philosopher-at-large

A Glimpse

2012-01-22T09:26:00.000-08:00

Sometimes
in the middle of the night
or in the daytime
when all is quiet
including the mind
Comes
a glimpse of immortality
between in breath and out breath
between thought and vision
A field of light and love
endless, deep, safe, eternal
Always here
just a breath away

Time, Money, and Love

2012-01-21T07:04:00.000-08:00

Time, money, and love -- three fundamental ideas running our lives. Of these three, only love is real. We do everything for reasons of love, avoidance of love, or neurotic displacement of love. Time is not as real as it looks and feels. The time of physics is a quantity within equations. Human time is different. The past may appear distant or close in time depending on how we feel. Time may move slowly or quickly. Look within, you'll see this is true. Money is a symbolic substitute for love and time. Money is our civilization's most powerful force; we give up freedom, love, and time for money. Too much focus on money, you risk no time for the love in your life -- friends, children, and good works. Too little money and your spouse may leave you. With enough money "everybody loves you" for your money. "Time saving machinery" is now so effective that we could get ten hours of work done in two hours. It should be heaven on earth by now. But heaven never comes, and keeps waiting for better and faster technology. With every increase in machine/computing power we invent new tasks and expectations. The carrot recedes into the horizon with nonstop working and shopping seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. Forget the Sabbath -- only God gets to rest on the seventh day.

Working With Intense Feelings

2012-01-20T11:03:00.000-08:00

How can we handle intense feelings when they take over the mind? Feelings so strong that they have a life of their own. Some of these feelings could be positive, some quite negative. The point is that you have "lost your own mind" and are now occupied, controlled by these feelings. The sense of openness and freedom is lost. What to do? Watch, just watch your feelings while you feel them. They will pass. And, return. And, pass. And, return. We may also have to work out the feelings by talking, writing, and exercise. Walking a fine line between "fanning the flames" and repressing the feelings. Just watch! Keep coming back to center - to the eye of the paradox - where there is peace. The ego steps away along with the feelings. Soon those feelings transform into the deeper insights of wisdom.

Fear Becoming Love

2012-01-19T08:25:00.000-08:00

When the ground gets knocked out

from below us, what do we do?

At some moment, it's apparent

that no solution, no shift is in sight.

So what do you do?

Nothing at all. Just wait.

That's what it's like now.

When the ground gets shaken

deep below -- and you feel a

slow wave of suspended fear

grip you all over; what do you do?

A moment comes. You are lost.

But it's okay. No escape.

Stopping struggle. Surrender. Here

& now. Let it change.

The ground is gone.

It never was there. An old

illusion now exposed by the

free falling through space

feeling. It's fear becoming love.

Water's Way

2012-01-18T08:08:00.000-08:00

As a child, I watched water slowly dripping from a leaky faucet. Waiting between drops, wondering how much a single drop would swell before falling into the white porcelain abyss, crashing onto the brown rust stain formed by countless past drops, finally followed by a hollow drip sound within the sink pipe's chambers. Water became a life metaphor during my senior year high school "Great Books" course which included Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching; on a hot lazy Spring afternoon I read these words from chapter 8:

That which is best is similar to water. Water profits ten thousand things and does not oppose them. It is always at rest in humble places that people dislike. Thus, it is close to Tao [the Way].

One day, I wanted to feel really rich. I decided on taking a hot bath; to soak my body and slow down the mind, finally feeling limp and relaxed all over. The water washed away my drive, my concerns, my worry, my thoughts. A gentle joyful bliss filled with simple appreciation overwhelmed me. An ocean in a bath tub. Water is so passive, so soft; it passes through the fingers. Yet, it can destroy mountains and cities. It's power is in its softness. Every dew drop mirrors the garden around it. We are like water, too; reflecting everything that is.

Lonelier Than Ever

2012-01-17T08:30:00.000-08:00

My childhood was spent on a dairy farm in Los Angeles County. Telephones were still luxuries. It was a big deal when we got a four-party line (yes! four households shared the same line). Phone bandwidth was expensive. Only the wealthy had private lines. On Sundays friends and neighbors would drop in on each other unannounced. In those days, existence had a more tangible personal feel to it. Phones became cheap; and the Internet made communication faster and even cheaper. Today we send messages everywhere on Earth at a moment’s notice. But, are we closer now than the neighbors who knocked at each other’s doors on Sunday for a visit? Are we getting more “free time” by flooding each other with more email and cell phone messages? I don’t think so. In fact, I suspect that we are now lonelier and more confused. We think we’re more connected – but spend more time skimming massive quantities of messages and images coming to our computers screens, cell phones, portable audio headsets, televisions, and radios everywhere. Less and less time, do we spend face-to-face with each other.

Gifts of Presence

2012-01-16T09:17:00.000-08:00

Juan Mascaro, in his introduction to The Upanishads, wrote: "... our life should perpetually breathe the air of love, since love is the living breath of the soul." Some people positively enhance a room's atmosphere as soon as they walk in. Such people are remembered for the feeling of their presence, not so much what they said. We all create an atmosphere around us. It could be fear, anxiety, joy, love, and more. Our states are shared spontaneously into the world around us; this suggests an ethical dimension to our states of being. Personal growth processes, including meditation, are so important because they provide deep inner feedback on our own states, allowing room for improvement. A most valuable state is simply unqualified presence; the feeling of being-here with full intensity. In simply being present we open ourselves and those around us to being fully alive as-it-is. This the among the greatest of gifts. When you are really here, you help others to arrive here too. Life becomes more abundant. We naturally act with kindness, gratitude and love.

Quiet Lost

2012-01-14T09:49:00.000-08:00

Milton's Paradise Lost sings of the Fall from the Garden of Eden. Now, we need a poet of our time to sing of Quiet Lost, the tragedy of lost silence, of a world filled with noisy machines everywhere. Go to a park and every few minutes, a jet will pass above - overwhelming sounds of wind passing through tree leaves and the bird songs. I went to a fancy gourmet food mall. Wonderful food. As I bit into a great tasting morsel, next to me were refrigerators pumping out so much noise that I felt my body and nerves vibrating - along with my digestion going South. I moved to another spot. Just as noisy. It amazes me that that we put up with so much noise! We've trained ourselves not to notice; but, perhaps, it causes dis-ease and disease in our minds and bodies. That is not how we evolved. Rattling machines can be silenced. It's a set of engineering problems that once solved would allow us to again feel and hear ourselves, our planet, our universe.

I recommend the interview of Gordon Hempton On The Search For Silence In A Noisy World in the September 2010 issue of The Sun Magazine.

Meditation and Society

2012-01-13T09:07:00.000-08:00

At first glance, meditation appears to be purely personal, even selfish. It's about you sitting and looking within, letting go of thought-forms as they arise. At first glance it seems most personal, most selfish because it's about "you". At second glance, you begin to realize that your ego structures may not be fundamentally real. You start noticing that "others" are not all that separate from "you". As meditation practice deepens, the line between "self" and "other" begins to burr. Compassion, forgiveness, and love flowers. Judgement mind begins to drop away. Suddenly, doing meditation practice is an unselfish action that improves the world. I believe that societies composed of people with "unselfish love" are healthier than societies of selfish people. Indeed, if enough people meditated long enough - over many years - enlightened societies may well arise.

Holographic Nature of Money

2012-01-12T09:05:00.000-08:00

Money is holographic - it reflects everything within you and all around, including the whole world. That dollar in the your pocket or bank is influenced by collective confidence in its value, the banking system, world events, political elections, and maybe even sunspots! This is especially true of global currencies such as the dollars, euro, yen, and the British pound. Given the problems happening around global currencies, it is wise to think in terms of an "ecology of money". There are alternate local currencies circulating in places such as Ithaca, New York that exhibit success in terms of use and staying power; in Ithaca the local currency unit is called HOURS, based on units of labor time. Because HOURS are local compared to dollars, HOURS reflect more the value that people have for each other (as community) in Ithaca. The existence of HOURS (and other such currencies) may help counter the uncertainty of global money such as euros and dollars. HOURS may actually help save the dollar. HOURS are holographic to a local community; while Dollars are holographic to the whole system of national-international-corporate finance.

Story HOURS currency by its founder, Paul Glover in Winter 2012 issue of Positive News.

It's not either/or, we can have both.

Money Has No Intelligence But Money

2012-01-10T09:40:00.000-08:00

There's the idea that money is rational. Get the most for the least money. Buy high, sell low. Get the best paying job. Or, get the most pay for the work you like. But, if you look at the way we play money these days, money is uncoupled from meaning, love, and all that is divine in human life. Why? Because we have learned, as a culture, to put money first and all else below that. This is a prescription for corruption. National politics now suffers from the fact that "money has no intelligence but money" - basically, money wants to make more money. You invest in a candidate that will help you get more money. It does not matter who. It's the money that counts. This is stupid; and, now we have stupid politics. One man at early morning coffee table said, "We got better presidents when they were selected behind closed doors at political conventions - men such as FDR, Eisenhower and Kennedy." Now, winning means getting the most money behind you, and running ads to hypnotize the voters into the "best candidate that money can buy".

Too Much Communication and Not Much Understanding

2012-01-09T19:40:00.000-08:00

There's too much communication & not much understanding. It's easy to pour words and sound bites out into the electronic atmosphere. But who's listening? You? Me? How much can I listen, read, or watch in one day? It becomes easy to neglect one's own mind and deeper truths. To understand is to "stand under" - to get below the surface. This takes time. Time to stand in silence. Time to listen, and allow what-is to disclose itself.

World is Changing

2012-01-02T07:26:00.000-08:00

The world is changing. It always changes. So many of my peers in age fear the future. It will not be the same. I was reading this morning about the tragedy of the north American Indians as their cultures become invaded by European cultures. Suffering and death by disease and violence that reflect some our worst images of the future. Indeed, the worst has already happened. Now "we" are here. Hold on for the ride. Nothing new. But, let's do better. No excuses.

New Times

2012-01-01T07:59:00.000-08:00

I feel change in the air. It's time to be more informal and spontaneous. To be more ourselves in our personal and public lives. Looking good is not as good as being good.

Many people feel the world is "on the edge" with uncertainty. I don't know. What we are going through is not new. We're on a small planet now. Lots to learn and change.

Perhaps, these are "New Times". The past ten years many folks felt that this new year - 2012 - will be the moment of a huge paradigm shift. Some thinking it will be an "end of the world scenario". I don't know. Better not to make any year or moment that special. To paraphrase an old rock song: something is happening here, what it is we don't exactly know.

International Area Studies Meditation Talk

2011-12-13T08:55:00.000-08:00

International Area Studies Meditation & Talk (December 9, 2011) by americ

Talk and meditation presented for International Area Studies students at UC Berkeley on December 9, 2011 - a week before semester final exams - the most stressful moment of the semester. Two short five minute meditation sessions were conducted. I aimed to inspire students with an easy method of daily meditation practice: five five-minute sessions spread throughout the day. I call it the Five by five meditation method or just 5x5. Enjoy.

Two five minute meditations were recorded - which are each abridged to one minute. You may wish to pause and
restart recording at those points, in the spirit of the talk.

Meditation Poetry Slam - Fall 2011

2011-12-04T09:51:00.001-08:00

Students of Fall 2011, PACS 94 (Meditation Theory & Practice) at UC Berkeley: presenting their own poems inspired by meditation practice.

Meditation Poetry Slam - November 16, 2011 by americ

E.E. Cummings Reads His "i thank You God for most this amazing day"

2011-11-26T08:03:00.000-08:00

We don't need to believe in God, to feel moved by the joy of these words.

I'm thankful e.e. cummings lived, wrote, recited & recorded this poem.

Being Right is Not Truth

2011-11-22T09:05:00.001-08:00

Truth is not “being right” indiscussions, dialogues, and debates.

Being right is merely feeling like thewinner of an argument; or, “knowing” that “they” are wrong.There's that “us” verses “them” feeling. Those who play formoney, power, and victory easily forget truth in theirrush to win, be on top, or in control. Unfortunately – it pullssocieties away from justice.

Occupy Your Mind

2011-11-11T15:09:00.001-08:00

Meditation talk given at UC Berkeley on November 9th, 2011 - the day when the Occupy movement came to campus. Reflections on inner "occupy" in the time of the social "Occupy Wall Street" movement(s).
Occupy Your Mind by americ

Steve Jobs’s last words: ‘Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow’

2011-10-31T13:46:00.000-07:00

Steve Jobs' Last Words by americ

Today, Steve Jobs's last words are reported in the news. Well worth reading are Steve Jobs’s last words: ‘Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow’ (Washington Post) and A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs (New York Times). In the past, I asked students to read or listen to Steve Jobs' Stanford Commencement address (2005) .

This Class Not About Meditation - It is Meditation

2011-10-30T09:14:00.000-07:00

Audio recording of meditation talk at University of California, Berkeley. Meditation is not separate from any aspect of life. All of life is infused with the potential of intense presence-at-hand.

This Class Not About Meditation - It is Meditation by americ

Desire Behind All Desire

2011-10-19T09:02:00.000-07:00

It's not so important how long you live; but that you realize who you really are before you pass away. In that self-realization is the true goal of life consciousness. The desire behind all desire.

HBO's 'Enlightened' Take On Modern Meditation

2011-10-10T13:49:00.000-07:00

This afternoon (1:27 pm, October 10th), I'm listening to the Terry Gross interview of Laura Dern and Mike White on NPR's "Fresh Air". Suddenly, my mind is twisted with the story of a new HBO television show about meditation and enlightenment. The series starts tonight. You will be enlightened!

To hear the interview or read parts of the transcript visit THIS LINK.

From the program description:

Can people really change? That's the question Laura Dern and Mike White ask in their new HBO series, Enlightened, which premieres Monday night. The show features Dern as Amy Jellicoe, an ambitious executive who has a nervous breakdown at her workplace. She goes to a rehabilitation center in Hawaii, where she experiences an awakening.

When Amy returns home, she wants to put her new philosophy into practice — meditating, communicating better with her mother (Diane Ladd), and fostering a healthier relationship with her ex-husband (Luke Wilson). But she finds her lessons of enlightenment being put to the test.

Show creator Mike White wrote the series and also directed some of the episodes. White and Dern join Fresh Air's Terry Gross for a conversation about Enlightened.

Occupy Wall Street Becoming a Mainstream Dialogue

2011-10-09T09:46:00.000-07:00

I've been watching the fast growing "Occupy Wall Street" movement on Twitter and in the mainstream media online. Today (Sunday, October 9th), it emerges as a major news story on CBS's online website. The cat is out of the bag - the "money, wealth, and power" discourse is up for renewal. I'm hoping it's a return to reality and away from ideology. This will take a massive amount of dialogue in all directions; between many kinds of people.

Occupy Wall Street is now a "normative dialogue" (a dialogue about the kinds of society we value) between people on the streets, people at home watching/reading the news, and talking with friends at coffee houses, local markets, workplaces, etc. There are also the measured responses of those with "control" on all sides of the political spectrum. We are facing a profound social-political-economic mystery. All I hope for now is that we all stay nonviolent and be open to deepening dialogue and understanding - open minds, suspending all judgments. Let truth guide us.

Outremer by Fanny Howe

2011-10-07T10:34:00.000-07:00

I recently "discovered" a new poet in my life, Fanny Howe while reading Poetry Magazine's September 2011 issue - which published Howe's long prose-like poem, Outremer. Upon reading it three times, I was hooked. Here's video reading of Outremer (a collaboration by Fanny Howe and artist Maceno Senna):

Outremer from Fanny Howe on Vimeo.

"Greed is Good" - Wall Street & Beyond

2011-10-06T09:03:00.000-07:00

Years ago I saw the classic 1989 movie: Wall Street. A story of a corporate takeover artist. He took over one company at a time. Small stuff compared the financial engineering that brought down the world's financial system in 2008, followed by global economic depression.

Is greed the real engine of human progress? Given all the current events around the "Occupy Wall Street" protests, let's revisit the "greed is good" speech by the movie's main protagonist: Gorden Gekko (played in 1987 by Michael Douglas). Here are his words in court:

By the way, Gekko did not use the the words "Greed is Good" in the original Wall Street film. Here's a transcript: “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures, the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind and greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A."

Nicholas Ashford, MIT Economist re: Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-04T10:06:00.000-07:00

The "Occupy Wall Street" protests in New York are growing into a global event. This phenomena questions basic assumptions about money, value, society, and environment. This second week of September 2011, see many main stream news stories emerging. The following extracted from http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/1004/Occupy-Wall-Street-flash-in-the-pan-or-beginning-of-a-movement.

Americans should be prepared to see this movement take hold and spread, says MIT economics professor and lawyer Nicholas Ashford, author of “Technology, Globalization, and Sustainable Development – Transforming the Industrial State: Exploring the Critical Conflicts between Economy, Environment, and Employment.”
It’s not just a matter of people being “mad as hell and not taking it anymore,” he says. “It’s more crucially the dawning realization that the US economy was always built on quicksand, and that our current dismal state is not the anomaly, but the reality.”
“Instead of waiting for the economy to ‘bounce back’ to a previous state of health that was nothing but a sad illusion,” says Professor Ashford, “Washington, Wall Street, and big business need to address a strategy for moving forward from where we are,” not from where they thought we were.

River of Thoughts

2011-10-03T20:33:00.000-07:00

a river of thoughts flowing
through my days
returning to the ocean
never ending, always waving

Meditation & the Practice of Law

2011-10-01T09:19:00.000-07:00

The Practical Value of Meditation in Law Practice. Talk, guided meditation, and question/answers. Delivered by Charles Halpern, Director, Berkeley Initiative for Mindfulness in Law. (Bolt Law School, University of California, Berkeley). Presented to the 300 students of Americ Azevedo's "Theory and Practice of Meditation" course at UC Berkeley. September 28th, 2011.
Listen/Download Long quiet guided meditation moments deleted from this audio file.

A Budding Biologist

2011-09-21T09:27:00.000-07:00

Poem by Richard Pauloo

hiking in the Berkeley hills

a seed crests by my body

white sphere of life

nearly weightless in the wind’s breath

i turn back with an urge to capture it

to understand its beauty

and dissect it with logic

i pause

ashamed

my hands cannot hold

the true beauty of the seed which is

its effortless waltz with gravity

its gentle surrender to the ground beneath

the promise of new life it carries

the first green sprout

the animals that will play

on its gnarled branches

the growth and decay

of a forest

all contained within the soft small shell

of a seed

trailing

in the wind

1 Giant Leap - Trailer for 2nd Film - 2sides2everything

2011-09-19T13:55:00.000-07:00

This is a philosophic snapshot of how people around the world feel and think about the "big questions". Indeed, an important enterprise. (Many thanks to Marianne Henry for bring this to my attention.)

Politics, Leaders, and Followers

2011-09-04T08:17:00.000-07:00

Politics is larger than life. Ourrelationships to leaders are reduced to those of children looking upona distant parent. We tend to demonize or sanctify them! Reality isdistorted. If you are a leader you sign up for being “the reason”why things appear to be working or failing. Leaders cannot be leaderswithout followers. Look to the quality of followers to understand the quality and power of the leaders. (+)

Mining Circle Building - Inside View

2011-08-14T07:40:00.001-07:00

View from my Engineering Ethics class (Summer 2011).

There's Nothing to Do

2011-07-28T09:05:00.000-07:00

What needs to be done?

There's nothing to do.
It's all done.
Move about as you do.
No need to add your concern -
it does not help at all.

Now, how shall we act? Action without attachment to results is best. You know the outcomes, and perform the tasks without grasping. Tasks will happen more precisely, more actions, with more joy, and fulfillment. You are living your life now – rather than in the future.

Another kind of wealth

2011-06-24T08:51:00.000-07:00

Barron's: The Dow Jones Business and Financial Weekly published (August 11, 2003) a letter to the editor, in which I wrote the following:

I was delighted with one of your recent cartoons (Mailbag, Aug 4). Two well-fed men are on a commuter train and one says to the other, "All the harping about the rich getting richer; what are they supposed to do?" I propose a basic answer. Don't expect the rich to give away money or have fewer tax breaks. But expect the rich to use their own time wisely, to go deep into the meaning of their own lives, finding the way to real happiness. Those who do so will become different people -- no longer trading the wealth of the human heart and soul for just more material wealth. That would change the world.

Mother Theresa noted that America is a land of spiritual poverty. Everyone, even the poor, have televisions, but poor in spirit. People are valued by the things they have, not their wisdom and spirit. Perfectly intelligent well-off women and men gather to talk about their cars, houses, and things they own or are planning to buy. Often, hiding from themselves, through feigned joy, the feeling that life is meaningless. You are encouraged to spend your life energy getting the right car, right house, right club membership, right clothes, and way of talking - to the point that you forgot that you are, at the bottom, none of these things. Real satisfaction keeps receding into the horizon. Stories are told of people who buy the expensive car, and find a week later they need "something" else to drive them on to achievement.

(+)

Atlantis revisited

2011-05-28T08:21:00.000-07:00

It's been said that the Azores Islands are the tip of the lost continent of Atlantis – home to a civilization of the highest technology. The Atlantians, like the citizens of Babel were overpowered by their technology. By divine power or human ingenuity both were brought to total destruction.

The Azores are in the Atlantic ocean about 800 miles east of Europe, in the middle of nowhere, which makes them a stepping stone between North America and Europe. Columbus’ last stop before proceeding to the New World was the Azores Islands. His sailing ships where the high technology of the time.

I was born in the Azores Islands as World War II ended. I immigrated from the Azores to the U.S.A. with my parents at the age of two. As I grew up in America on a farm in Los Angeles County, I fell in love with science and technology. To me it was magic. Happily learning to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen, building a radio transmitter and receiver, looking into the deep sky with a telescope, and creating electricity by moving a magnet through a wound coil of copper wire. I wanted to be a wizard; my magic wand was a pen.

(+)

(Image of Terceira Island, Azores. From Oceandots.com.)

The Wayseer Manifesto

2011-03-26T13:11:00.000-07:00

Today, into my world came a gift from a friend*; a YouTube video that speaks to the part of us tuned to Truth, the Way, the Cosmic Order, the Absolute, God, ...

Dare to listen and feel with your heart:

* Marianne Henry

Failing into success

2011-03-25T07:33:00.000-07:00

The way up and the way down is the same. Failure and success are two sides of one coin. A duality that is not! No success is lasting, regardless of how solid and powerful it looks. Even the whole universe will run down, will fail. Profound failure can become profound success. Jesus' life work "failed" into becoming the most abiding success in religious history.

Every time I fail, I let myself feel the failure as deeply as possible. A whole new perspective soon arises with rich fields of opportunity. Learn to be thankful for apparent failures -- this flips the perspective. Failure never happens; it's my expectations that failed to match reality at the moment. Change the expectations; look again at what-is with clearer sight. Go on. Live fully.

Technology and the meaning of life

2011-03-24T09:01:00.000-07:00

The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
…
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

-- T. S. Elliot

We uncouple technologies, such as computing and road building, from our deepest human values. The questions asked by T. S. Elliot become irrelevant as we refuse to acknowledge the human context.

Students at universities become mainly focused on "practical knowledge" that leads to high paid jobs. The values by which we guide our technological development and application become afterthoughts. We must wonder if technology now controls human life more than humans control technology.

Information technology is valued above wisdom. There is no "wisdom technology". It's easier to understand information technology then wisdom. A high school student can quickly grasp computer programming, but it takes almost an entire lifetime to mature to wisdom. People who think of themselves as wise because they have read some books are dangerous. Wisdom is lived, not mastered as procedures and facts that can be scored on an exam sheet.

Data and information are the "atomic" components of knowledge. These components don't make a lot of sense by themselves. Water is composed of molecules, which are in turn composed of atoms of hydrogen and oxygen. We could say that molecules are like information and atoms (a level further down) are like data. But such an understanding does not allow us to understand the "wetness" of water. Wetness is an emergent phenomenon that is experienced by sentient human beings. When we look at a friend, we just don't see atoms and molecules, we see a friend.

Meaning is the real food of human life. Our real task is to arrange education, family, society, moral training, technology and economic arrangements in way that allows meaningful human life to unfold for as many people as possible. Clearly, we have remarkable technologies. But do we have enough meaning?

With what do you buy your money?

2011-03-22T07:30:00.000-07:00

With what do we buy our money? Many years ago, I was giving a talk on wisdom in the world. At the end of the talk, I was approached by an old man. He came up to me and said, "I want to ask you a question." I said, "What's that?" He said, "With what do you buy your money?" I thought about it for a minute, and said, "With your life, of course." He said, "You're right, and I wish I had known that when I was much younger. For all my life, I worked for money. I put all my time into working for money that I thought I would enjoy later on." He explained that he just never thought about anything else except working to save money, to put money away, to plan for the future. And the future had arrived, and here he was, an old man. And he expressed that he had a sense of bitterness about that, that he hadn't achieved an earlier understanding about the importance of living life, and that he had indeed bought his money with his life. (+)

Image by Terry Pettengill.

Running like snails

2011-03-20T10:08:00.000-07:00

We take jet planes to get somewhere fast, while taking hours to get in and out of airports for a one hour flight. Booking passage, packing, deciding what to take and not take, freeway travel, airport security, weather problems, and the unexpected mechanical problems -- a one hour flight becomes a half-day event. This is "running like snails." Rage is a symptom of running like snails. You see it with commuters on trains and freeways; and, on the internet and in the office.

Freeways ought to move quickly -- everyone gets on them during "rush hour". "Rush hour" could be renamed "running like snails" hour. Fast automotive technology meets congested overcrowded freeways. Road rage flares on freeways as drivers try to move faster. Every year 40,000 people die because of the need to “get there on time”.

Companies now organize around information efficiency for maximum profit. For instance, eliminating contact with "ineffectual" and “expensive” humans, instead providing web pages and interactive voice activated telephone services. Customer satisfaction problems are more difficult to resolve nowadays. No one can hear you scream in cyberspace! Fast internet service does not make us more productive, rather it gives us more distractions along the information superhighway.

Someday we will all learn to just walk like lightening.

Time-Money-Love

2011-03-12T09:49:00.000-08:00

After many considerations, it's clear modern technological life has three fundamental categories: time, money, and love. Insights can be gained by looking at the weight that is applied to these categories in different life circumstances.

We can’t separate time, money, and love. In moments of insight, meditation, and spontaneous grace: it becomes clear that time, money, and love are just time-money-love; like space and time in physics are now fused into space-time.

Ask ourselves the question how does time-money-love play itself out in our lives? More money, less time? More time, more love? Is more money, less love? Yes, no, maybe? Look deeply into this.

My window of time

2011-03-11T06:50:00.000-08:00

View out my window of time

People and cars passing by

Meaning is not an issue

Only the Being all around

It is what it is as-it-is

So easy. You know that

someday you'll step off this

life. So accept it in

ways deep inside. So inside

that it's just That.

Breathe into Being

this morning. You and I

are here where we are

Brilliant Discussions

2011-02-24T17:42:00.000-08:00

During Kiva Time of Winter 2003, in the Oakland hills, I recorded my good friend Glenn Matson sharing a few thoughts on the Native American Indian practice of brilliant discussions. This practice has profound implications for dialogue in schools and businesses - and with friends.

LISTEN TO "Glenn Matson on Brilliant Discussions" (1397 kb; time 2:00)

Image from painting by George Catlin's Sioux Indian council, Chiefs in Profound Deliberation, 1832–37

Brilliant discussion regarding time

2011-02-24T16:56:00.000-08:00

Glenn Matson introduced the idea of brilliant discussions. As we proceeded with our recording session, we moved into a brilliant discussion focused on the the nature of time.

Perhaps, the greatest miracle is the one that creates time. The quality of no-time, no-space is all inclusive. Time might not be real. We became almost speechless. The mind and soul are drawn to deeper levels.

LISTEN TO "Glenn Matson & Americ Azevedo in a brilliant discussion on time" (4002 KB; time 5:41)

Sierras Wander

2011-02-05T19:12:00.000-08:00

My friend, Glen, took a long, long hike in the High Sierras. He's his report, complete with text, pictures, and video:

http://sierraswandern.blogspot.com/2011/01/high-route-recap.html

Enjoy!

Alan Watts: OM The sound of Hinduism part 1a

2010-12-17T18:12:00.000-08:00

Worth listening to. Alan Watts is classic. He opened so many people up to Eastern religion. He was an important part of the "beatnik" era. The man for the job - having been a former Episcopalian minister.

Dark nights; bright days

2010-12-05T18:45:00.000-08:00

There are dark nights of the soul, when all looks doomed.

Don't believe it.

Such views are born of fatigue.

There are moments when it seems all can be done with brilliance and ease.

Don't believe it.

Such views are born of excess energy.

Buckminster Fuller - The Final Message

2010-11-07T17:02:00.000-08:00

Buckminster Fuller was one of the most inventive and socially aware engineers of the 20th century. For him "doing more with less" was a human value as well as engineering value.

This is the soundtrack of an Earthstar Radio production, just weeks before Buckminster Fuller passed away on July 1st, 1983 at the age of 87. In his last days he was focused on integrity. I had the honor of doing the interview.

Down loadable audio formats.

Audio produced and recorded by Shari Morgan and Roger Kotila of EarthStar Radio. Based on interview by Americ Azevedo with Buckminster Fuller. Photo of from Photoshop 5.5 Artistry by Barry Haynes and Wendy Crumpler, New Riders Publishing

Science & Wonder-The desire to know and the power of imagination

2010-10-08T19:11:00.000-07:00

PAPAJI - Consciousness alone is

2010-10-03T14:46:00.000-07:00

Wonderful video; in ten minutes Papaji sums up consciousness in relation to all-that-is.

Without limit

2010-09-18T08:57:00.000-07:00

Why are we so often
Afraid of meeting
“the still point of the turning world*”?

Shall we drop down to the
center of Being?
Like a stone that no longer orbits earth
falling down and burning up in
the atmosphere

Are we afraid of meeting someone
we’ve been avoiding (for a long time)?
God? Self? Atman? Jesus? Krishna?
Who’s there?

It’s you
without limit, definition, clothes
without memories

Just you as silent radiant joyful consciouenss

-----
*T. S. Elliot

It passes

2010-09-02T08:11:00.000-07:00

There is
That consuming
Desiring part
Empty inside
So wanting to fill up
On things, people, events
What is it?
Genetic instincts
Blindly driving us
To buy, produce, consume
Meaning?
Just tired and hungry
Sit with it
It passes

Resting in the present

2010-08-23T08:53:00.000-07:00

“Resting in the present” is the same as saying “resting in God”.

God is the Presence in the present moment –
the luminosity sustaining our vision of self and world.

More we cannot ask.

Maya time

2010-08-16T09:07:00.001-07:00

Maya time
they say
is ending.
No. No. Not so.

It's lies ending.
Truth coming down.
Awakening us from spells
of fear words.

Truth that's so
sweet like a
dove crossing
your path early
this morning.

Changing the world

2010-08-11T09:36:00.000-07:00

How do we change the world? Don’t even try – it’s impossible. Any change you try will have unpredictable consequences. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Just change yourself, just wait until the obvious situation for change presents itself. You are there. Your hands can touch the levers of action, of power. Manage yourself wisely. Focus on love. Focus on the action not the outcome. Ride the wave. It may be only a ripple; or, a big wave that wipes you out. Wait again, try the next wave. Do nothing, melt into what is.

Soft voice of wisdom

2010-08-10T09:29:00.000-07:00

these days
filled with technology
filled with noise and people
you can hardly hear yourself
or a little child next to you

listen, listen, listen
to the soft voice within
it’s the voice of wisdom

Money and God

2010-07-29T08:10:00.000-07:00

For several years I gave an annual talk for The Applied Philosophy Institute in Sunnyvale, California. One year the topic was "Money and God." Almost everyone in the audience had deep feelings about the subject. I struggled to bring God and money together in the same breath. One businessman wanted to make it simple. He said, "Money is God. Anything you can say about God, you can also say about money."

"What do you mean?" I responded. "Well, think of the traditional statements about God," he said. "Okay. God is love. God is everywhere. God is infinite. God is all-powerful," I remarked.

"That's it!" he said with delight. "Money is love. Money is everywhere. Money is infinite. Money is all-powerful. People treat you as if they love you when you have lots of money. Everywhere I go there's money -- an ATM machine or bank in every part of the world. Money is so powerful we go to war and give up our lives for it. And, since money is abstract, we can create infinite numbers out of it. Therefore Money is like God, Money is God."

This businessman was serious. He was also deeply disturbed by his position. He was admitting an awesome truth that most people would not take seriously.

Ultimately, all investments start with how we use time. Some say "Time is money." Time is more fundamental then money, and a little closer to God and life. Life is the time we have, so use time well.

Reality as-it-is

2010-07-26T08:57:00.000-07:00

Reality just is as-it-is. Realize unity with reality, and let the distinguishing mind subside. Become still within; even while life continues in the world. Strengthen the platform: the body. Eat good food, exercise, and feed the mind good ideas from within and beyond. This sustains contact with reality. (For much darkness, despair and illusion is simply weakness of the body.)

Time poverty

2010-07-24T07:00:00.000-07:00

We live in a technological world, where every eighteen months the power of computers doubles. But at the same time we live in a cultural world where expectations rise to meet the expanding possibilities of technology. So that as fast as we create new ways to save time, we find new desires to chip it away and distract ourselves even more.

If I was a wise man like Lao Tzu, Buddha, Jesus, or Krishna, I would not know, or even understand, what time poverty is. But I am not. I'm just an ordinary human being, with ordinary problems, faced with schedules, deadlines, bank accounts that rise and fall, and there is, all too often, this pressing sense of there not being enough time, not enough time to do all the things that need to be done. I can scramble around with different strategies to manage that time, so that the lists become prioritized, and I'm supposed to know what to do first and next. And yet no matter how much I try to manage that time, new variables, new events, happen continuously to disrupt that.

For me, not being wise, to rise above time is to ignore it for a while, and try to enter the space of what I refer to as eternity. For at all points in time, if I focus deeply enough into this particular single present moment, then I'm arrived, I have arrived, I am exactly where I should be at this particular instant. I'm fully present here, not having to be anywhere else, so that gripping sense of not having enough time fades away into the eternal moment. That is the way time poverty is transcended, by going right into time, through time, into what is timeless.

Based on audio: TIME POVERTY.

Consumerism, community, creativity & consciousness

2010-07-20T08:40:00.000-07:00

Consumerism is currently the global religion. We measure the success of our personal lives, the economy and our society by their ability to produce and consume goods and services. So strong is this perspective that little time is left for creativity, community, and consciousness. This is a great imbalance that throws us at odds with the health of the Earth.

The good life is narrowed to the consumer perspective. It is a self reinforcing cycle. Work, produce, and consume; this cycle transforms every aspect of life into a consumable commodity. Raising children is now done by professionals and less by parents. Even those professionals who baby-sit and teach young children are paid very low wages.

Consumerism is not an absolute law of nature. We can shift the cultural center of gravity toward community, creativity and consciousness. Indeed, that is the task at hand.

Begin with consciousness. That is why meditation is important – so that we may have minds clear enough to see, feel, hear our situation without judgment.

Consciousness naturally promotes creativity. Being creative is a joy in itself. It’s true that we are “made in the image of the Creator”. And, the Creator creates. We, too, can create; that means each and every one of us; not only the experts or entertainers on stage.

Creativity naturally promotes community. That is to share our creations. Like children who want to share their dances, paintings with parents and friends.

Mystical woodland walks

2010-07-18T09:44:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I find life kind of overwhelming. On those days, I really like to go to the woods. There’s a place I go to in Mill Valley, a walk that takes about 35 to 45 minutes that ends at a waterfall, and I delight in taking this walk. At the waterfall, I can smell the air of the forest, and sometimes the fresh air of the ocean not too far way, meeting at the same place. The process of walking here is like shedding layers of clothes, shedding the cares of life, and slipping, falling, surrendering to meditation, a sense of unity, where self and Universe become one, and I cannot know whether the Universe creates me, or I create the Universe. It is just so, it is just this. And in having this experience, this meditation, I feel revived, cleansed, new.

In truth, I can often have the same experience in my own room, a place that’s quiet, and just let myself settle down, settle down and fall into that state of being present, fully in the moment at hand. So a mystical woodland walk can happen anywhere, even in one’s apartment, or home, or perhaps in some quiet room in a coffeehouse.

The above text is based on an audio snapshot recorded with a Sony microcassete recorder, passed the audio to my computer, edited it, and converted to mp3. The sound is poor, but you can hear the waterfall in the background. It's raw and real - in the spirit of being in the woods.

To listen: http://soundcloud.com/americ/mystical-woodland-walks

Stardust and lightening

2010-06-30T08:19:00.000-07:00

We are stardust; we are lightning.
--Joni Mitchell*

When I was a child in the first and second grade, a little girl named Sherry would play with me. She was an outcast. She had wild unkempt golden hair, and talked very softly. Other kids made fun of me for even talking with her. One day she brought a little book with a picture of a star. She said, “We come from there.”

We come from the stars, the very substance of our bodies is stardust condensed from the heavens. We are in the heavens already; someone else on some other star system could be looking our way. We are sparks from a central fire, a whole universe, forged by the power of that fire.

* From her song, “Woodstock”

Timekept timekeepers

2010-06-29T06:47:00.000-07:00

I journeyed to London,

to the timekept City

--from "The Rock"
T. S. Eliot

I once read a novel where the main character got so frustrated with time that he tore out the hands of a clock. But the clock kept ticking anyway! Shortly after graduating from college, I developed the habit of being late for work. Even during college I was often late for classes. I would constantly look at my watch and race against it to be "on time."

One day my wristwatch fell into the dish washing sink. It was not waterproof. Thereafter, I lived without a wristwatch. Soon I discovered that I did not need a wristwatch. Clocks were everywhere. Banks had signs flashing the current temperature and time. The radio announcers told the time on the hour. There were clocks in supermarkets, offices, and classrooms. Most people had wristwatches.

I stopped being late after my wristwatch drowned in dish washing waters. I discovered that I did not have to race the clock as I just adjusted down my expectations of what I could do in ten or fifteen minutes. I began to realize exactly what I could do between two events, I began to feel like I had more time. I used to look for “a spare 10 minutes” in my watch, and fill up that time with something rather than going to my appointment – naturally, I could not do all those things. I am a human being not a computer slicing nanoseconds. I became in touch with my natural time rather than just clock time.

Clock time and natural time

2010-06-28T07:04:00.000-07:00

In the 1920's a French critic of modern civilization argued that toward the very "end", things would speed up. We would have more and more choices, more things to acquire, and more things to do. This, he wrote, would be the human condition just before the collapse of Modern Civilization -- a civilization based on an almost exclusive devotion to the demons of money and time. Our current lack of time is a symptom of cultural bankruptcy. We have more options than a human being can manage. We are supposed to be parents, good workers, sexy mates, and personally well developed in every way. There is just not enough time.

There is clock time and natural time -- these two kinds of time may or may not match. It's possible to be "on time" by the clock, yet early or late by natural time. We can never be "on time" by racing against the clock -- the clock will always win, if not by the numbers, by wearing us down and making us die young of high blood pressure. When we are on natural time, we are always "on time". We are not either waiting or rushing. We are always in the right place at the right time. Doctors used to advise that newborn babies be fed at regular intervals such as 9 a.m., 12 noon, 3 p.m., etc. This was one method of taking natural time away from our lives.

The art of living is that of harmonizing clock time with natural time. Clock time holds the modern world together. So we need to adjust our clocks to fit human needs, not human needs to fit the clock. Airlines need to run on schedule. But human beings should just "show up" and move on as they will. I never looked at bus schedules, but I used buses all the time. I just showed up and waited. If there were enough buses coming up, I did not particularly worry about when the next bus came. If I plan my days properly, I move through my appointments with time to spare.

Desires power the world

2010-06-26T09:25:00.000-07:00

Desires move us here and there; they power the world. Desires push and pull us through life. Desires make us mate, work and lust for life itself. Some desires define our lives. Examine, and face these desires - many have been within us since childhood, but forgotten. Examine them for clues of what really brings fulfillment. Desires are often so powerful that they take on lives of their own; directing us, rather than us directing our desires. A car’s engine is like desire – without a sober driver at the wheel the engine blindly takes us to destruction. Of all desires, the “highest” is the desire go beyond desire – that is the desire for self-realization.

Busy being born

2010-06-23T09:50:00.000-07:00

He not busy being born

Is busy dying

- Bob Dylan*

*From his song, “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”.

Fields of dreams

2010-06-21T09:48:00.000-07:00

Our lives are like fields of dreams within a luminous empty screen of pure consciousness. Within those dreams come a few thoughts, insights, and realities that are eternal – that are not dreams. Such thoughts are true comfort and wisdom within the uncertainties of life.

Words

2010-06-19T10:16:00.000-07:00

Audio comments on the nature of words:

Words

A Vision

2010-06-19T09:09:00.000-07:00

In forests, deserts, plains, mountains, and valleys – the ancient healers of soul, mind and body knew Grace, Power, Wisdom, and Love. They lived before civilization – directly with the sky, earth, sun, rain, fire, and seasons. Now few know the sky, instead looking at reports on the news, reading books, and other media. Few of us understand or live primal ways of life.

Agriculture brought cities; and the flowering of poetry, writing, politics, and the division of work into complex social arrangements. Some went back to the forest and deserts to connect with the elemental powers. The playful Krishna, the cool wise Buddha, the heartfelt Jesus, the long-lived Lao-Tzu, the messenger Mohammed – each one spent time in the wilderness away from civilization; plus, so many others now unknown to us. They returned to their communities speaking and teaching of the Way, the One God, and Enlightenment.

We quest for the stars and knowledge of atoms, forgetting the primal knowledge of Life and soul; and, recklessly ruling the earth and each other.

What did the ancient ones know and teach? Did they cut through all illusions and see truth behind the blinding power of ego? Can we weave these personalities, these archetypes, together into wholeness? Can we? Dare we not? This is the age of a new alliance between humans, all life, earth, cosmos and humble understanding of the All-in-all.

Political “Idiots”

2010-06-17T11:16:00.000-07:00

"Our word 'idiot' comes from the Greek idiotes which was the term to describe someone who lived an entirely private existence and took no part in the public life of the city. Most of us today are idiots, then, inasmuch as we fail to exercise our political intelligence." – David Miller, Professor of Political Theory, Oxford University*

* David Miller. Political Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2003. page 48.

Morning Dispatches

2010-06-16T09:38:00.000-07:00

Everyday I walk down

to the local coffee house;

get a cup, sit by the window

facing the hills, before sunrise.

From my shirt pocket, I pull out a

couple of folded sheets

of loose paper, fountain pen,

and wait for a "dispatch" -

a “bead” of wisdom

to come out and flow

upon the sheet of paper.

For a long, long time

writing a book of wisdom.

Not quite like writing instructions

for fixing a leaky bathroom faucet.

Wisdom reflects the

immediacy of this moment.

It must always sound true –

thoughts, spoken and written

in a timeless present.

You can't just memorize wisdom;

you unpack wisdom

from the depths of your being

as if connected to all Being.

Space of silence

2010-06-15T08:43:00.000-07:00

"Be still, and know that I am God!”
Psalms 46:10

Meditation is like listening for Silence
Prayer is like talking to Silence
Contemplation attends to thoughts between Silence

Dance in the space of silence
Hear an eternal ocean within

Life’s like a dance of
Activity, prayer, and deep silence

Silence holds beginnings and insights;
With power beyond imagination

A humble start

2010-06-14T08:42:00.000-07:00

I began elementary school with no knowledge of English. I never played with any other children until the first day of class! The world had many adults and one child – me. My first English word was “stupid” – the name the kids called me on the playground. No one on the playground spoke Portuguese. I hid in cupboards and lost weight from nervous distress. Eventually, I was placed in the equivalent of a retarded group of students. I’d go to bed praying to God to make me smart. A few years later I became the class “nerd” or “brain”. Intelligence or the sense of belonging to a group can’t be taken for granted. I now see that true intelligence is not in doing “class assignments” well, but in manging our own self-transformation toward “being all that we can be” – that is, to full actualize.

Calling

2010-06-12T10:14:00.000-07:00

To recall, to think
that all my life I've been
writing notes and journals.
I don't know if this is good
or bad - don't care.
It's what I do.
Everyone does something.
Everyone has a karma.
We are placed in a
context as we come into
this life. No choice
about it. No freedom it seems,
but, if conscious, if aware
freedom comes with training,
restraint; the ability to
wait and watch for
an opening to our
heart's desire comes.
Follow it. It's your calling.

Holy instant

2010-06-11T09:09:00.000-07:00

With well tuned mind
Every moment is holy

We embrace this holy instant
drinking the wine of bliss

Even in fiery spells
Of sweet lust
or bitter rage

We can awaken
Through consciousness
To our own true nature.

A Hopi Elder Speaks

2010-06-10T14:09:00.000-07:00

During a recent "Wisdom Circle" telephone conference call, Marrianne read a wonderful quote from a Hopi elder -- directly off her refrigerator door. Later she found the text on several locations on the web (the follow being from http://people.tribe.net/cortt/blog/af1171e9-aac3-4825-aeab-759b860e3ebc) :

"You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered . . .

Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader."

Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said, "This could be a good time!"

"There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are torn apart and will suffer greatly.

"Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above water. And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, Least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

"The time for the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word struggle from you attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

"We are the ones we've been waiting for."

-- attributed to an unnamed Hopi elder
Hopi Nation
Oraibi, Arizona

Community deficiency disorder

2010-06-08T08:03:00.000-07:00

I met a man from Mexico who reported that in his small village people did not use antidepressant drugs. "We don't let anyone slip away into depression. We give our friends attention, play with them, talk with them, and make them feel loved. Soon, their depression lifts." We, on the other hand, live in a society that encourages isolation. This is what the consumer society is all about. We substitute services and products for real contact with people; as if products and services can replace real community. Highly rich technological consumer oriented societies suffer from community deficiency disorder. Can we take the cure?

Quality of mercy

2010-06-06T08:52:00.000-07:00

Justice tempered by mercy is the practical application of love in public life. All would do well to take to heart William Shakespeare’s the words of mercy within the Merchant of Venice, in the trial scene near the end when the judge, Portia, says,

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:

'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown;

His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,

The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;

But mercy is above this sceptred sway;

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's

When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,

Though justice be thy plea, consider this,

That, in the course of justice, none of us

Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render

The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much

To mitigate the justice of thy plea;

Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice

Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.

A mystic moment

2010-06-03T08:24:00.000-07:00

Today.

Nothing to prove.

Standing just as human.

Living, spontaneously from center.

Listening for God's voice within.

And, what is "God"? Not a word.

It's reality, the sense of truth

opening to the unlimited.

Unspeakable, it is.

Invisible money

2010-05-30T10:46:00.000-07:00

The poet shall not spend his time in unneeded work...

He shall go directly to the creation.

-- Walt Whitman*

I walked down to the local coffee house for a small cup; often paying with odd looking coins and bills. One morning, I paid with a Peet’s Card "charged up" with $21. The clerk poured me the coffee. When she saw the card she said it wasn't my usual funny money. I said, “It’s invisible money!” Almost all money is now invisible. For many years, I carried little pieces of jade and silver in my pocket; a habit picked up from my friend Glenn, who enjoyed buying small amounts of silver and old copper coins, as well as picking up deep green jade stones at the beaches near Gorda (south of Big Sur) in California. Jade, silver and gold make excellent money tokens. But no one uses them as money anymore.

The dematerialization of money started with paper money. Originally, paper money was "backed" by gold, silver or other tangible items. Later, we removed money's "backing" or base; effectively, debasing money. Most money is now intangible data configurations stored in computers. Paper? Why even use that? Plastic cards are better. Actually, "money" is even more intangible than the computer's memory banks; it's the meaning we give to these data configurations that defines money. Money has absolutely no physical basis at all, not even the electronic data. It's all mental. Money is based on customs of trust between us, banks, and governments. Inflation, deflation, and monetary collapses show us that money is mostly a state of mind. It's time to break the money mind spell; to go directly to the creation, and stop confusing symbols for reality.

*From "Preface", Leaves of Grass (1855).

To let learn

2010-05-29T08:35:00.000-07:00

Teaching is more difficult than learning because what teaching calls for is this: to let learn. The real teacher, in fact, lets nothing else be learned than -- learning. His conduct, therefore, often produces the impression that we properly learn nothing from him, if by "learning" we now suddenly understand merely the procurement of useful information. The teacher is ahead of his apprentices in this alone, that he has still far more to learn than they -- he has to learn to let them learn.

-- Martin Heidegger*

* What is Called Thinking? (Translated by J. Glenn Gray). One of my guiding concepts for teaching. Sometimes, I even share this "secret" with my students.

You are not ...

2010-05-28T07:17:00.001-07:00

You are not your thoughts arising. You are not your attractions and aversions arising. You are not your memories coming up and fading away. You are not your job. You are not your relationships to parents, children, friends, co-workers, opponents, or anyone else. You are not your clothes, social position, race or nationality. You are not old or young. You are not any "thing" at all.

You are without properties. You are infinite potential. You are being and nonbeing -- without limit. So, stand free beyond boundary and limit. As if infinitely radiant sky.

Our work

2010-05-26T09:05:00.000-07:00

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. **

* Famous phrase summarizing one of Alfred Korzybski’s great work on general semantics.
** Published in Meditation: Waking Up to Life by Americ Azevedo, Cognella Academic Publishing, 2010.

Between birth and death

2010-05-25T07:04:00.000-07:00

Suzuki, in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, gives a wonderful metaphor for life, birth, and death – a waterfall. If you think of a river flowing downstream, it is all one river. When the river reaches the edge of a waterfall, it breaks up into billions of drops of water. The individual life is like one of those drops of water. Our friends and family are those drops of water around us, that fall with us. We see ourselves as separate, individual. Then, at the bottom of the waterfall, we become the river again.

Life happens between the top and the bottom of the waterfall. Birth is that moment we become separate, the span of a life is the time we fall as individual drops of water, death is the moment we merge back together. Unity before birth, separation during life, unity again at death.

Audio Snapshot*

* "Waterfall" (2003) - original audio version of this post. Another version published in my book, Meditation: Awaking Up to Life, Cognella Academic Publishing, 2010.

Becoming human; becoming divine

2010-05-24T09:11:00.000-07:00

Humans have reflective consciousness. This allows us, once in a while, to have the experience of cosmic (non-dual) consciousness; to become divinely human.

Metaphorically speaking, we stand erect with our heads in the sky and our feet on the ground. (I’m not speaking of just the physical frame, but of the relationship with all-that-is. Someone lying down in bed is still human.) A human being holds all the levels needed to connect heaven and earth:

• Consciousness – transcendental awareness

• Awareness – reflective perception

• Mind – simple mapping of environment (world)

• Brain/body – neuro-somatic matrix; ground of experience

Mind and brain/body are the material aspect of humanness; while awareness and consciousness are the spiritual aspects of the human.

Intentional Living

2010-05-23T07:51:00.000-07:00

If you have known how to compose your life,
you have accomplished a great deal more
than the man who knows how to compose a book…
You have done more than the man
who has taken cities and empires.
Montaigne*

A life can be composed, can be intentional. Freedom or liberty implies an inner power to change thought patterns, leading to new words and actions, leading to new life at large. We dynamically walk the path of our life purpose – that means that we change and adjust as we walk along the way. Here are several steps that enhance intentional free living:

• Create an ideal vision of the way your life can be.
• Write and repeat affirmations (a firm, “to make firm”), prayers, or mantras that support you in getting to that ideal vision.
• Make plans to support the steps of realizing each one of these affirmations.
• Externalize/realize. Turn plans into actions (either internal or external).
• Keep observing, re-evaluating where you are. Make adjustments based on feedback from circumstances -- so that your inner power works to change and improve circumstances.**

Circumstances are given to us from the beginning of life; but, at every point we are also changing those circumstances.

_____________________
* Quoted in The Practical Cogitator: The Thinker’s Anthology. Selected and edited by Charles Curtis, Jr. and Ferris Greenslet. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1962. page 85.

* * These steps based on suggestions from Mark Allan’s teachings.

Undivided wholeness

2010-05-22T08:09:00.000-07:00

In the very early phases of the development of civilization, man's views were essentially of wholeness rather than of fragmentation. In the East (especially India) such views still survive, in the sense that philosophy and religion emphasize wholeness and imply the futility of analysis of the world into parts. Why, then, do we not drop our fragmentary Western approach and adopt these Eastern notions which include not only a self-world view that denies division and fragmentation but also techniques of meditation that lead the whole process of mental operation non-verbally to the sort of quiet state of orderly and smooth flow needed to end fragmentation both in the actual process of thought and in its content?

David Bohm*

To know the whole, we begin with fragments and end with a leap of faith to the oneness of all things. Our true work is to realize wholeness within the fragments of our own life. The whole is not a thing – just as the Self is not a thing. Realizing this, we realize all that is. In fact, we become whole; in becoming whole we realize the great human virtue of integrity.

Image: Three Spheres II, by M. C. Esher (lithography, 1946). First suggested to me from page 258 of Douglas Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach. New York, Basic Books, 1979. Oddly enough, Hofstadter was using this image for the idea of Indra’s Net – a metaphor I had not imaged him using in all these years since reading the book.

* Wholeness and the Implicate Order by David Bohm.

Focus on one thing for a while

2010-05-21T09:38:00.000-07:00

Focus on one thing for a while…

Just a little longer than usual

Watch your footsteps on a woodland walk

Sit, follow your in-breath and out-breath

Stand and look into the distance with a quiet mind

Feel the contact between your hands in prayer

When your mind goes elsewhere

Come back to the object of awareness

Moments of peace and stillness come of themselves

Without effort

Doing nothing, everything is done

At our root

We're not the endless thoughts and images

That stream through our minds

At our root

We're limitless beings of light, love, and peace

At our root

Pure consciousness

Vessels have done their job

2010-05-20T10:03:00.000-07:00

The vessels* have done their job.
Gone to the other shore.
Light & free, passing beyond, now.

I asked God for help in writing this book
God gave me a tip
“Get out of the way!”

Liberty is freedom, enlightenment, salvation, fulfillment, and union with all-that-is. Words for liberty keep coming and coming. But, it’s not about words; it’s about realization – about making, being real. I’m reminded of Jesus’ expression about being “born again” in spirit. It may seem like a sudden event, but there is gestation that many take most of a lifetime (of minor openings, grand openings, working on self, laughter, and dropping away of the ego). Who are we after our spiritual rebirth? Perhaps as Jesus suggests, we “become as children again”. In Zen Buddhism it’s said that we recover our “original face”; the face of a young child – open, free, and expressive of love at a moments notice. Our new condition is like pure light with a sense of the oneness of all-that-is. There is only this: this moment now. (+)

* "Vessels" are the containers for wisdom -- the traditions, the religions, and the schools. You get to a point, a place, where you just are wise and live in wisdom. It's spontaneous.

Make a distinction, a universe comes into being

2010-05-19T08:22:00.000-07:00

... a universe comes into being when a space is severed or taken apart. The skin of a living organism cuts off an outside from an inside....

At this stage the universe cannot be distinguished from how we act upon it, and the world may seem like shifting sand beneath our feet.

G. Spencer-Brown*

* Laws of Form.

Only one job - data entry

2010-05-18T07:35:00.000-07:00

Everywhere I go, everyone's work looks like data entry. Workers sitting or standing in front of electronic devices -- inputting or receiving symbolic data. Jobs progressively transforming into "information manipulation". Doctors, lawyers, plumbers, truckers, teachers, students, engineers, store clerks, factory workers, and children -- we're all exchanging text, voice, and graphic data on computer terminals. Someday every job will automatize ; on that day the remaining work will be either data reception or entry. Pay may differ, but the work will look much the same. Hopefully, I'll be wrong!

Take time, now, to return to center

2010-05-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the "monkey mind" gets too busy. There are so many things we feel we have to do now -- as soon as possible. It's painful to "keep up while falling behind". At such moments there's an accelerating feeling (to get more done faster) but no sense of relief in sight. The mind darts around, with divided attention on far too many tasks. This is exactly a moment to pull back; and meditate, pray or contemplate. But something stops you from doing so! It's as if a little voice inside says, "I don't have time now. Wait until later when things get better." Don't listen to that voice. It's like a little child refusing to take a medicine because it does not taste good at first. The mind healing medicine happens to be meditation, prayer, or contemplation. The medicine tastes better after taking it. Go find a quiet place away from your tasks and be alone for ten to fifteen minutes. Settle down. Let go of thoughts as they come. Have faith that you are moving closer to your own quiet center -- that you will be more effective when you return to your activities. A short centering rest does wonders.

As if flowing down a river

2010-05-13T08:45:00.000-07:00

We can live as if flowing down a river.

We could struggle to go faster or slower;

still we are heading toward the Sea of Being,

toward the oneness-of-all-things.

The Way is easy, stress free that goes

along with the river's current.

To struggle against, to resist adds pain

and more than the required suffering.

Surrendering to the river's flow, joining in

the power & love & wisdom of the Source.

Opening to true love

2010-05-11T08:43:00.000-07:00

Our beginning is already our end; and, our end is already our beginning. We came into this world with nothing, no-thing; and, we leave this world with nothing, no-thing. All we have is the limitless openness of consciousness. Even when enlightened, still the world goes on and on. We're within and outside the world; remaining self-realized, filled with compassion, love, and wisdom in daily life. To be free and enlightened is embracing life; it is living more abundantly. The greatest gift is providing space for insight, wisdom and clear action within everyday life. We return from self-discovery's journey, not because we have to, but because we love. Then begins an even greater journey. (+)

Going backward to go forward

2010-05-10T07:44:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I feel so backward. You'll catch me saying phrases such as, "Better to not travel so much...live within a small island-like parameter...you'll shop less...use less fuel...Encourage your children not to go away for college...go to a local school...keeps the family more extended...less expenses as everyone ages". The list goes on! This goes against the grain of hyper-mobile civilization. Yet, it's where we must go: to build a more meaningful, connected localized global culture. Is that so backward? Is it not forward?

Ask for wisdom

2010-05-09T07:36:00.000-07:00

Young king Solomon asked God for wisdom, rather than wealth. God was impressed, so he made Solomon the wisest of kings; giving him wealth as well.

With wisdom there is more time for stillness and less time for needless thinking, chatter, and activity. Power and possessions mean nothing; and, usually bring more distress than we can imagine. Love may get us through the night; but, Wisdom gets us through the day.

My parents gave me a big red leather bound copy of the Bible. It had classic prints of old master paintings depicting scenes from memorable biblical passages. I looked at the prints trying to understand the meaning of the words in the Bible that I had yet understand at all. I just enjoyed holding these mysteries up to the mirror of the mind. The words of King Solomon in Ecclesiastes turned my eyes, mind, heart and soul toward wisdom.

Great sages, humble teachers

2010-05-08T07:39:00.000-07:00

In Ancient China, Lao-Tzu, one of the greatest sages, said, “My mind is so foolish, so simple others look bright. I alone seem dim; others are certain…”* Meanwhile, in Ancient Greece, Socrates visits the Oracle of Delphi, where he asks, “Who’s the wisest man in Athens?” The Oracle responds, “You are!” Stunned, Socrates realized: “If I’m wise, it’s that I know that I don’t know, while others think they know what they don’t know!”

* Tao Te Ching, chapter 20.

Lampshade and light

2010-05-07T07:10:00.000-07:00

Is the disturbing person next door nothing but an "idiot"? Is the boss only out to get us? Are those homeless people merely the untouchables of society? Do we pay attention mostly to clothes and possessions? If so, we're looking at "lampshades". We could instead "see the light and not just the lampshade."* The light in others is also the light within us -- a spark of Consciousness. The Golden Rule found in all great religious traditions becomes totally self-evident. At the core, everyone else is like us. What a marvelous sight to behold! Seeing the light in others spontaneously gives others permission to be all that they can be -- freed from our lampshade-like judgments.

* I've heard this attributed to the Jerry Jampolsky's Attitudinal Healing center.

Arrive where we started

2010-05-06T07:42:00.000-07:00

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

T. S. Eliot
Little Gidding
Four Quartets

philosopher-at-large

A Glimpse

Time, Money, and Love

Working With Intense Feelings

Fear Becoming Love

Water's Way

Lonelier Than Ever

Gifts of Presence

Quiet Lost

Meditation and Society

Holographic Nature of Money

Money Has No Intelligence But Money

Too Much Communication and Not Much Understanding

World is Changing

New Times

International Area Studies Meditation Talk

Meditation Poetry Slam - Fall 2011

E.E. Cummings Reads His "i thank You God for most this amazing day"

Being Right is Not Truth

Occupy Your Mind

Steve Jobs’s last words: ‘Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow’

This Class Not About Meditation - It is Meditation

Desire Behind All Desire

HBO's 'Enlightened' Take On Modern Meditation

Occupy Wall Street Becoming a Mainstream Dialogue

Outremer by Fanny Howe

"Greed is Good" - Wall Street & Beyond

Nicholas Ashford, MIT Economist re: Occupy Wall Street

River of Thoughts

Meditation & the Practice of Law

A Budding Biologist

1 Giant Leap - Trailer for 2nd Film - 2sides2everything

Politics, Leaders, and Followers

Mining Circle Building - Inside View

There's Nothing to Do

Another kind of wealth

Atlantis revisited

The Wayseer Manifesto

Failing into success

Technology and the meaning of life

With what do you buy your money?

Running like snails

Time-Money-Love

My window of time

Brilliant Discussions

Brilliant discussion regarding time

Sierras Wander

Alan Watts: OM The sound of Hinduism part 1a

Dark nights; bright days

Buckminster Fuller - The Final Message

Science & Wonder-The desire to know and the power of imagination

PAPAJI - Consciousness alone is

Without limit

It passes

Resting in the present

Maya time

Changing the world

Soft voice of wisdom

Money and God

Reality as-it-is

Time poverty

Consumerism, community, creativity & consciousness

Mystical woodland walks

Stardust and lightening

We are stardust; we are lightning. --Joni Mitchell*

Timekept timekeepers

Clock time and natural time

Desires power the world

Busy being born

Fields of dreams

Words

A Vision

Political “Idiots”

Morning Dispatches

Space of silence

A humble start

Calling

Holy instant

A Hopi Elder Speaks

Community deficiency disorder

We are stardust; we are lightning.
--Joni Mitchell*