Three Urban Deer

Glenn Matson Meditating

1934-2017

Glenn was my friend for forty years.

Poetry Heals

Unending Love - by Rabindranath Tagore

Unending Love - by Rabindranath Tagore

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,
Its ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:
You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played along side millions of lovers, shared in the same
Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you
The love of all man’s days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.
The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours –
And the songs of every poet past and forever.

© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes

Memories of a Sierra Nevada Summer

the winter cold wanes

bits of orange flame spray through slush

Indian Paintbrush

Be In Wonder

be in wonder

like a child again

embrace life

Salutation of the Dawn - Kalidasa 2500 BC

Salutation of the Dawn

Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life,
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence:

The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendor of beauty,
For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow only a vision,
But today well lived makes every yesterday
a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to this day!
Such is the salutation of the dawn.

~ Kalidasa (2500 BC Sanskrit)

Technology and the meaning of life

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?

For "God" to be God

Life and death animate deep feelings... Confront this complementary pair of opposites... You can't see life without death...  If you bring God into this picture there is only Life... For "God" to be God ... God becomes an eternal standing outside/inside our world of relative time... We can be rid of words such as "God"... but not being... presence... consciousness... And, yet, what do we know? 

My Bambo Flute

My bambo flute
Moving Fall's air beyond a
Place and time

Marble Universe

Name and Reality

Name and Reality

"What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet."

                        ~ Shakespeare

What's a name? A symbol that points to something beyond itself (as a symbol). On any single day our minds are flooded with symbolic thoughts that pull us away from direct experience. Education can be harmful to the intuitive-feeling levels of perception and understanding. Meditation helps clear away some of our thoughts, words, images, and desires. We improve our chances touching the ground of reality.

 

Buddha Drinks Tequila

Japan Sunset

Japan Sunset

Universe Communicating

The Universe is vast -
and bigger than
we can imagine.
But love is greater.

The Universe is always 

communicating with us. 

It's our job to listen.

Fire And Rain - James Taylor

Water

Natural Disaster - Loudon Wainwright III

Pete Seeger - "Forever Young"

Deep Reality

Human brains are somewhat fuzzy. Our bodies are not the all that strong. We walk around on two feet. Our eyes don’t see in the dark. Our bodies are not the strongest. It takes many years for us to mature enough to be able to live without our parents.

Reality seems endlessly deep. How do we get to the bottom or is it (reality).
Dictionary definition of reality: (in ethology) the world as it is experienced by a particular organism. Brooke Gladstone’s little book, The Trouble with Reality introduced me to the word “umwelt”. A word that suggests the idea that different animals living on the same patch of earth have radically different experiences of the same local environment.

Uses of philosophy

Life is complex and uncertain. Modern & post-modern life is much more complex than 2,000 to 5,000 years ago. The pace of change makes it difficult to "get a handle" to "feel the ground under our feet". Philosophy is simply the love of wisdom. And, wisdom is a deep clear sense of understanding (standing under) all that is happening and being. To philosophize is to map the all-that-is, even including what seems to transcend the world. I started doing philosophy as a young person. I'd study different philosophical schools and systems. Later, I created my own philosophy. This was my quest, my love for wisdom. Something beyond ordinary knowledge. Eventually, I got academic degrees in philosophy. That seemed impractical. But, I learned a holistic way of thinking that lead to a wonderful set of careers and life paths. Much more on this later.

Full Moon in August

The Old Farmer's Almanac

Knowing When to Quit

It's okay not to succeed. By acknowledging the value of failure we can open the door to true success. We can be kinder, more loving. Knowing when to quit is as important as knowing when to start. Dogged persistence is often encouraged, at the expense of community. It takes time and persistence to accomplish noble projects in life - such as raising a sane healthy child. Knowing when to quit is wise. Keep things from getting too complex. You may start a project and quickly realize that it's a waste of time. The best action may be to turn around and walk away.

David Bohm Interview on Nature of Particle Physics

Touching Ground

Touching Ground

“Too often, people think that solving the world’s problems is based on conquering the earth, rather than touching the earth, touching ground.”

- Chogyam Trungpa*

Long ago, while walking home from grade school, among the dairy farms of Los Angeles County, I invented a game with myself. While walking on the sidewalk, I started paying attention to the dark lines between the slabs of concrete. Keeping attention, on these lines one after another. Soon, I noticed my attention flying away toward daydreams or solving problems at school or home. Over and over in my mind, I'd return to the dark lines between the concrete slabs. How long could I stay concentrated on those lines? That was my first concentration practice.

Almost 60-plus years later I still play that same game, but using the feeling of my feet on the ground instead. I contemplate, how long can I stay feeling my feet touch ground?

Students, professionals, and business people now spend the majority of their working hours looking at luminous screens, while ignoring the numinous quality of "nowness". Computers and handheld devices are becoming the "place" of work and play. Always connected, we are increasingly at work or play through electronic screens. We do not "touch ground" – instead, we are imagining ground though our screens.

While a graduate student in Philosophy, I wondered where to find wisdom… for I did not find it in academic philosophy. It dawned upon me that Buddha found, lived, and expressed wisdom. Fortunately, a special visitor from Tibet paid a visit.

Chogyam Trungpa showed up to speak in Jacob Needlman's philosophy of religion class. This was the early 1970's. Trungpa was newly arrived in San Francisco - fresh from the publication of his first book, Born in Tibet. Dressed in a blazer, turtle neck shirt, and a can of Coca Cola in hand. Not my image of an Eastern guru! An unforgettable moment.

Years later, I met with four cousins - sons of my father's step brother - at my father's funeral reception. They had all emigrated from the Azores Islands as teenagers. One told me about working the farmlands bare foot. They felt the earth all day long. Apparently, the pre-colonial native people of the San Francisco Bay area, the Ohlone, walked barefoot all day long with feet naturally callused.

The "horse stance" is basic training in Qi Gong. Stand with legs somewhat apart and let the body drop down toward the earth. Eyes looking into the horizon. Hands slightly in font. Feeling feet on the ground. Just standing. The horse stance may look easy, but the inner attention is extremely difficult to stabilize. Over and over one forgets to stay with feet feeling the ground - as attention flies into dreams and thoughts. With much practice, we start standing firm and still on our feet in full presence.

Getting up in the morning is a most honest time. We are not trying to please anyone yet. Just waking up. Stumbling around a bit. A moment of presencing. A great time to practice and get stronger in presence.

The present is an infinitesimal slice of time's vast ocean of past and future. Our ground begins and ends right here and now. This is where we assemble and clean up our life. For as Trungpa suggests, "Nowness, or the magic of the present moment, is what joins the wisdom of the past with the present."

By being grounded on this earth we become more present to one another by expressing love, care, and compassion. The "other" is also part of "the ground". It is "all one". They are "us" and we are "them". But how do we stay touching the ground? Practice, practice, practice. The "hard" part is to let it be easy. Over time there's a growing sense of joy at being grounded. We naturally want that - and that allows the fullness of life to unfold.

A good society, an enlightened society, naturally spends time touching the earth, touching ground. No need go anywhere, except the journey to here and now. Start today: spend an hour each day touching ground. If we all did this, a good society would emerge like daisies in a green field of spring grass. The earth itself would be our healer.

So right now, right here, as I write and as you read - let's feel ourselves touching ground.

-------------------------

* Taken from from the last paragraph, Chapter Eleven of Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior.

Tree of Life

After my mother's passing, I began drawing images of the tree of life. It's one of the two trees mentioned in the biblical Garden of Eden story - the tree of life & the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Mother was my first tree of life. I did not know that while she lived. We often know what we have until it's gone.

I'm reminded of the following lines from Joni Mitchell's hit song "Big Yellow Taxi"

They took all the trees
And put them in a tree museum

And they charged all the people

A dollar and a half to see 'em

Don't it always seem to go

That you don't know what you've got

'Till it's gone

They paved paradise

And they put up a parking lot

Touching Ground (Inspired by Chogyam Trungpa)

“Too often, people think that solving the world’s problems is based on conquering the earth, rather than touching the earth, touching ground.”

- Chogyam Trungpa*

Long ago, while walking home from grade school, among the dairy farms of Los Angeles County, I invented a game with myself. While walking on the sidewalk, I started paying attention to the dark lines between the slabs of concrete. Keeping attention, on these lines one after another. Soon, I noticed my attention flying away toward daydreams or solving problems at school or home. Over and over in my mind, I'd return to the dark lines between the concrete slabs. How long could I stay concentrated on those lines? That was my first concentration practice.

Almost 60-plus years later I still play that same game, but using the feeling of my feet on the ground instead. I contemplate, how long can I stay feeling my feet touch ground?

Students, professionals, and business people now spend the majority of their working hours looking at luminous screens, while ignoring the numinous quality of "nowness". Computers and handheld devices are becoming the "place" of work and play. Always connected, we are increasingly at work or play through electronic screens. We do not "touch ground" – instead, we are imagining ground though our screens.

While a graduate student in Philosophy, I wondered where to find wisdom… for I did not find it in academic philosophy. It dawned upon me that Buddha found, lived, and expressed wisdom. Fortunately, a special visitor from Tibet paid a visit.

Chogyam Trungpa showed up to speak in Jacob Needlman's philosophy of religion class. This was the early 1970's. Trungpa was newly arrived in San Francisco - fresh from the publication of his first book, Born in Tibet. Dressed in a blazer, turtle neck shirt, and a can of Coca Cola in hand. Not my image of an Eastern guru! An unforgettable moment.

Years later, I met with four cousins - sons of my father's step brother - at my father's funeral reception. They had all emigrated from the Azores Islands as teenagers. One told me about working the farmlands bare foot. They felt the earth all day long. Apparently, the pre-colonial native people of the San Francisco Bay area, the Ohlone, walked barefoot all day long with feet naturally callused.

The "horse stance" is basic training in Qi Gong. Stand with legs somewhat apart and let the body drop down toward the earth. Eyes looking into the horizon. Hands slightly in font. Feeling feet on the ground. Just standing. The horse stance may look easy, but the inner attention is extremely difficult to stabilize. Over and over one forgets to stay with feet feeling the ground - as attention flies into dreams and thoughts. With much practice, we start standing firm and still on our feet in full presence.

Getting up in the morning is a most honest time. We are not trying to please anyone yet. Just waking up. Stumbling around a bit. A moment of presencing. A great time to practice and get stronger in presence.

The present is an infinitesimal slice of time's vast ocean of past and future. Our ground begins and ends right here and now. This is where we assemble and clean up our life. For as Trungpa suggests, "Nowness, or the magic of the present moment, is what joins the wisdom of the past with the present."

By being grounded on this earth we become more present to one another by expressing love, care, and compassion. The "other" is also part of "the ground". It is "all one". They are "us" and we are "them". But how do we stay touching the ground? Practice, practice, practice. The "hard" part is to let it be easy. Over time there's a growing sense of joy at being grounded. We naturally want that - and that allows the fullness of life to unfold.

A good society, an enlightened society, naturally spends time touching the earth, touching ground. No need go anywhere, except the journey to here and now. Start today: spend an hour each day touching ground. If we all did this, a good society would emerge like daisies in a green field of spring grass. The earth itself would be our healer.

So right now, right here, as I write and as you read - let's feel ourselves touching ground.

-------------------------

* Taken from from the last paragraph, Chapter Eleven of Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior.

Dialogue with Glenn Matson

A dialogue with Glenn Matson on "Dialogue"

Oh Holy One! Hear my prayer, my plea!

Oh Holy One! Hear my prayer, 
    my plea!
You who are the greatest.
You who are so beautiful, 
    so beautiful.
Be with me and my beloved one 
    all my days of life.
Let peace be everywhere on earth.
Grant me enough wisdom to 
    follow your still quiet voice -
today, tomorrow, and beyond.

Unknown Unknowns - Donald Rumsfeld testimony

“There are known knowns – 

these are things we know we know. 

There are known unknowns….

these are the things we know we do not know. 

But there are also unknown unknowns; 

these are the things we don't know we don't know.” 

Donald Rumsfeld

Former United States Secretary of Defense [1]

---

[1] Engineering: A Very Short Introduction. David Blockley. Oxford University Press. © 2012. Page 98. 

Playfulness

Horses - Cave Painting

(source unknown)

Body-Mind-Spirit

We can create many models of the human experience. 

Here's a model based on three concepts:

body, mind, and spirit. Here presented in the form of a Venn diagram*.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venn_diagram

War and Peace

Everything and Nothing

Where do we start counting? Is it at number one? Not really. It starts at nothing; i.e. zero. The number zero is between the positive and negative numbers on the number line. This is quite beautiful. Zero is neither negative or positive. Most people usually begin with the number “one” - they also don’t think of negative or positive numbers. Zero and negative numbers had to be in invented to deal with the mathematical mapping of our daily reality.  So, we start with nothing and move on to more or less than nothing.

Everything has a beginning within imagination. Something may happen. Energy changes forms, shapes and states. Energy can be everything and nothing. Out of a mysterious void something emerges. Here and now we are!  Amazing, amazing. The way up and the way down are the same. To have a beginning implies that there will be an end. Today, begin by being here now!

Sometimes in the middle of the night

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  

Fields of light and love  

     endless, deep, safe, eternal 

Encased in Technologies

We're encased in technologies of our own making.  I knew a man who took his satellite dish and television on camping trips. 

It's the "age of technology".  We're encased in technologies of our own making.  If you are reading these notes, you're already embedded in a world of technological objects - some of which may even be embedded in you.   Two or three hundred years ago you'd likely be living on a farm or small village. In a short walk, you'd be out in "nature". Now we use transportation machines to get "out" to nature.  So, we drive (not walk) out to the country or the woods.  The automobile may be there near the camp site.  I knew one man who took his satellite dish and television on camping trips.  

Nature has always been a problem to overcome - so as to make ourselves more safe and comfortable.  Because of our soft-wired brains, we keep inventing and transmitting new ways to make life more comfortable and safe.  We use one device after another (i.e., telephones, cell phones, cars, elevators, etc.) We’re embedded in an ocean of devices of our own making.  The quest for the perfect life via technology is an ever receding horizon. 

----------------------------------------------------------------
Holo Sutra © by Americ Azevedo,  2014.05.04 (final unedited draft)  Page 54

Buffalo Dusk 

BY CARL SANDBURG

The buffaloes are gone.

And those who saw the buffaloes are gone.

Those who saw the buffaloes by thousands and how they pawed the prairie sod into dust with their hoofs, their great heads down pawing on in a great pageant of dusk,

Those who saw the buffaloes are gone.

And the buffaloes are gone.

Source: The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg (Harcourt Brace Iovanovich Inc., 1970)
As sited by The Poetry Foundation.

Cave Paintings

The Inbetween

I have heard and read that Tibetan Buddhists believe that upon death the body’s spirit goes to an in-between state called the bardo. This is a period after death when consciousness is disconnected from the body. The soul’s disembodied state while awaiting rebirth. It is a time of potentially frightening visions. Eventually the spirit or consciousness finds a body to enter - rebirth occurs. A new incarnation that may reflect the development and lessons learned in previous lifetimes.

   Even within our current embodied lives we experience mini-bardo states such as being between jobs, between morning and afternoon, between life partners, between home and workplace, etc.

   These in-between places give us deep insights into reality.

Seventh Day

Street Deer

Saw this deer (and its shadow) walking the street.

Teaching Engineering Ethics

I was the instructor for an Engineering Ethics course offered by the Engineering Department at the University of California at Berkeley. The first day of class was a "disaster". No one talked! Miraculously, on the second day everyone engaged in non-stop talk. Some students stayed after class, to continue the dialogue. They where phenomenal. Bright young people with so many great ideas for improving the world. These young people gave me faith in the future.

Why the change in student response. Well, the first day I was "the expert". But on the second day, I treated the students as experts. I wanted to listen to them, rather than myself. That was all the difference in the world. We learned what we needed to learn, but we did it together. I stopped acting like the center, and allowed everyone to be "at center". It worked!

Freedom

Embrace Life

Start your day in wonder

be like a child again

embrace life

Naomi Klein: How to Resist Trump's Shock Doctrine

Summer Flowers

(source unknown)

I'm excited about who I really am!

I'm excited about who I really am!

     No, I didn't just find out

     I am Bill Gate's daughter,

     or win a prize,

     or graduate with honors;

It's much more subtle than that.

I found out, well,

there are no words to express it.

I found out I am happiness

     through and through,

     except when I forget it.

    

I found out I can love

     more and more

          and more and more

                     and more.

Yes, there are no words;

     and I am eternally grateful:

     Grateful that I,

     Grateful that I am that I am,

     Grateful I am that,

Grateful I am God's Love Shining.

                   ~ Diane Shavelson

Al Franken On God

Always Remember

always
remember
who you
really
are.
sit...
... wait
for "instructions."

Ocean of Faith

New Words, New Worlds pt 3

Robert Frost - Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

Can You Remember

I have arrived

Glenn Matson Remembered

I knew Glenn Matson for 40 years. He was my best friend. Recently found this photograph taken at Peet's Coffee near Lake Shore in Oakland, California. We maintained contact everyday by phone; even during his yearly travels across the country from California to his summer home base in Minnesota. He was a man of few words, but deep spirituality. Many people where influenced by him. He passed away last year on January 8th, 2017. He was in his eighty's  Still saying goodbye.