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. Don’t look at the reflective (small) mirror to truly see yourself… look at (i.e., reflect on) the whole of life and nature.
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Close to the Edge… Kankakee River State Park… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. Fear of “not being accepted” makes many into the shallow shadows of others.
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. [Note: Immediately under each of the Katydid’s front leg knees are holes; these are the Katydid’s “ears.” If you are a small, slim, narrow creature — like our Katydid friend — you’ll have the best stereophonic hearing, helping to protect you from predators, (if your ears are situated in your widely spread legs).]
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Katydid — blending in… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. Interestingly, true enlightenment (i.e., nirvana) has nothing to do with visions, images, patterns, sounds, tactile feelings, or your “being.”
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Radiant Butterfly (a Red-Spotted Purple)…Be a jewel among the plain stones… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. Wisdom never turns its back on others… because there are no separate “others.”
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Moe, Larry, and Curly (as one) Nuuk, Nuuk, Nuuk… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. Confucius said: “The first man who perceives the yeti’s track in the soft mud has a mind that goes into a deep depression.” 😉
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Frog by very strange tracks by wooded area of river bank… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. Don’t compare yourself (or your possessions) with others… it’s not wisdom… it’s a waste of time.
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Free and not comparing… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. One of the chief duties of one’s mind is for it to transcend depression and sadness. Keen, holistic awareness and direct, non-fragmentary perception is the flame that will burn the dross of dull monotony.
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Transcending the low depressions… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. We desperately need to get over needless wars, needless hatred, needless borders and separative boundaries.
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Hiding among the umbrellas… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. You can’t run from your fears… you are your fears.
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Who is that masked man?… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. Quixotic (extremely idealistic) behavior is based on cadaverous, old patterns; look at life afresh, without dead blueprints.
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Meter Expired… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. Thought is always “about” energy and/or the patterns that energy seems to take; true enlightenment is communion (i.e., direct engaging) with that energy… it is not mere images or symbols about it.
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Dragonfly resting (with Exoskeleton Friends)… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. If you seek the truly unknown via a system or formula… you — no matter what you think — will have remained in the “known” patterns of others or in the “known” projections of yourself.
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Not seen in the scenery… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. Deep wisdom in life reflects immortality… otherwise it is limited vaporousness.
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Magic Manna… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. This isn’t a fly-by-night universe (after all); what each of us does has infinite implications/consequences.
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How sweet it is!… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. Forget what everyone taught you about life; go out, sit with nature, and look at everything as if for the first time.
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Wild and Domestic… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. Multi-photo: The gravity of living with awareness and kindheartedness outweighs the minuscule misery of mindlessness. Break free…
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. [Below is a Cicada emerging from it exoskeleton case. Prior to this, they lie buried for 7 or 13 years or so… depending on the species. These are the insects that make loud symphonic sounds at the tree tops.]
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Cicada Emerging (1)… by Thomas Peace 2013
Cicada Emerging (2)… by Thomas Peace 2013
Cicada Emerging (3)… by Thomas Peace 2013
Cicada Emerged… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. To unlock the conundrum of life’s profound and deep messages, one cannot remain shallow and coldly conditioned.
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Ease off please… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. Roses are red, violets are blue… please wake up and realize that what you perceive is you.
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. [We are addressing this in the psychological, not physical sense, regarding the mind. When you look at the blue sky, your mind — as actual conscious perception (which you are) — consists of blueness… not of actual ozone, and updrafts of a stratosphere.]
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Rosy outlook… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. Sensitivity is the nonability to function as a mechanical, robotic automaton who is independently aloof within the clockwork of mediocrity.
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Center of attention… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. To truly perceive nature that is all around you… you realize that it is you and you are it.
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Squirrel Vision… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. Sensitivity helps — and merges with — others and all life; mere progress may pollute and destroy… so we must be careful and perceptive.
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Of an evening… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. If a book doesn’t pull the rug out from underneath you (buckling your knees), and if it doesn’t contain true (not fabricated) mystery… then — as with most books — the author probably shouldn’t have written it.
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Quiet and alive… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. The wisdom of profound insight and holistic perception is never the result of fractional thinking; all thought is fractional and “broken up.” Silence is golden.
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Wise Old Owl (in rehab. facility)… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. So many of us absorb what mediocrity hands to us… and we go on in substandard ways without question.
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Alert and Agile… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. The dissonance, the lack of true harmony in so many innumerable minds, is largely the result of the wrong kind of education.
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Young and Old… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. To not be contaminated by the childish traditions, fallacies, and crudities of others… to not be as a second-hand shadow…
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Flowering Independently… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. Don’t build a thick psychological wall to protect yourself from “outside threats”; don’t distance yourself from what are really fears/perceptions that you actually are.
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Superfluous Thorns… By Thomas Peace 2013
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. Nationality is for the limited; globality is for the wise.
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Bumble Be… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. To go beyond the pettiness of silly, superficial dreams — and all dreams are superficial — one’s mind must (during the day) be very aware and of an intense order; then dreams — as the limited self-obtrusions of symbolism that they are — are unnecessary (and rarely occur)… and something profound may, instead, take place.
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In the daylight… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. One of the reasons that there are (and were) so few true bodhisattvas (i.e., enlightened entities) is that only the immature cling to (or deliberately avoid) experience… while wisdom is neither just being nor not being… (nor is it endless “becoming.”)
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Wild Iris Rarity… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. Boredom is the manifestation of a distorted mind bereft (at that moment of boredom) of complete wisdom. Boredom is a fortunate signal — to the intelligent mind — that the mind has to work further with regard to understanding itself.
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Beauty and the Beast… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. So many merely follow the edicts and patterns of others; to merely follow the patterns of others leads to inevitable suffering. Don’t be afraid to stand alone.
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Singularity… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. Don’t just immaturely be stuck with finite details… see the beautiful, infinite whole.
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Perpetually immature… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. To be cut off from the universal order is to merely look with separation and limited space “at energy” while (all the while) not existing in a direct relationship with orderly energy. True enlightenment is a real communion with — not merely a fabricated ritual about — that energy. Those who look at life through eyes of separation are — interestingly enough — inevitably apart (mentally, not actually) from that orderly energy that is universal, vast, and whole. To merely perceive through limited space is to remain ensnared in limited space. Such limitation causes the mind to often encounter boredom, indifference, melancholiness, and confined measures of control, stemming from a false, learned, fabricated center (involving a limited circumference, with it’s separation — and isolating walls — from all others). Psychological space between a “perceiver” and “that, which is perceived” often results in disorder resultant from limitation… (the limitation of a distorted, circumscribed, confined space). Intelligently go beyond such limitation.
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Splendid Unfurling… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. Humans are another animal form; our intelligence does not make us far superior.
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Years ago, my BelAir was far superior… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. The excellence of an undistorted mind is the clarity of undistorted truth.
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Very friendly Turquoise Severums in one of our tanks… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. Only sorrow constantly strives to “get happy.”
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Simplicity… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. When you look, do you merely look with separation between what “you are” and “what you see”?
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Baby Goldfinch’s first time of joining the Big-shots… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. The deepest truth exists in you yourself… not in books.
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Beyond books… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. We are all as fingers of a hand… different yet not truly separate.
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Different yet not separate… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. They don’t have recycling in our (rural) area… but we take all of our recyclable plastics to Walmart; they graciously take recyclable plastics. All that you have to do is rinse out the remaining contents with water prior to taking them. Alternatively, like so many these days, you can ungraciously drink and drive and spew the empty containers all over mother earth (leaving a lasting trail of your crudity).
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Signs of primitive life (just like they were found while taking nature photos…) by Thomas Peace 2013
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. Psychologically, one is not truly separate from the perceived. Realizing this is true wisdom.
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Red Cardinal… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. The space that seems to separate us is nonexistent; we are all one… united.
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. Below is a photo of a male Indigo Bunting; these nest in our yard every spring. Only the males have the bright blue coloring.
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Indigo Bunting… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. Inner integrity and caring awareness are the real and true treasures in life.
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Priceless… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. Wisdom encompasses all; it embraces (and is) the loving whole.
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Real Friends… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. When you think: “My race is the better race,” you are erroneous and fragmentary.
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Lily and Irving… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. The basic essence of “thoughts” is that they are all essentially conditioned, as part of a cause/effect continuum. Wisdom is pure silence. Thoughts are vital for survival but — though this may seem odd to people in our exclusively thought-based society — most people, unfortunately, greatly overuse the process of thinking. (We are not suggesting that one vegetate into some kind of abyss of feeble-mindedness and ineptitude; the mind can often, in deep intelligence, be fully aware without merely thinking via sequential symbols). Thoughts are symbolic, residual responses, and, as such, they inherently are limited, second-hand reactions. Reactions have their place, but a mind that is heavily immersed in merely being essentially a series of reactions… tends to be a rather mechanical, robot-like mind (even though it may seem to be “normal” by society’s low standards). Profound intelligence is warm (whole) action, not mechanistic (fragmentary) reaction. To merely be one conditioned series after another, day in and day out, may be acceptable (and even “normal,” by society’s current standards), but it may not be what “truly living is” whatsoever. If the implicit nature of thought is that it (i.e., all of it) is essentially conditioned and residual, then to truly be intelligently free, one must go beyond the parameters of thought/thinking.
To observe holistically requires more than just thought. Thought/thinking is always fractional… and if one is constantly observing only through the filters constructed from symbolic thinking, then one cannot truly be observing holistically (though one may erroneously maintain that one sees the whole). For too many, the “whole” is just another symbolic concept (or a series of learned concepts). Thought is always partial and crudely sequential; one can only basically think one thing — or just a few things — at a time. A mind of perturbability is often bubbling with reactionary thought; most people are merely spewing with thought upon thought; a set — a continuous series — of mere conditioned reactions is fundamentally constituted of distortion. (The current state of our society is a reflection of that distortion.) If thought is always fractional and limited, it may be — in a way — akin to restless, fragmentary waves on the surface of a lake. Each of the waves may reflect only a part of what is above (in a very distorted way). An analogous, still lake is not as conducive to distortion (concerning the immeasurable, universal beauty of what is above).
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Stillness… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. To merely perceive separate things, with everything being fragmented by erroneous (learned) mental filters — even if one is a renowned scientist — is not to see at all.
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Its multiplicity is oneness… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. Never ever feel that you are too insignificant to make a meaningful difference in the cold, (often) meaningless world; you’ve got real magic in you!
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No way but up for Miss Leafhopper… by Thomas Peace 2013
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. The moment you struggle to achieve attention, attention is not; the moment you use a method to attain wisdom, wisdom is not.
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Three outta four ain’t bad!… by Thomas Peace 2013
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Tom's Nature-up-close Photography and Mindfulness Blog 