THE STORY OF JOHNNY WHOOPER SWAN We go to school trusting our parents. We meet a teacher there who stands up front with a big desk, and a pointer. She or he trains us in an authoritative manner. We attach mentally to a life long need for authority in order to live lives successfully. Right so far? In my case, at the age of 25 I was ready to enter the practice of law where I hoped for success and a happy life finally. Very shortly, very shortly, I became anxious. There was a foreboding. I was made more uncomfortable with each experience. Law work is nothing like what I was told it would be. The system is corrupt. But I still cling to my expectation that career success is necessary to my happiness as a man. Each day my grasp of what the fuck success amounts to after all becomes more clouded, murkier. I hear songs on the airwaves and at concerts which describe my life as the life of a fool. What am I becoming? I want to rip off my business suit to run naked in the street with my hair on fire! But I am too afraid. In strange, weird (weird comes from a word meaning wise), fragmented steps I go about a journey of my own believing myself to be the first man to have failed in such a total way which journey works so as to break up my career, end a marriage, and start an entirely new way of relating with my two children whom I love deeply. Almost magically I meet a woman who is a career counselor who asserts a beautiful message that I am made to be joyful in my work everyday and at all levels. This understanding sets me on a completely new course. It is no longer a world of systems to me but an undivided one of unlimited beauty. It reminds me of a painting. A true masterpiece. I am drawn from within to learn the truth about my identity and nobody else can teach me that. From this point onward I will use thinking capacity for mastering mechanical processes and follow my heart, which includes my whole nature, which includes your whole nature and that of every human being for all the rest. I’ll go by the name Johnny Whooper Swan who does not explain itself to anyone. By my fruits shall I be known. Watch me soar!

Monday, November 29, 2021

 PROBLEMS


One man asks, Is it possible to live so that one’s brain, itself, has no problems?


A woman says, it can be so when one is centered in the heart or Tao.

A third one  says, I agree, if my brain clears itself of problems it can then solve whatever problem arises quickly and effectively, that is to say, no new problem is created by that solution from a clear mind. 


All three in peaceful and humble accord join hands and laugh together in great joy.


A listener chimes in: I always wanted to know what is leadership, truly. Now I see. Only a clear minded and humble child-like king is going to bring about peace. A smart aleck will fail and fail and fail and people will build monuments of his likeness and write poems and songs and books to praise the fool as great because he always was solving problems which created more and more and more of them and they admired him or her for it.


Now, when anyone asks “Can my brain be free of problems” who is expected to provide an answer? Up to now it probably has been the conditioned brain that is not free.  What kind of answer can such a brain come up with? The kind that creates more problems?


This could be a fresh new moment. “Ever hear it said, The answer to a question lies inside the question?” Have you? Nobody answered. A butterfly appears.




No comments: