¡Hola! Everybody… Today: a song... and then I get all pedantic on your ass!
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-=[ When Doves Cry ]=-
Why do we scream at each other/ this is what it sounds like/ When doves cry…
-- Prince
A pair of doves, male and female, decided to share a nest together. In autumn, when the nuts were ripe, they worked hard to gather them and fill their nest. After some time, however, the nuts dried up and shrank. This caused them to take less space and give the appearance that there was less -- filling up only half the space.
Well, when the male dove noticed this, he got pissed off and said, “After all that hard work we went through gathering these nuts and now you’ve gone and eaten half of them you greedy bitch!”
The female dove, hurt by the accusation, answered, “I didn't eat them! All the nuts are here, they've just become smaller.”
The male dove could not be persuaded and became even more furious. “If you didn't eat them,” he asked in an accusing tone, “then why are there less?!! Don't get all brand new on me, you fat skank!” Consumed by his rage, he pecked at the female dove with his sharp beak until she was dead.
Several days passed and a heavy rain fell, then nuts got wet, reconstituted, filled up, and again there was a full nest of nuts. When the male dove saw this, he was ashamed and thought, “She didn't eat them after all. I killed her for no reason.”
Throughout the forest, you could hear his cries of grief, “Where are you, where have you gone?”
* * *
There are many people who are lost in a cloud of confusion. They pursue pleasure as if it could last forever and don't understand that life -- by its very nature -- is impermanent. People often do as they please, in the process breaking important boundaries and prohibitions, and later they feel remorse and grief. What purpose does that achieve? They are like the dove that mistakenly killed his mate.
¡Hola! Everybody… Today: an actual sermon. LOL!and a song...
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-=[ When Doves Cry ]=-
Why do we scream at each other/ this is what it sounds like/ When doves cry…
-- Prince
A pair of doves, male and female, decided to share a nest together. In autumn, when the nuts were ripe, they worked hard to gather them and fill their nest. After some time, however, the nuts dried up and shrank. This caused them to take less space and give the appearance that there was less -- filling up only half the space.
Well, when the male dove noticed this, he got pissed off and said, “After all that hard work we went through gathering these nuts and now you’ve gone and eaten half of them you greedy bitch!”
The female dove, hurt by the accusation, answered, “I didn't eat them! All the nuts are here, they've just become smaller.”
The male dove could not be persuaded and became even more furious. “If you didn't eat them,” he asked in an accusing tone, “then why are there less?!! Don't get all brand new on me, you fat skank!” Consumed by his rage, he pecked at the female dove with his sharp beak until she was dead.
Several days passed and a heavy rain fell, then nuts got wet, reconstituted, filled up, and again there was a full nest of nuts. When the male dove saw this, he was ashamed and thought, “She didn't eat them after all. I killed her for no reason.”
Throughout the forest, you could hear his cries of grief, “Where are you, where have you gone?”
* * *
There are many people who are lost in a cloud of confusion. They pursue pleasure as if it could last forever and don't understand that life -- by its very nature -- is impermanent. People often do as they please, in the process breaking important boundaries and prohibitions, and later they feel remorse and grief. What purpose does that achieve? They are like the dove that mistakenly killed his mate.
¡Hola! Everybody... Not feeling well these past two days...
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-=[ Behind the Curtain ]=-
Information crashes against our eyes at the speed of light, slams onto our eardrums at the speed of sound, and courses through our mind/ body as fast as an electro-chemical signal can flash from one neuron to the next. How do we deal with this sensory onslaught without getting overwhelmed? By blocking out most of it, and putting the brakes on what little is left.
The brain freezes the world into separate mind moments, each containing a barely adequate amount of information, and then processes these one by one in a linear fashion. The result is a world compiled more or less by what’s “out there,” but mostly organized around the limitations of the machine constructing it. It’s as if the brain and its senses quickly take a series of snapshots, and then weave them together into a movie -- our stream of consciousness. The Buddhists have a pretty good way of describing this system: delusion.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, nor does it mean that we are stupid, it means that the mind/ body is designed (in a way) to distill or distort reality in a fundamental way. For one thing, this helped us survive as a species. If we were to take in the totality of reality, we would’ve long ago joined the ranks of extinct life forms.
First, creating this “shorthand” of reality allowed us to make decisions quickly (Do we fight, or do we run? Do we fuck it, or eat it?). Secondly, each mind moment creates an artificial center of stability out of a reality that constantly changing and almost impossible to capture. Like the rapid unfolding of the individual frames of a film, these mind moments give the illusion of movement. As the films plays, we create all kinds of stories about the way things are, filling in the blanks of discarded data with assumptions, projections, and aspirations. Taking this process as real, we go seek gratification and security to a level that the system cannot support. The inevitable disappointment is centered on the idea of “me,” who is both the one who wishes things were different than they are and the one who suffers when they are not. In other words, we are hardwired to misperceive reality by ignoring the impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and selflessness of it all.
There is another way we filter out information at any given moment. Most of what comes in to the system doesn’t even reach our consciousness but is relegated to our unconscious. This is because the precious resource of conscious awareness is used to carry on the important daily activities of living. Information, for our awareness, is on a need to know basis. Take the experience of learning a new task, such as learning to play a musical instrument. At first we have to “think” about it and consciously try to make our fingers go where they are supposed to go. Eventually, as the right connections are made between the brain and the muscles of the fingers and hand, the patterns disappear into our pre- and subconscious and, after a while, it feels as if we are playing automatically.
This is a very efficient process, and before long, most of what we do in our lives is accomplished without having to be very conscious about it. One would assume that this process would work to free our psychic energy to do some creative things, but this is often not the case. More often, our awareness is spent looking for ways to find pleasurable experiences and getting more of them, or it is used to bitch and moan about unpleasant experiences and finding ways to avoid or destroy them. We use our creative energy -- our conscious mind -- to find new ways of wishing things were different from what they are, and our unconscious mind is relegated to maintaining the habits we have accumulated previously. The Buddhists have a good way of describing this state of mind: suffering.
The best definition of meditation I have encountered is “learning to stop arguing against reality.” We spend much of our lives and mental energy in conflict with reality. Our unconscious has been conditioned by all kinds of unhealthy patterns and these patterns help guide our behavior. We are not aware of most of these and, ironically, the only way we can change what we are not aware of is by changing something else first. We may not be able to see the unconscious conditioning, but we can become aware of the suffering they cause. By training our awareness in a methodical way, we strengthen its ability to open to more of the information available to the senses in the present moment. Mindfulness meditation is the art and practice of being present with whatever is happening here and now: when it is strong, we are not stuck arguing with reality. With less liking and disliking, there is less stress coming from the narrowly defined sense of you that keeps you separate from the rest of the world. As the influence of your terminal uniqueness decreases, suffering deceases also.
We are always working with an imperfect model of reality. What makes the difference, however, is to understand the limitations of our constructed world. To see more clearly how our perception is being used in skillful and unskillful ways, and to use that awareness in the service of creating well-being for ourselves and the well-being of those around us. The Buddhists have a word for that too: they call it wisdom.
¡Hola! Everybody... I hope to start my holiday weekend a little early. I am going away (to Boston and New Hampshire), so I’ll be scarce. Please be careful driving if you’re traveling and leave the fireworks to the experts:
alcohol x stupidity + fireworks (firearms) = “accidents”
Don’t be an idiot.
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-=[ Expansions ]=-
Man's mind once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimension. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
You have everything you need, in this very moment, to be happy. If I were to stop right there, that is all I would need to say to you.
I am not referring to bullshit happiness here, I am pointing to a form of happiness beyond your wildest imagination. A happiness that endures through all the vicissitudes of life, an invincible summer in the heart of your winter.
Our problem isn’t that we need to attain something, be something, or improve something. You’re quite fine right now. No, our basic problem is simply that we have forgotten our true selves. Having become entangled in the never-ending dramatic cycle of being an individual, striving for individual recognition, achievement, satisfaction we feel separate, alienated, and at war with our world. We have forgotten of our essential truth. “Expanding your mind” is breaking through this limited self-concept, integrating to a basic unity that has always been, and accessing the spark of the divine light you carry within.
You see the problem is not one of learning enough or achieving enough in order to pull ourselves out of our present state of “inadequacy,” as we have been conditioned to believe. It is instead simply a problem of perceiving the truth as it is, without distortion. As we expand our consciousness, we become more aware of our universe and our place in it.
The solution is one of perception. Our ability to perceive clearly depends on a methodology that stretches our nervous system, expanding its range, and in that way allowing consciousness to expand. Spirituality, a true integral spirituality, is the science of expanding consciousness. Expanding your consciousness is returning to the Source that created you, becoming conscious of the source of your energy, and becoming one with that Source. Spiritual technologies exist that help you access this energy and once you have experienced this expanded state, you will never be the same.
I think the first step is to develop what I call The Witness. It’s the part of your consciousness that is aware that you are aware. In Buddhism, this is called mindfulness, and some consider it the opposable thumb of consciousness. When you the limited concept of yourself, your ego, dedicates itself to an expanded self, then you have entered a completely new path.
Life is always willing to teach you -- the universe is just waiting for you to be available. In fact, it’s constantly putting opportunities in your path to learn and to evolve from your current state. You have probably considered them irritations and problems and done everything to avoid them.
You have gone through your daily life absorbed in the drama -- the pleasures, the pains, your dreams and frustrations. As you evolve spiritually, you identify more with your Higher Self and you begin to lose interest in the little and big games going on around you. In fact, you learn to be in the game and, at the same time, in a higher expanded consciousness, watching from a detached (“witness”) perspective.
From this expanded consciousness you totally experience the sensation, thought, or feeling going on in the present moment and at the same time are able to observe it objectively, fully conscious, without the usual attendant inner commentary. In this way, the thought or feeling loses its hold on you and ceases to be an irritation or obsession. Then the work begins -- the peeling away of layer after layer mental illusions you have come to think of as part of your self.
¡Hola! Everybody... I need to stop working weekends! Having only one day off sucks dead dawg farts. It seems I have no rest. This is a busy time of the year, what with the end of the fiscal year upon us and the unending parsing og budgets.. anyway, all this stops me from writing for myself...
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-=[ Entertaining Ourselves to Death ]=-
Reality doesn't bite, it's our perception of reality that bites. -- Anthony J. D'Angelo
I have lived long enough to witness the fabrication of the greatest lie ever told: “Reality TV.”
What’s his name, Orwell, is doing a triple Salchow as I write.
Of all the shackles we willingly wear, two of the most powerful are those of spectacle and illusion. the chains we wear today are expensive, they have names like Coach, Hilfiger, and Chanel. That our ancestors fought to rid themselves of the brands we so readily accept (and pay huge sums for), has to be one of the greatest and tragic ironies in history. What difference does it make whether your chains are made of iron or gold?
Chains are expensive, as are surveillance tools and armed guards. A less expensive, more efficient strategy is to keep the slave entertained. Sublimation is the best cure for rebellion. Give them something inconsequential to think about or a dream that leads to a dead end.
I love sports, but I also know that sports as spectacle are perfect for these ends. More people will watch the Superbowl than an election. Shit, Ferdinand Marcos distracted a whole revolutionary movement in the Philippines by hosting the Thrilla in Manila, the epic battle between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali.
And while even the Romans knew sports are good distractions, we all know sex is better. Movies, celebrations, mud-slinging elections, or even a grisly string of murders are excellent distractions that work to pacify the masses.
All the while, you’re paying for gaudy trinkets embedded with the names of your masters, and for the most part they are nothing but the modern equivalent of shackles.
There is a way out, but it will take your turning away from the glow of the television screen and actually looking at reality.
¡Hola! Everybody... One day I found myself at a maximum-security prison sitting in the mess hall mentally criticizing everyone else there. I did this daily. How stupid these people were, how selfish, how unaware... everyday. I wasn’t like “them” I would tell myself, feeling some measure of satisfaction. I did this until the very real fact that I was there also became clear. If those people were are all that, then what did it say about me?
Sometimes I read comments on my blog and elsewhere or just listen to people in general and they remind me of myself at that time...
Today... Repost!
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-=[ Reality and the War on Our Senses ]=-
“We throw our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.”
-- Unknown
We use one sense at the expense of the others. Ever since the invention of the photograph, for example, the visual sense has taken predominance over the others. We’ve become more and more insistent of having illustrations with stories. Eventually movies became all the rage. Then television arrived in our homes, followed by video, cable, computer graphics, digital animation, and virtual reality. Imagine someone in the far future trying to explain our obsession with this piece of furniture...
Our taste buds take second place. Fruits and vegetables are genetically engineered to satisfy our visual appetites, regardless of the sacrifice in flavor and nutrition. Poisons of every kind assault our biochemistry. Electromagnetic radiation zaps our natural bioelectrical fields that shape us.
Air pollution and synthetic fragrances dominate our sense of smell. Traffic, loud radios, and congested population over stimulate our hearing. In watching television, our right-brain hemispheres have to assemble the dots into a picture. As a result, we haven’t sufficient energy needed for left-brain discrimination. In actuality, heavy viewers literally become heavy; something in the habit of watching television slows down the metabolism.
“Natural flavors” are natural in name only, extracted from organic chemicals through harsh chemical processing. The multinational corporations that sell us these toxins call it “clean labeling” and the Food and Drug Administration calls it “okay.”
Our senses have become the pawns in a foolish game. Only when we awaken to our deepest, genuine sense will our intelligence flourish. I’m speaking here of a deep-seated common sense that chooses to remember, to know, to open up all the sensory channels and explore our intuitive common sense, what we call our imagination. Instead of asking, “Will we make it?” we should be asking, “What should I be doing now?”
As the historian Howard Zinn noted, we can’t be neutral on a moving train and we’re moving all the time, whether we want to or not. The wise among us are gathering their clues and direction from everywhere, even the knowledge of children and eccentrics, and those with whom they disagree.
The ability to question will be our saving grace. Our questions will be our liberators. When a large enough question has been asked, the lesson plan will appear. Years a go, a leader challenged the nation by asserting that in ten years a man would land on the moon. There is no such leadership available today (if there ever really was). Today we must become our own leaders, asking the questions needing asking and facing with creativity and innovation the challenges such questions pose.
It we are to thrive as individuals and as a society, the solution is the same: the deepest good sense to take leadership for ourselves. True visionaries identify with a cause that transcends themselves, family, and friends. Something bigger than a mere grasp for personal success. And we can get there from here. We are a problem-solving species. When we finally make the decision to call upon our resources we make the impossible possible, and the possible inevitable.
The good news is that we’re living in a moment in time where we have the advantage of the fruits of the cross-fertilization of art and science, of spirituality and science, of analysis and intuitive flashes. By pulling together the scattered threads of psychology and brain science, we can consciously learn to tap into our deepest common sense. The next evolutionary leap demands that we, in fact, become the people we were always meant to be.
¡Hola! Everybody… Today, it’s a little difficult… I’ve had too many loved ones fall to the monster of addiction. People, when you get up and look at all this election hoopla and fall into some apathetic, “They’re all the same” crap, believe me, you’re doing a great disservice to yourself.
Case in point: why do we treat addiction as a crime? What has this so-called “War on Drugs” wrought? As far as I’m concerned, the drug war is a war on poor and working class communities.
Last night, I learned that my cousin’s daughter, a mere 23-years-old was pronounced brain-dead as a result of an overdose. My cousin and I were raised together, but we’re no longer close. She lives in Texas and we just never kept up with each other. Still, I love her as I would a sister. I remember the day she told me she was pregnant and how happy she was that day not so many years ago.
I can’t begin to imagine what she is going through.
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-=[ Fear ]=-
“Fear lies not in reality, but in the minds of children who do not understand reality.” -- A Course in Miracles
You realize there’s a war on our children, right? As a society, we’ve abdicated our responsibility and then blame the very children we have abandoned…
I had a cousin, Jimmy. Both Jimmy and I were pretty smart. We all lived in the same run down tenement building, 704 E. 5th St. Growing up together, we were taught to read before kindergarten. The only difference between Jimmy and me was that Jimmy’s intelligence was more practical in nature. He had a mechanical aptitude, liked to use his knowledge to build things, he had an insatiable curiosity to understand how things worked.
I was more abstract. My mother would send me to the corner bodega to buy some things and I would take hours, often making my whole tribe come out en masse to look for me. I would usually be found sitting somewhere, staring off into space daydreaming, or studiously looking at patterns of cracks on the sidewalk. It drove my mother crazy. My relatives would ask me why, and I would just shrug and say that the patterns were interesting. LOL It’s funny in that I’ve been looking at patterns all my life.
Anyway, my cousin Jimmy and I were pretty smart and were similar in many respects except one: Jimmy looked more like a “typical” Puerto Rican. His jet-black hair was wavy and his skin darker than mine. My hair was light brown and my eyes some kind of aquamarine blue. We didn’t even look like we came from the same family. Jimmy took more after my father’s side, all of whom were tall and darker-skinned than my mother’s side, who were all light-skinned and short.
Now, at that time, public schools in NYC tracked students. What that means is that they had a hierarchy of classes. If you were in class “2-1,” for example, that meant you were really smart. Conversely, if you were in classes “2-6” then you were a stupid ma’fucca! As children, we would make fun of one another. The “2-6” classmates were often ridiculed and the teachers themselves probably saw them as future criminals. This would make the “dumber” classmates angry and aggressive, further stigmatizing them.
My cousin and I read at the same level, were equally smart, but Jimmy was placed in one of the “dumber” classes, while I was always placed in the “smart” classes. Sure, our parents advocated on his behalf and these issues were sometimes “resolved,” but this form of institutional treatment would affect both Jimmy and me. We both learned early on, for example, that school wasn’t really a friendly place. For Jimmy there was another lesson: he learned, at an early age, that outside of his community and family, he wasn’t valued no matter what merits he brought to the table.
Jimmy would always “underachieve,” but as a young man, he would find his niche, though I believe he would’ve been a brilliant engineer or architect. He would die from an accident at a relatively young age.
Many years later, I came across a study as part of my graduate studies that reminded me of Jimmy. An experiment was conducted in secrecy at a school. The school had to classes for the same aged children. At the end of the school year, an examination was administered in order to select the children for the following year. This time, however, the results of the exams were kept hidden. As part of the study, only the principle and the researchers knew the truth. Simply put, those children who scored high on the exams were placed with children who didn’t score as well. In other words, high performing children and low performing children were split evenly between the two classes. Teachers for the next year were carefully selected for equal ability and experience. Even the classrooms were chosen with similar facilities.
Everything was made equal as possible, except for one thing: one was called “2-1,” the other, “2-2.”
Whereas in reality the classes had children of equal ability, in everyone’s minds the children in class 2-1 were the clever ones, and the children of class 2-2 were not so smart. Some of the parents of the 2-1 class were pleasantly surprised that their child had done so well and rewarded them with presents and praise, whereas the parents of the children in class 2-2 scolded their children for not working hard enough and took away some of their privileges. Even the teachers became caught up in the process, teaching the kids in class 2-2 in a different manner, not expecting too much from them. For a whole year, the illusion was maintained. Then came another end-of-the-year exam.
The results, though not surprising, were chilling. The children of class 2-1 performed better than the children of class 2-2. In fact, the results were just as if they had been chosen from the top half of the last year’s exam. They had become the cream of the crop – the best and brightest students. Moreover, those in the other class, though equal the year before, had now become dull students. That was what they were told the whole year, that was how they were treated, and that was what they believed – so that was what they had become.
In light of the election cycle, this experiment brings to my mind the different visions being offered to the American people. One is of inclusion and respect for diversity – about possibilities, not wars. The other is about isolation and the demand to adhere to one set of worldviews. One set of principles wants to continue the experiment illustrated above, perpetuating fear and ignorance of "the other." Then there are a set of principles that wants to begin the process of creating solutions, not waging wars.
Our children’s’ lives literally depend on the choices we make today.
¡Hola! Everybody,I sometimes suffer from bouts of insomnia; a few of you already know this. Lately, I haven’t been sleeping…
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Perception
“Everything you perceive is a witness to the thought system you want to be true.” -- A Course in Miracles
I often write and talk about perception. When I write about perception, it’s usually from a neuropsychological perspective. I’m fascinated by how the mind/ brain works and how it gathers (and excludes) information. In my workshops, perception is a central theme. In many ways, perception is everything. Today, I will address perception from a less technical perspective – more in line with how my work looks and feels in a workshop setting.
The essential point with perception is the truth in that misperceptions produce fear and true perceptions creates love. In terms of relationships, you see this a lot. An individual may misperceive, or may be intentionally led to misperceive and that leads to a whole world of problems. So in this sense -- in the sense of relating to others -- there are two major components. There is the misperception that comes from the individual and then there’s the misperception that sometimes has its origin in a partner who’s being less than honest or “fair.”
It’s called drama for good reason.
I’m a firm believer that we can’t control others so I will leave the issue of dishonest people endeavoring to cause fear and misperception as a tool for control to the countless blogs littering the internet on just that topic. Believe me, someone somewhere right this moment is writing a heartfelt blog on how someone intentionally caused a misperception. I feel that if we live a life based on love rather than fear, those who would cause us pain fall away. Pettiness doesn’t feel comfortable around genuineness. More simply put: shit doesn’t roll uphill.
True happiness is an inside job, so let’s put away the toys, and look within. The rest will take of itself, believe me. Just know that everything you perceive is a testament to the thought system you want to be true. You should read that previous sentence several times. I know when I first happened on it, it blew me away because there was the fuckin' key. The truth is that our perceptions of others are what we are strengthening in ourselves. This is the reason some forms of relating are toxic. Perception is a mirror of our deepest selves and most of the time we’re not aware of it.
We look at perception as something factual when it isn’t. Perception is a choice. I know I said I would leave the game players alone but I’ll use their monkey asses to better illustrate what I mean here. You’re in a relationship, or pursuing one, and the object of your attraction is playing games – intentionally using misperception as a way to get what they want. Let’s say she’s lying about not seeing someone else, or he tells you he cares, but is interested in your ass. There are several scenarios, but you get my drift. Now, think about that. Think carefully of what kind of mindset stays stuck on that level of thinking. There has to be a lot of fear in that manner of relating, doesn’t it? Fear of being alone, fear of true intimacy, or fear being seen for who you really are – the list goes on.
As always happens, the shit comes out in the wash. Deceit is always uncovered, it’s always a matter of time, but this is the part that I want you take to heart: perception is a choice that’s dependent on much more than you realize. Taking the example above, what you choose to hear and see depends entirely on your belief of what you are. You could see the person above as a snake – someone who stole affection from you, and you wouldn’t be too far off track.
However, what would you see, given the choice?
The first rule of perception is that you will see that which resides within you. If there is hatred in your heart, you will perceive a fearful world gone slightly mad, held in the cold embrace of death’s cold fingers. But if there is love in your heart, you will look outward on a world full of mercy and love. It is only in learning to look on all things with the quality of openness, appreciation, and love that we free ourselves of the manipulation and deceit – both from within and outside of ourselves. Fro the perspective of love pettiness is revealed for what it is: a sad attempt by deluded individuals to exert control over a frightful world. Love allows you to see a deceit for the smallness that it is rather than a gigantic insult to your ego. Shit can’t roll uphill. So if you’re standing on a foundation of love and not your own selfish desires, the Monkey Mind ma’fuccas lose importance.
Oftentimes, I see people who have no real clue of the limits they have placed on their perceptions. No idea of all the beauty they could see if they only opened their minds and their eyes.
Perception can make whatever picture the mind wants to see. I can choose to see a hurt from a position of smallness and hate enters my hurt. That fuckin bitch! Alternatively, I can choose to see the same hurt from a position of love and see how much she suffers and how much she happiness she sacrifices by living like that.
Same hurt, different perceptions. You choose.
Perception can make whatever drama the mind wants to see. If you take anything from this, take this: Perception is a mirror, not a fact and what you gaze upon is a reflection of your state of mind turned outward.
