For the Beauty of the Earth (#309)

6. F. It is the end of the day and I am pausing to drop any cares from the day before I go to sleep….clearing the head. There is nothing more to write partly because nothing drops out of the head and lands with a clunk on the floor. That is a good thing I think but then why do I miss the excitement of chasing down identities and attachments?

[Another even longer gap]

5. F. I pause and look at myself and access my actions this morning; there has been a change in me over the months.

[A big gap whichj included a PaB session since last entry]

4. F. I recall the feeling of lovingness

3. SE. Allowing my sensory perceptions to dominate. Easy to do when listening music. As I allow that to work, I notice Love is there. First it is love for the music and then it begins to grow outward. I begin to think of people and the Love extends to them. This is something new and it is a wonderful feeling

2. Gr. For the beauty of the earth among the other things

1. TGT. Cool, cloudy day enhancing the appearance of lots of flowering trees and flowers. The contrast between the rebirth of much of nature and the ending of the semester is sometimes confusing. Still I remember it is enough to be alive and smell the flowers.

Seasonal Temps (#308)

5. F. It is good to be alive

4. SE. Stopping and dropping some of my attachment to my problems

3. SE. We humans have our own beautiful songs 9with apologies to birds, whales and singing insects)

2. Gr.

1. TGT. The day is back to more seasonal temperatures and I too am less stressed as I work and play my way through another day being alive on this beautiful planet

Transitions (#307)

11. SE. Timelessness. Love.

10. BrM.  I am tired and a bit stressed possibly from the heat. I realized in these transition periods I am living in multiple parts of the calendar. It is not a healthy place to be.

9. BS. Air from the fan is getting warmer and the music is most pleasant to the ears.

8. F. pause. Focusing

7. BS. Focusing on the taste in my mouth from a recent sandwich. This is an appearance coming to me

6. F. pause. I ask myself what is important and know that the answer is not one of the important things

5. BS. Great progress since last stop. I just needed a little BS. feeling the warm air from the fan blowing on me. Listening to people moving around afar.

4. BS. Focusing on me doing too much processing of data. This is the first time I tried “Being Seeing” since connecting it to sensory perception

3. Gr. Ah yes, the job thing. Much to be grateful for

2. TGT. A rather hot morning. I remind myself it is enough to be alive.

1. Last night I dreamed about moving into smaller housing. I was not clear on what I thought I should be doing. This is a transition time of year and I do get a bit stressed during these times. I am living in the lower world. I know it and haven’t had the desire to rouse myself out of it although I know I should.

Starting off Remembering (#306)

5. A sad ending to the day as one of my assistants departs. I never get used to friends leaving

4. I just had one of my rare ventures out of my windowless office for (a delicious) lunch. It is the 200th anniversary of the opening of the old hall here and they were ringing the bell 200 times to commemorate it. I had the sensation of finding it thrilling hearing the bell (usually silent). Then as it kept ringing it began to feel mournful, and then insistent. Same appearance, three different reations on my part.

3. F. Realizing I am picking up some negative energy I pause.

2. Gr. Remembering this too

1. TGT. Another day of summer like weather to begin the work week. Remembering it is enough to be alive. Iam sliding into being overly concerned with worldly issues. Part of this is that this is a time of transition. I must try to look past this.

Summertime in April (#305)

4. F. pause. Hmmm. I am in a bit of a funk.  I wonder if it has something to do with the heat.

3. SE. Reminding myself

2. Gr.

1. TGT. Summer is here prematurely and I am getting myself accustomed and knowing it is enough to be alive

Try to be Seeing (#304)

7. Woodpecker swamp lived up to its name. As we walked through there is a steady series of rat-a-tat-tats in different pitches as the woodpecker picked at different parts of the tree.

Woodpecker Swamp

6. Thinking of senses while walking: feeling warmth of sun on my hands and face, listening to birds, seeing appearance of light through and on the trees, feeling bark on the trees,, tasting my chewing gum and feeling its texture in my mouth, I startle a black snake along the side of the path and the quick movement of the snake startles me in return, I then stop and look at the appearance of the snake.

Black Snake

5. Out walking today it occurred to me that the warning might have been along the lines of my recent insights rather than a warning that my insights might not be so sound.

4. F. Last night I read some Bernadotte Roberts which I had not done for some time. She was making a distinction between consciousness and senses. I did not agree with the distinction she made between humans and other animals but I was interested that she said we could live without consciousness but not the senses. The more I thought about it, this is what I have done so far with Being seeing, that is I drop some of the self to perceive more sharply with my senses. Is that also what “seeing is enough” is. I tried to play with that a bit on my walk today. More of that in a later entry.

3. I had a dream last night which is a little gruesome. I dreamed that I, and some others, were confronted with a large box in which a child had willingly entered. It was supposed to be some kind of magic trick, like one of Houdini’s tricks. When we tried to open the box, the child started screaming and crying “help”. The sound only lasted for a short time and there was silence. The box was heavily built so we used a chain saw, to cut enough to lift off the top. Inside was another box just as heavily built. We opened that too with a chainsaw. Inside that was a safe. We called in a safe opening expert for that particular brand. When the door was opened, we found that the child had been in a compartment that was made to crush the child as soon as we had attemtped to open the box.

This dream seems to be a warning. Why?

2. Gr. Much to be grateful for this Saturday morning

1. TGT. Very cool start to what is to be a very warm day. Hoping today will be a day of seeing.

Sex, Religion and Shedding Clothes (#303)

6. F. Off to practice life

5. GS. I have been focusing the last week or so on my “illusionary” problems and I seem to have practical solutions. It seems to have made sense to do this and I feel good now that I can see a role for myself. I have neglected thinking more radically and connecting with timelessness. I can se that my solutions are as temporary as the problems and it is the deeper level to pursue. I have been thinking a bit about the difference between living in the real world and living in a cloistered setting. The author of “Clouds’ of Unknowing” would have us believe that living in the world is a lower level. But if we can live in the world and find the connection between God/Being and ourselves, isn’t that the more formidable task. There is a richness of life in the world.

4. F. pause from cataloging images of Daitokuji and listen more closely to beautiful music playing behind me. One more hour to the weekend. Life is good!

3. Gr. For my job, Spring and all the other usual things, I am thankful

2. TGT. We are beginning a warming trend that will go from wintry to summery within three days. Clothes are just like attachments…we must wear them lightly and shed them when necessary (hehe)

1. Last night I dreamed about religious intolerance. Why do people use sex and religion to subject others? Hey folks, religion and gender are not power tools for controlling other people! Of course people use other things too like race, nationality, age too. Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone just enjoyed the differences instead of using them to create misery.

Bright and Sunny (#302)

9. F. End of the day. I take deep breaths concentrating on the exhales. I finish and look forward to dreaming. I wonder if I will remember tonight.

8. F. just a stop

7. SE. I look and the thought comes to me that sometimes we cross through a doorway and we know we will not cross back. Other times we don’t quite have it yet and we will have to come back a few more times until we fully grasp it. I feel like I have done the former at least two times in the last week. Of course i will lknow better when the going gets rough

6. F. pause

5. F. I remind myself

4. F. I busy doing lots of “what, I do not know” and forgetting to stop. In a way, I am playing more than working. Who wants to stop playing?

3. I was dreaming last night about some kind of commercial enterprise I was trying to make work last night but I don’t remember the details.

2. Gr. Lots of stuff . I am appreciative too that a find has shown me a way to look at what has been a problem. All in all, there is no problem but that is only if I follow the new script that seems to be writing itself with some help. Three cheers for PaB.

1. TGT. What a difference sunshine makes in ones outlook to the world! After a series of gloomy days, not only is there sunshine but suddenly there seems to be green everywhere making the heart dance.

Appearance and Appreciation (#301)

5. SE. I look at myself from different vantage points

4. Gr. Add SL and PaB to the list which this morning,. Friends already are a permanent entry on the list. I remind myself I still have a job too

3. For a role playing to be successful, it requires someone to react to the role to validate it. Wow, I am getting some answers to things I have been wondering about lately. I can not apply one role to another. The connecting point is through Being.

Adams Rubble : Good morning!
***: Hi Adams, do you see where I am going with this
Adams Rubble : Yes, I have been watching and marveling at what you are seeing. You seem to be hitting on things.
***: Now I know why sometimes you are not there and why sometimes you can not be there
Adams Rubble : It also focuses you away from the idea there is something to defend which is what your dream suggested
***: Hmmm. Yes, that is the insight, isn’t it. Thanks for seeing that. The tricky part is what we do with this
Adams Rubble : I am usually the impulsive one but I suggest we need to slow down and consider this for a while. Yesterday you had an interesting thought
***: Oh? Just one?
Adams Rubble : hehe. You typed in “Adams Seeing” as kind of a half joke. The thought is yours, ***
***: I was thinking of a specific problem I am working on. I was thinking I need to look at it as you would.
Adams Rubble : Yes but maybe, as Pema says, maybe it is time to look at it more radically. What if we apply appreciation to our respective appearances. *** appreciates Adams and Adams appreciates ***. All the time we look at the appearance as a presentation of Being. Will that look past our defenses?
***: Hmmm. dear Adams, you spend such little time being defensive . It is worth a try. Are you ready for a little hard analysis?
Adams Rubble : Ready when you are. It goes both ways

2. TGT. Another day to be alive and appreciate appearances. It dawns on me that the appreciation of appearance is a better way to approach the same issues as in #1. We learn to see Being behind the appearance. This is one of those moments I see very clearly. Suddenly I begin to apply it more broadly and see a way to look at myself and all my own appearances.

1. I am a little slow getting to the computer to record this morning’s dream. I wonder how much that affects the accuracy.

I dreamed about a certain professional American baseball team that recently won the world series but was off to a bad start this Spring. It was Spring training and the players were supposed to write blogs. One of the players was a former third baseman who took quite a bit of flack while playing but was arguably the best third baseman ever to play the game. The players started writing and there was immediately alot of trash talk coming from another source. The source isn’t clear to me. Anyway, the third baseman just decided that he was not going to write until the first day of the season because he had no need to answer the criticism because he knew what he could do. He did not have to defend himself.

Since I have had a bit of time to think about this, it seems to me the message is to know oneself and that the appearance might not be what people think it is. Hmm, this message was in the first dream last night a little too.

Communication and Miscommunication (#300)

6. F. It is amazing how one can calm down from day to day.

5. SE. I stop and try to just look at myself

4. F. Stopping much later. Thanks to some friends I have made a quck recovery from yesterday when I picked up negative energy early in the day and could not shake it all day.

3. Gr. ……Amen!

2. TGT. Big rains last night and this morning was an aftermath. It was warmish, foggy and smelled like wet dog. It was also was immensely beautiful.

1. Wow, three hundred.

I remember two dreams about communication at the end of a long night’s sleep although they have been slipping waiting for the computer to boot. It is clear my imagination has been creative. I considered not publishing these because there is a chance someone will jump to the wrong conclusions. You will be wrong if you do that. These are messages of communication and miscommunication.

In the first I was a mother with a baby and we were being visited by a good friend who was admiring the baby. All the time there was a bald-headed man reading a newspaper in a winged-back chair in the foreground who was pretending to read but obviously listening. My friend said she wanted to give the baby a gift. The baby was playing with a plastic snail. The friend gave the baby a set of snails, each with a diamond in it. I said it was beautiful all the time thinking this was a terribble gift for a baby who might swallow a diamond not to mention the gift would not weather well. The set of snails turned into a gold covered, diamond encrusted, book cover. The baby, of course, was delighted and was holding the book as if reading it. I was trying to find a tactful way to get the book from the baby with out hurting my friend’s feelings. I tried to hurry my firend so I could replace the book with a more appropriate toy. My friend said to the bald-headed man “Look the baby is reading the book just like ———”. He put down the newspaper and smiled and said “That was the first time someone has included me in the conversation”. My friend smiled baclk and gently said: “Next time maybe you’ll talk too”.

The second dream I was with my wife although I do not remember whether I knew it at the time. There may have been suspicions that it was my wife. The person was not me but had a new avatar look to his face. My wife was a blobbish pile of plasm and making a terrible high-piitched squealing noise like a sea creature pulled out of the sea. Since we were sitting by the sea, I pushed it in with my foot. A friend came by just as the splash subsided and I asked what he thought of that. He said that my wife probably had some regrets and was trying to tell me she was sorry. I was aghast and dove into the sea a number of times to look for her but she was gone. (The next is commentary from the dream in the third person, as if I was telling someone:) Some years later I was in Boston and walked by the North Church. There was a wedding party leaving the church and I realized the bride was my ex-wife. She was as tall, slim and beautiful and radiant as the day I married her. I managed a smile and congratulated the couple as gracefully as I could muster. My ex-wife did not notice my discomfort and thought I had come on purpose and was delighted at my gesture of good will. We talked a bit and they invited me to the reception but I woke up instead.