A WHOOPER SWAN'S DIARY

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!

Friday, October 14, 2022

MEDITATION AND CREATIVITY

Love is not yours or mine.

Compassion is not yours or mine.

Love and Compassion bring extraordinary intelligence.

Meditation is a tricky business.

First, who is meditating?

Second, why would anyone need to sit down to meditate?

Third, does that which is meditating hope to gain, becoming better, by the effort?

Fourth, can a shallow and confused mind ever find clarity?

Is it possible something within you that is not meditating is watching you meditate, or trying to? You may come to see that that inquiry into what is meditation anyway is very much a vital part of meditation.

The writer says that the something that drives us to meditation is able to reveal, not to you, but to reveal what is actually present as a fact and the meaning of attention. Finally, then, is it possible that the true value of meditation is not to improve the one who sits but to reveal that an image can never be made real by any method whatsoever bringing an end to the life being led by some personal image and allowing reality to blossom forth?

In the blossoming a gap is created between the truth of being and any image or ideal thought has determined one needs to become. The gap is compassion. One cannot cultivate love and compassion. They are present when self image is not in charge. In the dimension of love and compassion there is no fear, no anger, no resentment, no greed, lust nor hatred.

1 comment:

Barb H said...: I love to meditate!; 10/19/22, 8:23 PM