Walt Whitman - "Go Directly to the Creation" - Americ and Walts' Prediction for our future

Wonderful lines from Walt Whitman's preface to his 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass:

This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body. . . . The poet shall not spend his time in unneeded work. He shall know that the ground is always ready ploughed and manured. . . . others may not know it but he shall. He shall go directly to the creation.

"Time Poverty" Published in 2016 - Reposted now in 2024...per usual you were right Americ.

 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.

My Ally is the Force 8/26/16

Thank you Professor. (Haku edit on 12/8/23: We need this more than ever)

Stars and Atoms

We quest for knowledge of stars and atoms, forgetting the knowledge of Life and soul; and, recklessly subduing the earth and each other. It’s time for a new alliance of humans, earth, and cosmos; and humble submission to the Source of all-that-is. 

Stardust

During my first year of elementary school, a little girl named Sherry often met me on the playground. She was an outcast with wild unkempt golden hair who talked in slow whispers. The kids made fun of me for talking with her. One day she brought a little book with a picture of a star. She said, “We come from there.” Yes, the substance of our bodies is stardust condensed from the heavens. We are in the heavens; someone in another solar system could be looking our way.

The First Miracle

The First Miracle is that the universe exists. Second, is that there’s consciousness. Third that there is self-reflective, self-referring awareness. Fourth, that there is cosmic or transcendental consciousness.  

∆

On Becoming a "Philosopher-at-Large"

A long time ago, I was gifted with a personal rubber stamp imprinted with my name, job title, address and phone number.  The job title was "Philosopher at Large". 

During my high school years, I began to study Philosophy. I took a special elective English class that used readings from an anthology of deeply meaningful texts titled Preface to Philosophy: Book of Readings. It was like "doing science" without equipment, except with our minds and life experiences. It awakened a fire in my mind that lives to this day. My destiny as a "philosopher at large" started unfolding.

I began college assuming I would get a degree in a science such as biology or physics. But it did not go that way. Instead, I graduated with a couple of degrees in philosophy.

It was sad moment, as an undergraduate intending to stay in biology, when I realized it was not my field. I visited the office of the Dean for the school.  He suggested majoring in a field that I found enjoyable and easy. I said it would be philosophy. He said,  "We need more philosophers than doctors and research scientists". He explained that we are creating difficult ethical problems as science and medical technology advances. So, I gladly transferred to philosophy.  A truly appropriate decision. It has lead to a life with many amazing adventures. 

Years upon years spent

Years upon years spent

regaining paradise lost

You and I become

here-now

Home at last

Stars

Stars are openings of light in the night of life

I had a “girlfriend” in the first grade. She was an outcast like myself. She had golden hair, my hair was dark brown. She always looked dreamy and spaced out. Kids made fun of her. She carried a little book that began with a picture of a star. She said, “We came from there”. Looking back, I now feel that she knew something important.
Indeed, we do come from the stars. The elements that support life where not there at the beginning of the Universe; but had to be “cooked” in the vaults of earlier stars that created heavier elements such as carbon and oxygen. These stars exploded and later new stars came into being that already had these elements build upon. So we come from second, third, and perhaps fourth generation stars. We are star stuff.
We can’t be certain about what happened way back when it all began. The best we can come up is theory and poetry. So we say, “God created …” not really knowing what God is, because it is all beyond our deep understanding. Just go into deep silence and stillness several times a day, to feel for the source of all that is.

What sound will the universe make When it dies?

What sound will the universe make

When it dies?

Will it crumble and crack,

Or let out a sigh?

Will it summon tears tragic?

Or at peace with the matter

Sit silent in thought

Or exude cosmic laughter?

How will we know if

The universe bursts?

Are we its sole conscience

Bound to one tiny earth?

These things

These things

The coyote sings

In the deep of the meadow

So lonely for spring

Will we ever know if

There's none left to wonder?

When atoms shake naked

Under skies torn asunder

How will we know when

The sage is withholding?

In the deep of the meadow

A flower unfolding

-Rich Pauloo

Ancient Agora

How do we reconcile all of the events which are going on in the world right now?

Silence. Stillness. Serenity.

It isn't passive. 

It isn't selfish. 

It isn't easy.

Join us?

Send your poems, stories, artwork, articles, ramblings and anything else:

Hakudesu0@gmail.com

We are a community. 

We are always growing together. 

We are always listening.

Technological Singularity (Americ knew what would happen) ChatGPT

Singularity, The. The Techno-Rapture. A black hole in the Extropian worldview whose gravity is so intense that no light can be shed on what lies beyond it.
From "Godling's Glossary" by David Victor de Transend

•Vernor Vinge's (Math Department, San Diego State University) classic essay on the Singularity argues for a future global machine “intelligence” that transcends humanity – "the last invention". In 1993, Professor Vinge wrote:
The acceleration of technological progress has been the central feature of this century. I argue in this paper that we are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth. The precise cause of this change is the imminent creation by technology of entities with greater than human intelligence. There are several means by which science may achieve this breakthrough (and this is another reason for having confidence that the event will occur):

• There may be developed computers that are "awake" and superhumanly intelligent. (To date, there has been much controversy as to whether we can create human equivalence in a machine. But if the answer is "yes, we can", then there is little doubt that beings more intelligent can be constructed shortly thereafter.)
• Large computer networks (and their associated users) may "wake up" as a superhumanly intelligent entity.
• Computer/human interfaces may become so intimate that users may reasonably be considered superhumanly intelligent.

Ray Kurzweil brought discussion of the technological singularity through his book The Singularity is Near. Webcast of Kurzweil and others at MIT in 2006:

http://web.mit.edu/webcast/csail/2006/mit-csail-kurzweil-32123-30nov2006-220k.ram

What is our future? Are we totally wedded to our own creation - computer technology?

Enough is enough

My father was a Portuguese dairy milker in Southern California. My mother always worried when he was late coming home after work. She feared he would have an accident on the farm (cows are not always passive). She could be left destitute, with her only child—me. After all, my father's father had died in Massachusetts when my father was one year old, and my grandmother had no financial support. Grandmother returned to the Azores with my father when she ran out of money. Twenty years later my father returned to the U.S., and worked till he had enough money to send for us.

My father worked seven days a week; sometimes two shifts a day. At that time—the 50's and early 60's—one dairy farm laborer's income could support his family. Mother was the homemaker. My father earned a modest salary, but he saved enough money to buy a house with a 50% down payment. He even arranged to pay off the house early with a couple of large lump sum payments. He bought the family car with cash. He did not believe in credit or debt.

Later he took a modest job at Lever Brothers in Los Angeles. He felt he was in heaven because he only had to work one shift (plus occasional overtime) to feed the family.

When my father was an old man, he told me one day in simple Portuguese, "I don't have a big house, I don't have a fancy car, but what I have is clean and good. I like what I've earned. Some people look down on me for not having more. Still, I am happy with what I have. It's good to be satisfied. Enough is enough."

Living With Uncertainty

The Great Way

The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.

If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind. 

When the deep meaning of things is not understood, 

the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail. 

The Way is perfect like vast space
where nothing is lacking and nothing in excess.
Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject
that we do not see the true nature of things.

Live neither in the entanglements of outer things,
nor in inner feelings of emptiness.
Be serene in the oneness of things and such 

erroneous views will disappear by themselves.

                                                     Opening passages from
                                                     The Third Patriarch of Zen

                                                     Hsin Hsin Ming by Seng-T'san

Stillness Is Like An Old Friend

Stillness is like an old friend who happens to be my own deep Self.

Deep stillness happened during childhood and adolescence. Such moments seem more important than the rest of life. Moments that felt the same despite differing circumstances. A touch of the timeless eternal. 

Perhaps everyone encounters stillness but few talk about and share the power and beauty of stillness itself.

For me, still points mark the absence of mental chatter. Suddenly the ears are softly ringing with the white noise of air molecules beating against the ear drums. 

Time, Money, and Love

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.

What I have needed to see in light of recent events

This speech is from Charlie Chaplin's film The Great Dictator. It is an incredibly relevant and moving scene. One of the best speeches I have seen. Watch it with Hans Zimmer's music accompanying it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8HdOHrc3OQ

"I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible- Jew, Gentile, black men, white…

We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each others’ happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls; has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind.

We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery ,we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in man; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all.

Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me, I say “Do not despair.”

The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers! Don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder!

Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men—machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have a love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate!

Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural.

Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!

In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it’s written “the kingdom of God is within man”, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power.

Let us all unite.

Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill their promise. They never will!

Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people!

Now let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance!

Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.

Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!"

Bound Home

I am living the mystery of life
moment by moment.
Wisdom comes with suffering.
The older I get, the younger
everyone else becomes.
With age comes a certain now
kind of freedom.  

Home Bound

It's hard to go home even if you long for it. To long for something but be afraid to grasp it is a human experience. What's left there to avoid though? Only what you left behind. Be brave and find your way home; home is where the heart is.

Waking Up

Waking up to my own life has been "the journey of a lifetime". I was a dreamy child in grade school. Now, I am a dreamy "new" old person. What can I say? Do we really change, or is it an unfolding variation of "life" that runs runs its course from birth to death? If you awaken and stay awake you are called "enlightened" (full of light). Staying awake is difficult. Only grand-masters are fearless enough not to run back into fluffy dreams. The point is to get free of illusion. To be real without interruption. That takes great inner courage. Stillness or meditation is a warrior's path.

Loose Free Natural

A Secret of LIfe

A Secret of Life is that Life is eternal (when seen beyond the ego), but always moving toward aging and death when ego clouds our view. Therefore, see with ego-less eyes! With ego-less eyes we are blind to the boundaries between us. 

The ego, however, hangs on to "little life"; and may convince us of our near total separation from one another. Don't believe it. The eye of the needle may be small, but big mind can surrender into "big Life" - and it becomes mystically clear that "all is one".

Life More Abundant

Many years ago, my spiritual teacher suggested that “all power is in the present moment”. This was, perhaps, the greatest teaching I ever received. By living deeply in this present moment, we sense our bodies here and now - which is the only place to feel the body. Not just our bodies but also our minds. Anything else is mere living in a dream state; exactly where most of us waste our lives. By feeling our feet on the ground, we become truly grounded. Just sensing our bodies laying down - allows us to be grounded in this moment and place. This morning I was putting away the dishes, when suddenly the memory of receiving this “all power is in the present moment teaching” came back. Suddenly I felt my feet on the ground. I became stronger - “more here”. Indeed, life more abundant.

Listen Deeply

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

∆

Consciousness and human unity

For decades, I've shared the dream of human unity with my friend Eugene Haggerty who traveled the world signing up public leaders and common folk to the reality of our true human unity beyond all differences. It's imperative that fundamental human unity becomes a universal cultural and personal norm. It's the positive constructive nonviolent bases for optimum life survival and flourishing on earth. How can this happen? Turn your attention back on your own consciousness; you will eventually realize that everyone else's consciousness is like yours. States of mind, states of life all differ; yet, we share a common field of consciousness. This is "seeing the lamp and not the lampshade." In fact, you and I participate in the same human reality even though we have different bodies and circumstances. This is the essence of the golden rules expounded by all the world's great traditions.

Torrent of Time

TIME IS LIKE a torrent of water rushing through our lives. Time cannot be stopped - and life cannot be separated from time until there is deep transcendence of all the cares and concerns of daily life. Few ever learn to live with abandon without attachment - at peace with the passing parade of phenomena. Yet, yet, and yet again - there's something within us that does not change. Something unchanged since our first awareness of being here in our lives. ∆

Purification of Consciousness

During forty seven years of life, I've practiced meditation and purification of consciousness. It's the most difficult and rewarding of tasks. Purification of consciousness is attained by uncovering the innate stillness and peace of mind -available via simple frequent moments of meditation during the minutes, hours and days of our lives. Take time today to stop the busy mind - thereby uncovering the peace and joy already within yourself. 

Playing with Oneness (more Sunday morning meditation) Written by Diane 2012

 I.

All is one

and One is all;

Not for a ball-team,

But a ball!

Fun is what you make of it;

Bliss is even better.

As one in All,

      all is One.

      Oh what fun!

      (happiness in the sun).

II.

The laughter and the tears

Melt into the years

And become

     One.

III.

The Oneness-of-all-things

is no less

than more

(more-or-less)

and no more

than one

is All.

IV.

“Playing with the One,

       no less!”, says Americ,

              my loved-one.

                         Diane (July 2012)

New World

Feel the wind in your hair.

Smell the salt of the sea.

Hear the lapping of waves on the hull.

Watch the new shapes emerge on the horizon.

Taste the freedom of moving forward.

Beautiful future lies ahead. 

Just Be

It's been said that: This is the best of all possible worlds! Why? A non-existent possible world is just a dream, an illusion. My self and your self are both "self" seen from different directions. Parmenides, the Presocratic philosopher, showed us that whatever is just is - and cannot not be. Can't be anything but what it is. BEING IS unchanging, eternal. So relax. Just be.

Universe Speaking

The Universe is always

speaking to us

from the scintillating stars

to the heartbeat

in our chests. 

Ocean of Life

Sometimes I feel the ocean of life

Kicked around by waves of feeling and thought 

Such moments seem endless

Reality sets in - endless moments abruptly end 

There we sat, stun surprised

Without Beginning or End

WITHOUT BEGINNING OR END

Chuang Tzu

The Way is without beginning or end      

All things have their life and death          

Hence, you cannot rely upon them for fulfillment

One moment is empty

The next moment full    

Hence, you cannot depend upon their form         

The years cannot be restrained  

Time cannot be stopped            

Decay

Growth

Fullness

Emptiness        

All end and then begin again

This is the understanding of the Great Meaning
And the principles of The Ten Thousand Strings

 

Happy birthday, Americ!!

We all love and miss you. Dont worry, you’ll always be alive in our hearts and minds. 

“When the night is cloudy there is still a light that shines on me. Shine until tomorrow. Let it be.” 

Settling Down

Settling down is the great work of giving life meaning. It's also the great work of getting up in the morning and clearing the mind for the day's work. In my case it is writing these notes and publishing a blog entry. Humble but meaningful to my soul. I live in the way that I must - so as to be real to the self. What else can I do? 

Beyond philosophy

A lover of wisdom may speak of wisdom all day long, yet not live that wisdom. Someone who possesses wisdom may say nothing wise at all. As a graduate student in philosophy, I became frustrated with philosophy itself. I saw academic philosophy as a craft without real answers to my deepest concerns. T. S. Elliot’s lines from “The Rock” moved my soul: 

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 information?

Shortly afterwards, Chögyam Trungpa showed up as a classroom guest speaker. He wore a blazer and turtle neck shirt, holding a can of Coca-Cola in his hand – not my image of an Eastern guru or yogi. He spoke directly and spontaneously. It took many years to realize that his presence was the teaching more than his words. Now, I don’t remember the words, but the presence remains. I look, and feel, for that same presence in others and within myself. I stopped  philosophizing, and started to prepare for wisdom by meditating. That was the beginning of a very long journey.

Time is a Construct

Time is not real

it is a construct 

a framework

used to measure

movement and change

We are free to change 

our relationship to time 

moment to moment

Professor Americ Azevedo's Last Class at UC Berkeley

The photos are blurry but I felt it was important to represent this crucial time in Americ's life.

-Haku

(Written from my handheld.)

Voice & Text

There's a dynamic tension between voice and text. I've been struggling for many years with this. I love to write but also love speaking. People tell me I'm a better speaker then writer. Of course, a voice activated system for writing provides an interesting hybrid! Am I speaking by writing or am I writing by speaking. (I "wrote" this using voice to text technology - but edited it in text.) Thank you dear blog reader for being part of this experiment!

Stages of Life (Americ Recording Sound Cloud)

Dancing Star

“I say unto you: one must still have chaos in oneself 

to be able to give birth to a dancing star. 

I say unto you: you still have chaos in yourselves.” 

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Chaos is the window of freedom within us. Many will tell you that no freedom is opposable unless your mind is discipled and controlled. Yet, if that was the absolute case, there would be little or no room for surprises. 

A disciplined mind is robotic, like a computer program running its course toward predefined type of solution. The creative genius surprises herself by creating the unexpected as they go along. They don’t know where their thoughts and ideas are taking them. 

 

Becoming Free

Attain complete emptiness,

Hold fast to stillness. 

Tao Te Ching, #16

When I was young, I dreamed about becoming enlightened, liberated, like Buddha. It seemed that if I “worked hard enough” I would become free. But it was not clear what one would “become free of”. So there was a deep problem. Perhaps, doing more meditation, or living through all the binding non-liberating possibilities, or finding the right teacher, or reading the right book – something would liberate me, then I would be happy and not suffer at all.

The years passed, it become apparent that becoming enlightened is not an event. Some people have spontaneous enlightenment experiences, glimpses that soon fade away. Enlightenment is not an experience. Call it wisdom. Not the wisdom found in books; but, a wisdom that slowly grows within the heart-mind until one day we awaken to a new way of being, living. We discover we where already free – but did not know it!

THE RIVER RUSHES

The river rushes,
The last rains of spring.

A rose bud in my hand
Opens;
Its petals fall to the ground.

This Moment—
A clod of earth
Between my fingers,
Crumbling to dust.

I brush it off,
And reach out
For the next touch.

Springtime
To summer sunlight.

I am that Light;
And I am the dust
Returning to the Earth.

                         Diane Shavelson (~1999)

Fields of dreams

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.

Basic Reality

Basic reality cannot be realized by  
words, thoughts or pictures 

The Ultimate cannot be realized by 
words, thoughts, or pictures 
Un-expressible it is  

Beyond knowledge it is 
Go toward stillness until arriving 
at peace beyond understanding 

There within nowhere 
the you that is you just is   

Fabric of the Universe

Modern quantum physics suggests that 
uncertainty is woven into 
the fabric of the universe. 
Each of us reflects the 
wholeness of all that is. 
Can't be certain 
we'll be here tomorrow.  
Statistically, chances are good 
for being correct when saying, 
"See you tomorrow morning." 
That's not absolutely determined. 
So be humble. 
Nothing is certain - 
not even death and taxes.

Sonnet

Putting all your love into something leaves you empty; expecting love to be returned so as to fill the void which has been created. 

Love everything to the fullest extent.

Just don't forget to direct that love inward too. 

You can't give what you don't have.

Love yourself.

This is how you can love others.

Hippie Days

"That was a long time ago", Americ

So Many Years

Coming of old age is easy - it just happens. Difficult are the goodbyes coming one upon another with accelerating velocity - demanding new levels of self mastery. 

Roots of the Golden Rules

The world's religions are rooted in experiences of cosmic consciousness. Often these experiences came after long periods of isolation and fasting. By looking at this common root, we can come to greater understanding of the unity within the diversity of religions.

All Life is Meditation

A lightly guided meditation for your day.

Breath of Life

A long time ago, I killed a mouse in the kitchen by dropping it into a bucket of water. Thinking that would drown him. But it kept swimming back up to the surface. The mouse eventually drowned. At the moment of death a white mist came out of its mouth into the water. That was the mouse’s last breath - as if “seeing” his life spirit leave the body. One of the most memorable experiences in my life. 

Quiet Morning

Recording quality is low, but the message is important.

At home in the Park

In the spring of 1990 my business partner and I stopped at People's Park in Berkeley. We sat on a log among the homeless people. Some were cooking food. Others rolled around in the grass with their loved ones. Some smoked weed and some drank booze. Most dressed in rags, tie-dye shirts, jeans, long hair, short hair, leather jackets, and bare chests.

We were two businessmen sitting there with them—would-be land developers. Such was the power of People's Park to attract all kinds of folks. A worn-out looking Park resident came up and said, "What are you guys doing here? You don't belong here!" My partner responded, "We're people too!" We kept sitting. The long-term resident shrugged his shoulders, indicating we were okay. We had established our turf on a log.

Dozens of homeless people lived in People's Park. Eventually the University built a volleyball court, and pushed some of them out into the streets of downtown Berkeley. But the Park remains; people still live there. For nearly 40 years People's Park has been a symbol and a home to people who did not or could not live the "American dream"—all for different reasons. There's freedom there. It is a freedom akin to crossing the Frontier in a covered wagon. Dangerous, lonely, and alienating, but space and time are your own in a way that no mortgage payer or renter ever knows.

Some Park people refuse to live in shelters. They want the street. This is their home. Others were in complete misery. They were there because they fell off the edge of the housing market. Not enough money from odd jobs, too few friends and family, a mind slipping away from the stress of life, and no housing they could afford. A formula for coming to the street as home.

Some of my radical friends from 15 years back became disgusted with the Park. One noble liberal preferred to work for social justice from his antiseptic non-profit office, while taking offense at People's Park. He wanted those dope-smoking bums out. He was once a radical fighting the establishment—now he and his associates were establishment but they didn't know it.

I've had my moments close to the edge. Only my friends kept me from the street. My business partner had similar troubles. You owe it to yourself to hang out with the dispossessed. As the Depression proved, very little separates us from the street.

Playfield Of Consciousness

Atomic Friend

Lately, I've been playing around with the fanciful idea of the "atomic friend." This is not about nuclear energy, it's about how we perceive the world. When we look across the table at somebody we're having dinner with, for example, we don't see that person or friend as photons cast in our direction — we see facial expressions. Likewise, we don't perceive sound vibrations, instead we're aware of words and tones of voice, which themselves are as full of meaning as facial expressions are full of meaning.
This view of the "atomic friend" is something we get from subatomic physics, our perception of ultimate reality below what we experience in daily life. It's sometimes referred to as reductionism — the idea that we can define things at a level and say, it's nothing but that, it's nothing but photons, it's nothing but sound vibrations. Yet that's not how we experience life. We experience it with meaning, and love.
The same reduction process happens very commonly in modern society, without the benefit of any knowledge of subatomic physics. We just have to look at the sophisticated games people play around money and power, for instance. Instead of appreciating a child's requirement for love, many people simply give the child toys and money as a substitute for love. They've reduced the relationship to a very quantifiable thing called money, saying "Well, I can't afford to really spend time with you" — that's a subconscious thought, of course — "I can't afford to really spend time with you, but I can give you money, because that's what I'm spending my time doing, and here's the money that expresses my love." Well, somehow the love gets lost in the experience. It's like reducing facial expressions to photons.
It's the same with manipulating people as pawns in power games, in order to aggrandize one's own self or ego. One can manipulate hundreds or thousands of people as an executive, without much concern at all for the feeling experience of the manipulations — like moving a factory from one part of the world to another without experiencing or even paying attention to those things, because we've reduced it to a game of money and power, saving money, or the wonderful joy of the power, being able to move all those materials and people from one place to another. Thes behaviors, I like to say, are truly unconscious.

Audio to text transcription, editing, and augmentation
by Peter Good. Cartoon by Terry Pettengill.

Ordinary and Extraordinary Life

Ordinary life flows on until there's an opening into the extraordinary; a vision of the absolute, transcendental, vertical dimensions of reality. Ordinary life dominates our awareness. The chores, the tracks laid down by education, family, childhood, youth, middle and old age. Sometimes, it feels good; sometimes disarming. We may entertain or distract ourselves for we can't always bear the ordinary condition.

Into every ordinary life come truly difficult events that break the habitual patterns; creating openings into the extraordinary. Amazingly, the extraordinary just shows up by way of grace alone - arriving into a humble simple ordinary moment - while washing dishes by hand! Or, walking with a young child.

Let the Good News be Told

Before the sun rises, let the good news

be told. Today is a better day. Today

I'm feeling well again. Today love rings

the Earth with wisdom and power.

Sitting, standing, breathing, eating, day

dreaming, flying in my memory from spot to

spot in the ocean of past scenes –

now a youth, now a lover, now a student,

now a father, now an older man. Pain and

joy flickering like stars in vast

velvet spaces.

The Begging Bowl

The Begging Bowl was clean;
So the Busy People
Glimpsed their Sweet Reflections
As their Coins Dropped in,
And they Rushed on, Out-of-Sight.

But the Blind Beggar,
His Dark Eyes Shining Bright
Out from his Life-Long Night;
With his Grief-Softened Heart Open Wide,
Basking in Delight
“Saw” only their Sweet Light.

Which begs-the-question:
Which One is the Beggar?

                                  Diane (Nov. 2012)

Meditation Question and Answer Session

Now is One

 

Words Are Maps

WORDS ARE MAPS of reality and dreams. Words are not reality, not dreams.

Better to stop now. Sit, walk around and breathe. Later, come back to the words. For words are the work of the world. Perhaps, the world would not exit without words; the "world" is a story we tell each other. Take away the story. What do you have left over? Just this, just that. Engaging directly what is; like a new born.

Of words, we don't need many. Just a phrase, a sound, can be enough to suggest reality.

Torches

We must pass down our wisdom. We must pass down our knowledge. We must tell our stories. Whether it's written, spoken, or typed, be the bard of your era. Light the torches for you have returned.

Unreleased Poem 8/14/2012

People often go to wild places to search for their True Nature
(but the Light is in your eyes each moment;
your home is in your heart always...)
So at such a moment, Honored One,
Where is your True Nature?

Oh Beloved,
Where have you been?

I went out following scented grasses,
to return chasing falling blossoms...

Being

   Thinking about being is not an everyday act for us. Instead, we tend to become absorbed in a wild chorus of events, appointments and emotional disturbances. 

   Contemplate being long enough and your life will be transformed into joy unattached to any particular experience. This is like being in love without a lover. The love is just there without dependence on the presence or absence of an external party. 

   The joy of being comes to us as we still the desiring aspects of mind. For so long as we are "ahead" or "behind" ourselves, we are not "here now" to experience the full intensity, wonder, and mystery of existence itself. The quality of our action in life depends on our day-to-day connection to our source, our being. The sense of "I am". 

   Terms such as "God", "infinity", "totality", and "existence" seem to refer to something in common. It is as if they commonly map a certain feeling area of the brain. But "brain" is itself an idea that is secondary to Being. Being contains "brain".

   We lose ourselves in what is "expected" of us in what we "must do". Eventually, even the very thought of being is lost to us. 

   Anyone who becomes committed to the attainment of self-knowledge has a journey to take back into their own heart. In part, it is the "downward path" from the head. In another part it's a "stepping back" from desire, frenzy and activity.

   Look at a wall and fall into wonder that it exists! This is the radical perspective. Our root experience is our deep felt sense of existence, being, or sense of "I am".

   Being is not passive, being is the stillness within all the process. Being is the eternal within the temporal. It is, in the words of T. S. Elliot, "the still point of the turning world". 

Living the truth (Happy Fathers Day Americ 21’)

"Jesus was going to speak at the Bank of America World Headquarters."
--Black Velvet Dreambook

After years of working in a large organization, a conflict broke out between my inner self and life with my corporate career. I got good money as a database computer trainer in the corporate headquarters. I was unhappy with life in my "organization." I wanted my organization be an organism -- alive and interconnected. My daily experience, however, was more like the "night of the living dead."
On the bus to work I read a passage from Krishnamurti, "Live the truth." That phrase exploded in my mind. I must say "No!" to those aspects of life that are false or do not work. That same day I got up before my trainees and felt a pit growing in my stomach that gradually moved up to my mouth. After writing a sentence on the blackboard, I turned around and said, "I can no longer do this work. We are not real with each other in this company. We ignore each other. There is no love in this place. I quit." As I walked out, half the class looked stunned while the other half applauded.
Back at my desk, I felt a powerful stillness. I saw everything in a new light. The desk, the walls -- everything present was suddenly there. An emotional and spiritual fog had lifted. Gradually, people came by and wished me well. Some felt that I had contacted a deep need in themselves.
Socrates showed us that thinking the truth is not enough. Truth demands to be lived. He was tried and condemned to death by his community for his fearless inquiry into the truth. The decaying democratic society of his time would not hear the questions he had to ask. Partisanship won the day. His friends arranged to bribe the jailer -- Socrates could have walked out. But he argued that to do so at that moment would undermine the very principles for which he had lived.
Our living philosophy is in how we live life. The philosophy that we claim should pull us toward a new way of life. Too many words make talk cheap and eventually crowd out silent lived wisdom. Philosophy becomes hypocrisy when its labors are an avoidance of life's duties or a flaunting of mental ability. Wisdom comes from a humble acceptance of reality. The truth of our lives is stated in how we are rather than by what we say.
Truthful living begins with an enlightened view of life, immediately followed by enlightened action. For example, cultivation of the ability to see one's self in others. Skin, bones, temperament and social status do differ. Tolerance, patience, honesty, respect, and love allow us to recognize our "basic self" in everyone -- this leads to empathy and compassion. We become naturally concerned with fairness in our sexual, family, social, and cultural arrangements.
Just before leaving my corporate job, I would often sit on the 38th floor of my Market Street office building in San Francisco. I would look down from my sealed window. One day I realized that if that window could open, I would have been tempted to jump. I was having a crisis of meaning. My work paid the family bills, but did not tie into some greater sense of meaning other than economic security.
In my spare time, I attempted to create meaningful projects for myself and my friends. A serious conflict developed between the time and energy consumed by the company and my other more meaningful life. My best friend suggested the importance of "abandoning doing for being". This meant that to cultivate stillness and let action spring from the well of stillness rather than being driven from one blind activity to another.
In the months and years following my corporate resignation, I searched for my "basic self." I spent increasing amounts of time in the backyard with my friends contemplating being, truth, God, and the study of Martin Heidegger's Being and Time . I began to understand the power of stillness within myself.
One night I dreamed about a large audience gathered in the Auditorium at the World Headquarters of the Bank of America in San Francisco. The speaker was Jesus. He was dressed in pinstripe suit and was clean cut. The financial world was gathered to hear him talk.
The years have unfolded around that dream. I have imagined what Jesus might have said to that crowd. He spoke from the fullness of lived experience. Jesus put on a suit and tie to get a hearing. The message went beyond the appearances of clothes and social status. A finance of compassion would proceed from the spirituality of compassion. A strong ethic of sharing across all boundaries.
What does it mean to live the truth? If it is a mere matter of acquiring more knowledge, the place to find the most truthful living people would be behind the walls of universities. If it's being fearless, the ranks of the military infantry would be the best place to find the truthful. If a contemplative life is equated with living the truth, then monks would probably rank higher than the rest of us.
Corporations have shaped our world. Can we humanize ourselves to the point of humanizing our institutions -- rather than having ourselves institutionalized? Living the truth is almost impossible in this life. We are paid to lie to ourselves by "dressing for success" and pumping ourselves up with positive thinking sales lectures.
T. S. Elliot used the phrase "the timekept timekeepers." The exacting control of time can destroy a person's authentic sense of self-existence. There is a deep conflict between family time and working time. To advance in the corporate or institutional ladder, the price is our time, our life. Time is now controlled by institutional rather than organic life circumstances. Family life has become monetized. We pay baby-sitters and nursery schools for the job of fathering and mothering. We give our money over to junk food instead of cooking. "Time is money." The time of mothers and fathers is sold in the market place.
We manifest obsessive acquisitive behavior similar to mad gamblers mesmerized by slot machines. The more we attempt to acquire, the higher the costs of living. Consider what would happen if we dropped this acquisitive madness: The heart of humanity would become more concerned with quality, rather than quantity. Objects would be made and exchanged with a sense of the value of life all around. We would need fewer luxuries, since our contact with life itself would be more fulfilling. Saints and yogis need little, not because of self-denial, but because of a greater satisfaction level due to few trivial desires. Want less, and the economics of consumption would fail. GNP would drop. People would indeed produce less, but would feel more productive. Life would slow down. More attention would be paid to the direct production of food and shelter. People concerned with cornering markets with the intent of raising the prices would be considered antisocial rather than honored members of society. There would again be time for the great pleasures of conviviality, reading, music, and family growth.
The self is like a seed that grows in response to its environment. Maple seeds produce maple trees. Whether a tree is healthy or ill depends upon how the genetic material in that seed responds to its soil and climate. In the corporate world, I lost myself in a maze of daily entanglements. As I became still, I returned to the financial district after a seven year absence. Being in the world need not mean being lost in the world.
My resignation was needed so I could remove myself from the center of action -- out toward a quiet zone to recreate myself. One of my teachers suggested that in this life we are "either businessmen or employees." It may be possible, however, to find a way of life in terms of doing work as love and service.
Organizations can be organisms. They can and often do provide a sense of community. One of the keys is development of basic human trust rather than relying on the application of managerial control. This is true of families, institutions, and entire societies. Speaking the truth is easier when we trust each other. We are mirrors of one another. But when trust fails, we demand control. Our conversation becomes corrupted by a passion for mastery over each other through intellectual and physical display of power.
Trust grows from seeing our common basic needs for love, food, shelter, wisdom, enlightenment, joy, and freedom. We are often afraid to drop pretenses. Miracles occur when trust happens between people. The walls of our false personalities start to come down -- we begin to work together. Due to lack of trust, people often need drugs in social gatherings to help drop their personas. We have built psychological wall against psychological wall, showing to each other somewhat dull and gray faces. As the years pass, the laughter of childhood gets pushed down until it is gone.
There is something very impersonal about life -- at any moment our lives may be ended by forces completely beyond our control. But we can add a great deal of dignity to our fate by admitting and facing reality with a good heart and clear mind. We become stewards of the small acre of creation that is our very own individual life. As we respond, we are responsible and whole human beings. This is living the truth.
"Living the Truth". First published as an article in Footsteps. October 1992.

Human Life

Goal of Meditation?

You may find that you have some sort of "goal" in your mind, something to be attained, like thoughtlessness for instance. This is a concept that is foreign to most of us, not having thoughts.

I observed my move to joy when I let go of polarities; when I let go of thinking of money in this way, for instance, I find that it is not as much of a worry anymore. And that is a big change! That "not as much" is quite a lot in reality.

It is how I think of it: I don't think of it as something I either have a lot of or have absolutely none of, for that is not accurate. And since money is our man-made symbol, we can see how we treat it and how we live our lives. We must see this from an objective perspective.

From Diane, Americ's Partner: Video of Americ's Memorial Gathering

Dear Friends of Americ,

The video of the Celebration of Life for Americ, which took place last September, is (finally) available on youtube. It is unlisted, so you need this link:

https://youtu.be/51YUnD13inE

I hope you are staying well, in body and spirit, during this extremely difficult time. (Please excuse me if you get duplicates of this notice.)

Blessings,

Diane Shavelson

P.S. Americ's blog, https://philosopher-at-large.blogspot.com is being updated with material from Americ's archives, if you'd like to visit.

--

Americ Azevedo

americ.azevedo@gmail.com

philosopher-at-large.com

soundcloud.com/americ 

Don't Write

Moment by Moment

Recording 2018: