No Tradebacks

When I was born, I WAS GOD.

I was God, and in those moments when I struggled

through sweat and screams and slipped into the cold hard hands

of this reality, I held EVERYTHING

everything

in

my tiny

clenched fists.

I was GOD and I held every question to every answer

every answer that has ever been questioned

eternal questions

internal answers

I whispered external

in sweet placental speech

                                             delivered into a world of pinky fingers.

I was GOD

born reciting bibles

proverbs texts and tablets

sermons and psalms

translating truth

speaking cosmology

in every dialect known to man

and some unknown

                                             And they taught me language

                                             with chin tickling fingers and funny faces

                                             goo goo ga ga  coochie coochie coo.

I was solving problems

converting mathematics to bone

physics to muscle

biology to blood

I was building intricate networks of

microfillament tinker toy neuro-electrical synapses

and they said

                                             oh isn't that cute!

I was red and yellow and black and white

and all shades of earth

and they held me in front of a mirror

pointed to my soft shallow shell

over and over

                         Thats you!

                                             Thats you!

until I could no longer recognize myself.

I defied gravity because I breathed magic

They grounded me

holding my hands, cooing

take a step

               take a step

when I was already leaping off the planet

leaving them all behind

I sat in the sun

feeling grass and dirt pulse

intimately conversing with trees and sky

discussing the developing universe

and the existential qualities of man

drinking rain and feasting on clouds

and they came along

scooped me up

brushed me off

scolded me

                                             Now look! 

You peed your pants!

                                            

You pooped your diaper!

I played with angels unicorns and dragons

made faces at gargoyles

My imaginary friends were ancestors

I danced with elves and faires through

fields of non-fiction BECAUSE THERE WAS

NO FICTION ONLY THE

TEXTURE

COLOR

SHAPE

FORMING

BEFORE MY NEWLY OPENED EYES

I was GOD!

and I TRADED IT ALL IN.

I traded it all in

I offered them every key to every past and every future

to every lock and chain

every shackle of every heart and  mind

incarcerated in this prison:

                                             

time

and they said

Now honey, don't play with those, you might lose them

taking them away

pressing into my hand a plastic reproduction

they believed opened all doors.

I gave them the mystery of immortality

they gave me superheroes and Scooby-Doo underwear.

I gave them future personified

they gave me a Big Wheel and a Brady Bunch lunchbox.

I gave them hope

they gave me history, I repeat

history, I repeat

this-story.

I gave them eternity

they gave me bedtime.

I traded it all in

                                            

No tradebacks.

I learned to see with my eyes

and all my imaginery friends disappeared     

(poof)

left me

became cold   

sculptured   

stone.

I was god

No tradebacks

But you know, I don't blame them.

don't hold it against them

don't judge them

I love them even more

because I KNOW THEY WERE GOD ONCE TOO

We are all

still

God.

and it is so easy learning to forget

so difficult this journey through life

grasping to remember

The Miraculous Free Fall Into Unknowing

We are, you could say, a species of know-it-alls.  Not just know-it-alls, but the worst kind of know-it-alls.

We are the know-it-alls that are sometimes right. 

How annoying.

Even when we don’t know, we think we know.  We just plain hate to not know. In fact, there is such a stigma attached to not knowing that it permeates every facet of our lives.  Think about it:

In school, the teacher asks a difficult question, and no one raises their hand.  Remember this?  Remember being the student sweating in fear that you will be called upon.  Even if you thought you knew the answer, being called upon was still overwhelmingly frightening.  What if I am not right?  What if the terrible horrible devastatingly embarrassing truth that I DON’T KNOW is revealed for all to see!

How does it feel to be called “ignorant”?   Feels kinda nasty.  Like there is something in this word that is insulting to your character.  Most people equate “ignorant” with “stupid” and the words are used interchangeably. Yet, the definition of “ignorant” is simply:

Ignorant.  (adj): Lacking knowledge or information as to a particular subject or fact.

It simply means not knowing.

We have such a deep dysfunctional relationship with not knowing that we do everything in our power to avoid admitting it, even to ourselves.

We simply do not know what the next moment will bring, and this is unacceptable to our conditioned mind, which then creates a scenario and imagines that it knows, and the result of this is expectation.  

Expectation is a symptom of our internal avoidance of the reality of not knowing, and creates what could be called the root of suffering:  the gap between what we think should be happening (could happen, should happen, will happen) and what actually is happening.

How does this work out for us?

Things simply happen, despite what we expect.  We cannot know. No matter how much we rely on our conceptual learning, our thoughts, to shield us from the dangerous territory of the unknown, we end up in that dreaded landscape.

Yet, the unknown is the ground of all knowing! 

There can never be anything known without there first being not-knowing!

See how ridiculous this is?  How delusional?  We have a negative perspective, a dysfunctional relationship, with the natural, inevitable, completely necessary fundamental building block of all knowing! 

And herein lies the paradox, at least when it comes to spirituality:

This extreme discomfort with not-knowing fuels our motivation to learn and experience. 

We turn our learned ideas and concepts into a cocktail of belief and faith.  This conceptual cocktail becomes who we think we are and how we see the world and our place in it, and we then must expend enormous amounts of energy defending, reinforcing it, and holding onto it. 

We take stories told to us and things we have read to have meaning, and assign that meaning to our own experience, diluting what is happening in the present moment, to our interpretation of what is happening.   

We mistake what we think we know for who we are. 

And of course, what we think we know is different than what someone else thinks they know,  and there must be a right and a wrong, and usually it is them that are wrong.  And if our concepts that we have mistaken for “ourselves” are questioned, or spoken against, we must defend them, as we are engaged here in the literal act of self-survival.

Even if it is “right for me” or “wrong  for me”, it is still a duality.

Separation.

So we think the more we learn, the more we memorize, the more we understand, the closer and closer we will get to the Truth, to God, Peace, Oneness, in whatever name or form you chose to call it. 

Yet the fact is, the Truth cannot be known. 

Can you consider that everything you have learned must be questioned relentlessly and discarded?  Can you consider that the point of questions is not answers, but instead, more questions, leading to more questions, until the questioning is exhausted.   Until it is seen that all questions and all answers are meaningless?

What is it like to let go of all conceptualizations, all viewpoints, all ideas?  Is it possible to relax into the miraculous free fall of not-knowing?

In this classic clip, Lou isn’t pissed because Bud is fucking with him.  Bud is serious.  Lou is agonizingly frustrated because he doesn’t know no matter how much he learns! 

Seem familiar?  Kinda like stumbling around, looking for your own eyeballs.

The Implacable Idea

We are all seekers.  I think this is fairly obvious to most of us, even if we don’t want to admit it.  We are all looking for something, and the strange thing is- we are all looking for the same thing, just in different, and of course, all the wrong, places. 

We could call it happiness, or peace, or satisfaction, or fulfillment, doesn’t really matter. 

What matters is that we must realize that it can never, ever be found.

Yes, that’s right.  Give it up- the search is over.  It ain’t happening.  We can go on and on about all the wrong places where we have conducted our search- in relationships, or in money, in our jobs, in material possessions.  And we could mention all the “hidden” places that we never think about, but are even more convinced that elusive “something” is hiding- like our opinions, our beliefs, our viewpoints, our lifestyles. 

Even our most cherished spiritual beliefs, no matter how comforting, or how much we believe they make us good people, do not seem to hold the slippery truth that we so desperately seek. 

We may even come to the conclusion that it is possible to find what we are looking for, in just letting go of all the rest of it, and resting in “stillness”. 

And then we give “Stillness” it’s myriad of names:  Space, Presence, Source, Awareness, Consciousness.  God.

Sounds logical.  We just need to realize that we can never find true happiness, peace, fulfillment in any ‘thing”, any object, and instead, if we can just “be” with what is happening now, and find stillness, we will discover the true happiness that is available to us all. 

But this, this is the biggest trap of them all.  We effectively turn “stillness” into just another object to attain.  If we practice hard enough, understand enough, somehow “let it all go”. 

How well has that worked for us?

We think we can find happiness in relationships, so we seek the perfect person.  We discover that to not be true.  We think we can find it in our jobs, money, material possessions, and we discover the sad truth of this. And, we think we can find it in spirituality, in religion, in belief.  

Yet, somehow true, lasting fulfillment continues to elude us. 

So maybe we hear about “stillness” and “connection”.  Maybe we hear about letting go, allowing, “being in the moment”. 

Still, where is that true, encompassing, wonderful sense of peace, ease, fulfillment in our lives?  We may find moments of peace, but it never lasts.

See, seeking is seeking, no matter how you are seeking, or what you are looking for, even if it is God or Stillness.  The person you think you are does not seek; the person you think you are is intimately constructed of seeking.  Seeking is inherent in the most fundamental mistake you are making, and have been making all your life.

You are seeking happiness, fulfillment, peace, God, in whatever name or form you give it, because you are convinced that you do not already have it.  

You can never have it. 

You cannot have it, because you ARE it.

See that there is only one thing, one simple thing that limits us, that keeps us from being free, and that is the unshakable, learned and constantly reinforced IDEA that we are not.

An idea.

An idea that is intricately woven into the fabric of your existence, and which is so fundamental that it has never even been questioned.

So, what is this idea made of?

Mis-Management

There is the View

And within the view, are viewpoints.

From which do you see the world?

The View

Or the viewpoints.

Notice how much energy it takes to maintain the story of you.



Freedom Is Just Another Word For...

  

Freedom.  It’s pretty important.  It must be. 

In the final climatic scene of Braveheart, when William Wallace is displayed on the executioner’s stone and about to have his insides roughly delegated to his outsides, his final resounding exclamation isn’t “Ouchh!  Or “WTF!  Call a freakin’ ambulance!” 

Nope, instead it is simply, “Freedom!”

So, seems like there is something to this. 

Yet, for all it’s importance, it also seems like many, if not most people, rarely investigate what exactly freedom is.  What is freedom? 

If we look at it, perhaps with the lens zoomed in, we could say that freedom is very simply the ability to do what I want, say what I want, think what I want, and be what I want.  Wouldn’t you say?  As a working definition, this about sums it up?

Yet it seems like our perspective of freedom here has some strings attached, doesn’t it?  It has a rider in the fine print, which perhaps we don’t notice at first when we view freedom through this lens. 

George Bernard Shaw once wrote that there are two great tragedies in life: not getting what you want, and getting what you want.  See, it’s the wanting that screws up our definition of freedom. Even though we could say this is freedom, it is bound by our desire, and I don’t know about you, but my desires are anything but reliable.  I just can’t trust ‘em.  Either can you.. 

Maybe it is just me, but hell, most of the time, I don’t even know what I want.  Wants are constantly changing.  They are fickle.  One minute I want the “Gotta Have It”  size double mint chocolate rocky road ice cream from Cold Stone, and at the same time I don’t want ice cream at all; I want a salad with balsamic dressing.  When I want a promotion at work, the next moment I’m thinking about getting a new job.  All the single ladies want a ring on it, and then ten minutes later are lovin’ being single and wouldn’t trade it for the world.  I’m driving an old Jeep, and I want a new car, yet at the same time, I love my old Jeep (and my lack of a car payment) and the desire fizzles.  Now I just want my old Jeep to keep running.

This is the dilemma of desire.  Even if you get want you want, you end up wanting the opposite.  Crazy, huh?  And definitely not freedom.

But why do you suppose this is?  Do we have some faulty wiring in the brain? 

Or is it possible that on some visceral level, some very deep space within our being, we know that our wants can never satisfy.  We know we can find no fulfillment in them, no solutions.  Because they constantly change, we cannot rely on them to bring us freedom.

If we zoom the lens out, and expand our view, we will begin to notice how useless desire is – indeed, not just useless. 

Desire is a lie. 

An outright lie. 

Every single desire is based on the idea that things can be different, or should be different, than how they are, and that is simply not true.  This moment can never be any different than the way it is.  It cannot be better, nor can it be worse. Things are always the way they are.

Don’t take my word for it.  Check it out.  Can this moment right now, be any different than it is?

When this is understood, something really wonderful happens: we begin to see through the lie, and begin to allow for what is to simply be.  It’s going to be anyway, no matter how much you desire it otherwise, so why not simply allow it? 

But do not fall into the trap.  You cannot stop wanting.  You cannot end desire. As a matter of fact, desire is necessary.  The desire for freedom is the ultimate desire, and must be burning, unending, implacable and wholehearted.  Just see it for what it is: a necessary lie.

But beyond a resigning acceptance of what is, is it possible to actually turn the desire, and begin wanting what is? 

Instant happiness!  When you bring all the energy and drama of your desire and place it on what is happening right now, boom!  Your desire is instantly fulfilled.  How could it not be?  If you desire what is happening, and it is happening, then you are getting what you want. Always! 

Cool, huh?

You can do this. You can actually want what is happening right now, whatever it might be, with the same enthusiasm that you bring to any other of your unreliable desires. However, this freedom does come with a price.  For this desire to be reliable, you have to give something up, because in wholeheartedly wanting what is, instead of the lie that what is could be different, there is nothing for you to do.  You have to give up the idea that you can change what is. 

And so true freedom then, in our expanded view, could be defined as the absence of the desire for things to be any different.  Or said the opposite way: the wholehearted desire for things to be exactly as they are.  To have continual gratitude for each moment as it arises.  There will still be desires, for they are also what is happening, but it will no longer matter whether they are fulfilled our not.  Our satisfaction, our contentment, is in the appearance of whatever is in the moment itself.

By saying “yes” to each unfolding moment, even when that moment contains desire, is to invite an open playful curiosity about what is happening, no matter what the results or outcome of that moment is.  This is true freedom.

Saying yes, is playing the wildcard:

Just Stop And Look. Or Don't Stop And Look. And Then Stop. And Look.

I’ve found it folks!

I’ve discovered it.  True happiness.  The way to eternal peace, contentment, satisfaction, fulfillment.

It’s so amazingly simple, and here it is:

Stop

Thinking

About

Shit.

That’s it! Just stop!!

Stop reflecting, contemplating, ruminating, analyzing, perpending, poring over, meditating upon.

Stop dwelling on, fixating on, fretting about, reviewing. 

Just stop kicking shit around.

The amazing thing is that this requires nothing from you.  You don’t have to be intelligent, or creative, or eat certain foods, look a certain way.  You don’t have to wrap your legs around your head, prostrate at the feet of anyone; no purification is required. You don’t have to remember elaborate rules or rituals, retain and repeat mantras or codices, scriptures,or traditions.  It requires no special experiences, higher states, visions or insights.

Most importantly, it requires no belief.  You don’t have to take my word for it, or Jesus’ word for it, or Krishna’s, or Eckhart Tolle’s, or your mother’s, or even the most highly revered and respected spiritual teacher or leader you can imagine. 

People have sat around thinking and come up with elaborate ideas, some which become really cool books, that we read and then sit around thinking about.

People have had wonderful elaborate experiences with lights and fireworks and metaphysical energies and spirits bouncing off their foreheads and then sat around thinking about these experiences, interpreting them, sharing these stories, and then we sit around thinking about them.

They are just stories.

Now, I’m not saying “stop thinking”.  I’m not advising you to give up solving the math problem.  I’m not suggesting you toss the term paper, or use “ennie meenie miney mo” to make your most important decisions, although that would really be fun.  I’m not saying kill the mind, or your thoughts.  Just don’t be a tool for your tool.

All I am saying is: the mind is like a computer, right?  You tell your computer to open that excel file, look at the data, work with the data, and then close the excel file.  After you leave the computer, it doesn’t sit there reminiscing about that excel file.  It doesn’t try and figure out the motivations behind it, the effects of it; it doesn’t worry about whether the  file is good enough or how the world will interpret it.

To the computer, the file is just there.  That’s all.   

I’m writing this blog.  If I highlight everything on this page, and hit “delete”, what remains?

All that is required is one simple thing:  just look.

I’ve been working with this, and I’ve discovered a few things.

1.        It’s the simplest, most effective, most wonderfully available and accessible spiritual practice ever.

2.       It is exceedingly difficult.  Really, really difficult.  In the words of my dear late Grandpa, it is  “pert near” freakin’ impossible. 

It is difficult because it is so simple.

Yet it is possible.  Short moments of resting the endless stream of imagining by just looking right now, again and again, become automatic.

Over and over, again and again, whenever you remind yourself, simply stop and look.  Wherever you are.  At any time. 

In this simple seeing, this simple noticing of our addiction to the stream of incessant chatter in the mind, something wonderful happens. 

When attention is shifted from what is unreal (thoughts about the past or the future) to what is actual, what is happening right in this moment, without naming it, without thinking about it, a simple playfulness arises.  A curiosity arises, like the spontaneous questioning of a child.

Wouldn’t you agree that the most profound insights, the most wonderful and helpful inventions, the clearest expressions of being are born from this playful, open, curiosity?

 I notice- thoughts arise and dissolve.  Some of them I am interested in, some I am not.

The thoughts I am not interested in, dissolve and are gone.  The thoughts I am interested in, stick around and become “mine”.  I make something of them.  I take these unreal, insubstantial, fluid, fleeting pieces of nothing and I claim them.

They become “my” thoughts.

My opinions

My judgments

My ideas

My beliefs

My problems

My solutions

My memories

My history

They  become

 Me.

But when I stay focused on what is actual ,what is happening now, without naming, labeling, associating, creating stories,  the reflecting mechanism of my mind collapses, and where are these thoughts?

In this direct seeing, where is the “Me”?

Aha!

Stop and look. 

It doesn’t take a slap in the face!  Okay, maybe sometimes it does:

 

When You Cease To Strive To Understand, You will Know, Without Understanding.

"If a man wishes to be sure of the road he treads on, he must
close his eyes and walk in the dark."
                                                  ~St. John of the Cross

I love this quote.  It reminds me of what I must give up.  What has to be abandoned, because what  is required to walk a road in the dark is much less than what we cling to. 

It takes only two things:  attention and  trust.

Anything that distracts my attention from the road beneath  my feet is a trap – something that can lead me off into the darkness.  There are no landmarks to be seen on this road, so there can be no value in anything explained to me, or told to me, or learned by me.

I can have descriptions of the nature of the road, stories of what the road means, metaphors, symbols and ideas about the road, but all of this will only distract me, keep me looking off into the darkness, unseeing, instead of my attention being firmly planted in just this:

One step.  Then another. 

Then another.

Steps.  That is all.  That is all that is required.

One step.  Then another. 

Then another.

Nothing learned can be retained.  No belief about where the road  leads, or what the road  means, will help me to be sure of my footing upon it. 

But this, closing my eyes, is not shutting anything out, it is allowing the darkness in.  

It is resting in the space that is unknown, that can’t be known.

But can be trusted.

But to trust in what? 

Trust that the road will lead me from the darkness to the light?

Trust that walking this road will make me a better person?  Give me what I need?

Trust that my walking the road is better than not walking the road, or walking some other road?

Trust that at the end of this road, or at anytime during my walk on the road, I will be rewarded, or punished, or will be free, or live more peacefully, give more, receive more, be more?

Trust that there is something, or someone keeping track of my progress as I walk, giving my walk meaning? 

Trust that there is something to be gained, to be achieved, some conclusion to be reached?


I can take none of this with me.  

All beliefs to be flung into the darkness, useless except for taking my attention away from this:

One step.   Then another.   

Then another.

This is all that I can trust.

One step.  Then another.   

Then another.

This is all there is.