It's All Very Nice

It's all very nice to know something. Every one knows something about something or other. One of the things that I find very interesting is that the modern versions of psychology and neurology and brain slicing have not yet found the who. If we describe the "who" as an epiphenomenon of the existence of tissue of course that is true so far as it goes. But an epiphenomenon does not explain the experience which is the fact of our existence.

Off the Leash

The leash is the inner monitor that keeps us in check. Why do we need to be kept in check....because we are animals. What is the leash...consciousness. What is the one tool of consciousness....awareness. So why not just be aware and let it off the leash.

The Contemplation of Awareness

The difficulty that I have with most systems of meditation is that they work through and appeal to the consciousness. All religious systems work through the personality and seek to engage mind in a scenario that includes a world view. None of this is necessary and all of it to a greater or lesser degree entangles awareness in the fabrications of the mind.

If you want to cross the Atlantic Ocean you can board a sailing ship or take a jet liner. There is nothing wrong with the scenic route so long as you make it. If you want to meet the substrate of your being and know your actual place in the universe I suggest "The Contemplation of Awareness". No window dressing is needed, no system, no ideas: only the will to awaken.

All systems that deal with consciousness have the cart squarely before the horse. Awareness is the horse that pulls the cart of consciousness down the road of time. Awareness is the ultimate truth of our being, and consciousness and the personality are crystallizations of awareness. Most meditations train the consciousness to be silent by tying it to some mental pole and telling it to be quiet. Like most dogs, consciousness does not like this: it takes a lot of discipline and quite a bit of practice. "The Contemplation of Awareness" requires about the same discipline as watching a movie, because consciousness finds "The Contemplation of Awareness" relaxing and spontaneously engaging.

Consciousness finds and holds: consciousness is limited, and this is its purpose and its value. Awareness is ever one with the living changing moment; the limit of awareness is the fact of our being. If we set our consciousness to find and hold our awareness we are suddenly alive to everything around us. If the mind seizes upon some thing the spell is broken and once again we are trapped in our limited consciousness. There is a knack to this, but once one has tasted the simple magic of pure awareness it is not difficult to go back and forth from a focus of consciousness to expanded awareness.

Anyone who will try this will find the door open to them. And I would be very surprised if something very interesting did not happen to their mind before long.






One With God



it is a fish

and the water in which it swims

The Dance of the Butterflies

I at 68 have been a meditator for 55 years. Self Realization Fellowship found me when I was 13 years old, I was initiated into the Nichiren Shoshu sect while in Japan at age 24, and I discovered Zen as described by D T Suzuki at age 30. The eye of my spirit opened in my 32nd year. Though I find myself not able to be a joiner, and though I have known other meditators and found their practice subtly misguided; the benefits of meditation cannot be overstated, and any meditation for any reason and under any system will bear fruit.

The fragmentation of Buddhism into a prism of views is an example of a lapse of rigor in the pursuit of enlightenment. Ultimately no systems are necessary. A system is a key that one person puts in the hand of another. This is not a bad thing, but the door is not locked.

If the individual consciousness will simply contemplate the awareness which is it's essence, nature will take its course. It is time to take the ribbons and bows and the pretty wrapping paper off of the treasure of unity of awareness. Let the chrysalis of civilization split open. Let the dance of the butterflies begin.

A Drive Through the Animal Farm

Private college graduation ceremony: the students and parents and staff all doing what they do. The institution is venerable, the degree is esteemed. And pretty much everyone present could not be more asleep.

It is not a crime that there is no appreciation of awareness within the halls of academia. Humanity for all its intelligence is stuck in the consciousness of the animal. It is not a crime but it is tragic, for each individual consciousness will go its way unaware of it's true place in the universe and therefore full of a self that is unrealized.

Many of those graduates will go on to do good and important things. Most will be successful, and have good and productive lives. But my sincerest hope is that they might become aware, and therefore have a part in awakening the world, for in this world even the best and brightest are asleep at the wheel.

Archetype and Psyche

Archetypes are by definition not mutable. The psyche (being psychological) is not only mutable...it is evolving. Psyche vines on the stakes of archetype and usually claims volition. This made the invention of the gods inevitable because obviously there exist tides of being beyond the limits of intellectual and emotional volition and these somehow had to be accounted for.

Oddly enough awareness existing of it's self seems just too "out there" for your garden-variety paramecium. There must be something more personal to it.