The self hears the sound and watches waves crash on the shore,
yet overlooks the soul, the silent ocean, the source of all before.
Koan 299
The real reason we die is that the self’s consciousness is a finite construct–having a beginning and an end–carved from the soul’s infinite consciousness.
When we transcend the self’s consciousness, we are what we are: eternal being.
Koan 298
In the chaos of the now, the self seeks peace; yet, the consciousness of the self is the impediment to peace.
Individual consciousness creates many an edgy piece from what is otherwise eternally one continuous piece harmoniously at peace.
Way Of Way 278
Mysticism refers to the pursuit of communion, identity with, or conscious awareness of ultimate reality, the divine, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, or insight. It’s often characterized as a profound spiritual experience that transcends ordinary understanding.
Mysticism is the foundation upon which most religions are based.
On this foundation, early adherents stand together; united by a shared spiritual experience.
As more people join a religion, structures are built upon its foundation to house them.
The structures have many stories, stories upon stories; each supporting the story above it.
The most desirable living spaces in these buildings are those with the best views; those on the highest stories, closest to the heavens.
In the high stories live religious leaders and their wealthy supporters.
As for the foundation, it’s deep underground; making mysticism hard to find.
All that’s visible are the stories: the doctrines, rituals, and traditions that sustain the religion.
This is the way religions transition from a mystical experience into a community sharing inherited stories.
At the end of days a fire erupts in the building, allowing only two ways to escape to eternal life: through the basement at the foundation with the aid of a mystic or jumping out of the stories.
Many will die in the fire, as they are afraid to jump out a high story; for they think they would surely die.
Those willing to abandon their comfortable stories above the foundation, descend to the foundation, and ask for guidance will find rescue in the hands of the mystics.
Koan 297
Why be upset at the idea of people enjoying themselves?
There have been instances where a Zen master, though married, privately engaged in sexual relationships with one or more students.
When these actions came to light, the community’s reactions were divided.
Some students felt betrayed and responded with anger, ultimately demanding the master’s resignation from the monastery.
Others laughed, viewing the scandal as the master’s final koan before retirement: “Why be upset at the idea of people enjoying themselves?”
Those who know, do not speak; for they are laughing. They can’t explain what’s funny, for a joke is not funny to those who need it explained.
What’s funny is that we are laughing at our selves.
Those who have preconceived ideas about what things mean are often blind to what’s real.
Way Of Way 289
Rich are those who appreciate all things.
Poor are those who can only appreciate things in comparison to other things.
Koan 296
The value of the past and future is not about what it can teach us or remind us to prepare for what might happen; but to view the present from various points past and future.
Psychedelic Journeys, Remembered
In college, I had three psychedelic journeys.
Now, in hindsight, I understand their revelations.
In the first journey, I wanted to eat my brain. I felt that my mind (the consciousness of the soul) and body (the self) were a duality. By eating my brain, my self and the consciousness of the soul would merge into oneness with everything.
In the second, I was looking at a painting and seeing its colors dripping beyond its frame and onto the floor. This was a revelation that all things are interconnected, like in peripheral vision; yet, our mind, through foveal vision, creates independent things.
In the third, I was wallowing naked in mud in the backyard of my parents’ attached house in Brooklyn. I was holding onto Earth for dear life as Earth was spinning incredibly fast and I was afraid I would otherwise fall away from Earth and into endless space. This suggested that if we let go our self-identity (as Earthlings), we will be one with the universe.
While these journeys might sound somewhat harrowing, I remember them as wonderful—psychedelic, soul-revealing. Each vision, in its own way, was a lesson in dissolving boundaries: between mind and body, between things, between self and cosmos. Perhaps, in the end, all journeys—psychedelic or otherwise—are invitations to remember our oneness with everything.
Koan 19
“Crow with no mouth”
— Ikkyu, 1394 – 1481
Can a crow with no mouth caw?
Does a crow with no mouth have a craw?
Is a crow with no mouth a crow?
Is a crow with no mouth simply a crow with no mouth?
Crows are exceptionally intelligent birds. They can solve complex problems, use tools, and even recognize human faces. They are also highly adaptable, learning to thrive in various environments. They are keen observers and can consider alternative strategies to realizing their goals.
Crows are symbolic of wisdom.
Those who are wise as a crow observe that birds have beaks but no mouths. A crow with no mouth is not unlike any other crow; only our thoughts make it otherwise.
Crows don’t need a mouth, for wisdom cannot be conveyed with words:
“He who speaks does not know, he who knows does not speak.” (Lao Tzu)
Way Of Way 292
The intelligent excel at certain things, for they have the ability to see clearly through a microscope.
But they look foolish at most things, as they believe they can glimpse the future by looking at the dark sky with a microscope.
Koan 290
The within becomes the without but the within is never without.
What flows out and becomes the now (the without) is not what it is before the now (the within).
The now is infinite things.
Before the now is one thing.
The within is eternal and never without infinite possibilities.
Ultimate reality, the within, hides behind the now, the without.
Koan 287
As I see “it” as I do,
you see “it” as you do,
every one sees “it” otherwise;
is “it” the same thing?
We all see “it” likewise,
when we recognize “it” is the soul.
Way Of Way 288
“Unfortunately, most people don’t get it. They will, but they’ll have to die first before they understand that they don’t.”
— William Wisher
Koan 292
“It’s easier to choose between black and white than between shades of gray.”
— William Roth
Koan 291
The difference between the self and the soul is day and night.
The self understands day and night and the soul does not.
Way Of Way 285
“The exaggerated esteem in which my lifework is held makes me very ill at ease. I feel compelled to think of myself as an involuntary swindler.”
— Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was identified as having “impostor syndrome”, having doubts about his significant accomplishments and talents and fear that others would ultimately realize he was a fraud, not the extraordinary genius they held him to be. Impostor syndrome is not a mental illness, rather a psychological behavior pattern. Other luminaries with impostor syndrome include Tom Hanks, Sheryl Sandberg, David Bowie and Serena Williams.
Einstein didn’t suffer from impostor syndrome.
In describing himself as a willing swindler, he realized that he was simply another physics researcher among thousands in the world; that he was now not the same person who long ago made the great discoveries associated with him.
This realization is the genius of an awakened one.
Way Of Way 284
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.”
— Albert Einstein.
We navigate the now with knowledge.
Imagination takes us to the invisible place before and after the now, from where we can discover knowledge we can bring into the now.
Way Of Way 277
Awakening is the realization that every thing heretofore is a dream.
The dream is like a movie. All the characters and events seem real; yet, it’s just light projecting through film onto a screen.
Awakening is realizing we are the light and the movie is our creation.
When we’ve awakened and see those who take their movie seriously, our movie is a comedy.
Way Of Way 269
Life is a play.
Our purpose is to play.
Otherwise, we’re just acting; which is rarely fun.
Way Of Way 270
Upon awakening, no thing is like anything heretofore.
Arousing our curiosity, every thing is enlightening.
Filled with light, we emanate light; enlightening everything.
No thing remains, but infinite forms of light.
“Maybe They Don’t Mind”
Years back, on a frigid winter evening, my son, Max, 8, and I walked passed some homeless men setting up their cardboard sleeping surfaces under an overhang at the foot of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church on 5th Avenue and 55th Street in New York City.
Seeing them with few liberties for food and shelter, I commented: “When you grow up, if you’re not successful, this is a kind of prison where you might find yourself.”
Max replied: “Maybe they don’t mind.”
“Wow! Role reversal. The homeless are free and I’m a prisoner of a bourgeois mindset,” I said; followed by a good laugh that warmed the evening.
Way Of Way 278
Tangible things and thoughts reflect light, enlightening us.
The soul, emanating light, enlightens the universe.
Koan 283
In the now, where time exists, every thing is either dead or alive.
Before and after the now, a timeless space, things are both dead and alive; as everything is undifferentiated, possibilities.
My mother died some ten years ago, but I see her clearly as a teenager from a place 100 light years away from here.
As to where I am, here or at any of infinite there’s, I do not know.
So, who and what am I?
Way Of Way 268
When you love what you are, you can only be amused when someone doesn’t love you; though it might be that they love what you are, but their self doesn’t like your self.
Koan 271
The hole defines the whole.
Our mouth forms a circle to pronounce the word “hole”.
We are the darkness within the circle and the light-filled universe is the whole without.
From the hole come sounds for words describing the whole.
Way Of Way 263
Consciousness is the manifestation of the soul in the now; infinite realities.
The self creates its reality from the soul’s consciousness; like foveal vision painting a picture from peripheral vision.
Yet, each self’s reality is just a dot of paint in a painting of infinite dots.
When dots come together, many paintings emerge.
Merging the paintings into one is abstract expressionism; a painting that allows the self to transition into the soul seeing itself.
Haiku 97
What you hold dear holds you dearly.
Let it go and you can go.
With no thing holding you, nothing holds you.
Way Of Way 261
Who I am is many things, to others and myself; each conditional and temporary.
What I am is beyond description; unconditional, timeless.
Koan 279
The seemingly everchanging now never changes, as the universe is timeless.
What changes is what we see through the light spectrum pinhole of the electromagnetic spectrum.
The electromagnetic spectrum moves through space, not time.
The seemingly everchanging now is just what becomes visible in the light spectrum and hidden in other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.
What we see changes, but not what is.
Koan 275
When the familiar is unfamiliar, have you awakened or lost your mind?
The etymology of the word “mind” is memory.
Awakening is escaping from the mind’s dark prison. Every thing is then unlike anything you remember, reflecting its unique light.
Beyond awakening is enlightenment, when every thing is the Everything: oneness with the light.
When you are confused or anxious by what would otherwise be familiar, you’ve lost your mind.
Koan 277
Why does every one, including me, describes me differently?
Who I am is many things.
What I am is one thing: no thing.
My Grandson Recognizes I Am God
At a recent family birthday party with twenty or so people, I asked my 10 year old grandson, Penn: “What I am?”
“You’re grandfather,” Penn said.
“Grandfather is who I am to you. But, what am I?” I replied.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“I am God,” I said. “Anyone who doesn’t recognize I am God doesn’t recognize they too are God.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Penn said. “No one thinks you’re God. If you are God, you could help me do anything which you can’t.”
“Those who see my essence, recognize I’m God,” I replied. “If I take off my clothes right here right now, many here will say: “Oh my God.”
We then both burst out laughing.
“We’re both God,” I said. “As God, we can help people who don’t take their self too seriously; otherwise, we can’t do much but laugh.”
Kotodama 91
The Ultimate Self (US) is the eternal flow from before, to and after the now.
While invisible before and after, in the now the timeless Ultimate Self is manifested as the temporary Individual Self (IS).
In the now, US IS.
Way Of Way 258
The universe is composed of stuff (tangible things like stars, planets, asteroids, dust and gas) and the space between stuff.
The everchanging stuff is the now.
Before and after the now is the timeless space between the stuff.
Approximately 99.9999999999999% of the universe is space.
Meditation takes us from the now and into space.
Way Of Way 162
Unconditional love can only be love of the whole universe, as loving some parts or people and not others is conditional love.
Way Of Way 254
Enlightenment is not being one with everything or being in the now; but being oneness and timeless before, in and after the now (whatever that means).
Haiku 10
Waves of sound and light come down.
So many waves, we can easily drown.
Oceans of memories is what we hear and see.
All just stories, even me.
Koan 273
Light reveals all things, but the absence of light reveals their presence.
We see not things, just light bouncing off things.
Shadows, the absence of light, confirm their presence.
Way Of Way 255
Consciousness is what I create when Eye focus and separate things from the oneness of the peripheral.
Koan 272
Life is a circle, like an ouroboros (a snake eating its own tale).
It’s continuous, with no beginning, no end.
The circle is a whole, but seem like a hole with parts within and without.
The within and without are the same, unless the within feels it’s without.
Way Of Way 252
Welcome the moments when the self is upset,
for they call for our soul identity.
The soul does nothing but laugh at the self.
Way Of Way 251
It’s a fool’s errand to try to know the universe by focusing on the infinite things it contains.
Instead, focus on the space between your self and the things.
When you no longer see the space, the self disappears and you are the universe.
Way Of Way 229
The soul is the invisible key that unlocks invisible doors.
A lost key is a lost soul; imprisoned by the invisible self.
Koan 57
“What was your original face before your parents were born?”
— Hui-neng (638-713 CE), the Sixth Patriarch of Chan Buddhism in China (predecessor of Zen Buddhism)
My original face before my parents were born was my original face before my parents were born; it was what it was whatever it was. Thinking of it otherwise is an illusion.
The question declares the answer: What was my original face before my parents were born.
Before some thing is a this, that or who, it is unrecognizable and beyond description; a what as in “What is it? What is it.”
“What” implies a pre-conceptional reality.
The “what” is the soul; what every thing is before and after it is in the now.
A Zen master might respond: “Mu.”
“Mu” means “no” or “nothing” in Japanese, a common response to koans. “Mu” is a kind of emptiness; not a void, but devoid; like an empty room with the potential to be filled. “Mu” isn’t “no”, it’s challenging the framework of the question.
My original face before my parents were born was nothing but infinite potential: the soul.
My original face before my parents were born is my true nature: the indescribable peace from oneness with the unmanifested soul.
Kotodama 96
When you recognize the soul,
two are too and two is one:
“an other” becomes “another”
“every thing” becomes “everything”
“in sight” becomes “insight”
“every where” becomes “everywhere”
“all ways” become “always”
“no thing” becomes “nothing”.
Haiku 74
The soul is the ocean.
The ocean expresses itself as waves riding the electromagnetic spectrum,
visible only when passing through as light.
The ever-changing waves are the face of the eternal ocean.
Seeing distinct faces in the waves, we’re oblivious of the ocean
until the faces return to the ocean, which is what we are.
Way Of Way 249
The mystical experience is when your reference point shifts from self consciousness to soul consciousness.
Self consciousness is perceiving the universe through your individual experience.
Soul consciousness is experiencing the universe as the observer and the observed.
What you observe is that all that your self had previously thought was just thoughts. Things are not as you had always imagined them to be.
As you see colors dropping from a painting, over the frame, onto the wall and floor; you realize everything is interconnected. Nothing is as discrete as seems.
What you see is what you are.
I am eye.
You love every thing as it is not a thing but a temporary manifestation of the universe; a flowing expression of the soul.
We are love.
We are the soul.
Koan 266
How can you drink water gushing out of a fire hydrant without measuring cups of time and space?
Way Of Way 26
The self loves some things and not others.
The soul loves only one thing: the universe.
The universe is “all things turned into one”.
The soul loves all things as they are (whatever they are in the now), as all things are otherwise the universe.
I’ve often met strangers and declared that I love them no less than I love my children. That’s because I love all things.
One such stranger responded: “Well, if you love everyone, you love no one.” That is the perspective of the self.
Koan 265
The way to heaven is open to everyone, but those who think it is only open to those in their religion but not another.
They are going in the opposite direction.
Kolodama 94
Every thing, a finite “I” to itself.
The universe is infinite I’s.
Letting go the possessive, the “I’s” are “is”; not things, just a flow.
Koan 264
An empty jar for holding change is broke, but not broken.
If full, it would be broken; useless.
Koan 261
Zen master, speaking to class, pointed to a star:
“If you know this one, enlightened you are.”
Way Of Way 248
Those who are present don’t agonize over what’s lost or get emotional about what’s next.
Unless we are celebrating the present, we are not present.
Way Of Way 241
The universe is a flow that consciousness divides with time, space, and words.
A moment in time is a photo of the flow in our mind.
Foveal vision creates things from undifferentiable peripheral vision.
Words are allusions creating illusions from nothing.
Koan 135
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
— John 1:1, The Gospel of John.
Unlike seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching which absorb energy, the spoken word is like the Big Bang; a burst of energy from within to without.
Words are a medium to define and encapsulate infinite everchanging things from a universe that is an eternal flow.
Words transform God into man and man into God.
As a mantra, meditating on a word (its sound, meaning, etymology and uses), we realize its allusions are illusions as we melt into the eternal flow of the universe.
Way Of Way 219
Mysticism is the experience of gazing at the dark sky until we merge with it (whatever it is).
Mystics use koans, kotodama and poetry as stars; points to bring the dark sky to our attention.
Way Of Way 48
In the now, everyone is an Individual Self and the Ultimate Self.
True to its acronym (“IS”), the Individual Self is being, as being is the now.
The Individual Self has many emotions.
Each emotion is a separate self.
Emotions make the Individual Self multi-selves.
Unlike an Individual Self, the Ultimate Self is invisible and indivisible.
The Ultimate Self is the sole-self, the soul.
The soul is what every thing is before and after the now.
The now is the manifestation of the soul.
True to its acronym, the Ultimate Self is “US”; the unity of every thing in the now and the soul.
As US, the soul has only one emotion: love.
Love connects the Everything as one.
In the now, we are often oblivious of the invisible soul, as the emotions of the multi-selves continually captivate our attention.
To realize the Ultimate Self, we need to separate from and observe the now.
This happens when we are in the space before and after the now, where only the Ultimate Self resides.
To escape from the emotional clutches of the multi-selves that imprison us in the now, we need to calm the multi-selves.
When calm, the multi-selves disappear as they integrate and all that remains is the Individual Self.
The mind is the Individual Self’s interface with the universe.
In the now, the mind is like a pond muddied by the frantic motion of emotion of the multi-selves.
When calm, the multi-selves settle to the bottom of the pond and the mind clears.
A clear mind allows us to see the now as reflections on the surface of the pond.
We then realize we are the eternal Ultimate Self.
Meditation is a practice that allows us to calm the mind.
In meditation, breathing is the now and the space between exhaling and inhaling is what’s before and after the now: the Ultimate Self.
Koan 259
How can you know “heads” from “tails” when a coin has infinite sides depending on who is viewing it, which way, and when?
When you know what you are, you know that you can’t know.
Simple things like heads or tails, black or white, are complex.
Complexity melts away rigidity to reveal fluidity.
What seems independent is interdependent as we are one eternal everchanging is.
Koan 257
In business, you’re paid for losing money.
You suffer through periods of losing money, and get paid when luck arrives and money is made.
Koan 260
How do we find God, as God has no name or address?
Taoism, Mystical Christianity, Sufism, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism identify God as the “Nameless One”.
God is nameless, as having a name would mean God is one thing and not another, implying duality.
God, the antithesis of duality, is the whole universe.
We see the manifestation of God everywhere in the everchanging and eternal now. We are this manifestation.
Yet, as God resides in the timeless space before and after the now, it’s difficult for us in the now to find and commune with God.
It is easy to find God when we look in a mirror and realize we are God.
Koan 256
“The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.”
— Meister Eckhart
As there is only one eye, there is only one I.
Koan 255
Though I am here now as an adult and my parents are children somewhere many light years from here, why do my parents always see me as a child?
Way Of Way 247
Everyone is going to heaven.
When the pure light beckons us to heaven, we alight Earth and join it.
As we become one with the pure light, our self disappears.
Then we are in heaven.
Heaven has an infinite number of gates.
Statues of Jesus, Moses, Mohammad, Buddha, Lao Tzu and others greet us at the gates.
At each gate are barkers distributing various religious books.
The books are free, but freedom is the price of admission.
Once we enter one of heaven’s gates, we will spend eternity there.
While the heaven behind each gate sounds attractive, we need to choose between them.
To choose wisely, look for the souls living lightly on Earth as if they are already in heaven.
Koan 190
Electronically we immediately connect with people thousands of miles away. Yet, people in front of our nose can be light years away.
Koan 250
As every thing in the universe has a unique and everchanging identity, is the universe an infinite number of unique things or just an undifferentiable flow?
Way Of Way 236
Religions are communities living in tall edifices pointing to the sky.
Mysticism is the foundation and the space within and without the edifice, the unseen and the indescribable scene framing the seen.
Way Of Way 246
The self is who we are in life, not what we are eternally.
As all we know is our life, we identity with the self and its various emotions.
Yet the self separates us from what we and every thing in the universe is: manifestations of the soul.
Enlightenment is self-realization: realizing the self is an illusion.
Enlightenment frees us to see the universe as it is, not as our self sees it.
Upon enlightenment, every thing is enlightening as all things are expressions of undifferentiated pure light (the initial manifestation of the soul).
As what you see is what you are, the enlightened are the pure light.
The pure light makes the enlightened lighthearted. They find funny those who are slaves to the self.
Their pure light also allows they to enlighten others.
They enlighten with words but not sentences; as words emanate light while sentences reflect light and cast shadows.*
*For example, the Zen student asks his teacher: “Does a rock have consciousness?” The teacher responds: “Mu”, a word meaning “nothing”. As a rock is constantly changing (though imperceptibly so) and is nothing before and after whatever it is in the now, it doesn’t have an enduring reality that can be described (as conscious or otherwise). It is a manifestation of nothing.
Alternatively, the teacher responds: “Who asks?” That is, a rock and consciousness are understandable when you know what you are.
Or, famously: “Five pounds of flax.” Rocks and pounds of flax, however seemingly unrelated, are temporary manifestations of one thing: the soul. Focusing on philosophical concepts like the consciousness of a rock strays us from coming to know the soul by observing the now.
Otherwise, communicating in sentences, many sentences gives agency or reality to a thing (rock) that is everchanging and a concept (consciousness) that is debatable in light of its context.
Way Of Way 245
Words are stars illuminating the darkness.
Sentences are constellations, reflecting light and casting shadows.
Way Of Way 244
No thing in the universe is perfect, but the universe is perfect.
No thing is perfect and nothing is perfect.
Haiku 96
Life is a balance sheet of left and right.
the left is day and the right is night,
where what is real is out of sight,
not what is but what just might.
Way Of Way 242
The universe is made of an infinite number of interdependent things.
Yet, things seem independent when we see our self as independent of the universe.
Kotodama 42
U are who U are, a self in various roles in the play of life.
The self is an experience of roles, circumstances and various emotional reactions.
As the self inevitably dies, the play is a tragedy.
The play of life unfolds in the now.
As the now is ever-changing, you are nothing (O) in the now but memories.
U are what U are, the soul in the audience.
As the play is the manifestation of the soul, the soul’s sole emotion is love.
Yet, as the soul is forever laughing at the self taking its memories seriously, the play is a comedy.
U are double U (W), self and soul and nothing (O).
Knowing who and what U are, the play of life is WOW.
Koan 249
As a self has many faces expressing various emotions, can you love the self without loving all its faces?
Way Of Way 238
“What if the solution to every problem is just to chill the fuck out?”
— Maddy Albright
Our emotional reactions often obscure solutions to problems.
Problems, identified by the words “oh fuck”, cause emotional distress, a rise in our body temperature and inflammation.
Rising temperature further exacerbates emotional distress.
Stepping back from a problem lowers our body temperature and reduces inflammation.
That’s chilling the fuck out.
Haiku 94
Divine are the waves.
God is the ocean.
Divine are sunset and sunrise.
God is the sun.
The everchanging is divine.
The essence is God.
When we see the divine in every thing, we are divine.
When we see God in every thing, we are God.
Koan 247
As talking to a spiritual guru is like reading a book; when you are reading a book, how does the book read you?
Koan 246
When you know that you know no thing, you can know ultimate knowledge: knowing nothing.
Nothing is where all things come from, and eventually go to.
Haiku 94
Words are stars, pure light,
allowing us to see at night.
Sentences are constellations,
only real in our imaginations.
Koan 244
Why is the truth upsetting to those who take their selves seriously, yet funny to those who don’t?
Haiku 93
The soul is the ocean.
We are its waves.
While we are often oblivious of the ever-present ocean,
the ocean loves its waves.
Kotodama 88
The void is devoid.
Not nothing, just no thing; the absence of things we can experience.
Way Of Way 232
We are born as a flash of light in a dark theater.
Soon enough, the light transitions into a movie among many movies playing simultaneously.
Family, friends and others beckon us to play roles in their movies as we invite them to play roles in our movie.
We assume many different roles as actors in various movies.
The roles and our emotional reactions to circumstances define our experience in life.
It all seems very real.
Yet, when the theater lights break the darkness, we realize our lives were just a two-dimensional illusion, a movie.
Knowing we are just watching a movie, we can enjoy it as it is, suffer little regardless of our roles and circumstances and realize we are still alive after the movie is over.
Haiku 92
Under the sun,
an infinite number of temporary things.
In the night sky,
one infinite eternal thing.
Way Of Way 230
Through the self we see reflections of light from infinite things.
Without the self, there is only light, no things.
Way Of Way 231
When a somebody sees you as a nobody, they will show you who they are.
How that makes you feel shows you who you are.
Koan 48
Who laughs when the mirror doesn’t smile?
The soul laughs at those who don’t laugh at their selves.
Koan 241
No thing is inherently funny, but nothing is funny.
The self’s reactions to illusions it creates from nothing are funny.
Kotodama 16
Each language has different sounds (words) that identify the same thing.
However, there are certain sounds that carry the same meaning across many unrelated languages.
This is called sound symbolism, or phono-semantics.
These sounds evoke a visceral reaction, rooted in collective consciousness.
For example, the sound made upon coming to an obvious realization (“ah”) and the sound of laughing (“ha”) at ourselves for not realizing it earlier.
Interestingly, ah and ha are anadromes (words or phrases that spell different words or phrases backward). Simply looking at the same thing from opposite perspectives is the essence of wisdom.
Another example of sound symbolism is “wow”, a palindrome (a word read the same forwards or backwards). “Wow” is a sound we make when something captivates, astonishes, or delights us; an expression of love.
The sound of “wow” is made by puckering our lips as when making a kiss.
“Wow” reveals love is a palindrome; what we express is expressed back.
Sounds reflecting wisdom and love are as primordial as wisdom and love.
Haiku 91
On the night sky we draw lines with our imagination
creating a story in the form of a constellation
which tells time and guides our navigation.
Way Of Way 341
I often don’t remember what others claim I’ve said, but remember, in great detail, what others have said to me.
Maybe what goes inside my head is mine and what leaves my head is someone else’s.
Haiku 89
Some see themselves in everyone.
Others see others as different from themselves.
That’s what makes them different.
Way Of Way 223
The true beauty of beautiful things is that they are the gateway to the soul.
In the presence of beautiful things, we are energized, yet calm; present and open. The self is disarmed and we are free to unite with the soul, the essence of all things.
As the soul, we see beauty in every thing.
Ugly things make us recoil, creating a duality. We embrace the self, seeking it to protect us; distancing us from the soul.
Every thing we see with our eyes is beautiful.
Things seen by the mind are sometimes beautiful, sometimes ugly.
Haiku 90
He who loves everyone is often seen as loving solely his self.
He loves the sole self, the soul.
Everyone is a manifestation of the soul.
Way Of Way 221
An overwhelming problem is like being trapped in a box. To escape, think outside the box.
The solution to problems comes not by searching for solutions but by simply moving forward.
Haiku 88
There are more stars above than grains of sand below.
I look so much larger than a star,
but am I smaller than a grain of sand?
Way Of Way 220
Ultimate reality is energy, as it moves in waves (radio waves, microwaves, infrared waves, light waves, ultraviolet waves, x-rays, gamma rays, cosmic rays) along the electromagnetic spectrum.
We construct our reality from light waves.
Light inhabits 0.0035% of the electromagnetic spectrum.
The invisible spectrum seems void.
In the light, we see things entering from and exiting to the void; things being born and dying.
Yet nothing is truly born or dies; things simply transition, appearing and disappearing as they move along the spectrum.
Ultimate reality is a dance of energy; endlessly transitioning, yet eternal in essence.
Kotodama 87
Simple mantra:
I B I
I C U
Y R U
I R U
U B I
I am me.
I see you.
Why are you?
I am you.
You are me.
Way Of Way 211
Our memory is the repository of all we know.
Realizing our memory is a dream, an illusion; we realize we know nothing.
Then we can experience reality as never before, as there never was a before.
Way Of Way 210
Shinto, the indigenous religion of Japan, is often described as animistic and polytheistic.
Shinto has animistic qualities as it recognizes the spirit or god (“kami) in every natural force (e.g., growth and fertility), phenomena, animate and inanimate object, ancestor, and deity; reflecting a deep reverence for the interconnectedness of the seen and unseen universe.
It is polytheistic, as the number of kami is traditionally said to be 8 million.
As the number 8 in Japanese culture symbolizes infinity, the 8 million kami imply every thing is God and the universe is a manifestation of divine energy. This is the essence of pantheism.
Experiencing the entire universe, including ourselves, as a single manifestation of divine energy can feel overwhelming. Shinto practices and rituals are an accessible way to engage with the omnipresent divine.
Describing Shinto as pantheistic or polytheistic depends on perspective. From a distance, it is pantheistic, though in practice it is polytheistic. Ultimately, the perspective is of little matter; either way, Shinto is an expression of awe and gratitude.
Way Of Way 206
A wonderful life is not one full of wonderful memories, but when the most wonderful time is now.
Way Of Way 209
If one can speak their own mind and yet does not feel powerful, they will never be powerful.
Way Of Way 207
Religions provide their adherents a community life and communion with God.
Adherents drawn to community life appear authentic.
Those drawn to God are sincere.
The authentic focus on the material. They are the self.
The sincere seek the transcendental. They are the soul.
The authentic prize beauty which represents the divine.
The sincere prize the truth. In truth, every thing is beautiful.
Kotodama 85
The words “new” and “now” look similar, for they describe the same thing.
New is unlike anything in the past. That’s being in the now.
Way Of Way 20
The wise change their minds proactively as they consider perspectives in perspective.
The intelligent are quick to change their minds reactively in response to changing circumstances.
Koan 235
We experience reality only via our senses but we rarely do.
Way Of Way 204
If one has food, shelter, security and health and yet does not feel wealthy, they will never be wealthy.
Way Of Way 205
Wealth and power comes to those who are self-actualized.
Eternal being comes to those who are self-realized.
Eternal being has no need for wealth or power.
Eternal being has no needs.
Eternal being is the whole of being.
Way Of Way 77
All things are everchanging.
All things are different from different perspectives.
All things of which we are certain are illusions.
Koan 3
“A man of wisdom delights at water” — Confucius
Reflections from slowly stirring water in a pond are like an abstract painting. The images we identify are illusions we create.
Water is like the universe: one thing and yet many things.
Water manifests in different shapes (clouds, rivers, oceans) and forms (vapor, liquid, and ice).
Still water seems not to change, but is constantly transitioning through evaporation.
Water is interdependent, as a wave cannot be a wave without the sea.
Water is interconnected, from cloud to rain to river to sea.
As drops of water, we fear not rain over us. Water amassed as a flood reigns over us.
On water we can calmly float or panic and sink.
While essential to life, water also brings drowning and death.
Sound travels four times faster and further in water than air, though we can’t hear underwater what someone next to us is saying.
Water is odorless and tasteless, yet present in everything that smells and tastes.
Though colorless in a glass, water has a bluish hue in large bodies like the ocean.
Water in oceans seems impassable, but it’s easy to traverse by boat.
Still water is dead-silent. Moving water is alive with noise.
In a pond, still water is clear and turbulent water opaque.
When seeing ourselves in a reflecting pond, we don’t notice the water.
Water is impossible to grasp, but easily captured in cupped hands.
Water is practical, finding the easiest way to flow.
Water is weak, flowing to places of least resistance; unlike fire which destroys all in its way. Yet, water easily extinguishes fire.
While not hard like stone, high-pressure water cuts stone like butter.
Unlike almost every substance, water expands when it freezes. Thus, a quart of ice floats because it weighs less than a quart of water.
Water symbolizes the cycle of life; born as drops of rain, living together in rivers and seas and disappearing as vapor to form clouds for its rebirth.
Water is what it is whatever it is, but how we see it is a reflection of who we are. A man of wisdom sees water variously. That’s the essence of wisdom.
Koan 232
How can we see an infinite number of individual things in the now, yet the now is indivisible?
Final Post
After it’s born, a human being will surely die unless it is loved.
At the end of our days, eternal being will elude us unless we love unconditionally.
Being loved enables us to survive in life. Loving enables us to survive eternally.
In the now, we are a self.
Before and after the now, we are the soul.
The now never changes, but all forms in the now are ever-changing.
Forms transition until no longer recognized as being what they once were; simply, they die.
When our individual form dies, we are solely the soul.
Unlike a self, the soul is eternal.
As we are the soul, we are eternal.
The now is the manifestation of the soul.
The soul loves the now, as the soul loves its manifestations.
When we love the now and all its forms, we are the soul. We are eternal being.
Wisdom delivers this realization and compassion delivers its actualization.
Koan 231
A man widely recognized as wise sees through the perspectives of others, yet doesn’t see himself as wise.
Haiku 86
The tangible things we see as whole
are just a surface surrounding a hole.
All there is comes from a hole,
the eye’s center, creating the whole.
Way Of Way 50
We experience life in reality and as illusions.
Reality is what it is whatever it is, beyond description.
Describing it precludes us from experiencing it.
Descriptions are allusions to illusions.
Haiku 85
An ice cube alone quickly melts and evaporates.
Many ice cubes together, slowly.
Way Of Way 8
The son of God is the sun.
“I” is the name of God’s son.
The sun is God’s eye.
God’s eye creates the everchanging, infinite and timeless universe.
Looking into God’s eye, we can only glimpse the blinding whole of creation.
Not to be overwhelmed, we see the whole through the hole of our eye.
Our world is created by our hole into the whole.
You here, long time?
More than 40 years back, I found myself in a NYC taxi. Though the driver didn’t greet me, he didn’t seem unfriendly.
As he was dressed in clothes from the Indian subcontinent, I assumed he had recently arrived in the States.
To know his story, I asked him in mock pidgin English: “You here, long time?”
He responded in the King’s English: “I have been here 10 years, but I don’t know if that is long or short.”
We laughed.
There is nothing to know.
Koan 228
Funny is the self that looks to be enlightened, as the more it looks the less it sees the light.
Way Of Way 25
In California, the animist gods of fire, water (floods/droughts), earth (mudslides/earthquakes) and air (inflation) are screaming for people to leave. Yet, sentimental thinking (the self) keeps people from listening.
Way Of Way 23
Fiction is our memory of non-fiction.
Way Of Way 29
We are born of the soul as a self for a short journey in the play of life.
When we are scripted out of the play, we are no longer a self but remain the soul.
The play is a divine comedy for those who remember the way of the ever-present and eternal soul.
The play is a tragedy for those selves who don’t know the way. They are the lost souls.
Way Of Way 30
Political decadence is when decisions are not based on right or wrong by right or left.
Koan 214
Everything happens all at once but in different places.
What I did 10 years ago is happening in the now somewhere 10 light years from here.
Kotodama 34
The mystical experience is seeing every thing shrouded in mist and realizing we are the light beyond the mist.
Haiku 4
Every thing unique, every thing everchanging.
Can’t know every thing, but can know nothing.
The essence of the Everything.
Way Of Way 31
When we know the world solely by what we see and hear, we’re out of touch and can’t tell whether something doesn’t smell right.
Haiku 18
Some things high, some things low.
We live in a vertical world.
In sleep and at death, all is horizontal.
The universe knows no such measures.
Haiku 23
Stars seem motionless, with no sense of time.
Randomly dispersed, without rhythm or rhyme.
Constellations tell time far and near.
Hour of night, month of year.
Way Of Way 58
Nouns are photos. Verbs are movies.
Nouns are an it. Verbs are the is.
Nouns are created by our consciousness. Verbs are the experience of consciousness.
Koan 210
Why is accidentally seeing our spiritual guru sexually engaged with a fellow disciple in a meditation room funny, but not when the disciple is our spouse?
Koan 192
Being best is best, but good enough is better.
Koan 225
We can be certain we don’t know what we are looking at when we are certain we know what we are looking at.
Haiku 21
Once I have passed,
many will think of me as past.
Those who know of timeless love,
that which emanates from above,
will smile with joy and not shed a tear.
While my body is gone, I am forever here.
Way Of Way 19
A subscriber to our blog recently mentioned some of the posts repetitive.
This suggests a main point of the blog has been lost on them; for even if two posts are identical, they are not the same.
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” — Heraclitus
YHWH
God is everchanging and eternal flow; a way never away.
In the Hebrew Bible, YHWH is the name of God.
In Paleo-Hebrew, the written text only included consonants and the reader would supply the vowels during reading. This oral tradition was passed down through generations, but was eventually lost. Today, there is no consensus as to how to pronounce YHWH.
However, the nature of God reveals a possible pronunciation of God’s name.
God self-identifies as: “I am who I am” or “I will be what I will be”. God is manifested in the now as a tangible “who” and outside the now as an unspecified “what”. Taken together: “I am what I am.”
Acronym: IAWIA
IAWIA can be pronounced two ways.
IAWIA can be pronounced two ways.
As “I why” by voicing the “I” in each consecutive vowel.
Or as “a way” by voicing the “A” in each consecutive vowel.
With both pronunciations, one vowel is voiced and the other silent. God is the manifested and the unmanifested.
“I why” is commonly asked as “why do I exist?” I am why I am. I exist because I exist. Creation creates itself without explanations. All there is is is.
God is “a way“; a journey on a path rather than a static path.
“A way” is akin to the Taoist concept of Tao (the Way). The Way is ultimate reality; the seen and unseen; the source of all being; the eternally transitioning; ineffable, beyond human comprehension.
“A way” is also a possible pronunciation of YHWH.
“A way” is the sound of breathing (inhale “a”, exhale “way”).
Likewise, “soooo” is the sound of inhaling and “hmmmmm” is the sound of exhaling. Together, they form the word “Soham”, meaning “I am” in Sanskrit.
Every breath of life recalls the name of God, and a self-reminder of how to return to God.
Koan 159
All beings are illusions based on the illusion of the self as a being.
Way of Way 120
Nobody is getting out of here alive, but those who know the way. The way is love.
Love connects who we are in the play of life, an expression of the soul, to what we are before and after the play, the soul.
Way Of Way 127
In light of our inevitable death and countless potential disasters, everyday problems aren’t as significant as our mind makes them.
Way Of Way 259
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”
— Bernard M. Baruch
Koan 104
You cannot love every thing, unless you are the Everything.
Koan 222
The now is full of descriptions, yet all descriptions are empty.
Haiku 68
Earth breathes the air, fire eats the Earth,
water drowns fire, air evaporates water.
Different things, same thing.
Koan 282
What’s odd is funny when it makes things that are not odd funny.
Koan 227
When we are present, we miss nothing until we have it again.
Koan 69
As we inevitably have more money than time, why do we spend so much time making money?
Way Of Way 157
We rarely stress about something we can do something about.
The mind causes stress, not circumstances.
Koan 140
The now begins with M = E/C² and ends with E = MC².
M = Mass
E = Energy
C = Speed of Light
Before the now, all there is is Energy.
When Energy is slowed down by the speed of light squared, energy becomes Mass.
Mass is the manifestation of Energy in the now.
When Mass accelerates to the speed of light squared, it reverts into Energy.
The process of Energy to Mass and back happens in an instant; again and again and again.
It happens so quickly, we don’t sense it happening.
The mind creates an illusion of continuity and stability.
Koan 68
Every thing is not as it seems, as it is constantly changing.
Only the mind makes it seem otherwise.
Koan 60
The brilliant reflect the sun’s light.
The wise emanate light to guide the way through the night.
Koan 102
While we are naturally eccentric, it’s difficult to be eccentric.
What’s odd is not normal but what’s normal is odd.
Koan 219
Awakening is always the same, and all ways different.
Koan 58
No body is getting out of here alive, except those emitting unconditional love.
Every thing is a manifestation of the soul.
Unconditional love is the soul’s love of its manifestation.
When emitting unconditional love, we are the soul.
The soul is eternal.
Koan 56
Who I am is many things.
What I am is one thing.
Way Of Way 36
If we are not dancing, we are not listening to the music.
Koan 54
The soul is selfish, yet has no self.
Koan 55
“I don’t mind what happens.” — J. Krishnamurti
The “eternal what” is every thing before and after the now.
The “what happens” is a temporary expression of the “eternal what”.
The “what happens” is a mirror of the “eternal what”.
The “eternal what” loves seeing itself in the mirror.
This love is divine love, peace beyond understanding.
The mind, the self’s emotions and memories, precludes us from seeing “what happens”.
Through the mind we see only illusions.
When we don’t mind, we accept “what happens” and the illusions disappear.
Then we realize we are the “eternal what”.
Way Of Way 18
Love your self with your soul, not with your self.
Otherwise, you might go fuck your self.
Way Of Way 38
Stress is a selfish state of mind.
Stress happens when the self takes control of the mind.
The remedy is freeing the mind from the self.
The etymology of the word “mind” is “memory”.
Remembering what the universe is can free us from the shackles of stress.
The etymology of the word “universe” literally means “turned into one”.
All things are temporarily things in the now, but eternally one thing: the universe.
Who we are is a self. What we are is the universe.
When we only perceive being a self, we suffer selfish states such as stress.
Remembering we are the universe, we have no stress.
Feeling great and being stressed are mutually exclusive states of mind. When we feel great, we cannot be stressed.
When we are grateful, we are “great-full” with no space for stress.
We are grateful when we remember we are lucky. However stressful our circumstances, we are lucky they are not worse.
The word “hap” means luck. The root of happiness is remembering we are lucky.
When we are happy, we cannot be stressed.
Life is a play.
For the actors in the play, it’s a tragedy; good times, bad times, meaningful relationships here and there, but everyone dies at the end.
For the audience, it’s a comedy; watching actors take their roles seriously, though it’s only a play.
When we identify as the self, we are the actors.
The audience is Gods. When we remember we are Gods, we are also the audience.
As Homer once said, near the home of the Gods, Mount Olympus, there is a deafening sound of the Gods laughing. The Gods are laughing at us.
When we die, we leave the play and join our fellow Gods in the audience.
Remembering we are both the actors and the Gods, we can laugh at our selves.
When laughing, we are not stressed.
Much stress is a function of things from the past.
These things are karma: our intentions, actions and consequences of past lives. Karma affects how we experience the now.
Our past lives are not lives we had before this life. Our past lives are passed days of our life. Each day is not a day in a life, but a life in a day.
We accumulate much karma over our passed lives.
The people we were in passed lives are illusions. Our memories of them are just a dream; yet, the self tells us otherwise.
When we don’t believe the self-stories about the past, we remember we are only the person we are right now.
Karma of the past is passed and we cannot be stressed in the now.
The self has many faces or emotions, like stress.
The self’s emotions control our mind.
To escape the self we need to calm the self with unconditional love.
Unconditional love comes only from the soul. When we love unconditionally, we are the soul.
The soul is never stressed.
Way Of Way 24
Loving those who dislike you shows them the way to disliking no one.
Way Of Way 53
A meal is judged twice: at the sitting and at the shitting.
Kotodama 57
“No know” is the way to “know no”.
When we know that we know no thing, we can come to know nothing; the essence of every thing.
Koan 126
The universe has an infinite number of centers, yet the universe has no center.
Each thing our eyes focus on is a center.
Each of us is a center.
With no beginning and no end, the universe has no center.
Way Of Way 40
Pantheism is a religion without religion.
Organized religions are identity groups typically defined by institutionalized characteristics: belief systems, sacred texts, rituals, moral codes, communal practices, symbols and anecdotes.
As each group perceives itself different from other groups, every religion is inherently dualistic
Pantheism dispels with duality.
Pantheism is the view that while every thing seems unique, all there is is one everchanging thing: God.
Oneness with God is a transcendental experience that dissolves the illusion or separateness.
Oneness is a mystical experience (like Sufism, Kabballah, Tantra, and Zen meditation) that doesn’t require a religious framework.
Oneness transitions us from individual consciousness to divine consciousness. Our view changes from the world being finite things to all there is is the everchanging and eternal Everything, God.
In the mystical state of oneness, one loves every thing; though one may not necessarily like every thing.
Loving every thing feels like every thing loves us.
The reciprocating love is a transcendental peace beyond understanding.
Pantheists appreciate organized religions and secular beliefs as different expressions of God; but view them as unnecessary and often funny as they mask the fundamental truth that every thing is sacred.
Non-pantheists often don’t appreciate pantheistic perspective. People taking themselves seriously are unamused and confused by those who laugh at them with unconditional love.
Way Of Way 41
“Muddy water, let stand, becomes clear.” — Lao Tzu
In each body resides a self.
But the self is many selves, as each emotional states is a unique self.
The selves are like the grains of sand in a muddy pond, the mind.
They preclude us from seeing what’s within the pond and reflections without the pond.
To see clearly within and without, the selves need to settle at pond’s bottom.
This allows the many selves to turn into one.
This is the purpose of meditation.
Koan 125
“He who speaks does not know, he who knows does not speak.”
— Lao Tzu
What is there to know?
What is there to know!
What is every thing before and after it is what it is whatever it is in the now.
What is nothing and potentially every thing.
He who speaks does not know what (or what they are talking about); for if what is one thing, it cannot be another; yet, what is the essence of every thing.
He who speaks describes ever thing as though it has an independent existence.
He who knows does not speak, for every thing is the Everything; the universe flowing in and out of the now.
He who speaks does not know he is only describing an individual dot in a painting.
He who knows does not speak, for the infinite number of interdependent dots that make a painting are beyond description.
He who speaks describes what he sees in foveal vision which is 1% of peripheral vision.
He who knows all that can be seen does not speak, as peripheral vision is too vague to be described.
He who speaks is the now. Yet, he does not know the now, as a hand cannot grasp itself.
He who knows the now observes it from outside the now. He does not speak, as speaking can only be done in the now.
He who speaks creates the illusion of time-passing from the sound of one word to the next.
He who knows the universe is timeless does not speak, for speaking creates the illusion of time.
He who speaks does not know the now he describes is now no longer.
He who knows does not speak as what’s no longer is an illusion.
He who speaks is the self. The self does not know the oneness of ultimate reality (the soul), for the self’s identity is that which is separate from ultimate reality.
He who knows is the soul. He does not speak, for only the self can speak.
He who speaks thinks effects come from affects; that things can be explained.
He who knows does not speak, for he knows the universe is spontaneously manifesting.
A speaker’s words are like the precise space inside a square.
The endless and everchanging now is like the imprecise space inside a circle.
He who knows does not speak, for a circle cannot be squared.
He who speaks is an actor in the play of life.
He who knows is the audience.
The actors speak of matters they take seriously.
The audience knows it’s a play, not to be taken seriously.
The audience does not speak, for they are forever laughing.
The play is a divine joke that he who speaks thinks can be explained.
He who knows does not speak, as a joke that needs to be explained is not funny.
Kotodama 20
The etymology of “universe” is “turned into one.”
The universe is not an infinite number of unique things. It is all things turned into one.
Thinking of the universe as separate and independent things is an illusion.
As these illusions are everchanging, they cannot be described except but by the one (uni) verse: it is what it is whatever it is.
Way Of Way 17
With eyes open, our mind shows us the infinite manifestations of reality.
With eyes closed, we see one thing: nothing, the true nature of reality.
Haiku 47
I first see you as other than me.
Then I see you are another me.
There is no other, just we.
Haiku 95
With one eye, we can see.
With two eyes, we have depth perception.
With one mind, we have a view.
With many minds, we have a wide perspective.
Way Of Way 91
Everyone is brilliant in some way. The brilliance of those who seem dull is to remind us that we can seem dull too.
Koan 193
Very few things affect us. What we think things are affects us.
Koan 121
How do you know whether you are seeing something through your eyes or mind?
Koan 198
The book with blank pages is only empty if that’s what we see.
Koan 197
Without a different perspective we have no perspective.
Way Of Way 10
Those with microscopic or telescopic minds can see what few others can, but often can’t see what’s before their eyes.
Way Of Way 185
If we are not one with the Everything, we are nothing; in life, relatively nothing; after life, absolutely nothing.
Way Of Way 131
Loving some things even more than your self is selfish when you don’t love all things.
Way Of Way 14
As 85% of disease-related deaths are a function of age. To stay healthy, don’t grow up.
Koan 196
God is everywhere the self is not.
Koan 195
The Way to awakening is not to take your self seriously.
The way to begin the Way is not to take me seriously.
Way Of Way 12
When the wealthiest and most powerful man in the world, Alexander the Great, asked Diogenes of Sinope what he can do for him, Diogenes replied: “Yes, stand a little out of my sun.” .
The greatest gift is to escape the self’s shadow and connect with the source of all things.
Koan 194
Life is a play; a tragedy for the actors and a comedy for the audience.
A tragedy as every actor eventually is scripted out of the play and dies.
A comedy as the actors take their selves seriously.
People are the actors and the gods are the audience.
We can always choose who we are, actors or gods.
Way Of Way 182
Those who know the soul experience a peaceful death; for when the self and its home (the body) are no longer, they will be one with the Everything.
Yet, at their passing, their loved ones will grieve and mourn.
Newborns cry as they transition from one with the Everything into finite beings.
Yet, those welcoming newborns rejoice.
Those peacefully departing and those entering the material world know the joy and peace of oneness with the Everything.
Those distracted by daily life are often oblivious of the oneness before and after the material world.
They grieve when others leave and rejoice when others arrive. Misery loves company.
Koan 230
Nothing, but nothing, is certain.
Koan 15
Those who are enlightened enlight others. Yet, everyone enlights the enlightened.
Way Of Way 11
When good times lead to worse times and bad times lead to better times, that’s called “regression to the mean”.
When good times lead to better times and bad times lead to worse times, that’s called “momentum”.
The Way depends on identifying and balancing these countervailing forces.
Frank Zappa
Sometime in 1967, I went to the Garrick Theatre in New York City to see Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention perform a sparsely attended show.
It was a rainy day and Frank wore a rain hat which brought a few streams of sweat rolling down his face.
After the show, I went backstage to meet Frank. My sole question was: “What do you look like without that prophylactic hat?” To which Frank responded: “Like a real man.”
Frank was a real piece of work; not one of infinite copies or an overpriced fake.
The following year, Frank produced a song, some of whose lyrics have ever since resonated with me as funny and profound:
“What is the ugliest part of your body?
Some say your nose
Some say your toes
But I think it’s your mind.”
Nothing to the eye is inherently ugly or beautiful. However, the mind, by comparing things, deems some things uglier or prettier than other things. The mind is the ugliest part of the body, for it’s the only part that makes things ugly.
Koan 189
God is in plain sight, just hidden behind the self.
Koan 188
When we are present in the now, we are absent-minded of being in the now.
Koan 171
All things are constantly changing, yet there is nothing new under the sun.
Haiku 25
Those who are loving are the sun.
Those who want to be loved are black holes.
Haiku 27
Every thing seems a duality,
a light side and a dark side.
The sun makes things shine.
Things make shadows.
Kotodama 59
“Soooo” is the sound of inhaling.
“Hmmmm” is the sound of exhaling.
Together, the cycle of breathing is “Soham”, meaning “I am” in Sanskrit.
Soham is a Hindu meditative mantra implying pure being; not a being (self), just ultimate reality (God).
Soham, I am God.
Likewise, in the Bible, “I am” is how God self-identifies.
Haiku 28
Birth and death are illusions, like the sun rising and setting.
The soul is forever here, like the sol shining.
Kotodama 70
Traditional gender titles of Mr, Mrs, and Ms are self-limiting in contemporary times. Perhaps punctuations should be used to identity people and their sexual identities, such as:
Female appearance: (:)
Male appearance: (;)
Straight: (|)
Gay: (\)
Bisexual: (<>)
Trans (\/)
Dominant Female: (‘:)
Submissive Female: (:’)
Dominant Male: (‘;)
Submissive Male: (;’)
Weird Female in public: (“:)
Weird Male in public: (“;)
Weird Female in private: (:”)
Weird Male in private: (;”)
Weird Female every which way: (“:”)
Weird Male every which way: (“;”)
Undecided Person: (?)
Materialistic: ($)
Into group sex: (#)
Sexually loyal: (&)
Mental connection priority: (i)
Physical connection priority: (!)
Wants children: (+)
Doesn’t want children: (-)
Self-conscious: (%)
Dreamer: (*)
Religious: (^)
Homebody: (@)
For example, a person describing themselves as:
(“$^&’:@+) is a publicly weird materialistic religious loyal dominant Female homebody interested in having children.
(‘;!<>#*”-) is a dominant Male physically focused bisexual into group sex fantasies privately weird stuff and not interested in having children.
It’s clearly ridiculous when the mind categorizes ourselves and others with punctuation. Categorization rejects the truth that each of us is unique and yet shares a fundamental oneness.
Recognizing our unity, everyone could simply be referred to as “it”. This identifier is suggested by the common greeting: “How’s it going?”
Ultimately, those who know the true nature of things can only describe anyone or thing as “it is what it is whatever it is “. They are at peace, as they know the devil is punctuated in the details separating us from our essential unity as God.
Way Of Way 49
In the play of life, we play many roles. The most coveted are the elusive roles of the wealthy, powerful and celebrated.
While talent and effort are needed, most actors awarded these roles are simply lucky.
Unfortunately, even for the lucky ones, all roles are temporary. Eventually, everyone is scripted out of the play.
Actors bring their selves into their roles. However, there is a role that’s only available to those who relinquish their self. The role is easily obtainable and survives the play.
Yet, few players know this role is available: the role of God.
As God, we know life is a play. We’ve created the play for our entertainment. We are the actors and the audience.
We recognize every thing is a manifestation of us, God, and we love everything accordingly.
Haiku 29
Sun crashes pond’s surface.
Water only ripples.
Sun not wet.
Koan 184
“There are no facts, just interpretations.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
Koan 186
Every thing is temporarily unique and forever the same.
Koan 181
Something we see and can’t identify is fascinating.
Once identified, it becomes a noun relegated to our peripheral vision.
Koan 182
Life is a game of hide and seek. We win by finding the soul before the soul finds us.
Way Of Way 52
In Judaism, God is nameless.
God is not one thing to the exclusion of other things.
God is the Everything: the now and what is before and after the now.
However, the Everything is not a thing; it’s the only thing.
God is not a static noun.
God self-describes as “I am”.
God is an unspecified verb, the process of the Everything.
Koan 6
All we see in the now are reflections of light. When the now disappears, all that remains is light.
Koan 180
Time cannot be saved nor spent.
Way Of Way 195
We’re surrounded by an infinite number of things.
As we distance away from them, we see them as one thing.
Koan 220
We have freedom of speech as long as no one is listening.
Way Of Way 9
The soul’s love and the self’s love are the same but feel different.
The soul has only one emotion: love.
The self has a multitude of emotions, including love.
The soul loves every thing, as every thing is a manifestation of the soul. Simply, the soul loves itself.
The self’s love is conditional, loving some things sometimes.
The soul’s love is unconditional, loving all things all times.
The self’s love is ecstasy; love sandwiched between other emotions in striking contrast to love. Ecstasy is joyful and energizing.
Love from the soul is peace; a feeling beyond words, as oneness with the Everything is beyond description.
Ecstasy and peace simultaneously is orgasmic.
Koan 175
However fast a river runs, it’s always in the same place.
Koan 173
When we are one with the universe, we miss nothing until we see it.
Koan 176
When one experience seems like another, we have experienced neither.
Koan 155
Whatever we are certain about is an illusion.
Haiku 16
It is what it is whatever it is.
What it is is of no matter.
What matters is that it is.
Koan 172
When we don’t forget from where we came we know where we are going.
Koan 153
Those who think loving yourself is selfish are selfish.
Way Of Way 54
Cancel culture is a cancer culture.
When a group of like cells in the body prioritize their growth over the welfare of the body whole, the body eventually dies.
“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has first destroyed itself from within.” — Will Durant
Koan 156
What you see outside your self looks different when you are outside your self.
Koan 158
How can the soul appear to transition into an infinite number of things?
Koan 170
If life is a test, those with more answers than questions are sure to fail.
Koan 167
When seeing something not unique, we are seeing it with our mind.
Koan 168
When the past is real, the present is an illusion.
Koan 160
We can’t open our eyes if we don’t know they are closed.
Koan 164
When we are the person we once were, we are nothing.
Koan 166
Until we know we know nothing, we know nothing.
Haiku 30
What’s good for you is good for me
as I can choose who to be,
you, me, or we.
Koan 161
What was once and is no longer, never was.
Koan 174
No thing is perfect but nothing is perfect.
Haiku 31
We begin life as a tiny circle, looking like a dot.
As we grow, we have an inside and outside.
Until there is no more circle, just space.
Haiku 33
Water downstream is water past.
Water upstream is water future.
Water here is water present.
Water flows like time, but is timeless.
Koan 163
Loving certain people, but not all people, is sentimental. Loving all people is practical.
Koan 152
Enlightenment is simple: one is one with the light. But it’s complicated by the unenlightened who can’t agree on what it is.
Haiku 39
Living the life of water is the best thing.
As snow, it’s the most reflective thing.
As it flows, it’s more practical than anything.
When it evaporates, it becomes one with the Everything.
Way Of Way 55
The universe is a circle.
The space inside a circle is imprecise.
The logical mind sees things as squares, as having a precise space.
The logical mind cannot see the universe, as the space inside a circle cannot be squared.
Koan 151
Those who love you, help keep you alive. Those you love are the reason you are alive.
Koan 98
As everyone describes the same thing differently, how can you understand anything unless you understand everyone?
Kotodama 74
“Mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe.”
— Galileo Galilei
Words are the essence of language which man uses to understand the universe.
Mathematics connects everything in the universe.
The etymology of the word “number” is “to divide.”
God unifies, man divides.
Way Of Way 37
All things are two things, a reflection of light and a shadow.
The sun creates the light, the thing creates the shadow.
Koan 177
What happens when we die?
What happens when we die!
When we die, we transition from “Who” we are in the now to “What” we are before and after the now.
The “Who” is the self, our identity in the now.
The “What” is transcendental. The “What” is God.
In the Bible, God self-describes: “I am what I am.”
In several religious traditions, God is nameless; for if God is this, then God is not that. God is nameless because God is what every thing is whatever it all is.
As every thing in the now is a manifestation of God, the “Who” is an expression of the “What”.
As the “Who” exists only in the now, the “Who” is finite.
Those who view themselves as solely a “Who” die when they are no longer in the now.
Those realizing they are the “What” are eternal beings, constantly transitioning back and forth between “What” and “Who”.
Koan 187
Sleeping is a state of consciousness based on the illusion of knowledge.
Awakening is realizing we don’t know anything.
Enlightenment is knowing nothing.
Way Of Way 22
Nothing is perfect, as there is nothing about which to complain.
Before and after the now is nothing.
Before and after the now must be perfect.
Way Of Way 56
“When I was a kid, God often told me that only people create ugliness.” — Kanako Iiyama
Through the eye of God, the manifestation of God (the now) radiates beauty.
Through people’s minds, the beauty is often elusive or even made ugly.
The mind cannot see, it can only compare. The mind compares the now that’s now with the now that’s passed and the future now it imagines or desires.
Comparisons shroud the now with words; precluding a direct experience of the radiant now. As well, comparisons can make the absolutely beautiful relatively ugly.
The now is perfect; eternally now. Yet, none of the things in the now are perfect as all things are ever-changing; at best, perfect temporarily.
Focusing on things, people often complain about imperfections. Complaining is ugly.
Those who know all things in the now are one thing, the manifestation of God, unconditionally love all things as they do themselves.
Those who see things as other than themselves, connect to things with various emotions; many of which are ugly.
Koan 132
When we understand all is One, is 1 + 1 = 1?
Haiku 44
Those who are bored
see life as a game board,
but a board it can’t be
as every thing is 3-D.
Koan 149
The mind can grasp enlightenment as easily as a hand can grasp itself.
Koan 148
How can the now be eternally unchanged, yet the now that’s now is different than the now before now and the now after the now?
Haiku 42
Using constellations to navigate our way,
we don’t see the stars which are the Way.
Koan 143
As each of us describes the same thing differently, is the same thing the same thing?
Koan 141
Are the brightest those who reflect the brightest light or those who emit light which reflects from everything around them?
Koan 31
When the mind lights the road ahead, day turns into night.
Koan 146
The foundation of wisdom is knowing you know nothing.
Koan 145
“Some things are too important to be taken seriously.” — Oscar Wilde
Koan 144
You find the soul when you lose your self.
Koan 142
When the self is absent, we are present.
Koan 136
Once you know nothing, there is nothing else you need to know.
Way Of Way 64
Life is a wonderful dream as long as we’re not oblivious we are dreaming.
Koan 107
When we transform the now into words, the words become the now.
Koan 110
The senses connect us to reality and the mind disconnects us from reality.
Koan 139
Every thing, but the Everything, creates duality.
Koan 133
An enlightened man loves every thing equally; though, in selfish moments, some things he likes and some things he doesn’t.
Koan 108
The sound of laughter indicates the truth is near.
Koan 130
There is no time, just space. Every thing that was, is and will be happens at the same time but in different spaces.
Koan 134
The memories we hold onto are real, until we open our mind and see there is nothing there.
Way Of Way 7
The universe is the manifestation of the electromagnetic spectrum.
We see the universe through light waves which are 0.0035% of the electromagnetic spectrum.
If we saw the universe through the entire electromagnetic spectrum, we would wish we were blind; otherwise we would go mad.
My Mother’s Transition 2
In the last year of my mother’s life, she was mentally clear but otherwise incapacitated.
Living in a nursing facility, she couldn’t do much but be carted around to group entertainment activities like movie watching. Her days must have been intolerably long, as she had little to do to kill time until time killed her.
Yet, her perspective was otherwise.
I once asked her if she was often bored, to which she replied, “Oh, I am busy all day; barely have time to do anything.” What was she busy with? “Thinking about my life.”
My mother traveled to the land of her memories. Her memories must have been happy as she never complained and had no regrets.
That’s how my mother transitioned, living in her memories until she became a memory. For me, only a happy memory.
Kotodama 30
U are the self.
U are the soul.
Together, the U’s are W, like in the word “whole”.
Without the U’s, there is just a “hole”.
Koan 131
A wise man may appear foolish being uncertain of every thing, but only a fool is certain of any thing.
Koan 201
The only thing certain is that we can never be certain of anything.
Koan 61
When we see something familiar, we are seeing it with our mind not our eyes.
Way Of Way 208
The etymology of the word “universe” is literally “turned into one.”
The universe is the Everything turned into one thing.
The Everything is the now and what is before and after the now.
Sometimes, the Everything is called “God.”
People pray to God for many specific things, but ultimately happiness generally. The workings of the universe reveals the way to eternal happiness, peace.
God is like a shiny coin rapidly flipping and reflecting light.
One side is called “heads” and the other called “tails.” The plural is used to describe each side because each time we see the same side it is different in time and space than it was before and we are not the same person from one minute to the next.
The side we see is the now. The side we don’t see is what is before and after the now.
As the Everything (God) is rapidly turning, the visible side is just reflections of light. However, the mind slows down the turning and creates detailed images from the light. The images and the stories we tell about them are illusions.
The heads and tails seem a duality. However, the duality is also an illusion. All there is are two sides “turning into one,” the universe in the form of a coin.
Rarely noticed is the edge of the coin, the “third side.” The third side interconnects the two seemingly independent sides that are actually interdependent as one cannot exist without the other.
Horizontally from edge to edge is an invisible central axis, or path, around which the coin dances in perfect harmony. The path is the “Tao.”
The Tao is ultimate reality,* the underlying principle or source from which all things arise and to which they return. The Tao is the natural flow and harmony of the universe.
When we simply appreciate the coin fluttering like a butterfly, we are in tune with the Tao. We are not distracted by images and related stories we’ve created. We are in a state of peaceful harmony.
Most of us are oblivious of the Tao, as our attention is on what was now, what is now and what will be now, the visible side of the coin.
We see what is now in the context of what was and we hope to get lucky; that the next visible side, the next now, will bring us happiness.
“Hap” means luck. It is the root of happiness.
We pray to God to bring us luck.
Yet, when we experience the simple beauty of the Tao, we realize eternal peace rather than temporary happiness.
*While a coin flipping in the air seems a simple process, it’s actually extremely complicated to explain in terms of physics. It involves classical mechanics, rotational dynamics, angular momentum and precession, fluid dynamics, chaos theory and quantum mechanics. In perspective, the theory of relativity is considered easier to come to know than coin flip dynamics.
Koan 129
To the curious mind, awareness of its ignorance is bliss.
Koan 128
Life is a test to which we are given the answer before taking the test. We always have a choice: we can remember the answer or take the test seriously.
Koan 106
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” — Heraclitus
Koan 122
You are in harmony with the world when you know who you are.
You are harmony when you know what you are.
Koan 23
“Enlightenment is like everyday consciousness, but two inches above the ground.” — D.T. Suzuki
Enlightenment is proverbially described as “being one with everything.” It is a state associated with the dissolution of the illusory self, transcending duality and realizing our oneness with the Everything.
Consciousness is consciousness. Enlightenment consciousness is not different from self consciousness.
Describing enlightenment as being two inches above the ground seems the antithesis of enlightenment, as it implies separation/duality. No! Two inches above the ground implies enlightenment is transcendental, beyond our conventional understanding of the material world with forces like gravity.
The “ground” represents the now. When we are on the ground, we are in the now. Through the consciousness of the self, we experience the now as a duality: the self and all that is not the self.
The consciousness of enlightenment is observing the now which can be done through meditation.
The now is breathing. We can observe the now when we are in the space between exhale and inhale.
In this silent space we realize we create the now and, once created, we are the now.
Koan 7
What do we see everywhere but rarely notice?
Light.
Things we see are not things, just light reflecting off things.
We don’t see that light (Energy) is the essence of all things. Energy is Mass moving at the speed of light squared (E = MC²). All things (Mass) are energy slowed by the speed of light squared (M = E/C²).
All things, outside and inside, are light.
Perceiving things otherwise, as solid or distinct from other things, is an illusion.
As all things are light, all things are enlightening. When you see things as things are, what are you?
Koan 137
The senses awaken us, while the mind puts us to sleep.
Koan 111
What separates people is not space but time.
Koan 100
When we categorize others, we don’t know what they or we are.
Koan 116
To the eyes, every thing is unique because the eyes have no memory.
Koan 25
Certainty makes us comfortable with reality because it’s not reality.
Koan 42
As enlightenment is so simple and obvious, it’s funny that some people don’t get it.
It’s actually funny when someone tries to explain it; like pointing their finger at the sun, yet the listener keeps looking at their finger.
Koan 113
Awakened, we don’t recognize any thing we see. Enlightened, there are no things, just light.
Koan 112
To the eyes, every thing is beautiful. To the mind, few things are beautiful.
Koan 114
Awakening is realizing that our memories are just dreams.
Koan 96
We move forward facing backwards, experiencing things only after they’ve passed.
Koan 95
Our eyes see things horizontally, but our mind sees things vertically.
Koan 94
As the hand cannot grasp itself, how can the mind grasp itself?
Kotodama 65
“I”, “is”, and “time” are the most frequently used pronoun, verb and noun.
While these words never appear together as a sentence, “I is time” reveals what we are.
“I” implies a personal self that’s separate from all that is not the self.
“Is” (unlike the customary “am”) suggests a universal identity beyond the personal self.
Our universal identity is the soul.
The soul is the Everything; all that’s before, in, and after the now.
However, the soul only manifests in the now.
“Time” is a concept that frames how the self perceives the now, as everchanging independent things; not as it is: timeless and interdependent.*
“I is time”: I, the self, am the soul having a human experience.
I Is Time
Acronym: “I IT”
“IT” is a general noun for undifferentiated reality, the Everything before it is in the now.
“IT” is the soul.
“I IT”: I am the soul.
“I IT” is “eye it”: what I see is what I am.
*The soul is infinite, eternal, and unchanging; yet it expresses itself as the ever-changing now.
Though changes appear to unfold in the now over time, the now itself remains constant; for time is but an illusion of perception.
What changes is simply what appears within the now.
What appears is revealed by the visible light spectrum–just 0.0035% of the electromagnetic spectrum– as it dances across the soul, illuminating what has always been there eternally and unseen.
Way Of Way 68
Love is love, but is different depending on its source.
There is love from the self and love from the soul
The self expresses many emotions, including love.
The soul only expresses love.
Love from the self is temporary, as the self also needs to express other emotions.
Love from the soul is unending.
Love from the self is love of specific things.
Love from the soul is love of every thing.
Love from the self is conditional.
Love from the soul is unconditional.
Love from the self is demonstrative.
Love from the soul is ineffable.
Love from the self is finite like the self.
Love from the soul is eternal like the soul.
Love from the self is empathy.
Love from the soul is compassion.
Love from the self is joyous.
Love from the soul is peace.
Koan 89
Once you know what you are is not your self, what else do you need to know?
Way Of Way 71
Knowing who you are, you can make the best of your roles in life.
Knowing what you are is the best role.
Kotodama 48
Urine-nation: a nation that gets into pissing contests and ends up pissing off the world.
Koan 88
“Love is the absence of judgement.” — Dali Lama XIV
Koan 87
“Where does a thought go when it’s forgotten?” — Sigmund Freud
Way Of Way 250
“The Great Way” begins with “no know” and ends with “know no.”
“The Great Way” (or Tao), a central concept in Taoism, is the natural flow of the universe and the path to harmony. It is the path to liberation from our temporary individual self to realizing our eternal oneness with the Everything.
The Everything is the soul and its manifestation in the now.
The soul is what every thing is before and after it is what it is whatever it is in the now. The soul is “no-thing,” just energy.
The now is an infinite number of seemingly separate things. Separateness is an illusion, as all things in the now are one thing: interdependent manifestations of the soul. interdependent. Ultimately, all things in the now are one thing: interdependent manifestations (expressions) of the soul.
The self is who we are in the now.
The self conceives the now as a duality: the self and that which is not the self. Upon this foundational duality, we perceive separateness between all things in the now.
The self’s perception of separateness is based on illusions (memories, stories and identities) that define who we are, not what we are (the Everything).
The path to liberation begins when we realize we “no know”: we don’t know what we are. We then dispense with basing reality on the self and its illusions.
Dispensing with the illusion of separateness, we come to “know no”; to know the “no-thing” (the soul).
Knowing the soul, we experience the expressions of the soul (the now) as an interconnectedness of all things.
From the soul to the soul’s expressions and then reverting to the soul is the natural flow of the universe. Realizing this is what we are, the Everything, we are in harmony with the flow of the universe.
Meditation is a central practice of “The Great Way.” Through meditation, we can let go of the self which liberates us from the self.
Holding onto the self makes the hand a fist, an aggressive gesture suggestive of duality. Letting go the self, the hand opens like a handshake to connect with all things. The connection is love.
In meditation, we focus on breathing and the space between breaths. The breaths are the now and the space between breaths is the “no-thing” (the soul).
In the space of the “no-thing,” we can observe the now and come to realize we are the consciousness that creates it.
With the wisdom of knowing we are the Everything, we realize our self’s sense of separateness and the self itself are illusions. This wisdom leads us to compassion, to love all things in the now.
The sounds of “no know” and “know no” are the same, but their meanings distinct. The same energy vibrations (sound) from the soul is manifested as different words in the now.
Liberation is reverting from words to their sounds; from distinct to harmonious. The path back is the Tao. The Tao reveals that “no know” and “know no” are one; that we and the energy are one.
Koan 90
“The most dangerous thing of all is habit.” — Kotzker Rebbe
Habits don’t kill you, but keep you from being alive.
Koan 85
Can you be enlightened if you are not enlightening?
Haiku 77
Under the sun, the world of the self.
In the night sky, only the soul.
Koan 92
“Now that I no longer desire all, I have all without desire.”– St. John of the Cross
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 manifests 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, flowing with no beginning and no end.
Eureka! All there is is the flow of eternal consciousness; everchanging as it creates the now.
Way Of Way 75
“In the beginning…God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” — Genesis 1:1-3
Every thing subsequently is a derivative, or an illusion.
Kotodama 44
It Is What It Is Whatever It Is.
Acronym: II-WII-WII (I why why?)
Why do I exist? Why is the universe?
There is no why; there are no things like the universe and me.
All there is is is.
Is is what is is whatever is is.
Koan 4
“Water is the face of fire.” — Kanako Iiyama
The appearance of things is unlike their true nature.
We present ourselves like water; calm, nourishing and practical.
Yet, like fire, our inner state is everchanging; at times illuminating, at times destructive.
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.
Koan 29
Time is like water, drink it or it evaporates.
Way Of Way 76
When we are grateful and love the now that is now, we are poised to be happy with the now that will be later.
Koan 79
What is time?
Before and after the now, there is no time.
The now comes and goes in an instant, yet the now is eternal.
Koan 119
The light we see disappears in an instant. The light itself is forever.
Koan 76
When you know what you are, you always appreciate who you are.
Koan 34
Everything is in the now.
When you miss something in the now, the only thing missing is you.
Koan 38
You are what you are forever. Who you are is subject to change.
Koan 35
What is your Way?
Earth, fire, air or water?
Earth is physical.
Fire is emotional.
Air is conceptual.
Water is practical.
Rock, paper, or scissors?
Rock is nature.
Paper is civilization
Scissors is technology.
Red, yellow or blue?
Red is emotional.
Yellow is intuitive..
Blue is conceptual.
Knife, fork, spoon or chopsticks?
Kotodama 77
Heaven is “have-even”.
Heaven is before and after the now, where every thing is even; one thing: infinite potentialities.
Koan 120
The soul and the self are complimentary.
The soul emits energy.
The self absorbs energy.
Merton Simpson
Merton Simpson was a black man born in 1928 in racially segregated South Carolina. Merton was a musician, painter and, after settling in New York, a world-renowned tribal art dealer.
As a collector of tribal art, I met Merton in 1991 and over the years purchased a few objects he had on offer. More significantly, we became friends; that is, we were completely open in our talks; taking vicarious joy in each other’s tales and perspectives, without judgement.
I did much of the talking as Merton was not a man of many words or paragraphs. Yet, Merton conveyed his feelings by laughing which is what he did much of our time together.
Merton loved the physical experience of being alive. He loved looking at art, listening to music, eating and fucking. I could appreciate that.
While in his day Merton was considered a top tribal art dealer, in his later years there was much talk about some of the objects he had on offer being of dubious authenticity. (Authenticity is the foundation of the collectible art market, without which art prices could not rise to as high as the sky. For if art was simply a visual experience, high quality “fakes” would be as valuable as authentic artworks.)
Some in the field of tribal art collecting suggested that Merton’s “fakes” were not offered with malintent, but perhaps Merton with age lost his critical “eye” for identifying artworks that were “real” or “fake.” However, I suspect Merton evolved beyond these artificial categorizations. Merton came to simply enjoy and appreciate art things, as well as things generally, as there were, not as a function of how they were categorized or relative to other objects. He saw things not as this, that or another, but as is.
In one of our many get-togethers, we looked at an African Nkisi figure, commonly called a “nail fetish,” to consider whether it was “real” or a “fake.” After some minutes, I asked Merton what he thought, to which he responded: “It is what it is.”
That’s as God self-identified to Moses: “I am what I am.” Simply, Merton delighted at the light from the “Burning Bush.”
Koan 75
The self that thinks it knows, only knows illusions.
Koan 74
“Speech and silence are one and the same.” — Fuketsu Ensho
Haiku 83
$38 can of paint
brushed on a canvass: priceless
spilled on the floor: worthless.
Haiku 84
The road ahead is very clear,
as the light reveals all that’s near.
Shadows form from light that’s passed,
as what is now doesn’t last.
Way Of Way 88
Winners in the game of life receive grand prizes.
But every participant gets a consolation prize: the transition to heaven.
The winners completely engaged with their grand prizes often forget to pick up the consolation prize. They will not transition to heaven.
Koan 205
It’s easy to equally divide a pie without knowing math, but impossible when you know the math of pi.
Way of Way 90
In the play of life, we are both the actors and the audience.
Wonderful entertainment except when we forget we are also the audience.
Koan 53
Those who seek will not find for what they are seeking is seeking.
Way of Way 118
Someone who asks a question wants to learn.
Someone who provides an answer wants to teach.
Someone who asks a question and provides an answer wants to sell you something.
Koan 72
What is it?
The “it” is.
What the “it” is is whatever it is.
More definitively, “it” becomes an illusion.
Way Of Way 6
“He who doesn’t see God everywhere isn’t capable of seeing God anywhere.” — Kotzker Rebbe
Way of Way 111
Desiring what we don’t have distracts us from appreciating what we have.
Koan 63
“Whoever gets angry, it is as if he worshipped idols” — Zohar 1:27b
Getting angry at some one or thing presumes it has an independent existence, like an idol. That denies the existence of God which is the interconnected oneness of every thing.
Koan 71
Love your self to escape from your self.
Koan 62
The devil is in the details.
Without details, all things are one thing: God.
Way Of Way 79
When talking about others, we are talking about our self. The self creates the others.
Koan 30
We see “its” everywhere, yet rarely notice the “is”, though all there is is is.
There are two types of vision, foveal and peripheral.
Foveal vision is when our eyes focus and we mentally create static images of seemingly independent things (“its”).
The “its” are illusions.
Peripheral vision is unfocused. We don’t see static “its”, we see a continuous fluid “is”.
The “is” is reality; an ambiguous flow of interdependent and everchanging things beyond description.
Peripheral vision is the visible universe unaffected by the mind.
While we don’t see “its” in peripheral vision, we are sensitive to changes in the flow in areas of peripheral vision. These changes engage our attention causing us to focus with foveal vision on what has changed.
When we shift from peripheral vision to foveal vision, the mind creates an “it” from the “is”.
While 99% of our visual field is peripheral vision, we think the illusions we create through foveal vision are reality.
Koan 59
Can the universe (metaphorically, the space inside a circle) precisely fit in a space of a square our mind creates?
A circle cannot be squared.
The space inside a circle is the product of multiplying the squared radius of the circle and π (pi)
π is a transcendental number; an infinite, non-repeating decimal expansion. That means the knowable space inside a circle is imprecise.
The space inside a square is precise.
As an imprecise space cannot precisely fill a precise space, a circle cannot be squared.
Transcendental numbers arise naturally in exponential growth and decay processes. They are used extensively in calculus, probability, and mathematical analysis.
Transcendental is also the nature of the universe; infinite expansion and everchanging.
The logical mind segregates things precisely, convincing us we know various parts of the universe.
However, the universe cannot be precisely known.
Kotodama 51
Before time began, God named his son, Sun.
Sun’s progeny is light, the essence of everything.
When the light slows down by the speed of light squared, it transitions into matter.
Matter seems real, but is an illusion; as it’s essentially light.
The Timeless One knows this.
Koan 24
I am time.
Way Of Way 81
As no one has ever complained about the night sky, the universe must be heaven and Earth must be hell.
Way Of Way 47
“You were born an original. Don’t die a copy.” — James Mason
Once you’re a copy, you’re already dead.
Way Of Way 78
Soulful love is the joy of feeling how someone emanating love feels.
Selfish love is basking in the love showered upon us by others.
Way Of Way 13
The soul loves the light of the sun.
The self loves the warmth of the sun.
Way Of Way 80
Ignorance is bliss.
Temporary bliss for those who think they know what they don’t.
Eternal bliss for those who are curious.
Kotodama 43
We chase our tales like dogs chase their tails.
Our tales are our tails. What we want is what we are already.
Koan 33
An “enlightened master” with many students is a powerful illusion created by the students.
Koan 115
Enlightenment is realizing every thing is essentially light.
Koan 47
What is calmer, the sea or me?
Koan 44
When we can’t identify what we are seeing, we are experiencing reality.
Way of Way 1
We cannot choose our future, but we can choose how we remember the past which frames how we experience the future.
Way Of Way 74
Enjoy your self, otherwise it might make you miserable.
Way of Way 113
Those who hate the rich but want to be rich hate themselves.
Way Of Way 73
Love makes all things one thing.
Way Of Way 15
Empirical studies suggest eating “junk food” is a precursor for dementia. However, the relationship may be reverse-causation. That is, an early sign of latent dementia is eating “junk food”.
Kotodama 5
The definition of passion is:
Emotion.
An intense or overwhelming feeling.
An outbreak of anger.
A strong desire for some activity, object, or concept.
Sexual desire.
The etymology of passion is suffering.
Way of Way 114
The rich think the poor are lazy and the poor think the rich were just lucky.
They are both right.
The key to success is luck. Those who work 40 hours/week get paid accordingly and receive 40 lottery tickets. Those who work 60 hours/week receive 200 lottery tickets. Those who work 75 hours/week receive 400 lottery tickets. As well, the rich are more conscientious in checking their tickets for winning numbers.
Kotodama 28
Hap is the root of happiness.
Hap means luck.
Happiness is realizing we are lucky, however difficult our circumstances. That is, we are lucky things aren’t worse.
We are also lucky we are in difficult circumstances, as circumstances are likely to improve.
Way of Way 116
Love connects us with the everything, while the self separates us from the everything.
Haiku 67
Verbs are fluid, time passing.
Nouns are imaginary, moments frozen in time.
Verbs are the happening, nouns are the happened.
Kotodama 26
Good evening.
Have a good transition to where all beings are the same (even); to sleep-death.
Good morning.
Have a good time mourning the person you were yesterday, who is now no longer.
Each day is not a day in a life, but a life in a day.
We’ve lived thousands of lifetimes within each conventional definition of a lifetime.
Each day we are reincarnated.
By not realizing our memories are dreams, we identify with who we were last lifetimes. This makes our mourning difficult; we can’t be free to experience the now as it is our first time.
Forget the memories and you have a good mourning.
Haiku 63
Good or bad.
Wrong or right.
What’s black or white is colorless.
Koan 13
How can the now be infinitesimally small, yet contain an infinite number of things?
Way of Way 119
Unconditional love is loving everything. It is the peace of being one with the Everything.
Conditional love is loving some things sometimes and not others. It is an intense physical and emotional state as it’s preceded and followed by other emotional states.
Koan 12
Is that so?
The Zen master Hakuin was praised by his neighbors as one living a pure life.
A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store lived near him. One day, her parents discovered she was pregnant.
This angered her parents, especially as she refused to tell them who got her pregnant. Eventually, she told them Hakuin was the father.
Furious, the parents told everyone in the community what Hakuin had done and confronted the master.
“Is that so?” was all he said.
After the child was born, the parents gave it to Hakuin. By then, he had lost his reputation as a righteous man, but that did not trouble him. He accepted the child and took very good care of it as if it was his.
A year later, the baby’s mother could no longer hold back the truth. She told her parents the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fish market.
The girl’s parents immediately went to Hakuin. They asked for forgiveness and to have the child back.
Hakuin willingly gave them the child and all he said was: “Is that so?”
“Is that so?” encourages self-reflection and the questioning of assumptions we hold without doubts.
“Is that so?” Hakuin asks the girl’s parents to question their initial certainty that Hakuin fathered their daughter’s baby and their later certainty that he did not. Ultimately, no one knows who fathered the baby; even the mother might not know.
“Is that so?” simply suggests we consider things from many perspectives. This is the essence of wisdom.
Wisdom is knowing that perceived truths change (like the girl’s claim as to who fathered her baby) and that, ultimately, no thing is truly knowable.
The girl’s parents lack wisdom.
They also lack compassion as they carelessly ruin Hakuin’s reputation.
Hakuin, a man of wisdom and compassion, knows what he is and is unfazed by who others think he is.
Embodying wisdom and compassion, we gracefully accept what comes our way and make the best of it.
Way of Way 121
All emotional states, other than love, are a form of selfishness. Love too is selfishness when it connects us with some things but not every thing. Soulful love is love of one thing: the everything.
Koan 11
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
The Pope: “It depends on the size of the pin.”
The Zen master: “What’s a pin?”
Koan 10
“Does a dog have Buddha nature?”
This is the first and perhaps most famous of 48 Zen koans compiled in the early 13th century in “The Gateless Gate.”
To the question, the Zen Master Zhaozhou responded: “Mu.”
Mu means “nothing.”
A dog is a dog. Buddha nature, the innate potential for enlightenment, is a concept. Two seemingly independent things in the now.
Yet, all things before and after the now are one thing: nothing, mu.
Koan 8
What is it now?
One day, a Zen master with a clay pot on a wooden table before him asked several students: “What is this?”
Some said it was a clay pot. Another said that it was an artifact. Another said it was an assemblage of clay and wood. Soon there were other perspectives as well. A lively debate ensued, while the Zen master shook his head and laughed.
One student approached the table and threw the pot to the ground, shattering it into many pieces. An audible silence enveloped the room, until the student asked: “What is it now?”
Silence again filled the room. Some students were shocked and others embarrassed by the aggressive arrogance of the student who shattered their master’s clay pot. Then the silence was shattered by laughter from the Zen master and the student.
The Zen master and student laughed as they recognized the other students were like the blind men in the “Ten Men and the Elephant” parable. Each is certain of their personal perspective of the pot and the collective view that breaking the pot was disrespectful.
A pot is a pot, temporarily. All things are ever-changing. The pot cannot be described, as it is different now when it was described; so what is it now? It is what it is whatever it is.
Menachem Mendel Schneerson
Sometime in late 1988, I found myself on a hundreds long line of people awaiting to ask for a blessing from Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Chabad-Lubavitch spiritual leader.
As customary, the Rebbe gifted everyone on line a crisp, new US dollar bill. The gift was a sign of humility; the great Rebbe expressing gratitude to those who ventured to his house. As well, it suggested the bill recipient treat others likewise; that is, on every occasion, treat others with kindness.
I imagine all those dollar bills are still around, in wallets and places of safekeeping. They are sacred mementos. My dollar I’ve kept in my wallet. Now, 36 years later, it has virtually disintegrated. What a loss! It would have been more valuable had I given it to someone soon after receiving it; more valuable to both me and the recipient.
Way Of Way 122
No one is getting out of here alive, but those who realize they are the Everything.
Koan 84
“More important than writing is erasing.”
— Kotzker Rebbe
“To attain knowledge, add things everyday. To attain wisdom, remove things every day.”
— Lao Tzu
When we’ve erased or removed everything we think we know, we know nothing; we are as when we were born.
Without preconceived notions, we can see from many perspectives. That’s the essence of wisdom.
With a clear mind, the universe is no longer defined by objects and concepts our consciousness has created. The universe is just an undifferentiated flow, which is what we are.
Koan 17
Does a rock have consciousness?
Consciousness generally refers to the state of being aware of one’s surroundings, thoughts, feelings, and sensations. It is the subjective experience of being alive and having a sense of self as separate from that which is not one’s self. However, what exactly is consciousness has been long debated by philosophers, theologians, linguists, and scientists and no consensus has emerged.
While a rock is a rock, what is a rock?
Is a rock an independent thing or something given agency by our consciousness?
If a rock is an independent thing, it may have consciousness that is beyond our general understanding of consciousness.
Alternatively, if a rock is an illusion created by our mind, a rock does not have consciousness.
Every thing in the now is interdependent and interconnected. That is, every thing is not a thing, but a facet of one ever-changing thing, the Everything. Things in the now that appear independent, like a rock, are illusions created by the mind.
As a rock is an illusion, it does not have consciousness.
If we don’t recognize our consciousness has created the things in the Everything, we have the consciousness of a rock.
Koan 5
Who are you?
I am a mountain range. I am the sea.
I am the Everything, but not specifically me.
I am everchanging, that’s what I be,
not who you think you see.
I am what I am. There’s nothing else to me.
Haiku 61
A bell ringing in the empty sky.
Sound here, after it’s not.
Much ringing from times passed.
Can’t see the sun on a noisy day.
Way Of Way 123
Many a thank you is heard in the Rewards Department.
Many complaints in the Complaint Department.
God runs the Rewards Department and the Devil runs the Complaint Department.
Way Of Way 45
Before and after the now, we are the eternal soul.
In the now, we are the self; a temporary expression of the soul.
The soul simply is, asking for nothing.
The self is selfish, demanding all our attention.
As the self denies the soul’s existence, we lose touch with the soul.
Ironically, the self will inevitably no longer exist and we will surely die
if we lose our connection to the soul.
Koan 22
Now is forever. Everything else is out of time.
Koan 2
“What is the sound of one hand clapping?”
Mu! (nothing). Sound, hand and clapping do not exist as independent things; as all things are interdependent; essentially one everchanging thing.
Sound, hand and clapping are illusions our consciousness creates. They appear in foveal vision which is what consciousness carves out of the flow that is peripheral vision.
The sound of one hand clapping is the sound of one hand clapping. It is what it is whatever it is.
Koan 1
How old is Buddha?
Which Buddha are you asking about?
How (in what way) is Buddha old?
How old is Buddha at which point in Buddha’s life?
How old is Buddha now or at another time?
Isn’t Buddha now one day older than Buddha was yesterday?
How old is Buddha where; on Earth or some place light years away?
How can Buddha be different in age than the Everything of which the Buddha is just a facet?
How can we know how old is Buddha as all things are forever changing, including the Buddha’s age as we speak?
Buddha is as old as Buddha is, whatever that is.
Koan 36
“The child is father of the man.” — William Wordsworth
Haiku 79
As the self
I am the world.
As the soul
I is the universe.
Koan 20
Both those who think they are rich or poor are poor.
Koan 28
In the past and future are an infinite number of things. The now is only one thing.
Way Of Way 125
Those who rejoice at reflecting the brightest light are often oblivious they cast the darkest shadows.
Way Of Way 200
Praise takes little effort to create, is risk free to distribute and rewards those who dispense it.
Valuing praise at its cost of production, praise is worthless. Yet, most people love being praised and pay handsomely those who praise them, who often appear in the role of salespeople.
Criticism takes thought, effort and is a thankless job; often received as umbrage.
I feel those who criticize me love me and my criticism of others is given out of love. Maybe that’s why I was never much of a salesman.
Koan 199
The way forward is clear when looking backward from the end of days.
Way Of Way 21
“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
Haiku 49
Every eye is unique.
Yet, the reflection of my face
the same in every pupil.
Way Of Way 129
Fake artworks are real, but real artworks are often fake.
Fake artworks are forgeries or facsimiles of real artworks.
For most, the experience provided by a fake or real artwork is the same.
As the prices of real artworks often more than 100x the price of fakes, the prices of real artworks are fake.
Haiku 48
The universal mind is a reflecting pond.
We sit around its perimeter.
One thing, many perspectives.
Haiku 62
When we forget from where we come,
we know not where we are going.
Not knowing what we are,
we go the way of others.
Way Of Way 201
The now is the everything, yet contains no things.
The now is eternal, yet ever-changing.
The now is real, yet an illusion as what is now is now no longer.
The now is unpredictable.
The now is overwhelming.
We are the now, yet don’t know the now.
All we know is our reactions to the now.
When we observe the now from before and after the now we can we know the now.
Mike McCarthy
“We clearly picked the wrong day to have a bad day.” — Mike McCarthy, head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, after his football team lost their playoff game in a major upset.
We’re blamed or credited for the consequences of our actions, though the consequences are often a function of luck.
Koan 14
“There is nothing new under the sun.”
— Ecclesiastes
In the Bible, Genesis 1:3 states: “In the beginning… God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light.”
Beyond the beginning, there is nothing new as every thing is a derivative of light.
As every thing is unique, every thing is new; yet, nothing is new, as newness doesn’t differentiate things.
There is nothing new as there are no things; just the manifestation (consciousness) of the soul. The things we see as new are what the consciousness of the self creates out of the consciousness of the soul.
The now appears to be everchanging which makes it seem “new”. Yet, the now is forever unchanged. What changes is what’s revealed by the light spectrum passing over what is eternally before, in and after the now.
Koan 37
“Growing old, man’s sight worsens, but this allow him to see more.” Jewish proverb
Koan 43
How can the now be always the same and always new?
Kotodama 60
Before time begins, all is the NON.
Upon birth, the I of the self and the NON become the NOW.
With the I of the soul, the NOW is a WOW.
The I of the self is red, symbolizing emotions. We experience the now through a myriad of selfish emotions.
The I of the soul is yellow; light, the essence of everything.
The experience of the NON, with the I of self and the I of the soul, is a WOW.
Koan 226
“Man plans, God laughs.” — Jewish proverb
Way Of Way 44
With more than a glance at the rearview mirror, we are likely to have an accident.
Haiku 3
The mind is a reflecting pond,
but do I see my true face
as backward letters hard to read?
Koan 32
“If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” — Linji Yixuan
In the now, there is only one thing: the Everything.
The Everything is manifested as an infinite number of seemingly independent things.
Yet, as all things are interdependent, essentially all things are one thing.
Thinking of things (like the Buddha) as independent is an illusion.
Illusionary things create duality, the thing and all that is not the thing.
On the road to enlightenment, we need to vanquish all illusions to realize the oneness of the Everything.
Happy New Year 2024, Hopefully
2024, the year of consequential choices; harmony or death.
In 2024, all roads lead to 4; 2 + 2 = 4, as does 2 x 2.
The number 2 is associated with duality, representing two complementary or opposing forces; light and dark, good and evil, male and female, or yin and yang.
Likewise, 2 + 2 is additive, complementary; while 2 x 2 (like measures of length and width) suggests intersection, conflict.
In the West, 4 represents stability, balance and harmony; the complementary. However, in China, Korea and Japan, 4 is associated with death (often what results from conflict), as the word for “4” in their respective languages is pronounced identically like their word for death.
So here we have it, 2024, the year of harmony or death; hopefully we make the better choice.
Haiku 6
So much depends upon
five baby rubber ducks
walking behind a red rooster.
Koan 236
As a thing cannot be separated from its shadow, are the thing and the shadow two things?
Koan 200
“There is only one mind to which we are all connected. But that mind has its own mind.” — Simon Stark
Way Of Way 134
Awakening dispenses with boredom, as every moment is unlike another.
Koan 218
“You already are what you want to become.” — Thich Nhat Hahn
Koan 46
Love is selfless. But when the self expresses love, that’s selfish.
Way Of Way 43
“Questioning the fabric of reality can led you to either madness or the truth and the funny thing is that you won’t know which is which.” — Lex Fridman
Ode To Wood
Knotted wood with odd streaks of brown hue,
useful for many a thing to do.
Building a desk, feeding a fire;
so many possibilities, one can never tire.
While its static form seems not to change,
what happens below its surface is beyond imagination’s range:
The atoms are dancing to the music of electrons
as compounds are mating as they have for eons.
The wood is never in a state of pause,
it’s a marvel beyond words and without flaws.
Haiku 64
There is no fountainhead, river or sea
just something flowing freely, whatever it be.
Haiku 71
Under the sun and without the self
we would surely starve to death.
Those who forget we are the soul
cannot survive death, the black hole.
Koan 41
As all here is is is, what is is?
Haiku 15
All there is is is
Is is ever-changing and always the same
Is is finite and infinite
Is is temporary and eternal
Is cannot be compared to anything
Is is not part of anything
Is is not missing anything
Is is whatever you think it is
Is is nothing you think it is
Is cannot be described
Is is what it is whatever it is
Is is who you are
Is is perfect
Is is nothing
Is is the everything
Is is the is.
Way Of Way 135
Life is a play; at times a drama, a tragedy, a comedy. Upon realizing it’s a play, the dramas and tragedies are funnier than comedies.
Koan 52
I am nothing and here and now. What am I?
Way Of Way 202
A maze puzzle is a metaphor of our approach to life; focusing on achieving specific goals or a journey to freedom.
The conventional approach to solving a maze puzzle is starting from the edge until we find our way to the middle. This is a goal-oriented approach. Upon realizing our goal, we find ourselves surrounded by the puzzle.
Alternatively, we can start from the middle to find our way out of the maze. Once out, we are “free;” we find ourselves beyond the puzzle, though where we are cannot be described.
Going into the maze puzzle is descending into a rabbit hole. Coming out is arising to the light.
Google Bard describes mindset of those who start at the edge vs those who start at the middle:
Starting from the edge:
- Methodical thinkers: Those who prefer a step-by-step approach and logically navigate through challenges might start from the edge to follow a systematic path.
- Safety-conscious individuals: People who prefer to avoid dead ends and deadlocks might start at the edge to ensure a clear path forward.
- Traditionalists: Those who follow established norms and conventional methods might start from the edge as it’s the most common approach.
- Pragmatists: Individuals who focus on the most efficient solution might start from the edge as it offers a clear path to reach the destination.
Starting from the middle:
- Independent thinkers: People who prefer to forge their own path and explore the unknown might start in the middle to avoid any preconceived notions of direction.
- Risk-takers: Those who enjoy a challenge and are comfortable with uncertainty might find the middle a more exciting starting point.
- Holistic thinkers: People who prefer to see the big picture and analyze all options at once might start in the center to get a sense of the maze’s overall layout.
- Creative problem solvers: Individuals who enjoy unconventional approaches might find the middle a unique way to tackle the puzzle.
Kotodama 17
In spiritual evolution, “i” becomes “I”.
“i” is body and mind duality.
“I” is integrity.
Koan 80
As God is the Everything, why is God rarely noticed in every thing?
Way Of Way 138
The mind can be a dark place, when we don’t open our eyes and see the light.
Koan 45
As the now is moving at incomprehensible speeds, how can our senses inform us of the now?”
The Earth is rotating at 1,037 miles/hour and revolving around the sun at 66,616 miles/hour. Our solar system is revolving around the center of the Milky Way galaxy on average at 514,000 miles/hour. The Milky Way is moving towards the Andromeda Galaxy at 1,339,200 miles/hour.
At these speeds, our senses cannot inform us of the now, yet the now seems stable and continuous.
Our mind slows everything down, creating the illusion of the now.
Tiki ivi po’o
This Marquesas Islands personal adornment is made of human bone and often worn as a necklace, hair braid or used as a fan handle. It represents a generic ancestor deity.
While the deity is in human form, the head is disproportionally large; implying the deity embodies far greater wisdom than humans. Likewise, its eyes are disproportionally large, implying the deity sees far more than mortals.
Perhaps the presence of such an ancestor deity in physical form as a personal adornment humbles its owner, reminding them there is more to this world than they are capable of knowing and seeing. Humbled, the owner will not suffer the consequences of hubris.
Way Of Way 141
Some things are less perfect than other things which themselves are not quite perfect. Only the now is perfect, as there is nothing else.
Way Of Way 35
Shit generally trades between $5 – $10/pound. When on a rare occasion it trades at $2/pound, it may be cheap but it’s still shit.
Way Of Way 112
Money is a beautiful thing as it equates the value of all exchangeable things. Yet, money is often ugly in the context of our personal relationship with it.
Way Of Way 142
Unsolicited advice might come from the heart, but often debuts as a bowel movement; a relief to the provider, but a put-off to the recipient.
Way Of Way 143
The work of a man of wisdom is to make happy memories.
Way Of Way 144
God sees God in every thing.
Koan 73
The mind is like a hand, only open when it lets go of whatever it holds tight.
Haiku 60
From the flow we grow
into a temporary island
eroding back into the stream of consciousness.
Koan 77
The mind is an addictive medicine. It’s good for curing problems, but in doing so it creates problems.
William Wisher
“With modern Western medicine, the upside is you’re alive; but at the cost of being a slave forever.”
Koan 83
“The Universe is the everchanging expression of the Ever-Changeless Is.” — Joe Bruno
Haiku 59
Gently rafting down river.
Calm as the pulse in my veins.
Pulse quickens, rapids approach.
Haiku 58
With the eye of the sun,
we see things as they are.
With our eyes, only illusions.
Haiku 56
Many see what looks to be
the distant river flowing into the sea.
All I see is me.
Haiku 14
Knowledge is sexual,
double helix perpetual.
As we climb this ladder to the heavens from where we came,
soon enough nothing is ever the same.
Twisting and turning, what’s right becomes left and left becomes right.
Upward and onward, until Earth is completely out of sight.
Haiku 69
I am eye,
a pupil studying the world
filtered by colors and patterns of my iris.
Haiku 13
Going back or forward in time is a race,
a journey to Earth’s center or outer space.
Death by implosion/explosion, by fire or ice.
Best stay where I am, everything here, everything nice.
The Enlightened: Eternal Being
In the now, every thing is what it is whatever it is.
Every thing, before and after the now, is the soul.
Before our birth and after our death, our sole identity is the soul.
Upon birth, we transition from being one with everything, the soul, to becoming a unique manifestation or expression of the soul; a seemingly independent entity.
To sustain our independent existence, we develop a self; a sense of being apart and separate from every thing that is not our self. The purpose of the self is to provide us with our needs of food, shelter, security and health. However, the self also engenders desires that become indistinguishable from our needs, putting us in an endless cycle; needs/desires to temporary satisfactions to needs/desires. Clearly, the self demands much of our attention.
Alternatively, our soul identity has us living a life of wisdom and compassion; wisdom, as we experience life not solely from the perspective of our self, but through the perspectives of the infinite manifestations of the soul; compassion, as we love and treat all that is not our self as we love and treat our self.
In the transition to life, we initially remember our identity as the soul as we in turn develop our identity as the self. In childhood, our soul identity embraces magical (animist) thinking as we feel every thing has a spirit within it that can be conjured for our benefit through our living harmoniously with its spirit.
However, over time, as we are educated and socialized, our self becomes our primary identity. While we are both self and soul identity in various proportions, many of us become oblivious of our soul identity.
Ultimately, no one is getting out of here alive. Our bodily death coincides with the demise of our self identity. However, before we complete our transition from physical death to our essentialness, the soul; if our soul identity is our primary identity, we realize we are an eternal being.
Fountainheads Of Love
Love from the self and love from the soul.
Each love in life plays a role.
Love from the soul connects us to all.
Love from the self helps us grow tall.
Love is love, it all feels the same
both from places that sound alike in name.
Love from the soul comes from the whole
Love from the self comes from the hole.
Way Of Way 145
Love expressed by the soul is unconditional, unlike love expressed by the self which is conditional.
Love from soul is gold, while love from the self is fool’s gold. A simple acid test can determine whether love comes from the soul or the self.
The test is how do we feel when someone we love engages sexually with someone else. If our love is from the soul, we are happy for them and for whomever they were intimate, as how can we not be happy with the thought of people enjoying themselves. If our love issues from the self, we are angry, jealous, sad or have other unpleasant states of mind.
Haiku 11
I don’t know who it is in the mirror I see
but everywhere else I only see me.
Haiku 24
The clarinet is the self,
the wind is the soul.
When the sound is music
it makes them whole.
Way Of Way 146
Love is love. From where it issues is of little immediate matter as love is love.
However, over time, love that flows from the self is temporary; at times running dry as it transitions into other emotional expressions. Love that flows from the soul is eternal, as the only emotional expression of the soul is love.
Moreover, love from the self is conditional, while love from the soul is unconditional.
Love from the self is proclaimed with “I love you.” Love from the soul is expressed as “We love you.” “We” are the gods. Those who don’t recognize everyone is god cannot love unconditionally.
IAWIA
“I am what I am.” — God, Exodus 3:14, The Bible
The Bible recounts Moses grazing his flock of sheep and encountered a “burning bush” whose flames were not devouring its branches.
The burning bush was the manifestation of God and symbolic of God: apparently everchanging and yet eternal.
Moses asked God: “What is your name?” God said (depending on translation): “I am who I am” or “I will be what I will be”.
In the now, God manifests as a “who”; a self of infinite everchanging selves (the flames of the Burning Bush). In the time after the now, God is an undifferentiated potential (the eternal branches of the Burning Bush), a “what”.
Encompassing the now (“I am…”) and after the now (“I will be what…”), we can paraphrase God: “I am what I am”.
God also self-identifies as, simply, “I am”; implying being, not a being; a flow, not a thing.
God is flow of the Everything.
“I am what I am” as an acronym (IAWIA) can be pronounced two ways:
“I WHY” (first vowel pronounced, second vowel silent).
“A-WAY” (first vowel silent, second vowel pronounced).
I WHY
Why do I exist?
There are no reasons or explanations.
Simply, I am because I am God.
A WAY
In the Bible, the written word for God is YHWH.
With no consensus as to its pronunciation, YHWH may have been pronounced as “A WAY”.
God (“A WAY”) is like the Tao (“The Way”).
The Way is the ineffable and eternal energy that flows through all things; bringing all things into harmony, as all the pieces of the universe come together as one peace.
The Palestinian/Israeli War
The war in Gaza is a never-ending fight.
Each side has a story, told in a different light.
Each difficult to understand as they fuel the blight.
I long to see the truth, as the fires rage bright.
In the heat from emotions, I await the cool night
where distant stars guide the way, with no wrong nor right.
Haiku 8
Better to be unique than perfect.
We are naturally unique, but it takes great effort to be perfect.
Uniqueness is forever, but perfection temporary.
Being unique is perfect.
Way Of Way 147
Religions are like sheep.
Their wool warms and protects us.
Their bodies provide us sustenance.
But, beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.
They may make us feel comfortable and safe,
but their only interest is to sustain themselves.
Way Of Way 148
There is a nameless place; before time begins; before we are born; before things become the now; a place of infinite possibilities.
While no one ever speaks badly of this nameless place, we often curse people and things that come from it. By doing so, we are not encouraging that place to send us something we will cherish.
Way Of Way 150
We don’t need to worry about the future as that will be what it will be. However, we need to worry about the past, what we remember and how we remember it, as that will frame how we experience the present.
Way Of Way 151
Those who appreciate life are on the way to happiness. Those who focus on trying to understand life may lose their way.
Way Of Way 152
The luckiest are those who recognize they have been lucky, for they will recognize other lucky opportunities that come their way.
Alan Watts
“Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself.”
When we see God in every thing, we are God.
Koan 51
When a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
Mu (nothing). There is no tree, forest or sound, as they are all manifestations of our consciousness.
The universe is not an infinite number of things; only one thing: the universe. Consciousness creates an infinite number of things out of the universe.
Koan 123
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.” — Shunryu Suzuki
Experts think of possibilities based on their experience. The inexperienced are not constrained.
Haiku 54
After the purple crayon didn’t taste like a grape,
no grape tasted like a grape.
Haiku 53
Our pupils are like stars and black holes.
Like the sun, they illuminate everything around us.
Yet, whatever light enters them is never seen again.
John Dewey
“Art as Experience.”
We experience art suddenly, through our eyes (“wow, oh, hmmm”); and slowly, with our mind (words, thoughts and comparisons).
It’s a unique experience for each of us and a unique experience from one moment to the next; otherwise, our eyes are closed.
Koan 93
The universe is made up of matter. Our world is made up of stories.
Haiku 51
The sun is the eye of the soul,
revealing all through our pupil, a black hole.
As our iris filters the light of the sun,
we each see differently which makes life fun.
Who Am I?
I am who I am.
I am various emotional selves in various roles in the play of life. Depending on perspective, I am in my play or other people’s plays.
I am.
I am a verb, not a noun; I am being, not a being.
I am what I am.
In the now, I am a who. Before and after the now, I am what, the essence of every thing.
I am the Everything.
I am the soul and its expression in the now.
I am eye.
I am what I see, as every thing I see is me.
I am 1.
I, like all seemingly independent things, am not an independent thing; just a facet of 1 thing, the Everything.
I is time.
The most frequently used pronoun, verb and noun are: I, is, and time.
Taken together, the most frequent sentence would be: “I is time.”
“I is time” is transcendental. I is a flow of events. I is infinite, continuous, eternal.
I am God.
God, to entertain itself, has created the play of life. God is the actors and the audience.
For the actors, the play is a tragedy as everyone is eventually scripted out of the play, dies.
For the audience, the play is a comedy, as the actors take their roles and themselves seriously.
I am 11
In numerology, “Victor Teicher” is the number 11.
Victor: V = 4 I = 9 C = 3 T = 2 O = 6 R = 9
Add the numbers together: 4 + 9 + 3 + 2 + 6 + 9 = 33
Since 33 is a master number, we do not reduce it any further.
Teicher: T = 2 E = 5 I = 9 C = 3 H = 8 E = 5 R = 9
Add the numbers together: 2 + 5 + 9 + 3 + 8 + 5 + 9 = 41
Since 41 is a two-digit number, we need to reduce it to a single digit by adding the digits together: 4 + 1 = 5.
Now we add the numerology for each name together: 33 + 5 = 38
Since 38 is a two-digit number, we need to reduce it to a single digit by adding the digits together: 3 + 8 = 11.
Therefore, the numerology of the name ‘Victor Teicher’ is 11, which is a master number in numerology. This suggests that the person with this name may have a special spiritual mission or purpose in life.
In numerology, master numbers are the numbers 11, 22, and 33. These numbers are considered to have a higher vibration and are believed to carry a special spiritual or energetic significance.
Master numbers are not reduced to a single digit in numerology, unlike other numbers. They are thought to represent spiritual enlightenment, heightened intuition, and a strong connection to the universe or higher power.
Those who have master numbers in their numerology chart may be seen as spiritual leaders or visionaries, and may have a heightened ability to manifest their desires or tap into their intuition. However, master numbers are also associated with greater challenges and responsibilities, as they require a strong commitment to personal growth and spiritual development.
Overall, master numbers are considered to be very powerful and significant in numerology, and are often seen as a symbol of great potential and spiritual evolution.”
I am Victor Teicher.
My role in the play of life is preordained by my name. In German, Teicher is one who ponders. In English, where two vowels together are pronounced as the first vowel with the second vowel silent, Teicher would be pronounced as “teacher.” In Japan, Teicher is pronounced as “taisha,” the ancient shrine where all the gods meet annually. Victor is “conqueror.” Since entering the play of life, I have long pondered the nature of consciousness which led me to where the gods reside. The revelations that have come my way are to teach us how to conquer the self (our personal identity) which imprisons us, precluding us from connecting with the soul and being one with the Everything.
Tao Te Ching — Verse 45
True perfection seems imperfect,
yet it is perfectly itself.
True fullness seems empty,
yet it is fully present.
True straightness seems crooked.
True wisdom seems foolish.
True art seems artless.
The Master allows things to happen.
She shapes events as they come.
She steps out of the way
and lets the Tao speak for itself.
“True perfection seems imperfect, yet it is perfectly itself.”
What may not seem perfect in our mind is actually perfect as it is what it is whatever it is, undisturbed by our perception.
“True fullness seems empty, yet it is fully present.”
Even when we have all the possessions we may desire, we are still empty as the more we have the more we want. In the present (the pre-sent, where every thing is one thing before it is what it is whatever it is in the now), we are one with the everything; truly fulfilled and need nothing more.
“True straightness seems crooked.”
The way of a meandering river is the straightest way to the ocean.
“True wisdom seems foolish.”
Wisdom is the synthesis of many perceptions; some seemingly well reasoned, some silly.
“True art seems artless.”
Art is all that is art-ificial, manmade. Yet, wonderful art doesn’t seem artificial, contrived.
“The Master allows things to happen. She shapes events as they come. She steps out of the way and lets the Tao speak for itself.”
Being open, accepting and making the best of what comes our way leads us to harmony with all that’s about us.
Way Of Way 154
The self and the soul have a symmetrical relationship, laughing at each other.
As the self cannot see the soul, the self laughs at those who identify with the soul; thinking they are fools.
As the soul sees people taking seriously the illusions created by the self, the soul laughs.
But, as the self is temporary and the soul eternal, the soul has the last laugh.
Way Of Way 212
The soul has only a sole expression and a sole emotion.
The sole expression is the now.
The sole emotion is love, connecting every thing in the now.
Introduction
Before and after the now, the sole thing that is is the soul, the everything. In the now, every thing is the everything.
Upon our manifestation in bodily form, we assume a temporary self which disappears when our body is no longer.
As every thing is a manifestation of the soul, the soul is what connects every thing as one thing, the everything. This connection is called love.
Unlike the soul, the self views itself as apart and separate from every thing that it perceives as not its self. The self connects with every thing with ever-changing emotions like joy, hate, love, anger, indifference, envy, etc.
Our experience of life is a function of how we connect, through the soul or our self.
In a world inherently hostile to the self-sustainment of our bodily form, we need the self to survive. When we do so, we experience life with the emotions of our self. However, when we are not oblivious we are eternally the soul, we can return from the emotional rollercoaster of our self to the eternal love that is the soul; where there is peace beyond words and every thing is absolutely beautiful. That is the purpose of this blook, to guide us to the realization we are the soul.
Koan 78
“Having no destination, I am never lost.” — Ikkyu
Haiku 46
The big Buddha statue sits in silent meditation,
tears of bird droppings encrusted on his cheeks.
Some sit at his feet with offerings and prayers,
while a child Buddha laughs, swimming in a reflecting pond.
Koan 157
Every thing is fascinating, but the mind can make it boring.
Haiku 70
Each of us is a self that covers the soul.
Like a shoe, the self is the visible surface atop the sole.
However shiny and polished, a shoe is useless without a sole.
Post Card, 1910
“Don’t worry about the future,
the present is all thou hast;
the future will soon be present,
and the present will soon be past.”
Family post card sent from Kansas to Tennessee, 1910. Courtesy of Kate Bowers.
Homespun advice from the farm belt; reminiscent of Buddhist teachings, long before they were popularized in America.
Koan 97
A good death defines a good life.
Koan 234
“When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” — Bob Dylan
Thinking we have something to lose means we have already lost our freedom.
Nothing is free.
Koan 99
You cannot escape a prison if you don’t know you’re in one.
The self creates a familiar and comforting world out of an otherwise chaotic and scary universe.
We escape to this world, not realizing it imprisons us.
The self’s prison separates us from the universe.
However, there is nothing to fear as we are the universe.
Inside our prison we’re engaged with what happens in life and our self’s emotional reactions.
We rarely disengage to wonder who, where and what we are.
Yet, by observing our world and what surrounds it, we realize we know no thing.
The illusory knowledge of our self’s creation is the foundation of our prison.
We can then know nothing; what every thing is before and after it is what it is whatever it is in the now.
Nothing is the essence of every thing.
As our illusory knowledge lifts like clouds, we see the vastness of the night sky and realize we are the universe.
Albert Einstein
“People like us who believe in physics know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
Everything is all at once. As that is overwhelming, our mind has created time to make it all a seemingly manageable to experience.
Koan 183
“The way to live eternal life is in a state of perpetual orgasm.” — Karen Uppal
Orgasm is like the Big Bang in reverse. Instead of nothing becoming an infinite number of things, we become the Everything.
Few words are ever said at the moment of orgasm, other than: “Oh my God.”
Way Of Way 156
Much of what we undoubtedly think we see as reality is just a movie projected from our mind. To see reality we need to close our mind and open our eyes.
High School Graduation Yearbook
In the U.S., it’s customary for the High School graduating class to have a Yearbook with individual photos that people sign with some parting well-wishes.
Susan, a girl I found attractive at the time, signed my Yearbook with the following inscription:
“Someday people will understand what you are talking about and I’m sure this world will be a better place for it, but sure as hell I’ll never understand.”
Those who are “sure as hell” don’t know heaven, for heaven is all there is.
Needless to say, I couldn’t convince Susan to spend a couple of hours with me in heaven.
Koan 203
“[I]t is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth.” — Matthew 15:10-20
Koan 82
When the inside becomes the outside: we are the creator.
When there is no outside or inside: we are creation.
Koan 204
“Anyone who thinks they’re stupid is not as stupid as they think.” — Lee Moncho
Being Eccentric Is Fun
Since I was a young boy, many people thought me funny; a bit odd and laughable in terms of my thinking and lifestyle.
I’ve occasionally been asked : “Which planet do you come from?” I laughed, as it was true; I must have come from someplace else as I didn’t think the way they did.
However, as I was always happy regardless of circumstances, it should have been clear I didn’t come from a another planet. I came from heaven.
They too came from heaven, but forgot they did.
Koan 39
As all things are everchanging, no thing is perfect but nothing is perfect.
Haiku 75
I thought an ant small and meaningless,
until I saw the night sky and realized I was.
Way Of Way 479
“I’m not a fan of big government or big corporations. But at least corporations can’t put you in jail.”
— William Wisher
Koan 206
Judging someone reveals more about the judge than the judged.
Way Of Way 160
The universe is perfect but we see it otherwise when we see ourselves as otherwise.
Alexander Teicher
“I used to think that everyone saw the same thing in a different way, until I realized everyone sees the same thing in the same way but describes it with different stories.”
Way Of Way 161
An extraordinary genius is successful and celebrated by society.
A true genius is happy whether or not successful or celebrated.
Way Of Way 163
Intelligence makes things interesting. Wisdom makes things funny.
Way Of Way 34
“And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness[.]'” — Genesis 1:26
Each of us is a unique face of God.
Koan 127
“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.” — Lao Tzu
Haiku 2
Bell ringing in the empty sky
bouncing sound
awakens me to time passing.
Kotodama 18
The Hebrew word for “life” is composed by two letter with numerical values of 8 and 10, based on their sequential order in the alphabet. Together, they sum to 18.
The number 18 is symbolic of life. Monetary gifts between Jews for various rites of passage (birthdays, weddings, holidays, etc.) are traditionally given in multiples of 18 ($18, $54, $180, etc.).
The number 18 reveals life is both finite and eternal.
1 is finite as it’s drawn from top to bottom, from heaven to Earth, from birth to death.
8 is eternal as it’s continuous, with no beginning and no end.
In life, the eternal soul is expressed as a finite self.
1 also implies that every thing is essentially one thing: the expression of the soul. 8 implies every thing is interconnected.
Upon realizing all things are one interconnected thing, we treat every thing as we treat ourselves. That’s compassion.
Our oneness with every thing allows us to view the world from infinite perspectives. That’s wisdom.
Wisdom and compassion are the essence of a fully realized life.
Richard Feynman
“I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.”
Way Of Way 165
Having more questions than answers is energizing.
Having more answers than questions is tiring.
Mark Twain* 2
“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”
*Misattributed to Mark Twain but not inconsistent with Twain’s insights generally.
Haiku 73
The mind of God creates the universe.
Our mind creates our world.
When our mind merges with the mind of God,
we are the universe.
Way Of Way 166
Those who claim their success came from luck are able. Those who think their success came from their abilities are bound to be unlucky.
Haiku 41
Holding something tight,
our hand forms a fist.
Letting go, it’s a handshake.
Koan 208
Holding tight to who we are, we cannot open to what we are.
Way Of Way 167
The time before and after we are alive must be a happy time as no one has ever complained about it.
Way Of Way 168
Awakening is the realization that all times past are a dream.
Way Of Way 170
Those who want to work want work.
Those who don’t want to work want jobs.
Way Of Way 171
In the world of collectible art, the tail wags the dog: the price of an artwork is more impactful than the artwork.
Giannis Antetokounmpo
“It’s not a failure; it’s steps to success. There’s always steps to it. Michael Jordan played 15 years, won six championships. The other nine years was a failure? That’s what you’re telling me? It’s a wrong question; there’s no failure in sports. There’s good days, bad days. Some days you’re able to be successful, some days you’re not. Some days it’s your turn, some days it’s not your turn. And that’s what sports is about. You don’t always win. Sometimes other people win. And this year somebody else is going to win, simple as that.
This has to be the worst postseason ever. We have a number in [the locker room] and we were stuck on 15 [wins to the NBA Finals] … which is kind of hard to deal with. But at the end of the day, I feel like they were playing to beat us, and we were playing to win a championship.”
Giannis Antetokounmpo is the star player for the Milwaukee Bucs basketball team that was the favorite to win the NBA Championship this year. Above, his reaction yesterday when asked if losing in the first round of the postseason means this year was a “failure.” While an avowed Eastern Orthodox Christian, Antetokounmpo seems to be a Taoist as well.
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Tao
The Yin-Yang symbol reveals the essence of Taoism.
Tao, in Chinese, literally means the (right) way. The Tao is the way, the nature, of reality; the way of the universe; and the harmonious way or path through life.
The circle represents the universe. Within the universe are two seemingly independent abstract fish forms, in shades black and white, that are actually interdependent as curled together they form the universe as a whole. The fish represent life, consciousness, which is what makes the universe whole.
Each fish has an eye, black or white, reflecting the shade of the other. Looking eye to eye, each sees its own shade in the other. Likewise, when we look in the eye of others, we see ourselves.
The way through the life, along the interface of the white and black forms, is everchanging; bending left and bending right; requiring us to be conscious of our way, lest get lost in the white or black forms.
Ultimately, the symbol of the Tao implies all things in the universe are interdependent; the path through life is everchanging; however, life is in balance, harmonious, when we consciously move between counterbalancing forms.
Another interpretation is the symbol represents two animals engaged in a sexual position commonly known as “69.” If so, the message there is that a happy way to make it through life is simply enjoy yourself.
As above, the Tao acknowledges there are different ways for different people.
Haiku 40
A coin is integrity,
its different sides duality.
A coin is worth something,
its sides worth nothing.
Koan 211
We don’t see things as they are; we see things as we are. Yet, we rarely notice our selves.
Way Of Way 172
When we identify someone as of our kind, we treat them with kindness. When we identify with the universe we treat all with kindness.
Koan 212
Your life is a fascinating story. Perhaps you could imagine a better one, but then you would miss out on your life.
My Awakening
When I was 16, living in Brooklyn with my parents, one summer night I drove to Brighton Beach and sat on the rocks along the shore. Reflections from the moon danced on the water, the ocean breathed in the surf and breathed out a roar. The night sky was a black blanket with pinholes to unknowable worlds on its other side. Lights and sounds vibrating the air, every-thing teeming with aliveness; unique, unlike anything experienced before.
I wondered why the ocean, expressing itself with motion and sound, was not considered as alive as are plants and animals. What did it mean to be alive? The “alive” classification made little sense. Classifications, descriptions and thoughts generally felt artificial, man-made; helpful for organizing and communicating, but otherwise empty of aliveness.
Who am I in all this?
The sounds, the lights, the ever-changing shapes unfolding from nothing, the ocean smells; overwhelmingly beautiful, yet eerie as in the presence of a great spirit. Then, the infinite number of finite things were no longer finite, but manifestations of one infinite thing. I was infinitesimal before the infinite, until I realized I was the infinite.
This was a religious experience, but not connected to an organized religion. It was initially animism and then pantheism. This was my awakening and realization of our immortality.
The Spiritual Master And The Way
A couple of years back, I was introduced with a renowned “spiritual master.” We spoke at length and when it was clear that I was comfortably retired, he suggested: “As I know the workings of God and you’ve got the money and time to do as you wish, let’s spend a year together studying spiritual matters.” I then asked him what would we do following year, to which he replied: “Then I’ll have the money and time to do as I wish and you’ll know the workings of God.”
Mourning Rituals
Each morning
I return from sleep-death
and ever so slowly separate
from being one with everything in a timeless place
to a finite and temporal self.
Before forgetting from whence I came,
I recite the Mourning Prayer:
Oh eternal universe
oh ever-changing universe
oh timeless universe
oh endless universe.
Thank God for creating the universe
and granting us consciousness to realize our oneness with everything.
The people I’ve been and the roles I’ve played in days passed,
my prior lives,
are illusions
Now,
and every-thing
Regardless of circumstances,
I am grateful for however my life unfolds today,
hopeful to realize divine consciousness,
happy helping others likewise
and laughing at my efforts to realize that which is always here.
Shanti Shanti Shanti
Now awakened,
I reposition from horizontal pose, where all are of equal height, to vertical.
Footsteps away is the throne
for the ritual burial of what nourished me last life.
Then, shower calls my name
for washing and massaging the temporary envelope that holds me together
and, without mirror, mind concentrates on shaving the face.
Once dried and dressed for appearance on stage,
fresh-squeezed blood orange juice
seaweed salad
hardboiled quail eggs toped with anchovies,
followed by a Robusto-size cigar and black coffee.
My new life begins,
for which I already have much to be grateful.
With that in mind, it’s a wonderful day.
Haiku 26
Guru and I shared stories.
His stories: histories.
My stories: mysteries.
So quickly, roles reverse.
Way Of Way 174
To live a life of compassion and wisdom, best to avoid those who lack compassion and their friends who obviously lack wisdom.
The Daughter Of A Different Color
“When the time comes our adopted daughter asks how she is different than her brother and sister whom we had naturally, I’ll tell her that her brother and sister came from mommy’s stomach and she came from mommy’s heart.” — S.S.P.
S.S.P. is a dear friend who adopted a four year old from an orphanage in India.
Way Of Way 180
Apocalypse is the complete and final destruction of the world as described in the Book of Revelation. While most of us will not be around for the world’s collective apocalypse, each of us will have our own apocalypse/revelation, the end of our days in unitary bodies.
Apocalypse and revelation are used interchangeably, but are different. The etymology of both words is to “uncover, unveil.” However, apocalypse is more about the destruction of the world as we know it and revelation is about what’s revealed by what remains after the destruction.
Apocalypse/revelation is like the lifting of a bride’s veil to reveal her face before the groom kisses her to consummate their marriage. After the kiss, the groom’s unitary existence is over as he is now one with the bride. Likewise, at the end of our days we realize that we are no longer unitary beings; we are one with all that heretofore seemed other than us.
Apocalypse/revelation is when the truth is revealed about consciousness and reality. The veil represents our personal consciousness; the meanings, generalizations and stories we create that mask reality. When the veil is lifted, we see reality as it is: the nothingness that everything is before and after it is what it is whatever it is.
That’s who we are: The nothing that everything is before and after it is, one with everything.
For those who know the veil is illusory, the veil is translucent; allowing them to see reality. Thus, as they know they are one with everything, they treat others as themselves (compassion) and are able to see the world from many perspectives (wisdom). Moreover, when the veil is lifted, apocalypse, it is the time for revelation; to revel with laughter as the illusions are now clearly absurd.
However, for those who think the illusions are real, the veil is opaque. They live as unitary beings and when the veil is lifted the revelation is frightening as hell. Not a surprising outcome as taking our personal consciousness seriously is at times hellish, even before the apocalypse. Unfortunately, it is fear of reality than keeps us from seeing through our personal consciousness which is the foundation of our fear.
My Birth
I was born a bit after my mother’s due date.
It was a difficult birth as the delivering doctor struggled to pull me out from my mother’s womb; ultimately needing forceps to do so.
As it was a long and fraught procedure, out of curiosity my mother asked the doctor if such a difficult birth signaled anything about me. The doctor looked at my mother, who didn’t come across as having lots of shiny marbles in her head, and said: “Your son may not be particularly smart, but is very wise. He delayed coming out as long as he could, knowing he came from heaven and life on Earth is anything but that.”
Way Of Way 86
While a lie may initially hide the truth, when the truth is revealed the lie ultimately reveals more than it hides.
Happy Birthday
Every night at sleep-time we die. Every morning upon awakening we are born. Each day is not a day in a life, it is a life in a day. Thus, we’ve lived thousands of lives before our reincarnation today upon awakening.
Before sleep-death, we acknowledge each other with “good evening;” that is, “good even-ing” for in sleep-death everyone (the smart, the stupid, the rich, the poor) is even, equal.
In sleep-death, our soul leaves our body and merges with the universal soul, which in some traditions is called God. When the soul returns to our body, we are born.
Upon awakening, we greet each other and ourselves with “good morning;” that is, “good mourning,” have a good time mourning the people you were in past lifetimes (yesterday and all days now passed) by remembering them in the light of wisdom and compassion; but, don’t identify their life experiences as your own.
Upon awakening and before we assume the roles and circumstances of the person we were yesterday, we recite out loud the Mourning Prayer. The Mourning Prayer acknowledges God’s creation, the universe, and expresses our gratitude for the life and consciousness we have been given which allows us to be one with God. Moreover, we declare that we are free from karma (our intentions, actions and consequences in past lifetimes (days of our life)) and look forward to realizing our purpose in life: to have a wonderful experience, realize our potential of divine consciousness and help others likewise.
Mourning Prayer
Oh eternal universe
Oh endless universe
Oh ever-changing universe
Oh timeless universe
Oh universe of infinite finite things.
Thank you for granting me today a role in the play of life.
The people I’ve been and the roles I’ve played in days passed,
my prior lives,
are illusions in the seemingly real form of memories.
Now, I am who I am
and every thing is what it is whatever it is.
Regardless of circumstances,
I am grateful for however my life unfolds today,
hopeful to realize divine consciousness before I’m scripted out of the play,
happy helping others awaken to their good fortune
and laughing at my efforts to realize that which is always here.
Shanti Shanti Shanti
We recite the mourning prayer aloud, again and again and again, until we feel it and truly awaken. Then, hopefully, we won’t forget who we are as we make our way through this day of life with the peace that comes from not taking our self too seriously; as we know that our self, which will die in the even-ing when our soul departs, is not who we are.
At day’s end, it is time for the Even-ing Prayer before our sleep-death.
Even-ing Prayer
Oh eternal universe
oh ever-changing universe
oh timeless universe
oh endless universe.
Thank God for my role in the universe
and for now,
sleep-death,
when my soul joins God
which is what every-thing is before it is the universe.
Shanti Shanti Shanti
As few remember that every day is our birthday, we should remind whomever we meet with the greeting: “Happy birthday.” Whether they recognize today as their birthday or not, they will undoubtedly have a laugh. What better gift can we give someone on their birthday?
Koan 27
“Life goes on within you and without you.” — George Harrison
Covid
The Covid pandemic was a once in a generation psychological test that revealed the nature of each mind; a reality check. Though the pandemic panic has subsided, many people still refuse to give up on the vaccines, masks, social distancing, etc. They are held captive by their traumatic memories, prisoners of their mind. They cannot experience the now as it unfolds, only as it is framed by their mind in the context of Covid. Those who are free of the past, look back and laugh at the Covid fiasco.
As to the pandemic itself, it was beautiful. An experience shared worldwide as it was the focus of everyone’s attention. One felt connected to all sentient beings as sentient beings, oblivious to their identity group memberships. It was like the end of days, the apocalypse; the lifting of the veil of artificial constructs like race, nationality, religion and economic status to reveal all as simply sentient beings; all as one. A brief and powerful peak moment in the making of collective history that quickly descended into a Tower of Babel.
Moreover, Covid was a healthy systemic process. Like a hurricane, Covid cleansed the human tree of life of weak limbs that were otherwise dying slowly. This was good for the environment as it resulted in less adult diapers to dispose of.
Koan 21
Why can’t a self-identifying vegetarian become enlightened?
Haiku 66
“I love you” is the self expressing love.
“I love us” is love beyond the self.
“I love it all” is divine love.
Way Of Way 28
Intellectuals are mischievous entertainers. They make fools of those who take them seriously who in turn wreak havoc on everyone who doesn’t.
Koan 213
“He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.” — Michel de Montaigne
Way Of Way 203
Empathy is giving a beggar some money. Compassion is giving a beggar a job.
Haiku 72
When past is passed
it is over and under, finished and buried.
When past is past
it is over and over, lingering over the present.
Haiku 80
In the box, the puzzle is complete and whole.
Outside, scattered pieces, each alone.
Then each piece begins its quest
to find others that fits best.
When the puzzle returns to its previous state
each piece disappears into a peace more great.
Way Of Way 300
“A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it isn’t open.”
— Frank Zappa
Way Of Way 299
“People are strange: they are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice.”
— Charles Bukowski
Haiku 103
When you recognize God in a man,
He’s not black
He’s not white.
He’s not Christian
He’s not Muslim.
He’s not smart.
He’s not stupid.
He’s not one thing or another.
He’s simply welcome.
The Key To Life
“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”
— John Lennon
Way Of Way 295
Love comes from the realization the universe is the manifestation of the infinite faces of the soul.
Love is wisdom, seeing the universe through the all the faces.
Love is compassion; treating all faces as our own, for the faces are the masks of the soul.
Grandson’s Wisdom
On my grandson’s 7th birthday, I told him that I loved him.
I then asked him whom he loved most.
He said he loved 99% of all the people he knows.
Thinking I was unclear, I said, “maybe you didn’t understand love?”
Before he could reply, his 5 year old brother chimed in, “Maybe you don’t understand love.”
Eye Idol, circa 3700 – 3500 B.C., Tell Brak, Levant
Thousands of “Eye Idols” figurines have been found in a building now called the “Eye Temple” in Tell Brak in northeastern Syria.
Without mouths or ears, but always with eyes, these objects suggest a deity that can see but not hear or speak.
The deity sees the world as it is, unaffected by what people say it is.
The deity often is depicted with multiple eye, suggesting it has multiple perspectives; the hallmark of wisdom.
As wisdom cannot be conveyed with words, it has no mouth with which to speak.
Koan 293
“What’s the difference between the heart and the mind?”
— Kanako Iiyama
Mu (nothing), as they are both illusions.
Each heart is essentially the same. Each mind is unique.
The heart connects us to others, while the mind often separates us from others.
The heart is fundamental to being alive. The mind distracts us from living, as we experience life in the context of our memories.
The heart symbolizes compassion; the mind, wisdom. Together, they can help us realize we are eternal beings; otherwise, we are illusions.
Way Of Way 286
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
Those who laugh at the outcomes always win.
No Lives Matter
“No lives matter.”
— Ice-T
“Black lives matter” is a moral indictment of society, claiming “black people” are poorly treated relative to “whites”.
“All lives matter” is a self-righteous, dismissive response; implying all people matter, regardless of their racial identities.
“No lives matter” is social realism. The incarceration rate, domestic murder rate, “cancel culture” and brutalities in overseas military adventures demonstrate society doesn’t value people generally.
Fancy funerals and memorials suggest respect for the dead but not the living.
Kotodama 31
Puns are insightful; pundits are opinionated.
Puns are a play with words or phrases that reveal certain truths; often making conventional thinking funny.
Pundits are serious, well-educated and opinionated; never in doubt, but often wrong. Their views provide us a sense of certainty, however false, in an uncertain world.
Way Of Way 283
The mind is a prism refracting white light into a spectrum of colors.
Each color a mood.
We choose the color through which we see the world.
Dispensing with the mind, we see the world as it is.
Koan 289
Even if we can’t laugh, we can afford to smile.
Way Of Way 282
We don’t fail when we fail, as failing is a learning experience; as long as we don’t blame others for our failing.
Way Of Way 281
“Mary Had a Little Lamb…” begins a 19th century nursery rhyme familiar to most American children. A simple rhyme, yet unclear as to it’s meaning without an understanding of context and relationship.
Does Mary had a little lamb mean Mary had a pet lamb; Mary had a small vagina; Mary had sex with a lamb; or Mary ate a little lamb?
A father reciting the rhyme to children at bedtime implies Mary had a pet lamb.
Mary’s boyfriend having a beer and talking about girls with his buddies implies Mary had a small vagina.
Mary’s kinky friends might think Mary had sex with a lamb.
Mary’s dinner partner assumes Mary ate a little lamb.
Meaning is a function of context and relationship.
Changing the context or relationship and not changing the meaning can make the mundane hilarious.
Way Of Way 280
Getting anxious or depressed about the past or future precludes us from the joy of being present.
Way Of Way 279
If you care about what others think of you, you’ve put yourself in prison.
If you don’t care, they might put you in prison.
But, they might not; then, you’ll be free.
Haiku 100
Between the beats of my pulse,
between the exhale and the inhale
there is an empty space where all is still.
In my youth, I anxiously waited in the empty space
for the next beat or breath to engage my attention.
Now, I rest in the space where nothingness reigns.
From here, I can appreciate the wonder of creation.
Way Of Way 276
“The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.”
— Albert Einstein
Before the now is a space of nothingness and infinite possibilities.
When in that space, we can bring from it to the now unique thoughts and things that we have not created but merely ushering into the now.
Koan 285
To realize your dreams, keep your eyes open.
An aspiring singer with no talent may be successful as a comedian.
Koan 284
“Be open to everything and attached to nothing.”
— Wayne Dyer
This concept didn’t sit well with my wife, until I explained it.
Koan 281
We must be blind and deaf if we’re not laughing all the time.
Koan 280
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”
— Heraclitus
Yet, he can drink the river’s waters again and again to the same effect.
Thirst is thirst and water is water.
Way Of Way 273
“The truth is what you can get enough people to believe.”
— Terry Lenzner
Way Of Way 272
“No one lies on their death bed and thinks: I wish I had more money.”
— William Wisher
Way Of Way 293
The disciples of famous enlightened masters (Jesus, Buddha, Rajneesh, Rebbe Schneerson, etc.) never replace them when the enlightened transition from the now.
The enlightened walk the path of light.
Their disciples are in their shadows, following their footsteps.
When the enlightened disappear into the light, their disciples can see the footsteps but not the light; for the enlightened are the light.
Way Of Way 290
Life is funny and sad.
Funny when we take ourselves seriously.
Sad when that’s our life.
Way Of Way 287
There is only the universal mind.
It is a reflecting pond, around which each of us sit.
The reflections we ponder are a function of who we are and where along the perimeter we sit.
As per habit, we daily sit in the same place.
As such, we often can’t understand the perspective of others; especially those diagonally across.
To know the universe, we would need to sit in every place along the perimeter simultaneously.
As that’s not possible, occasionally we should imagine the perspectives of others.
That’s wisdom.
God Plays Hide and Seek
Alan Watts in The Book On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are:
“God also likes to play hide-and-seek, but because there is nothing outside God, he has no one but himself to play with. But he gets over this difficulty by pretending that he is not himself. This is his way of hiding from himself. He pretends that he is you and I and all the people in the world, all the animals, all the plants, all the rocks, and all the stars. In this way he has strange and wonderful adventures, some of which are terrible and frightening. But these are just like bad dreams, for when he wakes up they will disappear.
Now when God plays hide and pretends that he is you and I, he does it so well that it takes him a long time to remember where and how he hid himself. But that’s the whole fun of it—just what he wanted to do.
He doesn’t want to find himself too quickly, for that would spoil the game. That is why it is so difficult for you and me to find out that we are God in disguise, pretending not to be himself. But when the game has gone on long enough, all of us will wake up, stop pretending, and remember that we are all one single Self—the God who is all that there is and who lives for ever and ever.
Of course, you must remember that God isn’t shaped like a person. People have skins and there is always something outside our skins. If there weren’t, we wouldn’t know the difference between what is inside and outside our bodies. But God has no skin and no shape because there isn’t any outside to him.
The inside and the outside of God are the same. And though I have been talking about God as ‘he’ and not ‘she,’ God isn’t a man or a woman. I didn’t say ‘it’ because we usually say ‘it’ for things that aren’t alive. “God is the Self of the world, but you can’t see God for the same reason that, without a mirror, you can’t see your own eyes, and you certainly can’t bite your own teeth or look inside your head. Your self is that cleverly hidden because it is God hiding.
You may ask why God sometimes hides in the form of horrible people, or pretends to be people who suffer great disease and pain. Remember, first, that he isn’t really doing this to anyone but himself. Remember, too, that in almost all the stories you enjoy there have to be bad people as well as good people, for the thrill of the tale is to find out how the good people will get the better of the bad. It’s the same as when we play cards. At the beginning of the game we shuffle them all into a mess, which is like the bad things in the world, but the point of the game is to put the mess into good order, and the one who does it best is the winner. Then we shuffle the cards once more and play again, and so it goes with the world.”
Way Of Way 291
“Don’t look back, you’re not going that way.”
— Mary Engelbreit
When driving, more than a occasional glace at the rear view mirror is an accident in the making.
A Durable Soul
Some years back I viewed a documentary movie about the brutalities of the “Dirty War” in Argentina (1976 – 83) when thousands of people disappeared through state sponsored terrorism.
One woman interviewed was a rare survivor.
She was asked how she felt about the perpetrators, “you must hate them” suggested the interviewer.
“No” she said, “I don’t hate them, I fear them.”
She nearly lost her self, but never lost her soul.
Koan 295
“When one realizes one is asleep, at that moment one is already half-awake.”
— P.D. Ouspensky
Self-consciousness precedes universal consciousness.
Way Of Way 271
“Don’t Seek Happiness. If you seek it, you won’t find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness.”
— Eckhart Tolle
Happiness is always here, when you realize how lucky you are right now relate to other possible circumstances.
“Hap” means “luck”, the root of happiness.
Way Of Way 270
“I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison.”
— T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land
Way Of Way 269
“History…is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”
— James Joyce
Way Of Way 268
“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than success, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company…a church…a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play in the one string we have, and this is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you…We are in charge of our attitudes.”
— Charles Swindoll
Way Of Way 268
“There is no such thing as a dumb question.”
— Carl Sagan
Way Of Way 266
“To be satisfied with what one has; that is wealth.”
— Mark Twain
Way Of Way 265
“…if you’re alive, you’ve got to flap your arms and legs, you got to jump around a lot, you got to make a lot of noise, because life is the very opposite of death… [I]f you’re quiet, you’re not living. You’ve got to be noisy, or at least your thoughts should be noisy, colorful and lively.”
— Mel Brooks
Way Or Way 264
“In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”
— Eric Hoffer