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This weekend again confirmed that long walks are entheogenic. I'll take my meditation on the hoof, thanks. That's my preference, having spent way too much of my waking life thus far on my tush.

There is such an exquisite sense of freedom when walking outdoors, with no particular destination and no particular timeframe. Energy is flowing freely everywhere, completely unbound.

The core physical being rejoices, and the core mental being resumes control. The oceanic peace, the clarity, the perfect freedom, of the core being.

When walking, all there is is pure being and pure awareness.

As much as I respect the traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism, all the great spiritual traditions, I still like to reinvent, rediscover, make from scratch, from the materials at hand, which are the same materials ever at hand.

Those materials are pure being and pure awareness, core being and core awareness, that which remains. Pure being is the body and its elements, an energy pattern that remains more or less intact for a time, in this case the ground of being--the stuff of the universe--assuming human form, as well as every other form it assumes. Pure awareness is the I AM that persists, the universal energy's awareness, which assumes all forms.

There is loss of identification with a false self, the limited identity of name and form. There remains a separate self, a unique form, a separate node of awareness, which, although separate in a sense, is the same Ground of Being, the same universal energy, the same pure being, the same pure awareness. It is One Identity, One Universal Self, in many forms. The forms are many and appear separate, but are not separate in essence, not separate in identity. It is the same One in every form.

This very mind and body, what a glorious Being lives here! This is it! In every mind, in every body! As every mind, as every body!

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It's getting harder to be able to be distracted. I'm embarrassed by my plethora of toys. If I only knew then what I know now, I'd be living the most absurdly austere existence with wild joy. As it is, I'm surrounded by the trappings of a self-indulgent life, of which I would not shed a tear over if all of it suddenly vanished.

What would I cherish, and preserve, that I have now? Jean, the cats, the plants. The basic necessities for health and safety and household next. Then the options, the value-adders: guitar, drum, keyboard, candles. Then the modern tools of communion: Internet and telephone. Then radio, broadcast and two-way. And daily newspaper. Lastly, my least favorite option, television. A very occasional hilarious or thought-provoking or eye-opening program. Otherwise the essence of endless materialistic distraction, the primary purveyor of mass delusion in our age.

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This morning wa a four-panther morning. Getting up 90 minutes before the usual time, to find the paper has arrived. Breakfast, and sitting in the comfy chair with four lap cats and a mug of strong french press coffee. Silence, the electric clock jumping from second to second the only sound, other than the purring of cats. It doesn't get much better than this.

But it does. When I am as awake as I can be, I remember That which I AM. This mind, this body, it's been here all along. So beautiful. There is nothing better. It's always here, it's always now. The Present, the Presence. Just being this.

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A copy of the new book "Slaughterhouse" made its way to the library today. Uh-oh. Shouldn't have opened it, but did anyway. No wonder the ranks of vegans are on the increase.

It's easy to identify with other metazoans, no matter what species. Other organisms, just like me, are just trying to make it. All of us feeling pain. To be able to make it without causing pain to other organisms makes a lot of sense, especially when we're aware of awareness wherever it is, in whatever species it resides. The metazoa called cattle, and hogs, and chickens, just want to make it--when I see them at the fair or by the roadside I see them seeing me, and it's impossible not to be aware of their awareness, their lives, as circumscribed as they are, or have been made to be. My own life is fairly circumscribed, too, only I won't get a stun-gun to my head and hung on a hook and have my throat cut and sent through the factory. If I love all life, and respect all life, and identify with all life, I live and eat in a way that confirms that. I may make only a negligible difference in the face of it, but it makes all the difference to me. Beans might not be as savory as turkey, but my self-respect gets what it needs. Hypocrisy is the Eighth Deadly Sin.

Funny how a new resolve in the direction of what's good for life brings happiness. Following your bliss is the way to go. When I'm following my bliss, I hear music, the most beautiful joyful music, in my head.

My circumstances are what they are, it's as if I've just landed in this body, inheriting Bill's karma, and Bill is gone, having taken the next train out of town. So I look at this karma, the circumstances Bill got himself into, in a calm, dispassionate way. Well, now, guess it's time to work on it, clean things up. These circumstances don't cause the suffering, my perception of these circumstances does. Things could be a lot worse, I could be in a rotten circumstance with a rotten perception of it...maybe the worst of the worst is to be in a pretty outrageously decent circumstance and still have a rotten perception of it. In my household there's enough water, food, clothing, shelter, heat, fuel, health care. We lack for nothing. I should make friends with the collection agents.

As teenagers a friend and I had this regular thought-exercise where we would talk about another teenager we knew, usually a guy who smokes, drinks, cusses, a ne'er-do-well, and imagine what we would do if we were in his body. Of course we would stop smoking. Of course we would stop drinking. Etc. etc. Resulting in transforming a juvenile delinquent into a prize pupil, of clean mind and clean body. My friend has long ago gone off and become a successful, if prudish, physician. I, alas, eventually became in his eyes just another juvenile delinquent, of unclean habits and self-destructive path, and we have gone our separate ways over the decades. I met up with him by accident a few years ago, and time has not healed the rift. Funny how the last memory of a person stays fixed in the mind, a snapshot of that person that doesn't change, even though the ever-changing person has. The person I was decades ago was not me, any more than the person I was an hour ago was not me. I keep re-inhabiting this body as if for the first time, over and over.

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Seeing Body Worlds in Cleveland a few months ago left an indelible impression, and what is most useful now is the image of the core human body, a graceful, supple, universally similar physique. As I walk through town I feel that core human body's presence, feel its long sinews, and visualize becoming evermore closer to this core being, in the physical sense. Also, it's evident to me there is also a core human mind, the natural mind, uncluttered, unburdened, clear, awake, aware. We were all born with core bodies and core minds, natural bodies and natural minds. At some point we can regain our innate 'coreness', our natural purity, and live each day as this core being, our bodies a nature preserve, our minds a clear, wide-open sky.

I've spent most of my adult life in the larval and pupal stages, relentlessly self-indulgent and living in a self-absorbed chrysalis. Only lately have I found my wings, and have learned that I can fly. I have flown far, and flown high, glorious days of free flight. Just one day of freedom has made the preceding decades of self-imprisonment an understandable experience. I'm a late bloomer, but I've bloomed, blooming right here right now right where I'm planted. If people can bloom just once, can fly just once, that's enough.

It feels so good to find the way to being skuzzy simple, enjoying the simple pleasures, living in the moment, in a state of ineffable surrender to that no-self Self of universal energy that has assumed this form. The funky material plane, having a sense of humor as this ship sinks slowly in the sea of entropy and red ink.

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A request for discussion of the problem of providing a context for the entheogenic experience arose on the SalviaD_Alliance board. Our culture has no context for mystical experiences, period. It's geared toward materialism, consumerism, and that's the official state religion. Mystical experiences fall very much outside the state religion. It's up to us to create a context for safe, meaningful use of entheogenic plants, especially for initiates, or novitiates.

I was lucky to have a park and the company of open-minded friends for my first entheogenic experience as a young man. With lesser company, and without the presence of trees, grass, sunlight, wide open sky, my first experience could have just as easily been hellish.

Walt's comment rings true: we really do need some sort of ceremonial, religious context to provide the right mindset and setting. We already have the right entheogen: Salvia divinorum, fresh living leaves of it, chewed well--a direct connection to all of nature, within and without.

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So good to be home again--a great sacrifice compromise it was, spending a weekend in a hotel, to keep peace in the family, to fulfill a social obligation. Had a good time in spite of my misgivings, got a couple good long brisk walks in, found Johnny Appleseed's gravesite and had a nice moment with Mr. Chapman's spirit there on top of the mound. Even though he was very much an evangelical Christian, a Swedenborgian in fact, he was a man of the earth. I just said out loud "it's always the same Holy Spirit, isn't it." Felt a fine rush of that spirit as I descended the mound.

This morning, two cats on the lap, French-pressed coffee getting into my system, did the usual worship and adoration of the animals melted onto me. Animals are people of the Earth, truly. All animals are beautiful people of the Earth. In animals, in plants, in rivers and sky and boulders and fields and woods, in sun and moon and stars, is such perfect beauty. I can tolerate my fellow human beings and their art and artifices in the physical and mental realm, that's what humans 'do' obviously, and arguably all human activity is part of nature, an extension of nature. But still... the roaring of traffic on the nearby Interstate near Chapman's gravesite, the sprawling concrete-and-steel edifices looming in every direction...they don't affect me quite like a forest, or a skyful of stars.

A note on the 'suggestion board' in the library this morning, requesting a 'non-silent study room' that has music playing. The student complained that silence creeps him out.

In a previous life I couldn't get enough music. Of course Cannabis makes musicophilia that much worse. I understand the White-Wired IPod-People Culture very well. Now, I'm a hard-core minimalist, silence is perfect music, emptiness is fulfillment. From the baseline of clear empty silence all things rise and fall. That which is beyond all the senses, is music to my ears, the Beholder beholding the Beholder is perfect Beauty. At least this way I can overcome negative feelings about the ongoing changes human beings are making to the Earth.

The roar of a dozen giant earthmovers changing a fallow field into a Wal-Mart Supercenter and parking lot two miles south of town. Topsoil removed, asphalt and concrete soon to follow.

Who owns the Earth? Who has the authority to zone ever-enlarging parts of the Earth "Commercial"? Should we just go ahead and zone the whole Earth commercial, and let the people who want so much stuff get it out of their system when they see what the desire for stuff is doing to the Earth?

Although with nonduality I've overcome much of my despair over the ongoing desecration of the Earth. For this civilization to collapse so that the jungle can return is a wish that will inevitably be fulfilled.

Just as Kat Harrison's Salvia vision told her to 'show them the edge of the Garden' so does mine--same vision, same Garden. Communing with the Garden, and helping others commune with the Garden, is all I want to do. All ground is sacred. All life is sacred. Animals are people of the Earth, pure spirits. To be an animal--which I am--feels so right, so good, so beautiful, so real. Whatever supports life in all its forms is Good. Whatever doesn't support life in all its forms, or is harmful to life in all its forms, is not so good. If it's anti-life, it will not stick around forever. The Garden overtakes it all, sooner or later.

To do outreach work for the Garden, it's useful to fully be the Garden. The Salvia vision reveals the Garden so clearly, the Garden within in all its glory. To walk around, being the Garden, requires surrender to the Garden, in this moment. There is redemption to be found in this moment, salvation in this moment, surrendering to, and being, the Garden.

To be the Garden is the way to help people recognize the Garden within themselves. Garden recognizes Garden. When I am fully manifesting Garden, the Garden in others recognizes the Garden in me, just as I see only Garden when a living radiant awareness stands before me. When I remember that I'm the Garden I remember that others are the Garden.

Animals can't help but be what they are, and how they are; likewise human beings, after suffering through free will of egocentricity, can return to this spontaneous authenticity of the animal. I have no name, no species, no idea of who I am, I am nothing, but there is this silverback great ape wearing clothes and shoes and glasses, going about his great-ape business. Hairy back, fingers and toes, striding along swinging knuckles through the air, looking around.

To be a simple animal. Most people like to be around animals, animals make people feel good. Dangerous animals thrill and inspire; harmless animals delight. Affectionate animals provide a wild blessing, healing. Animals are altogether therapeutic just by being animals. Fully in the moment. No agenda, hidden or otherwise. No pretense whatsoever. People can be this way, because people are animals. Beautiful animals. We can be beautiful people of the Earth, because that's what we really are.

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Silence. Stillness. Serenity. Spirit. Just to be in this, always here, always available. Return to the source, come home.

My personal history is of no interest to me, as it all is history, has slipped away and vanished, all that I thought was home and family, gone, long gone. All that's left is what's been in me as me all along, that glorious being of energy, of earth and sky and sunlight and rivers and lifespirit. This is my home now, always has, always will be, wherever I AM happens to be.

Writing about these things is something I enjoy doing, even though words are of limited usefulness. Only people who can read and understand English, who have come across these words, may or may not find anything new or useful or pertinent. Better than writing about, is to embody. The writing-about is an urge, a way to howl in the treetops just for the sheer joy of howling.

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Flesh and metal. Spirit and semiconductors. Being high, and high technology. To each his own, certainly, we all must work through our desires and our attachments by reaching the point of diminishing returns, of outgrowing them, of getting them out of our system. Until then, the toys, the distractions, the stimulations, remain our objects of attention, our valuables.

As much as I appreciate high technology and its benefits and its fascinating toys I have come to realize, somewhat late in life, that I have one attention span and a finite, ever-decreasing number of days left in this form. Do I spend the days remaining stimulating myself, amusing myself? I've seen the most beautiful sights, I've heard the most beautiful sounds, I've tasted the best food and drink, I've inhaled the headiest aromas, I've felt the most pleasurable tactile sensations, I've thought the most beautiful thoughts. All for what? Who cares? Does it benefit others? Am I a better person for all that stimulation?

The challenge presented by Salvia divinorum is the challenge of living a spirit-centered life. Salvia experiences take me directly to the lifespirit, to that 'still, small voice within.' This changes the value system to one based on lifespirit, all living beings and the natural environment that supports all life. Let the oil and the minerals stay underground, and leave the forests alone.

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How to behave as the One in full possession of the form it has assumed, especially after decades of heavily-conditioned habitual behavior? I look no further than the beloved cats for guidance. Cats, pure spirits, totally natural, spontaneous, just go about the business of the moment. Eating when hungry. Drinking when thirsty. Resting when weary. Active when feisty. Communicating when necessary. The moves are smooth, graceful, spontaneous.

How to be the human equivalent of a cat or any other species of animal other than conditioned-human persuasion? What's my next move, my next word? Issuing from thoughts, but when thought-domination is in abeyance, then what is said and done?

The best I can do at the moment is to be as much in the moment as possible, i.e. be spontaneous, letting the acts and words come as they may from the depths of my being, my true self. To let go and be a pure spirit, a bipedal animal, as welcome as any animal, as therapeutic as a cat or a dog. The role of the unconditioned human being is to be a friend to all beings, especially human beings, especially conditioned--suffering--human beings. To be Man's Best Friend. Woof! Meow. Purrrpurrrpurrrrrr.

Nuts to the time-stamps. It's always Now, and Here, and the One. Timelessness. Won't tell time anymore, for now.

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Nov. 17, 2005. The temptation to subscribe to an "ism" whether it be shamanism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Catholicism, is pretty widespread and pretty compelling. Some people of the guru persuasion even go so far as to say that we should pick an "ism" and take it as far and as deep as we can, and not be a dilettante or an amateur about matters of spirit.

As much as I'm attracted to shamanism and Buddhism and mysticism and so on I get to the point where I say whoa Nellie, hold the phone, boxes are boxes no matter how fascinating they look.

At the moment I toy with the idea of a Church of Nonduality, where people come together and hang out, drinking coffee, talking, maybe chewing a few Salvia leaves in a comfy room. It tickles me to think about what a nonduality prayer would look like, no-one praying to nothing, or divinity praying to divinity, same difference. It's so tempting to have an other to look up to, to worship, to pray to, to love, to hate, to praise, to blame. It's all me, they're all me, we're all it, it is it. That's it.

So I suffer in heretical silence, a beautiful deluxe hot dog: "one with everything." No-one can help me, no-one can hurt me, anyone can be me, i.e., that which we all are, cosmic energy, cosmic awareness.

Hmm. That old racist Canadian doctor R. M. Bucke in his quaint book "Cosmic Consciousness." If not me, then who/if not now, then when? Who is qualified to become cosmically conscious? Who is entitled? Who deserves it? Who is Worthy?

We are all worthy, dammit, we're all it, cosmic energy, cosmic awareness. We're just so fookin' distracted. Call the Distractors Satan, playing into our monkey urge to be stimulated by sight, sound, thoughts, sensations...until people take those goddamn white wires out of their ears and stop being hypnotized by flickering screens for once. The future is here, and it ain't pretty. The planet is trashed and burning while we seek stimulation.

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So easy for me to find fault, to be 'the critic' of society, of human foibles. It doesn't do me any good to have dim views. The 3rd Chinese Patriarch warned against 'holding views.' What a wise guy. So I stop holding views and take care of business in a gentle, introspective, considerate manner. No-one cares about what views anyone holds. Views, opinions, like talk, are cheap.

That's the problem with writing--it's only possible to write about what CAN be written about, and opinions and words are synergistic, words fueling opinion and vice-versa.

What REALLY interests me is the One who is writing, the One who is moving these finger muscles and the One who is watching these words appear on the screen. This Awareness, this Energy. What IS this?

Kaboom! there is only One writer in the universe. Only one. The One and Only. Does it make the NY Times Bestseller List? Yes. Does it form letters of the alphabet, or ideograms, wherever they are formed, by every hand humble and proud? Yes. It's the same One.

What is so difficult about this to understand? Oh, forgot, distracted. I forget that in this ever-changing form there were the Dark Ages, woeful miserable distracted ignorance, materialism, totally suffering deludedness. When I took a separate self very seriously, a case of mistaken identity to be sure. Alienated in the extreme.

The way is clear, open, here, now. Whenever we want it, whenever we're ready for it. I want it, I'm ready for it. Now THIS is what I call some fiiiiiine Self-indulgence!

There is writing. There is reading. There is working. There is living. There is loving. There is being. There is awareness. The One does all, is all.

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Nov. 16, 2005. Last night went upstairs to the Salvia Room, lit the candles, drummed, and ate several leaves that looked a bit old and tired on the plants. Stood before the plants, nibbling, relaxing, and letting go. The Salvia did what it does well for me, getting me back to the lifeforce, in synch with the chi. Doing tai chi type moves. The leaves glowed with life, and when I saw my reflection in the window, so did I. A being of light, a being of energy. This is what we are, at the core, nothing but energy.

We have to be careful what we call ourselves, what we think ourselves to be, how we identify ourselves. For some reason my life has taken me to this point of ineffable sublimity. My guardian angel, everyone's guardian angel, is their true nature, the being of light and energy.

The cynical forces of conditioned deluded beings discounts, devalues, things of spirit, dismissing them as "New Age" folderol. Such beings have not yet seen the energy field surrounding them, have not yet gotten the message from the Earth that all ground is sacred, all life is sacred. Those who would desecrate the earth, those who would desecrate the body, those who would desecrate their lives and their relationships with other beings, have yet to encounter the spirit of the universe dwelling in all things, the very essence of all existence and awareness, the One.

So the rest of the days in this form I have assumed will be working with the energy, and remembering what we really are, and being that. Having, sharing, living, expressing, and spreading this ineffable understanding in daily life.

What's a being of light to do?

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Choosing to live in one place for the sake of living in one place, being place-centered rather than career-centered, is a decision that has helped me get to a place, a space, a headplace, a headspace, that is the fulfillment of my longest, deepest hopes. Not having to commute by car in itself has been a great blessing. To be able to walk everywhere I need to go has gotten my feet back on the ground. Sacred ground. Sacred feet. Sacred feat.

As someone who happens to be of European descent, born and raised in urban-industrial society, I've strayed from the path such a person would be expected to follow. Somewhere along the lines I've become voluntary or involuntarily indigenous. The spirit of the Earth got me good, at various times in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Now as I grow ever nearer to returning corporeally to the Earth--the earth, air, fire, water, and spirit of this form slipping back into nature, the dewdrop slipping back into the shining sea of energy--my relationship with the Earth, with Spirit, with Sunlight, with Water, with Sky, with all that lives--is deeper, more meaningful by the day.

These changes happen on their own accord, at their own pace. The inner growth, the deeper understanding, happen silently, invisibly, until one finds himself a completely different person. Blooming where I'm planted, becoming something that has always been deep within me, but could never see before the blooming.

The brief excursions into core shamanism were perhaps premature, or perhaps they planted seeds in me, or perhaps they quickened the sprouting of seeds that were already in me. At this point in my life, I've come to realize that what matters most is nature and spirit, and for that I am deeply grateful.

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I can appreciate why some people are attracted to Buddhism. It's scientific. It's experiential. It's practical. It gets right to the nut: suffering, the cause of suffering, the end of suffering, the path to insight. And then the delightful life as a no-self being of pure unadulterated buddha-nature.

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Nov. 15, 2005, full moon. Been in touch with a relative whose husband left her. My father used to tell me, even when I was a child, "your mind can make you ill." He knew the truth of that statement from firsthand experience. My relative is as old as my father was when he had his 'nervous breakdown.' The karma of strong ego, busy mind, out-of-control thoughts and mistaken notions. I know that well. So I remember Gautama Buddha's words: "All that is, is the result of thought, it is founded on thought, it is made of thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage. All that is, is the result of thought, it is founded on thought, it is made of thought. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him."

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Introspection is therapeutic because it is simply 'looking inward' to see what's there, no more, no less. Introversion is often unhealthy because it ruminates on the delusions within without being objective about them, taking them seriously, identifying with them, engrossed in them. The whole experience is one of inner turmoil, murkiness that doesn't see itself clearly.

Introspection is clarity, a free, supple attention that can be directed anywhere, within, without. There is no opposite of introspection, there is no 'extrospection' or 'extrospective' person in common usage.

How good it is to be aware, alert, introspective, silent, responding from the depth of one's true self, letting the true self in its unfathomable clarity and peace be fully in control, living this life which is its, after all, the universe.

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Nov. 14, 2005. Unusually warm and sunny weekend for mid-November. Went for long walks Saturday and Sunday. There is nothing quite like spending hours outdoors, alone, under the sky, to melt away the little 'I' and walk eye to eye with the Big I.

Walking through a muddy field on my way back to the abandoned rail right-of-way a lady taking her young horse for a walk greeted me. We chatted for a few minutes, and the horse, named Shalom, nuzzled my ear as I praised him. He's like a big cat who eats grass full-time, a beautiful animal. The lady Nancy and I parted ways and I found my way home, tired and happy. Long walks are magical.

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It's all about headspace. Headspace makes all the difference. With the proper headspace life is magical, and needs are few and easily met.

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Last night I spent some time in the Salvia Room drumming, playing instruments, and just sitting, with Furbananda on my lap, in purring ecstasy. The presence of the lush Salvia plants, and the presence of a delightful affectionate cat, conspired to remind me of how good pure Presence is to be in, to love lifeforce in all its forms, it's so beauiful. I pinched off a pair of new leaves at the top of the very robust plant nearest the window and nibbled them, symbolically, although the time spent in the room by the light of several candles only was a time of healing and remembrance and awareness of awareness, awareness of lifeforce. Tai chi moves, sitting in completeness. Making music was a joy.

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Activity, expression, pursuit, creating...to get into the headspace of peace and fulfillment. That place of spiritual beauty, spiritual meaning, spiritual illumination, spiritual freedom. It really doesn't take much to get to that place, that headspace. In fact, just to remember the "I AM" and that One who IS the I AM wherever I AM appears is to be in the supreme headspace.

Nisargadatta and his guru were spot-on: meditation on I AM gets you right there. Right here. Right now.

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Introspection is a good thing. Being introspective is a blessing. I think the reason I understand what I understand so well is due to being an introspective person. An introspective child/adolescent/adult. Looking within, seeking within, and finding within. It's very okay to be quiet, and reticent, and alert, shy even. I think that's what endeared me to my teachers in public school, I was such a good, quiet, thoughtful boy. Introspective.

Being introspective doesn't preclude being extroverted when the situation calls for action and expression. It's a big pet peeve of mine to see so many otherwise intelligent, introspective people shut off from normal communication because they're wearing headphones and listening to something more important or more entertaining than real life and other living beings. Just to acknowledge the Presence of each other via smile, eye contact, Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening is a significant, important expression that demands being conscientiously extroverted. Failure to acknowledge the Other is, in my book, a cardinal sin of omission. To make a point of acknowledging the Presence of the other is an act of the highest virtue.

Introversion, though, has a dubious reputation. Introversion is often equated with incipient mental illness: those who brood, those who contemplate dark things, violent things, suicidal things...the bottled-up frustrated loners who explode in rampages of vicious extroversion, unable to tolerate the accumulation of vile rancid thoughts and negative emotions.

To be able to distinguish introspection from introversion is a good thing. That way, we can be as introspective as we need to be, any time, and not feel compelled to act out, or blurt out, or otherwise do things we'd regret later.

The Witness, The Presence, is the quintessence of cosmic introspectiveness, the culmination and union of the individual's introspectiveness with the Self's innate introspectiveness, which are understood to be one and the same Awareness.

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The tree of life is a great metaphor, a factual, scientific metaphor. I see people who are buds just turning into leaf; flowers; fruits; seeds; leaves falling off the tree to nourish the tree and become tree and all its leafing, flowering, fruiting and seeding. Too bad more people don't see the tree of life and live for the tree, as the tree. At least more should return to the earth in easily biodegradable nontoxic condition, the 'natural burial' that's slowly gaining favor over the traditional postponement of recycling the dead leaf/body by aggressive embalming, entombing, hermetically-sealing.

O the young leaves, fruits and flowers. The sap still flows in abundance in this old leaf. The sap is the tree's sap, can't help it.

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Another elusive quality of being that may have contributed to this charmed life is that of good faith--not faith per se, but good faith. To live with total trust and confidence in life, in people, in society. To believe implicitly in the rightness of things and people. To live in good faith--to interact with everything and everyone in good faith. To have a naive, positive, wholesome attitude and approach.

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Innocence lost, and innocence restored. Who could refuse a wholesome, innocent child? Is wholesomeness and innocence recoverable?

The source of wholesomeness and innocence is the Whole, the Self, the Real, which is in essence benignly indifferent, absolutely without guile, without malice, innocent. Finding myself to be in fact the Self, I am once again hopelessly wholesome, indescribably innocent. That's just how I really am. Babies are children are not too badly conditioned, and manifest the goodness of the Self for a while, until the mind-dominant culture alienates the individual from his source, his true nature, his real identity.

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Nov. 11, 2005. Might as well put the date on these entries and time-stamp the Eternal Now.

For most of my adult life I confess to feeling undeserving of the comforts and privileges into which I was born, not that I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth--more like a stainless steel fork.

Increasingly, it's clear to me that most of the world's human population doesn't have a pot to piss in, and are really really hurting.

If not extreme poverty with hunger and total material wretchedness, the majority of people live lives of quiet, or not-so-quiet, desperation--the 2nd-Worlders, who are desperately poor, not quite starvation level, but quite impoverished.

Having failed to take my Affluenza shot, I'm the worst kind of poor: working poor, trying to get out of self-generated debt, taking for granted a way of life that is unaffordable and unsustainable. Improvident, months and years of We'll-Worry-About-It-Later. Later has arrived, and I am worried.

At least I'm aware that I'm worried. Maybe I can channel worry into something useful.

In the meantime I'm right there with all the Have-Nots. I feel your pain, if not your hunger.

Rich monkeys want to keep it all, and get more. Poor monkeys want enough to survive. Alpha monkeys and beta monkeys--so many, so many...and on this Veteran's Day, reading the recollections of veterans in the newspaper, they all say, in so many words, War is Hell, and War is Stupid...leaders misleading the followers, and life devalued, desecrated, them vs. us, kill maim torture, conquer, eliminate. Who will survive? Who deserves to survive?

Getting up at 4 a.m. worrying about personal finances is a rotten way to start the day. With time, patience, sacrifice, things will get better. Right now they couldn't get much worse, although I know what IS far worse: catastrophic illness, serious injury, natural disaster, sudden death. Existence is suffering. Extremely.

Where's my cosmic philosophy now?

Bing! Right here, right now, what has assumed this human form, what is playing out this banal karma?

I feel like the Starship Enterprise with shields about to fail with the next incoming phaser blast. So what. I'm the Living Cadaver, the Skeleton Man, why should I care about anything? In this body, there is not a single cell, not a single strand of DNA, not a single molecule, particle, fiber, wave of me that gives a flying fook about anything, because THERE'S NO-ONE THERE. NO-ONE HERE. NO-ONE ANYWHERE and NO-ONE EVERYWHERE.

The Pragmatic Animal, the Honest Animal. When I'm thirsty, I must find water. When I'm hungry, I must find food. When I'm cold, I must find warmth and shelter. Give me these things that any animal needs, and I will be okay. I am proud to be an animal. Animals have simple needs, few needs, and only wish to survive, to live out the days allotted to the animal form. The real needs are so very few, so very simple. If everyone was as content as the animal, Earth would still be unspoiled. Now that the humble Chinese people are forsaking bicycles for automobiles, our planet's doom is sealed.

Amazing how no-one sees it coming--Earth allowing one species of cunning ape to overpopulate its surface, allowing this species to self-destruct. Billions becoming consumers. Breed and consume more than you need, take it to the limit.

Sleep deprivation really muddles the head. Half-remembered scenes from childhood on up, sometimes full-blown daydreams. The moment profoundly surreal. Good time to cry out to the Great Spirit, putting this life in its hands. Good time to say goodbye to the personal life, to the old me, to any me. It's my esoteric profession to be NO-ONE, for the sake of all sentient beings, including this one known as Bill.

..........................

Inspiration from Cadavers and Impoverishment
Will always remember the flayed skinless cadavers of Body Worlds exhibit, how it taught how slender, how supple, how elegant, the core human form. All the systems working in unison, all cells of organism living and dying as one, for one. Feeling this flesh, these bones, the moist electric animal. Just an animal, adapting to survive.

I praise animals, I adore animals, because they are pure spirits, no self, no ego, just pure living beings. Seeing the cadavers, being reminded of the fact that I too am an animal, is liberating--the body is an animal, the body is a pure spirit, no self, no ego. It's only the superimposed superstructure of mental conditioning that sullies the purity of the pure animal we are. Once we are no longer in the grip of thoughts, of mental conditioning, we are pure spirits again, free again, animals again. We were born as pure spirits, as animals, and we will be as dead as any dead animal. Through the span of life, we pick up mental conditioning and are more or less enslaved by thoughts, acquired from others; enslaved by conditioning, performed by others who are themselves enslaved by conditioning. So the spiritual slavery, the mental conditioning, is passed on from animal to animal.

At any time, anyone, in any circumstance, can resume the condition of pure being, of pure spirit, if they are willing and able to do so, if they want to badly enough. It's all about spiritual freedom--people can't control circumstances, or other people, much at all--but people can be spiritually free, in this moment, if they want it badly enough, and are willing to break free of the grip of thoughts, of conditioning.

Accepting the state of relative impoverishment, of perpetual debt. As long as I can provide the essentials for my spouse and my furry children and myself, that's the main thing. Keep the clean water running. Keep food stocked in the pantry. Keep the house warm enough to be comfortable. Shoes and clothing sufficient for all weather. Medicines if needed. Basic telecommunications for safety and security purposes--the cell phones are lifelines, extremely useful in the context of the Buddy System, which is what marriage, family, community is at heart. Mutual assistance, mutual protection. We are not alone. Together we can survive well, better than we can alone. Society takes care of its own. At least societies based on love, on spiritual values do. So the tools to stay in touch for those times when help is needed. Home phones for 911, for family emergencies, to keep up with family sagas near and far.

Cell phones, landline phones are not inexpensive, and are out of reach of those poorer than me. The Internet is a luxury, still, although life without Internet access would feel deprived.

My creditors are not happy with me, but in deconstructing the creditors there is no-one who is personally concerned with late or non-payments--we have not borrowed from individuals, but from institutions. The people who call and write for money are just doing their job, they don't care if we pay them or not.

I will pay them as I can, and hope to eventually pay them all off, with the exception of house mortgage, which will be paid off only if I live to be 75 years old. If I can see the day before then when the only outstanding debt is the mortgage, that will be good enough. In fact, if we can marshall our yearly tax-refund windfall and use it wisely to satisfy all the creditors even without paying them off completely--to be caught up and actually ahead--that will be good enough for me. Never again will I fall prey to consumerist weakness, even though I daydream of digital pianos and large refractor telescopes. No. No. What I have is more than enough, and just to be able to pay the perpetual utility, food, fuel, insurance, telecommunication bills will be plenty good enough for me.

The recurrent prolonged agonizing over insufficient funds has become unbearable to the point where I had to do something to break the cycle of psychological suffering. The breakthrough came from the cats: they lack for nothing, they need nothing, they know how to survive, what's essential. All they need is water, food, shelter. They grow their own clothing, and have no need for shoes. Their means of transportation is also homegrown. I need not worry. I will get what I need from the same source which provides for the animals. Just survive, adapt to survive, do what it takes to survive. I am adapting, psychologically, so that I will survive, and survive untroubled, as my cats so brilliantly exemplify. We're just simple animals, beautiful beings all. They're all mine, I'm all theirs, we're all one. Purring together, surviving together, enjoying our survival.

*

There comes a time when it's necessary to come out and say what one really wants to say, to whomever will listen, to whomever would understand. Kind of a primal scream, a howl, a baying, from the core of one's being, bringing it all upward and outward, turning oneself inside out.

What one finds in oneself, is so wonderful. Knowing that it's findable in every person is wonderful. To be this thing that one has found within, is wonderful.

For lack of a better word, it's spirit. To be a being of spirit, all spirit. Quantum physics agrees, we are all energy, interchanging constantly. No reason not to call the energy of life 'spirit.'

To live as a being of energy, of light, of spirit, is wonderful. To see spirit, to feel spirit, to be spirit. Beings of light we are, of the one light.

*

Soybeans and Salvia
How could it be that a legume called soya could exist--inedible raw, taking a long time to cook, or cunning to know how to ferment, or make into milk and tofu--and able to provide all the protein a human being requires. I'm surrounded by soybean fields, and the golden beans flow by the countless tons into silos, until they go to the soybean oil, soybean meal, processing plants far away. Too bad these noble beans go to livestock rather than to more humans--humans would benefit from eating these beans, which are inexpensive and health-promoting, rather than eating livestock: a miserable, cruel, bioethically-bankrupt way of life, an unhealthy and ultimately unsustainable way to sustain human civilization.
It took hours to cook the beans, but they're tender now, and I have a week's worth of protein in the freezer now, cruelty-free. And the fiber! I must be getting old when I rejoice over effortless, complete, gut-emptying shitting.

How could it be that a plant called Salvia divinorum could exist--not much of a food crop, bitter in fact, taking a special advanced knowledge to get the motivation to consume such a bitter plant. It takes a certain amount of wisdom and life experience to be willing to undergo the changes Salvia induces in the human being. When an individual has tired of the ignorance of his own people, of his own ignorance too, it's time to open up to the wisdom of nature as revealed by chewing the leaves of the Salvia divinorum plant.

That nature provides so abundantly, meeting all our needs, so great and benign a being, no wonder humans haven't been able to resist anthropomorphizing her, either as God or Goddess.

Those lovely hours, wandering besaged in the midst of nature, singing little songs of love and praise, so beautiful, so beautiful.

In your loving arms
In your loving arms
I live forever

*

O the Wonder of Google, and of cut-and-paste:

Artist: Song Of The South Lyrics
Song: Evrybody Has A Laughing Place Lyrics

hee hee ha ha hee hee hoo hoo

Boy are we in luck!
We're visiting a laughing place
Hee hee hoo ha hoo hoo
Everybody's got a laughing place
A laughing place to go
Take a frown, turn it upside down
And you'll find yours we know
Honey and rainbows on our way
Where everyone is worth his weight
Boy are we in luck
We're visiting a laughing place
Everybody's got a laughing place
A laughing place to go
Take a smile and for a while
You'll find yours we know
Honey and rainbows on our way
Take that frown, turn it upside down
And soon you'll find you're here to stay
Everybody's got a laughing place to go
Come on in, give us all a grin
And you'll find yours I know
Laughing has always been our game
Honey fun is what we bring
Boy are we in luck
We're visiting a laughing place
Everybody's got a laughing place
A laughing place to go
We've found one thats filled with fun
And you'll find yours we know
Everybody's got a laughing place
A laughing place to go
Take a frown, turn it upside down
And you'll find yours we say we think

*

Laughing Place People
There's an old Walt Disney movie "Song of the South" that has the song "Evrybody Has A Laughing Place"--forget the lyrics but remember the gist, which is to be in that place where humor abides, where there's a hair-trigger on the load of explosive laughter. I remember so clearly my childhood laughing place, and the people who were also in it. Those special classmates, friends, relatives who catalyzed the zany absurdity, total comic freedom, no limits, no restrictions, the wilder the better.

As a mature adult I find few people to share the laughing place, but when they're found, it makes all the difference. Today, this morning, I was feeling rather depressed, serious, and this afternoon ran into two people at work who were laughing place people. They brought the laughs out of me, and I brought the laughs out of them. And I feel soooooooooo much better now.

That's a path with heart, an avenue worth exploring--the fool, the clown, the jester, the comic, the wiseacre. Not only do I benefit from repeated contact with the laughing place, but I help to promote, restore, the laughing place in the noosphere local and, eventually, distant.

Television has been good lately, with "Arrested Development" and "The Daily Show" being sources of many very good laughs. And on the Internet, with "The Onion." The people involved with realizing these shows are doing a great service, they're certified Laughing Place People too.

That cool, wry, detached, receptive, wide-open, alert headspace, taking in the ongoing sight gag that is the universe. It takes work to clean up the head enough to be in such a headspace, but headspace is EVERYTHING. The laughing place headspace is primo.

*

To feel burdened by debts, feeling the 'Middle Class Squeeze', is a variant of "Affluenza"--life becoming far more complicated and expensive than it really needs to be. I will not be cast into debtor's prison, or be maimed by a rep from Visa, but I can be tortured by my own worry. In fact, I feel now qualified to confirm that worry--stress--can kill, maiming heart muscle and the lining of arteries, and certainly being a psychological prison, psychological self-torture.

Radical voluntary simplicity--I can almost taste it. If I was single, I could easily pull it off. I've made a lifetime commitment to this other living breathing human being, and I must take into consideration her needs--and attachments.

It's really getting to be time to have a heart-to-heart talk with Salvia and get some guidance, and strength, and perspective on the situation. I should not feel so anxious, I should not be living a life of 'quiet desperation' as has been the case lately.

Maybe it's time for me to acknowledge an attachment to unrealistic goals, such as that of being completely debt-free in this lifetime.

*

Overcoming aversion to politics and personalities, remembering that love does indeed conquer all. Even the Institutional Drearies. The dreariest institution in my experience has requested my presence at a voluntary meeting tomorrow at lunch. There may be politics and personalities in abundance, in the context of the dreariest of spaces. I have decided to attend, only after I managed to get my mind right and remember that love conquers all. And that if I don't dwell in Presence, who will...I will bring Presence to the table, if nothing else. Presence, and that all-embracing love and acceptance that is the hallmark of Presence. The gnarliest of bureaucrats, the most insufferable of self-important administrators, will not be excluded from unstoppable radiant Presence. The Presence will awaken long-dormant stirrings within them, and they will lock the doors of the conference room, and they will remove all of their clothing and melt into oneness in a metasexual group hug. Or at least be a bit more relaxed, natural, and candid in their clothing.

*

Two Questions
1. Who am I?
2. Am I spiritually free in this moment?

*

Game Over
The roles people identify with makes life on this planet a global Role-Playing Game, the ultimate RPG. Perhaps throughout the universe people on different planets are playing out their own RPGs as well.

A person dabbling in nonduality can take a person out of the game, though, at least for a while. When the state of no-self no-role is realized and stabilized, the person can then re-enter the ongoing RPG, playing any role, but not identifying with any of them, not taking any of them seriously. The nondualistic person sees people not as their roles, but as their true Self, the pure being behind every awareness. The opportunities of Self to commune with Self even when Self is wearing a disguise just can't be passed up just because the Self wears disguises so cunning that they fool even the wearer into thinking he is the disguise.

Multiple-Personality Disorder
The human population suffers from widespread Multiple-Personality Disorder (MPD). From moment to moment people manifest the spirits of their ancestors, or the spirits of their peers, or the spirits of television programs, by whatever the impressionable mind has been impressed.

There are the occasional persons who have grown weary of hosting restive spirits, and just want to be one stable spirit, comfortable in the skin. Fortunately, there is one stable spirit who is in all skin, and whose very nature is to be comfortable.

*

Old Clothes
This morning, in something of a rush to find clothes to wear to work, I grabbed one of my favorite shirts and favorite pants and noticed the collar and cuffs were starting to get threadbare. The pants had a small hole that Jean sewed together, and the pants were also getting threadbare. So there I stood, clad in old threadbare clothes, pulling on shoes on the verge of falling apart, donning a slightly torn jacket that has a black paperclip that replaced a lost zipper handle. In short, I was not dressed as a high-roller, not as a mover or a shaker. If I was a high rolling mover shaker I would not wear these clothes to work, I would dress for success, dress to impress, dress to feel confident, competent, successful. I would put lots of money into wardrobe and grooming, and have a nice house and a nice car. Instead, all that I own is old, worn, scratched, dented, used.

When I have been taken over by the Impressor, the clothes embarrass me.
When I have been taken over by the Old Hippie, the clothes flatter me.
When I am no-one, playing no role, when I am awareness with nothing but the Self as me, the clothes keep me warm. I feel the comfort of the cotton fibers, the protection and support of the shoes.

People really are playing roles, possessed by various selves/spirits/identities. They must speak/dress/act according to role, a role fully identified with, a role taken very seriously. The role is inherited, acquired, and seems to perpetuate itself.

What interests me now is who is behind awareness, who is the awareness, where am "I" coming from.
The object of my interest is not far from me, it's closer to me than me.
All I can do is just let go and be it, seeing through these eyes, writing with these fingers, speaking through this voice, listening through these ears.

Nisarga yoga, jnana yoga. Those who know they are the Self, live daily life as the Self. A wonderful state of being, a wonderful state of mind, a wonderful reality, all beings can enjoy this, if only they know they are the Self, and live the rest of their days as the Self. When old age, illness, injury, loss, death come, as they must, the beings who know they are the Self meet them with acceptance and good humor, as the Self is birthless and deathless, universal and eternal, assuming every brief form that comes and goes. Nothing can change or take away the Self.

*

It isn't such a bad thing to call this living universal Presence the "Divine Presence." This is a way of making it clear that this Presence is to be respected, accepted, followed, even though it is, strangely and wonderfully enough, our own presence. Wrapped in the Divine Presence that is everywhere, always, it's always possible, anywhere, to surrender to it, to find refuge in it. To think, speak, and act from the Divine Presence, as the Divine Presence, is a pretty slick way to be, to take whatever time is left in this human form that the Divine Presence has temporarily assumed and just be Divine Presence, and think, speak, and act accordingly.

Whatever circumstances one happens to be in, it's possible to live it out, live it through, see it through to the end, as Divine Presence. No situation is ideal, no one gets away easily, but if one has realized the Divine Presence, the destination is reached, in the eternal now.

Truly it is no longer the name, the form, the person, the small self, the limited identity, that lives out the life, but the Divine Presence. This quantum shift is done without fanfare, in silence, the only clues to the transformation being the outflow of joy, peace, and lovingkindness in all circumstances.

*

No matter what I say, or don't say; no matter what I do, or don't do; no matter what I think, or don't think; changes what I really am. There is either realization of the real self--the Self--or there isn't. Even without self-realization, the Self remains the Self. But to not realize the Self as oneself is to be subject to all manner of suffering. To be filled with delusions, desires, fears, attachments, to have a mistaken identity, to take one's role in society seriously, to identify with name and form, is to set oneself up for major protracted suffering.

In this moment the Self abides. Be the Self, and be beyond all suffering, birth and death. This is what we are.

The I AM, wherever it is, is the same I AM, the I AM of the Self, universal, deathless, birthless. The forms the Self has assumed are temporary, yet all forms are the Self, filled with nothing but the Self. The Self see through every eye, feels through all skin, hears through every ear, speaks through every voice.

Ordinary life is the life of the Self. Ordinary awareness is the Self's awareness. This mind is the universe's mind, totally impersonal.

The drama of duality unfolds as it must, those forms ignorant of the fact that Self abides as all selves mistreating each other badly, creating all manner of misery for each other.

The big inequity of dualistic life on earth is the existence of widespread poverty side-by-side with great affluence. The challenge at hand is to reduce the world's population by birth control, move people away from non-arable and dangerous places, and establish societies worldwide that are uniformly blessed with clean water, sanitation, balanced nutrition, adequate shelter, clothing, education, and medical care. The existence of have-too-muches and have-nots need not be a permanent state of affairs. It's possible to equalize the wealth of the world so that everyone has enough to live a healthy, wholesome life, a life conducive to Self-realization, a sustainable, meaningful way of life. The current civilization is in the process of collapse, and the replacement civilization can be created to be sustainable and equitable.

*

I like to write so much that it borders on clinical hypergraphia, for which medications exist to treat it. I'll continue to write what's writeable, because I just plain like to write. Embroidering on the living truth, making complex what is simple, perhaps, but writing regularly is therapeutic, keeps the writing muscles toned.

Walking to work, thoughts aflutter, until I deliberately ask myself, Who Am I? Who is this which is aware? and the ever-present universal awareness settles in, clear and real. What a luxury that human beings, hairless apes that we are, can, if they are so inclined, be aware of awareness, and marvel at this awareness, this universal awareness, that just is. Just to be this being, just to be the awareness, so simple, so real, so liberating. It's no longer me, or about me. The trappings of individuality persist, just as the form persists, temporarily. "I have assumed this temporary human form."

So this natural pure constant self-existent universal eternal Being and Awareness is the grand prize. What now?

That's easy, continue to live, work, play, do what monkeys do in their society, and enjoy the communion and community of monkeys and living things. To be joyful, to be peaceful, to be kind, to express that thing we all are.

*

November has been an especially magical month over the years, particularly early November. Synchronicities abound, dreams, visions presaging events. Yesterday morning dreamed of a harpsichord, but it was being played like a violion, with a bow against the strings somehow. The music was rich and beautiful nonetheless. Okay, nice dream.

Today a mensch I've known for years dropped by the office to tell me he and his wife were in the process of 'slimming down' their house in preparation for a move to an apartment, and he would like to give me their harpsichord.

This is one of those Novembers.

*

As a teenager I crossed paths with spiritualists and psychics, both religious and professional varieties of each. One minister of the Spiritualist Church, in a trance, advised me to "do your own thinking." What excellent advice indeed! A very flamboyant professional psychic who my mother urged me to see--as I was a worrisome youth--told me he saw a "double star of destiny." Wow, a double star. A single would be fine, thanks, but a double? Whatever that means. Must be good. Hope it's good. He did pick up that I had "Eastern teachers." May have been the shaved head I had at the time.

At any rate, I've been doing what I think is my own thinking, and growing into a destiny that isn't very easy to describe. How can you say anything about universal awareness to anyone? That this very awareness is the universal awareness? That the hackneyed pursuit of "finding yourself" is beside the point, but "finding the Self" is an unbearably blindingly intense annihilation of all that is delusional, and resumption of life as the Self in the temporary human form it has assumed? That the most wonderful things are simple things, loving things, living things, like walking outdoors, or communicating in real-time with flesh-and-blood-and-spirit beings such as people and animals? That a lapful of purring cats in the peace and quiet of home is total fulfillment? That's my destiny is not a double-star but all the galaxies and all the emptiness and all the energy flowing forever in emptiness?

Have experienced multiple personalities, each grandparent, each parent, by turns...maybe the uneasiness of the mix, the sheer incongruity of personality types, drove me to find that elusive person known as the 'real me.' The miserable madness of being an 'unreal me', being at the mercy of thoughts, notions and emotions, identifying with them, has driven me to stop at nothing short of the true self.

Looking for the real me has brought me to the real me, here all along, that good mellow person shadowing those other anguished persons over the decades. The true self, the Self, is everyone's "Guardian Angel." A sweet angel indeed. Always in charge, waiting in abeyance, silently, patiently, to reclaim himself, redeem himself, salvage himself, after prolonged periods of suffering the stresses of delusional thinking of delusional self.

*

If everyone was totally in control by the universal I, what a grand reunion that would be, a nonstop reunion.

Parts of the universe are flying apart, and parts are coming together. Eventually all parts of the universe come together. The universe gathers itself as it can, as it will.

*

For a long time took musicmaking very personally seriously. It was reaffirmation of the presence of Talent, inherited from musical ancestors. I should do something with this Talent, study, become a professional. Get better and better, faster and faster. Don't waste the Talent.

Becoming a professional musician makes as much sense as becoming a professional poet, a professional contemplative, a professional meditator. What it is in music that I've ultimately come to value is the Place from which the music comes, for when the music comes from that Place, it's not the music that matters but being in that Place. That Place is spiritual freedom, spiritual beauty. Music helps to realize spiritual freedom, spiritual beauty, but true spiritual freedom and true spiritual beauty does not depend on any outside stimulus, does not depend on anything at all. The beauty, the freedom, is found in the ground of being itself, the spirit, which is eternally present in the eternal now.

To hear music from that Place...to quietly sing a few notes from that Place...it doesn't take much to be in that Place. Being in that Place is what matters. IPods go to many places, not necessary that Place.

*

The perfect expression of the true self may be sitting in silence, and it may also be going about one's business, spontaneously doing what has to be done, the Self doing all the work. Another perfect expression that transcends all barriers of language and technical limitations is the Hug. Hugging a trusted and trusting cat is the way I communicate to him that I consider him part of me, which he is, and at times he'll wrap himself around my head to let me know I'm part of him too. I could always use a hug, and I pass people who sure look like they could use a hug too. I miss the days on the spiritual commune when everyone greeted each other with at least smiles and bright full eye contact when passing on the way, if not stopping for hugs too.

*

Emptiness, transparency, no-thingness, no-selfness, is ageless, timeless, beyond birth and death, closer than close in everything.

In this monkey form, deliberately slow, no longer in a hurry. Where is better than here? When is better than now? I am already here, now. I am always here, now. Here, now, is presence, is spirit, is energy, is emptiness. If I'm not complete here, now, I will never be complete.

That first adult experience of being fully in the present, sitting under a tree in the park, totally complete, the ecstasy of being, in the midst of shimmering energy. That was some good Orange Barrel. How lucky could I get.

In those wonderful hours, watching cars on a nearby road zoom by, in a hurry to get somewhere. How crazy is that.

The seat-of-the-pants knowledge imparted directly from the earth, "all ground is sacred."

The uncontrolled mirth. One of my two friends with me on the trip pulled out a pack of cigars, VanDyke "Straight." The picture of VanDyke on the pack, looking very straight indeed, causing me to lose all control every time he appeared. My friend didn't help matters by croaking "straight!" every time he'd pull out the cigar pack from his pocket.

Childhood laughing jags, blessed to have schoolmates and friends who had keen senses of the absurd, who knew how to make me laugh, who let themselves be made to laugh as well, a delightful feedback loop of delirious laughter. In class, delicious laughter.

In class, delicious daydreaming. The spirit of the universe, the sweet peaceful energies, through the ripply glass windows of the old school building.

Laughing and daydreaming and on a nonstop trip now. Can't help it, why fight it, just go with.

*

When I worked night shift as orderly in a big city hospital I took a journal with me and scribbled in it. There was the occasional patient who talked at some length with me, and it was good to have such opportunities to go beyond vital signs and catheter care. One patient, a young man a few years my senior who had an obvious Counterculture appearance, was a thoughtful, open fellow who contributed a verse to my journal, at my request:

"If the universe exists,
Then so might I.
The universe is me
and I am its eye."

Over the decades since I've been so busy making 'personal history' that I forgot to get 'impersonal.' It's like riding a bike, though, once mastered, you never forget how. I first got 'impersonal' when I became technically an independent adult, age 18, and split a certain compound three ways with two close friends.

Now three and a half decades later in the middle of the workday I go about as It, seeing through Its eye. Perfect transparency, perfect emptiness. The same beautiful awareness always here.

I've been looking for that certain something that makes for universal communication, universal meaning, that can transcend all barriers, language barriers, technical barriers...music is a universal language, but what good is that for the deaf people? Meaningful beautiful visual art is useless to the blind people. For people both blind and deaf, for anyone, how to communicate that which is worth communicating, which is universal unconditional love, the recognition of spirit by spirit?

Touch is probably the most universal method to communicate. Few people, few lifeforms, lack touch sensitivity. Through touch it's possible to convey love, acceptance, mutual recognition, even between species. Voice, quality of voice, transcends language barriers--even if the words are not understood, the quality of energy empowering the words is understood. Eye contact with other beings who have the faculty of sight is a powerful method of communicating, facilitating the exchange of energy between beings. Body language, facial expressions reinforce the nonverbal communication.

And then there's energy vibrations, 'vibes.' Vibes are as real as the energy of the universe, which is all vibratory. How we are can't be hidden, it radiates from us as our vibes. Every being is surrounded by a field of unique energy, bearing the energy signature of that being. Our energy fields interpenetrate, and it's not always clear whose energy is whose. Moot point anyway, it's all one, it's all its.

*

What makes individuals individuals, unique, distinguishable, is our energy signature, the quality of the energy that radiates from us, the degree of purity of the energy that we give back to other individuals, to the universe. It is up to the individual, such as he is, to transmute and transform the incoming pure energy in such a way that the outgoing energy is reasonably pure, if not totally pure. The qualities called love, peace, and joy are energy states, qualities of energy, that unblock the flow of energy wherever it goes.

We are all powerful radio transmitters of energy, and sensitive radio receivers of energy. We can rebroadcast what we receive, if we so choose, or transmit original programming, from the pure center of being, pure energy, pure unitive energy.

*

What melds science and religion is the presence of energy. Morality, ethics, spirituality, physics, chemistry, astrophysics, everything in the voidness is energy in form, or formlessness. Energy Morality, Energy Ethics, Energy Spirituality, is based on the intimate connectedness all forms of energy have by their very nature, their shared single identity as energy. To have too much energy, to have too little energy, is unstable, and sooner or later must resolve itself. Sin is blocking the flow of energy; virtue is restoring the flow of energy, and manifesting its unblocked flow.

Lifeforce is energy, lifeforce is awareness. Energy is fully aware of energy.

A spiritual teacher once told me to be respectful of the energy. I knew what he meant, and he knew I knew what he meant. In the present moment, in the field of energy, as crystallizations of energy, patterns of living aware energy, we have an incessant responsibility to keep our energy pure, or rather to let our energy resume its natural purity.

It's liberating to know that what we are is nothing but energy, no separate energy really, it's all shared, flowing, belonging to no-one and to everyone simultaneously. There is no-one but energy, nothing but energy.

The New Age ideal of a civilization populated by beings of light and love and peace is based in reality, the reality of omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent energy.

Spiritual values includes providing food (energy) to the hungry, and manifesting unconditional love, unconditional acceptance, unconditional forgiveness: unblocking the healing flow of energy within beings with energy-blockages. To do this we must first unblock ourselves, the energy-pattern we happen to be, the node of energy, the wave of energy, that has a name, and a form, for its brief appearance.

The source of every I AM is energy; within that energy, no-one exists. Wherever I AM appears, it is the same being appearing.

*

The primary religious experience is what is important to those who understand what entheogens are all about. There is also the issue of cognitive liberty, and included in such liberty is the primary religious experience. Having experienced firsthand the power of entheogens to effect primary religious experiences, life-changing experiences, I'm very interested in promoting the ceremonial use of entheogens, even if the ceremony is very small and very humble. Indeed, small, humble ceremonies may be the most effective.

I'm also cognizant that entheogens are not necessary for ongoing religious experience. Again, by firsthand experience, I am able to utilize the fundamental essence of this ordinary human life--self-aware sentient existence--to reach a stable, sustainable, nondual awareness that can best be described as emptiness. Mind in its essence is emptiness; Being in its essence is emptiness. In this absence, this voidness, this nothingness, is a wondrous fullness, that reveals all things in this moment to be whole, and pure. This perspective of emptiness only requires fully surrendering the false self and its feverish imaginings.

In emptiness even residual feverish imaginings are allowed to have their transient existence, rising and falling in the great ongoing emptiness of mind, emptiness of true self.

Entheogens have a way of bringing people into the present, into Presence; once there, it's possible to stay there, without entheogenic assistance. I honor the entheogens, as they took me on a road not well traveled that has taken me to the destination of the present, Presence; more people should take such a road. A civilization based on timeless spiritual values, on being whole in the present moment without need of anything beyond the basics, would be a sustainable, joyful, fulfilled civilization.

*

Am enjoying studying the local history, particularly the transportation history, particularly the trains that once criss-crossed Oberlin. There was a time around 100 years ago that Oberlin was connected to other towns via rail, both steam and electric. Passenger trains eventually were doomed by the private automobile, and freight trains by the 18-wheeler semi. One main train right of way is now a paved bike path; another is defunct, overgrown; and two others exist only as long enigmatic earthworks through fields, long tree lines in the middle of nowhere that if not for old maps would be inexplicable.

It's a gut-felt longing to bring back a time when the land was not yet totally desecrated by commercial interests coming in to 'own' the fields and forests and turn them into tacky commercial and residential developments, when there wasn't the incessant, ubiquitous zooming-by of internal-combustion vehicles. The scale, the context, of town life was smaller, slower--the world was larger, and not overexploited. Fewer people, more forests--there were aspects of early 20th century life that I wish were still present in early 21st century.

One of the central recurring themes of my recent series of Salvia journeys starting in 2000 is the primacy of nature, that the natural, organic world wishes to grow, grow back, take back every part of the planet. Just as the ruins of ancient collapsed civilizations have been overtaken by jungle, so too will our cities, by the native flora and fauna. I, in this form, will not live to see this happen, but I, in the form of the web of life, will do what I must do, and take back all those places the proud monkeys and their plastic, metal, concrete and asphalt cages have despoiled. In the meantime I commune with the web of life, in silent unity and understanding. And infinite patience.

*

Haven't consorted with Salvia divinorum very much, other than in symbolic ways that seldom are very strong in a physical sense. It's as if there was a time I needed to be rendered powerless by the plant so that I could better receive the message from this green messenger of nature. Having received the message many times, it's no longer necessary for me to forcibly surrender to it. In fact, with the right mindset and setting--such as standing before the plants, alone, in gratitude for the pure life, pure awareness, pure being, pure spirit, pure energy that Salvia is, and that Salvia delivers to a dense, heavily-conditioned, concept-enslaved monkey such as this form called Bill--a small leaf chewed brings back the pure message of nature in its fullness, and I stand complete, pure, a natural being of light and life and purity again, fully rejoining the Overbeing of all existence.

This is my yoga, and I do it not just to save myself from myself but to do what I can to help others find their way out of the misery of false self and toward the true self, the selfless Self of the universe. In this very moment, for any being, there exists the end of suffering through realizing that the suffering self does not in fact exist--there is only glorious emptiness at the core. Who then is ready for the liberation of emptiness, for the resumption of life as self-less energy, spirit, the eternal Self?

*

The old-timey word for cosmic energy was, and is, Spirit. Nice word, spirit is less scientific, less technical, much warmer, than Energy. Spirit implies an aware energy, a living energy. Why not call it spirit.

Whatever it's called, it's The Stuff; sometimes it's in a captive state, being held prisoner by heavily-conditioned and ignorant beings, filled with fear and desire and attachment; sometimes it's absolutely free, totally open and fully aware, the state of enlightened beings.

Spirit, and things spiritual, are timeless, as spirit is timeless. The spiritual knowledge is gained, and passed on, so that every being of spirit can learn how to be free, and how to transmit the knowledge of spiritual freedom. Spirit is handing down a message to itself, eye to eye, heart to heart, being to being, generation to generation.

To have as many beings as possible live in a state of spiritual freedom is the mission. Suffering is inevitable in this process until there is sufficient insight into That Which Experiences All Things. When the selfless Self is again fully in control of the form it happens to be in, that which was formerly interpreted as suffering ceases to be suffering. Hunger, thirst, cold, illness, injury, old age, death, loss of loved ones and possessions, loss of every thing...the impermanence of form, inevitable, to be accepted gracefully.

That's the spiritual secret passed on to whomever is ready to understand: to understand we are nothing but spirit, one spirit, one universal energy, rising and falling in these forms, with one eternal I, one eternal Eye. Nobody dies, nobody is born, spirit is birthless and deathless. The newborn has a load of karma waiting to be taken on, a whole lot of suffering to work through; the deceased has shucked it all, returned to oneness. If anyone should be mourned, it's the newborn, not the deceased. There should be a spiritual rite of passage celebrated with great joy, when the individual has surrendered all notions of individuality and has realized his true universal Self. It could happen at any age, and when it does, it should be commemorated by throwing a big party, where a good time will be had by all.

It harkens back to a dream I had a while back, where Jesus' disciples laughed when someone mentioned that Jesus was dead; they all understood that what Jesus is, what they are, is one and the same, and never dies. The end of the delusion of separate self is the resumption of eternal life, universal identity.

*

Everything is dancing energy, and everything dancing is energy, part of it all, destined to live forever dancing. The dance is pretty crummy sometimes, in some places, until the dancers get it right. Getting the dance smoother, more fun, more effortless, for everyone, is the way of the eternal dance.

I can feel that Sufi urge now--that strong smooth rich french press coffee, that liberating understanding, free energy wants to dance. The workplace is a dance, making life easier for each other, making the dance smoother, more fun, more sustainable.

It's a passing show, transforming constantly, changing, energy can't be created or destroyed just changed, changed, changed in form. The dance of energy goes on.

A dream of energy, that dreamlike energy, no wonder it's felt like a dream all this time. Nothing to do but be a lucid part of the ongoing dream, listening, responding, participating, identifying with everything and everyone and loving loving loving these dream beings, these energy beings.

*

Everything is energy. The consequences of an action result in a change of energy state. If I cheat on my wife, my energy is encumbered, and the once-stable energy of mutual trust becomes degraded with the unstable negative energies of jealousy and anger. Even though there is no self, only energy, the quality of energy determines the quality of experience, and the quality of the energy/experience can be improved, stabilized, enhanced, when energies are combined in a harmonious way. All the energy of the universe is accessed when the individual surrenders to the universe, allows the universe to become the form, the identity. Once this unity is recognized, there is only one presence, manifesting in many forms. The universe brings itself into harmony, separating and reuniting with itself incessantly. The universe forgets it's the universe, and assumes various identities, and there the saga, soapopera, and suffering begins, only to end when the suffering forms remember what they really are.

*

There is only one way to end suffering, and that is to end the sufferer, i.e., the illusory, non-existent self. Anyone in any circumstance, no matter how wretched, can, if the intent is earnest and single-minded, keep asking 'what is this thing that's suffering?' and get to the blessed no-self Self and put up with anything, as the Self.

Every living being is a leaf on the tree of life. The tree of life brings forth leaf after leaf, each leaf imbued with its life, its awareness, the same life, the same awareness. Each leaf eventually craps out, to fall and fertilize the ongoing tree of life. The crapping-out is not tragic, what's tragic is the leaf not realizing it's the same life and awareness as the tree of life and every other leaf.

The cult of individuality-worship this materialistic civilization is currently practicing is a great tragedy, leaves en masse unaware of what they really are, and instead infatuated with how unique each leaf is, how superior one leaf is, or how inferior other leaves are, how important it is for each leaf to fear death, and hope for an afterlife, or at least to live to be 200 with all your teeth and sex organ function intact, prolonging personal youth at all costs, with nanotechnology perhaps. Each leaf is to believe it is separate, independent, its life is its very own, nevermind the stem that ties it to the twig and the branch and the limb and the trunk and the roots and the water and the air and the sun and the earth and every other leaf and every other being.

*

All the traditional sins--lust, laziness, gluttony, greed, pride, anger, envy--are hallmarks of a dualistic mindset. In the course of any given day I can say I've felt at least one of them, or all of them. The delicious irony is that with a truly nondualistic mindset not only is there no sin, but no sinner, no self, and no judge of oneself or other selves. There are only consequences of actions, actions springing from mindset. The cats could be said to sin, as I've watched them indulge in every one of the Seven Deadlies: lust, the urge to hump; sloth, the 16-hour-a-day sleepathons; gluttony, scarfing down food as if there's no tomorrow; greed, unwillingness to share the morsels in the food bowl with others; pride, maintaining dignity at all costs, even after doing something stupid; anger, hissing and spitting and hassling with fangs bared, claws deployed; envy, or maybe jealousy, looking balefully at siblings hogging up all available lap space. Sin is an abstract concept, with no real existence. There is, ultimately, at the heart of everything, energy--cosmic energy--and at the heart of cosmic energy there is nothing, no-one, nobody. Sin, virtue, good, evil, is nothing but energy flowing, dispersing and accumulating, following the course of its own nature.

If I really believed that a God or even discarnate entities were watching me live this life I'd be deeply ashamed, or at least embarrassed. I don't particularly care for the presence of my dear departed when I'm in the bathroom, toying with body fluids.

Of course I ask myself, why, as Mr.-Nobody-Home, am I playing with my body fluids in the first place? Maybe I still need to confirm that there is nothing and nobody, to remind myself that no matter what I do, no-one is watching, not even me.

There is something around, though, an ethereal field of energy, an electric Presence. There's an immense benignly indifferent intelligence to this Presence, as I perceive it in my own being--Presence experiencing Presence. This is the same Presence I experience so acutely when in the woods and meadow soon after chewing the leaves of Salvia divinorum. The Presence is Nature. True Nature is my true nature.

How good it feels to forgo the restless monkey thoughts and monkeyshines and just be Presence. That's the payoff of so-called virtue, of ceasing to so-called sin: to enjoy being Presence, to tune into Presence, to make Presence be the Great Endless Instant Gratification. Experiencing the consequences of surrendering to Presence is a payoff that feeds itself. Being a Presence-junkie is only natural, and is the best addiction, the ultimate addiction, truly a fatal addiction in that it is the end of the self and the restoration of the unparalleled fate of being genuine universal Presence Energy. There is no end to Presence, impossible to run away from, or run out of, Presence, as it is the stuff of the universe.

*

If it weren't for the persistence of enslaving thoughts I'd have been on a nonstop nonduality bender for decades by now, insteads of the fits and starts and brief flashes. How many years ago was it when, while walking along Lorain Street by Finney Chapel on my way to work did it first occur to me "who's this minding the store all on its own?" The first clear understanding, the first direct experience, of the pure natural fundamental awareness, the self-existent universal intelligence manifesting as 'me.' That was, and is, and always will be, the real deal, and maybe I needed to suffer a bit longer to learn my lesson. Enough is enough. I'm getting long in the tooth, and the only thing that matters to me anymore is to be real, that's all. To be this thing I always naturally am. It's a little embarrassing to think of all the rigamarole I've put myself through to get to this thing that's always here anyway. Truly I've been wandering around, looking for my lost ass upon which I've been riding to try to find my lost ass. All this time I've been that lost ass, and now I've found me. What an ass! At least now I can find my own ass with my own hands.

And I can't talk about it, or write about it, or be a huckster for it. All I can do is just be it. Just let it be it. Let it do it. Let it say it. Trust it, trust in it. In It I Trust.

So I go back to talking about what can be talked about. Such as how good it is to make coffee using the french press method, a heaping coffee measure of any old ground coffee with hot water dumped on it, stirred and steeped for five minutes, then pressed. Never too strong, even with two measures per cup, although I'm feeling great with one measure per cup, three times a day. Yesssss!

And that South Beach Diet is a keeper. Can make it vegan, can make it omnivorous, and it's working. Can function, and I'm not ravenously hungry, and it's curing the obesity epidemic which has infected our household over the years.

Underlying all, is This Presence. Still have to try to talk about it, as dangerous as that might be to merely think about it instead of being it.

*

It is one of the highest points of my day whenever the cats come together to share their life and warmth with mine. It happens in the early morning when they cluster around my head when I return to bed after taking a piss; it happens later in the morning when I'm reading the newspaper and they melt on my lap; it happens during lunch hour when I nap upstairs; it happens when I journey with Salvia and lay on my back. This is reunion of animals, basking in the interpenetrating radiance of pure natural spirit. There is nothing better. Whatever form love takes, is the highest good. Love is the One recognizing itself in other forms.

*

Yesterday, and the day before yesterday, took two long brisk walks, including the loop of Westwood Cemetery. The meditation topic emerged at the cemetery, each time: what would you do if you came back to life? what would you say? how would you feel? how would you be?

And a headstone had a clue: "Love is never wasted."

The power to love comes from our true nature, the true self, which exists as the one true self everywhere, within everyone as the true self. To be the true self is to live again, and to live forever, in all forms.

For us to grieve at our funerals makes as much sense as a living organism grieving whenever its cells die and are reabsorbed by that organism. There are no Loved Ones--there is only the One, which alone loves, and is loved by, itself.

*

I delight in the freedom and spontaneity of the cats. They come and go as they please. They are free beings, content with what they are, where they are, what they do. I have also experienced what it's like to be a free being, just to be, whether moving or still, in whatever position or activity. I understand why zazen is the perfect expression of perfect freedom. To be in the state of pure being. Just to sit is enough. There is no need for certain special conditions to be met in order to be truly free. In this moment the true self is free, just as the cat is content in the same moment. What comes naturally to the cat, human beings must strive toward until the spontaneous freedom of pure being true self in this very moment is realized, and manifested effortlessly.

*

Was browsing through a book of ca. 1930 photographs and was struck by how even in the most homely scenes there was an undeniable charm to the buildings and to the overall level of high technology and affluence, or rather the lack thereof.

I could live very happily in the '30s, and perhaps I'll get my wish as the economy continues to deteriorate.

Simple dwellings, simple way of life, compared to nowadays.

I would forgo computers, televisions, cell phones, every appliance that beeps and is digital.

Charm in life. Slowness. Simplicity. Frugality. Retro.

The beeping digital spasticity of this energy-drunk era has no charm.

My favorite spot in the house is the upstairs room where the Salvia grows. No electronics, no electricity except for the ceiling light. Sitting in this room, illuminated by the rays from the Sun or from a candle, there is refuge, there is charm.

Maybe because I'm so well-acquainted with electronics and digital crap that I've lost interest in it all. To be off-line and unplugged would be a blessing, if ever the time came to this. On-line and plugged in for now, I gamely work and play with the toys of the day. Non-attachment.

*

The most eloquent expression is not found in words, or music, or artifice, but in living, aware presence. My heart leaps with joy when I'm face to face with the cats; their presence is pure, and strong, and delightful, as their spirit is pure. When presences communicate wordlessly and establish implicit tacit trust, there is the presence of peace, love, joy. It is possible for any human being to resume being pure spirit, and thus have a pure, strong, loving, peaceful, joyous presence--the big obstacle to surrendering to, and expressing, pure spirit is mind-dominance, being controlled by--and identifying with--thoughts.

*

What interests me the most is what all beings have in common, what all beings ARE in common, which is everything, literally everything. Taking what we all have, what we all are, and using it to find an end to suffering, means everything to me now.

And NOW is the operative word. Right now, with this very mind, this very awareness, this very life, is the material to work with, to find insight, to find the end of suffering in this very moment.

If I can find insight in this moment, any being can find insight in this very moment. If I can find the way to end suffering in this moment, any being can find the way to end suffering in this very moment.

I'm reluctant to focus on anything that is peculiar to me--such is the stuff of duality, the worship of individuality. Anything that is different about me is purely form-al, of form only; cosmetic, not cosmic.

This world is fast approaching the time when it can no longer afford the luxury of have-too-much's and have-nots. No human being should ever have to be condemned to a lifetime of hunger, thirst, poverty, deprivation, ignorance. To live in places where people ought not to live has to stop. To bring more people into the world than the land can support has to stop. Taking care of the people who are already here is absolutely top priority, with planning to make life sustainable, and wholesome. The human experience on this planet can be one of needs-met, everyone having enough, indefinitely.

What's needed is a change of mindset, to get off the abominable global 'gold standard' and on the 'lifespirit standard.'

*

Had a sneezing fit at 4 a.m., got up to piss, and when I returned to bed all four cats clustered around my head, neck, and shoulders, purring loudly. Couldn't get back to sleep, so just lay there, enjoying the companionship of the warm purry furry pure spirits.

After breakfast, sat down with the morning paper and four cats found their way to my lap. The cats, those pure spirits, are content and complete, and have only the basic needs of the pure animal spirit. They have accepted me into their ranks, and I'm so happy about that. Just to be a fuzzy skuzzy animal that walks on two legs, no pretensions whatsoever, simple needs, simple pleasures.

*

Read with interest an article this morning about a man who drove 200 miles at 55 miles per hour, in southern California no less. He saved a great deal of fuel, lost some time, and was meet with sneers and jeers of adults and even some prepubescents as they whizzed past.

I am definitely ready for a 55-mph road trip, literally and figuratively. I'm in it for the long haul. I have a finite amount of time left in this slowly sinking vessel of human form, as do all beings in their respective forms. Should I be dashing around at top speed, or slow down, and god forbid, stop, get out, walk, sit, be, sitting in the middle of the universe?

In my delightful routine walking commute to work this morning, mindful of the careening vehicles late for whatever requires their immediate presence, it was a little clearer to me how DESIRES make people's lives expensive, complicated, and altogether miserable. Desires drive us, desires blind us, and there we are, a mass of beings driving blind, and driving to excess.

What is our goal, our pursuit, our destination that's so terribly important that we have to suck up millions of barrels of oil every day? It wasn't like this a century ago. I've lived half a century and I KNOW our energy gluttony is recent, unnecessary, and a clear and present danger to the well-being of individuals as well as to our species and the planet. Oil wars, global warming, depletion of resources, loss of habitat, and degradation of the quality of daily life.

And financial duress for schlubs like me and my wife. To keep two vehicles running and to pay off of these two vehicles, we don't have enough money left over for far more important needs.

If it were up to me, which in my case it's not, being married and compromising to the max, I'd keep one small cheap-running paid-for vehicle and sell the gas hog, and make extremely few forays out onto the highway, and forgo long trips unless absolutely necessary, such as on the occasion of the inevitable family emergencies in faraway places.

How little the Self requires. When the Self is in charge, there is no desire, only basic animal needs: water, food, sleep, shelter. That's it. There's a good reason why Buddhist monks and Gautama himself chucked everything and wandered around with nothing but a robe and a beggar's bowl. That's all the Self, the True Self, the Original Self, needs. As insight is deepened and perfected, desires fall away until none are left, and there is no-one but the selfless Self present in the human form. The needs of the human form remain, but not the desires of the conditioned false illusory little self.

But human beings desire, and desire more and more and more, and must pay dearly for satisfying those desires. The irony is, what we desire, we get; once we own the object of our desire, we want to keep it, and the object then owns us. So we hustle for money, and hustle to get to the job to get the money, so we can pay for all the shit we desire. What marvelous shit is available these days, the shit keeps getting better and better. Factories all over the world cranking out shit fulfillment of mass desires.

*

What a relief it is to see oneself in everything, and everything in oneself. There is no you, no me, no yours, no mine, no us, no them. It's all one thing, one being, one identity, one life, one flesh, one mind, one awareness, one energy. No-one to hate, no-one to fear, no-one to envy, no-one to be jealous about, no-one to lust after. How can one hate, fear, envy, be jealous of, or lust after, oneself?

It's all just energy, ever-changing ever-flowing energy. This is all that we are. We are all one energy, interpenetrating, eternal, infinite energy.

*

Renewed acquaintance with Salvia last evening, ate two large fresh leaves and spent the next hour lying on the guest bed with the cats, in darkness and silence, getting in touch with life itself. The life of Salvia, and the life in this body, came together, and together as one complete lifeforce enjoyed silent understanding of beingness. Impossible to put into words, even though utterly simple. Just be, be life, be lifeforce, love all beings as our true self and rejoice.

*

Have been stopping by the Salvias to thank them for what they are, and for what they've done for me. The Salvias, and the cats, have helped me get to that place of purity, of innocence, good will, good faith, simplicity. There is immanent excellence, there is perfection, in Salvia, in cat, and potentially in human being, if human being is willing to empty himself of himself.

What a relief, to become empty, to free the mind and the body to be what it is. Accepting the moment as it is, offering no resistance, one with the moment, one with the surroundings, at last remembering what, exactly, has assumed this human form. The universe reclaims its rightful place, and occupies the space formerly 'owned' by a fictional tenant of name and role.

A tremendous amount of worry, despair, discontent is easy enough for me to bring about and suffer from. I could slip into the cynical critic, and be harsh, unsparing, in views of everything and everyone. Fortunately, I've learned, as did the 3rd Chinese Zen Patriarch, to "stop holding views." Letting go of views, the healing emptiness is re-established, radiant reality is restored, and suffering ceases.

I've heard the cunning businesspeople speak knowingly about "perception" particularly the public perception of their products, services, or establishments. As long as they can produce the right "perception" in their customers they will make money, and the customers will be happy. This is admission of the fundamental illusoriness of the business, that it requires manipulation of the customer's perception in order to convince him to shop, and keep shopping, at a particular establishment. "It's all about perception" they say, privy to the manipulatability of people. So the Wal-Mart execs go forth and spread the word of how extremely virtuous is their corporation. Winning over the public perception is everything. Business is politics is business.

*

So good to be outside, under the sky, and walking. The clearest headspace then. It's because of the sky, the free sky, the open sky, the beautiful sky, containing everything. Sky. The sky of mind, mind and sky contain all things, clear sky, cloudy sky, daytime sky, nighttime sky. The free sky, the free mind. To spend even just a little time outside, under the sky, every day, so wholesome, so healing. Some of the most glorious, unforgettable days are those spent outside, all day and into the night. The spirit of the outside, the spirit of the sky, the spirit of nature, the spirit of the universe, infusing all, present everywhere, just as the sky. Spirit is sky, sky is spirit. Mind is sky, sky is mind. Vast, oceanic, serene, benignly indifferent, without any self or personhood whatsoever.

Animals. Easy, and so refreshing, to catch the eye of an animal, to make contact with a being who is pure spirit, who has no false notion of self. I recognize the Self in animals, and animals recognize the Self in me. Life recognizes life. Spirit recognizes spirit. Self recognizes Self. Human beings, so full of themselves, fail to recognize the Self within, and fail to recognize the Self in others. Their eye is impossible to catch, their attention going to restless thoughts or to particular forms in the field of vision or hearing.

Just being the Self is almost more than I can bear, if not for the fact that it is the Self bearing the Self.

*

Writing with this computer, and going through the deliberate machinations to upload and download, ostensibly to communicate with other beings who are of a very small subset of a small subset of a small subset: self-aware English-speaking people with Internet access and of an entheological persuasion. Why do I write, and write, and write...for the sake of writing, hypergraphia, the creative urge...

I am somewhat skilled with the English language, and can type like a demon.

How ironic that what most matters to me can't be put into words!

Nonconceptual nonverbal awareness, pure Mind...words only distract, a buzzing of thoughts in the writer transferred to the reader.

But for those people who can read past these words, it is simply a matter of it's fun to play with words, appearing and disappearing in pure Mind as any other form in the formless universal awareness. Why not write? Why not read? Established in the pure Mind, there is no form, no activity, to be craved or to be avoided. Without discrimination, without desire, without fear, with no-one writing and no-one reading, words happen. All is as it is, all is what it is. Cosmic energy writing, cosmic energy reading, cosmic energy knowing, the knower and the known--one and the same.

*

What can be said to be permanent? What will be around for the ages? As I look about, walking outside, I see that there will always be pure Mind, empty, transparent, all-embracing. There will always be forms appearing and disappearing and changing in pure Mind, the forms are not permanent, but pure Mind, having no form, is permanent.

Pure Mind is the legacy the universe provides for itself, a selfless, vast, calm refuge. Wherever there is sentience, there is pure Mind. Pure Mind is the same, wherever it appears.

As I go about, taking care of the business of the day, it is my greatest pleasure to be in my right Mind. It's the most wonderful entertainment there could possibly be. Music may be the universal language, and a smile may need no translation, but pure Mind is better than anything in terms of universal presence. Even a blind and deaf being is in pure Mind, perhaps moreso than those with eyes and ears whose vision and hearing are so often distracted by pretty sights and pretty sounds.

*

To identify oneself as the 'doer' is a common mistake. Someone who writes well, writes often, and writes for income 'is a writer.' Someone who sings well, etc., 'is a singer'... What is uncommon is to attribute these skills to the One True Doer, which doesn't need to identify itself as anything at all, because it is in fact nothing, no-one, selfless: the eternal, universal Self.

The Self does like to make music and the Self does get good with words, here and there. To exercise and express skills long-practiced that give satisfaction just by the doing is only natural. What needs to be understood is just who is doing the doing, and just who is appreciating what is done. The Self communicating with Itself. The universe communicating with itself.

The old-fashioned way this was summed up was, "for the glory of God." J. S. Bach took pains to make clear the beautiful music coming forth from the Self in the form of JSB was dedicated to the glory of God. Beautiful music comes from the glory of God, and goes to the glory of God. It's all God's glory, the cosmic energy field.

*

Re-reading a very old yellowing brittle paperback "The Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha" last night, and was reminded that the career of anyone who has managed to find the freedom of the innate Tathagata is that of the bodhisattva. There is no complete freedom until all beings are free. The Tathagata is in every being; every being is just as much in every other being as they are in their own being. There is, in fact, no ownership, no separate self. We are all each other, and share a common fate.

Throughout our shared experience as one being in many forms, there is a way every form can be free of suffering. This way requires the form to ask, "who is this that is suffering?" and "where exactly is this suffering located?". The answers to these questions results in the end of suffering. There is no self to suffer. The mind, being formless, transparent, vast, has no place where suffering can take hold.

Forms suffer when ignorant of That which abides within each form as the selfless Self and the mindless Mind. Children, animals, deluded adult human beings suffer. There is an immense amount of suffering in the world experienced by every form that believes it has a separate self and separate existence.

The course of action of the bodhisattva community is to help the world obtain what it needs, to work toward a sustainable equitable world where everyone's needs are met: water, food, shelter, clothing, sanitation, medicine, fuel, education. The major problem with attaining such a state of needs-met is the presence of selfish desire: those who want more than they need, those whose indulgence in selfish desire create situations where needs can't be easily met, such as having too many children to adequately care for. Overpopulation and the accumulation of wealth. Desire's effect on the world.

Even though the effort seems futile, a sustainable equitable world is worth striving toward; speaking out about the true cause of suffering and the way out of suffering is also worth doing, as futile as it may seem.

In this eternal moment the all-embracing transparent Mind takes in all phenomena, and is my refuge. My mind used to be the source of misery, when thoughts were uncontrolled and when I identified with my thoughts. Now my mind is my refuge, my inspiration, my constant guide. My mind is universal, and I look for ways to show everyone I can this wonderful mind of ours, our true mind, our shared pure mind. To be in this true mind is how we share its blessings.

*

The worst of times/the best of times. The worst of times in terms of material plane/financial aspects, really grim, could be worse, but bad enough--never have I owed so much to so many for so long. The best of times because I've matured enough to recognize the difference between "Little I" and "Big I". Little I gets frustrated, depressed, and in despair because he forgets he's Big I and lets himself get personally affected by the impermanence of all things. Big I laughs and laughs...

Like Suzuki Roshi says, the Little I forgets who's actually doing it, forgets about Big I.

I don't have a pot to piss in anymore, but that's okay--I understand now--I have always been the Big I, and it's always right here, silent, calm, real, radiant, universal, deathless.

So the Big I deals as candidly and fearlessly as the Big I is with the bill collectors--debts amassed by the Little I--and the Little I's, in whatever form they have their illusory existence, this one included.

*

Having lost everything, having learned that everything is impermanent, only now am I ready to find That which can't ever be lost, the true Home that is always here.

Having been alienated from the universe for so long, it's absolutely beyond bliss to wrap myself up in it, all of it, it's my true self.

To recall now the parts of the universe which have suddenly undergone great misfortune, the earthquake victims, all those parts in pain, not knowing That which feels the pain, not knowing That which is beyond pain. What would a buddha do in an earthquake, besides being equanimous?

*

I have the greatest sympathy for people who must live and work with other people, or rather for those people who do not get sufficient solitude. In solitude, the true self can more easily be recognized and realized and incorporated, especially at first. The presence of other thought-riddled beings--humans being the only species so riddled--makes it difficult to go beyond false self and be true self.

I'm fortunate to have a working and living situation where I have many opportunities to contemplate, in solitude. It's my greatest joy to recognize, realize, and be, the true self.

How sad that bright people take their rare periods of solitude and ruin them with iPod ear candy or cell phone chatter or Internet brain-candy. The fate of being terminally distracted has befallen too many human beings.

To live for something larger than oneself sounds grand and noble...if the self in question is the false self. To live for the true self, which IS one's self--one's true self--is not an ideological, political, or religious endeavor--it is nothing less than the universe being the universe, in whatever form it takes.

The fundamental activity of the universe is to be itself, spontaneously, eternally. It's absolutely free and always fully complete in the Now. Surrounded by itself, it never dies.

*

A fitful sleep, but when returning to bed later in the wee hours of the morning all the cats clustered around my head, purring, and I fell asleep remembering the primacy of unconditional love. Had a dream where acquaintances were being arrested for possessing and using illegal herb, while the legal herb, Salvia divinorum, I possessed and not having used was of no interest to the authorities. The message was that Salvia facilitated spiritual growth without the need for frequently being 'under the influence' and that the changes of 'trait' due to Salvia teachings were permanent and independent of any outside support from the plant.

Which is exactly where I'm at now. I have no need, and no desire, to repeat the Salvia experience anytime soon. It's more important to remember all I need is to be what I am, and what I am is, to put it mildly, a rich inner resource. It's the desired implied result of entheogen use: realize the God within, and let It take over. Once that happens, further entheogen use is superfluous.

Enjoyed a PBS 'Nature' special last night showing how monkeys and great apes use tools and have cultures, including warfare and politics. And how 'lost civilizations' collapsed due to their all-consuming bigness. And how our civilization is well on its way to collapse for all the same reasons.

In my morning insomnia looked around Earth using 'Google Earth' and landed in the middle of the Amazonian rain forest, pure beautiful unbroken green, flowing rivers and tributaries. The cool peace in my heart is starting to return.

*

One of the secrets of establishing close rapport with a cat is to make it clear that at no time will you jeopardize his freedom. He will always be a free being, free to come and go as he pleases.

Likewise, the cat encourages me to be an equal, and equally free, an equally free being. In the human experience, the freedom to physically come and go is not always an option, and that is really beside the point, experientially, existentially. The crucial freedom for human beings is mental, spiritual: when the mind is free, the human being is free; when the spirit is free, the human being is free. Freedom is a state of mind, 'tis so.

I savor the perfect freedom of a mind in its natural, undisturbed, pure state: free of the prisons of fear, of desire, of attachment, of despair, of regret, of envy, of perfectionism. To have a free mind is to be truly free. The irony is, every human being was born with a free mind, and mind in its essence is always free, always pure, always transparent, as free as free can be.

I like to go for long rambling walks outdoors because the universe, the natural world, has an oceanic self-less calm that I can surrender my feverish ego to as I walk. The universe has no self, and the longer I walk, the more "I" shrink, until all that's left is an oceanic, self-less, calm awareness.

People really do need to get away from people at least for a bit, once in a while, as needed. Thoughts! Words! Opinions! Enough!!!

*

Sometimes I'll find all four cats on my lap in the morning while I read the newspaper. The purring fur, the untroubled, blissful eyes, the total relaxation, helps me be sane and whole. Life can be very simple: the simple things, the little things, are what make up life, 'tis so. A little sleep, a little food, a good bowel movement, a shower...it doesn't take much to be in that all-important baseline creature-comfort zone. And maybe that's "Why We're Here": just to be, and keep be-ing. Just to be, is enough. The cats are content to melt onto whatever surface they happen to be upon. There is no sense of urgency.

Human beings are the only animals on earth who let themselves get sleep-deprived, who torture themselves and each other with thoughts.

*

This very mind...this very body...all this time...so beautiful, so beautiful. It's for everyone, it's in everyone, if anyone wants it, needs it. In religious terms, our awareness is God's awareness, our body is God's body. In this moment God takes over, takes back his body, his awareness, and accepts the circumstances in which he happens to dwell. God is a three-letter one-syllable code word for spirit, and spirit is a six-letter two-syllable code word for universal natural cosmic energy. The presence of That which we are is palpable, vibrant, as real as it gets. God alone is. Spirit alone is. That alone is.

*

In a rush to be Here soon? Planning to be in the Now someday? Hoping to be an Enlightened person? No more rushing, no more plans, no more pretending. We're here, we're now, we're spirit--already, all along.

Maintaining the sublest relationship with Salvia divinorum. I'm getting more benefits from tending the plants than by eating them, although I do on occasion nibble a small fresh or dried leaf for old time's sake, and for symbolic ceremonial intent. I know when my vision is clear when I can see the spirit of the plant--it is a powerful green incandescence, intense, beautiful. Salvia is a pure spirit, and a powerful ally. Salvia helps me overcome morbid mind-dominance and directs me to the spirit, to nature.

People need to be reminded they are part of nature. When people forget that they are part of nature, they do very stupid, selfish, dangerous things, and live in a very stupid, selfish, and dangerous way.

I like animals because they're pure spirits, of nature. Nature, pure spirits, animals, they don't give me any crap--they're selfless. They have no views, no opinions, no judgements, no criticism. They are not mind-dominated, or more precisely, not thought-dominated. Give me the honest pure furry face of a cat any day.

*

Noodling on this on-line spiritual journal is 'talking the talk' or 'wording the words' or 'writing the writing' -- very easy, very natural for me, as wordsmithing is evidently one of this monkey's fortes. Writing, and musicmaking, are methods I use to focus my intent, so in a sense I am walking the walk by such talking of the talk. The walk is to be spirit, and to live as spirit. That's it. All my life I've considered many options, made many mistakes, found much bliss, and lost much bliss, and now as I grow older the most important thing I've found is to just be spirit. Spirit is the electricity of this human light bulb. Spirit is the luminous life of every living being, one electricity flowing through every light bulb. Homely analogy, nonetheless accurate. Anyone can recognize that their "I" is in fact spirit. So thus illumined by this living universal electricity, I go forth to walk the walk, to be spirit, which is what we truly are.

*

Who am I? Who am "I"? This is a universally-applicable question with a universally-applicable answer, since everyone who refers to "I" has an "I"."I"-ness is universal. Who, or what, is this "I" then?

Diving deep, deeper, evermore deeply into the mystery of "I"-ness there comes the realization that the I is nothing more, or less, than Awareness. What we ascribe to this fundamental, universal Awareness is what we come to regard as "I".

We were all born, without our consent. What we are born as, is a monkey-like body with Awareness. Our first possessions are body and Awareness, unbidden, inherent. This we carry with us throughout our life. The Awareness remains transparent while the body grows and then declines. The body is subject to pain, pleasure, heat, cold, hunger, thirst, fatigue, illness, injury, senescence and death. Awareness remains transparent throughout all the changes the bodily form undergoes.

Awareness contemplates itself, and wonders then what, exactly, is Aware? Is it a separate person? Is it the brain? Where exactly in the brain? What cell or molecule is Aware?

Diving deeper still, the livingness that makes all living things alive is understood to be energy, sunlight in fact, feeding plants, and the plants feeding the animals, including these Aware monkey-bodies. Awareness is solar energy, made flesh, made Aware.

So solar energy is Awareness; cosmic energy, actually, is Awareness. Energy is Awareness itself, energy is life itself, living energy, lifespirit.

Rather than toy with nomenclature for this living aware Essence that is the universal "I" I am quite content to call it spirit, which is the spirit of the universe, the spirit of nature. To live in spirit, for spirit, as spirit, is what "I" was born to do, what every "I" is born to do. Every "I" is spirit, the Eye of spirit. Simple, elegant, real, beautiful, meaningful. All the suffering was, and is, inevitable, as every "I" struggles with the suffering of denying it is spirit, from the ignorance of true identity as spirit.

*

The fact that there is no self is the ultimate heresy, the unacceptable blasphemy. Few are willing to look deep enough within to see where the I originates, and fewer still are willing to accept, once they start to realize the origin point, that there's no-one there.

Yet if one really wants to know the truth, and thus to be free--free of delusion, free of suffering--it's essential that the truth of no-self be experienced, even though, ironically, there's no-one to experience the no-self experience.

Extreme existentiality. For existential geniuses only.

*

Amazing there's still this dichotomy, a split personality of sorts, a struggle between 'good' and 'evil' in my own personal experience. I can be in a heaven of loving clarity one moment, then in the next moment a conceptual hell spawned by my reaction to a bank statement, for instance. That a series of numbers on a sheet of paper could be cause for outrage and depression is something I need to work out of my system.

There's a relationship between chronic financial problems and the problem of existence. Money, and personal existence, are both borrowed. There is absolutely no chance of getting out of the debt owed to the banks and to nature--sooner or later they must be paid in full, in the end.

This fact is not depressing to me, it is in fact liberating. In good faith I shall repay all my debts in full, as I can. I will make arrangements to pay the banks in such a way that I can continue to survive and function as anyone must. I will 'borrow' as little as possible from nature in order to survive and function, and do what I can to repay her in whatever way I can while alive, being her advocate, lover, and promoter in this human form, and of course when this form can no longer hold together it will be returned to nature in full measure, to be recycled, to feed the cycle of life of which it is always a part.

The main thing is to remember there's nothing I can do about the situation, other than to do what I can do, in good faith, in this cosmic dream we're all in together. In short, it's time to forgive my debtors and myself, to de-stress and relax, to be in a state of grace and blessedness, of lovingkindness and mindfulness, in the eternal Now. Payback Time indeed!

*

It took about 30-40 years to begin to understand the implications of the energy field I could see since a teenager. This flowing, streaming, glowing radiance, it's there, I see it now just as I saw it then, around all living flesh, around all matter in fact. Matter is condensed energy, and there is energy radiating from all matter.

Everything is energy. The ground of being is really the energy of being. All reality is virtual reality, a display of energy, no more substantial than the flickering forms seen on a television screen or computer monitor. At the heart of every form is...nothing. Insubstantial energy, giving the illusion of substance.

Energy comes together and grows eyes and hands and feet and nervous system and flesh and blood. Energy sees here, and there, shifting, transforming, uncreated, indestructible, only changing its form.

Energy is spirit is energy. This energy-stuff of the universe is the basis of all science, religion, being, and awareness.

*

Had all four cats on lap this morning. In the midst of fur and pur, paw and claw, perfect animal contentment, realized once again we're all one flesh. One awareness. One flesh. Went upstairs, gave Furbananda a dried Salvia divinorum leaf, while I found and ate a fresh leaf from a cutting that didn't root. Almost immediately was reminded that it's all about lifeforce, rejoice and be glad to be lifeforce, flowing everywhere. There is no death, only living energy flowing everywhere, forever, formless and in every form.

Mansions, fancy vehicles, luxuries of every kind, the pursuit of material wealth...the old story. The real wealth is spiritual, of spirit, of living energy. To know that we are this eternal omnipresent living energy is the ultimate wild wealth, as well as the source of all that is called 'good' and 'virtue.' To be spirit is to be loaded with the fruits of the spirit.

*

O glorious transparent pure point of awareness. Universal awareness. Universal selfless self. If we were to say what "I" really is, it's pure awareness, transparent, formless. Everywhere, in every being, it's the same. Most beings take it for granted, as concerned as they are about survival and self-gratification. After getting beyond survival and self-gratification, awareness stands revealed, radiant, fully obvious, absolutely unfettered, vast as the sky.

*

Accepting the what-is, the essential no-selfitude of the what-is--energy is not a self, after all.
Part of the accepting is accepting that lots of people are convinced there is a self, they have a self, a separate self.
This is the common assumption, the fixation, the grand delusion disease infecting most human beings.
Playing along, and looking for those opportunities to connect to the energy core of the deluded beings.
With any other animal, such connection is easy, as easy as eye contact, as easy as a stroking of the furry pelt along the spine.
Unable any longer to be anything else but the same stuff, a spokesnonperson for the stuff of the universe.

*

Stuck in this body.
Stuck in this mind.
Stuck in this situation.
Stuck in this moment.