When we perceive our world we generally sense something, we identify it, we form thoughts and even feelings about it. We may even form conclusions about it too. Within moments we build whole stories around our perceptions. And we do this without volition, without thinking about it or deciding to do it. We just do it out of habit and conditioning.

    All our senses work together including our mind as we experience the world. For example we look up and see a moving shape in the sky, a pattern of light and dark and color. We identify it as a bird, an eagle for instance. We may think,  “beautiful”. We may think it’s large and all sorts of other thoughts appear too. We don’t know where they come from. All the sudden they are there. We may think and worry this eagle might eat our cat! We think, “where is my cat anyway”? We see an image in our mind of our cat being carried away in the eagle’s talons. It’s horrifying. Our body releases a little adrenaline into our blood. We’re actually reacting to a thought. We hope the eagle will stay around so we can enjoy the sight of it longer because it’s a thing of beauty. And we hope it will leave so our cat will be safe because this eagle is also a dangerous thing. Perhaps we think all of these thoughts, feeling all these feelings about this moving shape in the sky, this eagle. And on and on we go in our minds. We spin off into all kinds of directions sometimes.

    The point is that there is a lot that goes on in the few moments that follow our perceptions, the seeing of this shape in the sky, the contact of that light with our eyes, with our mind. This is the habitual way in which we perceive and react to things for most of us most of the time. An endless ride of hitchhiking from one perception to the next with lots of reactive thoughts and feelings blended in between - which then in turn affect our perceptions and reactions which follow. Quite the wild ride isn’t it? Is this process always helpful to us, to others? What do you think?

    What we’re doing here is looking at this wild ride to see if this is the best way to function in our world. Is it healthful, helpful? Is this the only way we can function? Or, is there another way to function that is better, and, in ways we may not predict, perhaps even more wild in the most glorious and unexpected ways?

    When we look around, read a newspaper, watch the news, what do we see? We see a world made ugly by our very participation. All those things we do making the world “a little bit more hateful” when multiplied billions of times every moment, really add up! We bring a lot to the table all the way from nurturing to harmful. Unfortunately much of what we bring is harmful, unhealthy, and down right hateful. Without human influence the world might be a beautiful, wondrous place - almost magical. Look around though and it doesn’t look like a very desirable place full of magic does it? Not a happy place. Not a friendly place. It’s full of suffering, pain, and ugliness of all kinds. It’s a sad state of affairs. A sad state that has been developing for a very very long time. Thousands of years of human relations and development made up from countless trillions of moments is what is represented as we look around today. Technologically, we humans have been very impressive. In many other ways though we appear to be “challenged”, handicapped, handcuffed even. We haven’t a clue and we don’t even know we’re clueless! Seems hopeless sometimes. But is it? The answer is “no”. A challenge, certainly. Hopeless, no.

    We are where we are and from this place we must continue. There is no choice about that. We can continue down the same old road, sure. It’s familiar, offering a certain degree of comfort therefor but isn’t it killing our hearts? Look around. It’s certainly killing a lot of people and animals around the world! We’re the abused spouse desperately needing to leave but afraid to save ourselves. We’re also the abuser. That’s the challenge. That too is our way out, our salvation. The problem seems just too big, devoid of options. We don’t realize the solution is far simpler than our fearful mind constructs. It’s not complicated. And it’s also very complex isn’t it? We just get out, right? But how do we do that? What does that mean?

    Now, it’s not easy either. It takes a brave heart, the impeccable convictions of the warrior, the hero. It takes at least a fairly clear seeing of the problem, and a little help from others is wonderful too to get us started and keep us going.

    The thing is, we CAN change the world. We DO change the world as we live our lives. Buy acting “rightly” I’ll call it, that is, with care, compassion, wisdom, good intentions, we are happier. Each one of these acts makes the world a bit happier too. It just works that way. There’s nothing to do about it. We see this process and we understand that this is why we bother. It’s up to us. It’s all at once selfish and selfless, win/win, all of that. Become happy and make the world happy. What could be better? Looked at another way, don’t change, don’t make an effort, stay stressed, angry, and harmful to ourselves and others, and we take the world with us further down a darkened, desperate path of agony, suffering, pain and despair. It’s a pretty easy choice really when you think about it. Doom and Gloom or Happiness and Joy. So, yea, it’s worth some bother, a little effort I think.

Copyright © 2008, all rights reserved.

I don’t know where this will go but I feel moved to begin an investigation. You're welcome to join me in this. Post a comment. Who knows. Maybe this will go somewhere helpful. This is an examination of what's true about the world in which we find ourselves. What can be discovered by a careful, mindful look-see? Not some theory or belief. We may not be able to do this. And, we may in fact be able to do this. I'd like to find out. When we sit quietly, what do we see going on at this moment? At first things might be distorted like peering from under water. That's okay. We start from where we are. What else can we do. I've noticed that when I calm myself down, things generally become more clear. So for me, calming down my mind-body is a big part of this investigative process.

    We all do our best. This is all we can ever do. We also are able to guide just what that “best” is at any given moment. We reflect, contemplate. rethink our lives as we go. We make experimental changes, changes borne from insight and true understanding, and also we make changes from reactions, misunderstandings, misperceptions and even outright fatigue. But, at any given time, we’re doing our best. We may be moving down a destructive unhelpful path. We may be moving down a path of habits - of our own making.

We may be moving down a helpful compassionate path as we do our best. I find seeing this in people personally very helpful in giving rise to compassion, understanding, and seeing commonalities with myself and others.

    The actions of an awakened human being are inherently powerful, both locally and globally. Such actions are influential and meaningful both instantly and over time. These actions carry us forward to a better world and a better life for all humanity.

 With each awakening, both large and small, the world becomes a better place as we individuals become better people. This process moves us toward a self-imposed and self-motivated morality, right action, impeccable human character, and good works in the world by individuals and societies. One finds oneself doing good and right because one sees from a sincere and broad perspective (larger than oneself) that taking the positive path at every crossroad in life is a better way to live and the best path to take.

    We’ve been living in a world built from our senses, combined with, and dramatically affected by our; fears, survival instincts, urges for pleasure, fear of death, fear of emotional pain, physical pain, and all the rest of it. Our world is a very different place because of the way in which we function within it. The world is directly affected, transformed if you will, by us as we go about our day. An act of hatred makes the world a little more hateful. An act of kindness makes the world a little more kind. Sounds obvious but how many of us really consider this as we go about our daily living? Also, this world is substantially different from the world as it is - without all of our mental/emotional constructs. We taint the world almost continuously from moment to moment. And so the world as it is, much of the time IS NOT the world as we see it.

    It occurs, that perhaps seeing things as they are, without all this human meddling, fear filters, and all the rest of it, might be beautiful or at least different. It may even be practically useful in some way. What a concept, right? So, how does one see things as they are? What is that like? What does that even mean? Seems like it should be easy, right? Obvious, right? Some people say it is easy. Some say it’s very hard indeed. I’m suggesting both are correct. Many things seem difficult before one knows how to do the thing. Skiing is hard. I keep falling down. But I stay with it for a time and then I realize that skiing is fun. Its not hard really. I train my body to move a certain way, my mind to pay attention to certain things. I fall down but I get right back up again. This is all part of skiing. And all that falling down leads me to this really fun time I’m having now. I’m skiing, having fun! Maybe seeing the world untainted is a little like that. Let’s find out. Not just read about it or talk about it but explore it, really discover what it’s like. Lets see what this is about.

Copyright © 2008, all rights reserved.

I had a wonderful little experience some weeks ago. It’s one of the things that makes living on Orcas such a special part of my life. I was hiking a trail which was new to me above Cascade Lake in Moran Park. I started late in the day - about 1:30. This was probably one of the most majestically beautiful trails I’ve walked on Orcas so far. The trail head is so easily accessible that I’m surprised I’d not walked it until now - over 7 years on island. This was an unplanned walk and so I didn’t even think to bring my camera. I did have my iPhone but many of you know they take only marginally acceptable pictures. Anyway, by the time I’d reached what was my turn around point it was already getting dark. Like I said no planning. I’d downloaded a nifty “flashlight” application to my iPhone so I could use that if need be. It does actually work! I decided to bee-bomb it down the trail to beat the darkness back to my car. Instead of listening and blending with the forest as I did on the way up, I supercharged my descent with some classic Beatles tunes on my Nano pod. I was moving pretty good mainly focusing on not twisting an ankle or walking into a tree or something. It was getting darker and darker. I’d seen many deer on the way up which tickled me because I generally don’t see them in Moran park on the lower more traveled trails. So, I’m cruising down a section of switchback trails and I catch a deer in the side of my vision the next switchback down. I stop. After a brief moment I start walking slowly around the corner to meet this rather large deer face to face. I’m straining to see in the darkness and this buck moves his head. “I know that deer” I thought and I said “Shawn, is that you”? He immediately starts to walk right up to me but stops about 6 or 8 feet away. I can tell he’s wary but I start talking to him like I do all the time - before de stopped coming by our house at the beginning of rutting season about 6 weeks earlier. I stepped closer to him very slowly but he moved off the trail. I was speaking to him in a soft friendly tone and he stopped about 15 feet away and turned towards me again. I could barely see him at all at that distance so I said goodbye and headed back down the trail saying “come on by the house. I have treats for you”. I made it to my car in one piece with very shaky legs, drank some water and drove the short distance home. When I got to the house I was very excited to tell Rebekah about the new trail and my encounter with Shawn. We’d wondered if he’d been had by a hunter or a car for a while. The very next morning who was in the front yard waiting to say hello - Shawn. And within a few days after that Junior came back too. I know we can have a connection with animals if we care to put attention there. I don’t claim to fully understand these things but we humans generally grossly underestimate the intelligence and emotions of animals. And all beings suffer because of this. It’s quite sad really.

Copyright © 2008, all rights reserved.