Tag Archives: reality

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

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What’s the difference between a mental concept and a mentally direct experience?

“The tulip is reddish-orange.”
“Snow covers the mountainside blindingly white.”

Are these mental concepts or mentally direct experiences?

Or perhaps both?

Zen argues we should rely solely on direct experience
And avoid mental concepts which can be manipulated inside one’s head
And end up, really, as almost anything at all.

So, tell me, are love, truth, justice, and beauty, direct experiences or mental concepts?
If they’re direct experiences – they could be reality – the same as God.
If they’re mental concepts, on the other hand, they might be mirages, dreams,
or complex manipulations inside one’s mind – i.e., lies!

Zen repeatedly has attempted to distinguish between mental concepts and direct experience
but, in my opinion, has not had much success in parsing this.

I think that’s because, sometimes, mental concepts actually are identical with reality –
at least in certain times, circumstances, and places.

They just are!

“LAYERING”

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Our minds “read” reality through differing layers of abstraction
Because human beings embody a complex architecture of consciousness
Made up of different “levels” of virtualization using mental abstraction.

For example, the micro-physical level is on a radically different level
From the “normal” human body level –
When we move our arm, the mental abstraction of “arm”
Lies on a different level from the millions of cells making up that arm
Which, in turn, is on a different level from the gazillions of electrons making up those cells.

So, given these different levels of “reality” –
Our minds virtualize “arm” as an ordinary everyday mental abstraction
As part of our overall physical self –
While our minds also have the capacity to visualize, using imagination,
The underlying cells and electrons supporting this “top” level of human reality.

God’s reality, however, encompasses reality at all levels.
Jesus indicated his understanding of this by teaching his disciples that God
“Numbers” the very hairs on our heads. (Mathew 10:30).

So, what is the next layer of abstraction that might become available to our human minds?
I think it’s a “human/God” level of experiential Love, Truth, Justice, and Beauty –
Which, in turn, would require a fresh spiritual language and accompanying supportive culture
To attain this newly-exposed world of reality existing beyond
All previous levels of human abstraction.

With the availability of a new language, fresh realities could open up to our “true selves”
So as to experience living “like” God would live if God were a human being – just like us.

THREE SECONDS

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“Be here now!”
Say the Zen Masters –
Because the past’s already gone
And the future’s not yet arrived.

This is the point of “no time” or “eternity”
Which is where we’re all trying to reach.

But, wait, just what, and where, exactly, is that?


According to Galen Strawson, a second generation Oxford Philosophy Professor,
It’s a “hiatus free period of thought or experience” – a few seconds at most –
Because our eyes and minds are always “jumping” –
In fact, the latest scientific research shows that this experienced “Now” is not actually a point,
but an extended period – of up to three seconds.

So, when the Buddha tilted his head back, opened his eyes and saw the morning star –
His own “hiatus free moment of enlightenment” – suddenly, he could understand everything.

Everyone can have a similar experience!

That is, if you can just get past your gabbing, obsessive-compulsive telling stories
and producing mental films of yourself as a “star” or “hero” of your creative imaginative/dream productions –

After which, getting past all that – and opening up your eyes and heart
You accept what you are seeing and experiencing – at that moment.

Then, trusting your mind and heart as to what to do next – and do it –
That is, what your “true self” knows needs to be done.

Seeing through this open window – at reality itself – and then acting!

That is “enlightenment-plus.”

Both the Buddha and Jesus emphasized that one needs to act upon what one sees or experiences
In that spiritually-open moment.

This is what it means to be a human being who thinks, experiences, and acts as God does –
Jesus, the Buddha, and Mohammed repeatedly illustrated this to us –
Not to show how great they were – but how great the potential of each single human being
on the planet actually is!

GOD LOOKING AT GOD

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Jesus did it –
So any of us can.

We need freedom, however, to accomplish it –
Because the “self” our parents and society provided us
Prohibits real freedom –
Yes, unfortunately, that “self” which we use to survive
And, hopefully, prosper in the world –
Partially blinds us to reality – as well as to God.

Very few individuals are able to drop their societal “self”
In order to glimpse God –
Zen Buddhist monks tell us that one should “Know nothing” –
And keep repeating it –
Because one’s “self,” and all its mental constructs, restricts our freedom.

This, however, is partially incorrect –
True, to the extent that when we accept any mental constructs
They tend to blind us to reality –
But false, in light of the millennia of human striving for greater understanding
That has led to acquiring tools that can test reality
For the presence of God –
That is, for “Love,” “Truth,” “Justice,” and “Beauty.”

Scientists of consciousness teach that we’re provided with approximately three seconds
To open ourselves to reality – that is, to God –
That we have a 100 trillion synapses available to accomplish this –
And that our mind has a capacity even larger than the entire known universe –
But also, of course, limited by the time available to take a look.

God, however, has no time limitations
(since “time” for God exists in an entirely different realm) –
Therefore, God is always looking at us –
And greatly pleased when we’re able to “feel” God’s presence
And, in response, turn in God’s direction.

Sometimes, we can “see” a flicker of God’s robes passing by –
In and out of our psychological reality –
Out there, on the edge of consciousness –

Not only “see,” but also have the ability to think about what we’ve just seen –
Using those spiritual tools of love, truth, justice, and beauty,
To reflect upon it.

This is what Jesus did, and why he was able to say the things he said,
And why the people who looked into his face could see God.

So, yes, Jesus is God
But so are you if you truly want it.

You just have to give up everything – so as to gain sufficient freedom
To “see” –
And then, have faith in what you are seeing,
Using those “spiritual tools” handed down to you
Over millennia of human experience.

We should be talking with one another about all this –
About God – and about our selves –

What could be more important?

HATING YOU FOR WANTING WHAT YOU SHOULDN’T WANT

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What would you do
If you were a human being
Who decided to take on the shocking role
Of speaking directly for God?

Would you study hard and humanly learn everything you’re able,
Or, alternatively, shake off all the accumulated knowledge out of your head,
So as to gain a truer picture of reality?

And how, for example, could you become more loving
If you weren’t so much previously?
Would you try “pretending” a greater love
So as to gain experience in what you’d never been able to touch
Before?

Would you make a public announcement
Or just try to keep it quiet?

Would you ask for help from others who had gone before –
Like Jesus, the Buddha, or Mohammed –
Could you hear them from such a historical distance –
And would you even be able to detect who was speaking?

What about friends, family and acquaintances
Would they think you had gone mad
And cut you
For doing something they couldn’t imagine doing?
Is there a chance, they might even end up hating you
For wanting what they think you shouldn’t want?

(Last post until mid-July!)

REALITY AT ALL LEVELS

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How can we see like Jesus could see –
As fully human and fully God?

He saw with two eyes – one a human’s and one God’s.

A real human eye is found only in a “true self” –
Like the eye of an infant – where everything is fresh and new –
And, as the scientists say,
Pure uninterrupted experience is limited to three seconds,
But is never found in the head of a wooden puppet – like Pinocchio
As an “ego” or a “false self.”  

God’s eye is different –
It sees through time (eternity) and space (infinity) –
Set within the four cardinal points of love, truth, justice, and beauty –
With the lines meeting at the top of a spiritual pyramid –
Love meeting truth, truth meeting justice, justice meeting beauty,
And beauty resting on love –
All conjoined at the tip – where God lives.

Two eyes – one a human being’s and one God’s.

Jesus could see through a child’s eyes
Balanced by those four spiritual attributes of God.

When those two eyes exist in a single head
They see reality – and at all levels.

CLOUD IN FRONT OF THE SUN

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Who is God, anyway?
Is God a spiritual entity encouraging us to be our best
Intellectually, morally, and spiritually?
Is God someone pointing us in the right direction?

My main problem with God involves the influence of certain people
Who also are pointing us in one direction or the other –
People from whom we think we need permission,
Or who provide us with identity,
Or even the permission to be?

When these people merge with God, we get “Religion” –
Like a cloud in front of the sun –
Especially when we’re not able to distinguish one from the other.

All human beings are born with the capacity to experience joy –
And so, from birth, potentially we can embody it –
But then, almost immediately, we find we aren’t seeing beyond our family
(Unless our family’s exceptionally transparent to God) –
So, when we perceive family instead of God –
That is, when we experience a world largely of related people instead of a world of God –
This becomes one of the main sources of our anxiety.

We know God is there – right behind them– just over their shoulders –
As spiritual “light” –
And when we fall in love with that light –
It frequently occurs to us to “hit the road.”
If we do that, we’ll have to leave family, society, and world –
And risk dying for God.

But, if we follow through on this, eventually we’ll get everything back –
God and the world –
Even family.

If we become a “God” person
We’ll be able to “see” God in others –
In all others.

Then, when we’re able to distinguish what’s not God from God –
That won’t upset us –
Because it’s reality
And God is reality.

When we start seeing reality through God’s eyes –
Feeling with God’s heart –
We’ll fall deeper and deeper in love with Love
So that everything turns out alright –

You might even say, we’ll have been “Saved!”

LIVING WITHOUT SPIRIT IS, IN ESSENCE, AN EARLY FORM OF DEATH

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Who’s measuring the quantity and quality of spiritual energy
Remaining in the good ol’ US of A?
Who knows why our society’s life force, except for anger,
Has gotten dialed down so dim?

Living without spirit resembles being dead, doesn’t it?
Because ignoring the “light” means we’ll have to live out our lives in the dark –
In other words, lacking spiritual radiance, we’ll have lost the best of our humanity.

Babies intuit this – in spite of their lack of language –
Of course, later on, they’ll forget everything
After placing their little heads inside big adult egos.

Yet, among the rest of us, there still remains a deep hunger for reality
Or, to put it more simply, for “God” –
That is, for achieving the meaning hidden behind quotidian walls of meaninglessness.

Unfortunately, the word “God” is no longer much in use today –
Since the thrilling warmth and life traditionally associated with that term
Has steadily been removed from our everyday lives.

Nevertheless, for myself, I intend to keep on saying “God”
Because I know God’s there
Despite the surrounding fogbank of media and academic incomprehension.

I regret, however, that I’m unable to convey more of the reality of God in my own writing
Including my belief that God’s coming again
Perhaps, as a young South American girl –
So, when that happens, I expect
All the nihilistic deniers’ mouths to fly open
With awe!

WHAT IF REALITY IS THE SAME AS GOD?

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What if Reality is the same as God –
And we could trust that what we see is reality.

If so, then, to the extent we denigrate reality
By shading truth, ignoring beauty,
Or just being mean –
Wouldn’t that be a slap to God’s face?

If God also is the same as “the Good”?
Then not caring about what’s good
Would be equivalent to dismantling God –
In other words, the failure to reinforce loving kindness in our society
Would permit government officials to hurl migrant children into metallic cages
And, coldly or not, walk away.

God has been knocking at our door –
To the secret entranceway to our innermost self – i.e., to our “soul” –
God wants, most of all, to sit calmly in our heart’s chair –
And be enthroned, emblazoned with light, in our minds.

Yes, God has been calling for a new people –
And wants such people to be “real” –
As “real” as God is –
Not just a bunch of egos, actors, and manipulators.

God primarily wants “makers” – people who’ll make the world “work”
For everybody –
Acknowledging that sufficient wealth is available for us all
To be satisfied –
Joyful –
And beautiful as well.

God says it’s time to re-arrange the ancient ideas still extant in the present
So that love takes first priority in human institutions –
And that all of us can feel free to ask what God wants –
Not just what God might, reluctantly, be willing to put up with –
Or what a religion, bearing Jesus’ name, might eventually come to accept –
And, certainly, not some kind of eternal unmediated capitalism.

Don’t be scared,
Don’t get angry –
You can trust God.

So let’s be naïve together – all at the same time –
And venture out into the night – under the distant flickering stars –
And say “yes!” to everything God loves,
Has loved, and wants us to continue loving in the future.

PEOPLE ARE AMAZING

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People are amazing, aren’t they?
Endlessly surprising!

Right now, they’re coming over a hill
Wearing a variety of colors
Speaking multiple languages –
And excited about many things.

Yesterday they were children
Now, they’re the entire world.

We thought we knew who and what we were
But, over time, everything’s changed –
As if in a dream.

There are parents – but they’re not our parents any more –
And there’s the house we grew up in –
But, now, it appears entirely different.

Reality is deeper than dreams
And yet, because of “time,” it’s still a kind of dream –
Once, we believed love could last forever – as real as the sun –
Yet, now we know, it often fades despite our best efforts.

As we grow older, we also grow calmer –
And this can be good in its own way –
We know we no longer can hold fire in our hands –
And our eye’s intensity is also fading.

Yes, dusk is nice –
Lavenders filling up our lives –
Distant odors –
A train whistle – far and away –
Unimaginably poignant.