All Posts Tagged ‘religion’

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About “Prayer”

February 12, 2021
42 comments

The following is not meant to offend those who pray. If you are into “praying,” please read this as objectively as possible.

Praying is still what a lot of people do. Why do people pray and what does praying involve? We must be careful not to overly or subjectively analyze it, since (psychologically) the analyzer is not something truly separate from the analyzed.

People who pray will tell you that they are praying to God, to what they consider or think/feel God to be. Fundamentally, in all actuality, they are praying to an image (of what their thoughts consider God to be). This image is a protrusion of their thinking process. It is a product and fabrication of thought/thinking. One of the associative feelings or suppositions regarding this projected image, regarding what “God” is considered to be, involves attributes of power, dominance, (and all of this with a heavily anthropomorphic bent). In other words, this image of God — within people, constituting part of their minds — consists of human (often fatherly) attributes; these images, for instance, tend to be formulated of human attributes involving such things as great strength, power, endurance, fortitude, fairness, awareness, and keen judgment. (Most people do not harbor internal images of a lazy, indifferent, weak God. Most brains do not harbor associative constructs tying images of God to inefficiency, indolence, and to a complete lack of awareness.)

Many ardently cling to this image involving domination and power — whom they call “God” — and will insist that it is more than a self-projected image that they carry. Curiously, if one examines honestly, there is another image that they carry that (coincidentally) also involves great domination and power. Do you realize what it is? It is the image of the self. It is the image of the “I” and/or the “me.” However, most of us do not see it for what it is (i.e., a projected, concocted image); most of us see it (or feel it) to be the permanent, separate, central orchestrator and core regulator of all of the other thoughts. Most of us see it as what has true domination and power; it (to us) is what is having domination and power over the “other” thoughts (and is separate from them). (So there exists domination and power regarding “God” and domination and power involving the “I” or the “me.”) We don’t see the “I” for what it really is… another protrusion of thought/thinking that (in reality) is neither powerful, dominant, nor truly central. However, most all of us cling to this psychological structure because it fits in well with what everyone else has absorbed and accepted as legitimate. We evolved from primitive hominids in an environment where domination and power were critical and extremely important. Following leaders of power — or forces of power — was critical and necessary way back then, wasn’t it? We haven’t dropped those old-fashioned ways.

A few additional points:
So when people pray to God concerning things that need to be done for others, for instance, are they pointing out things that this God may be negligent about understanding or that this God is not quite fully adequate at being aware of? If mentally handicapped people and animals are not gifted enough to pray to what may involve dominance and power, does this mean that they are largely plum out of luck? When a person prays, may it be that that person feels that he or she is involved in a direct pipeline to something considered powerful and dominating (i.e., which — let’s face it — is that person’s image of God) with, all the while, this pipeline being something considered special? And could it be that the previous question implies that psychologically imagining that one has such a pipeline, in oneself, nourishes a form of self-aggrandizement, blowing up the ego of the one so imagining?

So…

Personally, one does not pray in the traditional sense. One rolls up one’s sleeves. My prayer — if it is any form of prayer at all (which it really isn’t) — is the “doing.” I worked throughout life with the handicapped, with the mentally disadvantaged, and with those in real need. If we perceive with real intelligence and understanding, then compassion is there, the sacred is there. But it is not of dominance and power, and all of that traditional, projected, nonsensical crap.

Praying Angel with the Golden Wings … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2021

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When one was young…

February 5, 2021
28 comments

When one was very young, one loved nature a lot. Nearing 70 years of age, one still loves nature a lot.

Starting at the 5th Grade level, they put me in parochial school; we had to attend mass every morning. As a child, one thought, “They don’t have God locked up in a golden box on the alter; God (i.e., what is sacred) is outdoors in nature, with life… with all of the trees and creatures.” One still feels the same way.

In the playground, as a kid, they had us pledging allegiance to a flag. As a child, way back then, one saw it as a rag on a stick; one saw how so-called separate countries were in battle with each other (each with their own so-called “special flag”). As a kid, the whole thing seemed so mindless and totally absurd. One kept silent as the other kids endlessly repeated the pledge. At around 70, one still feels the same way.

As a child, one was the only kid in our grade school class who would help a fellow student (in class) who happened to be mentally retarded. At the end of the grade school years, his mother saw me in a department store and passionately thanked me. I also helped foreign students who were struggling to learn English. Much later on in life, my adult profession was being a teacher for the multiply handicapped.

While in grade school years, while one was sitting in one’s room alone, one suddenly went beyond the thought/thinking process; one realized how “special,” “magical,” “intelligent,” and “whole” it was. It was instantaneous (i.e., timeless) whereas thinking was a process that took time. One continued to engage with (or “as”) whatever it was; one continues to be appreciative of it to this day. One can call it “meditation,” but what it involves transcends all words and labels.

One was always amazed at how cruel and indifferent other fellow grade-school students could be. For instance, they would often tease and mock the boy who happened to be mentally retarded. Now, at around 70, one is amazed at how cruel and indifferent adults can be. For instance, former President Trump openly mocking a handicapped man (and mindless masses still voting for him — even with all of his cruelty and racism — and ardently supporting him).

When one was young, one didn’t just regurgitate what was poured into one; one questioned things and pondered things for oneself. After all of these years, one still (thank goodness) questions things and ponders beyond the stagnant, normative traditions.

Does my blogging help much if that person hasn’t previously already figured a lot of it out as a kid? One wonders, one really wonders…

One was here in the past… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2021

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Nothingness and the ego or “I”…

January 29, 2021
21 comments


Most of us equate nothingness with worthlessness, with triviality, with insignificance. We are terrified of psychological nothingness, and when nothingness occurs, psychologically, we hurriedly run away from it with chattering thoughts, beliefs (that are extensions of thought/thinking), suppositions, and all kinds of entertainments, including television shows (with their sports and movies), radio shows, and internet correspondences. We were all taught to be something, to constantly pursue things with motives to achieve more and more (and still more). Most of us are internally prejudiced against psychological nothingness; it tends to frighten us and we automatically run away from it.

We were taught (directly or indirectly) that the “I,” the psychological center, the ego, the inner “controller” is very substantial. To most of us — let’s face it — it is the most substantial thing of all. Everything revolves around the “I” and the “me”; to suggest that the “I,” the “me,” is very insubstantial and false would be considered blasphemy by most people. (Such talk goes against their core values, their core essence.) Has your mind ever significantly pondered about what the “I,” the “me,” actually is? Most people don’t bother to ponder about it but they merrily go on referring to the “I” and the “me” and habitually function with such manifestations (that they didn’t bother to deeply ponder about).

Without thought/thinking, there can be no internal “I” or “me.” The “I” and the “me” are dependent upon thought/thinking. Without “thinking,” there is no “I” or “me.” The “I” and the “me” are protrusions of thought/thinking and are (in fact) fabrications (i.e., extensions) of the thinking process. The mind can perfectly function just fine without the inner notion of “I” or “me,” and can often do so with compassion, holistic awareness, empathy, and intelligence. In fact, a brain that exclusively functions with or from an “I” or “me” is a brain of separation, isolation, limitation, and division. A brain of separation, isolation, limitation, division, and imitation, may be considered to be intelligent by many people, but it may not be very intelligent. The “me” is considered separate from other thoughts, people, and organisms. It functions from (and “as”) a limited, separative, isolating space that thought/thinking has concocted. It may be that this concocted limited, isolating space is what is truly illusory and (hence) essentially (in a very limited way) nothing. And it may be that a rather egoless mind — without often depending on projections of “I” and/or “me” — can function as (or “with”) a vast, boundless emptiness. Such a vast emptiness (i.e., vast nothingness) is beyond motive and may be sacred, timeless, inclusive, immeasurable, highly sensitive and intelligent, and of a bliss far from what petty minds can fabricate. A brain consisting of a limited, little ego made up of a learned and fabricated “I” tends to be rather superficial and illusory; a mind of a truly holistic, vast, dynamic, immeasurable nothingness tends to be of true intelligence, understanding, compassion, and deep perception.

Curiosity Overview … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2021

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Language and Meditation/Mindfulness

September 25, 2020
12 comments

One would like to reiterate that language oftentimes plays a tremendous role in regard to how we view the world. Language, whether we care to admit it or not, predisposes us to see the world… usually in rather primitive, erroneous, crass ways. After all, language evolved millennia ago (in its basic forms) and we, for the most part, continue on with — and accepting — the same crude, old thing. Our conditioning goes much further in its entrapment by language, further and much deeper than we realize.

As i’ve mentioned before, Professor David Bohm, Einstein’s protege, whom one has talked to a lot many years ago, developed new ideas for a more evolved style of language (via the Rheomode) wherein verbs play a much more predominant role, rather than nouns (as the rather isolated, static objects that nouns generally are). These days, we continue to use language rather primitively and wrongly. The extent of this goes far deeper than many of us suppose. Language loads us with presuppositions and inaccuracies that have trickled down from the primitive past.

When someone says, for example, “I had an insight,” it presupposes that the observer is separate from the observed; it presupposes that some supposed “static” center was at some psychological distance from what the process of insight was and “had it”. In reality, deep insight exists as a movement that no central, isolated “I” actually “has” or can legitimately take credit for. A supposed central agency (that is not really central whatsoever), being static, conceptual, essentially virtual, and essentially fragmentary, cannot justifiably take credit for having what is a movement of substantiality, a holistic movement. An empty sealed jar cannot hold the wind.

When we look, we see — via language, as we were taught — a world of separate things. We see fragmentarily, in a (set, prearranged) sequence developed by language. “This” as separate from “that,” “this” following “that.” Language consists of sequence and fragmentary movements through (and “as”) time.

Do not be a slave to language. This movement asks you to please look deeply beyond it.

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A poem from E.E. Cummings:

n

ot eth
eold almos
tladyf eebly
hurl ing
cr u

mb

son ebyo
neatt wothre
efourfi ve&six
engli shsp
arr ow

s

Butt er fly upcl ose … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2020

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Timelessness and Time

September 18, 2020
17 comments

We function in (and “as”) time. Time involves distinctive patterns in sequences. Thought/thinking is of time; thought/thinking is time. Distinctive, disparate patterns in (and “as”) time allows for conflict, friction, and discord to take place. Needless to say, a lot of friction and disharmony takes place in today’s world; just look at the newspapers to see plenty of that going on.

There is a nameless, sacred timelessness that exists at (or “as”) another dimension completely. It is not of conflictive patterns; it is not of sequences of discord; it is not of fragments involving disorder. It is coherent and is of a harmonious whole, beyond mere conflict and chaos.

Organized religions cannot take you there; organized religions are based on achievement, progress, and movement to goals (in time)… all involving calculated (man-made) patterns. That namelessness is beyond the cause-effect parameters of patterns; it is not some causally induced “effect achieved” or end result.

Thought/thinking, though oftentimes very necessary in functioning, cannot take you to that otherness. Thought can play all kinds of tricks but it cannot take you to where it cannot function… to where it has never functioned (and to where it never will function). (Thought/thinking can easily imagine that it is of wholeness and that it is in great silence and in the special quietness of “not being thought”… while — all the while — it is deceiving itself.) Thought/thinking is always conditioned, always in (or part of) a cause-effect sequence, always reactionary, always rather virtual, always fragmentary, and always rather secondhand. Well, that’s enough thinking for now.

Pale Green Assassin Bug, waiting with his different-colored bait … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2020
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The Limited Consciousness

September 11, 2020
15 comments

Can consciousness actually be in contact with the infinite when such a consciousness always functions with (and “as”) the limited? It cannot. The mind can think or feel that it is in contact with the infinite, but that is mere reaction and not the actuality. It is immensely easy for the mind to delude itself and trick itself into believing and thinking all sorts of things. A consciousness of fragmentation, for example, can convince itself that it is of wholeness and freedom… while, in actuality, that is not the case whatsoever.

Unfortunately, most people are quite content to merely — in very limited ways — accept the traditions and beliefs that were handed down to them. (Curiously, this is even the case with many of those writing on meditation or mindfulness in books, blogs, and such, as if they have transcended something, when fundamentally they have not.) Most people in limitation — which is of confinement — feel “safe.” They do not truly reexamine all that they were taught. They do not fully question what was spoon-fed to them. (Many assume that they have broken from the standard, run-of-the-mill consciousness but, fundamentally, they have not.) They, among countless others, were taught to conform, obey, absorb, accept, and adhere to all of the traditional outlooks and images. Is a consciousness raised in such a way, and programmed in such a way, much more than a bundle of reactions?

One reaction after another, in life, is limitation, is fragmentation. Holistic contact is much more than mere reaction, but far too many people are merely reacting and are not involved with (or “as”) what is beyond. It is beyond what they spoon-fed into you. It is beyond beliefs, conditionings, and symbolic, sequential thoughts and ordinary feelings (which are all limited reactions). Though the physical organism is important to maintain in time, the old “you” cannot merely psychologically exist (for that immensity and nameless eternity to visit).

Among the Coneflowers … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2020

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On Becoming Whole

September 4, 2020
24 comments

Recently, within the last week or two, one of the regular blogs that i visited, as part of a rather poetic posting that it had about things to accomplish, mentioned — among other things — “becoming whole.” Not wishing to criticize here, but that posting — like so many blogs that are similar to it by well-meaning others — has very good intentions but (one feels) misses the mark (so to speak). (Unfortunately — for others — people who write about wholeness and mindfulness, but who have never actually gone through deep and profound enlightenment — though their intentions are good — are like blind men writing about the beauty of good photography.)

To have the aspiration of “becoming whole” may seem well and good but it may actually have the unintentional backfiring effect of being quite misleading and misdirecting. For instance, do any of us deeply question “what” or “who” is going to be “becoming whole”? If what purports to become whole is some illusory “center” that one has accepted (via miseducation) as some kind of core controller in the middle of consciousness that is (supposedly) orchestrating things, then one may be wasting time with fictitious, barbaric paradigms. Frankly, as one has pointed out in numerous blogs (previously), there is no legitimate “center” that is in control. (And do not misconstrue this; this does not mean, because of a lack of a true center, that one should get all depressed about a lack of security and eternity in life; nothing could be further from the case. Security, order, and eternity are there in abundance with right understanding.)

If there is no legitimate center, and there isn’t, then what is it that is going to psychologically “become”? One may become a better cook, a better gardener, a better photographer (over time). These all have to do with physical improvements over (and in) time regarding fragmentary and sequential frameworks… and in such frameworks, they are quite valid. However, wholeness — real wholeness, not silly mental constructs and fabrications about what wholeness is — may be beyond the framework of time. Time, thought, and everything in time (including thought) is fragmentary and sequential. Real wholeness is a timelessness beyond all of this. And an illusory, petty little “center” — that one has blindly accepted from society (from your parents and educators) as being legitimate — purportedly thinks that it can progress (in sequential time) to what it says is whole. It cannot. An illusory fragmentation (as an accepted image of something “central”) cannot become what is pristine and what is beyond sequential, time-oriented paradigms.

It would be prudent, before proceeding on a quest for truth, to do so without carrying a heavy load of preconceptions/presumptions (i.e., a heavy load of baggage). And without the psychological baggage, it may be that there would not be a false, fragmentary network seeking what it could never be. And there is great beauty in that.

Not an Electrical Array … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2020

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Suffering and Beyond

August 28, 2020
17 comments

We all suffer in the journey of life. The rich and the poor suffer. The rich may think that they suffer less, but what are they rich in? If they are well-to-do with lots of money but are short on real compassion, insight, and wisdom, are they truly rich? Most of us were miseducated on what true richness in life entails; then we go through life bereft of the real treasures, empty of real substance.

Animals (other than our own species) also suffer. Many are currently suffering because of the overindulgence of man… too much cement, too much pollution, too much loss of habitat. There is also the competition in nature between the many animals; many have to struggle among themselves for survival. It’s a tough world out there.

When one looks with barriers, through psychological walls of separation (as one has been mistaught to), then one doesn’t do much about the suffering. Ironically, these very walls (i.e., psychological walls) tend to enclose and greatly contribute to one’s own so-called personal suffering.

True intelligence not only helps much suffering to end in the exterior world — via compassion and action (because “others” aren’t so separate any longer) — but also transcends suffering internally (or psychologically, so to speak). When a mind goes beyond crude ways of perceiving, then a totally different dimension may take place (that is — to a large degree — beyond the friction and pain of regular life). A mind that consists of reaction after reaction is bound to suffer; a mind that does not always react like a programmed robot may transcend much suffering.

Vertical Ascension … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2020

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Living and Enlightenment

August 4, 2020
32 comments

Note: (I’ve dropped out of blogging for a while because i’ve been very busy with other projects. I may — or may not — be doing much blogging in the future; it depends upon my time and some other factors. For those who are truly “inquiring” in all of this, what i have written is always there — and elsewhere — if you know how to look. Regarding the blogging, posting close-up nature pictures has always been a small part of my offerings, although the main focus has always been the philosophy. Followers who have primarily focused on the pictures have really missed the whole point; it’s like focusing on the tie that a good philosopher is wearing, rather than actually listening to what he has to say… which is sad in regard to the picture — or mere tie — lover. That being said, the number of insect species and other small species disappearing in the environment is alarming, to say the least. It breaks my heart to go picture-taking and seeing fewer wildlife species each year, and it is not just in our area; it is all over. Additionally, so many millions of people, such as in America, succumbing to heartless political propaganda — that includes indifference to the health of the environment — is equally cataclysmic… and, of course, the two situations are closely related.)

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So many of us have assumed that we are fully living. However, a person who has been through true satori (i.e., true visitation from that eternal, sacred energy) realizes that people are only “alive” and “living” to a very limited, fragmentary extent. Such so-called “living” is only a rather seed-like state that has never really blossomed whatsoever. To truly change fundamentally, the instrument that is looking is perceiving beyond distortion. That instrument is the mind (and perception of the mind is not separate from what the mind is). Before one starts “cleaning” the mind into what one thinks it “should be” one must realize that there is no separate “cleaner” or “changer” and that time is not a necessary factor. And the “should be” is a projection of the mind that may help create illusions of separation, such as (psychologically) the so-called separation between the “changer” and the “changed.” Thought takes time; thought is psychological time and is separative and fragmentary. A vast, whole, timeless intelligence does exist.

Covered in pollen… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2020
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Fundamentally Erroneous

June 16, 2020
31 comments

To be fundamentally wrong is one thing. But to be fundamentally erroneous with regard to the basic framework or essence of one’s whole psyche is extraordinarily significant. From the day that you were born, they coddled you with warm words that supported the imagery of a center… a central dominating “controller” that is at the core of consciousness dominating and running everything. However, as we’ve mentioned in past blogs, scientists have split the brain (via splitting the corpus callosum) and have created two separate fields of consciousness. The center is fictitious (yet everyone believes in it).

The repetitive operation of a fictitious center — that is not really central at all — creates much mischief; it is separative, illusory, fragmentary, and power-oriented; it depends upon separative borders; it creates a circumference around itself. It, additionally, is a waste of time and energy. Little wonder why there is so much human havoc in the world. We operate with distorted (mental) equipment. Most humans are “off the beam.” Look at the world around you. Look at the narcissistic, sociopathic leaders in America and the world.

How can stability and harmony deeply exist if the essence of consciousness is based on a false premise? We say things like, “I’m working at improving my memory.” You are your memory… and there is no you separate from memory (using it from a distance). Then we surmise that without a center, we will not be secure in eternity. On the contrary, it is the very clinging to a dominating, illusory center that negates the full and comprehensive understanding of beautiful eternity. Distortion cannot perceive the fundamental nature of eternity clearly.

Mr. Lightning Bug waiving Hello on the Fern Plant… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2020
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Turtles and Freedom

May 26, 2020
47 comments

My wonderful, nature-loving wife, Marla, discovered this young, freshly-hatched Snapping Turtle wandering around in our yard and called me to take pictures. Snapping Turtles lay from 20 to 30 eggs on land — in sand or soil — and when the little “snaplets” hatch, they (hopefully) head for water. I took photos of this little fellow and then tossed him in the river that we live on. I saved him a lot of walking/wandering time and prevented him from being eaten by crows, raccoons, and such.

When i was very young — at grade-school-age — i went fishing one day with my grandfather and father. They caught a big turtle — it wasn’t a snapping turtle — and wanted to take it home to make Turtle Soup out of. Yuk! They kept the turtle in a huge fishing net (high up on the bank); the turtle was trapped in the net as it faced the water… wishing to run in. I felt very sorry for the turtle… and gave the big net a swift kick. The turtle managed to get out of the net; i never saw a turtle run so fast; it ran, like lightning, straight into the lake and quickly swam off. Of course, i got a good “yelling-at,” but felt that it was well worth it! That lovely creature got away!

Most humans are trapped and don’t even know it. The net is their traditions, their societal norms, their iron-clad religions, their immoral habits, their separative ways of looking at the world and its so-called separate parts. They think that their net, their beliefs, religions, prayers, mental projections, meditative techniques, and customs are ensuring that they remain very safe. But the net is a net… a limiting, fragmentary, man-made trap that is not helping in a holistic and truly healthy way. One cannot easily kick or leave the trap because one’s very foundation and mental constitution consists of the trap. It is very arduous to go beyond the trap but it is not so difficult if wise/keen and very pure perception occurs without all of the nettings that were crammed into (and around) one over the many years. To look without the known involves no learned technique, no remembered procedure.

That turtle, many years ago, cared more about freedom than most people do in this very nutty age… (with callous, narcissistic, dictatorial leaders popping up worldwide like mushrooms). Their well-designed traps were carefully fabricated to entrap you.

Baby Snapping Turtle (1) … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2020

Baby Snapping Turtle (2) … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2020
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Timelessness

April 23, 2020
14 comments

People, animals, and plants all exist in (and “as”) time. Thought/thinking is fundamentally sequential and is of time. It (i.e., thought) takes time in cause and effect (causal) sequences. Few seriously question about whether or not humans can exist beyond time’s framework. Fewer still ever exist in communion with the timeless.

Timelessness is, itself, a symbolic word and, like all words, has real limitations; the word is definitely not the thing. People tend to live with (and “as”) words and mental images, all of which are sequential symbols that basically are not the things that they represent or stand for. The word “energy” is not the energy; the word “sacred” is not the sacred. Yet we accept words and cling to words and mental images — habitually — and go on in that superficial way until we die.

If people could somehow be visited by the timeless, they surely would perceive it as being sacred, beyond the ordinary, beyond the mundane. That sacredness is never part of the field of time. It is not composed of patterns that you can see; it is not composed of patterns that you can hear; it is not composed of things that you can feel. The timeless and time never fully meet at any point. For it to visit one — and “visit” is a very crude and limited way of putting it, as all words are — one cannot merely be composed of sequential images, thoughts, patterns, fears, prayers, wishes, and desires. Most people are incapable of that — with all of their innumerable habits — and so they remain as they have for generations upon generations.

You cannot invite timelessness. It can never come if you are craving for it. It (i.e., timelessness) is not responsible for what takes place in the field of time, for neither did it create the field of time nor does it get involved with changing things (i.e., manipulating things) in the field of time.

So one who is wise can go beyond merely habitually existing as superficial symbols and other sequential mental patterns; then being beyond mere habitual routine, the timeless may or may not occur. But there is more to being wise than meets the eye.

From E. E. Cummings:

there’s time for laughing and there’s time for crying— for hoping for despair for peace for longing —a time for growing and a time for dying: a night for silence and a day for singing but more than all(as all your more than eyes tell me)there is a time for timelessness

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The photo is of some diminutive wild plants that grow amongst our lawn-grass. There are two or three insects in the photo. Do you see them?

Growing amongst the grass… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2020

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To Exist as Nothing Psychologically

November 1, 2019
3 comments

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

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

Monarch Madness … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
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Standing Alone

October 21, 2019
32 comments

 

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

The Monarch that stands alone. Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
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Meditation

October 11, 2019
20 comments

 

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

Please!

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

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

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

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

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

 

The Beauty of Real (not fake) Flowers. … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
Post

That Sacredness

October 4, 2019
13 comments

 

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

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

 

Buckeye Butterfly in nice Fall colors … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
Post

Blossoming Beyond Separation…

May 3, 2019
26 comments

 

 

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

 

 

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Regarding the Nature of Fear

April 26, 2019
13 comments

 

 

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

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Please don’t be an April Fool all year long…

April 1, 2019
14 comments

 

 

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

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Conditioned Responses and You

March 8, 2019
28 comments

 

 

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

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Hell

November 30, 2018
21 comments

 

 

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

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Looking vs. Seeing

November 25, 2018
30 comments

 

 

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

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What are they feeding us?

September 21, 2018
31 comments

 

 


They provided us with delectable ideas
which our minds assimilated like gluttons.
We, of course, became hungry for more.
Our ravenous appetites drove us
to the next serving… and to the next.
One palatable idea after another
is what we craved; anything other
than facing the starvation of the
emptiness within.
True intelligence can only, for a
limited time, feast on the illusions they
provide.  After
that limitation is reached, real
sustenance breaks free beyond
their insipid inedibilities.
Will habit continue to feast on delicacies
of disorder?  Even the supermarkets are
full of the artificial.
It’s good to eat healthy, whole,
nourishing food.
It’s not so good to allow oneself
to be conditioned to merely
swallow a lot of mindless crap.

 

[Note:  These are not the kind of eggs that you can purchase at the supermarket.  These are 1 millimeter insect eggs on a leaf.   Note the orderly patterns in which they were laid.]

Tiny insect eggs on a leaf… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

Post

Lo Zu and the Truth… (another short Lo Zu tale)

September 7, 2018
29 comments

 

 

A number of young men and young women in Lo Zu’s village gathered around him
one day and one of them said, “Many people, even from other villages, say that
you are a great sage, a man of vast wisdom who carries the truth; please show us
how to carry the truth with us.”

After a considerable length of silence, Lo Zu stood up and said, “If you want the truth, follow me and do exactly what I say, but it will be a very arduous journey with many difficulties.” Then Lo Zu took his meandering cane and began walking, and all of the youth eagerly followed him, with excitement and expectation in their eyes.

He walked through a very large meadow, often bending down to examine the beautiful wildflowers and
insects (while deeply enjoying them). The youth all followed. Then he walked into a thick forest
containing many creeks harboring extremely slippery rocks. All of the youth were somewhat afraid,
but they continued to follow him. After a couple of hours, they came out of the forest
and began climbing a small mountain, all following Lo Zu carefully and diligently. When they
finally reached a very lofty height, Lo Zu stopped walking and began carefully placing large
rocks in each of the youths’ hands. As he placed the large rocks in the hands of each of the
young followers, he said, “These are very special, sacred stones of truth; please carry these back to the
village very carefully, without dropping any; please do not drop the truth.”

Each of the youth carried a number of stones. They followed Lo Zu down off of the mountain. They struggled on their way through the dark forest; it was very 
perilous and difficult with the weight of the stones making their journey all the more excruciating.  As they walked through the large meadow, back toward the
village, many of them were aching with pain from the tiresome journey and from the heavy weight of the stones (over time).

When they finally reached the village, Lo Zu told them to place the stones in a large pile. It was the end of the day, getting dark, and everyone was extremely exhausted (except for Lo Zu who did not carry any stones). Lo Zu asked them, then, to stand in a circle around the stones.  Then Lo Zu remarked to them all, “Here is the truth you worked so diligently for.  These stones are absolutely worthless.  They are not any different from any other stones that one can find. You believed in me, hoping for the truth to be handed to you.  Out of your confusion, you decided that I always held the truth (to give to you). Many people, out of confusion, choose high-ranking “others” to lead them to the truth; out of their confusion, they choose! They go to temples and ask the temple-keepers to give them the truth. What the temple-keepers generally give, however, is as useless as these rocks. Nevertheless, people blindly and devotedly adhere to what they say, just as you have done with me today. It is evening, and you may be disappointed to find that you have wasted your whole day. Do not feel too wronged by this. Many people have wasted their entire lives in carrying the worthless stones, burden, weighty images, and so-called sacred statues of others, and it isn’t evening at the end of it for them; it is the time of their death. They wasted not a day but their entire life, and the sacred eluded them.
Therefore, do not cling to any groups or authoritarian leaders who claim to give concrete methods toward the truth; instead,
find living truth within, without using taxing systems or time.
The first step and the last step are one.”

 

 

Magnificent Eastern Tailed Blue (in a meadow, of course!)… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Christianity and the Historical Christ

September 2, 2018
28 comments

 

My wife and i were at a relative’s funeral, a number of years ago, and my older cousin was in the church pew in front of us.  At the end of the mass, she turned around and said to me, “It’s too bad that you are a heathen.”  I did not reply anything back to her.  (By the way, i had undergone a profound Timeless/Enlightenment experience long before this occurred, though don’t just believe that; “experience,” by the way, is not a very good word to use for this; no word is sufficient.)

I have always been profoundly interested in spirituality and in the philosophical aspect of things all of my life.  I do not belong to any organized religion because, like separative countries, organized religions tend to divide people and (to a large extent) tend to be a form of tribalism which leads to conflict and war.  Though i am not one to put any credence or reliance into “belief” — since belief tends to be the crude result of a blind acceptance of presuppositions, conclusions, or group acceptances — i am very interested in investigating into truth and holistic order.  I probably had read the New Testament, by the way, many more times than my brazen cousin did.  Years ago, when i was quite younger, i hung around a lot with Professor David Bohm, talking one-on-one with him often about the deeper aspects of truth and reality.  David Bohm was a co-worker with Albert Einstein, by the way.  Einstein loved Bohm and called Bohm his “spiritual son.”  I’ll never forget the wonderful discussions that we had.

As far as the Bible goes, most biblical scholars agree that most of what was handed down over the years has been grossly distorted over time from what the historical Christ actually said (i.e., distorted by mistranslations and intentional, self-serving additions by others).   However, probably if one is truly wise, one can — to a large extent — tell the difference between the weeds and the wheat.

One of the many sections that i find interesting starts at Matthew 13:10:

Then the disciples came and asked him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” He answered, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. The reason I speak to them in parables is that “seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand. With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says:
‘You will indeed listen, but never understand,
and you will indeed look, but never perceive.
For this people’s heart has grown dull,
and their ears are hard of hearing,
and they have shut their eyes;
so that they might not look with their eyes,
and listen with their ears…'”.

So, here, in this alleged saying, Christ seems to be saying that he will be telling special things (or even secrets) to those that are close to him, who really care.  He also seems to be saying that the masses get parables but not the direct, significant, straight teachings.  As in ancient times, most people do not inquire into what such special teachings may have consisted of; most did not inquire into what such special messages were about.

The ancient Gospel of Thomas was discovered in an earthenware jar in 1945 in a desert by a poor farmer who was digging for fertilizer.  Additionally, Greek fragments of the gospel were found in ancient dump heaps.  The Greek fragments were an even earlier example than the 1945-discovered Coptic version, and were likely a more pristine version of the gospel (and likely are less distorted).   I hope someday that a full, early Greek version of Thomas is discovered!  Many prominent biblical scholars maintain that the Gospel of Thomas was written before any of the four (previously oral) gospels were written.  There is much evidence — and books have even been written on this — that the Gospel of John was written as a rebuttal to the Gospel of Thomas.  Ancient people who were appreciative of the Gospel of Thomas were all butchered and killed by the ancient Bishops and their followers, long after Thomas was written.  The Gospel of Thomas is not full of weird miracles and tons of parables but, instead, contains more direct, simple wisdom sayings and suggestions to look within (rather than to intermediary priests in temples).   Do you think that an early gospel  — though it was dearly accepted by many early in the history of all of this — would be tolerated by the self-appointed religious, orthodox “authorities” while it suggested that one look within, while it condemned the temple leaders?  The Pharisees, the strict, orthodox, temple-attending people at the time of Christ, were often referred to in a negative way in Thomas (and in some of the other new testament gospels).   Jesus was, at first, a follower of John the Baptist, who despised the “high-ranking” Pharisees and Sadducees, the religious leaders (of organized religion) in Israel at the time of Jesus; John got as far away from the temples as he could… (into wonderful, beautiful nature) to speak to the people, away from the orthodox priests/rabbis.  It was likely these religious leaders who had John the Baptist terminated, and it definitely was the leaders of organized religion who had Jesus killed (as well as, later on, all of the admirers of The Gospel of Thomas).   Do you know what they did with popular iconoclasts in the distant past?  They nailed some of them to dead trees; and, very possibly, if they became exceptionally popular, they twisted around and distorted what they had said to suit their own power-hungry ends.

Prelude and a few select sayings from the Gospel of Thomas:

 

 

 These are the hidden sayings that the living Yeshua spoke and Yehuda Toma the twin recorded. 
 
(1)
And he said, 
Whoever discovers what these sayings mean 
will not taste death.

(3)
Yeshua said,
If your leaders tell you, “Look, the kingdom is in heaven,”
then the birds of heaven will precede you.
If they say to you, “It’s in the sea,” 
then the fish will precede you.
But the kingdom is inside you and it is outside you.
When you know yourselves,  then you will be known,
and you will understand that you are children of the living father.
But if you do not know yourselves,
then you dwell in poverty and you are poverty.

Sayings 61, 62, 66, and 67: 

(61)
Yeshua said,
Two will rest on a couch. One will die, one will live.
 
Salome said,
Who are you, mister? You have climbed on my couch
and eaten from my table as if you are from someone. 
 
Yeshua said to her,
I am the one who comes from what is whole.
I was given from the things of my father.
 
Salome said,
I am your student.
 
Yeshua said,
I say, if you are whole,  you will be filled with light,
but if divided, you will be filled with darkness.

(62)
Yeshua said,
I disclose my mysteries to those who are worthy
of my mysteries. 
Do not let your left hand know
what your right hand is doing.

(66)
Yeshua said,
Show me the stone that the builders rejected.
That is the cornerstone.
 
(67)
Yeshua said,
One who knows all but lacks within
is utterly lacking.

(The aforementioned excerpts were taken from the Nag Hammadi Library Marvin Meyer Translation of Thomas.   http://gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom-meyer.html

A good book to read, if you are really interested in this, is “The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus” by Robert W. Funk.
However, I feel that what is most important is to not rely on past writings or sayings of others — especially rather antiquated ones — but, instead, to perceive freshly and find out for oneself (without dependence on organizations and handed-down beliefs).

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

This is a male Snout Butterfly.   The males have four legs and a pair of unusable anterior legs; those unusable, anterior legs can be seen in the photograph.  The females have six usable legs.  

Male Snout Butterfly… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Habits

August 12, 2018
36 comments

 

 

Many people do things habitually, mechanically, without thinking, without much awareness, in very robotic ways.  The mind gets used to functioning in (and “as”) habit; dullness, and incessant routine set in, making the mind more and more repetitive, more and more machine-like.  People get so used to repeating the same set of routines day after day, month after month, year after year, such that they hardly know (or try) anything different.  (Air-polluting, fossil fuel spewing vacations aren’t a way out of this, by the way.)

Many people mindlessly and habitually cling to what they were taught, religiously, politically, nationally, ethically, socially, culturally, at home and in the office.  To them, “THIS IS THE WAY THINGS MUST BE DONE,” and that is that.  Then they remain teaching their children to dwell in the same grooves, to function in the same patterns.  Anyone who questions the status quo is considered a trouble-maker or some kind of freak and is cast out.  It may be, however, that, in such an atmosphere, true creativity and true “aliveness” is squelched.  In such an environment, the truly insightful and the truly creative person is considered an oddball.  

Be one of the lemmings if you want to (like most want to), but as for that… well, it’s not for me.  Like Einstein, i don’t give a rat’s behind about “fitting-in” or about superficial appearances.  It’s the deeper things that matter, and you can’t go deeper if you are stuck in superficial paradigms and one-dimensional routines.

 

 

Blue Damsel… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Especially I Just Want to Breathe

August 10, 2018
31 comments

 

 

Especially i just want to breathe
     when air is getting dirtier
Especially i just want to see
     when the world’s views are getting cloudier
Especially i just want to hear
     when so few are really listening
Especially i want to smell
     when so many just pass the flowers by
Especially i want to feel
     when many are just indifferent
And most especially i want to live
     beyond a cadaverous respectful comfort

 

 

Question Mark Butterfly, and why not? Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Comparison

August 5, 2018
17 comments

 

Comparison is often such a vulgar and unnecessary thing.  Many people, throughout life, continue to habitually compare themselves with others.  Those “others” are often very standard, ordinary, bourgeois, and dull.  People compare their home, livelihood, lifestyle, and overall life, with others.  Comparison invites imitation; imitation reinforces “second-handedness” and conformity to formulated, standardized “set patterns.”  Fear often emanates from comparison…  “Will I be as successful as them?”   “Am I too different?”  Comparison often paves the way to jealousy and superficial showing-off and boasting.  (Some people, for instance, go ga-ga, trying to have the hugest and “most pretty” home; this is so childish and superficial.)  Taunting another may often involve comparison.  Comparison thrives in the world of the opposites (where differences are often magnified).  Comparison can make the mind dull; it can be what nourishes mental sorrow. 

The wise mind can exist where comparison is seen for what it is and where it is put in its appropriate place (where its limited aspects are seen).  Such a mind can be of a profound joy where comparison does not often needlessly enter.  When the mind compares, the mind is comparison (within the limited corridor of the opposites).  Uniqueness and spontaneous insight usually do not ever depend upon comparison.  Comparison and contrasting correlations can be very useful at times, but the mind need not depend upon them as deeply as it usually does.  Perceiving directly, without employing comparison, is often very significant and profound.  

 

 

No need to compare! Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

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Haiku of Joy

August 4, 2018
20 comments

 

 

“I want happiness,”
said the greed to be happy.
Joy is motiveless.

 

 

Magnificent Milkweed Flowers… 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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The Story of Lo Zu and the Young Firefly

July 13, 2018
32 comments

 

A young student asked Lo Zu, “When a firefly is full of light, does that mean that it is undergoing satori or full enlightenment?”

“No,” the sage answered, “Fireflies groom themselves often, making themselves orderly and spotless, but that is not enough for them — insects who live with separateness and competition — to receive immeasurable enlightenment.”

“What will happen if I receive such enlightenment?” the lad asked.

Lo Zu then answered, “If the limitless, unadulterated energy of the cosmos visits you and flows through you,  you will look slightly physically different but you will not physically glow and, additionally, the fingers of the hands may contract (making it difficult to move), but usually that visitation occurs when one is alone and not among others.”

“I see,” said the student.

“After the visitation,” said Lo Zu, “you will look just like everyone else and, of course, the hands will easily move again; however, your mind will be much different.  You will be glowing on the inside and will have seen.”

“Seen what?” the young lad enquired.

“Seen what is unseeable; met what is indescribable,” said Lo Zu.

“Is it the sacred?” the young boy asked.

With a tear in his eye and a concomitant smile on his face, Lo Zu answered, “Perhaps!”

Then Lo Zu graciously remarked, “Listen, Firefly, surpass fireflyness.”

 

 

Firefly Grooming Itself… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Post

Those Poor Children

July 7, 2018
35 comments

 

Only sick immorality can yank children
from their parents and cage them up,
shitting on universal-global love

 

You know, i am not interested in politics whatsoever.  Politicians are not my cup of tea.  However, what is happening in the U.S. is getting to be extremely sick and immoral, and people (deeply stuck in their ruts) are accepting it!  Children are children of the world; they don’t belong to any damn country, to any damn politics.  It’s only crass, divisive adults who put them in such fragmented domains.  A regime that, against international human rights laws, pulls children from their parents, is an immoral, diabolical regime.  That same deranged, fascist-loving regime has been turning its back on the environment (kissing the behind of the fossil fuel industry).  The unnatural, hellish, hot and violent weather is going to get exponentially worse and is no coincidence; mass extinctions will continue.  When will people wake up?… when it is too late?

Shitting on Children… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Post

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

Post

This and That

June 29, 2018
6 comments

 

an impressive this and that
a revealing why and how
won’t make the superficial mind much deeper
we might see that by now

a reading left to right
some judgment up and down
will not make the world much saner
or dissolve the patterns to which we’re bound

 

 

Young Leafhopper (around 4 mm long)…. Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Post

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

Post

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

 

 

 

 

Post

The Beauty of Timeless Psychological Negation

June 15, 2018
13 comments

 

[Note:   Most people are afraid to die psychologically, so they are never really living.]

 

 

 

no method
no practice
no effort
no goal
no system
no beliefs
no process
no analysis
no past
no future
no present
no nation
no religion
no ideology
no “shoulds”
no wants
no opinion
no fear
no escapes
no thoughts
no me
no authority
no time
no tomorrow
no yesterday
no separation
no excuses
no them
no being
no becoming
no controller
no labeling
no indifference

 

 

Skipper Investigating… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

 

 

Post

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

Post

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

Post

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

Post

Psychological Order and the fictitious “Center of Control”…

April 22, 2018
20 comments

 

Sorry to be harping on this but it is a serious thing that needs attention, despite all the avoidance that miseducated people have regarding it.  As was mentioned in previous postings, when one was very young, one had a Raggedy Ann type of doll whom one carried around as a great, first-rate pal.  Then, one day, one came to the realization that the charming, smiling doll was not a real, living friend; it was fabric, stuffing, and such.  It was quite a shock at first but then one got over it very quickly (finding other interests and discovering nature).  Later in life, perception concerning the ego, or “me,” was much the same thing.  Let us say, metaphorically, that a man carries a stick around (never letting it go and even sleeping with it) day after day, month after month, year after year — just as others taught him to do — all the while believing that it was his central self, or “I,” or “me.”  Stick would feel that everything decided upon and done by thinking was what emanated (or originated) from “stick.”  Stick would be thought of to be the core essence of what one was and any suggestion to “let go” of “stick” would be construed of as utter nonsense.  Letting go of what seems to be the core of one’s essence (and means of control) would seem ludicrous and unimaginable.

The human organism can function beautifully with great harmony, insight, bliss, eternity, and order without clinging to the taught concept of an isolated/controlling “me” or “I.”  Most everyone in society, now, has a concrete ego, isolated self, a “me” that they ardently cling to, just as has been done eons ago by our primitive ancestors.  Actually look at society as it is now — with all of these “me”s and egos — with all of its chaos, wars, crimes, dishonesty, and pollution.  We must change.  We must grow beyond this nonsense.   In previous posts, one wrote about the brain as being like two halves of a walnut… and about how certain surgeries splitting these two halves — by severing the corpus callosum — left each half not knowing what the other half was thinking.  So, in actuality, two fields of consciousness were produced from one field, via advanced surgery (in living human subjects).  Times and evidence have changed; yet so many of us continue to cling to the erroneous (primitive) notion of a central “I,” a central “me” or controller.  For a very long time now, one — when thinking, instead of using the term “I,” — has been using the words of “this movement.”  Of course, for the most part in this primitive culture, one doesn’t verbally say “this movement,” instead of “I,” when actually talking to people.

“I”, “me,” and the notion of a “central controller” are all products of thought (fabrications of thought) either learned or inherited by our culture over millions of years.  “Me” depends upon (and is) a product of thought.  Clinging to that is like perpetually clinging to a little stick, fabric doll, or shadow.  Going beyond that is wisdom that does not preclude joy, bliss, insight involved with the eternal, and harmony.  On the contrary, obstinately clinging to that creates guaranteed disharmony, sorrow, and separation.  Ignorance is:  Me separate from man or so-called others.  Me separate from the environment.  Me separate from “my fears.”  Me separate from “my desires.”  Me separate from “my thoughts.”  “My religion, my country” separate from others.  (It is all so immature and involves separation that feeds conflict, friction, and endless turmoil.)  

People will read this — or will not care to read it — and go on in their standard, ordinary ways.  Even those who claim to be employing sophisticated forms of zen or meditative techniques are additionally subtly entrapped via endlessly clinging to the “me” or “central controller” in many surreptitious ways.  The brain engages in all kinds of subtle or unconscious tricks to maintain the existence of a supposed central controller who is domineering (even though no such center really exists).  One has seen this, time and time again, in many so-called “wise” others… (who have really not changed fundamentally whatsoever).  Going beyond this doesn’t demand sophisticated methods, stratagems, or meditative techniques that take time.  This demands facing something that people absolutely do not want to face; additionally, it demands going into and beyond the root of conditioning.  Most don’t really want to be bothered.  However, actual order can only come about when real seriousness exists, beyond mere fabrications.   The stick is dead; it is not part of the living tree; it is not the whole.  The whole is living and is not what symbolic thought is capable of.  An immoral, violent, primitive society has given you a stick to depend upon.  Are you still endlessly carrying it around?  Are you still relying on it, depending on it?  (Actually, it is a virtual image, a symbol that we have taken to be something real — which is even less than a dead stick — but we won’t elaborate any longer at this point.)  Profound compassion is, on the other hand, real and living; profound compassion goes far beyond mere symbols, images, and borders.

 

 

Ringo Starr… Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2018

Post

See what we mean in Spring…

April 20, 2018
19 comments

 

 

I’ve hunted with camera in many a spring rain
Seen oodles of pleasure in life… and rivers of pain
Focused on creatures… including the very small
Lived with plants and animals, loving them all

This movement liked to shoot diminutive creatures really up-close
And smiled when a spider’s lens did perfectly expose
Realized that nothing fully conveys life via a digital screen
Words are mere symbolic shadows, if you see what i mean

 

 

Ant on remnant Oak leaf… 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

Post

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

 

Post

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

Post

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

 

Post

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

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

Distorted Mirror Distorted Mind

March 11, 2018
11 comments

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

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

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

Post

Thought and Thinking

February 25, 2018
44 comments

 

[2-26-18 Flood Update:

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

Excerpt from Emily Dickinson:

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

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

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