COWTOWN (On Being Skittish)

This morning we are on day five of our walk and building a relationship with the cows here at the Ranch.  I grew up on the shores of the East Coast and so I didn't grow up with many kinds of animals, just the squirrels and cats and dogs and hamsters. 

Now I am living on a Ranch with horses, cows, chickens, lamas, hawks and all kinds of animals.  So I have been a bit apprehensive about the cows...cause there are a lot of them and my neighbor said that they don't like dogs and so I have been concerned that my dog would get munched on.

Over the last couple of days I have creeped up on the cows and just let them get familiar with us...sometimes they seem curious and other times aggressive, but we have stayed our distance pretty much.  Today we got brave and my dog Pete even braver...don't tell him he is a poodle...he doesn't know what he is but he sure is confident with who he is (see video above).

What came up today is just how skittish the cows are.  That they jump like I would hurt them...and maybe they have been hurt or maybe it is tons of generations of fear like in their DNA that makes them naturally afraid of humans since we are their predator.  As I was watching them...I felt the similarity with them...as a human...it seems that I am just as skittish around people but that I have some how learned to hide or mask it better than a cow.  After reading Winston Churchhill's "A History of The English Speaking Peoples" we have spent century after century chopping each others heads off just to shut each other up ... to control one another...and we have different ways of doing that now, and it's no wonder I am so skittish.  

It will take some time for the cows to get used to us (Pete, Marma and I)...to realize that we don't want to hurt them, that we don't see them as supper and maybe one day, when I walk towards them...they won't jump and run away and my camera will take a steady shot of film.

  

HOW DOES ONE STAY FOCUSED ON NOTHING?

This question popped in my awareness a few moments ago and usually when a how question appears in this domain of questioning it immediately points to "Who?"

And in that ... a moment of clarity...if one waits without having an answer...get yourself past all the answer that you know who you are and just sit for a moment in the possibility that you don't actually know who you are... the ... "Who" ...the asking of oneSelf..."Who?"  ... becomes the Pointing ... The refocus on no-thing.  

You are nothing...no - thing...if you can describe it ... then you are not it...because all description is... in ... this ... world.  And the "real You" is not in this world...this world is in You.  So how does one stay focused on nothing...no - thing.  It gets easier as it becomes more important to find out than to know in this world.  There is nothing in this world that can give it to you but there are many things in this world that can Point you to It.  

I am imagining if you are reading this...then you are at the place where you are beginning to see that nothing in this world will satisfy you for long.  There is something that is calling to you and it may look like it is from outside in the world...however it is a call from within.  Don't be afraid that you don't understand...there is a process that one may go through of attempting to understand for some period of time because that is what the mind/thoughts have been trained to do...to help you figure things out...however where this is Pointing the mind can only help by relaxing it's grip on understanding and accepting that it cannot help.  That the only help it actually can give is to not help at all.

Once the mind has accepted that...like a dog that knows it's Master...it will be used in Service to Point to That...to Who You Are.  And all things can be used to Point...like the picture above...you are the Light behind the sky and the clouds...or another way to see it is the world appears on You.  You have believed you are the sky/clouds (thoughts/mind) however just because you believe that...doesn't make it so.

:o)))))

ON BEING A CHICKEN

I've been spending my time with my Friend Marma...she's a chicken.  I've had her since she was about a week or two old and now she is about 5 weeks.  At first she was just real snaggly, she liked to snuggle up with me and be held and make her little chirpy noises...but just in the past few days...she has really started to just "be" a chicken.  

She scratches at the ground and picks up bugs and there is an intelligence in her ... she doesn't have to think about what she is.  She doesn't pick up a book on how to be a chicken...she is a chicken...she is also intelligence and aliveness...she has brought so much joy to my days and nights.

And today I got to thinking...how is it that we don't know...that we Know how to be who we are.  Like we are always trying to fix ourselves without spending the time to just watch and see what/who we are.  Marma doesn't think to herself...oh I better peck faster today cause yesterday I didn't do enough pecking so I better make up for it today...she just pecks...she just sleeps when she is tired and eats when she is hungry.

She is not hard on herself for doing anything that she does and she doesn't praise herself for anything that she does either...she is not concerned about life or death....unless something is threatening her life...then she runs under my feet and I protect her.

You are as perfect a human as Marma is a chicken.  All your doing and fixing takes you away from who you are...who you are... takes care of itself.  Relax the grip and check it out.

The Search For Peace

When I got back from the walk this morning where there was the thought “The search for peace is in avoidance of the violence with in you.”  I walked out of the house to go paint and these Martial arts people had these spears in their hands and they were lunging them at each othger and I just started to smile and laughed…it juust seemed so perfectly comical.  Violent…just being in touch with the violence that is in this DNA or body or wherever it comes from…gives it no power really … violence and anger…like it has been said…just energy…labeled energy…but if that energy is avoided or one seeks to fix it…it makes it real and then doesn’t just natural dissapiate because it is kept alive.

True Peace...is already...any search for it...is away from it.  You are in Peace...you do not have to physically die to rest in Peace.
 

True Peace Cannot Be Disturbed.

"Excuse me...I didn't mean to disturb the peace."

True Peace Cannot Be Disturbed.

This was what was coming through today while sitting quietly at a coffee house in Weed, CA. Was sitting in Meditation with the eyes open...which doesn't happen often...yet today it did. Was looking at the very nicely colored and textured wall ...which looks like a slate type of green. There was an intense calm and stillness though there was much going on in the cafe...it is lunch time and things sounded busy but quickly fell to the background.

One might think that looking at a wall is boring and it very well could be...however today...it was filled with shapes and lights and shadows coming through from the passing cars on the road. As the attention remained focused on the wall in front...people could be seen from the perpherial vision and then thoughts would arise wondering if it was weird to see someone sitting like this...those thoughts would pass by just as the people did. And the attention is directed to what everything arises In. What is seeing out of the eyes.

Again the thought appeared...True Peace Cannot be Disturbed.

There wasn't an awareness at the time that there would be an example though many did come...Peace does not change with the Phenomenal world...True Peace...if the attention is on It...is the resting Place and then one comes from that Place...the Place of Peace (which is not a place).

Words are heard that a car is parked incorrectly and will be towed. There are thoughts that say..."that is your car...what will you do?" Eventually the person arrives and asks "is that your car out there parked on the side of the curb?" The hands come down in Namaste. The head turns, the thoughts are "what will you do?" She asks again, is that your car...the head nods...she says "the manager is going to have it towed, you have to move it" The head nodds again and the body slowly gets up...walks out to the car...moves it...comes back in...sits down and the Bell rings signaling the end of Meditation.

True Peace Cannot be Disturbed.

One is Always in Meditation.

HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU ARE NOT

Yesterday I watched a Nova Documentary on the next best thing and they were showing the latest in robots. It went from R2D2 and C3PO to a fully facial functioning man. If you were sitting next to him you would not know there is nobody inside. He even speaks and answers questions just like I do.

How would I know that I am not a computer robot? Who would I ask? How would I know they weren't programmed to give me the same automated response that I am giving you now.

You can't ... Eventually you will find that no outside answer will satisfy the burning question of "Who am I?". And only you can ask it of yourself and only you can sit and wait as it is revealed to you.

You do not need to be afraid it has always been this way. You are very well taken care of...a highly advanced imitation of who you Are. And you are left with the only question that ever need be asked of ones Self.

"who am I?"

Namaste.

RUNNING (To or From Emotions)

The "I" thought (who you think you are) is always running to or from an emotion...because the "I" thought takes one away from the Now moment.  The "I" thought is telling a story about something that has happened in the past and or will happen in the future.  But if you take a moment to look at this...how can one be out of the moment they are in?  It can't really happen...there is no future or past...there is only a story about a "future" or "past."

It seems simple huh and it really is that simple.  However, don't be fooled by the power of the mind...you are already thinking about this instead of just having the "ah ha" that it brings that to be in the Present moment...you cannot think about it...it is the thinking that takes the Awareness off the Present Moment.  

Begin listening when you hear the thought "I."  Just begin to admit that it may not be true.  That you don't need an "I" to exist.  You don't need a story to be who you are...you are always being who you are.  Emotions keep one running after thoughts.  Without a story about what the emotion is...there would only be raw emotion.  But if you start telling a story about emotion...like I feel sad because so so did something to me the other day and I don't like so and so...if you tell the story about sadness then you keep the emotion alive and going...but you could just as well not tell a story about it...feel the emotion and don't call it anything...just raw emotion "feel it" then it just comes like a wave ... rises up ... and fades away.  It is the same with good emotions...like love and happiness...you don't have to tell stories about them either.  Just be it.

You are beginning to see that your thoughts are not important.  They don't do or change anything...they are always in the past because you aren't in the Present Moment if you are thinking about it.  It will become more and more easy to just relax and not understand what all this means.  The less you think about it the more you are in It.

If you find a good story running a line on you...one that you keep wanting to watch...in the middle of it just say to yourself "think..ing"  Take a breath and no that whatever you are thinking about is insignificant...that you have never had an important thought in all your life and that actually you have no idea where thoughts even come from and utimately that you have no idea who you are.  You cannot stop thinking from happening but you can begin to see through thought.  So that your attention is on what doesn't move.  Then the thoughts are just clouds in the sky.  They just drift by.

"I" am not who "I" think I am...and neither are you.

If it can be thought...it is not who you Are.

Spiritual Vitamin for June 6th (You are not who you think you are)