True Science

Listen. Listen. Listen ever so deeply with your whole being. Anything less is a waste of time. But don't listen to me. Listen to what's inside you. You and I are constantly constructing a sense of the world. It's quite possible that what is called "one's world" is not that same as reality. So look deeply. Perhaps, you (and I) can get a glimpse of what's real beyond "my world" or even "our world". That would be true science, true wisdom. 

Lines of Conciousness

I fear my biggest regret upon dying will be that I underestimated myself.
That I somehow didn't realize I was my own Enlightenment.
That I was searching for me and missed me because I am me.
It's like this quiet knowing I can't explain.
I feel like even uttering it...And it's gone, or I've somehow made it less real with my human language.

Than it was; but ultimately I know it doesn't matter what I do. Not that I'm powerless, the opposite.
It is YOU! Infinitely shining energy, DO YOU UNDERSTAND? SEE YOURSELF!

Fear and anxiety are often wanting to be invited in for tea.
Come to the party, I say.
We have a chat with myself.
I talk to these faux feelings, we have a conversation.
I always make it through somehow because I remember what I had forgotten:

Do what makes you feel good and live in the heart.
The mind won't leave you when you wish to play with the tool that's as big as you make it.

As humans, we are energy manipulators.
We have the ability to channel emotions and thoughts in a remarkably beautiful or horrible way.
How do you treat ants? They annoy you; we kill them. Do you believe in a bigger God than you? What size? What capacity of intellect and compassion?
I try but cannot fathom.
You must constantly forgive yourself and accept.

You walk the earth, you feel love in your heart and you smile; a young mother with a child catches it and you see it spread--both lives, saved!
And you remember how much it hurt to find out YOU have a choice.
Little YOU has much more power than you who thought you were you ever imagined...

Be sure you are not suffering over your suffering.
Remember the SHIFT:
Have you made your suffering too comfortable? Is the deep jolt of shift, of happiness, worse than the deep pang of regret?

Torrent

Let's face it. Time is like a torrent of water rushing through our lives. Time cannot be stopped - and life cannot be separated from time until there is deep transcendence of all the cares and concerns of daily life. Few ever learn to live with abandon without attachment - at peace with it all passing. Yet, yet, and yet again - there's something within us that does not change. Something unchanged since we became aware of being here in our lives. Something so much more real than the passing fading torrent of time. 

Who Am I Today?

Who am I today? Who was I yesterday? Who will I be tomorrow? 

This little self, always changing. A bundle of feelings, thoughts, perceptions constantly looping back on itself.

There must be something “more”. It cannot be named without turning it into a something. It’s not something. It’s a nothing, a no-thing, that is infinite.

Fly Trapped In a Back Room

Sometimes a fly gets trapped in a back room, attracted to the glass windows. Eventually it dies, not seeing the way out through a darker hallway to an open window. Humans get attached to the bright lights, big billboards, loud sounds, and media distractions. Eventually they can't change of direction back to the quiet voice of truth. They die unfulfilled. 

"Today you are YOU, that is TRUER than true. There is NO ONE alive who is YOUER than YOU! " 

~Dr. Seuss

Let's Stop For It

That was an excellent nap. I found 'something' but I'm not sure that it's really the real 'it' we've been looking for this entire time

How can you be sure either way, Haku?

Ahhh. This is too hard. I give up looking! I give up running!
That's odd
I think I can see 'it' now

Yes. This will a difficult journey

Let's Run for It

Let's run for it!

What?

I said – let's run for it!

But what's “it”?

It's all that we've ever wanted since the day we lost our innocence.

But you can't name what “it” is!

That's the point, my friend. What can be named is not It.

So, here we are – two people running after that which cannot be named.

Yes! So, let run for It!

Dialogue Circle

O wondrous capacity
To sit in circles
Speaking, singing, listening
Watching meanings, feelings
Moving through one another
As if one mind, one heart

Today Will Not Be The Same

Today will not be the same
Today will not be the same
All past resolutions
All failed promises to Self
To stay awake, to allow grace
Let it be
Let it be Now
Forever Now

Under Pressure

Meaning of Life: Get the Prize

“What's the meaning of life?” This question was asked of people from nine to seventy-five years of age.

I asked a nine year old boy. 
He said, “To get the prize?” 
“What do you mean?”, I said.
“When you win the race, you get the prize!”

“The meaning of life” implies THE meaning of life; but, there are many “meanings” of life. Meanings of life change according to people’s age. 

Two Birds

Two Birds with fair wings, knit with bonds of friendship,
in the same sheltering tree have found a refuge.
One of the twain eats the sweet Fig tree’s fruitage;
the other eating not, regardeth only.

The Rig Veda [1]

Light shines upon all. Yet, we “fall” into fascination with glittery objects – forgetting the source light. Seeing only objects, not the light.

---

[1] Book I, Hymn CLXIV, Verse 20 from Sacred Writings, Hinduism: The Rig Veda. Translated by Ralph T. H. Griffith. Book-of-the-Month Club, New York, 1992.

True Dialogue Brings Meaning

True dialogue brings meaning to life. It expresses profound love. We are born to sing, gesture, and talk with each other. Our group survival depends on that. To love one another and love the whole of creation is our destiny, purpose. Opening up to “fields of new possibilities”, becoming wildly creative, like children, and joining the play of creation. Each of us knows so little; others may help us gain a greater view. Adjusting worldviews - incorporating greater information, knowledge, and wisdom. A perfect dialogue leads into a silence that feels complete in itself.

Short Stop

There's a saying in a negative situation which is usually offered up by a loved one in the intention of solace or hope, "the grass is always greener on the other side." We have all experienced this feeling of finally obtaining what we yearned for only to find that it wasn't what we imagined it to be. It's a terrible and hopeless feeling after wanting something for so long. Yet, continuing the cycle, another dream surfaces and now there is a whole new patch of grass to spy on. It becomes clear that these are all just fields of dreams. Ultimately, you yearn or morn the loss of something you only imagined to be true. How powerful the mind; how fickle.

I'm not too sure if it's actually greener on the other side. I could be wrong though; I've never been able to get onto that field.

Silence Almost Irrefutable

Found on the wall menu of Berkeley's beloved Cheeseboard Pizza.

Inner Scientist

Look for what is real for you

Be an inner scientist!

Explore your thoughts and feelings. Come to stillness often
          Engage reality on gross, deep, and subtle levels

Read these passages as an internal experimental science
          Use them to find your own understanding of reality

If you find truth for yourself, then you own it
          Truth is timeless; our work is to disclose the truth already here

Time and Eternity

Time and eternity meet in the Now.
We are in the world, but not of the world
We are free and not free

New Moon - July 8th

Free me into the morning light

One more time, one more day

Knowing that this, this moment

Is the true beginning and end

Of All That Is

Backside

Backside of Giorgi Gallery in Berkeley, California.

Be Love Now

“Falling in love you remain a child; rising in love you mature. By and by love becomes not a relationship, it becomes a state of your being. Not that you are in love - now you are love.” 
~Osho

At Large

Stacking dead papers into the sky, continuing to work without knowing why. I wanted to see what was above the hours clocked and dollars earned, though terrified of what I'd find in return.

I built a ladder into the sky, made of paintings and novels; some which make you laugh or sometimes made you cry. The things which only through our humanity can they live and do they die.

As I climbed I began to dream, of freedom and peace as I gripped at the seams. Dreams which made the world below look shaken and obscene.

Taking a final step onto the papers that darkened the sky, I shuttered with uncertanty of the answers to why. Expecting the worse I slowly began to open one eye.

I guess I don't know what I was expecting to see, a man in a black suit watching TV? Clearly someone wasn't watching over me. Mabye a machine made of cherries and eights, spitting out money and spreading more waste.

It was light! Like the sun bouncing off the front of a white page.

With just one of my eyes, this blinding light was all I could see, so I opened them both and saw something very dear to me. It  WAS  a new and beautiful fresh page, like the ones I remembered from back in the day. I could use this one to write new stories and draw, I could even use it as a stage to perform what I felt and I saw.

With all this new space to be free, from all the work that has been plauging me, I began to write of my most recent journey. I began from how it started to become filled with dead pages, thoughts and feelings of being in cages, even illustrated shadows of pie charts dwarfing the sages.

I continue to write as these words unfold, creating new chapters and posting quotes which I feel need to be told. I guess this makes me a philosopher too, always building, making something that is alive and new.

Making a Living is Not Living

There's profound confusion between money and life. I grew up with the expression "making a living" - which means making enough money to stay alive - as if money is life. True: money is not life. Life is life. Life is love. Love is working together. Life is freely given to us because we're embedded within the matrix of all life on earth. And, all life depends on sunlight. Yes, the sun is life too. Does the sun need money? Who/what needs money - only humans. Why? Because there's not enough love, trust and faith among us collectively to feed each other in our extreme interpersonal specialization within our civilizations. I hope we learn to rethink, re-feel the way we are in our world together. Our greatest need is not money, but the creation and re-creation of enlightened good societies on our precious earth. 

Avalanche

When the Dali Lama was asked what surprised him most about humanity, he answered,

"Man. He sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived."

-Tenzin Gyatso 14th Lama

Being First

There's too much "to do".
Undo the to-do.  
Put "being first" on the "to do" list. 
All the doing will take care of itself.
  

Beyond Good and Bad

Times are good. They will pass!

Times are bad. They will pass!

Strive, strive!

Go beyond good and bad. 

X-Ray

“I look at you

and see all the ways a soul can bruise, 

and I wish I could sink my hands into your flesh 

and light lanterns along your spine 

so you know that there’s nothing but light 

when I see you.”

-Shinji Moon

Deepest Practice

the deepest spiritual 
practice is just
being here with all
one's being. indeed
one's being is just
here-ness. It can't
be anywhere
else

(You may wonder about the "form" of these sayings. They are poetry and not poetry. They are prose and not prose. They start out as writings on small scraps of paper.) 

Open the Doors

Take it away
Move this feeling of doubt away
Open the doors of perception
One more time. Free me
Into this moment

Locket

'Open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day, but in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you.'

-Bob Marley

Born in the Azores Islands

Born in the Azores Islands

From people of the land

Tip of the lost continent of Atlantis

A mythical place of high technology

I grew up an immegrant far away

Life spent in the high technology

Worlds and universities of Northern California

Dreaming of truth; realizing truth

Not in equations or propositions, but

In deep silences of Being