Once over

... for when it's all over!

... for in the end!

... for in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love, you make.

Over.

Dusty thoughts

Adam* = first human = first self awareness = first grasp of potential = first understanding of death = first "why?" = "death is a 'fault' of the creation" = "why?" = "I've run out of time, too." (full stop).

Without Adam = cycles within cycles within cycles + unawareness = cycles ever more without ever a thought of cycles or a full stop.

*In Hebrew: Adam = "man or mankind or better yet, dust" while Eve = "living one".

No things

And inside the brain we have room enough for both the entire universe and the rest of every thing, every thing that we dare to uncover, yet inside the mind we have even room for "no things," like values and morals and ethics.

More nothing than you can ever imagine

So far in my musings on nothing, I think these thoughts from NASA Astronomer Sten Odenwald are a wonderful introduction to nothing for anyone that has always thought that nothing was ... well, nothing was simply nothing. Think again.

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The night sky, when you think about it, is one of the strangest sights imaginable. The pinpoint stars that catch your eye are all but swallowed up by the black nothingness of space - an entity billions of light-years deep with which we here on Earth have no direct experience.

What is empty space, really? At first the question seems silly. There's nothing to it! But look again in light of what modern physics knows and suspects, and the nature of space emerges as one of the most important "sleeper" issues growing for the last 50 years. "Nature abhors a vacuum," proclaimed Aristotle more than 2,300 years ago. Today physicists are discovering that this is true in ways the ancient Greeks could never have imagined.

True, the cosmos consists overwhelmingly of vacuum. Yet vacuum itself is proving not to be empty at all. It is much more complex than most people would guess. "But surely," you might ask, "if you take a container and remove everything from inside it - every atom, every photon - there will be nothing left?" Not by a long shot. Since the 1920s physicists have recognized that on a microscopic scale, the vacuum itself is alive with activity. Moreover, this network of activity may extend right down to include the very structure of space-time itself. The fine structure of the vacuum may ultimately hold the keys to some of the deepest questions facing physics - from why elementary particles have the properties they do, to the cause of the Big Bang and the likelihood of other universes outside our own.

Nothing and Higgs and a Tibetan monk meet for lunch

I've always been interested in what others called "nothing", especially when some would point to the blackness of the night sky and pronounce "nothing" or when looking at a vacuum chamber and again, someone calling it empty. I never fell for it. This "empty space between" just never rang true to me. But it has always been the physicist who interest me in their "wild-eye mystical talk" of "it all". Almost as wild-eyed as those who penned the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Here a passage describing the messenger particle for mass, the theoretical Higgs field. :-)
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This self-originated Clear Light, which from the very beginning was never born,
Is the child of Rigpa, which is itself without any parents--how amazing!
This self-originated wisdom has not been created by anyone--how amazing!
It has never experienced birth and has nothing in it that could cause it to die--how amazing!
Although it is evidently visible, yet there is no one there who sees it--how amazing!
Although it has wandered through Samsara, no harm has come to it--how amazing!
Although it has seen Buddhahood itself, no good has come to it--how amazing!
Although it exists in everyone everywhere, it has gone unrecognised--how amazing!
And yet you go on hoping to attain some other fruit than this elsewhere--how amazing!
Even though it is the thing that is most essentially yours, you seek for it elsewhere--how amazing!

Silent

Bro. Bartleby has been silent all week. We think he is thinking. About what?
Shalom,
Bro. Juniper

Addendum:
At the break fast table I broke the silence when I asked Bro. Bartleby what he was musing about all week, he replied, "Nothing."

Something for Nothing

A long time ago I looked down and discovered that in one hand I held "something" and in the other hand I held "nothing" and each seemed of equal essence, in that each required the other, and for a very long time I carried them both, and often I would use one, then the other, to show me my way, and after a very long journey I came to my conclusion, I could carry both, with very mixed results, I could carry "something" with more often than not good results, but every attempt to carry but "nothing" produced very bad results. That is when I discarded "nothing" for "something" and so far it feels so right that I puzzle over my prior puzzlement.

Balsa wood God

As a kid I carved model airplanes out of balsa wood, I the creator, the model airplane the creation. The creation made of balsa wood, I the creator, not a bit of wood to be found in my being (save for the long pinocchio nose my mother would say I had!). I know, I know, both I and balsa wood are made of atoms, but let's not go overboard in a simple sketch. And surely this is a most simple sketch. So I think God/Creator is "outside" the creation, in the respect that the Creator is not of the essence of the creation -- matter and time and space and whatever else you find yourself living within. Therefore God/Creator is not subject to the (created) natural laws, is not locked in time or space, or for that matter, matter. Concepts such as prior cause, or perfection/imperfection, or something/nothing, or even consciousness, all are encapsulated in the "created" laws of nature, all take place within this "creation" -- even what we call existence is prisoner within the "creation." Yet the One that some of us call the Unknowable -- for without name we mutter "God" or "Creator" -- we cannot place number upon or attributes upon (yet we humbly try), and for all that we attempt to clothe this God with humaness, we also know that in our childish ways we are attempting to construct a real airplane out of balsa wood.

Vexing certainty

When does imagination in individual humans begin the steady decline toward a state of inactivity? I wonder at what age the human mind becomes so rutted in certainty that imagination seizes and the rigid brain keeps the wondering mind at bay? Does chronological age (or maybe lack of new thoughts?) make the brain no longer "flexible" to new routes, to new circuitry? Is there a "mechanical" component to it? Or at a certain point in one's life does "der kopf" overflow? Not with knowledge, but with certainty? Of course when we agree with the thoughts of someone, we are pleased when that someone expresses these thoughts with a degree of certainty. But when we disagree with the thoughts of someone, we think them inflexible when they hold to their certainty. Vexing, isn't it?

Catching our tail

We're almost there, still nipping at our own tail, so the annual journey around the sun is almost complete, 364-1/4 days we have been traveling the more or less circuitous route, only to arrive at our beginning. Well, not quite, perhaps arriving at the beginning of one circle, yet we and the sun have been together on another journey. Together with 200 billion other suns we are swirling around within our Milky Way galaxy. And the Milky Way galaxy is heading ... where? Some astronomers think on a collision course with the Andromeda Galaxy. In 3 billion years. Be ready.

Contemplating the debris

I took a walk this evening with a flashlight, and the full moon, and my breath guiding my way, it was cold. And I didn't look up much at first, for I read once about the dark matter of that overhead in the night sky, the great majority of the universe, that called the dark matter (or dark matter and dark energy), accounts for 97 percent of all the universe, yet even calling it dark matter is a bit misleading, for the term "dark matter" is really a place holder, it is a made up term to describe that which cannot be described. Dark matter really means, "I don't know." Plain and simply. The great "huh?" that we dignify with "dark matter." After all the calculations are done, we are left with a remainder of 96% unaccounted for. Meaning that everything we see, the material world (which includes a whole bunch that our eyes don't see, such as infrared light, but with instruments we can "see") is 4% of the whole. Four percent! (give or take a few percent, depending on where you gather these kinds of facts). But what is 4% of anything? Not very much. Fill a glass with 96% water and 4% sand. Stir it up and see the bits swirl about the great volume of water, all the stars and galaxies of the universe swirling about in that glass nearly full of water. One cosmos theorist calls the 4% of the known universe the debris. He calls it something so unimportant that when you remove it, you will not miss it. Huh? Okay, take our glass of water with the bits of sand swirling in it, now with a filter, filter out all the sand, the 4% of the total volume. Now hold up the glass of water, the glass 96% full. Nearly full. All the stars and the galaxies and you and me gone. Yet the glass doesn't even seem to miss them. It still looks full. That is why the theorist laughs when someone looks up into the night sky and makes poetic statements about looking into the universe. He laughs because what you really are seeing is the "mere" 4% of the total. That night sky ablaze with countless stars. Is the mere 4% of the total. So tonight as I was walking in the moon lit desert, with flashlight in hand, I was thinking about the 96% that my eyes couldn't see. I switched off the flashlight and even with the full moon, the landscape was still dark, dark enough that the difference between noontime and full moon time were, I think, similar to the 96% and 4%. I then looked straight up and as always, the desert night sky is a blaze of twinkles, and I had a hard time thinking this but 4% of the whole. And of course I had to include myself and the surrounding desert in that 4%. Yes, everything on this planet Earth is included in the 4%. Then I reached down, the flashlight beam making a yellow circle on the sand, and I took a handful of sand, cold in my clenched hand, and flung it into the air, and with the beam of the flashlight watched the grains of sand interrupt the darkness, for without the sand in the air, my flashlight beam had nothing to deflect the photons. Are the stars about just so much sand flung across the universe? Or simply, as the theorist said, mere debris? We too the debris of the universe? Turning back, with the flashlight beam sweeping the path before me, I thought of the 4% as not debris, but that little of great value. And why? For hidden inside this 4% is what I think of as potential. That mysterious force call potential. And it is this force that breaks through the unknown to become ...

Did God cry?

The Mayo Clinic has a resource for new parents and some answers to the question: why do newborns cry a lot? Of course the reasons are varied and many and it is the job of the new parents to figure out the immediate cause so that an immediate solution can be found. I wonder who helped Mary and Joseph with newborn baby care tips? Without the Mayo Clinic, and in the culture of those times, I'm sure Mary had to rely on the goodness and compassion of the women surrounding her (while Joseph handed out cigars?), but if she did have the Mayo Clinic, then she would have consider the following whenever baby Jesus cried.

I'm hungry.
I need to burp.
I pooped.
I'm tired.
I'd rather be bundled.
I want to move.
I'm lonely.
I'm hot.
I want to suck on something.
I've had enough.
It's just that time of day.
My tummy hurts.

Now, after considering this list, I really don't think Mary needed the Mayo Clinic. I think the women about her didn't need any list, they just knew what to do.

And what did God think of all this?
A new experience?
That we all went through.
We're not alone.

Mail order Yucca

Bro. Clarence said he discovered on the web a nursery in Texas that specializes in cacti and other heat and drought resistant plants. I can't tell you how excited he is, he was outdoors all day making sketches of what plants would best fit in this or that area, and then back to the Macintosh to check the website again to determine the size and habits of this or that bush or cacti and of course the cost of his now imaginary desert garden. Well, I will wait and see if this all comes to pass, for I'm afraid our labyrinth remains undone, and so it goes sometimes, that we need to become verbs in order to create nouns. Yet isn't it more comfortable to be a noun?

The naturally unnatural future -- Returning to Eden?

"Let's start thinking about what sort of Earth we want our descendants to inherit."

What a big and difficult question. For some (or most?) it seems a simply question. But when we look around and see what our builders of the future are building, we see oodles of "artificial" mammoth structures growing in China with a gravity defying skyscraper as the most recent example, continuing the trend of "making room" with clever and interesting boxes to shelter the forever increasing numbers of humans ever more unchecked by prior evolutionary checks, so it seems that humans are restructuring the entire planet into a willy-nilly patchwork of habitats that attempt to provide creature comforts to humans, and in the process are trading the unknown for the known. Or our notion for the "known." The old notion of the "natural" is rapidly becoming the new notion of the sacred. And as our ancestors built cathedrals to house the "spirit of the sacred," the future seems wanting to save the untouched and unspoiled remaining nature and keeping it untainted forever by human touch. Have we finally found Eden? (and it was here all the time?) And this time we willingly stand outside and look in, in awe. Finally knowing that we, the once ejected, are again given the chance to be the keepers?

Writing in the sand with my index finger

Stars decorate
the sky
under I snore

Forever time stands
still waiting waiting
A baby cries

Beyond the Joshua tree
rain drops
lightning dances

A lizard waits
and listens too
the old man snores

A million snores
half a world asleep
lunch in Kyoto

A child is born
again and again and again
Right now!

Bare-bones natural and fleshy artificial?

Erase humans from the grand picture, and all is natural. Erase humans from the grand picture, good and evil disappear. This self-aware being with imagination that can be acted upon changes nature as it is and was. This being with the ability to gain insight through symbols (language) can transform imagination into acts that can reconstruct nature, which therefore makes us humans, little creators. So with our limited storehouse of precise words, we use artificial to describe creations created by little creators, and natural to describe Creation. Yes, Big Creation, which of course includes the creation of ALL, including the little creators and their little creations. So you might think the word artificial a bit artificial, for it attempts to elevate us humans into creators, when as Bro. Chet* has shown, the Tinker-toy set is already in place (and who made the Tinker-toy set?), we human after forever time have discovered we too are constructed Tinker toys!? And, all our little creations are but humans playing with the Tinker-toy set.

*see How do you make a universe? (Tinker toys)

To destinations unknown

Maybe a scientist is like a bicycle rider, and telling everyone that a destination is the goal, yet secretly the bicycle rider just loves riding the bike, and if the stated destination is reached, then hurriedly a new destination is announced, for riding the bike is what it's all about. Then over the years all these bicycle riders have little accidents here and there, making ruts in the once pristine landscape, but quickly seek atonement by announcing the bicycle rides are for humanity, they at the same time create innumerable problems for all, and create comforts and well-being too, a mixed bag that keeps them pedaling and keeps the sitters and walkers thinking we all are heading somewhere, somewhere together to an unknown destination, a destination that only the bicycle riders know where. Or do they?

A letter to my past self

I would tell my younger self that you haven't arrived yet, so instead of chiseling youthful wisdom into stone, write it in a paper journal with a yellow pencil that has a big eraser, and too, instead of planting intellectual roots, continue the journey, and when you pass fellow beings that have planted their roots, be not troubled and too quick with judgment, and finally, in the long run, kindness to others is best, even when that kindness isn't returned, and when the olive branch offered is refused with a volley of arrows, then return to the path and make haste, for another day is straight ahead, just beyond the daybreak, with always a hint of promise in the air.


Addendum:

From a "Calvin and Hobbs" comic strip (from the past).

Calvin: "Ah, I got the letter I wrote to myself."

Hobbes: "What did you write?"

Calvin: "Dear Calvin -- Hi! I'm writing this on Monday. What day is it now? How are things going? Your pal. Calvin."

Calvin: "My past self is corresponding with my future self."

Hobbes: "Too bad you can't write back."

Calvin (next day): "I got a letter from my past self."

Hobbes: "What's it say?"

Calvin: "Dear Future Calvin -- I wrote this several days before you will receive it. You've done things I haven't done. You've seen things I haven't seen. You know things I don't know. You lucky dog. Your pal. Calvin."

Calvin (sniffing): "I feel so sorry for myself two days ago."

Hobbes: "Poor him. He wasn't you."

Deal with it. Think about it.

"Deal with it. Think about it."*
Almost the exact words that a dear old pastor used to explain what "those old men" of the Council of Nicea handed us in 325 AD, a creed that is recited as though it were a theorem, yet in fact is a most puzzling poem. Of course a "youthful" me rebelled at the thought of sheepishly reciting anything that isn't "clear" and unambiguous and fact. He said it was the early Church Fathers way of saying that we too were to deal with what they were dealing with, so across the ages it is: "Deal with it. Think about it." A youthful me was disgusted by sheep. And now? Sheep compose most of the world. I've dealt with it. I've thought about it. Most folks just want to get by, to survive, and in the arena of ultimate questions with no simply unambiguous answers, I think most are simply too exhausted to expend an ounce of strength pondering doctrine and dogma when all they want is community and friendship and love and want most from religion is answers to how one lives peacefully in community with real friendships and how to live life lovingly.

*Today Chet Raymos writes on "Science Musings Blog" about Wallace Stevens' poem, "Man Carrying Thing" which has these line, "Deal with it. Think about it." Which sparked my memory of those words, but not from the poem.

With eyes closed

After a late meal this evening Bro. Juniper was telling of a trip long ago to Japan and while hiking in a mountainous area he came upon a small building and thought it to be a Buddhist place for meditation. It seemed deserted so he peeked inside and was surprised to find a Christian cross on the wall. Then he heard a voice, and not understanding Japanese, he quickly shut the door, feeling a bit guilty for trespassing, but coming toward him was an elderly Japanese fellow with a long white beard. He did speak English, much to Bro. Juniper's relief, and after bowing and a hardy handshake Bro. Juniper was ushered inside. He said the floor was some sort of stone, perhaps sandstone, and even though outside it was a warm and humid day, the stone floor was cool and a welcomed seat to enjoy a cup of green tea. Soon it became apparent that the elderly gentleman was most hungry for someone to share talk of the Bible with, and what Bro. Juniper remembers most was a discussion about the meaning of Matthew 6:22, and the gentleman's interpretation of "if therefore thine eye be single."

Matthew 6:22-24 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

He explained to Bro. Juniper that the "eye be single" was the third eye of meditation, and he repeatedly touched his index finger to his forehead, emphasizing where the third eye is located. He went on with comparisons of Buddhist meditation, and even the Hindu concept of the inner eye. He said Jesus didn't use the plural "eyes" but the singular "eye" and how that means the inner eye and how Jesus was teaching how the inner eye guides the whole body to be light, to be pure. Bro. Juniper remained there for a few days, and quickly learned the discipline of awakening for pre-dawn meditation. He said he left with a greater desire to somehow wed the Eastern "inner-eye" meditation with his more traditional Christian meditative prayer. During this storytelling we all listened with keen interest, many of us nodding as though that is how we understand this scripture, but then Bro. Sedwick said he didn't agree. It was his understanding that in the 1st Century a common Hebrew idiom was "eye be single" or "good eye" (as well as various translations: "if your eye be clear" and "if your eye be whole" and "if your eye be healthy") and meant someone being generous. Someone with a "bad eye" was greedy. Then with a bit of deductive reasoning, Bro. Sedwich noted that Proverbs 22:9 reads, "The person who has a good eye is blessed, because he is generous and gives to the poor." And with a bit of finality in his voice, thumbed through his Bible and then read Proverbs 23:6, "Beware of the man with the evil eye, he knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing." Bro. Clarence then entered the discussion saying he can easily think of the meditative "inner eye" as being an eye that sees the light in the darkness, and therefore sees the true value of generosity and the ultimate inhumanity of greed. I nodding in agreement to that too as I departed for a short stroll in the now very chilly desert night. Then after a bit and with two eyes closed, I aimed my third eye to heaven. And something funny happened. Inside my head I imagined the Milky Way overhead and could only think of how generous God is to a mere human staring up with eyes closed. But still seeing.