PEACE IS HERE NOW

Everybody agrees there is a tragedy that underlies the contemporary human condition. I come here to suggest to you the tragedy is best described as an illusion that overlies the truth that sets men free. So dig.

Shovel away the dirt of misunderstanding and you will uncover a peace that is already here. A peace that unites all people on Earth as one people. So, I ask you, is it not more intelligent for us to undertake the digging effort rather than continue past behavior spending enormous resources on trying to change the illusory condition which traditional behavior has always included war after war after war and has after all these thousands of years shown no reasonable potential, not even a hair of it, not even a grain on a hair, of potential for solving anything at all? How many times must the wiser ask, “We know we spend billions on war, what is the budget for peace?” before we understand the question at depth?

It is a shallow thought drives the train of this nation and it is this- peace is a name for a period when we are not making war, while preparing to make another. I tell you if you dig for it you will find a deeper thought and it is this-peace is not the absence of war, oh, no, war is the absence of peace. Peace, my friends, is truth, war a lie. Much wiser to spend resources on peace.

There is a popular western story told in American books and films throughout the Twentieth Century and beyond right up to this very day. In that popular distortion a town in the West is besieged by a tyrant and his dastardly gang of cutthroats. The town folk seek a hero to save them. Along comes the star of the show who, with a six shooter, kills about 25 men without reloading. It fits, actually, the rest of the farce. Nobody asks, what is the role of these pathetic town folk in this absurd drama? And only The Lone Ranger seems to know they will soon attract another set of hoodlums to town and again expect to be saved. But, this is good for business. It is all fun when it can be replayed in ink or on a screen again and again for dollars happily paid by foolish people who want to believe themselves to be right and others to be wrong. But it is bullshit! Bullshit soaked in innocent blood.

Want you give peace a chance? First in your own heart then among the others you will soon meet after you awaken? To awaken, or begin, all that is required is a glimpse of the truth just read, that peace is here now in me. I am the hero of my story.

It Is High Time

The following is just one example of so many well known messes around the Earth over thousands and thousands of years one could not count them in a lifetime. And that fact ought to stimulate a reader.

I am watching a film about the movement west in the building of a nation called America in the Nineteenth Century. This film is just like all the others I have watched since childhood. It depends upon my willingness to pretend to be stupid for its purpose.

Here is the story: It was 1874. The nation was in a severe depression economically because greedy railroads had gone bankrupt that had promised prosperity to all who came to America to work hard to realize it. Many were out of work. There were still many disastrous consequences of the terrible Civil War that had just been over a short time. Lots of hatred prevailed on both sides under harsh conditions. Politicians believed the answer might lie in the movement of many people west as soon as possible to get them busy and away from the memories of that war with a chance for a new start claiming unsettled land where at present only what were considered to be uncivilized Indians lived as they had lived for centuries. The push was on.

Gold was discovered in the Black Hills of Dakota. Problem was, the American government had promised the Black Hills to the Indians as an undisturbed place to live forever after having taken already by force from those Indians much, much of the land that lies between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, always with promises to take no more. Now, here is the part that stands apart as ridiculous-the makers of the film want me as a viewer to accept without question that the nation's best cure for its existent economic woes had to be to get that gold from the Black Hills; the only consideration being how best to accomplish that. I am not to even ask myself the question: who made the mess? I am not even to ask the question: what other ways might be open to the people who at the time called themselves Americans to address the needs of many of them to attain the means of enjoying an adequate level of material prosperity? I am to pretend I do not know there were many ways other than the option to mine the gold of the Black Hills which had been given to the Indians. I am to ignore the obvious truth that to the Indians who had no hand in the bringing about of the Civil War nor any share in the greed that brought on the economic depression back East gold was of little or no value. In addition, I am to ignore my clear understanding that to see only one option is blindness of a huge magnitude and the best name for that is greed!

The film blithely continues to unfold its story in ignorance of more very important facts:

1. The goodness within all human beings that will move them from greed to love in a heartbeat.

2. The resourcefulness of a free people to save themselves.

3. The willingness, the desire even, of people to endure hardship brought about by their own failures rather than to break a promise made in good faith.

4. A natural humility which is a human necessity to ask another for mercy and receive alms. At some time everyone of us will be down and in need.

5. It was, and still is, the selfish interests of politicians and those who own them who call the shots that make wars. Most of us want peace. But, we are too weak and lazy to insist upon it.

I am just saying it is high time we make a new beginning-all of us all around the globe- and insist upon telling the truth about ourselves.  

PURE PRESENCE

When you come to the place where there's nothin' left to believe 

in,

well, maybe, just maybe, 

that's the time to stop all your believe in

and to check closely to find what you know to be so.

Then follow the knowledge you discover

while you forget belief.

I found mine to be a smoke mirage taught me by someone else.

One fine day I realized I was sick and tired of my own opinions

(none of which were really my own) and found myself to be free.

That was all that had been necessary...freedom is pure presence.

So, I am reading Hemingway.  Never thought I'd want to. After Old Man and The Sea. I am reading For Whom The Bell Tolls. Immediately after I bought it for a buck I watched a preview of a new film with Donald Sutherland wherein he plays a professor of Literature and he states "Hemingway is a much misunderstood genius in America.  James Joyce in Ireland was amazed by him and declared he was the first to write prose that is poetry."  So, I began reading the book with that in mind and am coming to believe it is so.

Yesterday I read this-(he is in a war and speaking of a man who stayed at his post throughout a severe snow storm until relieved even though he was not required to do so and everybody would have understood  had he come back to warm up)

"To stay in a storm, in a way, corresponds to a lot of things. It is not for nothing the Germans call an attack a storm. I could certainly use a couple more who would stay." page 209

In those few words, carefully selected I imagine, he says a whole lot to me.  I want to stay with it and feel it a long time. Just the use of the term "corresponds" covers so much ground of understanding. I plan to use it. Just wanted to pass this on to you.  Recommend the book.  

For Ran

Hey, Let's Just Play Like We Care

Just for the purpose of a discussion let me suggest a game...basketball.

It was invented by a Canadian up North to give students some practical

outlet for physical exercise during winter months. Simple.

It caught on across the country. Kids enjoy the game. It is healthy play.

It even has the added benefit of teaching teamwork and cooperation and

the beauty of our bodies. Good things. Still, it is a game. That may be an

important thing to remember. Let us see.

Because what happened next was that people have forgotten it is a game to

provide play and promote the health of youngsters. They have come to

believe it to be worthy of the dynamics of adults in the pursuit of its...what?

Imagine such a thing in the bee world. Bees decide to play basketball. What

if spinach did that? Water? Air?

Politics is a lot like basketball. It's a gamble too. Religions? They are too.

Oh, and for sure, corporations and money and the stock markets and the

real estate game and banking and all the other gambling schemes for becoming

rich...these begin in the minds of men also... and lead to a world where people

cannot feed one another. Don't even want to feed one another. Bobby Kennedy

found this to be unbelievable and he asked, “why don't we...feed one another?

We're rich!

Oh, well, we can always play games. But, is it not important at least to consider

seriously what is worthy of grown-up human endeavor? Should we not feed one

another? Of course, food for the belly. What of adequate shelter and clothing?

Opportunities to learn? What of food for the heart? Nourishment for the instincts

to be kind and generous and fair? Beauty? Enough beauty for everybody? What

would that be like? Love enough for everybody. What would a world like that be

like? What if all people spent time diligently working at the creation of something

with but the single purpose of expressing beauty? Are we really so unworthy of such

a world as that one?

The Pharaoh-God who was created to hate the human underbelly 

orders a minion to fashion a noose whose fibers are guaranteed to 

choke the breath of life from any kids who run free. It was a scary time 

for children of difference.

All the words of all the many languages of the different tribes of 

people who have lived on Earth came forth from wordless 

experiences. The experiences do not argue, people do. The 

languages and the books created using them do not argue, people do. 

With all the experiences we have in common, why do people argue I 

want to know?

Until a certain age I am told children placed in a room together will 

play in parallel. Not in opposition. Then a change happens. An 

argument ensues. From where did it arise? I was taught as a child the 

competition I was experiencing among my friends was natural to man. 

I doubt it. It is the work of Pharaoh's minion.

That minion is very clever, shrewd, studious, and scheming; quick to 

devise and apply new ideas is he. With time he learned a million tricks 

or more. Of the once plentiful, profuse, and abounding number of kids 

of difference there are practically none left now, and, they have been 

made to be very still and silent and invisible. But, no matter how hard 

the world pushes against them, within them, there is something 

stronger, something better pushing right back.

It is coming. If others are as lonely as we are wouldn't it be ignorant to 

remain apart from them?

Truth Is...

 all people want to come forth, 

emerge moment to moment, so long as we live, 

from pride and joy, as do flowers

and all living things.

Forget all these words, drop them, trust a wordless feeling 

from which all languages emerge…

trust it as it is...as it is felt within you...now.

Do not say, “I cannot”. Of course we can.

From the beginning you have known this.