Hi Anita

Seeing my thoughts from 8 years ago has been startling. I still don’t have a answer to the question on the nature of Change.
“Even though you express a lack of belief in change, your curiosity about others’ experiences suggests that you are still seeking understanding and perhaps hope.” that is true years ago I set out on a quest to find people that changed and actually lived what they believed, and doing so found themselves content. I have found some that seem content while at the same time able express disappointment at what they see in the world. Then their are the ones that remain content and compassionate as they engage with life as it is. Mr Rodgers I think managed it.

Ref the energy to act. I am very much a Enneagram Type 5 – the investigator/Observer. As someone who steps back before acting I’m very aware of the ‘energy’ needed to step forward. I agree being seen by others is the best source of energy to move out of stillness and into engagement with life.

As a type 5 my communication style will always seem to be coming from the head, something I know can be off putting, but I like to think anyone taking the time to read or listen will see heart.

Ref the comment about “profound disillusionment” I don’t know how profound it is 🙂 I am disappointed in the choices society seems to be making and the direction this might take things. We live at a time of massive consumption and wealth yet still fear not having enough. Then their is AI which wasn’t a really a thing a year ago and today were just ready to accept it as a given.

I’m a old white male so things will probably work out for me but I worry how things will be for the generations that follow. I don’t think History is going to be kind to this golden age.

Eight years ago part of my quest was to answer the question – what’s Love got to do with it? I agree the word is overused and would add that we tend to mistake the word for that which the word points to, the word being a symbol and metaphor.
My answer to the question of – what love has to do with it – is everything and nothing, similar I think to what I read in a book by Krishnamurti just this year where he says ‘Love can do nothing, but without it nothing can be done.’ (theirs a paradox for you)

Today (is this a change?) I realize that Love is the attribute of the ‘Eternal Now’ and so has no opposite. Love IS.
Love IS from which all things arise and return. (In the temporal playground we just mess it up by trying to possess and or be possessed by it, and measuring the… stuffing… out of it. Yet still Love remains as it IS.

I don’t think their is a point to believe in ‘What Is’ so still say I do not believe in Love, only now I like to think I say that without disillusionment…. most days 🙂

Love comes into being when the mind is naturally quiet, not made quiet, when it sees the false as false and the true as true. When the mind is quiet, then whatever happens is the action of love, it is not the action of knowledge.
Knowledge is mere experience, and experience is not love. Experience cannot know love. – Krishnamurti

A riddle: The observer is the observed and the observed the observer, the though is the thinker and the thinker the thought.

I understand that answering how this is changing your experience of life can be complex.

Hi Anita

I often ask myself if I am living what I believe, and suspect I’m not. Even as I write that I question my use of the word believe…

I have got to a place where I notice in most moments the “yin and yang” dancing around themselves, though for me I would replace the words with the temporal and eternal. (Even as I know the eternal has no opposite as it is the source from which the temporal arises and returns) If I’m honest with myself I must admit that I spend most of my time in the temporal experience, judging, measuring… I know this because I find myself anxious most days that that arrises from the tendance to measure. The difference today in that I remain aware of the eternal, and the possibility of the return. Thus the image of yin yang as the best I seem to be able to do/be is a dance between the two even as I ‘know’ it remains a blank canvas.

Then there is Alan Watts warning: “if you’re going to outwit the devil (ourselves), it’s terribly important that you don’t give him any advance notice” If I set the intention to try to live out what I believe, the ‘devil’ is going to come out to play. Better perhaps not to try or believe and instead dance.

In reference to the blank canvas; You aren’t really dancing until you get to the place where you ‘forget‘ all the rules of dancing. Oddly it seams we first must learn so that we can then forget and do/be – work for that which no work is required.

Hi Anita

You put that quite nicely.

The key for me was a realization of the present moment not as a measurement of time but the Eternal Now.

Odd thoughts on the Eternal.
The Eternal is not infinite though it contains the infinite.
The Eternal is not continuous,  continuous is a measurement and the Eternal is not a measurement.
The Eternal nor does it have a opposite.
The Eternal Is

Campbell’s suggested that the question behind the Hero quest is ‘ How will you respond to life as it Is?’  I think we assume (I did anyway) that we we see/know what Life as it is Is. Now I realize that most of the quest has the hero being confronted with the fact that they do not know or see life as it is. In fact their is a tendency to run away from seeing.

The wisdom traditions point that the answer to the question, if we do not wish to live in fear or anxiety is YES. I used to assume that saying Yes was enough only to realize that I couldn’t answer the question when I wasn’t seeing/knowing Life as it IS
To return to the metaphor the canvas is always the a canvas.

Anyway Today I was reading from ‘Notes on a Nervous Planet’ that had a quote from Alan Watts
“We seldom realize that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own.
For we think in terms of language’s and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.”

My still self felt the truth of that statement. I noted in other post that I’m struggle with the current happenings has left me questioning reality. Why I was not seeing things as so many were (not just a little but almost a total disconnect from their experience) The above quote resonated with me, that perhaps the thoughts and emotions were not mine… language really is problematic.  I also felt that the notion fit into the metaphor of the blank canvas

I was wondering what others thoughts on that quote might be.

Hi John
Hope you don’t mind me chiming in

One of the codes I live by is what the Buddha (supposedly*) said to his disciples on his death bed, ‘Do not take as truth anything anyone, including me, tells you, find out for yourself.’

Like you I wonder about statements that start out with ‘Buddha says…’ My understanding is that the word ‘Buddh’a doesn’t refer to a specific person but is a state of being/consciousness? So who or what is being pointed to when someone says ‘Buddha says’.

From the stories about Gautama he was constantly warning his disciples not to fall into the temptation of mistaking the teachings as the goal, or ‘the map for the territory’. A warning not heeded as pretty much after his death the various schools form and start fighting amongst themselves. Seems the desire to follow a teacher and ‘get it right’ is well ingrained and to my mind begs the question of freedom.

So, how much choice (freedom to choose) do you think we really have

Last weeks affirmation at the yoga studio I go to was ‘let go of limiting beliefs’ which made me smile as all beliefs are limiting in that they define boundaries. Krishnamurti argued that if you took the time to look deep into your beliefs you would see they are associated with our fears. If we wanted then to be free from fear  it is better not to believe. Sure enough when looking into my beliefs I noted they were indeed associated with, even if not verbalized, fear.

Then the word belief and how we use it is odd. If never having sat on a chair I said I believe this chair will support my weight that is reasonable. If after sitting on the chair numerous times I continue to say I believe this chair will support my weight. You might wonder what meant by ‘belief’ and if their wasn’t a element of fear attached to the statement.

I would have argued that every exercise of freedom is also a limitation of freedom where as Krishnamurti argues belies confine and should not be confused with notions of freedom or creativity.

Back to the canvas metaphor. Every brush stroke represents the choice taken and all the choices not taken. Each brush stroke influencing the next brush stroke until the accumulation produces the work. In a way each brush stroke having been influenced is a ‘less free choice’. Eventually the artist develops a style and can even be identified by their brush strokes. For most no mater how hard they try to be creative and create something new they can’t escape their style. The only way to be creative and create something new is not to accumulate. In other words realize that as you paint the canvas remains blank. Not a easy task, but then maybe its enough to have the realization?

I think the notion of Karma is similar as it is also being a accumulation of action/memory/brush strokes…. To avoid accumulating Karma, the canvas needs to remain blank… I’m not sure that would be  much fun, but wonder is the point is that we stop misunderstanding the notion of freedom, stop pretending it be something noble but more likely a call to create boundaries. Perhaps then when we exercise freedom we also create space for compassion.

One more thing, Peter, you wrote: “I find recent events troubling and having me questioning my reality“- if you’d like to share about these recent events, please do.

That so many people have chosen a vision I find little hope in and that I don’t resonate with. Its difficult to “see” that as arising from Love, yet from the Eternal is.