June 20
i'm in borneo and the store across the street sells a BV wine from sonoma county! i drove across sonoma at at least 30 times during the 9 years i lived in humboldt (a county named for a german person who never visited there) [but also a place of astonishing redwoods, elk,rocky coasts, whales, and many more things to explore]. last year there were millions of cherries arriving here in kota kinabalu from california too! these things are making it easy for a difficult vegetarian to live in borneo. today at kionsom i saw yet another handsome set of bird feathers not surprisingly attached to a bird i don't recognize, and it's liberating to realize that i don't need names or labels for anything. but I AM somewhat disappointed that the speed of light is too slow. so slow that we can't even send a signal to another planet in a convenient interval. some of the notes down below here seem to cry out for a reason, a justification for the moribund. but i don't really have one that i suspect would satisfy anyone and so i just fabricated this complaint about the speed of light to fill in the blank. you would have to be me to understand me and apparently that's not on the menu.
the truth is that i am quite content now. at the moment, as tolle always points out, there is really no problem. however, now also contains probabilities. and several of those appear to be nearing a precipice. i contrived a long time ago to be vigilant about these probabilities and then at some point to take a preventive action. this, however, is one of the tricky things about perception. while you're soaking up the power of now, things can go bad abruptly. especially when people warn you in advance that things are going to bad. like october 2018 when i was on a bike ride and camping at st. george island (pictures in the "under the microwave" story) and my mom called and said "some weather is coming your way" and that turned out to be hurricane "michael." i've learned to follow hans' instructions to follow my instincts about such things and the result is right now a prognostication of ensuing unpleasantness. well, that's the end of coherence for now as the BV sonoma chardonnay has just rendered me tipsy dr. harter memorial style.
may 22, 2021
when i was 20-something, i freakwently ideated going to sleep and not waking up. i compared sleep and dreams with waking consciousness. when people talked about retirement funds i imagined a program to self terminate.
david rossotto's dad worked a million years selling washing machines and planning his retirement only to plop dead the day after releasing himself from employment. anecdotes of interminable suffering and unresolvable conflicts in relationships inspired me to wonder why we don't have an open dialogue, first about how to improve things, and secondly about how to end a chapter.
but there are abundant paradoxes in the prospect, one of which i discovered myself recently. google scholar indexes numerous research articles about how to replace oxygen with helium and thus sleep painlessly through the end of this chapter and into the next world. the realization of how easily this chapter can be terminated heralds a fresh feeling of relief from all the holocaust stories, repetitive mental strain disorder, and so forth. if the paradox is not obvious i will explain further...
[but first i want to remind myself to mention the tricky part which is that programs to self terminate may require some practice, but for example you can't practice shooting yourself. my first attempt was botched because i failed to realize that the apparatus for inhaling gas must be nearly flawless. i had an inking of this and swiftly shut it down after a few seconds. Because i read several anecdotes of failed attempts resulting in survival with brain damage.]
there are persistent problems. solutions come with "unintended consequences." that's the new way of saying solving a problem creates a new problem. and the tension can build up to a breaking point, because there are these fundamentals going all the way to the core of physics. in genetics, a trait adapts to one challenges and makes us vulnerable to another (see sickle cell/malaria). in meditation there is acceptance of everything as it is. and yet physical reality imposes itself. so i reach the breaking point, but then the ideation of flipping the power switch actually brings relief. there are now two perception-shifting prospects in mind. thoughts of "ending things" relieves the tension so i don't need to end things. but the next imposition is already on the horizon.
in meditation i discovered a peace of mind which you can't really imagine until you do it. i must EMPHASIZE that this state of peace comes only with a LOT of daily practice. in the practice i replaced habits of thinking with new ideas. there came an explosion of creativity. in my condo above the bay of kota kinabalu, i dissolved all of my previous problems. (but getting into this state of mind leads to a sudden surprise when the next imposition arrives out of the blue).
also, there was a dependency built into this solution which i was not aware of: the new peace was based on solitude. the solitary practice of meditation leads me to believe in my resilience. but it turns out that a lot of my practice is in a setting that's too comfortable and the resilience is not sufficiently tested. example...
one of the difficulties for me is perhaps something unique to my conditioning and experience: it happens when people talk to me, and it seems that a person can walk up and speak words which go straight into my brain like the seed of ideas which i really don't want to grow in my brain.
i've had some success with yongey's concept of meditation on spoken words as nothing more than sound, sound which has no particular meaning nor power to do anything to me. and that program does work sometimes. but when i am tired i realize that this meditation also requires some energy to maintain. the habits of social interaction are the most difficult for me to revise or delete. this proves to me what sadhguru and others say that you really have to go into the forest for months to totally eliminate these habits.
and now i am aware that i face the challenge to relinquish the comfort, and that is lazy. the next step would be to drop my phone in the ocean and walk into the wilderness. but about perception, doing so seems very little different to me than replacing oxygen with helium and ending this chapter: because my life would change to something i don't recognize in both cases.
as mentioned, these methods require a LOT of practice. and i do see avenues for their continuation and improvement. i have joked that there are no books about "advanced meditation" because this subject gets simpler instead of more complicated like mathematics. as i practice i simplify the road ahead.
then there are unimagined obstacles, which usually strengthen the meditation methods, but which, in one recent case, suggest that there may be limits. that's actually the limit of my current perception, not a real limit. although i have practiced meditation in extreme circumstances and mostly with success, there remain emotional bruises, and now by "emotional" i mean the physical manifestation of ideas.
as a result of this bruising, i find myself inclined once again to release myself from this "employment" (as rossotto might have done) and thus voluntarily achieve the next chapter in a more graceful elegant smooth intelligent comfortable manner (please choose your own favorite adjective).
realistically, how many more repetitions do you need? recognizing that it's going happen, whether you do it by choice intentionally, or it happens to you as a consequence of disease, accident, or another person's choice, it's going to happen. i have omitted the use of "death" because i believe that life is not ending, that we are spirits which continue in another form which is not similar to our current experience. and i do believe totally in the message of jesus, with the exception of a few statements that i don't comprehend. but i don't want that concept to blur the point here.
i am talking to other people who are or will get immersed in this meditation. it alters your perception so that your previous reasons for doing things disappear. that is the paradox of continuing a plan. in strictly now terms, there is no plan. like tolle says, there is only now, and now there are so many things that seem causal to bring about this now, and yet there is no causality.
in conclusion, i feel that the impulse to send my spirit from this world to the next is real and pure. it's a mix of "tired of this program" together with "want to see the next program" and i realize this is related to why i am always traveling and living in different places and looking for adventure. but that's my reality. this is the point on the cliff where i am standing now.
and i am writing it instead of telling a friend or relative because there is this giant taboo which makes it nearly impossible to talk about freely. and talking about it freely would also alter our perception! free us.
and i love writing :)