then!  I’m in!

 

 

First Encounter… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Sun-baked 1st of May Haiku

May 1, 2018
20 comments

 

“We need rain today!”
“It’s what the Mayapples say,”
cries the 1st of May.

 

 

Mayapple Plant on Forest Floor… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Observing

April 29, 2018
14 comments

 

 

When most people are observing an animal, they are really not (usually) seeing purely without contamination.  They usually are looking with (and “as”) images and labels of the organism… images and labels that are constantly being modified, changed, added to, and rearranged.  Their seeing is not pure seeing per se but is more a part of a process of categorization, image-recognition, and processing.

When most people observe, there is a separative space between the perceiver and the perceived.   In a very wise mind, however, in pure observing, there is no separate perceiver merely categorizing, merely engaging in image-recognition, and processing… and there is no separative space involved.  Perception beyond learned accumulation does not merely continue to contribute to a learned accumulative process.  Deep perception, then, is not merely reacting but, instead, is something entirely different.  Profound perception is far deeper than mere superficial reacting.  Real perception involves completeness, non-fragmentation, and timelessness.   That may be what real mindfulness, real meditation consists of… and not all of that childish, practiced, self-hypnotic stuff.

Perception immersed only with (and “as”) reaction and accumulation is incapable of great depth and profundity.  Perception beyond mere reactions and accumulative processes is immense and profound.   Looking as a totally separate “perceiver” isolates and separates in a very crude and barbaric way.   A man who, as a separate perceiver, is looking at “his fear” tends to see that fear from a separative distance, even though, in reality, he actually is the fear (not something separate from it at any distance whatsoever).  Ignorance must end for true psychological order to exist.  Only true psychological order can really be mindful in the deepest sense.  Unintelligence, false (learned) separation, and a lack of compassion are all one pitiful thing.

 

 

Observing Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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One Little Raindrop Haiku

April 25, 2018
40 comments

 

 

One little raindrop
on wildflower youandme
alltogetherwe

 

 

 

[Early Spring Wildflower deep in the woods… with one sole, little raindrop.]

Early Spring Wildflower Deep in the Woods… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

Post

Aloofness and Indifference of the Mind

April 15, 2018
26 comments

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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Once Upon a Twice

April 13, 2018
12 comments

 

 

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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This is no Real Spring Haiku

April 11, 2018
32 comments

 

 

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

 

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

Frozen PseudoSpringtime… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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The Human Condition

April 8, 2018
9 comments

 

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

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

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

 

 

clinging to surfaces… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Tinge of Spring

April 6, 2018
21 comments

 

 

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

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

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

 

 

 

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

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

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Pristine Perception… (and Proto-Primate Jaw)

April 1, 2018
19 comments

 

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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Changing

March 30, 2018
12 comments

 

 

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

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

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

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

 

 

Shrooms … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Who’s Your Daddy Haiku

March 28, 2018
31 comments

 

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

 

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

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Thinking and Harmony

March 25, 2018
20 comments

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

From old Confucius:    

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

 

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

 

A finger points to the moon

 

Put the expression

a finger points to the moon in brackets

(a finger points to the moon)

The statement:

‘A finger points to the moon is in brackets’

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

(…………………………………………………………………… )

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

what a finger is to the moon

 

Put all possible expressions in brackets

Put all possible forms in brackets

and put the brackets in brackets

 

Every expression, and every form,

is to what is expressionless and formless

what a finger is to the moon

all expressions and all forms

point to the expressionless and formless

 

the proposition

‘All forms point to the formless’

is itself a formal proposition

 

Not,

…….as finger to moon

…….so form to formless

but,

…….as finger is to moon

…….so

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

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

………….together with the brackets]

…….to

 

What an interesting finger

let me suck it

 

It’s not an interesting finger

take it away

 

The statement is pointless

The finger is speechless

 

 

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

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

 

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Viva Sweet Spring

March 23, 2018
30 comments

 

 

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

Green groping marvels reaching
                     not muchtheworseforwear
                     Innumerable gladnesses bursting gleefully

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

 

Spring (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Spring (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Eyes for You Only Haiku

March 21, 2018
45 comments

 

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

 

Phiddipus Jumping Spider… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Post

Awareness

March 18, 2018
10 comments

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

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

 

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

 

 

Post

Froggy

March 16, 2018
23 comments

 

 

Fast not last
and ditty dance
circulated bound

Not slow or first
or spongy thirst
or rivulet round

Not here just there
not underwear
resplendent like a clown

Just slippery soggy
not so groggy
a leaping up and down

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

 

 

 

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

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

 

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Haiku Beyond Little Miss Muffetism

March 14, 2018
32 comments

 

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

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