On Peace and Protection

Peace is the stillness that accompanies all of the mind-stories, even the negative ones. Peace is, more often than not, a tacit but omnipresent and silent-sentience inseparable from all appearances including thoughts--negative or positive--but distinguishable and available for all if we simply stay aware and view alluring and disturbing narratives for what they are in the present, just narratives. 

Awareness of this type weakens the grip of the deepest propaganda—ontological, epistemological, medical, economic, political--and opens the door to greater possibilities for all of us. Peace of mind is our most important asset and should be encouraged and protected. This is the role of virtue and other forms of ethical practice and perspectives. 

Acting from peace is synonymous with acting from an open and more informed intelligence, one that may be open to the possible and not bound by the dogmatic. Through peace of mind, dogmatism and sedimented views may be undermined and we may become available to the potential of innovation. It is in our best interest to guard the mind against habitually and culturally indoctrinated adherence to many habitually held narratives, that cause great pain and addiction to pleasures that, in the long-term, do us harm.

The depths of peace reveal formerly held depths to be superficial surfaces. Realities may turn into beliefs and, in turn, beliefs are seen as ideas and they turn into mere passing thoughts. 

Realities vanish and the Who becomes known as that which is aware and that which is aware is the light of lights that grants sentience. 

It is there, hidden in the depths of our subjectivity, a subject who will forever remain unidentifiable, unknowable, and free from limitation. Like form and color, the awareness that is peace and the evanescent dynamics of phenomena are inseparable but must be distinguishable for peace to become known and assimilated into personal, intersubjective, societal, and cultural norms. No need for effort, just take some time and gather the intent to watch steadily and over time without preference for a preferred appearance. Meditation may reveal what has always already been the case, the One that hides in the shadows cast by craving—the clinging to phenomena in the hope of finding stability, peace, and all that we, as human beings, wish for.

Authentic peace of mind will grant us all kindness, compassion, joy, and friendliness; these are the path from and to peace. However, it must be both encouraged and protected with virtue.

Repetition vs. Learning: It's all Karma (action)

Prior to reading this post, please take a look at this video and see how worlds are made, https://youtu.be/UsnGHRZu-s0

If you have ever observed the process of learning, very closely, extremely closely, you may have noticed that sounds, body, and hand movements, i.e., gestures are repeated over and over to help us learn. I am saying to you that the repeated acts (karma) of prayers, table manners, proper grammar, and much more are themselves learning. There is no one inside who learns. There is no fixed self or one who repeats the mantras of prayers or table manners and then learns. The repetition is the learning. Repeating is learning. Repetition sediments what we take to be words, sentences, mantras, prayers, i.e., the repeated, and we, upon reflection--or that's what we call this, reflection, simply another form of repetition--we believe something was learned.

This very same process gives us all of the components or items of our moment to moment realities, be they selves, chairs, other people, or anything else we plan on being there in our future. The worlds are made of mantras. I can assure you that learning is sedimentation. Ever watch how a path is cut through a dense forest? It is the repeated movements over the same or close to the same grounds. In fact, they become the same when repeated thus creating familiarity via repetition, a path is made when repetition of acts of body, speech, and mind take place. This is as true for physics as it is for table manners or swear words. Then, we follow the path without batting an eye. The same is true for the process we call learning. Even our sense of self, our precious self, is formed via repetition. This is the repetition of words, which are sounds that have become words via repetition, feelings, faces, others's sounds and judgments and all manner of repeated, not identically repeated but similar enough to provide memory with comfort and ease of travel, i.e., habits, that settle into incarnations of self-senses.

Words are sounds that have gained familiarity through repetitious patterns of vibration, mouthing acts, sound acts as facial recognition in others who repeat the patterns. We don't really learn anything. We repeat and become familiar. This applies as much to doors as to selves. Our sense of self is mere familiarity with innumerable micro-actions of body, speech, mind, perception, environments, and more. There are innumerable causes and conditions at many levels of subtlety most of which go unnoticed. There is simply no need to pay attention to the familiar. Once a group of repeaters has formed a community, of various types, is formed. Communities are repeaters. Karma (actions) forms all relations, persons, places, things, and actions.

This is not true, this is how you may watch your experience being made along with your worlds, as time moves toward a future built with all of the persons, places, or things that have a place in the sedimented mantras we count on each day, week, month, year, decade and more. You are not being asked to believe this but to see it, to feel it, to know it is what is occurring.

All of it brought about by desire, kama-loka, the "desire realm." 

States of Mind?

Life is living, perpetual motion. Does there ever appear to you to be a state in play in your experience? The word state is variously used to indicate a "condition" of something, be it person, place, or thing. A condition of something in the state in which that thing is found to be. It is a condition of the being of something or of something's being.

Does mental activity have a state? Commonly it is said that there are states of mind. I know we commonly say, "He is in some state," to indicate that someone is in a condition of some sort or he is in some place or another. But is there a state of affairs? Is there really a state or condition which simply is? Which is not in motion? Which is not in time? These are important questions to ask when it comes to experience. Please give this some thought because the next post or so will presuppose you have done so.

Thoughts are Not Feeling Neutral

Thinking as the activity of intention-generation is accompanied by both feeling and breathing. 

Obviously, breathing does not always accompany our thinking but in the originating activity of narratives, breathing was tied to the thinking. This results in a patterning of feeling/breathing that leaves an incarnate trace effect. Most acts leave patterned deposits. If a similar action is taken in the future, that action will, in turn, build on the prior act and so on and so on until a kind of breath/feeling takes root. Perhaps the metaphor of a sandpile on the beach may serve to make the point. We build a sizeable mound of sand on the beach and then proceed to pour buckets of water on the top of the mound. When the water is poured it naturally seeks its own level downward. In doing so, it will form rivulets in the mound. As we continue to pour these buckets of water on the top of the mound some of the rivulets will attract more of the water than others and consequently they will deepen attracting even more water than the others with future pours. In an earlier blog post, I used the example of the sedimentary rock layers of the Grand Canyon. It was, very importantly, noted that the foundation layers--it is layers all the way down, with no perceivable bottom in this semi-fictitious example--are still an influence to more current and even the presently forming layer. Influence from the remote bottom layers is still effectual when the patterning influence of foundational layers on all subsequent layers is taken into effect. Consequently, the actions taken by our ancestors are still influential as are our actions taken in the present. The present, inclusive of all sorts of conditions which are truly infinite in scope, gives rise to what we of finite perception consider to be novelty. No amount of calculation could possibly be inclusive enough to fathom the prevailing conditions of the present.

Our past lives, for it is only incarnate actions that can take place, are truly ours in this sense. For we are the inheritors of the past into the present toward the intentional future--the only future that may be said to truly exist. 

It should be noted... 

This movement gives rise to inclinations that, in accordance with their repetition and severity of impact, will generate similar acts in future. This is habit, the result of repetition. This is why practice works. Much like form and color, thinking, breathing, and feeling are not separable but they are distinguishable. Distinguishing this triune movement is not always evident. In fact, for most of us, it would take a good deal of practice, especially meditation practice, to access this type of subtle observation. Once gained, this skill proves helpful in attenuating unwanted habits, those that cause suffering are the most relevant to our concerns.

To be continued...

Immunity from the Virus-Narratives

Once narratives or stories or thoughts are repeated, sometimes ad nauseum, remind yourself that all narratives are felt narratives. Their repetition carves out feeling "channels" in which flow the breath along with those narratives. Repetition ensures that the narrative-feelings are sedimented as patterned and therefore they feel right, meaning they feel familiar and are held--by the uncritical eye--as being real. For corroboration, we can always appeal to our friends and family who themselves have probably been exposed to the virus-narratives along with you.

For a more neutral example of what I'm saying is hair. For those of us burdened with hair, the morning mirror check is often an important part of a start to our day. Often, we don't leave the house without it. How do we know when our hair is "right" for the start of the day? Is it exclusively an intellectual judgment? See for yourself. Doesn't it have to not only look right but feel right? Aren't we uncomfortable when it isn't? Our body says, "No, not yet." We have to feel comfortable with our hair prior to leaving. This is not simply an intellectual appraisal.

Now, there is nothing true or false about the morning hair is there? But, there is something it feels like to be right or wrong. Right?


All acts, be they of mind or body, have to feel justified. Don't believe it? Witness this for yourself. The basis of justification is feelings, it is, in the end, the body-feelings that decide. Feelings are of three kinds: pleasureable, painful, and neutral or indifferent. For the most part, feelings decide and thought justifies. 

More on Free Will (The following is subject to revision.)

These are scattered thoughts that I am working on in a continuation of my notes on free will. They are not definitive although some of them may be worth your consideration. See if they fit. 

Here it is. The statements are bold, no less. Read them. Ask yourself, "Why would anyone, this man, say these things?" This is a question that many would not bother asking.

However, once you read these assertions and fully observe first hand, the simple and direct truth of these assertions while the movement of decisions and actions i.e., living, is occurring, then everything will change.

What I actually do is enacted ahead of my reasons for doing it. Reasons are not what guides me, the alleged agent of my actions, in the mode of living of action. Reasons follow upon the enacting of the decision. 

We are not free agents and we do not have free will. 

In fact, why I do and what I do are decisions made without consulting me first. 

If you do observe this in its unfolding from unmanifest to manifest, from potentiality to actuality, it is yours and all of the implications that go with it and all of the implications will gradually become yours as well. This simple observation will be the beginning of the unfolding of these unsettling implications and this process will take as long as it takes.

However, the knowing necessary for doing is a form of unmanifest knowing. It is an unmanifest, silent sentience result-ing from prior acts. 

Do you observe this? Is this something true for you? It is comparable to attempting to see the ground beneath your feet. Decisions are made by the omniscient and sentient-silence of the unfolding of historical determinations or karma.

Coming soon..."The Fundamental Reality"

This is one of the most important things to learn for helpful navigation of living. Here goes:

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The Fundamental Reality is Experiencing: Being is Becoming

The implications of this realization, or position if you like, are, at once, staggering and dangerous. They are also awe-some and magnificent. The unfolding of some of the implications and the dangers of doing so will be the topic of this blog. Stop back soon, please.