When You Fall in Love

When you fall in love
You recall over and over again the face and name of your beloved;
God smiles within the face and name of the beloved

As you love
Your life begins to join the one you love
Eventually you unite with your beloved
In a mystic union of effortless intense devotion

If you love money, you become like money
If you love time, you become like time
If you love life, you become life

Meditation and Society

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

Merlyn Is Back

Wizard's never go away. 

Sometimes, however, they take long journeys.

Let's just say, I had a long vision quest.

A Budding Biologist (to Richard, wherever you are these days)

Poem by Richard Pauloo

---

hiking in the Berkeley hills

a seed crests by my body

white sphere of life

nearly weightless in the wind’s breath

i turn back with an urge to capture it

to understand its beauty

and dissect it with logic

i pause

ashamed

my hands cannot hold

the true beauty of the seed which is

its effortless waltz with gravity

its gentle surrender to the ground beneath

the promise of new life it carries

the first green sprout

the animals that will play

on its gnarled branches

the growth and decay

of a forest

all contained within the soft small shell

of a seed

trailing

in the wind

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!

Kiva Time

Terry Penttengill cartoon
Click image to enlarge.

It is our quiet time.
We do not speak
because the voices are within us.
It is our quiet time...
We do not walk
because the earth is all within us.
It is our quiet time.
We do not dance
because the music has lifted us to a place where the spirit is.
It is our quiet time.
We rest with all of nature,
we wake when the seven sisters wake.
We greet them in the sky
over the opening of the kiva.

- Kiva Time (from the Cliffdwellers)

With what do we buy our money?

With what do we buy our money? Many years ago, I was giving a talk on wisdom in the world. At the end of the talk, I was approached by an old man. He came up to me and said, "I want to ask you a question." I said, "What's that?" He said, "With what do you buy your money?" I thought about it for a minute, and said, "With your life, of course." He said, "You're right, and I wish I had known that when I was much younger. For all my life, I worked for money. I put all my time into working for money that I thought I would enjoy later on."

He explained that he just never thought about anything else except working to save money, to put money away, to plan for the future. And the future had arrived, and here he was, an old man. And he expressed that he had a sense of bitterness about that, that he hadn't achieved an earlier understanding about the importance of living life, and that he had indeed bought his money with his life.

Philosophy in My Life

In my last year at the University of California at Irvine, I switched majors from biology to philosophy. Friends asked me, "What good is philosophy?" What they really meant was, "Can you make any money at it?"

I knew people with lots of money, but little meaning in their lives. They seemed to be lost in games and pastimes. They worked without questioning the purpose or value of their work. I was interested in meaning, not money, but the people around me didn't share my feeling. Most of them believed that only money was real.

In my search for meaning, I first turned to the study of logic, mathematics, and science. In my teenage years I encountered logical positivism. Logical positivism was an early 20th Century school of philosophy that claimed all the grand questions of traditional philosophy were meaningless. Questions like "What is the meaning of life?" or "Is there a God?" were meaningless, logical positivists asserted, because the answers cannot be verified. But questions like "Does the moon have an opposite side?" are meaningful because we can construct tests to prove or disprove any answer. We can build a rocket to the moon. But how can we verify the meaning of life, or the existence of God? The logical positivists saw no true/false test for these matters.

Of course, just because we can't prove or disprove God's existence doesn't mean He doesn't exist! Logical positivism lost its hold on me while I was a graduate student at San Francisco State University in 1970. I was moving toward 'meaningless' questions like: Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the purpose of life? Why is there evil in the world? Then I discovered Buddhism and other ancient spiritual traditions that addressed such questions. I was beginning to find real philosophy.

Philosophy is not a word game. It is, as Plato explained, the "love of wisdom". Few students get to study real philosophy at college. Philosophizing is an extraordinary act. It requires re-thinking issues at the most fundamental level -- right down to questions of being. One winds up asking simple-sounding, childlike questions like "What is real?"

The world is adrift, without meaning. That is why so many become victims of political ideologies and extreme religious viewpoints that offer a sense of meaning at the expense of compassion, truth, and justice.

All the really amazing jobs I've held came from my grounding in philosophy. I became a computer programmer because my boss assumed that philosophy made one logical. I got promotions to higher levels of responsibility because I saw the "big picture" in the organizations I worked for. One day I found myself the acting CEO of several small technology companies in trouble. Why? Because my philosophical perspective gave me a high tolerance for ambiguity, which allowed me to go into unknown and almost unknowable situations again and again. So yes -- philosophy can help you make money. But meaning, understanding, and wisdom are the real payoffs.

A Vision

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

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

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

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

Become Peace

Spiritual consciousness looks inward to the “self” for the causes of problems. It offers no solutions to social problems, but the radical root of a sound foundation for good religious and political action.

Religious consciousness works with inter-personal relationships as the causes and resolutions of problems. Religious consciousness without a strong link to the spirit easily takes over behaviors of groups – so that we have the “letter but not the spirit of the law.”

Political consciousness is “world” centered. Politics is just a step beyond religious consciousness. The same feelings that are religious interchange with religious patterns of behavior and thinking. Religious groups often try to take control of politics; or, politics tries to control religion. The founders of the American Constitution insisted on the separation of church and state for these reasons.

Some years ago, a friend of mine took me to task on my political activism, pointing out that “first we must change ourselves, before we can change the world.” Eventually, I understood his wisdom.

I admit it – I want a peaceful world, where people live in harmony. Not a very exciting vision. Peace is a precondition for happiness. To get there, I need to stay with the first step – which is to learn to be peaceful myself. Than learn to share that state with others around me.

In other words: be the peace that I want to see in the world.

Political Chaos

Happy Birthday, Professor.

 You are still missed and loved by so many...

To My Daughter

There is so much in this world to learn and your daddy is growing too. You will bring out the best in me as I will help you do. I will teach you the best I can in awe of how little that I knew. When you have gotten older and no longer need my hand, when you are no longer crawling but using your own two feet to stand, I will give you room to grow as you play with buckets in the sand.

On your first day of preschool sweetheart, while I am happy, I might still cry.

So if you see tears in daddies eyes while glancing back to blow a kiss, know that you have not made me cry it's just that baby I will miss.

I love you,

- Dad

Ultimate

Going past images and sounds – a “you”, non-you, opens another way of “seeing”. Mystics and scientists extend themselves into such extraordinary extra-dimensional views. 

We buy food, entertainment, and things – not happiness. Daily contemplation of basic truths, prayer and meditation – in the morning, afternoon and evening; ease and happiness spontaneously arise.  

By good example and state of being, those around you will be encouraged. Your happiness belongs to everyone. No need to convince anyone. Blossom like a flower; the rest takes care of itself. 

Coming of Age

Coming toward old age is easy - it happens. Coming to terms with advancing old age is difficult. There are many unexpected changes in health, habits, and powers. Fortunately mother nature gives us time to anticipate and adjust. Difficult goodbyes coming upon one upon another with accelerating velocity. Become aware of the minuses and pluses of aging. 

• Cooling of passions brings new freedom from complexity.
• Wisdom dawns.
• Spiritual senses open to eternity.
• Long friendships truly valued.

Blank Page

Blank page. Openness. 

All possibilities still here. 

Add a line, mark, letter or word

and infinite possibilities fade

into finite actualities.

Eucalyptus Grove

There's a eucalyptus grove on the UC Berkeley campus. I take students there on a march across the campus. Best to visit that Eucalyptus grove in the late afternoon. While we dialogue on truth and justice and the environment, the sun slowly sets down. The day's natural cycle now apparent - light streaming through the trees.  

How can students "know" the earth if they are always encased in technology's air conditioned classrooms with florescent lights.
   
Studying our environment only in a classroom is an abstraction. Existential honesty requires walking out of the classroom! Again, let us walk outside like the ancients and the aborigines. Feeling earth below, the sky above, and body breathing-moving. Feeling life all around and within.
  
A place is not “just a place” - it is a constant, a ground, a marker in spacetime – around which time dances as events and stories.
   
I knew this grove when it was twice as large. I saw half of it taken to develop a new life sciences building. It was quiet place back in the 1970's – while now in 2010's the sound of air conditioning units competes with song birds. Returning again and again to this eucalyptus grove defines memories and change.   

The Future is Unknown

The future is unknown. We estimate what is possible. Our times demand social and technological change. Let love take over. Minimize the use of machines to do our walking. Let "Social status" drop away and replace by love. We can't change the world overnight, but can start from where we are. Kindness matters. A gentle word would allows for a great flowering of philosophy, art, care for self, compassion for others. Beyond that, care for all living things and the earth.

Getting It All Done

GETTING IT ALL DONE is impossible. Sometimes I feel as if my world will fall apart if it all does not get done right away. This "getting it all done now" idea is mostly self generated - and passed around to children, parents, friends, mangers and subordinates. Does "it" really have to be done? Now? Later? Never? Be realistic.

Wonder and Mystery

We are so fortunate to be alive and conscious. 

Awareness is the cream of the universe. 

Feel the wonder and mystery. 

Rise above the tasks of the day.

 

Maze of Life

We are all lost in the maze of life. There is no way out except death. In the meantime, the issue is to live as well as possible. It takes courage to stay awake for the greatest show on earth: our own lives. Staying awake is the key to life more abundant. Everyday, grab hold of moments of stillness and quiet. Let the stillness seep in slowly until arriving at deep stillness. Suddenly, one may hear white noise in the the ears. Awareness of the body becomes more obvious. It’s different each time. That is part of the wonder of being-here-now. Relax deeply into It, there’s no other place we need be. Just here and now complete with forces of distraction all around! You become stillness!        

                                               ~  americ@well.com

Today's Destiny

Today! You have an appointment with destiny. The idea of destiny suggests some future great event that will happen to us. For a young person, perhaps, the day of meeting the love of their life; a mature person, the day a grandchild is born. Or, for a whole culture, the day the world ends. Destiny, however, is nothing greater than the meeting of the present with the future. When does that happen? That’s right now as the present meets the future – today. We don’t know when we’ll die. We can’t assume waiting for destiny as some “big event”; but, feeling totally present, today itself is a big event.

Being a Philosopher-at-Large

From time to time, I feel that I'm really a "philosopher-at-large". It's one of my jobs in this life. I reflect on things. I am not a writer, but more a speaker. That's why I use audio so much. That which appears real to me is often unspeakable and un-writable. The best I can do is sing or write a spontaneous poem. So here I am - reflecting on myself, in public, about this occupation of philosopher-at-large. Thankful for so many people who keep visiting this philosopher-at-large blog over all these years. You keep me going.

Time Monster

In the end, we get swallowed up by the time monster. Easy to think that time is not real. Time is personified by clocks, chimes, bell towers, time stamps, a side bar on computer screens, and much more. The price of life is time. But beyond time is eternity. People in jail are said to be "serving time". The events and stages between conception and death are the "story of our lives". Stories happen in time, like movies and novels. Life implies death; death implies life.

Stardust and lightening

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

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

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

---

* From her song, “Woodstock”

Eternity’s Carpet

Time …

always lost

moment to moment

facing past

turning into

no time

hold on,

no way

step into

time

gliding on eternity’s carpet

~americ

The link to Americ's SoundCloud (It's wonderful to hear his voice)

https://soundcloud.com/americ

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!