The Open Heart Cafe: Closed on Sundays.

The first principal of buddhism according to Kornfield says: "See the inner nobility and beauty of all human beings."  Illustrating this principal is a quote from Thomas Merton:  "The saints are what they are, not because their sanctity makes them admirable to others, but because the gift of sainthood makes it possible for them to admire everybody else."

It has been awhile it seems since i felt my heart truely open and receptive to and of and for the noumena and other entities around me.   The second principal of buddhism is: "compassion is our deepest nature.  It arises from our interconnectedness to all things."  Buddhism is an extremely well inter-connected organization of thought and comprehension of ways of journeying through this life.

I have practiced waking up with the intent to go through the day seeing the nobility and beauty in others.  It is not easy.  But, it is fun. And.....it most definetly softens the heart.  It most assuredly massages tender spots within one's heart.  Its easy in some ways which are surprizingly hard in others.  For me, it seems to require a combination of other practices.  Metta, right intention and for god's sake, right speech!  It's not that there are right words so much as there is a right spirit and if the spirit is right the words will be right.  Pretending to secretly be the Dali Lama is kinda cool.   Cool and easier I think than pretending to be  Jesus Christ or a vestal virgin.    And as much as doing this can supercharge the day, lighten the spirit and perhaps enlighten the mind - there is an aversion to starting each day like this.  There is within me, an aversion to being so "chirpy" and a desire to awe and shock.....Or hide from.

And still my heart feels guarded.  Not tight, not shut down, just guarded.  A little self-protective still but increasingly more clearly aware of the subtle changes and shifting of the vagueries of the heart as it navigates through the vissiccitudes of life.   I long for spring!  We all long for spring!  And still, the snow falls, and still the sunsets, and still my heart beats. 

It was the night of the Weird Pic show put on by Carson Jones.  It was cold.  I was missing the presence and warmth of the spouse, and killing time when i took this.  Since i took it i have been putting off working on it and this, perhaps only the first attempt checking in just to see what my condition is in.  "Yeah, yeah, ohhhhh yeahhhhh."

Moment by Moment by the Doobie Brothers

Jack Kornfield, in his book "Wise Heart," speaks of the fact that both light and consciousness manifest in both wave and partical form. He goes on to use the metaphors of "big sky," and "mirror-mind," and equates these with wave-like consciousness to show us possibilities of experience available to all.

If one can imagine that their consciousness is linked too and equivalent with that-which-is-the-sky, then one can experience the vastness of consciousness.  If in one's imagination a person can identify with and be-the-sky then in turn one's understanding of the essential truth of the energy of Love as that-which-binds and paradoxically that-which-is-unbounded takes root and begins to grow.  And  if one can let go and allow their partical-like consciousness to expand and flow wave-like, than I think the experience of life becomes freer.  Liberation becomes imaginable and there is inevitably a lessening of suffering.  "Suffering" understood as the buddhist dukka.  Our self-inflicted wounds.

When I think of mirror-like-mindedness...a camera comes to mind and at first anyway its easy to imagine being absorbed in image-making and in being-in-the-moment imaging being a camera.  The mirror in a camera filps the image so the mind can interpret and label and "control" the shapes and forms of various aggregates of energies-in-agreement, and tones and textures, light and shadow.  Merging and filling up.

I like both metaphors and find both to open doors to deeper experiences and explorations of consciousness.  Consciousness and how it plays with how it perceives and how it experiences the noumena of the phenomenon we call life.  If both light and consciousness manifest as both wave and partical, and if the stuff of what we call noumena (things) also manifests as both wave and partical, than it makes sense that everything that is, most especially including us, manifests as wave and as partical on multiple levels and dimensions simultaneously both in (our bodies) and out (our consciousness) of time.

We experience life in both its wave-like manifestations and its partical-like manifestations and when our manifestations happen to be in synch, when they happen to be in rhythm magic happens.   Life momentarily becomes a dance.  A party.  Examples of wave-like consciousness it seems to me then would be, among other things, music, dance, athletics, arts or certainly aspects of the artistic and creative processes.  Making love and baking cookies or knitting a homile to put above the kitchen clock.

Partical consciousness on the other hand, seems to refer to that moment-by-moment - second-by-second shifting/arising/falling/passing flow of the consciousness of time.  That "chasing-the-light" awareness when one experiences the world in "moments."  Moments of time.  Moments measured by the falling of a leaf, by a cloud shielding the sun, by time measured from dawn to dusk. Ahh these "magic moments" as my favorite boy-band singer once sang before he left to become a preacher man.  Sadly, too many lives can be distilled down to only a few good moments - a few magic moments.  So when we do  experience  moments of   joy and awe, of gratitude and grace.  Moments of understanding of timeless awakening, of perfection, of the kingdom.  We need to give thanks.

I think conditions are sometimes such that all is in synch.  Through my day job I am starting to learn and to see, how single-focused and concentrated energy can be effectively applied equally well to writing up legal documents and as applied to the art of creation and image-making.  But in photography alone  I come closest to being immersed in the ebb and flow the warp and weave the co-mingling of light as partical as it moves as it dances upon and across the subject framed by my lens........AND aware simultaneously of consciousness as wave form as joyful realities flow through me.  As I experience bliss and serenity, awe and mirth, dancing back and forth the Nikon tango light love art and being all dancing n sparkling all pulsing to different yet harmonious rhythms.  Equinamity arises!

The Doobies really were a great rock n roll band .  I take their advice often to simple "listen to the music," of the unfolding life-time-in-this-world playing my shaker adding my voice to the song.
doc rob

Fences build good neighbors

I have a neighbor.  He is an odd duck, a rare breed, a horse of another color.  He is a man of his word and he is a man of faith (in these times both are rare).  He is one who religiously follows his chosen path. He lives it and it shows.  He is a man with a good heart and a strong back.  Ask him and he will tell you that he is your spiritual brother.  Ask him and he will gladly give you a hand up.

 Mortality arises!

Yesterday I went out to help my neighbor put up a snow fence alongside our road.  Of course the fact that the conditions were the kind that were "nearly impossible and certainly down right crazy to even think of putting up a snow fence" sort, didn't seem to deter either of us.   For all of his admirable qualities and my own humble blessings, we both were foolish!

I collapsed!  The physical exertion combined with the blistering cold and the brutally harsh sunlight on the snow was enough to send me to my knees!  I knelt trying to just breathe and center self, look at the crystal sky, the pure mountains, and feel oddly grateful to be there then.  To experience that moment.  And to know that I was safe.  That my neighbor would take care of me in my time of need.  As each generation does for those who preceeded.  Just as I help steady my father-in-law as he navigates these last days of his journey in this life, so could I allow myself to lean back, feel safe, and know I could rest my trust in the heart of my neighbor.  That he would offer me a hand up!

Thought I'd die!  Maybe I did?  Some?  A little bit more realizing the impermanance of life, of this life, this "Doc Rob" life. Experiencing the cold stark truth of the feebleness of my body amidst the onslaught of those brutal conditions.  Experiencing this eddy in the mind "I" call  "me."  This conglomeration of whirling swirling spinning twisting particles of energy, light, and life that we ALL are a part of -- and all participating in that and in the "More" co and inter-mingling our energies my neighbor and I.

So, are we spiritual brothers you and I?  I think yes I think no.  I think the metaphor "brother" still clings to the illusion of separatness.  Concepts which emphasize separation impoverish the spirit.  I think as we learn to move beyond these concepts and see with more clarity, we no longer solidify reality.  In mindfullness, we learn to see life arising and passing, being present we can experience the life of body and mind as if in a continual flux, each breath a beginning and each an end.  Sharon Salzberg says:  " Without the rigidity of concepts, the world becomes transparent and illuminated as if lit from within. With this understanding, the interconnectedness of all that lives becomes clear.  We see that nothing is fully separate, that who we are, what we are, is intimately woven into the nature of life itself.  Out of this sense of connection, love and compassion arise."