Sensitive People Needed (Unreleased Draft Collection)

The world needs sensitive people
who feel more, getting hurt more easily.
More sensitive people all around
Will spare us from the
unconscious brutishness 
of tougher people
who easily end up running
the show. 

It takes more courage and
to face the world as a
sensitive people more aware
everything going on all around.

Bounded Unbounded Consciousness

Religious wars are fought over what form consciousness should take. In truth, consciousness is unbounded, like the open luminous sky. We tend to identify with the contents of consciousness; so that truth becomes truth within a way of talking and thinking. "This is the only true way. And it is expressed in these document for now and all time." If God be infinite, God would have to become not-God in order to be bounded by the particular documents of certain historic periods - in one particular planet in this vast universe. The truth is in the actions, in the love - not dogmas or doctrines. 

Meaning of Life

Absolute Presence

The infinite limitless boundary between is and is-not

expands ever more - as mind not knowing

when to stop movement. But in stillness, pure

and simple, it allows wholeness. Nothing

more furthers along this path.

Feeling present right here and right now.

Allowing the boundary between outside and inside to drop away.

You may not always live in this state of union with absolute presence.

But, you can unite with it several times a day;

so improving the miraculous quality of your life.

What is better than That?

Our Most Important Task

Who we know, who we love - these reflect who we are. Our most important task is to learn and know the truth - it frees us from illusion. Everyday, every life has infinite un-realized opportunities. Uncertainty is everywhere in a life. We can't control the future. "Live more and more in the Present which is ever beautiful and stretches away beyond the limits of the past and the future." --Meher Baba

Life's Major Decisions

Most of life's major decisions are made against 

a background of immense ignorance.

Reason and intuition must work together

in the face of relentless uncertainty.

A day without email

A day without email; or, messages across the internet. You wake up in the morning and imagine sending a message to someone you know. So abstract yet personal. Maybe, all on the phone? Or, see someone in person. Relate to who is here and now. Our world is abstracted from life. We have forgotten life in our efforts at “connecting” everywhere now and later. The truth lives here and now. This is so simple. Today live “just here and now”. Feeling the hours move on and on. 

After Twenty Minutes

After Twenty Minutes by americ
A reflection, spoken after a twenty minute meditation session at home. An ordinary meditation.

Wake Up!

Wake up! Now is the time. Instant enlightenment comes to those who realize that this life is short. Like a lightening flash in the open sky. So be prepared. Stay awake. Now. Now, and now. Here and now.

We gradually grow into enlightenment - which is the purpose of life. Being patient as well as sensing urgency are important. It takes however long it must take; yet, there needs be enough urgency to constantly remember that today could be the "last day" of our lives. 

Suddenly

Suddenly
Mind is quite as if not there
Like an open sky
Nothing to do
Feeling all done
Walking outside in wonder
Perplexity fades away
Melting into peace and awareness pure

God Is Like An Oxygen

For a few years

I wanted not to "believe" in God.

Now, it's better to "just assume" God.

Questions of existence seem unimportant

and rather philosophical. 

Perfection

There are more cul-de-sacs than final destinations. Is time wasted? No. These are learning opportunities! Breathe and appreciate. The desire for perfection is poisonous. Perfection becomes "perfectionism" - a disease of the soul.

Just Wait

You reach a point, a place where you can’t think or imagine or feel. What do you do? Just wait without expectations – even without hope. Just wait. That is all that’s required. That all there is for a while. A deeper sense of faith begins to dawn in the dark moments – perhaps only a faint memory or image. That is enough. That is the turning around – the place of faith and hope. After the fog of despair and fatigue dispels itself and the you that is really You shines in the early day. You are here now. You are again free. 

Aware of Awareness

Become aware of awareness itself. Treat the "objects of awareness" as content within awareness - coming and going as they will. Such a practice opens up understanding of the changing qualities of awareness. These qualities act as "filters" coloring the objects of awareness. Furthermore, an "object of awareness" can be physical, mental, spiritual, or awareness itself. The separation of subject and object (observer and observed) may occasionally break down, developing into Oneness.   

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Image from http://fearlessstories.com/contributor/awareness/#.T7PQUOj2biQ

Teaching meditation is impossible

Teaching meditation is impossible. It's the "no-teaching" that opens students to meditation. The teacher sets up a situation, a space for meditation. Beyond that, the teacher can inspire and guide students into meditation with a few words and personal example. Teaching meditation is like repeatedly making invitations to a party. Students do what they do - each in a different way. 

Meditation Reggae

A group of radical music sound engineers produced this version of my original audio. They superimposed music onto my words in a previous post. Reggae Meditation  it is. Enjoy!

Perfect dialogue ends in silence

I begin, continue and end my classes with dialogue on many levels. Each class is always different from a previous class. The content of the class changes because different students show up and because I'm different too. The idea of a locked in syllabus, a fixed program of studies is good because people need structure – yet, they also need to explore and make the subject their own. That's where dialogue comes in quite well. 

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, or dharma. 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. Adjust worldviews - incorporating greater information, knowledge, and wisdom.

The perfect dialogue ends in silence; a silence that feels complete in itself. A sense of unity with all-that-is pervades; along with a feeling of completeness.

Deep Stillness

Resolve to live life with a deep quiet inside.

Nothing need be in the mind except an open

field of stillness and quiet. That is the ground,

the mother of all else. Of course, the world as

we know it is full of distraction and desires

pulling us here and there. That cannot be stopped.

But inside yourself is the (hidden) moment before the

universe was created. It contains all possibilities;

including return to divine union with the Creation.

Go back now into deep stillness - for a few minutes.

The world will again appear fresh.

Meditation, Prayer, and Contemplation

Life Axioms

1 Keep it simple

2 Be direct

3 Know when to quit

4 Breathe deeply and often

5 Allow it all to work out

6 Control with no-control

Tone of Silence

I talked with Glenn about silence. We came to an understanding that there is a tone, a basic tone that we can tune to.  

Glenn, “But you have to be still and quiet to hear that tone. It's like music flowing through us.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Let's have three moments of silence.”

“Yes.”

As the moments of silence came, I saw the mind weave in and out of silence for a period of time.

There is a clearing

Beyond what is, not away from it but before it, 
there is still something else that happens. 
In the midst of beings as a whole an open place occurs. 
There is a clearing, a lighting…. 
This open center is … not surrounded by what is; 
rather, the lighting center itself encircles all that is…. 
Only this clearing grants and guarantees 
to human beings a passage to those entities 
that we ourselves are not, 
and access to the being that we ourselves are.*
                                   - Martin Heidegger

* From passages selected/translated by Hubert L. Dreyfus.The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger. Edited by Charles B. Guignon. Cambridge University Press, 1993. Page 296.

Three Pillars of Good Society

Talking to Myself

While shaving in the morning, I noticed I was rushing. Why was I rushing? I had no fixed appointment for the day. I realized that many years of early morning commuting trying to catch the subway to the city had, in fact, embedded the habit of rushing while shaving. Here was the rushing without reason to rush.
I started talking to myself silently, "Say you!" Looking more deeply at myself in the mirror. "Yes, you! You are rushing. Why are you doing that? You've no reason to rush. You're free now. No appointments or schedule today."

I relaxed, wondering about this. My self-voice continues, "See it's not so bad talking to yourself. You're not mad. Besides you can mention this in your philosopher-at-large blog." There I was, talking to my best friend (and sometimes worst enemy). Certainly, it was not madness - as long as I know what I'm doing.

Talking to one's self has practical value -- beats listening to the radio, which eliminates the possibility of tuning into channel KSELF! Of course, we are not always ready for so much self-knowledge -- that's a lifework.

Most Distant Course

It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself, and that training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune.

The traveller has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.

My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said `Here art thou!'

The question and the cry `Oh, where?' melt into tears of a thousand streams and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance `I am!'

                  ~~~ Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali, #12 ~~~

Doing Nothing Day

It's Thanksgiving. Dropped into Whole Foods Markets early morning. Saw a copy of Adbusters Magazine - last page suggesting November 29 as "Do Nothing Day", a total contrast to Black Friday commercialism. #donothingday on Twitter. Inspired this audio suggesting a weekly do nothing day - a real day of rest from our commercial techno-culture.

Questions of Existence

“Why do we exist?” “Why is there something rather than nothing?” These are questions of being. Questions remarkably productive to ask simply because they are bottomless, without final answers. Questions of existence pull us out of ordinary life – putting our lives into “question” - and, bringing us into silence.
(Professional philosophers may consider questions leading silence unproductive and even dangerous. But a philosopher-at-large does not worry about that; she or he may find wells of wisdom in that silent stillness.)
So, be silent and wait. Wait without expectation. The unexpected may come without invitation.

Dreaming of Socrates (unreleased draft series)

Sometimes I dream of being a Socrates. To live out the ideal of dialogue as the prime tool for intellectual exploration via collaborative intelligence. Socrates did not write; instead, he was a master of dialogue. People came to him becoming totally disarmed after realizing that they did not know what they thought they knew. Socrates himself did not claim knowledge; only divine wisdom - the knowledge of knowing that he did not know. His dialogues may have not netted definitive answers, but they did yield death of thought and exploration into a subject. Even more, Socrates demonstrated real thinking on his part, and demanded the same from everyone else. So, to be in a "Socratic dialogue" was (and is) one of the most exciting learning experiences anyone can undertake. It does not always work, but when it does it is memorable.

His work was to get beyond mere opinion to truth. Rarely did he say "this is it".

Rather, the process itself was enough to satisfy the love-urge for wisdom.

Asking question.
Digging into doubts at every turn. Until everyone's minds are on fire.
Alive with desire to understand.

This was Socratic dialogue -- an act of intellectual midwifery.

Robots, Humans, and Gods (unreleased draft series)

Once upon a time, I would think intensely about robots. They are the "zombie" aspect of the human being. Human's are spirit - that's what makes us human. Robot's are matter looking like spirit. Of course, someday a robot will be spirit, so it will also be human. That will be something. We become as gods. Paraphrasing somebody else): We better be good at being gods! If not, lots of deep trouble. 

We Don't Know Anything (unreleased draft series)

I must know myself if I am to be free. That is the first and hardest thing to do. Listen deeply, ever deeply to the soft sweet voice of the heart. It is kind, quiet, and filled with tears of love - just love. All that is in this physical world passes away. We are given a life and the possibility living with dignity and integrity within daily circumstances. Just live with trust. If you need to change your life, and your heart tells you that it's true, then do it with all of your heart. No one is there to judge except yourself.

Shel Silverstein - Forgotten Language

Forgotten Language ©

Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly
in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers
How did it go?
How did it go?

YOU ARE NOT ...

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.

Knowing and Speaking Reality (unreleased draft series)

Knowing reality is not the same as speaking reality. No one returns from the clear vision of reality who can give a lecture or write a book about it.


The vision of reality is not transmitted with words.

Knowledge of reality is clouded by thoughts, emotions, health issues, social environments and the weather.


Knowing reality is like standing outside yourself.

That is ecstasy. Don't confuse ecstasy with elated mind states. Ecstasy is "standing outside yourself". It could be quiet and peaceful.

Big “Self” and little “self"

It’s often said, “Be true to yourself.” Easy to say. But, what is the “self”. It’s not an object. And, there are different notions of “self” floating around. Often you’ll see a distinction between the little “self” and the big “Self”. If I go back to India and the Vadas, I find that the word Atman corresponds to the big self, the Self with the capital “S”. This Atman is related to the Brahman (what may be called the Oversoul, or field of infinite potential actualizing as all that is). 

But, for us, the self is the ego – that sense of being separate from those around us. That sense of separation, the self as ego, is most useful for survival in the worlds of society and nature. Yet, it can cause isolation and puzzlement about the meaning of our lives. The self-ego knows that it's existence is tentative and always at risk. This is hard. Hence, our need for transcendence beyond the little self to the Big self. 

Einstein's Office - Last Day (unreleased draft series)

http://time.com/3879070/albert-einstein-last-photo-taken-of-his-princeton-office/

Resting in the present

“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.

Always Beginning, Always Ending

This moment: always beginning, always ending. 
Pulling us in; pulling us away. 

Become still within; even while in the world.

The body is a platform. 
Strengthen the body. 
Eat good food, exercise.

Feed the mind true ideas.
Surrender to love. 

Go backwards in time

"A long time ago I discovered it’s best to go backwards in time. As years mounted up, I became more playful, more flexible. It seems that's the best way toward a good long life. It now appears that I'm getting younger while you're getting older!" - Merlyn Aya

Today's Today

Often we forget that today is here.
We pass from day to day not noticing
that it is today.
Never again will it be "today's today". 

Indra's Net

The Net of Indra is a profound and subtle metaphor for the structure of reality.  Imagine a vast net; at each crossing point there is a jewel; each jewel is perfectly clear and reflects all the other jewels in the net, the way two mirrors placed opposite each other will reflect an image ad infinitum.… Every jewel is intimately connected with all other jewels in the universe, and a change in one jewel means a change, however slight, in every other jewel…. Once, when someone praised Gandhi for his compassionate politics, he answered, “I am here to serve no one else but myself, to find my own self realization through the service of others.”

Stephen Mitchell

The Enlightened Mind: An Anthology of Sacred Prose

New View of Reality

Plato described our existential situation as being like people chained to our seats in a movie theater, facing the silver screen. Thus, we confuse images on the screen for reality. Suppose, one of us breaks loose of the chains that tie us to the screen. We turn around and for the first time see our situation for what it is? Would not our friends question our “new” view of reality?

Who

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.

Seconds in a Day

One day = 24 hours

24 hours = 1,440 minutes

1,440 minutes = 86,400 seconds

 
Don't we all say that “a second can feel like an eternity"? That means we have the opportunity to experience an “eternity” 86,400 times a day. Not bad!

Twenty Seconds

“My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel — it is, before all, to make you see. That — and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you shall find there according to your deserts: encouragement, consolation, fear, charm — all you demand; and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask.” 

- Joseph Conrad

Eternal Turning

How do you catch a moment?
Can you put it in a glass bottle?
How do you breathe life into an image?
Can you look at it until it lives?
What is life, anyway?
Is it the eternal turning over of the Soul?
Round and round we go. 

Desires power the world

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.

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.

Magic Powers

Merlyn, it doesn't seem like anything changes. Maybe little events in the day are different, but the same everyday life that I experience just continues to drag me along. I've been really sad lately, Wiz. I was hurt recently by someone I really care about. What happened between us broke my heart. Now, it's like my heart hurts all the time. Well, until something happens to help me forget. The problem is that it's only temporary and in the end, I always feel the same way.

Merlyn: Listen to me, Haku. I am old now. My heart was broken many times; I gave away my heart in wild enthusiasm. Looking back now, what else could have happened? Love does not know boundaries. Love stumbles around wanting to be open. As years passed, I came to value all those heartaches as sweet nectars of wisdom...

Merlyn: Wow! The output keeps coming. I thought I was done with this kind of thing at my age. I thought I was just going to recycle old stuff. I am old stuff! Where's it coming from?

You're not old! You can go backwards through time, Merlyn. That means you must be getting younger.

Merlyn: And, you, Haku, are getting older.

So then one day, we'll both be the same age?

Merlyn: Yes. That will be good.

Pivot of the World

Standing still, you become the pivot of the world, you become a leader, you become whole and holy, and you come to peace beyond all logic and understanding.

Soft voice of wisdom

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

Go Now, Go Now

Everything changes
nothing abides
Go now, go now
into the nowness

Waiting Line Enlightenment

Every long waiting line provides opportunities to be either impatient or patient. Sooner or later impatience drops away into surrender to waiting without expectation. Gradually you become free. You may even laugh. Waiting lines - pathways to enlightenment.

In Our Heads

Our minds are trainable. But we must also discipline our bodies with gentle breathing and movements to get out of our heads. Academic people - students and teachers alike - suffer from being too much in their heads. 

Oneness Consciousnesses Cultivation

Take five minutes now to bring mind to oneness. Do this often during the day. Ideal is five times. But, each day is different. No need to be dogmatic. Some days, no meditation at all. That's okay. The desire for meditation will come back again. You will miss it. Watch how things change with and without meditation.

Unbounded Knowledge

Universities and colleges put boundaries on knowledge. All the arts, letters, sciences are bound within divisions and departments. Of course there is too much knowledge for any one person to grasp. Still, I wonder if we could better serve education by keeping in mind that the fragmentation of knowledge is a convenience not a reality. Real knowledge is unbounded. The mind is happiest when it glimpses the interconnection of all things.

Settle the Mind

Settle the mind;
the Unconditioned Self arises.
Illusions become transparent.
Deep reality shines through.

Life Lives Us

We don’t live life, life lives us.

It’s an error to think “I’m in control”.  Don’t even think about it. Live naturally.

A young person may say, “I’ll never get married.” Than they are soon thereafter, married with a child or two!

Another youth says, “I’ll never be so conservative when I get old.” But when they get old they do the things, are things that they had rejected. 

The seasons of life express themselves through us.

The Cloud - by Shelley

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, 

From the seas and the streams; 

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid 

In their noonday dreams. 

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken 

The sweet buds every one, 

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, 

As she dances about the sun. 

I wield the flail of the lashing hail, 

And whiten the green plains under, 

And then again I dissolve it in rain, 

And laugh as I pass in thunder. 

I sift the snow on the mountains below, 

And their great pines groan aghast; 

And all the night 'tis my pillow white, 

While I sleep in the arms of the blast. 

Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers, 

Lightning my pilot sits; 

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, 

It struggles and howls at fits; 

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, 

This pilot is guiding me, 

Lured by the love of the genii that move 

In the depths of the purple sea; 

Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, 

Over the lakes and the plains, 

Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, 

The Spirit he loves remains; 

And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue smile, 

Whilst he is dissolving in rains. 

The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes, 

And his burning plumes outspread, 

Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, 

When the morning star shines dead; 

As on the jag of a mountain crag, 

Which an earthquake rocks and swings, 

An eagle alit one moment may sit 

In the light of its golden wings. 

And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, 

Its ardours of rest and of love, 

And the crimson pall of eve may fall 

From the depth of Heaven above, 

With wings folded I rest, on mine aëry nest, 

As still as a brooding dove. 

That orbèd maiden with white fire laden, 

Whom mortals call the Moon, 

Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, 

By the midnight breezes strewn; 

And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, 

Which only the angels hear, 

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, 

The stars peep behind her and peer; 

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, 

Like a swarm of golden bees, 

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, 

Till calm the rivers, lakes, and seas, 

Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, 

Are each paved with the moon and these. 

I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone, 

And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl; 

The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, 

When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. 

From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, 

Over a torrent sea, 

Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, 

The mountains its columns be. 

The triumphal arch through which I march 

With hurricane, fire, and snow, 

When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair, 

Is the million-coloured bow; 

The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove, 

While the moist Earth was laughing below. 

I am the daughter of Earth and Water, 

And the nursling of the Sky; 

I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; 

I change, but I cannot die. 

For after the rain when with never a stain 

The pavilion of Heaven is bare, 

And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams 

Build up the blue dome of air, 

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, 

And out of the caverns of rain, 

Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, 

I arise and unbuild it again. 

Gratitude to the Poetry Froundation

Wisdom & Enlightenment / Americ Azevedo + Josh

A soundscape for the mind, heart, and soul.

Flowers and Stones

Café Samadhi

Café Samadhi

     sunrise a'coming

I sit back

     in quiet wonder

     hearing the OM

     of refrigerators

     soft morning wake up jazz

     workers making espresso drinks

Café Samadhi

     stillness within-without

     worlds motionless

     I am the motion

     I am the stillness

Friend!

     You are the One

     Remember that!

The Whole Thing

Each of the sentences I write is trying to say the whole thing, i.e., the same thing over and over again; it is as though they were all simply views of one object seen from different angles.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
Culture and Value
Translated by Peter Winch

Always a Beginner

I began a long time ago believing in magic, but did not know real magic. I thought magic was a set of powers that could transform the world. You think of something and it happens. That would be magic. As I got older I believed that “you would think of something and nothing would happen”. To think this way was my first and most dangerous mistake. For most of my life, afterwards, I was too worried about what people thought I could do and not-do. A deadly mistake. This is the mistake that rules the world - that causes us to surrender our inner wisdom to others.

Thinking is not doing. To think that way is already lethal to aliveness. We are alive to the extent that we feel where we are, where we have been, and where we are going. That is the nature of sentient being-hood. We are all creators of ourselves and each other. None of us is along. We are all teachers and guides for each other.  

So, I say to myself and feel to myself that I am “always a beginner”. That means: I am allowed to make “mistakes” and that you are allowed to make mistakes. Beginners must make mistakes. There are no mistakes - only exploration. We must fumble around to figure to map the territory. “The sun is new each day”, as Heraclitus, the great Greek pre-socratic, may have said. So today, we are new again. Let this new day be a new you!

Go Deeper

Today, go deeper into your meditation. 

Look for the quiet zones between your thoughts. Expand these moments of quiet.

Meditation installment plan

When I first practiced meditation long ago, it was highly recommended that we practice two times daily - twenty minutes each time for a total of forty minutes a day. These days most college students find it almost impossible to carve out two twenty minute blocks without creating more stress in the rest of their lives. For these people, I recommend a "meditation installment plan". 

For example, attempt eight minute meditations, five times a day. It's an installment program! One could try eight minutes in (1) early morning, (2) late morning, (3) early afternoon, (4) sunset time, and (5) in the evening. 
Don't be dogmatic - be flexible. Find forty minutes total on a given day. Could be two, three or four somewhat longer installments.

Invite a friend in person, via text, or on the phone to meditate. A designated time keeper helps. Simply contact them, set up a time together, do the meditation, and do a follow up check-in. 

There you have it, a meditation installment program for our busy times!  

Which Will It Be?

Only one body
   but many places
         to be

Only one life
         so many
    possibilities

this or that
which will it
         be?

nothing to do

Nothing to do, no place to go
Time passing without limit
Dropping back into the ocean of Being
   here and now
“I want to say or do something profound!”
Instead, know the truth:

   It does not matter what I do now
   except to allow doing-not-doing
   to take over

Let the breaths in and out,
come and go. That is enough
Relax now
I’ve waited all my life
for this moment
Why pass it up? 

Growth God (unreleased)

Economics is deeply embedded with "more is better". Growth output is a god. Everything feels better when there is economic growth. It's easier to get work or grow a business. Everyone loves getting more money. Most find it impossible to imagine being happy in a world of declining income and resources. Sameness is not "enough", it's growth we want. More technology, more services, more energy, more wealth - forget expenses against mother earth. free time, community, and connection to earth and cosmos. 

The Growth God is not based in capitalism but in the seeds of unlimited desire within us. A spiritual distress that is epidemic to humans with their always creating more possibilities monkey mind. 

Unknowns

Time-Money-Love

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.

Again and Again

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

Audio spoken shortly after Steve Jobs' death on October 5, 2011.

Steve Jobs's last words were reported in the news shortly after his death. 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) .

Zen Things

The Cosmos

End of Time

Eternal Life

"The eternal life is given to those who  

live in the present"  

~ Ludwig Wittenstein ~ 

(as quoted in Zen Calendar, April 10, 2011)  

Presence is eternal

There is only one present moment