19 Jun Koan 86
Eureka! All There Is Is Is. Eureka means "I have found it." Yet, there is nothing to be found as all there is is being and becoming; the Everything that is eternal and everchanging. Acronym: EATIII (pronounced as "80") "8" is the symbol of infinity (∞) drawn vertically, reflecting the human form. Graphically, an endless knot constantly twisting and turning in different directions. "8" is consciousness; infinite in time and everchanging as it is manifesting in the now. "0" is a hole with two separate sides, inside and outside. However, their separateness is an illusion as they are interdependent; one cannot exist without the other. Together they are a whole, not a hole. "0" is our experience of the now: an illusion of separate things that are actually one thing. Both "8"and "0" are continuous, a flow with no beginning and no end. Eureka! All there is is the flow of eternal consciousness; everchanging as it creates the now....
17 Jun Kotodama 44
It Is What It Is Whatever It Is Acronym: II-WII-WII (pronounced: I why why) Why do I exist? Why is the universe as it is? It Is What It Is Whatever It Is. There is no why. All there is is is....
17 Jun Koan 4
"Water is the face of fire." -- Kanako Iiyama The appearance of things is unlike their true nature. Water, like most things, slowly changes its form. Yet, beneath the surface, all things are rapidly and constantly changing, like fire. Water is transparent and reflective. When we don't see the fire within water, what we see is a reflection of our self. We perceive the world as discrete things, like water and fire. However, all things are aspects of the same interconnected thing, the Everything. This koan is Kanako's family motto: how the family presents itself to others: We are like water: calm, nourishing and practical. Yet, like fire, we can cause great destruction....
15 Jun Kotodama 62
Work is business, jobs are busyness. Work implies purposeful, goal-oriented activity. The key to a job is showing up. Many people want jobs, not work; though appearing busy is tough work....
15 Jun Kotodama 61
Each sense connects us to a facet of reality. Thoughts are a senseless connection....
13 Jun Lester Wunderman
Lester Wunderman was a successful advertising executive, renowned as the father of direct marketing which he created in the late 1950s. Lester was also an avid collector of Dogon African art, having amassed a "world class" collection which now resides at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and Musee Du Quai Branly in Paris. I knew Lester as an investor in my hedge fund in the late 1980s. However, as we both had an interest in tribal art, we spoke more about art than investing. Lester started collecting Dogon art from Mali in a chance view of a figurative object at a gallery in LA. He didn't quite know why this artwork stirred a passion, but "it spoke to me." After much time and money spent on amassing his collection, Lester visited the Dogon people who lived at desert's edge and for whom sourcing water was often a preoccupation. Warmly received and aware of the water issues facing the Dogon, upon his return to NY, Lester contracted geologists and engineers to drill several drinking wells for the Dogon. He later returned to visit the Dogon and was initiated as a shaman, with a animist festival highlighted by singing and dancing at a village where he had connected the Dogon to a water source. The singing and dancing resonated within him. It was then he realized the artworks in his collection were essentially empty; for what he was seeking was not artworks, but the singing and dancing connecting him and all in the community as one. Soon after, Lester distributed his collection to museums for those less fortunate than himself to experience the life of the Dogon vicariously....