05 Apr The Value Of Associations
Underwear costing $20 new is worthless in our eyes if it's used, spoiled and smelly. But in our mind it can be worth 1,000 times more than new if it came from Jacqueline Kennedy's hamper....
03 Apr Erich Segal
"Love means never having to say you're sorry." We may have regrets about being thoughtless and treating our body poorly; say, getting fat, a hangover or not sleeping enough. Yet, we never apologize to our body. Our body is who we are and we don't apologize to ourselves. Likewise, in love, we and whom we love are one. Apologizing or thanking whom we presumably love implies we and they are not one; that we don't truly have a love connection....
01 Apr Seeing With Our Eyes
In October, 1992 I started collecting tribal art. While initially I didn't imagine tribal art would be expensive, I was soon amazed at how expensive some objects were; some fetching hundreds of thousands of dollars. What made these objects so expensive is that there is a limited supply of "authentic" objects. (Authentic objects are those made by a tribal people for their own use and used accordingly. That's unlike "tourist" objects made for others and "fakes" made to appear like authentic objects.) Authenticity is essentially the sine quo nom of the collectibles markets generally. Without a limited supply of art objects qualifying as authentic, the art market would collapse. If objects were judged simply by their aesthetic appeal alone, facsimiles that were indistinguishable from authentic objects would flood the market, making authentic objects not worth more than the cost of making a facsimile. Without high-priced collectibles, there would be no collectors spending huge sums to support art museums, auction houses and well-heeled dealers. Art, as well as everything else, is viewed by our eyes and our mind. Our eyes see things as they see things. As our eyes have no memory, our eyes cannot compare one thing with another. However, while some things engage and appeal to us and some less so, just about everything has a unique beauty to it from some perspective. Our mind cannot see, it can only hear. When we look at an art object in terms of its authenticity, provenance, description and in comparison to other art objects, we are "seeing" through our mind, not our eyes. The art market depends on collectors seeing through their mind, not their eyes. As a collector I've met many dealers. One thing that several said in passing particularly struck me: there have been many well-considered collectors that as they got on in years often sold many of their "top" objects and purchased others that were clearly fakes or of lower quality. Dealers speculated that these old collectors simply lost their "eye;" that is, they could no longer distinguish a fake from an authentic object or they lost their sense of taste and as such were satisfied with lower quality objects. Perhaps or maybe these old collectors finally saw art objects with their eyes, not their mind. Now, I too am an old collector and appreciate the mindset of the old collectors who were pooh-poohed by dealers and museum people. Someone truly engaged with the art itself (not with art as an investment or status symbol) solely focuses on the aesthetic and engaging aspects of an art object. Whether it's fake or real is immaterial. Each object is what it is whatever it is; to be appreciated as it is, absolutely, not relative to something else or because it's dressed in superlatively flattering adjectives. Collectors who've come to this realization tend to be older, having spent many lifetimes and considerable sums building their collections. They truly have a great "eye" as they see objects with their eyes, not with their mind. More generally, beyond art, these older individuals tend to be in Act 3 in the play of life; the transition from their finite material selves to who they were before their birth, one with everything. In the transition, we see beauty everywhere. As to the art market, they shake their heads and laugh at the foolish collectors they once were....
29 Mar Freedom From Mind
The present is the pre-sent, the space before the universe expresses itself as infinite unique manifestations. The present is empty. It is silent. Time does not exist in the present. It is dark until we light it up by opening our eyes. The now is when the universe expresses itself. It is when time begins. In the now we experience the universe via our senses and our mind. The present is the space between exhale and inhale, between bodily death and birth, between going to sleep and awakening. In the present we are not distracted by the universe expressing itself in the now. We can observe the universe and come to know it. The experience via our senses is what it is whatever it is; some of it to our liking and some not. It's a visceral connection with the universe. The experience via our mind is of memories, meanings and stories that make us feel good, bad, indifferent and countless other states of mind. We equate our mind's perception of the universe with reality. We take it seriously and hold onto it regardless of how miserable it may make us feel. Perceiving the universe otherwise requires us to abandon our mind. We're afraid to do that as we fear we would be lost without our mind. That's how our mind imprisons us. However, we can escape our mind's prison and not find ourselves lost when we leave the now and go to the present. The present is a peaceful place where there is nothing to fear. In the present we can open our eyes and realize that there are infinite mind frames for experiencing the universe; that the mind frame we heretofore could not let go was not particularly more valid than others; that we are free to experience the universe through a mind frame of our choosing. This is wisdom. As a default, we choose the happy mind; a mind that is grateful, optimistic and free from karmic prisons. With a happy mind, much of life is absurdly funny as we see most people taking their respective mind's perceptions seriously. When we open our eyes and light up the darkness in the present, we realize the universe is just light; infinite, eternal, ever-changing and unique manifestations of light; that we are light, not just individual little selves trying to make a go of it in the short time between birth and death. Realizing all is light, we fill with compassion. We're joyous making others happy and helping them escape their mind's prison as that's our purpose in life. ...
26 Mar Everything Is One Thing
Everything is unique now and unlike itself after now. Everything is nothing before it is something. I am nothing before I am what I am whatever I am. Nothing is one thing, nothing. Everything, including me, is one thing....
26 Mar Progressives
Progressives are clowns, the funniest people when they are not scary. Funny when they take their crazy thoughts seriously. Scary when enough others take them seriously and make them their leaders. Progressives are idealists who aim to change the social/political order so they may better people's lives. They are intellectuals who think they are smarter than the less educated and therefore they should decide what's best for all. Alternatively, businesspeople take an empirical and practical approach to providing goods and services to people to choose for themselves how to better their lives. They provide what the market demands, without judgement of the desires of their customers. Progressives view the social order vertically, an autocracy. Businesspeople view the world horizontally, a democracy where people vote with their cash. Progressives are risk-averse and want to control everything. Businesspeople are risk-takers and succeed by managing risks. Progressives promote their agenda with propaganda while businesspeople advertise. Progressives need individuals to think as a group. Businesses thrive on independent thinkers choosing what's best for themselves based on product quality and price. Progressives are inflexible and face extinction as the world changes and they can't. Businesspeople who survive are those most able to adapt to change. Progressives hate the lower classes which they view as a necessary evil they need to accommodate. Businesspeople view their customers as the gods they serve. Progressives envision building a house from the roof to the ground which inevitably crushes those building it. Businesspeople built a house from the ground up for all who can afford it to live....
25 Mar The Present And The Now
Consciousness is binary, the present and the now. The present and the now seem synonymous but are mutually exclusive, complementary and interdependent as one cannot exist without the other. The present is the pre-sent, the time before the universe is sent out as expressions of itself. The now is when our senses initially experience the universe expressing itself. Time doesn't exist in the pre-sent. In the pre-sent eternity lies. The now is the beginning of time. All other time, past and future, are illusions created by our mind. The present is the beginningless and endless time before a gong is struck, shattering silence and awaking us to the now. In the now we hear its sound, initially powerful and then slowly drifting away until only silence remains, the present. The present is the space between exhale and inhale. Inhaling and exhaling is the now....
23 Mar Personal Observation 1
Since the beginning of time I can remember, everything seemed new and unique, especially the causal or coincidental relationship between things, why things are as they are. As well, I've been always amazed how people view the same thing so differently and hold no doubts about their respective perspectives. Curiosity has driven me down many roads to understand things. But after travelling countless miles, I realize the road was a treadmill as I still don't know much about anything. But, I keep at it, probably because it's not frustrating but fun, as the means and the ends are the same. Some would say that after a lifetime of fruitless effort, I'm a fool trying to understand things; but better that than undoubtedly being a fool thinking I do....
23 Mar God’s Mind
Our mind defines us and the world around us. We adamantly hold our mind's view as reality and fear to think differently for if we let go our mind we'd lose it and be lost. That's how our mind controls us. If lost, what would replace it, who would we then be? The undifferentiated mind, the mind of God....
18 Mar The Shawshank Redemption
The Shawshank Redemption is a story of men serving life sentences in a brutal penitentiary. The penitentiary is a metaphor for living in society. Most of us live our entire lives in a penitentiary. But in The Shawshank Redemption, as in society generally, a few have a chance at redemption, freedom: Brooks Hatlen, an old man who managed the prison library; Andy Dufresne, a banker wrongly imprisoned for the murder of his wife and her lover; and Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding, a prison contraband smuggler. After 50 years of “good behavior” (a model prisoner serving others as a librarian; a kind man who cares for an injured bird) Brooks is free to leave. However, a sentence well-served, like a life well-served, doesn’t guarantee redemption. For Brooks there is no redemption. Redemption requires letting go of our past where we are imprisoned by our mind. While excited at the prospect of freedom, Brooks can't part with his identity as a prison librarian and embrace the freedom that awaits him. He becomes depressed and hangs himself soon upon his release. Andy is like everyman, not deserving punishment but punished nonetheless, forced to serve a role in life that's not to his liking. He makes the most of his life in prison but for years devotes his time and energy on digging a tunnel from his cell to freedom outside the prison walls. On the day of his escape, he emerges from a hole in the earth, essentially reborn. Once free, like all free men he leaves the roles society has slotted him to live carefree in a beachfront village, presumably without risk of extradition. Andy finds redemption. His efforts are like years of meditation that culminate in escaping the prison of the role-plying self and past identities to be one with the world at large. Ellis is long-imprisoned for a crime he committed in his youth. Periodically he comes up for parole which he’s denied. Again and again he tells the parole board that he is sorry about his criminal past, completely rehabilitated and would never do it again. Again and again, the board rejects his petition for parole. Then, finally, he tells the board that he often imagines a boy who he doesn't know. He sees the boy about to commit a horrible crime and he only wishes he could grab that boy before the crime is committed. The board then grants him parole. Essentially, Ellis is saying that he no longer is the person who committed the crime for which he went to prison; the person he is now could never have committed such a crime and he would try to stop its commission if he saw it happening. Keeping Ellis incarcerated longer would be punishing someone for a crime they didn’t commit. His redemption comes from completely disavowing his past which allows him to smuggle himself out of prison. Likewise, we are only free when we leave the karmic prison of our mind. Redemption, freedom, is ultimately the purpose of life. It comes not simply by living a good life, treating others well and satisfying our responsibilities. It comes from long and hard work to realize our personal and societal identities are temporary roles in the play of life. Then, we know the name of the play, "Terrific."...