Odd flags and old truck

I love walking around Berkeley. On an after dinner walk this week, I found a street that looked and felt like rural Pennsylvania. First, I found a house with an Obama poster, an Earth flag, and an old American flag converted into a Peace flag. Second, was an ancient rusty truck; still parked on the street! Notice the license plate numbers.

The sunlight had turned an orange-red color caused by smoke from 800 fires north of Berkeley. It was being on another planet with a different sun!

Our work is to awaken

Our work, our labor, is to awaken to our true nature which was forgotten due to false identification with the content of consciousness.

The theory and practice of meditation help us again realize (make real) our true nature. When I speak, write or listen to these words, I am in the realm of theory; when I take in the meaning of these words, I inform and transform myself along the path of self realization.

It’s very, very important to remember that words are not what they refer to. “The map is not the territory.” Speaking or writing about meditation is not meditation. Meditation is in the gaps between the words, between the thoughts. But the word “gap” is not the same as a gap itself as-it-is. Get past the word – allow the great silence to come. At the point of great silence is the great labor of liberation.

Today… be silent…

Today... be silent... let go, let it be. A time for cleanup of our inner and outer life.

Some of the greatest Zen masters were cooks and janitors. Some of our best days are when we do cleaning up; moving around from thing to thing, cleaning, sorting out, and putting everything away in its place. At the end of the day, you look around and feel happy with the sense of clean, clear spaciousness all around.

Unrealized true wealth

Failing to acknowledge our true wealth we keep grasping for more, like hungry ghosts who are never satisfied while constantly eating!

We are born with true wealth, but constantly forget to realize the wealth we already have. Failing to acknowledge our true wealth we keep grasping for more, like hungry ghosts who are never satisfied while constantly eating! Thus, we go about despoiling the earth, corrupting relationships, and twisting societies into grotesque forms that promote needless suffering for ourselves, others, and the earth as a whole. Realizing true wealth leads to personal, interpersonal, and transpersonal fulfillment. Furthermore, the long-term survival of life on earth depends upon true wealth realization.

We need deep psychological and spiritual healing of individuals, groups, communities, nations, and the earth. The bedrock of this healing is a return to this present moment, not in a selfish, narrow way, but in a way that includes the totality of what is here–there as well as past–present–future. It is nothing less than the ancient ideal of enlightenment of all sentient beings.

Light Crosses

These crosses are parking light polls. But they are suggestive of the Cross. I walked by them for over a year without noticing what they looked like. Reminds me that the mind sees so little of what's "out there".

Is time poverty the price of progress?

Computing power doubles every two or less years; yet, our work day gets longer. We’re more scattered with less time.

The idea of "time poverty" naturally came up while lecturing on Moore's Law - which states that computing power doubles every 18 months. Suddenly I asked "Why if computing power doubles every two or less years, is it that our working day does not go down? Why is it that so many people now complain about having too much to do? Why do we complain so much about not having enough time?" For decades we have refined automation, labor saving, time saving devices, and computers do our routine labor and thinking for us. Elusive is the dream of a world with time for loved ones, time for creativity, and time for real self development.

Stall wall writing in Physics Department restroom

A stall wall aphorism found in the Physics Department men's restroom. Good metaphysics!

Across from Claremont Hotel - early Sunday morning

Sun about to rise over the ridge.
(My phone camera does not do justice.)
Sitting on a bench.
Happy to be alive and healthy this early morning.

Hear yourself!

All day, or for just one hour: no radio, no television, no computer, no phone, no reading. Stay with yourself. Hear yourself! Much will be learned.

It’s normal, natural to want to be entertained. We’re all like children. We want to be distracted from ourselves. Our “self” in the sense of the small self, the ego, engages in a painful struggle for against a hostile world. Call it reality. It wants to withdraw from the battle. Listening to the news on the radio; or, watching “reality television” (where we tune into the lives of other “real” people) gives us relief from ourselves. We also keep going to our computers or phones to be thrown outward to somewhere outside our little self.

I’m not saying that radio, television, computers, phone and books are bad – I’m saying that to use these to escape deprives us of the precious opportunity to come closer to our big Self – the ground of our consciousness, which is also everyone else’s consciousness. This is the ultimate reality experience. Life is short; we have no time to waste. Be all you can be. Be here now. Afterwards, take a break; turn on the radio, TV, computer. Remember to come back again to your Self, again and again.

Peet's Tea and Coffee

Walking around in the early morning before the sun comes over the hill. I love go down to Peet's in the morning to pick up a cup. Life is good.

Success not related to time

"Success is not directly related to time", said Mark Allan. Otherwise, internet millionaires could not be rich so fast.

Time moves at the speed of thought! In a flash we can leap into another dimension. Success, money, and time are related in that “leap” like way – which is to say that they are not directly related. In one hour you could make $1, $10, $100, $1,000, $10,000 or more. It’s close to magic how money really is. Close to the true nature of thought. In a year, you could go from middle class to rich levels of wealth. And, wealth has many meanings here. Time moves at the speed of thought, money is a little slower, money is a link between thought and matter.

My first born was only a few years old. He overhead me complaining that I was not making enough money. He said, “Dad! I have the solution. Just make more money every hour.” That was many years ago. If we value our time more than money, we may find ourselves with more time but less money. If we value our money more than time, we may find ourselves with more money but less time. What we value is what we put our attention on. The usual logic is “either-or”. So, the way out of the paradox here is to embrace both money and time.