Love only to lose

We can not save them,
We will continue to serve,
We know life is meaningless,
We will pursue meaning,
We accept the futility,
Defeat we will never ever welcome,
We keep moving,
Free of delusion,
Free of illusion.
Death, the great awakener,
Our muse!

The naked tribe of the vulnerable,
We will shelter,
We will hold them close,
The rawness in their eyes,
Holding the pain of the heart,
Trembling shaky tenderness,
Vibrations,
Sensations,
Feelers,
Haunted,
Addictive empaths,
We know this all too well,
We have travelled for so long.
We dwell here now,
in the dark pain of the human soul,
in the absurdity of human life,
The collective consciousness.
Deconstructing conditioning,
Moving the hand of evolution,
Transmuting light from the darkest depths,
Hope from hopelessness.

My heart feels broken,
Love and light is spreading outward from its jagged edges directed towards your broken heart,
Feel me brother!
Feel me sister!

They will not reach out for help,
As they sink,
Into the anguish,
Drowning,
Suffocating,
Stifling oppression,
A suffering complete,
Total eclipse of light,
Cut off completely,
Lost without knowing,
Navigating without compass,
Fixated without context,
Fragmented,
Delusion,
Illusion,
Addicted,
Shattered,
Entangled,
Wandering, lost, without connection.

They will not reach out for help,
We must swim down to them,
We must reach out in boldness,
In total raw honesty,
We have been there,
Exposed and trembling,
Cold and frightened,
We know where you are,
It is ok,
You are safe,
Come with me,
We will walk together,
While you gain your balance again,
It is no bother,
This is why I am here,
This is the purpose.

The line that tethers us is infinity thin,
razor sharp,
unrelentingly harsh,
ever present,
this is all happening!
We are the witnesses,
We are the shepherds of this boundary,
We are the guardians of the borderlands.
We are the ghosts of this realm,
One foot in each world.

Around and around we go,
Love and loss,
Laughter and tears,
Joy and sorrow,
Life and death,
Arising and passing,
We can not save them,
We will continue to serve.

Love only to lose,
Lose knowing you loved.
~ Metta

Oh beauty

Oh beauty,
Let me see you for the first time, again.
Flowers I must forget you,
Your beautiful eyes I must not remember,
Do not let me take your glory for granted,
Do not let me define this mystery,
This sunset is always the first,
Taste sweetened by renewal.
Empty the mind,
Defy opinions,
Challenge belief,
Erode nostalgia,
Familiarity breads contempt,
Stare each time with wonder,
With the freshness of the first time,
Wide eyed child.
To breathe in deeply, the fragrance, rich with awe and expansion,
To let go,
To forget,
To experience the flower anew with each glance,
This is the first time I have seen you,
We have known each other for many many years,
A flicker flame,
Falling pedals,
Blooming blossoms,
You renew with each passing instant,
Arising passing.

Only our insecurity,
Makes us fill the emptiness,
The pressure to speak,
The burden to be heard,
only fear makes us label,
“I know,
I belief,
I understand.”

We are stuck, trapped, in an endless circle, we claim to understand,
we profess we know,
with foolish certainty,
projecting a confidence compensating for a shaking foundation,
a castle built on sand,
a knowing within ignorance,
stagnantly defending,
We do not grow when we know!
There is no limit or end to our universe, conversely therefore there is no limit to the ignorance of humankind.
“I do not know” is the gateway to god.

The mind of a child,
An infant old man,
Innocent and empty,
Experience is fresh,
Unlearned,
Undefined,
Unshackled,
Continual psychological death,
The gateway to renewal,
To a life of beauty and gratitude,
To perceive without organization,
Experience without judgement,
Feel without reaction,
Love without end.
Oh beauty,
i will meet you again,
for the first time.

Samsara

The endless wheel,
Continuously moving,
Do not get caught in a single spoke,
Do not lose perspective.
Fixating on the small world of me and mine,
We miss the larger movements,
The flowing dance between life and death.

No single life defines this process,
No life stands out,
Not yours,
Not mine,
Turning,
Turning,
Turning.
We grasp and cling,
The flow is passing us by,
Leaving us entangled,
Trapped in the past,
Ensnared by the future,
We are missing right now.
This thief steals our lives,
While we are distracted rationalizing who we think we are,
While we plan who we will become,
While we reminisce who we once were. 
Suffering needlessly,
Frantic with lust for control,
Definition,
Meaning.

It is not your sadness to possess,
It is not your tragedy alone,
It is universal,
It is a gift we all must share,
Samsara.

i am

The world has it’s troubles,
It’s wars fuels by greed,
It’s murder,
It’s rape,
It’s slavery,
It’s oppression,

It’s racism,
It’s nationalism,
It’s sexism,
Its sectarianism,
ism, ism, ism,
I am, I am, I am.

An endless rat race,
Ruled by individuality, insecurity and competition.

This however is not the source or the depth of our misery.
This world is just the flowers of our poisoned roots.

At the depth of the mind,
At the origin of consciousness,
Is an unquenchable thirst,
An endless dissatisfaction,
A cup we can not fill,
Basic instincts,
Survival,
Aversion for death,
Craving for life,
Morphed into the monster of modern man,
Expanded exponentially by thought and imagination.
This frantic world is rooted in our restless mind,
Never quiet,
Always seeking,
Always becoming,
Always deprecating,
Always grasping for control,
Always resisting truth.

This is our nature,
we must see life for what it is,
A flickering flame,
a flowing river of impermanence.

Awareness, acceptance, equanimity.

Then and only then will these conflicts resolve,
Only then can we find loving kindness,
Only then can we experience selfless love,

We must tear down the castle to enter the kingdom.

A poem for yesterday

Old friend
How do I tell you?
I am no longer a thing,
neither a prince,
nor an object,
I am not the hero you seek,
nor the victim I desire to be.

This is all so serious,
the greatest laugh,
sacred folly,
a holy clown.

I have seen the secret,
peeked behind the curtain,
into the ether,
the empty space,
between pride and shame,
I hate to tell you,
they are one in the same.

Oh old friend,
Are you moving?
have you been sitting there all this time?
come with me,
this heavy load will become light,
 (if only I was not alone), 
If you could dispatch your feelings,
upon the safety of my station,
I would gladly take them,
I can not,
this great divide is fathomless, 
there is no way over,
these are your gifts to keep.

Come I have oxygen and tea,
restoration is ready for you,
here is the water!
I have a story that will give you pause, recovery, and some peace.

It is the story of the wise fool,
a being beyond their years,
perpetually out of date,
trapped in time,
dragged backwards, 
to unlock stone tombs,
sealed eternally.
An endless circle backwards,
without an escape route,
Infinitely,
anchored to the past.

Empty eyes, 
smiling and crying, 
adding their pain, 
into the openness of vulnerability,
hallow and unguarded,
standing in solitude,
holding up the walls.

“Surely you can bear our load,
what is one more tragedy for you?”

Connection is in abundance,
the effort is to sync,
I do not see things your way,
do you hear yourself?
you seek a solution for seeking,
a destination for this endless journey,
a way out from right here,
still hungry for last night’s feast,
still aching from yesterday’s famine,
Oh! this narrative,
This narrative of the past.

Break the script.

Growth is possible,
not through the resolution of yesterday’s tragedies,
not through the celebration of past triumphs,
you can’t go back,
there is no road, 
the path does not lead that way. 

Empathic diminishment,
I do not know what to do with your smiles?
Where do I put these tears?
Old Friend,
I do not know how to tell, 
I am leaving,
I have left.
No longer am I where you see me,
no longer am I this object,
a creation from your pain,
a deflection of your sadness.
The mirror that you fear, 
earning deeply for.

Trust me.
I am not afraid to look,
To see my conceit,
My greed,
My horror,
My addictive ghost....
always hungry.
Ok what? It is there. 
It is there! 
Let’s face it together with fiery tears and cool refreshing laughter!
Yes, laughter!
Our shield from the erosive cancer of self importance.

I suffer only for I!

Remember when we were little,
I don’t,
I can not feel it, 
it has become lost.
All I have is empty words, 
scattered patchy memories,
mere shadows of the powerful feeling that once occupied me,
then they vanished into the curtain of time and impermanence. 
Poof! they are gone. 
Vanished forever.

Only a restless demon wants me to remembers,
to relive, 
to bring back from death,
in a mutilated and lifeless form,
the candle’s last flicker.
Bending an imaginary imagine of what was,
warping truth to exist, 
commanding my perpetual dysfunction;

These are my habits,
These are my ideas,
These are my preferences,
These are my expectations,
This is my stagnancy.

Blinded ambition, 
to resolve the unresolvable, 
what was owed, 
what was given,
this debt that imprisons us,
always willing itself to life from dissatisfaction,
birthed by resentment of unfulfilled expectations and fantasies,
a moment kept alive thorough the addiction to the illusion of permanence. 
I must matter!
I must fix this! 
Hear me scream!
Hear me wail!
Here I am!
In all my misery.
Sleepless skeletons rule my world,
ridged with justice for cases closed long ago,
burning with importance,
demanding court.
This is MY view,
my trauma lens,
how I see all things,
the present blinded by the past.

As each moment arises and passes,
only a shadow is left behind,
be aware of it’s presence,
do not follow this shadow,
it leads only to death,
the death of growth and awareness,
away from eternity,
the eternity and immortality of now. 
Death is our past and our future. 
Life is right now!
Immortality is not becoming permanent
It is the awareness of the endlessness of the present moment. 

Old friend,
former self,
yesterday’s sweet love,
last night’s cutting sorrow,
let me be now,
let new love die,
free this moment from your bondage, 
Goodbye old friend. 

We bang our heads against dead wood,
Demanding water!
Help me I am thirsty!!!

The gift you would never give

Life is a story of hardship,
of great challenge.
To find consciousness in a world of noise, competition and bloody history.
We struggle to remember this process,
repeated thousands of times,
in total amnesia,
to cling and release,
to love and to lose.

We bath in stories of constant struggle and tragedy.
Denial of the inevitable, our dwelling place, deep fear the price we pay for this Naïveté.
Worst case scenarios, a station we can not tune out.
A tired tale of endless irony, 
fatalism and fantasy, 
followed without end or question. 
Our story has yet to be written,
despite it haunting familiarity.
If only we could only remember!

Life a gift of unimaginable wonder,
given only to be taken,
a heart beating with a fiery joy,
will cease into quiet cold stillness.

Trauma,
Aging,
Disease,
Death,

Gifts never to be given. 

Harsh lessens told over and over through thousands and thousands of years,
Transporters of truth,
Carriers of silver linings,
Envoys of enlightenment,
Teachers of equanimity,
Preachers of peace,
Guides of acceptance,

Gifts beyond compare.

Often found only in tragedy and crisis,
why do these teachers have to be so harsh, relentless, and severe?
Filled only with anguish?
Consumed only with sadness?
Masters of misery. 

How else will we see truth and put down this jeweled cup?
How else will we forsake the telescope and pictures of the past?
How else will we face impermanence?
Why would we look inward, 
towards our sorrow, 
when the flowers are still in bloom?
Why would we choose to look there on this beautiful day?
Why would we let go of this pleasure, before it is called back to truth?
Is growth not a product of discomfort?
Why would we trade these illusions for pain?

Mistaking pleasure for happiness,  
comfort is the birth place of our apathy.

Yes, yes the Golden treasure is hidden behind our well constructed tower of illusion,
the castle of I and Me is well guarded,
defended by desire,
guarded by pain,
secured by aversion,
hidden by loss,
jailed by the delusion,
camouflaged with expectation,
isolated by ignorance,
imprisoned by pleasure,
sentinels possessing endless vigilance,
fueled by constant attachment.

Insight, acceptance, equanimity the only safe way through.

This golden path, illusive,
malleable and moving
Requiring continual navigation,
path finding, 
silver linings are hard to find,
difficult to see. 

When we collide with suffering,
the treasure is often missed as we wallow in disappointment and the endless injustice. 

This is not fair! We scream into the emptiness of the night! 

We fail time and time again to accept,
to really accept!
that these lives are not ours to keep,
our plan not always our path,
That the pain we feel we are active in creating!
There is no redemption,
only acceptance, renewal, and grace. 
The scars and stains cannot wash be washed away,
only transformed into insight, growth and light.

We will crash into suffering at some point in life or over the coarse of generations of lives.
This cold reality has the capacity to awaken,
to clear cluttered shackles of the mind.
Fog of ignorance vanishing,
colliding into the chasm of truth.

Suffering in the end is the gift itself,
leading the way to truth and to freedom.
Only a joy embedded with sorrow is everlasting. 

The gift you would never give.

Step out of the nosies, the competition and bloody history,
let pass the mechanism of oppression,
the ingrained self sabotage,
the doubts that holds back the heart,
the denial of fear,
insecurity, as individual trait, failing to see its universal origin,
the illusion of our “separation”, 
leaving us exposed. 
electromagnetically bonded,
consciously connected, 
the line between me and the world, imaginary.  

See it for what it is!
Oh! this suffering is the gift!
Sit with it. 
Be with it. 
It is you!
Sooner or later we must all pass over this divide,
diving into the unknown,
into humility of our perpetual ignorance,
layer after layer,
lesson repeated,
repeated,
repeated,
repeated,
smilingly infinity!
Oh the endless lessons,
Lessons endless!

The gifts you would never give. 

The treasure is growth,
Growth of awareness,
Growth of acceptance,
Growth of consciousness.

To feel powerful feelings and not react,
to feel disappointment without despair,
to melt stagnancy of opinions and beliefs,
to break with habit and routine,
to dissolve expectation through acceptance,
to love completely, accepting loss,
to experience connection and disconnection as the same moment,
to see that death is essential to life,
arising and passing,
in slow rhythmic metronome,
Singularity. 

To live life with death! 
Can you imagine?

To discover,
the autobiographer of this suffering,
the note taker of scars,
the annotators of accomplishment,
the machinery of self-imprisonment.
To vanquish,
the hungry ghost of addiction and habit, 
to harness the mind, the wild beast,
perpetually thrashing in the past and the present. 

Oh! To be free of time!
 
To understanding the meaning of MY Life is not the goal,
but to understand life,
the way of nature,
the ebb and flow.
To finally learn,
that this is not all about me!
Gifts were not given to be hoarded,
given so we may serve, 
care, understand, comfort, guide,

HERE IS THE WATER!!!

Liberate entangled energy,
unify, two blending back into one.
Origin.
The evolution of humanity,
Spirit over flesh,
Connecting to the energy that is the source of life and death, 
over and over and over again,
The Breathing Force,
inhale exhale,
life death,
inhale exhale,
life death
arising passing,
arising passing
on the very same scale,
perspective solely responsible for the divide,
expansion, contraction
vibration. 

To think this is all a prescription of meaningless cruelty is only despair.
To think we can posses the mystery is only fantasy.
All we can do is pay attention to the movement,
the sensation of experience,
free of judgement,
free of reaction,
fastened to the fluctuation,
changeless change,
one with life,
one with death,
A simple river flowing forward.
We can really live a life of freedom.
instantaneously!
without seeking!
without striving! 
Quiet,
Equanimous,
Observation, 
Here we are. 

We can not create the rules, we can only learn to find the way. 

There is no right way, 
there is no wrong way, 
there is only the way. 

This, the gift you would never give.

What does it mean to be whole?

To be whole, 
we must accept that life has two sides, 
we must see that these sides are only reflections of the same thing, 
one follows the other,
tied together along an unbreakable seam,
inseparable,
indivisible,
there are two sides, balancing a single whole.

To be whole we must unify; 
gain and loss,
joy and sorrow,
fear and wisdom,
triumph and failure,
sadness and gratitude,
highs and lows,
pleasure and pain,
light and shadow.

To be whole, we must blend opposites into a swirling wonder without preference or expectations.
To be whole, we must unify good and bad into a complete experience of life’s dynamic gift and hefty burden.

To be whole we must break down our mind’s fragmentation, 
the chasm between possession and freedom, 
the divide between what we feel we deserve and what we have,
the fracture between what we think should be, 
and the acceptance of WHAT IS. 

Objective awareness and compassion are the only cure for this wretched wound and this great divide. 

To be whole we must live a life with both the darkness and the light, as they are our origin and structure.
Two sides of a perfect whole.

We are a product of love which holds joy and pain together with grace.

season of sorrow

Old picture albums capture the grander and joy of yesterday,
all that mattered so much, no longer occupies reality, did it even happen?
Faded back into dust and patchy memories.

Life and death are tied, 
to live is to die,
one is not good and the other bad,
they are one.

Generation after generation,
We cling to life as if it was our own. 
Desperate for permanence, possession and meaning. 
Our great loss is created only by our foolish attempts to possess,
my life, 
my mother, 
my friends, 
my child. 
They are not ours to keep only passing moments in an endless continuum, 
arising and passing,
in majestic impermanence.

Death is not the end just as birth was not the beginning.
Energy can neither be created or destroyed, 
only transferred and transformed. 

Love does not die, love is the medium of all life,
transcending both time and space.
Love does not end,
love transfers, 
transmits,
transmutes,
transforms,
changes,
in continuous consciousness.

This great sorrow we feel is tied to our desire to posses the connection and joy we shared, moments that have long ago passed. 
Sorrow is our yearning to make the transient permanent. 
Sorrow is the defining moment of our attachment to possessive love. 

This image of self is all that dies,
our illusion of possession is all that fades.

The forest is weeping.

Each smile only promises sadness,
This “I” enslaves me to loss,
This self guarantees only sorrow.

We build ourselves up so high, 
we cry and wail when we fall.

This illusion of individuality can not resist the weight of the universe, 
this ignorance can not last, 
this delusion will not sustain. 
A fabrication of fantasy,
a grand effort made only in vain,
this “separation” only grants the Return. 

Can I hold the pain of sorrow in my moments of joyful pleasure? 
Can I be whole to live life without fragmentation? 
Can I embrace loneliness surrounded by many? 
Can I simply accept the flow without attempts of possession or promotion? 

Can I accept sorrow and death as I seek joy and life?

Each tear drop was born in laughter,
go into the vacuum of darkness,
smiling at your tears. 
Metta

a thin line

The yellow leaves fall slowly into the waiting river below,
to be swept away by time. 
The breeze oscillates, 
one moment warm, 
the next cool,
exhale, 
inhale. 

The line between two worlds narrows to invisible, 
life closer to death.

Pine needles fall like teardrops.

Golden light, the mixing of opposing forces,
illuminates the underbelly of the foliage lifted by fall winds. 

Translucent the forest canopy becomes revealing both it’s vitality and diminishment, 
tide together on a ever shrinking seem. 
through the lens of death life is only beautiful, essential, and poignant. 

Walking with a ghost like soul.
Love and loss,
Marry in the fall.

Raindrops

The circumstantial events of our individual lives carries the same significance as that of a single raindrop in a monsoon. 

The truth of life is found in the lessons these moments reveal about the consciousness of the universe, not just a singular experience, but rather the experience of experience. To become attached to a single raindrop will only cause us to drowned in the weight of life's endless rain storm. 

We do cling to our experiences, holding on to the joy and the pain, pouring meaning into them. Turning each raindrop into an endless sea of our suffering. We miss so many moments as we drowned in the “meaning” we give each experience, event and thought.

Each rain drop is just another tear in an ocean of loss. 

We must not disappear into this endless storm.  We need to look up, widen our vision and see the stormy sky and the sunshine above it all.

The road less traveled

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

            ~Robert Frost

At the moment of insight into the ways of this world we arrive at this fork in the road. Our insight offers a potential that teeters on a thin line between two paths that are infinitely different.

One path leads to cynicism, bitterness, judgement and resentment as we focus on the chasms between the truth we feel and the world in which we live.  We begin to tear down others with a great viciousness; judging and categorizing in a blind defense and promotion of self. If we choose this rabbit hole of negative judgmental thinking, no matter how justified it is by what we see in the world, we prescribe ourselves to a lifetime of endless darkness and fear. We become trapped in the road block of comparison, using others to boost or tear ourselves down. This road leads to the dead end of the status-quo, safety in numbers but no longer moving, a rationalized existence.  Just because this rabbit hole exists does not mean we have to live in it.  

The other path leads to introspection and the acceptance that we are this world, that through our own thoughts we are the creators of the world, we are the judge, jury and executioner. By turning our sword inward we see that the world in which we live has its origins in our very thoughts, our selfishness, and our greed. The less traveled road requires that we look into the harsh reality of the mirror and face our vulnerabilities and reality of our thoughts.  It is easier to stand on the sidelines and criticize than it is to jump into the game and face the mirror of truth. It is easier to blame and judge than it is to accept and find compassion. 

The great irony is how we so easily choose the path of negativity.  It has been set up for us, appears easier, and seemingly offers more “control”; that no longer requires work and protects us from vulnerability. In the name of ease we choose a life without growth, relying on stagnant definitions and judgements. Negativity offers us a false sense of control and we, who live in such a chaotic world, will always instinctively choose control over chaos, even if the control is false and leads to our own spiritual enslavement. 

The road less traveled, on the other hand is difficult. It requires breaking down conditioned thought patterns that for much of our life we have seen as truths. “Truths” that have kept us safe in the night.  It requires facing our very impermanence. It requires a hard look at the depth of our ignorance. It is the breakdown of the false control we cling to and then the subsequent fall into the abyss of chaos.  To see that our opinions and ideas only carry a thin veil behind which lies only self-promotion.  To face that we as a species know nothing.  To see that what we call “our” thoughts, ideas and beliefs are just the recycled thoughts and conditioning of thousands of years, lacking any originality or authority in the realm of what is truth.

Both roads presented like this do not sound inviting.  One filled with stagnation, cynicism and bitterness, the other full of vulnerability, hard work and painful growth. One road leads to an endless darkness, but the other leads to light.

The road less traveled is actually a royal road, full of the real reward we seek, happiness, freedom and love. This is difficult to convey in words and can only be realized with experience. These treasures are hidden by the gateway of vulnerability, a threshold that many fear to cross.  When we see the depth of this conditioned reality through deep objective introspection, when we face our conditioned selfishness, expectations, definitions, opinions, and memories, when we strip all that away, we are left with the very source of the universe, LOVE.  An unconditional universal love that can only be found when we remove the shackles of expectation and choose to live in the freedom that comes with the acceptance of what is.

This is not love that we have chased and idolized our whole lives. It is not a love full of expectations and possession, it is not a love of lust and control.  It is a love of compassion for ignorance and struggle of every human that is rooted in the compassion we find for ourselves.  Only through introspection into our own struggles, ignorance and hypocrisy can we ever hope to find empathy and compassion for our fellow beings. The mirror, an object of alchemy, will transmute darkness and reflect back light. 

We arrive at this fork in the road over and over again throughout our days and throughout our lives. We are constantly choosing our path as we encounter the endless onslaught of life.  We often choose without knowing, unconscious and done out of rote habits and routine patterns. We must break this pattern, become conscious of the choice. We must trade in our looking glasses for a mirror and find the source within us all. The road less travelled is long, but the rewards are immediate.

In love and kindness, Peter

Surviving the tide

Waxing waning, 
Sunrise sunset,
Joy pain,
Love struggle,

Connection Disconnection,

Subtlety shifting silently in the night
Connection slips away with each exhale
Fluid abundance replaced by a dry parched land
A farmer wakes to find bitter fruit in his fields
An instantaneous mysterious fall from mountain top to valley floor

Your tears not enough to fill the void
Your words like feathers against stone
Your pleading unanswered
Your begging falling on deafened ears

The agony of time revealed
Patience tested, lost at sea
Flesh rotting in the desert sun
Impatient ignorance denies the inevitable return
Destitute hopelessness
We thrash unwilling to learn the cycle
Frantic to return to the sea of love

tide in tide out
tide in tide out
tide in tide out
tide in tide out…

a quiet mind

Why is a quiet mind essential to health?

Reaction of the mind to the emotional field stagnates the embryological organizing forces that not only create our life, but continue to maintain it long after birth.  Embryology is mostly associated with in utero gestation -the original organization of life- yet in life we continue to have cell birth, death and organization that is guided by these same influences: we never stop being born.  The forces that allow us to exist as individual entities in this vast universe come with powerful consequences.

In the formation of the identity of the individual we become exposed to consequence of this structure. The positive aspects of our creation of the body-mind/ego is counter weighted by our exposure to habitual negative emotional reaction: passion, fear, anger, anxiety, sadness and worry. These emotions are tied to our identity, physiology and the organization of our life.  Light and shadow are not separate they are only different aspects of the same, you can not have one without the other. This is the profound and ironic truth of life.  Emotions are the natural outcome of our individual consciousness. This "I" becomes a precious thing and full of attachments, which opens the door to anger, fear, anxiety, passion, worry and ultimately loss. We must accept emotions presence. Follow any emotion, “positive” or “negative”, to its root and you see it is always in defense or enhancement to the protection and propagation of the image of “I”, “me” and “mine”.  The mechanisms that grants us an individual physical and psychological structure, comes with attachment to our creation of self and make us vulnerable to a life of tension and fear. 

We must feel our emotions when they arise. In the relative world of “I” and “Me” if someone “we” love passes, sadness is a natural response and allows us to connect to the love we have for this person. By no mean is this essay saying that we shouldn’t feel these powerful forces, but that vast majority of the time we do not feel our emotions, but instead we intellectualize our emotions, allowing our mind to hijack and stagnate these powerful force.  We all too oftensay “ I am so emotional”  but in reality what we are calling emotion is actually the thinking about emotions vs. actually feeling the physical manifestation of these powerful forces. To really experience the reality of an emotion is simply to feel it at the physical level without engaging in contemplation, intellectualization, imagination or fantasy, to feel, to actually feel what is.  To sit with these sensations is extremely difficult and easily over powers the balance of the mind.  We must also be aware of sensations when we feel the bliss of pleasure, passion and joy. In this awareness we must maintain balance though acceptance of theimpermanence and un-sustainability of this state . It is all too easy to mistake pleasure for happiness.  

If we do not want to become slaves to our emotions we must sit with them in objective observation, a quiet mind, to allow them their full expression so they may pass away like the river that is flowing by.

The key to understand is that life force and emotions are tied, they are one. If we engage in mental reaction to our emotions we reroute this life giving force and deny our body its regulation and nourishment, which is why an unbalanced mind is the birth place of disease.  The mind consumes 20 percent of the energy our body produces. The more agitated and attached it becomes the more energy it consumes.  If we do not engage in combat with what is and accept it for what it is, which is impermanent sensations, then this force is left unrestricted and there is not a sliver of tension in the body and this universal force will automatically organize, regulate, and nourish life. This is a vibrational force that is responsible for all life, we must simply quiet our mind and get out of the way.  The breath is the gift that comes with the burden of our consciousness. Through breath, meditation, we can still the mind, releasing vast amounts of energy to nourish the body and let the spirit soar.

There is a health that runs deeper than our persona. What would anger, fear, worry, anxiety, and sorrow be without “I” and “me”?

What is meaning?

We are all searching for meaning in our lives.  We ask ourselves, What is the purpose of my life? Why am I here?  We answer; I will have meaning when I achieve this or I attain that. I will have meaning when I find the right job, the right profession, the right relationships, the right material objects, the right understanding, the right experience… The answer we give is one of projection of what we think we need to become, so we can posses “meaning”. We create an illusionary place in the future where we will find this ultimate fulfillment and meaning.

This is the greatest trap we lay for ourselves as it actually robs our lives of meaning and fills it with anticipation, angst, dis-satisfaction, dis-appointment and misery.

Life is always moving, never is it static. The “meaning” of our lives therefore must move with life. There is no destination where all is complete, life is always flowing forward. The “meaning” of our lives is found by finding the meaning of each moment, not in a fantasy built in the distant land of the future, a land of acomplishments, that can never be reached.

What is the meaning of my life in this moment? Why am I here in this moment? What can I learn? How can I be completely present in this moment? 

This approach guarantees a life full of true meaning.

a Butterfly

It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world                                                       -Chaos Theory

Small changes at the center have drastic complex effects at the periphery. 

From the origin of the universe or the spiraling outward of a single cell into a complex organism, the fractal movement of the universe is the propagation of a simple pattern outward into greater complexity. We find this in all aspects of our universe.  From a single undifferentiated cells we spiral out exponentially into a complex beings with over 10 trillion highly differentiated cells, yet every single one of those cells came from the same simple origin. A small corruption of the center can have disastrous effects on the whole, as when a negative mutation occurs in the organizing of DNA which can create ravishing birth defects.

The consciousness of mankind has followed this same pattern.  Simple distinction of thought that seem simple and organic in origin propagates outward in exponential growth. We took a wrong turn in our thoughts and understating of life that have now grown from simple ideas to complex and destructive systems of oppression and violence.

What were those changes?

My GOD, your god

Acceptance of tradition as rule

Pursuit of pleasure

Denial of pain

Division of judgement, us and them

Individual’s needs greater than the whole

Suppression of fear

Judgement of present with the past

Dominion over the nature

Pursuits of the individual pleasure as the goal of life 

Labels of identity of self and others, gender, race, nationality, religion…

These simple mutations in our thoughts even if seemingly innocent, meaning not used to directly oppress others, have spiraled outward in an exponential explosion that has led to the crisis of consciousness and moral corruption that defines our world today. We continue to look to others to lead us out of this darkness or we point fingers in blame to those we label responsible.  Yet our own individual promotion, greed, religion, judgement of others, narcissism and the pursuit of our individual success and comfort is the same root of evil that we are so quick to demonize when we see it in others.  It is difficult to accept the responsibility of this truth, we are our world, our world’s consciousness is our consciousness.

In fractal growth the periphery is tied to the center, but always moving away from center. Change that starts in periphery, society/government/religion, will not affect the center, as it is still moving away from center and the corruption at the center will eventual wash over any positive change at the periphery. One oppressive regime is only replaced by the next. The rebel becomes the dictator. We have seen this countless times in our history.

This is the reason that change of our world can only come from the center of each individual. It is only in the resolution of the center, the heart of each individual, that can cause the same spiraling fractal effect to bring truth, meaning and morality back to this world as a whole.  

Turn off the internet and look inside, we are ruining the world with our thoughts. :)

Mechanism of our Ignorance

It is from our memories that we create a life of dissatisfaction, tension and misery.

Our memories of pleasure fill our present moment with craving and clinging to past joy. We face the moment with expectations and comparisons created by pleasures that have long since passed, the moment never lives up to the fantasies to which we cling.

Our memories of pain creates apprehension and forecasts of doom never allowing what is to be, we face the moment untrustingly, warily and full of aversion.  We accept this misery regardless of whether it is real or just remembered.

The lens of our past from which we view the present and falsely predict the future is the mechanism of our ignorance.

The past is sealed, frozen forever, yet we thrust it onto the present moment with uncompromising comparison, destroying any hope, spontaneity and growth into the darkness of the sealed tomb of our past experience.

We never give the present moment a chance to be experienced for what it is, we defined its reality long ago.

Any new experience instantly triggers a cascade of memories and the freshness of each moment is suffocated under the rubble of our past, as we empty a closet full of skeletons into each moment.

From memories long-term relationships become stagnant, defined, classified, full of resentment and stale.  We cease learning because we tell ourselves we know and we understand.

We foolishly celebrate our memories as who we are and define life with our traumas, not realizing that in these celebrations and definitions we have given away any chance of curiosity, wonder, hope, intelligence, spontaneity, growth and true happiness. In our attachment to our memories we have lost the art of living.

Each moment is impermanent, arising and passing.  Feel it, experience it and let it pass. Be Happy.

The Bellows

The bellows, before story and story teller, before distinction and definition, before light and dark.  

From the great vacuum of emptiness the material universe was breathed into form. The pumping bellows open an invisible seem, a portal without definition, that allows life to spill forth, in the greatest of all mysterious. Search for the opening and it cannot be found.  The action of the bellows is universal throughout all aspects of existence, from the infinitesimal to the infinite. From the activity of neutrons to the rotation of planetary bodies, the source is the same. The bellows of our body, the lung, is the portal that brings the universe in through our noses to circulate throughout every aspect of our human life; our thoughts, our action, our anatomy, our physiology, our consciousness.

This, the great mystery, can never be defined. It can only be felt. 

Breathing brakes the shackles of bondage in the body-mind continuum freeing the power of the bellows to pulse life through the body.  The lung initiates the movement of the bellows as it can mechanically pump life giving air into the body, but this in not the final goal of respiration. Respiration should know no boundary or limit as the very body is able to breathe in the bath of universal energy, every fiber and nerve in rhythmic synchronicity.  Physical respiration leads to full body respiration, in sync with universal respiration, the energetic pulsation of all life- visible or invisible.  To seek health of the body and mind is the goal of human life, as it strengthens the bellows, so the spirit can pulsate in rhythm with the universe.

Mission

It is the focus of my work to bring awareness to the perspectives with which we have chosen to view and define life, medicine, and self.   We must acknowledge and understand our conditioned perspectives; the visions they allow and the blind spots they create. 

All strengths contain the weakness of themselves, neither can be present without the other. 

We must accept, with compassion and understanding, that we have been trying to define the whole of the universe from a single vantage point - we are only limiting ourselves with this tunnel vision.  

My goal is to help us all embrace a multi-perspective view so we may lead healthier, happier, and more peaceful lives as individuals, in medicine, and humanity as a whole. In the end we must understand that how you look at something defines what you see.

extraordinary

Ambition is the root of conflict, as it creates space between what we are and what we think we need to be.  As we train our children to accomplish, to reach the top of the class, we steal from them the innocence of each moment.  We set their happiness out in front of them at a distance they can never reach, as there is no end to the ambitions of the ego, it is a bottomless pit that cannot be filled.  This chase we set them on has no finish line and satisfaction in life will forever remain illusive. The donkey will never reach the carrot. Happiness can not be found when seeking it, the ego will only lead us to misery, emptiness and a sense of failure.

To find the magic of each moment is the lesson we should be teaching. As we age we come to think we “understand” life from a place of knowledge, but this is only the death of true intelligence, which is based in curiosity and wonder. To keep mystery alive in this age of information becomes our fight.  To wake and see a sunrise like it is the first time, to taste fruit from a tree full of gratitude, to live with a mind-blowing appreciation of life, and to accept that we know nothing is the only path to freedom.

What defines our lives is not our accomplishments, but our ability to find the extraordinary in each ordinary moment.

Resolving Opposites

We carve and conquer the one, the nameless source of life, with distinction of opposites, light vs dark, hot vs cold. From the interplay between “opposites” we construct the world of thought, a world of conflict.  What we have separated we must reunite.

Through the mechanism of thought we attempt to control the chaos of our existence as we define and label the universal, inside and out. We are able to perceive contrast, the line between light and dark, which we foolishly mistake as permission to separate the universal experience into material opposing forces.  We label aspects of the single whole as distinct and separate opposites. We mistake this imaginary line we invented as a border and prepare both sides for war. It is only through our labels that we find conflict, both individual and throughout the world as a whole.  We created the world of right and wrong, up and down, light and dark, a world of distinction, definition, and opposites. 

We turn our invented thoughts into beliefs and allow them to create division where there is unity. We separate the universal, one, into two: light and dark, hot and cold, good and bad. We define our world with the interplay between these “opposites” and from this we create the endless conflict of things and images.  Not only have we divided and labeled the world around us, but also the psychological world within.  We drive this division with our greatest fuel, our aversion for pain and our lust for pleasure. We fail to see that even pleasure and pain are united as one. We hope to live in light and pleasure forever and this desire dooms us to darkness. Light must fade, things must change and the only consistency is the impermanence of all things . When pleasure fades and unpleasant sensations dominate we revolt against them and long for pleasure, we do not accept what is and instead we chase an illusion in attachment, conflict and misery. The “opposites” we created of light and dark give us the fantasy and illusion that we can choose to live only in light and deny darkness.  The separation between dark and light is not real, it is only imagined, thought into existence, it has no basis in truth.  Light and dark are bound as one, totality.

As we carve up the universal to gain control over the physical what do we lose? We lose connection, balance and endless vital energy that is wasted managing these conflicts of our creation. This dichotomy we have created is bound to resolve in our search for authentic self and truth.  As we seek to gain, we fail to see that this promises us only loss. The arising defines the return.  Only through awareness of this truth can we resolve opposites and find peace.

In the blending of light and dark harmony is found.

~