The Zen of Stepping outside that Box

"If you desire to make a difference in the world, you must be different than the world." - Elaine S. Dalton I'm deeply in love with this statement. It reminds me of the challenge to be "In the world, but not of it." For me, what it points towards is knowing the limits and effects...

Knowing Tao

So, at this moment I'm sitting in a waiting room at Ascension Hospital in Novi, MI, waiting on the outcome of a serious operation. It's difficult, so difficult, waiting and not knowing which of all the outcomes will manifest. The last surgery four months ago took seven hours, hopefully this one will be a bit...

Tao of Understanding and Comprehension

Sometimes a guide, presenting as “authority,” gives a talk about the “genuine self,” and I accept that extract as meaningful. I listen from the conclusion that I know what it means. But in contemplation, there is the realization I have no idea what it is, the “genuine self.” But for a long time, I would...

The Tao of No Explanation

A healthy self-love means we have no compulsion to justify to ourselves or others why we take vacations, why we sleep late, why we buy new shoes, why we spoil ourselves from time to time. We feel comfortable doing things which add quality and beauty to life.” -Andrew Matthews For me, part of accepting self-care...

Tao of Perseverance

"Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another." - Walter Elliot How true. David, one of my fellow three hikers and climbers, told us a story about giving up on getting to the peak where he met Marie and I, where he went on to an even more difficult...

Attention and Clarity at 6,000 feet.

One of the things I have been examining for years is the focus of attention that seems to come and go in the ongoing practice of looking at how I operate in life. I had been through a lot of variations and exercises in Zen and Taoist studies. Oddly enough my actual experience in this...

Others

I took a few days off to climb Grandfather Mt in North Carolina and had a most wonderful experience. I had arrived at the McRaes Peak my usual destination. A while afterwards Marie, arrived, a delightful and engaging woman from Great Britan. We started chatting and were soon telling stories to each other. Soon afterwards...

Some Things

"There is nothing at all that can be talked about adequately, and the whole art of poetry is to say what can't be said." - Alan W. Watts "So write it down, it might be read. Nothings better left unsaid, And all in all, still no doubt, it's hard to see, it all works out....

Expressing Tao

"Be yourself, an original is so much better than a copy." I love expressing myself artistically when the urge rises. For me it manifests in music, drawing, and painting. I struggled with expressing the self for a long time. In part because I was confused about how ego relates to self-expression. What changed? I gave...

Those Pesky Thoughts and the Diamond Sutra

In the Diamond Sutra there is a Buddhist philosophy that states, "It's impossible to retain a past thought, to seize a future thought, or even to hold onto a present thought." What I find interesting is this is easily examined for truthfulness by experimenting with it. Try to hold onto any thought and we find...