What if?

All throughout life we are taught that there is something we need to attain. Something out there that will make us happy. Something that, when we achieve it or reach a certain goal, we will be complete, whole, enlightened, whatever.

And so we spend our lives trying to find this thing or this place, or we come to the conclusion that we're not good enough for this and so we give up, spending the rest of our lives making excuses as to why it wasn't meant for us, but believing we're some kind of failure.

But - what if that's all wrong, that this 'system' is all messed up. And that the whole time everything we needed, everything that matters, was all already there, all the time, we just forgot..

That this 'reality' existed right here, right under our noses, we just became so involved in everything else, that we somehow forgot - forgot how to truly see, forgot who we really are. 

Secrets

Most of what's going on in the universe is a secret. That sounds so far away, and yet most of what is going on in my body right now, in my mind is also in secret, not only to you, but to me. My heart continues beating, pumping blood through my body, and a community of millions of cells quietly go about their business of keeping 'me' going.

We live with the illusion that we know what's going on around us, that 'they' know who I am, what we're doing. We go into meetings thinking that we all know what we're talking about, that we understand each other, and yet most of what is in our minds remains a secret.

And when we do connect with each other, how that information is transferred, how it creates the reality in my brain is also a secret, a mystery.

I was sitting at an airport recently. No-one knew me. Very few people even spoke my language. To some I was a tourist who's bag needed wrapping, to some I was this stranger buying stuff with money that I didn't understand and they spoke slower in Spanish, so that perhaps by some miracle I would understand. and when I left the memory of me would vanish into the stream of people the same way the drops of water in a river is constantly disappearing before our eyes, without us noticing, because all we see is this continuous stream of water.

And then to the customs official I was a drug smuggler. I looked the part having just spent days in the mountains, unshaven, tanned, grubby clothes, traveling alone with a backpack. At least that is how it seems, but what was really on his mind was a secret, as was what was on mine. It was my secret that I was a seeker, a traveller, a magician, a father, a husband, a musician, a thinker - all of the ways I see myself, but to him I was a suspect. And when, to his surprise, he found nothing I wonder what I became and whether I will ever be remembered by him and the cute translator who interrogated me. That too is a secret.

And this is the question - does anything really exist, because everything in the Universe is dependent on everything else. Do I really exist except for the image of me that is in the mind of those who love me, and the memories I have of who I am, where I've been and these thoughts that have a life of their own.

So perhaps the key is to hold it all lightly, to realize that nothing really exists apart from everything else. That reality is what we create every moment, this moment, the only moment there ever is. The echoes of the secret past and the anticipation of a secret future all constantly being created and forgotten, right now.

an ode to the rhythm of life

Everything has rhythm. The moon hs rhythm, the sun, the planets circling the sun all following their own cycle. The Universe is pulsing with endless and multidemensional polyrythms. 

And we too, a profound expression of all of this, also have our own rhythms. Our heart beat, sleeping and waking, the movement of walking, our daily routines - all are rhythm.

And yet somehow human beings have become so accustomed to the tick, tick, tick of time. The clock telling us when it's time to wake up, when it's time to eat, go to work, have lunch. It's time to pay our bills, pay our taxes, time to vote. We pay for time, get paid for time, have to put in leave in order to make use of the time that is granted to us by a higher power. There's time for tv, time for bed, time to retire. How much time do we have left until we die..

And yet underneath it all is the gentle, constant, rhythm. Our hearts beating, and our chest rising and falling with each breath, like the tides of the ocean dancing to the rhythm of the moon. 

Perhaps our survival, our response to this 'global crisis' is not so much about bail-outs, reducing carbon emissions, working harder, and all of the so-called solutions we come up with to fix a problem that we really don't fully understand.

Perhaps it's more about learning to listen again, learning to surf, learning to dance, learning to drum like our ancestors did - moving, breathing and making love to the rhythm of life.

The shapes that shape us

Why do we do what we do?
Why do we think what we think?
Is there some deeper meaning to it all,
or are these simply patterns repeating themselves
and we do and think these things because that is what we do and think?

Why do we ask why?
How does this work, this feedback loop that allows awareness to be aware of awareness?

And if my body is constantly changing,
and the me I see is not the same me that I saw the day before
What is the pattern that keeps it all together..
Like the form of a whirlpool or the shape of a tree or a river.

Is it some mysterious morphic resonance?
or is it the future, pulling the present into shape
and does this pattern continue once this body has gone?

Perhaps we already know the answers
But haven't yet invented the words..

Kung Fu

Kungfu.

Hard work over time to accomplish skill.

A painter can have Kungfu.
Or the butcher who cuts meat every day with such skill...his knife never touches bone.

Learn the form, but seek the formless.
Hear the soundless.
Learn it all, then forget it all.
Learn The Way, then find your own way.

The musician can have Kungfu.
Or the poet who paints pictures with words and makes emperors weep.
This, too, is Kungfu.

But do not name it, my friend, for it is like water.
Nothing is softer than water...yet it can overcome rock.
It does not fight.
It flows around the opponent.

Formless, nameles...the true master dwells within.
Only you can free him.

(from "The Forbidden Kingdom")

Waking up to the dream

constantly looking out at the world
feeling alone in myself
and yet there are many voices
the conversations with the past and the future
sometimes i feel like the king of the world
and then sometimes that i don't exist
perhaps both are true
and that this dream is all a dream
and so slowly there is this awakening
not so much from the dream,
but to the realisation that we are the dreamer

In search of nothing

Nothing..
No thing
Impossible to conceptualize
Because this very act is creation
Giving thingness to that which is not this or that.
Nothing..
No thing
That which contains the possibility of all things
Out of which all of this or that is born
Emptiness, Darkness
Pure raw potential out of which universes explode.
And this is not there or here or within or beyond..
Timelessness, Spacelessness, Thinglessness,
No thing nessss