WSR Taoism

Truth and Lies

2012-02-08T11:45:00.000-08:00

One person telling the truth is worth more than all the people shouting lies, but those shouting lies gets the attention, so we must always learn to focus on the content of the words, their truthfullness, and not on the person or their words declaring the number of voices or the loudness of their voice.

While the many voices of lies will drown the one telling the truth, the truth will prevail and the many be shown to be liars.

The Obvious

2012-02-07T11:15:00.000-08:00

Some thoughts on the obvious.

What do we all get? Older. Unless of course, something else happens along the way, like death.

What we try to leave behind in our life will always follow us, a permanent shadow in our memory.

What we think is resolved is never resolved. Nothing is ever resolved, just changed to be different.

Death is relative. Some people postpone it until the end of their life, and some live it to the end of their life.

Life is also relative. Relative to the life lived.

There are always choices. It's what makes us a thinking person, knowing we always have those choices.

God is everything and nothing. God exists but doesn't exist. God is what we imagine, and nothing else.

Always write your life in pencil, it's easier to change for the better. Others will use pens.

Judgement in hindsight is handy, but only looking in hindsight. Foresight requires imagination and judgement.

Being and doing are one of the same, and neither can be nothing for they are each always something.

Presences and absence are one of the same view, just different perspectives.

Reality

2012-01-24T07:14:00.000-08:00

Reality is ugly and messy, often overwhelming and frought with confusion and contradictions. Nothing is clear and everything is a meld from the most sublime to the most profane. Nothing is separate from anything else and everything is part of the whole of reality, connected, related and intermixed with everything else.

It's far easier to forget it and live in a simple fantasy where everything is neat and clean. It allows us to sleep, deceived by our own intentional blindness of the vast richness of reality. It is easier to avoid understanding than to attempt to understand with the possibility of becoming a greater person.

Simplicity is always the easier choice and fantasy the safer place because it frees us of the reality of the world.

The Zen of a Small Tree

2012-01-18T12:59:00.000-08:00

I bought a Grand Fir seedling last fall and put it in its own pot until next spring where I would repot it somewhere else or keep it there if it hadn't grown enough. This morning after the Puget Sound got 8-12" of snow overnight, if you got close you could hear the sound of Zen meditation, "I am a tree. I am a tree. I really am a tree." and then you heard the faint sound of the song "To everything turn, turn, turn, there is a season..."

Taoism teaches you to be open to the many small things in life, which give you an opportunity to see the world differently and anew. Even a seedling can teach us the power of being.

Never Confuse the Two

2012-01-16T10:38:00.000-08:00

From The New Oxford American Dictionary

Disinterest -

1.-- noun, the state of not being influenced by personal involvement in something; impartiality: I do not claim any scholarly disinterest with this book.

2.-- noun, lack of interest in something: he chided Dennis for his disinterest in anything that is not his own idea.

Dislike -

1.-- verb, feel distaste for or hostility toward: he was not distressed by the death of a man he had always disliked.

2.-- noun, (a) feeling of distaste or hostility: despite her dislike of publicity, she was quite a celebrated figure | they had taken a dislike to each other., (b) a thing to which one feels aversion: I know all his likes and dislikes.

When discussing an issue, always remember the two and never think a person's disinterest is dislike. When someone says, "I don't care about ...", it may be that they don't really care one way or the other about it, and not have a dislike for it.

Thoughts on Memory

2012-01-15T12:57:00.000-08:00

I had some thoughts on the walk home from town this morning. It's a 6+ mile roundtrip walk, which I do 4-5 days a week now, sometimes for the exercise and sometimes for the stores in town and the cafe for the reward. Today's walk was during the snow storm that is present in the Puget Sound until Thursday.

I'm always amzed how falling snow dampens sounds. There were several places on the walk I stopped and couldn't hear anything beside myself. And I loved watching the falling snow, heavy at times, floating down to stick to everything, to be surrounded by all the snow and watching the world turn white.

Anyway, I often let my mind wander on these walks and this is what I thought. Nothing original or new, just moments of thoughts on memory.

I don't have a short memory. It's just takes me longer to remember.

I don't forget things. I just don't remember everything everyone else thinks is important.

I'm not slow thinker. I'm just not as fast as other people.

A Noise

2012-01-07T06:32:00.000-08:00

I thought I heard something in my sleep, but alas, it was only the silence of the night.

Reading Newspapers

2012-01-06T15:31:00.000-08:00

I read 3-5 newspapers 3-4 days a week, but some days I wait until after a nap to read them. I do this because I've learned reading newspapers half awake is better than being totally awake, it dulls the anger at the stupidity in the world caused by people not caring, only wanting, or worse demanding. Half awake means I don't want to hurt them, I only want to teach them.

The Life We Live

2011-12-20T15:24:00.000-08:00

There is an age when you realize life is what you did and not what you will do, and every morning afterward is wondering if the life left is worth the life lived. We all reach an age where we have past the optimium of our existence, and as the old adage goes, it's all downhill after that. That's just a saying, but it's if we believe it and then live it that matters.

Lessons of Age

2011-12-14T07:21:00.000-08:00

Ask an older person and they'll tell you this, "Time and gravity wins all bets." Everything else are just the temporary winners of youth.

A Poem

2011-12-09T06:14:00.000-08:00

This is the explanation from Wikipedia about Mary Frye, the author of the poem Do not Stand by My Grave and Weep written in 1932.

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

We are all Taoists in our own ways, the beauty of Taoism; the freedom to be, to see, to feel, to think, to know, to understand and to accept our life.

Advice

2011-12-06T19:26:00.000-08:00

My advice? Follow your heart, do what you love and let the rest take care of itself, because in the end that's all you have and that's all you can do. Everything else will happen anyway and little, if anything, you can do will change it.

Sorry

2011-12-04T17:28:00.000-08:00

Sorry never says enough. But it's all we have to offer. Sorry never expresses the depth of our sorrow, our deepest feelings, our most heart-felt thoughts. But it's all we have to say. Sorry never understands who it is said to, because we can never know what they thought or felt. But it's all we know. One word. Never enough. But it's all we have.

Not far apart

2011-12-01T13:48:00.000-08:00

Is an athetist that much different than a Taoist?

"An atheist loves his fellow man instead of god. An atheist believes that heaven is something for which we should work now – here on earth for all men together to enjoy. An atheist believes that he can get no help through prayer but that he must find in himself the inner conviction and strength to meet life, to grapple with it, to subdue it, and enjoy it. An atheist believes that only in a knowledge of himself and a knowledge of his fellow man can he find the understanding that will help to a life of fulfillment. He seeks to know himself and his fellow man rather than to know a god. An atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said. An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanquished, war eliminated. He wants man to understand and love man. He wants an ethical way of life. He believes that we cannot rely on a god or channel action into prayer nor hope for an end of troubles in a hereafter. He believes that we are our brother’s keepers and are keepers of our own lives; that we are responsible persons and the job is here and the time is now."

Definition of atheism given to the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Murray v. Curlett, 374 U.S. 203, 83 S. Ct. 1560, 10 L.Ed.2d (MD, 1963)

If a Taoist knows God is in his heart and mind, and the road is to find peace through the God that he carrys with him, how is that different from an athetist except the latter doesn't know a God but believes in something he doesn't know but believes? Can an athetist believe in a greater God which doesn't define but challenge each man? Challenge to discover the whole and peace? Challenge to be a better man on earth?

Is an athetist's challenge any different than a Taoist's God, only the former doesn't know and the latter believes?

Simply

2011-11-28T11:54:00.000-08:00

Simply because you think or say something is does not establish or ensure that it is, only it is in your mind, but not in reality or the world. It is means it is for everyone as known and exists. Whether you agree or not or whether you want it to be something else does not change the fact it is. Simply it is, and not what you want to think or believe it is, but that it by itself is. Just is.

Gotta love this

2011-11-22T15:47:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wonder if I'm missing something or not, but there are times I love some statements. Like?

When the weather person said, "There's a 100% chance of precipitation."

Ok, but 100% isn't a chance but a certainty. It's going to rain. Kinda' like, "There's a 100% chance you will die sometime in your life. Yeah, like at the end of it. But hey, just maybe there's a zero chance of something else?

Richness

2011-11-08T06:47:00.000-08:00

The richness of our life is not measured by our possesions but by our experience, through our graciousness and generosity in the world and toward other people. It is how we are judged, not by what's in our pocket but by what's in our heart.

The Gift of Generations

2011-11-05T11:48:00.001-07:00

The gift of generations only works when the wisdom and experience of age is shared with the wonder and joy of youth. Shared with each other, not given one to another but through their shared experience of learning together.

Questions

2011-11-05T07:23:00.001-07:00

To ask question to seek answers is good. To keep asking question when you have an answer is better. To always ask questions when answers appear absolute is best. It's not about answers, it's about asking questions. Answers arise from questions. Questions should always arise from answers. It's not what we know, but what we seek to know. Always asking the questions.

Wonder

2011-11-05T07:19:00.001-07:00

Wonder is not a gift someone can give you. Wonder is what you give yourself, and someone can only show you what you already have and can do anywhere anytime. They can only show you the opportunity within yourself to see, to learn, to ask and to grow. The simple joy of wonder. What you do with it is what defines you.

Being

2011-11-02T10:18:00.000-07:00

Everybody has to be somebody, someone unique from all the rest of us, all 7 billion on the planet as of October 31st. Seven billion unique identities, individuals, common in many ways of being human and still different in many small ways of being a person. No one like ever before or will be again.

A moment of existence in time and then a memory in history, forgotten in the billions of everybody else. The best we can do is just be and leave the rest to life as we have no idea what's ahead for us, only what has been. Our experience and memory of everybody else we met. It's all we have, like all the other 7 billion today.

Just One

2011-10-31T08:11:00.001-07:00

One person's view, namely yours when the discussion is personal to you, is just that, one view. One person's experience is not everyone's experience. One person's view is not everyone's view. So no one should assume their view is better or right. It's just different.

Never criticize someone's different view solely on the basis of your view. They have the right to their view as much as you have to yours. We argue for the freedom to hold our own view and express that view. We can't argue that doesn't apply to everyone too. It does, and we should always be cognizant of that right and respectful of their view.

The point is that we should always be willing to stand and listen to the diversity of views while holding our own, and even expressing it, and maybe learn more about ourselves, others and the world. Our view isn't gospel and doesn't fit everyone, for they may think the same about their view and you.

Does a Taoist

2011-10-27T13:14:00.000-07:00

If a Taoist is asked to raise one hand and put the other hand on the Bible, and then say, "I do.", when they're asked to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, do they have actually tell the truth since they don't believe in or follow the teachings of the Bible? Yeah, a rhetorical question, is the answer really rhetorical?

The Truth

2011-10-07T08:02:00.000-07:00

An interesting thing about the truth, if you forget it or lie about it, it will always come back to bite you. And it will always haunt you until you face it and admit it.

Speaking

2011-10-05T06:53:00.000-07:00

If you're in a group discussion, if you can't speak in a manner to engage everyone in the room, then don't speak to engage anyone in the room. Impressing people with your arrogance only impresses them not to listen.

A Fool

2011-10-03T07:52:00.001-07:00

Do not argue with a fool, for they know not that they are a fool and will, in the face of the obvious, always insist they are anything other than a fool.

The Damage Done

2011-09-25T18:36:00.000-07:00

If you're thinking of what to say to someone about something they said, remember this:

Words in thought can always be changed to be better.
Words spoken can not be changed.
The damage is done.

Love - A thought

2011-09-18T19:49:00.000-07:00

Love does not know age, it only knows the human heart.

The ordinary man

2011-09-11T13:02:00.000-07:00

In the mornng an ordinary man picked up his basket and left his home and family to go to the market in the nearby town. He always knew it was always a long day's walk to town and back each week but it was what he did for his family. And he always knew his basket was always heavy on the walk home.

But it never detered from the walk for as much as he loved his family, home and farm, he loved the walk on the road, he loved the time in town, and he loved the walk home to see his family. When he was done this week and his basket full of food and goods he started the walk home. Just outside of town he met a priest walking the road to the next town.

The priest had finished his work in town and was on his way to the next town, a long day's walk for him. He cherished the walk as he cherished the work in town, always people to meet and travel with, if only part of the way on his or their journey. So he asked the ordinary man if he could walk with him and share the time and a conversation.

The ordinary man agreed and the two walked the road over the miles. At one point the priest noticed the basket and asked the man if he could carry some of the goods in the basket to lighten his load. The man replied that he was fine as the words from the priest strengthened his heart and lightened his load.

When the two got to the place where the trail to the ordinary man's property left the road they stopped. The man set down his basket while the priest thanked him for sharing his time and words with him. The ordinary man reached into his basket to pickup a loaf of hard bread. He handed it to the priest saying he will need it on the long journey ahead.

The priest replied he was a simple priest and lived on modest means and such a loaf was far too much for him. The ordinary man said he knew but he also knew there will be many people on his journey who will need it. And with it he picked up his basket and walked the trail to his home and the priest, looked at the loaf, put it in his satchel and continued on his journey.

Another Thought

2011-09-11T12:24:00.000-07:00

Be careful of the man who gives a judgement of something specific from general experience or knowledge, for he doesn't know if it's really true or just something he thinks is true. It's the old adage, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

A thought

2011-09-11T12:12:00.000-07:00

I would rather learn from a man who says he knows nothing than from a man who says he knows everything. The man who says he knows nothing will always teach you something new, but the man who says he knows everything will only teach you what he knows. The man who says he knows nothing will always question what he learns, but the man who says he knows everything will never question and always believe what he knows is true, whether it is or not.

Life and Death

2011-05-03T07:16:00.001-07:00

Just a thought. Life is what will kill you, death is only the last act.

There will be a Moment

2011-02-12T08:00:00.000-08:00

There will be a moment when you close your eyes and it will be the last thing you remember, never to be alive anymore and never to have another moment. The reality of our own existence. It happens thousands of times every day in the world, from the most peaceful to the most violent moment, when each of us aren't anymore. Aren't here. Aren't aware. Simply gone.

I was listening to an interview of someone who watched their loved one die from a terminal illness. He said, "I watched her breath. One breath after another. One breath and then no more." While we can be there when someone dies, we can and will never know what it is like being the one dying, and being the one who takes the last breath.

A recent issue of Scientific American has an interesting article on death, and why we don't know what it is or even have or ever will have, the slightest clue what it is. All because we're always alive until death and then we aren't. Anymore. Death, as they say, is just a heartbeat away. Meaning one beat after another until the last beat, of our heart.

We take our heart for granted. I don't anymore, not because of my heart, it's fine along with the arteries of the heart, but because of my pulmonary artery which has a 20% blockage, not enough for serious intervention, although I've been on a drug I stopped due to the severity of the side effects, but enough to realize it when I exert myself and run out of breath.

This, as it turned out, has been a nearly 20 year old problem, first noticed when in my early 40's when I had problems breathing while running or hiking. I put it off to the Rheumatic Fever I had as a child and the lasting effect on my heart. That wasn't and isn't true. I have a very slight heart murmur but nothing distinguishable anymore from the normal wear of time.

But either way, we notice life by our heart and our breathing. But we can't experience it by our death. We won't know beyond our last memory and then nothing. We can only experience it when we die and maybe see or know there people around us watching us die.

That's the best we can hope full, to die quietly and peacefully, and hopefully in a place we love. The last is all too often does not happen as we die in hospitals or hospices, die in accidents or from violence, die of our own hand doing what we love or just something, or die out of nowhere.

I think about this every time I lie down to take a nap. And during the nap I don't remember anything except that I wake up some time later. But I think what happens if I don't wake up. After some naps I have to take a few minutes to collect my thoughts and find myself. It's a little quiz I take, like what's today, what time did I lie down, and so on until I'm fully awake and conscious to the world.

But I know I too, like everyone before me, will have my moment and I won't exist anymore. It's the reality of each of our being and our living, to die. Simple as that. Breathing and then not. A moment here and a moment gone.

Occam's Razor

2011-02-07T06:26:00.000-08:00

I was reading about Occam's Razor, the idea that the simpliest solution with the least number of assumptions is likely the best. Well, not quite what he actually said was, "Plurality must never be posited without necessity." The key is the conumdrum of where to draw the line between the simplicity, the least number of assumptions, and the complexity of any issue, problem or question.

Taosim teaches you to see not just the whole of the issue, but also the imagination beyond the whole of the issue. Not just the what is of it but the what if's of it. That, however, requires, expanded the assumptions beyond the obvious, beyond reality and into the imagination, to be creative, innovative, and imaginative to think over the horizon, deeper than the wells, and father than the limits of the sky.

And see where the line is between the least number of assumption which resolves the issue and the rest of the solutions, but not just for the moment, the present and the future. That's where simplicity runs afoul of reality. And we're faced with the choices where Occam's razor fails to separate the assumptions into the necessary and the rest, where the solutions uses the optimum number of assumptions but not the least number.

In statistics you can use regression analysis to weigh all the factors and determine the statistic importance and relevance of each to the whole, and then you can reduce the factors based on the probability of a good answer from the optimum and the least number. And then evaluate the assumptions associated with the factors.

In Taoism, however, we can't do that, and have to rely on the subjective information to find the best answer or solution among the messiness of reality. Everything becomes intertwined and interconnected and the separations become fuzzy, and more than likely include ourself and our own view of things. We are part of it.

And we have to also parse ourself from the whole, or reduce and narrow our own assumptions, often before we can look at the rest of it. And add the dynamics of life and the world, and everything changes while we're still trying to understand it. Not unlike trying to capture everything about a passing train, the blur and gone in the distance, over the horizon, and just a memory.

It's the conundrum we have to apply Occam's razor to ourself before we address what we're thinking about, determining what we know with what might be reality and what we think with what actually is. We have to simplify ourself and our own assumptions about it before we can do the same with what we working on.

To be continued.

The Gumbo of our Being

2011-01-17T11:10:00.000-08:00

What we choose to do and who we choose to be. That's always the question we face. What I choose to photograph, whether it's places, people, events, scenes, whatever, it's always my choice. What I choose to feel. Or maybe not so much choice or just thoughts, feelings and emotions, all in one, a jumble of each into the whole. The gumbo of my being.

Can we choose the gumbo of our being? Or are we driven by an innate sense of being, in part from our instincts and intuition in concert with our thoughts, feelings and emotions? Or are we being someone and doing something amisdt our experience? Some would say it's the old nature versus nuture or our nature versus our experience argument and debate. But is that really what it is?

Or are we just like gumbo soup, something we make from what we have (being) and what we can find (experience) and even then we don't control what happens or how it turns out, except we're the pot, the contents and in the end, the soup in the bowl of our life and being? What and how much of the gumbo are we really in control of beyond our experiences, thoughts, feelings, emotions and then our actions within the whole?

Is the gumbo of our being just the result of everything from our life, and is the reflection of our experiences with our senses thrown in for flavor? And what is our gumbo versus what it is to others? Do they see the same gumbo we think we are, or a gumbo seen through their senses? We all see the world through our senses, including everyone we meet and more so we know.

So what is the gumbo of our being to them? Clearly not the same, but is it something which matters beyond knowing? After all, we are already here, the gumbo of our being, as everyone else is the gumbo of their being. So does it matter beyond knowing and enjoying it? Being who we are, our gumbo. And who they are, their gumbo.

All that gumbo, and we're just one bowl from the pot among many pots over time.

Perspective About Life

2011-01-03T04:01:00.000-08:00

I watched a movie about Dan Millman and his fight to get back into being an international gymnast help his college team win their first national championship. It's an interesting movie less in terms of his experience and fight back, but more for the role Nick Nolte plays as a mental mentor who taught him about life. And that's what was interesting.

We all like short, usually one sentence, saying about life, such as one that's interesting, "There are no ordinary moments." While we can examine and espouse this saying ad naseum without any better insight than when we started because that's the problem as well as the beauty of something so simple. The simple is complex and the complex simple. It's how you see life, your perspective on being and doing.

What also caught my notice was the three "rules" of life, which were more a perspective to keep in mind.

Paradox. It's about the whole complexity of life and the world we live in today. In short as said in the movie, "You surrender the very thing you never had and never will, control." That's the one thing we fight our whole life for only to discover we're fighting a something so dynamic the best we can really do is constantly react to it. We have to simply decide we can only do what we can in the place we're at and at the time we're there. The rest is what happens.

Humor. It's about maintaining a perspective of knowing that being serious only finds you more difficult to understand and accept the paradox of life and the world.

Change. It's the evitable reality of the world today, nothing stays the same. Change is the normal order of the world, and it's how we adapt and adjust to it that matters.

It's hard not to see the simple truth in those rules. It's what Taoism teaches with being open to the reality of the moment to see it in all it's comlexity and simplicity. As they say, not a bad approach.

The Life We are Given

2011-01-01T05:00:00.000-08:00

There are times I find myself just wondering. You know the wondering about the life we're given. I know this has been the mental plague of man ever since it dawned on him, always wondering the great questions of a life, the world and the purpose of anything and everything, and all related to the life we are and have.

Like duh, no one has yet found the answer, or at least one we all find useful and helpful, but it's always a good tavern conversation question. Or not.

Well, almost, because it seems when facing death, it's a common to ask the question of ourself and our live. Kinda' late maybe, but maybe it's been the perpetual question that never fully invaded our consciousness enough to warrant more than a passing thought while drinking beer somewhere there is good music, interesting and entertaining people, and lively, spirited conversation. And of course great beer and good food.

And sometimes it's one of those things you think about before and just after you retire. We see these stories of people who accomplished a lot after retiring from their first job or career to move into another and do great or important things. But these people are very rare, why they're noted, and 99.999% of retirees just live out the rest of their live at some level far less important or accomplished.

In short, just another life. Something my father did, putter his life away when he retired in his early 60's. He simply faded into nothingness where no one, not even Mom, paid much attention to him beyond the occasional conversation and important events. He lived after retirement for three things, their 50th wedding anniversary, paying off his 30-year mortage and living to see his 75th birthday.

Those accomplished, on the day of the last one he went to bed, never woke up and died two days later. It left a lot of confused people, but in the end, he was tired of life. He lost the will to live beyond those three goals years before when his health failed and he couldn't find something to do beyond existing. He faced his existence and decided his fate.

As with him, we face the reality of our existence. It's the accepted fact or realiy, take your pick, that after 50 or so, it's all downhill and the best we can do is slow the rate we age, both mentally and physically. Of course, within the framework of our genetic history and our environment.

At after 60, it picks up speed where you can't change anything except if you're lucky or gifted with good physical and mental health and being fit, and then hope fate doesn't change that with some event, a disease, accident, or something which makes just living a challenge, or worse. That I discovered this year and know it's my future.

It's my existence as given. Change is possible, as the specialist said, but not much realistically. It's what I face, as we all face ourself, in the morning when we wake up. The choices we face with the life we're given.

Willow Tree

2010-10-05T13:11:00.000-07:00

Mickey Newbury, the great American song writer who died a few years ago, wrote a song that's always been a favorite of mine for the sense of what it says. The song is "Willow Tree", but part of the lyrics goes like this:

Wish I was a grain of sand
Playin' in a babys hands
Fallin' like a diamond chain
Into the ocean.

...

A grain of sand is all I ever wanted to be
Lay me down let the water
Wash right over me wash over me.

...

Oh a grain of sand
Is all I ever wanted to be
Lay me down and let the water
Wash over me wash over me.

I bought the album the first time I heard this song and it's alway stuck in the back of my mind, trying to understand what it would be like to be a grain of sand and to lie on the beach and have the ocean wash over me, to travel where the waves take. To feel free with the water and the water carrying me, cleansing me of whatever I gained sitting somewhere else.

From Mother Teresa

2010-10-05T11:44:00.000-07:00

“People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.

Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.

Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.

Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.

Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.

Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.

Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten.

Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.

Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God.

It was never between you and them anyway.”

Taoism and Dysthymia

2010-03-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

One thing I haven't fully resolved, and probably will never resolve, is how Taoism and my Dysthymia are related, for me anyway. As I've noted, I was diagnosed with lifelong (genetic) Dysthymia in 1991 after the death of my brother (Greg) and 3 years before the death of my father, who didn't talk to me after Greg died.

I began studying Taoism in the mid-1970's after reading Alan Watt's books, and especially "The Watercourse Way", about the Tao. I was fascinated and read about the idea in Taoism. I always called myself a lazy Taoist because I haven't been totally dedicated or motivated to delve into the depths of Taoism, but simply stayed on the surface, using the ideas for my own life.

It was, and still is, in some ways my anti-depressant. That and running, which I started 1978 along with hiking, walking, and photography. The mental side has always been a struggle for me, and while Taoism has helped me work through situations and circumstances in life and work, the Dysthymia has always been the overriding, and often overwhelming, force. I just wasn't lucky in those genes department.

Try as I have and do, I have a handful of "happy" genes. I was handed more than my fair share of Dysthymia and realism genes to compensate, almost like there this a quota of these depressed to happy thought genes and my brain was filled with Dysthymia genes before I got to the happy gene part of the mind buffet. It's not a buffet of choice but one chosen for you or more so, given you.

You're stuck with what you have. And try as you want, it will always be a struggle to change your thinking. Happy people don't seem to care to change, only depressed people care to change. That's not saying being happy is normal, right or better, just happy people are blind to their own deficiencies. To them, realism isn't what the rest of us see and know, and especially experience.

A decade before my diagnosis I read the research by some medical folks at the Wharton School looking at how people see reality, meaning do happier people see it better than depressed people. In their results, they discovered that happier people, especially extremely happy people, ignore reality. They're simply blind to anything negative. Depressed people, they discovered, tend to see more realistically.

But in their results they found an anomaly. They found a group of people who they identified as chronically mildly depressed, meaning their depression was a part of the being, and a few years later, after additional research, identified this as Dysthymia. The anomaly was that this group were the most realistic in the view of life and the world. Everybody else happier or more depressed were less realistic.

What they surmised from the results was that life and the world, meaning reality, is slightly to moderately depressing, if you look at everything going on all the time. The world is a busy place, and much of it is either ordinary at best or depressing at worst. In short, happy isn't the norm, but mild depressed is, and this is what this group saw, thought and felt.

They found this group saw more of life and the world, and then more realistically, not focusing on the best (happy) or worst (depressed) parts, but focusing on the big picture and more of life and stuff in the middle, more the ordinary stuff of life and the world. After all, they said, it's what makes up the vast majority of our lives, and sadly as it may be, it is slightly depressing.

That was the proverbial light bulb going off. That was me. It took another decades of struggling and then my brother's death to go to a psychiartrist, actually on National Depression Day in 1991 because the meeting and evaluation was free. It was there, the psychiatrist said it was Dysthymia and likely lifelong (genetic). I can't remember not thinking, feeling and being this way.

I can remember my childhood when I started something, I could see the whole of the work to do it and then get it done. But sadly, for a child (me) it was also overwhelming, and I discovered it was far easier to live in my own small life and not venture out into the larger world where everything wasn't happy, not unrealistically being that I was physically a late bloomer and teased a lot for being small for my age.

It was reading Alan Watts' book I connected the dots why I was interested in and read about Taoism, and later how Dysthymia and Taoism are intertwined in the perspective of reality and the world. Taoism focuses on what is there, whether the continuum of the past, the present, or the path into the future, being realistic is part and parcel of The Way. Without it, you're not being honest, let alone real, about yourself trying to understand.

Understanding is part of the world and the Tao, for me anyway, and which is likely far from the teachings of Taoism. Hopefully not, but I borrow from Taoism to live, understand and get through the world everyday. I haven't learned to better or more use Taoism to frame my view of the world and live better. That's the struggle for me, finding where it all fits together.

Together in my life, my body and my mind, and in the world, or from my corner and view of it. Real or not, it's mine, as given, seen, thought and felt.

Thought in passing

2010-03-13T04:44:00.000-08:00

Two thoughts in passing and probably from somewhere, long forgetten where.

People

Clever people speak to impress.

Smart people speak to inform.

Intelligent people speak to teach.

Wise people speak to share.

Wisdom

Wisdom isn't knowledge, but understanding.

Understanding isn't education, but experience.

Wisdom is understanding experience, and sharing it.

Glass of water

2010-01-16T13:04:00.000-08:00

Notice.-- This was first written and posted on my Dysthymia blog (see my profile for my blogs), but it overlaps into my view of Taoism as both my Dysthymia and Taoism are inextricably linked in my mind and part of my sense of being and living, so I am duplicating it here for others to read.

Glass of Water
Why do they always ask you about the glass of water half filled with water, "Is the glass half empty or half full?" What not just say, "It's a glass of water." Why is the water seen as optimism and the air as pessimism? Or better yet ask, "Gee, I'm thirsty, do you mind if I drink it?" Or ask, "What type of water?", meaning where did come from, to know it's origin more than the faucet.

Why can't an optimist say, "It needs to be filled up."? Or, a pessimist say, "Maybe someone is thirsty."? Why do they want to assign some qualitative value to a clear glass of water? Relative to its content of water and air? Why can't they give you the option to say it's both, half full and half empty, an equal amount of each?

Well, I don't know but psychologist love to make things an either-or judgement to see which side of the fence you mentally live. Like it matters? For what? It doesn't change you, and certainly not the glass of water. Only them making some judgement of you, not that it's important or critical, just personal to them.

Which means, to me, it's simply cow pasture material. A Taoist would look at the glass and say, "It's a glass of water." Nothing more than the simple observation. A realist would say, "Well, is anyone going to do anything with the glass of water?" Nothing more than thinking out loud.

But it's at the heart of many psychologist's, or therapist's, questions, the either-or idea to discover something good or bad about you or your thoughts, emotions, or feelings. And if you can't or don't want to make a choice, then they'll push until you make it, meaning your reaction is now part of their judgement.

Like, "So why are you afraid to say if the glass is half full or half empty?" Like it matters? And if you, "The glass is both half full and half empty.", they will ask you why you thinks it's both. Like it's the reality of the glass and the air and water inside it? Why are we driven to either-or choices?

Taoism teaches you it's both as both are necessary to the balance of the world. And Dysthymia teaches you to see it's both, like there isn't any other reality, let alone a choice between two, if not more, choices. It's always, "All of the above." when it comes to life and the world.

I would ask, "Why a clear glass?" Why not an opague one you can't quite see the line between the water and air? Why not a black one where you have to imagine the air and water? Would they ask to imagine and decide, make a choice? Why? What does it say about you? What does it tell the psychologist? They all don't interpret the answer the same, so then why answer?

The whole world of your mind, all in a glass of water. And now I'm thirsty.

Death

2009-12-29T18:24:00.000-08:00

I was talking with a neighbor who's a retired recovery therapist. She's into a number of things about life and death, and we talked about death itself. To that end I offered my idea of death, which isn't scientific or much beyond mine and simply what I think is a common sense view, or at least for me.

I think we're hardwared not just to die, as they're finding out what causes the cells to quit reproducing to sustain the body, but how we die. I mean evolution gave us the steps where and when the body actually dies. It's an observation thing, but here goes. This means there are three parts we're given.

First, the brain has the mechanism to be aware something is wrong and there is a probability the death is immenent. We know what and how the brain works with the body, so it seems logical it know when the body isn't working and most likely dying.

Second, the brain has a trigger to start the dying process. This is where I think people get their near-death experience. I say this reading about death and about the deaths in my family. I say this for several reasons.

People who die a natural death don't seem to feel pain, or very much, so, to me, the body must have a way to block all pain from the body sending pain from dying. This is the white light. This, to me, is white noise. The brain has to have a way to flood the other areas, especially the sensory and pain receptor areas, with noise to avoid sensing the reality and pain of dying.

People who come back or experience near-death from several injuries, talk about seeing one's life and talking with long-dead people. I think, and this is somewhat supported by the literature, the brain dumps the longerm memory into the active parts of the brain. In short, a "Here's your life in a snapshot." idea where you don't see or think about anything else but your life.

Third, the brain has a proces for dying. It has to do something to quit, tell the all the organs and especially the heart to stop and then the brain to quit. There has to be a point the brain innately knows it's time to quit, the last switch of life. The person never realizes it because without pain, seeing their life and such, everything suddenly and quietly stops.

I was reading an article about a man watching his wife of many years die. He said, as he sat by her side, she breathed a breath. And then another. And then no more. Gone in a heartbeat and breath. One instant here and another not. And she didn't change the time between life and death.

My father died quietly in his sleep. He went to bed after his 75th birthday and never woke up. All the next day he didn't respond to anyone or anything. He kept talking to people long dead from his life. All dead people and all past events. And then early the next day he quietly died.

I've argued he simply gave up on life and died, but during the process he didn't express any pain something was wrong or that he was dying. He was somewhere else from his body. The brain simply took control and followed a process to die. Like the woman above, he simply stopped breathing and died.

I imagine death like taking a nap. You lie down, slowly fall asleep. And hopefully you wake up, but in death, you don't. You never know because your brain is busy doing other things for you. Your brain never tells you you're dying, it's just stops sometime during the sleep. As evolution has given us.

Ok, it's just an idea, and just mine. And it's one will never know if it's right or true. Not even me telling you, "I told you so!"

Death in hindsight

2009-12-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

Ok, not so bright, but why do we like to express something we had to do or we would die? When is death an excuse or a reason for doing something else? And if the person didn't do or didn't say what they did, instead of death, would they have died? Obviously not because they certainly wouldn't have taken their own life or do something which makes someone else take their life.

So why is it used? In the end we still die from whatever condition, circumstances or situation, and we die whether or not we said or did what we felt we had to then. It won't matter in our death. It won't matter beyond that moment we made the decision or acted as we did. Yet, we like to say it wasn't a conscious choice, or it was but the choices were it or death. But it's always in hindsight.

We knew then before we decided or acted we wouldn't die. We knew it because we didn't think about it as either that or death. We simply decided and acted. But rather than say we made the best choice or took the best course of action because it was the best at the time from what we knew then. Death was the farthest thing in our mind.

So, why do some people like to use death as an excuse for not trusting and believing in themselves?

Mark Twain

2009-11-02T12:31:00.000-08:00

I don't think anyone can argue against common sense, and against folks who have made it a part of the lexicon of America, like Will Rodgers and Mark Twain. While much of what they said was said in jest or humor, and some would argue there's little if any difference between the two and often they're both about truth, it could be argued they also said a lot about the simplicity and complexity of the world and life in a spoken throught.

Take for example the beginning of Mark Twain's book, "Following the Equator" where there is a photo of him on the steamship above the inscription, "Be good and you will be lonesome." Well, Jimmy Buffett took it farther in a verse in the song "That's what living is to me", when he wrote,

Be good and you will be lonesome.
Be lonesome and you will be free.
Live a lie and you will live to regret it.
That's what living is to me,
That's what living is to me.

I'm not sure what this has to do with Taoism, and maybe why I'm not much good at understanding the depth of Taoism, but somehow it struck me as something of the essence of the Tao. It's about being and who you are, your personality and character. As Martin Luther King said, "Let them be judged by the content of their character."

How often do we sacrifice being good? How many times a day? And at the end of the day do we still consider ourselves to be a good person? Will others see us as a good person? Based on what we did today? Or what we did to or with them?

The reality is we can't. We can only try and do our best, and then hope it's good. And then learn from both what we did and what good we may have done, or not done. And hope people understand to judge us fairly, by our intentions, our decisions and our actions, all reflecting our character.

The truth is we don't think about being good when we're thinking, deciding and acting. We think about the issue, the problem or whatever is in front of us. We simply do and let hindsight judge us. Good is what it's called later.

New Series

2009-10-10T11:52:00.000-07:00

I've updated my Tao blog and am adding a series on my understanding and interpretation of Tao Te Ching. I've also added an introduction on my view and Mt. Rainier. I will occasionally reread and rewrite the essays as I read and learn the Tao Te Ching.

You're welcome to send me comments, suggestions. questions, etc.

Tao Te Ching II

2009-10-01T11:51:00.000-07:00

About two years ago I wrote about reading the Tao Te Ching. Well, two years later, I've read some of it, and forgotten most of it, so I will restart the conversation between the book and myself, most of which will be a dialog here about each of the 81 verses in the book, and what I think it means to me.

Yeah, I know I'm not a master or teacher of Tao. And I'm far from being more than just a casual, although I use the term lazy, Taoist, still it's about what it means to each of us individually and how we read, interpret, think and understand the Tao Te Ching, and then practice it with ourselves and in our life, with others and with the world.

In short, it's the personal journey we all make. I'll just express it as a series of posts about each verse. The essays won't be complete or necessarily correct. After all, there are many interpretations by the masters of the years, so mine is really amateurish at best, but still, it's mine, and as such is always open to questions, corrections, suggestions, whatever the reader finds in them.

So, that's it. I'll get back to the reading, thinking and feeling, and add the essays over time. Remember it took two years to get here, so 81 verses will take awhile. And isn't that the point of the time, to learn, grow and improve oneself?

The Edge of the Abyss

2008-09-21T11:49:00.000-07:00

I live on the edge of the abyss. That place our mind fears for failing into and not coming back, or at best, sitting in the darkness and silence at the bottom looking for hope and light knowing it's not there nor coming any time soon. But more than that, I'm addicted to living on the edge. It was a gift. Not something that happened, but something given.

You see I was born with genetic Dysthymia. My father had it and my Mom was prone to short periods of depression. And they passed it on as the baseline of my life. It's always there, just underneath the exterior, a vast interior of my mind, sitting on the edge, of the abyss.

I reckon my abyss is not unlike the Grand Canyon. And I sit on the edge of the north rim, the south rim far across, lower and extending south onto the vast plain and the world beyond. The river deep below flowing like emotions and thoughts traversing my mind into the deep and deeper recess of experience to reveal the sorrow lying within alongside the self-hate.

The simple reality of my being. Long determined before birth and evolving through a life, just as the blood flows through me, the feelings rage through my mind. Sometimes torrents. Sometimes calm. The definitive history of a depressed life. And the constant struggle to stay alive and sane.

And in that is the chance and often experience of seeing and being on the other side. The south side of the rim feeling the light and warmth in the view of the abyss and far side. Feeling the flood of life at the last moment of it, to return to the living, still alive, but not renewed, just older. And maybe a little wiser.

As the sun brings our shadows, life and death shadows my existence. Never far apart and never far from my consciousness. Visible in everything I see, read, hear, touch, taste and smell. The whole of my experience flavored with the duality of both and each. Always wondering and always wanderiing around every facet. Waiting for periods of calm when just feeling alive is enough for the moment.

Sitting in a cafe, table for two against the window, with the opposing vacent chair, I imagine the whole world, just for the brief moment, everything in motion, doing what it's doing then and wherever everything else is happening. And wonder if my existence is anything more than just that, and like everything else happening, just is and just happens. And the next moment, and the one after that.

It's the view from the edge of the abyss.

If Tears had a Voice

2008-07-15T11:48:00.000-07:00

I didn't know whether to tag this entry about Taoism or Dysthymia. I still don't and may change it in the future, but I was thinking about it and joking with the professional who attends to my weekly sessions. It's not painful in that pain is the goal or the process of the treatments, but simply the side-effect of it. It got me to thinking since I don't externalize pain.

I notice people express pain along a spectrum, from those who externalize, really vocalize, any and all pain, no matter the intensity or severity, even the slightly cut is sounded, heard by everyone, to those who never say a word, expressionless for the most part except some facial expressions. And everything in between in shades and degrees.

I'm on the extreme end of internalizing pain. I have rarely vocally expressed pain, only some anger, and mostly just stand there and feel it, knowing every brain cell in my brain is screaming. But nothing comes out, except tears. During the treatment we talked about it as she said people vary so much during these treatments, both in the threshold and expression of the pain.

I said, if tears had voices, you would hear me across the street.

God II

2008-07-14T11:00:00.000-07:00

I was listening to an interview between a philosopher and a religious leader. The philosopher stated, "God is a social construct." The religious leader said he couldn't accept this because his faith said it wasn't a construct but the underlying basis of life given to us by God. Talk about polar opposites.

And I don't know about you, but I can't think of way to argue (in the debate meaning) with someone who says that it's all about faith, something they can't provide proof of its existence or something you can't test to determine if it exists or just something in the mind or imagination. Harsh? Not really when you consider many of them say it's about their faith, and even they can't define it or prove it's existence other than their belief.

Except that many take out the Bible to show their faith, and say, it's all here, the word of God. Really? Their Bible is their faith or God? Both? But did God write the Bible?

And this is the crux of the issue, who wrote the Bible. If God wasn't human and didn't have the capacity to write, where did the words and ideas in the Bible originate? Bible scholars are certain various men (not no women or ones so acknowledged) wrote the Bible over its lifetime. And we're told the word of God was expressed through them. Literally, firguratively or some other means?

And do we know they actually got the translation right, even after all the translations and edits over the milleni? How many translations of the Bible have there been? And we know the current Bible is accurate and correct? But which version today is that? So, we have all these versions all of which have been or are accurate and correct, but they all differ in writing and interpretation.

And then there are other religions. If the Bible is the word of God, what about Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Shamanism, and all the other religions? Isn't their God and the word of their God different? So, who's God and book of God is right? Which is the true, accurate and correct version of God?

And what about the history of the Bible? Why don't we have versions before about 4-5,000 BCE? if God has existed all these millenia and a part of human history, where are the Bibles of long ago? Didn't they have a God and their God gave them words to live by and with?

Ok, wandering around a bit. But it always intrigues me about people who assign faith to the belief out of dedication to an imaginary entity with a book replete with unproven and unsubstantiated power. It is and that's all there is, or so they say, without reservation or question. It gives them something solid to believe in and live by.

I don't find that wrong, only wrong when the espouse that it's what we all should do and be, something they simply can't define or prove. I'm not disagreeing with them, I'm only asserting the philosopher has a point. Without a social framework, does God exist?

Or is God the result of construction for a social environment for how everyone should think or behave? Without people is there a God? And can people exist without a God? But who's God? My God or your God? And if we agree about God but disagree with the details, who's God is more right?

Ok, it's the endless circular argument and everyone is right and wrong, because neither side can prove their side or dispprove the other side. Or so their God says, or they say their God says. To them.

To me, I'm always wondering and questioning for in the end, it's the old adage, it isn't we who ask the meaning of life, it us who are asked the meaning of our life. And for that you don't need God except as an excuse, a reason or an explanation. You still to answer for yourself, something no God can help.

God

2008-07-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, it's about God, but not your God, my God. And really two faces of my God, the serious one who is the soul of our faith, the indefineable reason we do things and sometimes make decisions, and the other, the imaginary one who invented and runs the universe, except it's not the same as most people think.

You see God is a the CEO of Universe Inc., the head of "the" corporation of the whole ballgame of everything. The corporation has subsidaries, division, companies, etc., the whole bureauracy of running the universe, except their names were based on astronomy, species, thoughts and ideas, ethics and morality, etc., and God has a Board of Directors who oversee the grand plan and ensure the tenets of the corporations aren't broken.

Remember God inherited Universe Inc. He was recruited by the fomer owners who needed a CEO after the last Big Bang where everything was collapsed into a black hole and then exploded into a whole new universe, which version we'll never know since everything was destroyed and recreated anew. So, God was hired, after which God needed a staff, God couldn't run it alone.

So God created a corporate-government style management team and approach where there is no money but just the value of being and doing good. But God knew that doesn't always work, so God and Universe Inc. has branches that ensures everything is monitored and reported. God can't intervene, God can vaguely suggest in your mind.

You see in this version of the universe the Really Big Entities who hired God decided to limit his power to control. The RBE built the framework, eg. laws of physics, evolution, and so on, called our science, and decided to limit his intervention powers. God is only allowed to start things in motion, like Earth, and let things happen. The rest is up to us or whenever we get these vague notions or messages from God.

And so I have these imaginary conversations and discussion with God, God's personal secretary and staff with the various heads of each branch, divisions, companies, subsidaries, offices, etc., kinda' just like we all have in our work and life, dealing with all the situations, circumstances, problems, etc. which happen when you set something in play and it all goes awry.

The problem is that God, his staff and everyone else in Universe Inc. thinks at the speed of light, or close to it, so I have to stretch the conversation out where us mere mortal can comprehend and understand. Such as we are, limited by our initial rules of being and by evolution. Sorry to all you Intelligent Design, aka. Creationism, folks, we're the products of physics and chemistry with evolution.

And so you know, God is never down or blue. God might be upset, but then God can't change the rules of the game. God can only gives hints and hope the person getting one or more, actually is listening and heeds them. Otherwise, God chalks it up to us. God tried, we didn't. It's these conversation God has with the staff that pop into my mind and spill out through the fingers to the screen and into words expressing ideas.

And as Rusty Wallace so aptly said, "Stay tuned Hot Rod, we're just getting started."

Just a Thought

2008-07-14T09:00:00.000-07:00

Young people die with unfullfilled hopes and dreams. Old people die with unfullfilled memories. And the rest of us in between die with unfullfilled realities, of what we can't do, won't do, or don't have the time to do. We die knowing our hopes and dreams haven't come true and our memories aren't full realized. We die as we lived, trying to understand not knowing it wasn't about understanding, but about just living, with what you have and who you are, and trying to do more, not knowing if it's real or a youthful hope or dream. And it fades into an unfullfilled memory.

Maybe I should stop listening to the blues (music) at night.

People

2008-07-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

Specifically meeting people, or more so accepting people. I got to thinking about this from an on-line bulletin board discusson about this topic, about meeting people with disabilities or who are obviously different than they appear, whether by way of recent circumstance or situation or by intention. And I suspect you're going, "Huh?"

I remember when I lived in Phoenix, or really lived in Scottsdale and worked (office) in Phoenix. I spent a lot of time in the field, especially the summer doing groundwater work, namely locating, inventorying, measuring and sampling wells - not fun in the summer there around agricultural wellheads and pumps. By the time I got back I was hot and tired and didn't want to fix anything to eat, so I found an alternative.

Many of the resorts in Scottsdale have happy hours from 4-6 pm. No surprise, it's good for business. Anyway, one about a mile or so my home had a great food spread, and for the price of a beer, albeit expensive beer, you got a free dinner, ensuring you didn't gorge yourself and be evicted and not invited back. This one had great waitresses who simply took your order, and when returning with your beer (Guiness for me) would invite to the food.

Well, I would first stop by the office and at least cleaned up a little, meaning a quick wash of the sweat and shake off the desert dush from the clothes and boots, and then go to this resort. I would spend about an hour watching the people, drink my beer, eat a little food, and leave a good tip before heading home. Sometimes someone would come and we'd have a good conversation about Arizona, mostly tourist visting.

One day, a man came in wearing cowboy boots and dustier than me. Before he sat down the waitress took his order and he went to the food bar. Seeing me there, looking not that much different, meaning having spent a day in the desert, he came over and we talked about work. He was a driller who explored for water, oil, whatever he was contracted to drill for, and he'd come back from a bad day at the drill site.

After he left and I was getting ready to leave, I stopped the waitress I usually got and thanked her for the service to someone as bad looking as I was often. She said she takes people as they come and didn't mind people who weren't always cleaned up. She said you never know who they really are, and mentioned the man who I talked with and said he owns the exploration business we spoke of and is worth millions (remember it's the mid-1980s').

So you never know.

Another time, years later being inTacoma, I used to take walks at lunch. I'd pick a direction and walk for half and hour to turn around and walk back a different route. Being the office was downtown it was fairly easy to pick a direction and find a whole different scene and flavor of Tacoma. Sometimes I ended up walking through adjacent neighborhoods and occasionally meeting people working in their yards or outside their business or church and have a short conversation.

One day coming back I was walking across a plaza when I heard a loud commotion in the street. A transient was walking down the block in the middle of the street yelling at the drivers in cars. And when we wandered to the sidewalk people quickly walked away from him, or face him yelling at them too. Finally he walked onto the plaza where I was standing.

I had stopped to watch the whole incident, and seeing me he started to walk up to me yelling things I really didn't understand. When he got about 3 feet in front of me, he stopped and in a quieter, but still loud tone, continued to talk. After about a minute he stopped and just looked at me. I still don't know why I didn't walk away.

When he stopped talking I simply said in a quiet tone, "Are you done? What's your name?" He got this blank look on his face, so I said, "I'd like to know your name." He stared at me, and didn't move or talk so I repeated myself saying, "I can't help you if I don't know your name.", and after about a minute or so, he just turned and slowly walked away. By then the police came and he walked up to them and surrendered without even a word.

He quietly got into the patrol car and they drove off. All he wanted was to be recognized for being a person. No different than I did in that resort.

The Tao of Coffee

2007-11-15T08:00:00.000-08:00

Ok, I like coffee. I mean, really like it. Especially small, intense coffee drink with a dollop of whipped cream. But I'm not a coffee snob. Well, sort of not and sort am. I like real coffee, not the stuff long advertised on television and sold in cans in grocery stores. I haven't bought that kind of coffee in, say, nearly 30 years. And while I will drink regular restaurant coffee, I usually try to find a cafe with a barista.

Not the person who follows instructions to use the giant espresso machine on the counter behind the cash register with the row of flavorings on the shelf above the machine, but a real barista who has the experience and interest to make your cup of coffee. And yes, making a cup of coffee can be mundane and routine, but sometimes it's really personal for you, because they always, deep down inside, love their job and work.

Anyway, coffee has Tao?

Well, not coffee per se, not just the cup of coffee, but then again it could have Tao. It's also the whole universe around that one cup of coffee sitting in front of you. From the coffee plants, the collection and processing of the beans, the transportation of the sacks, to the cafe where the beans are ground and made into the cup of liquid in your cup. You relish in the moment that is the end of the road. And if you don't relish it, then you're missing the whole of the experience.

Because it's all about getting in to the making of the cup and the enjoyment of it. After that it's the grounds into the waste, hopefully to be recycled, but often dumped into a landfill, and the cup to be washed and set in the stack for the next customer, or the cardboard cup discarded in the nearest trash receptical. The sad irony of existence, enjoyed for a moment then discarded as we move on in life.

It's the human condition in the world today. It's global, and everything is just a commodity, even people as cargo to travel or sadly too often as the product of human traffikers for the human slave or sex trade or coyotes for illegal immigrants. But that's another topic. Here's it's coffee. Just those small beans which people spend lifetimes in the growing and production, in the evaluation and trade for companies, in the consumer production of the coffee and the many flavored drinks, and in the drinker.

And I've wandered, but then that's what a good cup of coffee does, offer a rich substance to let you sit and wonder, ponder and wander in thought. It's been the drink of people in cafes for centuries or longer in homes with friends and loved ones. It greets our day when we walk into the kitchen, graces our meals, sits idly on our desks, and enriches our moments of leisure and conversation.

While you can argue the health risk of excess of anything, including coffee, it's shown to be good for us. It either helps wake us up or keeps us awake. It can heighten our thinking and senses. And on and on, in moderation, it's always helful and rarely harmful. It comes in so many flavors on where it was grown in the world. It adapts to many flavorings to make a host of hot and cold drinks. Or it can be made in its simpliest form, an espresso.

How many people do you see in line at the cafe, all too often in the US a Starbucks, citing their favorite version of it with milk and maybe some flavor(s) and with a snack, put a lid on the top and either stuff a straw in the hole for sipping or just sip it through the hole? Do you know you're missing the best part of coffee?

It's the aroma. Much of our sense of food or drink is the aroma, it heightens the taste and touch in our mouth. And all the while people miss most of the greatness of coffee, the aroma rising from the top into the air and your olfactory senses. It's why the coffee tasters stuff their noses into the cup, to get a whiff of the finess of the aroma, the sense of its true flavor. Why do they describe the taste and smell of the types of coffee? For you to miss it?

So, when you order your coffee drink, at least the first time, take the lid off and stick your nose close to the liquid and smell the aromas. What's not to enjoy what you ordered? And if you're really brave and want real coffee, order an espesso, plain or with whipped creeam. A Doppio Con Panna, and find out what's to like about a simple and good cup of coffee.

And then wonder the universe behind the one small cup of coffee in your hand and the universe of your world at that moment.

Reading the Tao Te Ching

2007-11-09T08:00:00.000-08:00

Well, a venture today was to find a bookstore with a good selection of translations of the Tao Te Ching. The local Borders had about dozen of so translations, so I sat down with them. I discovered in reading about the Tao Te Ching, besides being stories over the years told and meant to be obscure, vague and whatever description you want to use for open to a lot of interpretation in language, context and meaning, it's been translated almost as often as the Bible.

So after a Mocha, a table and comparing selected verses, I chose the translation by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English, Vintage Publishing, 1972. It's a straight-forward, small paper back with an introduction by Jacob Needleham and just the verses. The rest is up to you. All for $10, and I suspect you can find it cheaper at used bookstores as it's an older translation. The introduction explains the history and background to the text. And it is different from the Bible in one respect.

Where the Bible is a book to a good and moral life, and as interpreted by many to be specific about what you should or or even think, the Tao Te Ching gives you a guide through ideas and leaves the rest to you to discover the truth and answer between you and the universe. It's a guide to a good and moral life, but in stories where the interpretation is up to you. You are your own guide. It knows the world and universe is constantly changing and rigid rules don't work, but a good person knows the Tao (way or path).

Some might think it's more like putting someone in Cairo, Egypt and told to traverse the breadth of the Sahari Desert to Dakar Senegal without a map or compass (ok, GPS too). With the Tao all you have is your moral compass and your innate sense of being good. And with study, practice and observation of the world, you will know what is good and right. It will both think and feel right without thinking or feeling. You will know but can't describe. It will be.

And with my photography, it's much the same. When it works, I'm not thinking or sensing, but just being and doing. The camera and I are, to borrow a worn out cliche, one. This doesn't mean all the images will be good, that's the reality of photography, it's 99% failure. But the one, or if you're lucky, the few, will be worth it, in your heart and mind.

Or at least I'll tell myself on the way with my camera.

Tao Te Ching and me

2007-11-07T08:00:00.000-08:00

To quote Wikipedia about the Tao Te Ching:

"There are many possible translations of the book's title, owing to the polysemy of the component Chinese words:

Dào/Tao 道 literally means "way", "road", "path", or "route," but was extended to mean "path ahead", "way forward", "method", "principle", "doctrine", or simply "the Way". This term, which was variously used by other Chinese philosophers (including Confucius, Mencius, Mozi, and Hanfeizi), has special meaning within the context of Taoism, where it implies the essential, unnamable process of the universe.

Dé/Te 德 basically means "virtue" in the sense of "personal character", "inner strength", or "integrity", but was used differently by Confucianists to mean "morality". The semantics of this Chinese word resemble English virtue, which developed from a (now archaic) sense of "inner potency" or "divine power" (as in "healing virtue of a drug") to the modern meaning of "moral excellence" or "goodness". Compare the compound word dàodé (道德 "ethics", "ethical principles", "morals," or "morality").

Jīng/Ching 經 originally meant "norm", "rule", "plan", "warp" (vs. "woof") and was semantically extended to mean "scripture", "canon", "great book", or "classic".

Thus, Tao Te Ching can be translated as "The Scripture/Classic/Canon of the Way/Path and the Power/Virtue", etc.
Note that there is in fact no "its" in the title, either explicitly or implicitly. Therefore, commonly accepted translations of the title such as "The Book of the Way and Its Power" are in fact adding an extra element that takes away from the accuracy."

This says far better than I - "Gee, really, with all those experts contributing to it? Like Duh!" And I'm only a beginner, and I'll admit, a oft lazy student at that. I tend to explore it two ways. The first when I'm im a severe episodes of depression with my Dysthymia, often called double depression and when wander away when I feel better. The second is when do my street photography, walking around looking, seeing and taking photos.

Over the years I've added more ways in the everyday events and activities in my life, such as meeting and talking with people, remembering people I've met occasionally over time, finding humor in the small things in life, enjoying the sheer joy children express, and on and on. Some of my best photography is simply doing, not thinking, but just walking and viewing with the camera.

It's often the times I either get into trouble or forget where I am to find I've lost track of time, place or distance. I only exist as an extension of my camera and, to borrow the worn out saying, the camera and I become one. Trite? Perhaps. But what else is there to explain it? The tool and the hand dissolve into one and the mind and eyes see through the camera to capture what I see. No thinking, just being and doing.

And so I'll continue as I go, and hope I will get better at being a human being and a photographer.

Photo Student of the Tao

2007-11-06T08:00:00.000-08:00

I was browsing in a bookstore recently and wandered into the religion section for another reason but ended up looking at books on Eastern religions, namely Taoism, which I've been a student of since 1975 when I read Alan Watt's book "Tao, The Watercourse Way".

Then I was a student in geography and hydrology, not of Taoism or other religions or philosophies. I was preoccupied with getting my bachelors and masters degrees in geography specializing in water resources. Life is like that, it consumes your attention, energy, focus and resources, and when you think you're busy enough something hits you from a direction and with a force you're not ready or prepared. The ole' mental thump on the forehead.

Well, I really didn't understand much of the book except the basic ideas and one visual image that's never left me about life. In the book he describes our being a hollow tube floating on a river. You're not interferring with the flow but moving with the flow. You can't effect the flow but you reflect the flow. You're simply being with the flow and the flow with you. And he writes, if you can understand it, then you can't describe it, and if you can describe it, then you don't understand it.

And so obviously I don't understand it. And thus, like many, I'm simply a simple student of it. And over the years I've understood it also applies to photography. It's not about you, the camera and the subject. It's about you and the flow of life, and you're holding the camera to capture instances in the flow. And the same rule applies, but to this you can add that when you capture it you're simply capturing a moment in time and place.

And in the moment, it's about being in the moment of life and the moment of photography. Bringing you and your camera into, as they say, harmony with life and the flow of life. Kinda' sounds esoteric, don't it? Well, it is philosophical and religious in one sense and on one plane of life when it's really about working. But it's also as the saying goes, it's about "being in the moment" and that moment is the Tao and Tao of photography.

And so, like many other writers on the subject (geez, do a Google search on "Tao of Photography" and you get a ton of links), I'll explore the Tao as it relates to my understanding of the Tao and of life and photography. It's all just personal and a personal exploration to finally reread all the chapters in the "Tao Teh Ching", using Henry Wei's "The Guiding Light of Lao Tzu" and Philippe Gross and S.I. Shapiro's Tao of Photography.

So it's all relative to those books and me. The rest are my wanderings in throught and images.