You Are IT

A couple of years ago I took a morning solo ATV ride on a remote mountain trail after a light rain and stopped to sit with a grove of young pines.

I was able to sit in silence and smell the cool breeze coming through the pine. The morning sun was bright and the rain drops on the pines sparkled like diamonds.

The way the young pines opened up and leaned into the sun was impressive. They were collectively and individually responsive to the sun and rain with openness as young pines always are.

Wondering if the breeze was singing as it passed through the pines or if the pines were singing because the breeze was blowing, I remembered that as with all things, the answer isn’t either/or.  It’s both.  It’s never either/or.  It’s always both.

Soon, before I headed back down the mountain to be with my sons at the camp fire, I remember thinking that the young pines aren’t always open and expansive. Like all natural things, they respond and react, but they always do so appropriately. If it becomes too cold or dry, they will shrink and withdraw. If a disease or fire arises they will draw up, falter and perhaps die. Some with explosiveness owing to the fuel in their veins.

The difference between their reactions and our reactions to these elements and external stimuli isn’t all that much.

While the difference is simple, it is indeed profound:

they just. don’t. talk. about. it.

THAT’s when it hit me. Sitting with that grove of young pine I finally understood that ALL of nature sits zazen all the time. WE are the only ones who incessantly think and talk about talking about talk about non-existent notions and concepts like past and future and heaven and hell.

When humans learn to sit zazen, we are learning how to “re-member” our “dis-membered” Self. We remember our true nature, the collective Universal Self which includes those young pines.

When I sat with them in silence, even for a few moments, I was able to peer into who I AM. Silent awareness in the present moment.

Religionists would call it a God Moment. And, they would be right to the extent that God is “all of this.”

But, if we strip away ALL concepts, the fact of the matter is I was merely sitting with young pines the way I was meant to sit. As a silent witness to what is.

~ Scott Kinnaird

The true men of old were not afraid when they stood alone in their views.
No great exploits. No plans.
If they failed, no sorrow. No congratulations in success.
The true men of old, knew no lust for life…no dread of death.
Their entrance without gladness….their exit, without resistance.
They did not forget where from…nor ask, where to,
Nor drive grimly forward, fighting their way through life.

They took life as it came, gladly.
Took death as it came, without care, and went away…yonder.
They had no mind to fight TAO.
They did not try by their own contriving to help TAO along.

These are the one’s we call, true men.
Minds, free
Thoughts, gone
Brows, clear
Faces, serene

~Chuang Chou

It makes no difference what method you use to clear your mind. The idea is to make your mind quiescent. To make your mind still and calm. When your mind is still and calm you solve the problem.

For all the methods, self-inquiry, breath control, yoga, everything is to quiet the mind. Use whatever method suits you. You can become the witness to your thoughts. You can watch your thoughts as they go by.

When you become the witness and you do not interfere with the thought process, the thoughts automatically disappear by themselves, until they dissipate entirely. You can ask yourself: “To whom comes these thoughts?” What ever method you use is fine.

But by all means do something to still the mind. And again when the mind is still and quiet, everything will take care of itself. The secret is to quiet the mind. Your real nature is self-realization. When the mind is stilled, you just return to your real nature, to what you always were.

~ Robert Adams

Through what we call ‘suffering’, life strips us down to our bare essentials. It is a misunderstood path of radical simplification. Sometimes it hurts, sometimes we want out, but the process is essentially loving, for it has everything to do with waking up from second-hand dreams and stories and cherishing life itself.

Through ‘suffering’, everything we knew, everything we believed, everything we were told about ourselves and the world, is cast into doubt. A divine dis-illusionment happens. Hallelujah. For the doubt, the pain, the sorrow, the confusion, is nothing less than a portal to the Undoubtable: your bare naked presence, here and now. And then the very first question emerges: “Who Am I?”.

Suffering – when you don’t run away from it, numb yourself to it, or deny it – will always bring you face to face with the fact that what you are can never be defined, divided, or destroyed.

~ Jeff Foster

We often forget that WE ARE NATURE. Nature is not something separate from us.

So, when we say that we have lost our connection to nature, we’ve lost our connection to ourselves.

~ Andy Goldsworthy

You cannot experience your own absence. Who would experience it?

This is why, for you, there is no death.

All that can dissolve is that-which-is-not-really-you. Like taking off old clothes that you’ve outgrown…

Death remains the most profound and restful mystery for the weary traveller of time and space.

The wave relaxes back into the ocean it never left…

~ Jeff Foster

Sadly, each hard and heavily placed stepping stone toward a progressive society includes an equally progressive tax on our individual labor.  And, your notions of fairness and utility of that tax, as well as mine, mean nothing to the collective.  Therefore, we are forced to trust our betters to make those decisions on our behalf.

Historically, contrary to their assurances, those betters tend to their interests rather to those of the citizens.  So, citizens eventually find themselves enjoying neither freedom or security, while clawing out a living on behalf of an unsustainable empire.

Eventually, revolution ensues over lack of bread, or gasoline, or cell coverage, or perhaps something we can’t yet imagine. Then government structures reform, new leaders come forward, and elites continue to buy and sell us all like so many sow-bellies.  Rinse and repeat.

~ Scott Kinnaird

“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Ἀπόδοτε οὖν τὰ Καίσαρος Καίσαρι καὶ τὰ τοῦ
Θεοῦ τῷ Θεῷ. ~ Matthew 22:21

Alway say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is?

~ Eckhart Tolle

You polish words in rue-scented libraries,
and I live in bamboo-leaf gardens, a recluse

wandering every day the same winding path
home to rest in quiet, no noise anywhere.

A bird soaring the heights can choose a tree,
but the hedge soon tangles impetuous goats.

Today, things seen becoming thoughts felt:
this is where you start forgetting the words.

– Meng Hao-jan

Without a sense of our natural goodness, we perceive ourselves as souls in need of salvation and consumers in need of the next novelty in order to feel worthy, complete and sufficient.

~ Sharon Salzberg