The Natural Contemplative Blog
Category: Blogging

Greetings,

I am migrating my blog away from MySpace and onto my own domain. I've been double posting for a while now, and growing weary of that.

If you would like to continue reading my blogs, you can view and subscribe at

blog.naturalcontemplative.com

If I figure out how to get an RSS feed onto my MySpace page then it will be available here, but until then, please come by.

Thank you for reading!

John

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This is Liberation
Category: Life

This is liberation. See this very clearly in yourself.

See the mind at work, filtering, interpreting, judging, narrating reality. See this activity of the mind going on all the time. Not shrinking away from any of it, and not judging it at all, just see it very clearly in yourself.

See then how utterly incapable this whole mental process is of giving a true representation of the world or of your own life. See how very destructive and hurtful this mental process so often is. Don't judge it or condemn it. Just see it very clearly.

Seeing this, there is the possibility that the mind will recognize that its own activity is the source of all the conflict in the world and the source of all of its own suffering. And seeing this very clearly, it will stop spontaneously.

When this process of judging and comparing and narrating stops spontaneously, all that is left is this present moment. No past, except for the practical purposes of remembering how to get to the grocery store. No comparing the present to the past. No future, except for the practical purpose of arranging to meet friends for dinner in two weeks. No idea of the future onto which to project all our hopes and fears.

This moment abides in perfect stillness, more than enough, much more than enough, for this is where life lives itself.

The mind has been burdened with a task it is simply incapable of performing: telling who we really are and telling what the world really is. It tries to do this using the only tool it has: reference to the past, to memory, to what is familiar and known.

Since life is always spontaneously creating itself right now, the mind can't help but fail in this task. The harder it tries, the more frantic it becomes, the more maniacally it pursues status, wealth, possessions, power, accomplishments, peak experiences, rigid ideologies, perfect security. The more desperately it fears death, loss, grief, and the obvious mismatch between its own story about the world and the living world itself.

Seeing all this very clearly, seeing how it works and seeing how it creates suffering, opens the possibility that the mind will finally know that it can rest. It does not need to pursue a task it can not accomplish. It can rest in the simple fact of this that is right now. This utterly creative stillness that is right now. This is what the world truly is and this is what we truly are. Alive with possibility and creativity. This does not need any mental interpretation. This is sufficient unto itself.

Simply see how the mind creates conflict and suffering, and seeing this, come to a full stop. Abide in the creative stillness of this moment, which is life itself.

This is liberation.

Currently reading : When Fear Falls Away: The Story of a Sudden Awakening By Jan Frazier

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Visits with whales
Current mood: happy
Category: Life

We had an amazing experience yesterday aboard The Prince of Whales, which is a whale watch boat operated by Newburyport Whale Watch in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Cynthia and I joined Head Naturalist Dianna Schulte of the Blue Ocean Society to provide educational context on the trip. I have collaborated with Blue Ocean for the past five or six years.

After sighting a few fin whales in the distance who were spending very little time at the surface, we were suddenly joined by a young humpback, later identified from its fluke pattern as Lutris, which means "otter." Lutris is the six-year-old offspring of Lava. Before we identified him/her, we assumed it was a much younger juvenile, because Lutris spent close to an hour with us, right next to the boat, continuously checking us out, behavior that is more common among younger whales.



Several people who were on the lower deck had the very great honor of being looked directly in the eye by this magnificent creature. Several times s/he rolled over to bring one large, pink eye out of the water to look at us. For a six-year-old to show this much curiosity and persistence in visiting a bunch of humans on a boat is fairly unusual, and it was a great privilege to be among those visited.



There is a strange phenomenon that occurs when one is visited by a whale in this way. Afterward, the whole experience slips away like a dream. We spent an hour with this whale but it felt like minutes. And looking back, it was hard to believe that it was real. To be visited by such a huge wild creature, who is obviously intelligent and aware and purposeful and curious, just doesn't compute in the brain somehow.

That inability truly to process the experience makes it feel a little surreal. But it is very real. It is the honest truth. It makes one realize what a marvelously inadequate thing this little brain is for truly understanding the living world. We are deeply embedded in beauty and wonder, and we hardly even know it. It remains a deep mystery to us. But when one meets a whale, or is met by a whale, in this way, one comes into direct encounter with the limits of the brain's ability to comprehend, and that in itself opens up new horizons of possibility for engaging with this world. It is utterly impossible, in my experience, to go back into the human-dominated world after an experience like this, and feel quite the same way about it.

Clearly, the human is not the be-all and end-all of creation. The human is embedded in a magnificence it can not even comprehend. And the whale is also part of that magnificence, and so is all of life and all of everything. It adds dignity to our lives to see ourselves in this light, and also takes away our pretense of being the best and the brightest of all creatures.

I don't know if it is intentional, but one of the things the whales are doing is putting us in our proper place in the order of things. It is a more humble place, but it is also a more beautiful and happy, and truly majestic place than the self-centered arrogance that has dominated human behavior for the past several thousand years.

Welcome home.

Currently reading : Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion By Stuart Kauffman

7:25 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Where Would You Rather Live?
Category: Life

Is there any idea, or any belief, or any concept, or any thought that you can have about Life that is more real, or more vital, or more alive than Life itself, more alive than being alive? So where would you rather live, in your ideas and beliefs and concepts about Life, or in being alive itself?

For thousands of years, our ideas and thoughts and beliefs and concepts about Life have been more real to us than living itself. Our sense of who we are, our identity, has been based more in what we think and what we believe about Life than in the simple fact of our being alive.

For us to survive now, we must turn and allow ourselves to be embraced fully once again by the simple beauty of being alive, and to allow our ideas and beliefs about it to recede in importance.

--

There is in each of us, at the very core, a silence that is so deep that it can receive absolutely every agonized aspect of our lives, with no judgment or condemnation, with total love. That is in each of us. It is our essential nature. It is what we are. Our identification with thoughts and with externalities, our belief that we are defined and described totally by our thoughts and feelings and experiences, merely covers over the deep silence that we are.

It is our obsession with our thoughts that makes them chaotic and overwhelming. For they were never meant to carry the burden of telling us who we really are. That job is too big for them. When we bring the clear seeing that is grounded in our inner silence to bear, then we are shifting our sense of our center, our sense of who we really are, from thought, to silence. From that which can not carry our true being to that which is our true being, Life itself, being alive.

Currently listening : Hey Dreamer Release date: 2008-03-25

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Facts and Figures Do Not Wake People Up to the Truth
Current mood: awake
Category: Life

Facts and figures do not wake people up to the truth of their unity with nature. It is the direct encounter with nature that wakes one up to that truth. My experience of whale watch naturalists is that our patter is all about facts and figures. Whales are fascinating creatures, but it is not the facts and figures, not the knowledge about whales that reaches and changes people. It is the fact of the whale itself, it is the unmediated encounter with the unknown and unknowable magnificence of the whale. Facts and figures appeal to the mind. Unmediated encounter appeals to the whole organism, the whole movement of life in a person.

To me, this is one of the most important things we can do for people, from a very early age, to give them the opportunity to see that there is no separation between them and the natural world. Trying to manage the natural world seems a little crazy to me. It is too complex. Our brains and our mental models of the world are too simplistic. Nature is alive, for God's sake. As soon as you figure it out, it has changed! What we need most is not managers but respectful participants in the unfolding of nature. Not control but respectful participation. Where does that respect come from, the willingness to look and listen really carefully?

It seems to come from some experience of the natural world that is unmediated. A direct encounter with something that strikes to the core and says to the individual human brain, you are this. You are not separate from this. You and this are one and the same. Take care.

This is where I am trying to go, not only through whale watches and through whale programs, but through other means. To create the circumstances in which the human brain might be able to see that it is in no way separate, to get it to stop for one small moment the constant stream of separating chatter and story, to allow reality to meet reality and realize they are one. To correct the deadly imbalance that has come into the world because the human brain thinks it is in charge, in control, that it is capable of understanding everything, and through perfect understanding will come perfect living.

Life already lives itself just fine, thank you very much. It doesn't need any help from human brains. Sorry, human brain, you are pretty neat, but you can't hold a candle to life itself. You can be pretty smart, but your intelligence is only a tiny slice of the intelligence of the whole of life. When you set yourself against nature, which is your own nature, you are being very dumb indeed.

Maybe it is time to stop thinking that all the answers to our problems will come out of the human brain. Maybe it is time to start listening deeply to what nature has to tell us.

This seems to me a rather lovely place for the human mind to come to rest: in the recognition that it is but one of the multitude of expressions of Life's intelligence, and therefore conscious of all that it receives from life. Knowing all that life provides it, perhaps it will in turn treat life with the care and respect it deserves. It can not keep going the way it has been, pretending that it is separate and independent of all of the rest of life. That is its fundamental error, and that error is making the whole world inhospitable to human life, and many other lives as well.

Currently reading : Eye of the Whale : Epic Passage from Baja to Siberia By Dick Russell

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Love Is the Only Truth
Category: Life

Three reminders came past me today, which I want to share with you.

The first is from an interview with Italian singer Peter Arcade:

"Love is everything in life; the only real way in a world of dead-end roads, what makes life true: anything else, career, cash, sportcars, villas are illusions, empty and expensive boxes, meanwhile love is the content."

The next two are lyrics from my favorite Irish songwriter, John Spillane:

You forgot what you're for, you've forgotten
You forgot where you're from, you forgot where you're goin'
You forgot everything, you've forgotten

You are a star in the night, you are a wave shining bright
You are a bird in full flight, you've forgotten
You are a child on the run, you are a ray of the sun
You are everyone, you've forgotten

You are a flame in the wind, you are a leaf in the breeze
You are a song in the trees, you've forgotten
You are a star in the night, you are a wave shining bright
You are a bird in full flight, you've forgotten

- from "Hey Dreamer"

--

Born to be bright
To be near sunlight
Born to be warm
To be safe from harm
Make up your mind
Take up your time
Ready or not

And will we be brilliant or what?
Will we be all dressed in sunlight?
Brilliant or what
Will we be smiling under starlight?
Brilliant or what
Will we be graceful and free
Will we be? graceful and free?
Will we be kind, why not?
What have you got?
And will we be brilliant, brilliant or what?

When living, to be living
When loving, to be loving
When learning, to be learning
When laughing, to be laughing
When leaving, to be leaving
When living, to be living
When loving, to be loving
When learning, to be learning

- from "Will We Be Brilliant or What?"

--

I can't really imagine what more needs to be said. This is everything.

Currently listening : Will We Be Brilliant or What? By John Spillane

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This Is All There Is
Current mood: calm

True action arises spontaneously within the field of love, of openness, without attachment to any outcome, because such attachment would imply at least a smidgeon of control, not total freedom. Only this spontaneous action is free of fear, distortion, conditioning.

What is its source? The unknowable source of life. It is all a matter of whether we trust that source. And even the fear, distortion and conditioning arise from that source and have their time and place. How could it be otherwise? Wishing to be free of all that is another attachment to an outcome, another imposition of control.

There is nothing left but this that is. Only this. Only this is real. This that is right now.

Any movement toward a state of mind, or a condition of life, or an idealized realm of heaven or hell, any time or place other than this, is a movement away from reality into fantasy. This, this right here, this is all there is.

But, you say, we have to plan. We have to imagine. We have to achieve. Have you noticed that when you are planning or imagining or achieving, it all happens right here, it is whatever is happening right now? It is absolutely impossible to be anywhere other than right here, right now. This is not something we have to work at. It is what we do, it is what we are, always, no matter what. We are this that is here right now. Unavoidably. You can not possibly escape that.

So why on earth do you spend so much of your mental activity trying to escape from this? Or imagining that there is somewhere or somewhen that is better than this? Why is the mind so out of step with reality? Because, it is taught to despise this that is. It is taught that all the goodies are coming some day in the future, when we achieve our goals, when we go to heaven, when the Messiah comes, when the right people land in the positions of power.

All of that is nonsense. This, right here, is the only reality.

Let me tell you. If for one tiny fraction of a moment your brain could rest, really rest, in the reality of this that is, you would discover that you are already in heaven. It's just that you have been running away from it all your life, thinking it must be somewhere or somewhen other than this that is here right now. Thinking there must be a better you or a better "this" just around the corner.

But "this" is it. This is all there is. This is everything. Get to know it. You'll be amazed at what you have been missing.

Currently listening : Gaelic Hit Factory Release date: 2000-01-04

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I Am This
Current mood: energetic
Category: Life

The "natural world" is a complex system of energetic interrelationships in which matter-energy constantly forms and transforms, and outside of which nothing exists.

The human is therefore "the natural world" as much as trees, rivers, oceans, mountains, stars, soils, gazelles, polar bears, whales, and all the other "things" we normally regard as "nature." Each of these is a temporary, constantly transforming appearance within the energetic system we call "the natural world."

For the most part, humans see themselves as essentially separate from nature. Nature is something outside of us that we study, examine, analyze, use, destroy, kill, eat, manipulate, marvel at, enjoy, protect, but always with a sense of separation from it, or at best relationship to it. Hardly ever do we see that it is us, that we are it.

How many of us can say with full comprehension: I am earth; I am soil; I am sun; I am insect; I am whale; I am vast silence; and I am toxic pollution. I am the other, and the other is me. They are as much me as hand or mouth or brain. I am all that is. I am the system of constantly transforming energy. I am this, and only this. Never more and never anything less than this.

I believe this is the lesson we need to learn if we are to survive for any considerable time as a species. Nothing is separate from anything else. Nothing exists outside of this system of energetic transformations. Everything is an expression of this. Everything. I am this. You are this. The animals and the plants and the rocks and rivers are this.

Live with full awareness of this, for this is what we truly are.

6:00 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

The One Essential Thing
Current mood: content
Category: Life

I had very interesting dreams last night. I was thinking about John Spillane's song, "All the Ways You Wander" and it's part in a potent and prophetic dream I had a few years ago. A dream about peace finally arriving on this good Earth, and the law of love heard and understood everywhere and not able to be silenced.

And I realized that the words "All the ways you wander, all the ways you roam: I will wait for you 'til the very end" is like the words of the Chant For All Creatures written by my friend Moondog, "go where you will and life will return you back to the source that surely does hold you." Wander where we will, searching for home, searching for truth, searching for love, searching for ourselves, the truth patiently waits for us to stop, and notice it, right here, all the time.

And I was reflecting (in my sleep!) on a book that I was reading (see below), and how, although it asks the right question (What is the root cause of suffering?) it misses the one essential thing. It trades one set of ideals for another set of ideals. The one essential thing, the living truth waiting for us to stop and realize it, can not be explained or talked about directly. Jesus told stories to point to it. He called it "like a mustard seed, the smallest, least consequential of all seeds, that grows into a great bush." It is like that.

And it is like this: "self" is resistance to what is. When the resistance falls away, the sense of the separate "self" dissolves into being, like a drop of water falling into the ocean. This can also be called "love."

Driving to work I was playing with a story out of my own experience.

Finding the one essential thing is like having a photo of a whale that you keep on your desk and you love it so much and you look at it every day. And you think that is a whale.

And then a friend gives you a video of a whale, and you are amazed by this. Wow, so this is what a whale is really like. And then you watch the video every day and you love it, you adore it. And you think this is a whale.

And then one day your friend takes you on a whale watch and you see a whale in the wild for the first time, and you are astonished because you had no idea how big whales are and how truly graceful and present and curious they are. And you think, wow, so this is what a whale is really like.

But then you think, I thought the photo was really a whale. And then I thought the video was really a whale. And now I think this experience is really a whale. But what is a whale, really? And you realize you do not know, and you can never know. And then it hits you, and you see everything exactly for what it is, including your own sense of self. You do not know anything, not even who you are, and you can never know.

And that is the discovery of the one essential thing. The unity of what is, the living truth that can never be known or directly seen in its fullness. And it comes when the limited "me" sees its limitations for the first time, and realizes it is a very small part of something much more vast and much more creative and much more present, and absolutely inclusive and loving, its own source, its own true nature. And the me surrenders its pretense and returns to its source.

That is the one essential thing, always present, not only in us and with us, but living through us and through absolutely everything, at all times. Waiting with infinite patience for us to come to a full stop, and notice its all encompassing presence.

Currently reading : Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope By Brian McLaren Release date: 02 October, 2007

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The Wholeness That We Are
Current mood: peaceful
Category: Life

Sisters and Brothers, the wholeness and unity we so desperately seek is already here, waiting for us to make one, simple decision: to stop turning away from it. Wholeness, the Kingdom of God, The Beloved Community, is here, within and among us, right now.

It is as close as breathing. It is as intimate as the beating of the heart. It is as illuminating as the flame. It speaks in the wind, and in the word, and in the silence. There is nothing that does not speak of it.

It lives in the ever dancing, ever singing, ever creating, (ever dying) of our bodies, our wild unmanageable personalities, our gatherings together, our growing, greening, decaying, resurrecting Earth, our spiraling Milky Way, our incomprehensible expanding being Universe.

How is it that we do not see this? How is it that we do not notice the very Breath that breathes us? It is so very simple. Too simple to be captured by a thought. The Unity of the Holy Spirit is not in this or that. Not in the wind alone. Not in the word alone. Not in your way or my way alone.

No thing can contain it. And yet it is. Whole ness is. The Spirit is. The dance of the All in All.

This wholeness. This God With Us. This is what we are. Turn back and back again to what we are.

My sisters and brothers, You human and animal companions, You earth, You sea, You sky. You myriad suns. You named and unnamed, numbered and unnumbered galaxies teaming with wonders of your own, worlds and lives unimagined.

You emptiness. You vast silence. I am the merest expression of you. In you I live and move and have my being. Through us all, all of us together, you live, and move, and have your being. For in every word spoken, and every sound heard, and in every quaking of leaf in wind, the whole universe participates.

Turn then, away from the mere thought of it. For the thought knows only the part, not the whole. Turn toward the Being of it. Our every-day, ordinary, extraordinary being. One Self, not many. One unbroken whole. Let us be this, for this is what we are.

Currently reading : The Whale Warriors: The Battle at the Bottom of the World to Save the Planet’s Largest Mammals By Peter Heller Release date: 18 September, 2007

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