The Wayseer Manifesto

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

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.

With what do you buy your money?

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

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.

My window of time

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

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)

Related post:
Brilliant discussion regarding time

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

Brilliant discussion regarding time

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)

Related post:
Brilliant Discussions

Image from Corbis.com online catalogue.

Sierras Wander

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!

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

Without limit

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

Maya time

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

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.

Reality as-it-is

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.)

Consumerism, community, creativity & consciousness

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

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

Clock time and natural time

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.

Busy being born

He not busy being born

Is busy dying

- Bob Dylan*

---

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

Words

Audio comments on the nature of words:

Words

Political “Idiots”

"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

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.