silent thunder

My gut-mind suspects it's been around considerably longer than we've been told and longer than we've been aware of; due to the large numbers of folks like me, who were exposed and had no noticeable symptoms, similarity of symptoms to existing less threatening viruses; combined with not knowing to look for it in the early phases, this let it roam unattended for some period of time. Then factoring in its nigh on astronomical exponential growth rate and stunning survivability on surfaces, gut-mind resolves that it has been with us for a while already and by the time we became aware... it was not only out of the bag, we soon realized we didn't know if there had ever been a bag, or if a it had ever been in one. Gut-mind does not see how any corner of human activity avoids the eventuality of exposure. What i seem to know is that there are things i can do to enrich my body and mind to support my own personal vitality and health. Eat well, sleep often. Do not flee from, nor overly dwell on that which causes mind to grow caustic, or hopeless, or manic. Be mindful of thinking patterns and seek information, but do not obsess and project. Gather, assimilate, synthesize and then... release in presence. Life is as it is and this is it. Similarly to my own self, there are things i can do, to protect and nurture the vitality and health of Society as well... my neighbors and the myriad strangers who operate around me, mostly beneath my awareness and yet, upon which i rely every day, for the things that maintain my life. Small things i can do for them. Masks. Physical distance. Minimize outings. Not dwell on blame. Not spread my opinions as facts. Put my energy toward being part of the solution, or at least not getting in the way by degrading interactions by taking other's opinions personally. Simple... very simple things. So simple.

*deep bow of respect* Such treasure, this conversation! Pearls among the awakening... Deep gratitude for you all.

Fear is generated and maintained within. Like suffering fear is a crisis of perception. (to me)

...

So striking... The power of belief. It renders fact irrelevant and moot while propping up one's own 'story' in unassailable armour. The power of The Storyteller Within, to project out, one's own notions, tendencies, senses of what is normal and crazy, appropriate and ill-suited... carrying its own weighted considerings as banners while disregarding, dismissing, or outright attacking all that does not comply. Yet, every belief is a thought. Just a thought. One of thousands a day. Interestingly, not every thought transitions into a belief... fascinating to explore where and how the difference between them arises... It's a potent practice to ask myself why I believe certain thoughts and not others. And to explore that terrain where The Storyteller crafts a belief out of a thought. Thoughts are not reality. Nothing about them being inherently real, true, or even important. Doubt is a pearl... and a trap. As is belief. cleanse citta abide in presence all else rises and falls awareness abides

spring snow, melting fast so fast in fact, it melted here before landing.

My son and i watched the first episode and were rather stunned by unexpectedly deep writing...

Some of the thoughts of Marcus Aurelius have been arising in recent days. Your mind will take the shape of what you frequently hold in thought, for the human spirit is colored by such impressions. You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone. Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one. The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it. How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it. The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury. How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life.

These two again, playing concurrently and looped...

“I wish neither to possess nor to be possessed. I no longer covet ‘paradise’. More important, I no longer fear ‘hell’. The medicine for my suffering I had within me from the very beginning but I did not take it. My ailment came from within myself, but I did not observe it, until this moment. Now I see that I will never find the light unless, like the candle, I am my own fuel, consuming myself.” Bruce Lee

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” Frank Herbert

Interesting article addressing this, or skimming alongside it in Scientific American from a year ago. Consciousness and Vibration. Coherence and Resonance revealing to be at the core of Consciousness. Scientists in Neurobiology beginning to come around to the notion that if it has form, it has some rudimentary form of consciousness. Fascinating read. I love their approach to it, that 'The Hippies were right. It's all about vibration."

Here's a fun musing that settles on my thought pond from time to time. It arose again rather insistently this morning and I felt like sharing the process with words. Nothing serious in it, though it is sincere. I'm endlessly curious... what makes me human? Where exactly 'in me' is the 'human bit'? This usually plays out about the same, and I've shared it before, but da Bums has shifted and so I feel like sharing again and seeing what comes of it. so: what is human? I'm re-minded that while seemingly being human, no where inside this body, do I encounter the human element. Not even in my very human DNA, not even in that which is unique only to humans do I find the human element, for even my DNA forms of the same elements as the rest of the manifest universe. I'm re-minded that what I used to think of as my solid human body. Seems a fluid, ever-shifting collection of several trillion independently identifiable small life forms, each themselves comprised of the same elements as the rest of the universe. These life forms arise naturally and self arrange without thought, or command, (indeed often in spite of thought and command), into various patterns that results in what I refer to as my human body. and yet... human is what? when does the human bit come into it? I'm re-minded that, that which seems to distinguish me from all else in the universe, my body, seems to be a pattern of elements. One pattern among myriad. A pattern comprised and arranged in the shape of what my mind refers to as human, comprised of many other patterns called organs, limbs, etc. The same elements arranged into another form, in varying amounts, is recognizable as not human. I'm re-minded that, that which comprises the body, which is similar to the rest of the universe, is all of it; while that in the body which is different from the rest of the universe, is none. That seems really significant. No where is body comprised of that which the rest of the universe is not. So when is a pattern of elements human? Human city, human art, human music, human politics, human clothing. I'm re-minded that the core of all manifest elements seemingly so solid and permanent... are temporary and comprised of vibration, resonance and emptiness. Thus it seems my human body, is an expression of the vibration of inherent emptiness, resonating as elements arranging in layers of patterns distinguishable as a human typing figures on a screen, with far more in common with distant black holes than is dissimilar. how bout that? whew. it's rather staggering at times... like now. funny too, how it's always been now, I've never been me in the past, or the future. i am only now. every human experience now. each human experience memory, re-membered now. each fantasy of the future, in mind now. and all the while, awareness underlying each individual cell, aware to sit as this, body in a chair and simply be... such a miracle is this?! how many miracles in a yard of common earth? in a 'human' eye? in a thought? What a miracle to just sit here and be, as this moist spec of dust I sit upon, simultaneously spins about itself, orbiting a rather common yellow ball of light, itself corkscrewing through the galaxy... one pattern amid myriad... ever unfolding... fluid, never static, inherently empty, yet expressing form so generously. I'm reminded of the arms of galaxies, in the spiral of my son's ear. and i'm re-minded of that in mind. where is this mind? what is mind? what is human?

ohm tare tuttare ture so ha Nawang from Tibet Nakai from America Both survivors of genocided and occupied peoples their collaboration on the album Winds of Devotion is one of my all time most treasured. this coupling of Tara Mantra and Lakota Flute... sublime

you are so appreciated my friend! doubt is perhaps the most valuable of mind's toolbox (for me).

Ohm Tare Tuttare Ture So ha... She's been lilting about our home all morning! Synchronicity. Love. Peace. Gratitude. this has been on loop for the past hour or so

mind eating mind...

many examples of human indeed... and yet what makes a human, human? i can identify them when I see them... (though at Walmart it can get dicey) no matter how deeply we peer... no where in a human, is there a human element. only the same aggregates as all the other ten thousand... yet compiled may arise as human, goat, tree, stone... where is the human bit? no matter how many apples are eaten, i do not become apple. the apple transforms into human. yet no where within, is the distinctly human bit... curious.

That's a surprising quote by Descartes. To have insight into the Great Doubt. I have a real respect/despise relationship with the Cartesian paradigm. Reality reduced to a grand clock that can be disassembled into separate constituent parts and reassembled and understood all by the mind of a man... such preposterousness and assumptive presumptuousness! and yet... still seemingly with his finger on the pulse with his insight into Great Doubt. Perhaps its true, even a broken clock Descartes can be right twice a day. Could it be i wonder, that his doubting led to his certainty... or away from it? I wonder when in his life he wrote that...

Only musings of a dust covered citta. Seems true, human is a word. Aggregate is a word. Mind is a word. Fact is a word. Words... not things, not tzu jan, of themselves, but dependent conceptual musings... fingers pointing. Words written by mind on the dust of social conditioned mind. What do words point to? Assumptions? True Nature? Dusty Citta? What is not mind? Facts are nebulous creatures of late, like defined humans they seem utterly dependent on mind, and as experienced lately they are gaseous, ephemeral, gossamer, and as illusory as perceptual processes that call one thing human while another swims with a different word name and when mind changes, so too reflectively do the facts. Certainty finds few footholds in facts lately, unless citta clears, no certainty seems possible, only an exploration of the nature of the illusion and the seemingly ever shifting definitions of words. Mind creates and defines words and wrangles concepts according to its precepts and filters of what arises in awareness through stimuli. Reality as experienced by mind is a filtered reality, devoid of fact, not reality as it is, reality as filtered through dust coated awareness. To barter and wrestle with concepts of the aggregates as filtered through mind and speak of fact... seems like looking in a human and finding that nothing human, makes up a human. Facts and Mind. Citta and True Nature. Fingers pointing and Musings.

All life feeds on life. Decay nurtures... Life consumes. Decay nurtures Life.

Again, the thought arises and abides, unfed, unsought. If I'm human... why is there no human element present? My human'ness is but an arrangement of the same elements as everything else... none of them human, not even DNA, but as arranged, appearing human. so what is it exactly, that is human? where is the human bit in this process?