One of the outstanding observable characteristics of humans is how they assemble a thinker. Do you know this about yourself?
Thoughts come and go. No matter. You observe something. A thought arises in response. This is not thinking. This is thought. When thought follows along after attention, like the pen follows the hand, recording the movements of the attention, this could be called mentation. No thinker is required. The best poetry is this.
Thinking is a self-referential process. Your thinker is an assemblage held together by habit and a sense of identity. I am thinking easily becomes I am the thinker. Thinking has one thought following another, requiring limited or no input from the rest of the universe. It’s isolated within the mental sphere, coheres around an idea of an identity, proceeds by way of association and follows the well worn grooves of past thinking, sustained by specific muscular contractions..
Sit comfortably. Relax the body, releasing all the muscular tensions not required for sitting. Take your time. This has many layers. Then bring attention into sensation, all the sensations of sitting and breathing. Observe if there is part of you that is withheld. Agree to fully engage in attending to sensations and breathing. Agree to have nothing else to consider or attend to. Thoughts come and go? No matter.
Notice when you withdraw from engaging with sensation. Does this coincide with forming a thinker? Can you observe the assembling of the thinker as it occurs, the transfer of attention to a center in seeming control, becoming the thinker, a center that limits and screens engagement? When you have seen this many times, returning each time to simple attention on sensation, you have learned to engage in the real world.
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March 22, 2025
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March 2, 2025
Gravity pulls everything closer to itself
what we build up it pulls down.
Feelings of euphoria
can trip on the sidewalk and fall.
We leave footprints in the snow
Christ looked to heaven and was crucified.
Full of holes
the ship Truth sinks to the ocean floor.
What purity of being must try to resurrect its bouyant possibility
a vessel which can float despite the weight it carries
sea worthy and worthy to be seen.
When we cease to fly we are easy prey
truth lifts us up.
The curse of lies screams its defense
far and wide promoting.
Truth does not compete with made up rules
it is a vessel which floats
inside the mysterious chambers of the heart. -
February 18, 2025
Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.
-Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers KaramazovTags: Dostoevsky, lies, truth
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February 13, 2025
We live in a world that has facts and lies. The facts can be verified but the lies, whether intentional or not, prove to be lies because they cannot be verified. What does it mean to verify? It means to question the fact, weigh it, turn it upside down, find its source and question why it may be a lie, and if so, who or what the lie would serve. The quality behind this work of verifying is truth which is a quality of knowing or wishing to know. Truth is a term from carpentry where it means to true something by establishing that it is straight and fit for purpose. The world outside of us is fact while truth is the inner quality of being that discerns meaning and value.
There is no human capacity more important than this: the capacity for verifying what is true. Truth knows because the thing that it examines is either clear and straight or it is obscure and crooked. We are born with the capacity for verifying truth. Accepting lies without question because they require less effort and provide more comfort is how truth is lost. Every lie told, every lie lived out, tarnishes the most important of our human abilities. -
December 10, 2024
According to the fourth way, there is a hierarchy of energies humans can access. I will give these keys to you but once and they will likely mean nothing to you. But perhaps there will be one or two among you who can make use of this teaching and discover for yourself the means of ascending the ladder.
Vital energy is an energy of the body which enables us to do physical things. It is renewed with food and rest, especially sleep.
Automatic energy enables us to perform repetitive tasks without intention or even noticing. Everything we do can run on automatic energy.
Sensitive energy enables us to sense and to notice ourselves and our surroundings. It arises from stimulation of the nervous system via engagement with the environment. It has a cycle of charging and discharging. This is the energy of emotion. Self observation is possible with this energy.
Conscious energy enables us to think, sense and feel simultaneously. This energy does not arise in the normal course of living. It requires intentional use of attention which is a true catalyst…it transforms sensitive energy without itself being consumed. Conscious energy is non-reactive; reaction pulls it down into sensitive energy. With this energy, observation of self becomes possible.
Creative energy is the power to do. It is the marriage of will and possibility. Entirely new directions can arise with the creative energy which finds its own expression in us or around us. Attention resides here. This energy is a gift.
The energy of Objective Love is the love our Creator has for us in which we may participate as His Beloved. This is not the love that we speak about in ordinary life. It is a mystery beyond knowing.
His Endlessness has gifted us certain possible pathways that can enable us to climb the ladder of energies and become more useful to Him. The higher transforms the lower to create the middle. Attention transforms sensitive energy to create conscious energy. Conscious energy transforms automatic energy to create more sensitive energy. Conscious prayer submits to, and invites, Love which transforms conscious energy into creative, birthing a real human being.
The transformation of energies is a capacity latent within the human organism and may arise to view without setting out to achieve it, simply by observing one’s experience. Begin with attention on sensation. Learn to marshal your attention by calling it back to you from all the places where you have unconsciously left it. Observe that you become more conscious. Then more is possible.Tags: conscious energy, creative energy, energies, Objective Love, sensitive energy, work notes
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October 28, 2024
When I want something it is because it is wanting…there is a lack of that thing. Wanting begins in poverty.
How will I go about satisfying this want? Likely I will use the pushing force. I will try to get what is wanting by looking for it and attempting to gain it from my environment, perhaps from others, perhaps by using money or persuasion or charm. My attention is on the getting.
Or I could use the pulling force. I could make myself deserving of receiving what I want, exercise patience and allow the universe to present me with it, using my attention to be favorable in my disposition, creating the conditions for a gift of what I want.
Because wanting begins in poverty, with what I lack, there is very little scope for will. The impulse of wanting ties me to the automatic functioning of the nervous system and the emotion of desire. Using the pulling force is more subtle, involving a different setting of the attention and the breath which are receptive and accepting. I can probably bring more of my sensations to the task. I can more easily note the contrary impulses or attitudes which may push the thing I want away from my grasp.
And then there is the very different action of wishing. When I wish for something, I do not begin with a lack. I do not want the aim of my wish. I intend it. This is the beginning of will. The direction is up. There is none of the force of pushing or pulling. I place the wish at the feet of the universe and accept its sense of rightness. My wish is under the aegis of higher powers. Perhaps now, perhaps later or not at all, the wish will be realized. The communication of the wish is already its fulfillment and in this there is great richness.Tags: wanting, wishing, work notes
