Category Archives: here and now

Walk In The Waters of Life

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Since I launched this blog (a whole month and a bit ago already), I’ve had an idea for a post. A short, spontaneous, chatty but informative little piece on my favourite name and form of the Divine Feminine (often referred to as the Goddess): Saraswati.

Well, as the keenly observant among you will have noticed, no such post has appeared. Procrastination in overdrive you might say. Or perhaps it was that the Goddess just wasn’t keen on me doing the post about her?

You see, I did some research, made a ton of notes, and discovered all kinds of fascinating things and I just felt I wanted to share what I’d learned. Somehow, though, the idea didn’t go any further. I’ve thought about it from time to time, but still, nothing has come. Then, a couple of days ago, I came across my notes and reread what I’d discovered.

Now, here’s a key moment: as I reread those notes, I thought (paraphrasing here), ‘I really must post this. It’s all so fascinating and would interest a lot of people and even be helpful.’ Something like that anyway. Yet, still, it is not written.

So, despite my notes seemingly begging for my attention, I guess that maybe it’s not the time. Now my notes are safely tucked into a few nice little folders within a larger folder somewhere in the depths of my harddrive.

All that struggle; all that thinking and fretting over what was supposed to be a short, spontaneous couple of hundred words on a subject I love. Still, the episode has got me thinking about intuition and how it can disguise itself – with our help – as procrastination. And vice versa.

Yes, I know, obvious question: how can we ever know the difference? When are we inventing all kinds of reasons for putting something off, and when is it really intuition trying to guide us?

Well, it’s complicated. As creatures able to reason, we are always ready to come up with arguments for and against, to think endlessly and agonize over the smallest and most trivial details while ignoring the big stuff. Really, in my case that’s all there is to it: I just think too much.

Sticking to the Saraswati blog post episode (a catchy title don’t you think? Watch out for a post headed up ‘The Saraswati Blog Post Episode‘), I don’t recall why I didn’t just get right to writing it. It might have been any number of things: a perceived lack of time; a promise to self to ‘give it some more thought’; a resistance to the actual ‘labour’ required. Who knows?

Or, was it more that, while the idea was a good one, I just wasn’t feeling it? Maybe the timing just wasn’t right? The problem is that sometimes an intuition comes in a flash of knowing – with a capital K – that you can’t possibly miss.

Then, other times, it creeps up so slowly and quietly that it gets drowned out and ignored as our monkey mind takes over with its endless arguments for and against, pros and cons, advantages and disadvantages,

The lesson I was given here was this: What is going to get done, will get done; what is not going to get done, won’t. Sounds simple really, but so often we make it more complicated with our overthinking, our coming up with excuses. We procrastinate.

Then, at other times, we just dive in the deep end, flowing with the intuition. It may be right or it may be wrong, but it’s done. Actually, I am trying to realise that there is no right or wrong about a decision made: it just is as it is. Easy to type, hard to do.

Flowing. That’s a good word actually. Saraswati, along with many other characteristics, embodies flow. As in the flow of the river of life. She’s the Goddess of all things creative as well as any activity that helps one to discover the essence of self.

So, flash or gradual realisation; right or wrong; left or right, be the river: flow with what happens or doesn’t happen. Don’t fret about the twists and turns, the ebb and flow of tides, the rocks in the stream that force us to flow around or over, or to change direction completely. In 1946 the poet Jorge Luis Borges wrote an essay about time. In that essay, among other things he says:

Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river (emphasis is mine)

Jean Luis Borges A New Refutation of Time 1946

Reading that quote reminded me of a song that I’ve been humming on and off for a very very long time (hint: I saw the movie when it first came out).

The river flows, it flows to the sea.
Wherever that river goes, that’s where I want to be.
Flow river flow.

Peace from me to you.

PS: Thanks to my memory for giving me these lyrics from The Ballad of Easy Rider. Or was it actually Saraswati whispering in my ear?

Truth Is

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Namaste friends. Welcome.

Fake news, propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, manipulative advertising. Such a tsunami of information threatening to swamp us, all of it claiming to be ‘facts’ or ‘true’, mean we are almost continually asking, what is true? Who can tell anymore? When we look at the world we live in today it is a rare thing when we are able to tell if something or someone is real or true.

For me there is only one solution: stop looking to the world as the source of any kind of answers to anything, and particularly when it comes to trying to sort out what is true and what isn’t.

The only place you will find the answer to the question ‘what is the truth of …?’ and know for certain that it is true, is within yourself. You are the only one who can decide what is true and what isn’t, what is right and what is wrong.

It doesn’t mean you ignore all information from external sources; it only means that you appeal to that inner part of yourself, the intellect and beyond, to help you reach your own truth sifted from all that information.

It’s a well trod path in philosophical circles: the debate around absolute versus relative truth(s) has been going on for a few thousand years already, and it’s unlikely to reach any kind of resolution anytime soon.

I’m not saying that a thing might be true for you and not true for someone else. At the same time I’m not saying that there is some kind of externally arbitrated single, absolute truth that is always true regardless of whether one agrees or not.

What I am saying is that, if you come to the truth of a thing, situation, person, whatever, from within yourself and it is accompanied by that inner ‘I just know this is right’ feeling one gets sometime, then putting it simply, it is truth. Period; fullstop; that’s all there is to it. End of story.

If someone tells me there is a tiger in the centre of town, how can I really know if there actually is a tiger in the centre of town? And if three (or three hundred) people tell me there is a tiger in the centre of town? Well even then, how can I really know for sure if there is a tiger? There might be, or there might not be.

Okay then, how do I find out? Putting it like that the answer seems obvious doesn’t it? I go and look for myself.

But you know even then, do my eyes deceive me? Do I know what a tiger looks like? You see, even if my physical eyes see what I’ve been led to believe is a tiger, I still need to use my intellect, or even my intuition, to assess its real identity, to figure out the truth for myself. I mean, for my Self.

Afterword:

The tiger example is from a Chinese fable from the Taoist tradition. I’ll put my slightly elaborated version in my next post, and once it’s there you can find it here.

Buddhism’s Three Refuges: They’re for Everyone

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Greetings and Welcome

To become a Buddhist, , there are a number of things a person must commit to. One of these consists of a kind of three in one resolution that’s welcomed by any aspirant. In fact, some say that in order to be a Buddhist, one has to repeat The Triratna or The Three Jewels. Three refuges is the other name used.

I take refuge in the Buddha
I take refuge in the Dharma
I take refuge in the Sangha

The exact words used may vary, but The Three Jewels is common throughout the Buddhist world. And of course there will be many meanings ascribed to ‘take refuge’, but the one I like is the one that any of us might use in, say, a heavy downfall of rain. What do we usually do in when the rain starts falling? We look for shelter, we take refuge.

I don’t mean to suggest that becoming a Buddhist automatically means that one is seeking a safe dry cosy place out of the storm. Though, now I’ve said that, it does make sense. I know myself that (though I am not a Buddhist) sometimes the only way forward, the only means to seek the truth, and to find peace, is to take refuge somewhere or in someone or something.

Not being a Buddhist as I said, I’m not qualified to speak about Buddhism in any real detail. What I have in mind is I would like to borrow the Three Refuges and reflect on how we could all use what me might call a ‘secular’ interpretation as a way of putting into words our own commitment to finding a refuge, a safe haven as we tackle what is for all of us born into a physical body, a life of trials, tribulations, ups and downs, storms and lulls, happy times and sad times, and all the rest of the package that’s called living a life.

Let’s take a look at each of the Three Jewels (also known as the Three Treasures which I like a lot), and think about how we can apply it to our own life, to our own seeking of refuge.

I take refuge in the Buddha.

For a Buddhist, the Buddha is the Guru, the teacher, the one who holds the Truth and shows the way. Many people would say right now, well that counts me out. I don’t follow a religion. I don’t have a teacher or guru. I’m just another regular person trying to make my way through life.

While it may be true that you don’t have a teacher or priest or guru, or anyone else in the role of guide, there is one person who is always there with and for you, one person who is always thinking about you, who is making decisions for you on which way to go, what to do and all the rest: you.


Yes, you. Your Self. When it comes down to it, who knows you better than you do? Take refuge in you, in the Self. Need to make a hard choice? Look within. Feeling tired, or ill or fed up? Look within you for the answers to what can be done. Follow your intuition. You, plus intuition, plus you taking refuge in you, equals teacher, guide. You are your own guru.

I take refuge in the Dharma.

Once again there’s a myriad of ways to define dharma. And once again, I have a favourite: Dharma (often represented by a wheel) according to the religious tradition we know as Hinduism is cosmic or universal law that underpins right behaviour. It is the eternal and inherent nature of reality. In other words it is Truth.

We can all say, regardless of our beliefs say, I take refuge in the truth and in what is right. It’s a commitment to always acting in the best interests of everyone – including ourselves (maybe even especially ourselves). It is taking shelter or refuge in what is right. Living such a life in our messed up world is never going to be easy, so it is best to think in terms of doing the best one can. But having it as your ongoing guide will ease the path.

I take refuge in the Sangha.

A Sangha is an association or a community. Often used to describe monastic communities of monks or nuns, it may also include lay people. If we step outside of the religious framework, then a Sangha is a community that shares common bonds, beliefs, commitments, interests, and so on. Family, tribe, workmates, recreational and sports clubs. You name it: all sorts of groups might be sanghas or communities.

Of course, and perhaps very obviously, not all groups will be communities, And equally we may not think we are a part of any community; we may think of ourselves as being quite outside any group. However there are no rules that say a community has to have a set number of members. Besides, being in community is a condition and has nothing to do with group size or composition.

So, if you find yourself in a community of one – or two or however many – take refuge there. Make a commitment there. As with any other real community, this one begins with you and your truth.

The Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. The Teacher, the Truth, and the Community. Making commitments to the Three Refuges can create a solid foundation as we continue our journey through the world and our lives. The refuges – the safe havens we can call them – we have sought and found will support us through good and bad times.

Actually, I just thought: if we are genuinely able to take true refuge in these three treasures then we will conditioning our Selves to be more present, more in the here and now of who we are, what we’re doing, and what’s happening to us.

Peace to you from me

Be Present in the Presence

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Greetings and welcome

I write quite a lot about presence. I think a lot about presence, about being present, and all kinds of related ‘being in the moment’ kinds of musings.

Of course words like presence and present can have multiple meanings can’t they? About this time last year I read s book called Consider the Ravens. It’s about the history as well as the recent revival of interest in hermits and ways of living the hermit life.

If you are even remotely interested in living more in solitude, or living a simpler and more sustainable, life, or being more spiritually focused, then I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

There’s a paragraph from that book I’d like to share with you. It both describes some characteristics found in hermits and their way of life, as well as introducing us to a lovely phrase concerning the concept of presence.

Are hermits escapist? Yes. Is running away a bad thing? Like most choices it’s value is determined by its purpose. There are men and women who are selfishly seeking a sanctuary untouched by human pain. But there are others who deliberately choose to be powerless [in the eyes of the world], to live simply, and to use no more than their fare share of the world’s resources. They elect to be unknown, hidden, forgotten. And the goal? To become transparent to the Divine, or as [one hermit] succinctly phrased it: ‘to be always present to the Presence’.

Paul & Karen Fredette Consider the Ravens


I like that phrase; it’s what I’m aiming at. Actually, no. That’s not right: you can’t aim at being present, you can’t have presence as a goal to be attained in the future. I think that’s called an oxymoron. Anyway, all you can do is be; be present in the presence.

And it doesn’t matter what you call it: Presence; Truth; Reality; God; the Universe; the Cosmic Reality. They’re only names for that unnameable essence that we’d all agree can be called the Love that is in reality everything.

It’s that essence beyond all names – and forms. It’s what we sense is behind, above, and within all that exists in the world.

And, like a lot of people, I want to withdraw from that world of materialism. From the greed, the corruption, the cruelty and wilful ignorance, the … well, you get the point. My sense, and it is echoed in the quoted paragraph, is that presence is to be found in silence, and in solitude.

Of course it’s not necessary to be a hermit to be present – or in order to be present in the Presence. After all, few people believe they can go find a cave somewhere and withdraw totally from the world. (maybe it’s the belief that’s the problem?)

So, what to do? A wise person once gave a brilliant answer to that question and I have it on a card to remind me:

Yes. Be present and the direction will present itself.

Peace to you.

Mother Mary Come to Me

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Namaste friends

During the early days of the pandemic, I lived in a small town out on the edge of the Outback. But after a few months, the time felt right to head for the coast. Slowly. With that in mind and headed in the right direction, I spent six weeks in another small town in that semiarid zone, staying in a motel.

I liked it there, at the Maria Motel in Moree. Described as a low-key 1960s era motel, the Maria is right across the street from the Artesian Hot Pools, which are Moree’s claim to fame. For me (for us), it was another temporary hermitage and safe haven on the side of the road in which to take shelter for a while.

My favourite among the list of things I like about the Maria Motel is the statue of Mary out front in the courtyard. The Virgin Mary that is, Our Lady, the mother of Jesus. You know who I mean. And it isn’t only my Catholic upbringing and education that accounts for my fondness of Mary. It is more about what she symbolizes, what she stands for.

Watercolour by Pauline

For me Mary represents what I might call the feminine aspect of God. Some would call her the Earth Goddess. Mary is the mother, as in Mother Earth, Mother Nature. She is the feminine principle of the Universe. Respect and care for the mother is obviously the key to our survival.

This land from which this town was carved, has been inhabited since long before we began to mark time; since the beginning some say.

Those hot pools have been sacred for a very very long time. While nobody asked permission of the people who already lived here to build a town, at least when some of the invaders came they chose to honour the sacredness of the land they had appropriated by placing this statue representing the sacred feminine in sight of those ancient holy waters, and naming that temporary hermitage of mine, the Maria Motel.

Awen: Bring On the Creative Spirit

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Hello friends

My last post spoke a little about my study of the Bhagavad Gita, and it prompted me to share a little more with you about the actual book itself. Well, not the book as such; more like some of the words I’ve written on the title page:

I stand always on sacred ground and beneath sacred skies.
Awen          Awen          Awen
You are always with [a] devotee: Your Self


Every time I open that little book I see and read those three lines. They are all sacred to me with great personal meaning. Four distinct ideas, from four sources. In a sense reading them is a kind of preparation for my actual reading of the Gita.

While all those words are special to me, today what seemed to call out to be heard, was Awen.  Or I should say, the three repetitions of the word.

Awen has been special to me ever since a friend told me about it many years ago. It’s a Welsh word, basically defined as poetic – or creative – inspiration. It is sometimes personified as the Muses that inspires artists generally.

Wikipedia says, Awen comes from Indo-European root uel, meaning ‘to blow’. Awel the Welsh word for breeze shares this root. Awen is also ‘flowing spirit’, as in the flow of energy that is the essence of life. Reading this made me think of Bob Dylan:

The answer my friend
is blowing in the wind

Bob Dylan Blowing in the Wind

The symbol for Awen is beautiful. Three rays of light that emanate from three points of light. There are many interpretations for the three rays and the three points, but the ones I like have them symbolizing Earth, Sea, and Air; body, mind, and spirit; love, wisdom, and truth.

I like the idea that the three points are the actual foundation of Awen itself: the understanding of truth, the love of truth, and the maintaining of truth.

Enough with the explanations and definitions. The repetition of Awen three times is a kind of chant or prayer. As such, it’s an invocation of Awen, the divine creative energy – or the muse.

So there you have it: a little more about my special little book. Don’t worry, I’ll try not to make a habit of this. I guess it’s what happens when something is in your consciousness, and you just never know when Awen will reach out and bless you.

Thank you

Peace

Just Passing Through … or Seeking Noble Truths: A Poetical Sharing

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Greetings friends

In my last post I mentioned I would share a poem with you in this one. And here it is!

Just Passing Through … or Seeking Noble Truths, is, like the previous post, concerned with passing through, how as I go through life, I am always in some sort of passing through place. Before we get to the poem, just let me fill you in on a bit of the back story.

First, I wrote the poem as I walked home to our hermitage at the time in a town called Moama on the Murray River in Australia. Now, the Murray is the biggest river in the country and the then little town of Moama sits across the river from its bigger city sized sibling: Echuca, the biggest inland port in Australia.

Anyway, I’d just crossed the river bridge and the words just started coming to me. Not exactly as you read it here, but close. I am very lucky that I had only a few minutes walk left to get home, otherwise the whole lot could have been lost to memory.

The longer back back story? Well, as the poem suggests, I’d spent a lot of time hitchhiking, in Australia and a few other places too. It’s true what it says in the first lines: I’d done a lot of trudging through a rather large number of towns unknown to me then, and only some of which are better known to me now in much later years.

Okay, that’s enough back story to last a while, so let’s just present the star of the show. I share this, as I do all my efforts, with heart.

JUST PASSING THROUGH … OR SEEKING NOBLE TRUTHS


Many have been the nights 
I’ve trudged (and less often, strode) 
past illuminated windows framing. 
families sharing sit down meals. 
Or huddled worshipfully before 
flickering and silent (to my passing by ears) 
picture boxes in corners of cosy family rooms. 

I am just one more invisible (to most), anonymous 
drifter. Just passing through 
the empty nighttime streets of one more 
anonymous town. 
Longing to enter the illumined frame. 
Longing to share one of those sit down meals. 
Longing to worship at the alter of the flickering picture box. 
Longing is loss. 

The edge of town roadside summons 
this lonesome bodhisattva begging rides. 

It’s just one more quiet and cold 
semi desert night. A high moon in a clear sky 
casts ghostly shadows through Eucalypts: 
my only company as the waiting game begins. 
Waiting to see headlights coming and going my way. 
Waiting to be rescued from this lonely edge of town roadside. 
Waiting for another ride, to another anonymous town. 
Waiting is wasteful 

Better to be here, now, on this 
edge of town roadside. A place as good 
as any. Illumined by the moon, 
the ghostly gums create the frame 
in which this bodhisattva rests. 
And worships. 

Thank you for allowing me to share these words with you. The road, as many of you will know, can be a teacher, a guru. I don’t hitch-hike anymore, but the road is still teaching me. And I am grateful.

Sometimes Happy, Sometimes Blue

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Remember, this is just a passing through place

Many years ago now, a wise person I know used these words to remind me of a fact of life that, even now, I sometimes (to be honest, this should read very often) forget: we are – all of us – only passing through. For me, the words have extra resonance beyond what you might call that overarching reality of the temporary nature of our time in this world: I was, born and still am, a nomad.

Even though I very much see myself as being on a never-ending pilgrimage, I do often get anxious about should I move? should I do this? Should I do that? Existential and other kinds of angst are common to all of us I think. So, now and again it’s a good idea to hit the refresh button and click the reminder that I am always in a passing through place.

I often find myself singing (usually very quietly or in my mind) the chorus from Passing Through, a very special Leonard Cohen:

Passing through, passing through.
Sometimes happy, sometimes blue,
Glad that I ran into you.
Tell the people that you saw me passing through

Leonard Cohen – Passing Through

And that’s the refresh: It is literally true to say – both in terms of my internal life journey and where I might be geographically speaking at any given time – that I am only passing through.

Change is constant, that’s the message here. Being sometimes happy, sometimes blue are just facts of life Leonard’s song tells us. But putting the whole chorus together you can see it’s about presence. It’s about being in the ongoing present moment; the moment that just keeps on keeping on. It’s about living in and being conscious of that ongoingness, whether we’re happy or blue.

As I typed that last sentence, about states of happiness and blueness, I suddenly thought of a poem I wrote quite a while ago now. Just Passing Through. Or Seeking Noble Truths. It, too, is about presence, about the attachment to outcomes (like being happy, or not being blue) being the cause of our suffering. Of course this isn’t my idea: it’s one of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths.

I think I would like to share that poem with you. But let’s do it next time shall we? Because, while there might be no time like the present, as we’ve just seen, the present is ongoing.

So, see you next time

Peace and love

Right Understanding:First Step on The Eightfold Path

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In my last post, I reflected upon a lovely Buddhist mantra, an invocation for peace and happiness for all beings (Lokah Samastah Sukhino). We discovered along the way, that it is no ordinary mantra: it actually amounts to a solemn promise to contribute to the peace and happiness of others (and Self obviously).

Then we thought about how to actually go about acting on this promise: Be kind. That’s what I came to. That’s all that is required. But, as you will recall, being kind sounds easy but quite often isn’t. The Buddha himself came to our rescue with  The Eightfold Path,

At the end of that last post, I declared I would devote this next one to looking at Right Understanding, the first of the principles in The Eightfold Path. I said I would just sit at the keyboard and see what emerges as I thought about what is Right Understanding.

Before we get started, let me make the point that The Eightfold Path is not a kind of ‘to do’ list where you tick off one item and move onto the next. The Path is more about integrating the principles into our lives, letting them overlap when they do and moving forward in one area, while (possibly) moving backwards in another as our lives unfold with all the usual twists and turns.

The Eightfold Path is a life-long (some would say lives-long) process; don’t think in terms of goals to be achieved.

Does this mean we will need to explore all eight principles on the Path? Well, we’ll have to see how this evolves over time. Although as I say it’s not a to-do list, I think it more than possible to at least think about the principles or steps on the Path one at a time.

The second thing to say by way of introduction is this: As I mentioned in my previous post, there are virtually unlimited places on the internet where one can source The Buddha’s Teachings, including many commentaries on The Eightfold Path.

I’ve made no use of any of these sources. I have sought only to put down some of my own ideas and learnings, as well as just letting my heart have its say.

If in that process I’ve made any errors of any kind, forgive me. I merely follow The Buddha’s own instruction: Don’t take my word for it; Ask questions; Do your own analysis; Think for yourself.

Now that’s all out of the way, let’s just describe briefly the Four Noble Truths. This is necessary because the injunction to follow The Eightfold Path, comes in the Fourth of those Noble Truths.

Putting them as succinctly as I can, The Four Noble Truths are as follows: The first truth tells us that life is suffering, the second that the cause of suffering is desire (or we can also say attachment), the third that there is a cure for suffering and the fourth tells us what that cure is.

That’s where The Eightfold Path comes in: it’s what you might call The Buddha’s prescription for the alleviation of suffering. At this point I would like to suggest that if you are not familiar with the Four Noble Truths, please take some time to check out the topic for yourself.

The Eightfold Path does, as I mentioned last time, in fact sound very easy when put it in list form like this:

  1. Right understanding
  2. Right thought
  3. Right speech
  4. Right action
  5. Right livelihood
  6. Right effort
  7. Right mindfulness
  8. Right concentration

Remember, though, as I said, it’s not a to-do list we can work through one item at a time. Or perhaps we can put it another way: It is possible to work on one item at a time, but it’s not about getting that one completed before one can move on to the next item on the list.

The first step on this Noble Path we have embarked upon is Right Understanding. Actually it’s not only the first, it is the ongoing one; and it is the final step also on this particular Path of Liberation. And it seems to me that I’m right in this: my life has been one continual search for undetstanding.

Not many people know this, but I spent some time working as a journalist. One of the fundamental principles (aside from telling the truth of course) that I followed was the, Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How? set of questions.

Now, I wouldn’t say that it was necessary to ask every one of these questions in every situation. But, as a general rule, they served as a useful guideline to getting as much information on all relevant aspects of an event, a person, or whatever the subject of a story was. And I have to say that I find myself quite often using this list or some varient of it when I’m trying to understand or figure out something.

Why those questions? Where do they lead? What am I trying to do by asking them? How do they help me? (See what I mean? I can’t help myself) If we sum it up, then we would say that asking the WWWWWandH questions have the potential to lead us closer to understanding.

Let’s say you are unhappy with the work you do on a daily basis. You don’t understand why; After all, it pays okay; the hours aren’t too onerous, the work itself is fairly easy as work goes. What’s the problem then? You just don’t understand. You know there’s something not quite right, but you just can’t put your finger on it.

Who is doing that job? I am, you say. But, really, who are you? Is it you doing the job or just a part of you that you kind of section off from the real you for the working day?

What are you doing that makes you unhappy? Is it being in that workplace? Is it the work itself? It might be ‘okay as far as work goes’, but is it really okay?

When are you at that job? I guess this question is about how many hours, what percentage of your life you spend doing that job. And, even more to the point of the when question: When are you really there? How much of your work day are you actually off somewhere else? (refer to the where question)

Where are you? Are you where you want to be? And, kind of getting back to the Who question, who is it that’s there? Is it the real you? Or is it that sectioned off bit of yourself you access during work hours while the real you is off somewhere else?

Why are you doing that job/work? Well most likely your answer will be something like: I have rent to pay, food to buy, bills to pay, family to support. Well, those answers have to do with what you do with the money you earn from doing that job. The question lingers: Why are doing that job? I mean, the real you; why?

How can you be happier at your work? By now you’ve got the hang of this. If you have answered all the W questions then you will already be getting some clues about the answer to the H question.

Asking variations of this set of W and H questions can help us in many aspects of life where we seek understanding. They don’t have to be put as formal questions, and they don’t have to all be asked in every situation. Also they don’t have to be thought based queries either, if you know what I mean.

The answers may well come by simply asking the question, and ‘sleeping on it’. By that I mean you don’t have to tirelessly mull over a question. Meditate on it, think about it, of course, but then forget it consciously and let the answer come to you. And, of course you can always literally sleep on it.

There’s a small art gallery in a desert mining down almost in the heart of Australia. On their window they used to have a quote by  Claude Monet:

I know we aren’t talking about art here (or maybe we are?), but I think this quote applies to many of us as we try to understand our lives and our place in the world. Especially when it comes to what makes us happy. All of us spend a lot of time, not so much pretending as in going through the motions. That’s because sometimes it’s just too hard to try and understand.

But, keep at it. Ask the questions but don’t worry about the answers: they will emerge when they’re ready. True understanding is close to love, as Monet says.

Peace to you from me

I love the Now. When else is there?

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Over the last couple of months or so I’ve been listening on and off to Jimmy Buffett. I like Jimmy’s music, and I have liked it since the late 70s. I have at least ten of his albums in my Music folder.

Anyway, Buffett is an American singer/songwriter who writes and performs songs about beach life, sailing, exotic island paradises, and generally having a good time down at the beach and in and on the water. And preferably in sunny climes.

Yes. Hedonistic is a word that’s been used to describe his music and the lifestyle he celebrates. Still, I’ve liked him for a very long while now, and every so often I get into his ‘escapism’ and his relaxing in paradise kind of vibe.

Something a little rebellious about many of his lyrics too. But let’s not go there just now. What I want to talk about is a song I’ve listened to dozens of times, but when I played it again the other night, it got my attention in a way it never had before.

What I mean to say, is that for the first time I actually heard the song (Love the Now. Have a listen, you won’t regret it). I got what the writer was saying with his lyrics.

All the pain and the pleasure
I love the now
All the blood and the treasure

Then another verse:

The whole damn world’s gone crazy
The moon is jumping over the cow
How can you help
But not love the now?

It’s like he’s saying, ‘yeah, it’s all good.’ Not just hedonistic but nihilistic as well. Like he doesn’t care, doesn’t want to know. But, then, in another verse he writes:

It’s the only place I’ve ever been
It’s the only way that I know how

It is. That’s what he’s saying. ‘All the ranting and Ravin’ and ‘All the cussin’ and cravin’‘ are there for sure. Or, rather, they are all here. And now. But, dig a little deeper, read between the lines (so to speak).

Listen to this:

Don’t talk about your superstitions
Don’t talk about your cats meow
But don’t talk about tomorrow tonight
I Love The Now

You see? He doesn’t want to hear about your belief systems imposed on you by others. He doesn’t want to hear about your fears that have been manufactured by someone else to keep you in line. And he is not the slightest bit interested in your fancy material toys and other stuff (cat’s meow: a great expression coined in the 1920s meaning fancy, flashy, cool, awesome and other similar epiphets).

And don’t talk about some far off distant future (okay tomorrow night may sometimes seem awfully close to now, but you get the meaning).

The bottom line (literally and figuratively): he loves the now. And that’s because that’s all there is: the now.

So, on the face of it hedonistic, nihilistic even, as if he’s shrugging his shoulders in a ‘so what?’ kind of way. But he’s not doing that at all; he’s actually offering a solution to the overwhelming tidal wave of ‘things that are wrong with the world’, and about which many of us feel helpless and sometimes even hopeless.
The Now. It really is the only thing you’ve ever known, the only time and place you can ever hope to be. So why not love it? Why not just live it?

This is not resignation; it is not fatalism or a giving up (or in). In fact it is a courageous engagement with the total reality of life as it is right now.
Jimmy writes that:

Tomorrow’s right around the corner
I’ll get there somehow
But I’m stuck in [the] meantime

And, then, most importantly he says:

And I Love The Now