desiderata

Youth's caricaturization of old age is its fear and denial of aging--unless they are laughing at themselves.

Nothing matters--right now; at least if right now is a special moment, my moment.  What if right now were always my moment, not measured by time, in fact not measured, in fact not belonging to me.  What if right now is a special moment where nothing matters--not my own moment nor another's.  It just is--is it's own, its Self.  How could anything matter right now if it just is, just is itSelf, not to be named, explained or regained?

Then nothing could matter.  Everything would be beautiful.  Everything would be loveable--in its own way.

Love means I just wanna' make you--make you laugh.

Love is walking someone toward death without looking where you're going.

Love is embracing your pain, letting it be part of you and letting it depart on its own, just as it came, on its own.

NOT A MATTER OF ATTAINMENT

If any spiritual attainment in the end still ends in disappointment, in the inevitable emptiness of self-aggrandizement-- or better, ego-aggrandizement-- it's not that which we seek.  Attainment is a matter of securing the ego's place in the world as if it has finally "got it." Attainment amounts to simply seeking an experience of oneself as a better and therefore more acceptable self, i.e., ego.  But it is only a 'place,' only an experience.  It seduces consciousness and traps it in attending to the things, the idols, of the world.  Such attainments give the impression that one is now unaffected by the seductions of the world as if they are now in our control.  Attainments in the world are trophies for the ego.  In fact we are more deeply subjected to the vulnerability of expectation that this 'experience' is now ours.  We are more out of "control."  The world and life become fixed and fastened to the pursuit of holding one's ground, like the alcoholic who's only satisfaction is not feeling bad, not feeling the empty craving for another drink.  The 'high' is gone; now all there is is to avoid the lows.  

The desperate ego substitutes spiritual seeking of "true self" in place of the things of the world and succeeds in turning the Self into another thing of the world, deluding itself that the true Self it seeks is attainable as if it were just another object, seeking it just as it seeks other objects as they occur in the world.  But this Self cannot be possessed since it is self-possession itself.  It is the "I AM" that I cannot be outside of nor inside.  It is self-possession that cannot and need not hold on to itself.  It does not take hold nor need to let go since it has never grasped.  Why attain when it itself is the gift which no attainment, achievement or aggrandizement can accomplish?

JESUS' ASCENDENCY AND SELF-ASCENDENCE

No spiritual teacher can take you to where they themselves have not gone.  Jesus could raise the dead to life because He had ascended to life itself, eternal life.  Yet when Jesus brought the dead back to living he did not raise them to eternal life.  He brought them back to the place where in living they could, and only they could, raise themselves to eternal life.  After all only then could their true Self, the true Savior, the true Guru, raise them from the dream to reality, from the story of "I" to the consciousness of true being, from belief to knowledge.

MYSTERY OF MYSTERIES

If it is the case that 'the mystery is not a matter of how the world is, but, that the world is,' then our task is the contemplation of this givenness, this gift that all is, this givenness without a giver.  But more still, the meditation of the givenness of such givenness.  This Giver is Givenness itself, that is, the Receiver.  The Receiver of the given is the true giver, that is, the Creator.  And only the One who lives in the giver's truth is the true giver, the Self-given.  All else can be and is doubted.  

The true Giver's Truth is then not of What the world is, but That the world is.  The problems of our lives disappear when we see them from the standpoint of the mystery That the world is, and again, the mystery behind the mystery, the Receiver that we ourSelf are.  So the Buddha says, "Be a light unto yourself," meaning be the light which your Self always already is.  Then the problems are like play in the fields of the Lord, or like laying down in "green pastures," or like the joy of the "lilies of the fields."

WITHOUT CONCERN

There's no avoiding conflict; but one can avoid being in conflict with one's conflicts.  The same goes for worry and frustration.  One need only be aware of such things.  Then finally in that awareness come to abide in and as awareness alone.  One can savor the joy and pain of life without having to do anything about it, to change it, justify it, avenge it.  Then one can love without concern and share the peace of this blissfulness.

GRATITUDE

Thank God, excitement isn't exciting any more.
Spectacle isn't spectacular anymore.
Lust has lost its luster.
Superlative is at best comparative.
Life is so much better.  Thank God.

WHY NOT PEACE ETERNAL?

It has often been suggested to me, in no uncertain terms that enlightenment is impossible: "How is it possible to be eternally at peace?  It's a great idea but can't be done!"  

So with cynicism, sarcasm and normalized resignation we scoff at the possibility of everlasting peace, whether internal or external, in our hearts or in the world.

But isn't it peculiar that we are perfectly capable at living at war for years.  Isn't it odd that we can persist in internal psychological  tension and conflict for our entire lives.  How is it that we can live in families constantly at odds with one another, "odds" so intense that it all too often leads to murder?  

We can put all this energy, time and worry into stress, struggle, familial violence and war, to name only a few of the ways we find to suffer, but we can't find peace.  Actually we can't even really find relaxation.  And surely joy and love are also far down the agenda of normal possibilities.

The usual excuse as to why suffering is "easy" and normal, if not absolutely unavoidable, is that "that's just the way things are."  That's the nature of things.  As if we have not all to often chosen what brings suffering.  As if we have nothing to do with the lives we live, with how we think and act in our world.  

So we continue to suffer even more by resisting the proposition that it's not what happens to us that brings us fulfillment but how we respond to what happens.  What would it be like to choose peace, joy and love?  To act on peace, joy and love?

What actually might become of our lives and the world if we invested 20 minutes a day in peace?  Peace might actually grow, might spread, might become normal.  It may become the very condition of joy and love.

Afterthoughts

And so, here I am
after all these years-
I think I need to do
some cleaning up-
wouldn't want to leave
a mess-
Have to leave time
and a place
for someone
for anyone
to consider the things I've done,
the things I may have done well
done right
or likely wrong-
possibly just the fact
of being here,
that one
alone,
somewhat unique
that left a place
for tender memories