What is the conscious connection we share with others in nature that serves to shape what we think of as consciousness? Even going a step further to what may be called as having an “enlightenment experience”.  

Is there a universal flow of energy, a cosmic symmetry, we can tap into that helps to shape our thoughts? Enmeshed together are not we all one… or even better said just one big happy family that defines the nature of all things? And importantly, who are we speaking to or with that may not actually be present? Far-fetched yes, intuitive, but little do we know for sure, except to say that there is a fundamental unity in all things to which I have already spoken. Science tells us we are there. 

Leading to the question asking, “who we really are”? Does life and death really matter once we can see beyond the linear present to where our consciousness, i.e., our spirit leads or takes us?  

If we are truly universal is our heart/mind just sub-atomic particles looking for a home with ego simply a temporary illusion? Just who is our “immediate family” beyond definitions of relations? Questions we seldom encounter beyond the theoretical as we ask, “what can it matter” and what difference can it make in my present life?              

Where do my true attachments lie just waiting to be revealed and why should I care? But then, yes, eternal connections and all life matters, including my own.

We often hear the phrase when someone dies that they are going home, or heaven, to be with other departed family members. Why just them, why not to re-join those who we have always known or have been connected to, and still are… not simply evading reality but absorbing it. 

If we can step outside of what we accept as our given state of understanding for a moment, suppose we are connected to all things found in nature and there is no separation between you, me, and others, and all life, everything as a continuum. That we are to re-discover the flow of vibrations that suits us and go there.

With family only a construct devised out of communal necessity. Not only are we to nurture and support immediate family – but our universal family, i.e., all things found in nature intertwined for the common good and welfare.  

Quantum entanglement, what is it really beyond the theoretical? What is theory except what we think may be true but is yet unproven with what we consider to be true, but we are not sure just yet. It is like peeking into the unknown… but remaining unsure if we want to go there because it challenges who we think we are and we are comfortable with where we are just now, and do not want to change what we think we know as the reality in which we live.

What is religion and philosophy, except accepted tenets of the best way to seek and see universal truths and to live accordingly? Our best attempts to reconcile between the two. Finding a connection with these universal truths and the best way to adhere with nature as we go there. Finding ways of expressing consciousness has always been the premise of storytellers through history and who we have been speaking for and to. 

My personal favorite is to study Indigenous peoples across the globe and the stories told over the centuries. To what and who the storyteller was following and the timeline of events. How legends and myths developed randomly, but universally, following a central thread of truth that makes everything real to the listener. Taking others beyond what they think they know and being able to say from within – yes, “I’ll know it when I see it”. 

Importantly defining who we are and where our history has taken us thus far that gives us identity, and how we are to add to this for future generations.

Teaching that all things found in nature are one and that there is no separation between man, nature, and all things. Similarities much greater than differences that serve as reminders of our and their innate divine beginnings. Traveling from one voice to the next for a thousand years. While making your way into the next world makes this one less final.

Quantum means the “smallest part” of a thing, and the term is popular thanks to quantum mechanics, a field of physics that seeks to understand the nature and behavior of particles at the subatomic level, behaviors that often are not explained by the laws of classic physics. Many of these ideas are only theoretical or are judged by probability and predictions rather than simply observation.  

Quantum entanglement is the behavior that has been noted by these sub-atomic particles that sometimes seem to react in concert or seem connected, even with the ability to span time and space. Reassuring us that matter/spirit never dies.

This suggests that these particles could in effect become immortal throughout the universe as they in turn respond to certain vibrations that occur in nature (us and all living things). Some scientists think this entanglement even explains the great mystery of human consciousness. 

Quantum entanglement suggests that acting on a particle here, can instantly influence a particle far away without the constraint of time. This is often described as theoretical teleportation.

Like hearing someone’s thoughts over time even though they might be hundreds, or thousands of miles away. Even taking thoughts beyond the time in which they occurred to someplace new as we too look to becoming immortal in another place and time. 

What comes to us is not for us to decide. Only what we do when it does with the time that is given us. There are forces we learn to follow or avoid; all we must do is what is given to us. As we acknowledge the paradox found with inward training guided by the universe verses living in the world with others present.  

If we contemplate what this may mean, then where do our imagination and thoughts pull or take us? What can it mean if we do not release our ego along the way.

Looking inward to the stars and to the horizon we go where our beginnings lie for answers we have always known. Defining for ourselves what it means becomes almost mystical. This universal continuum we awaken to shows the way forward as simple virtue that speaks to us. Why returning to nature serves to clear away the clutter so we can act without thought, with spontaneity. Spontaneity that becomes us as if inward meditation that expresses our universal appeal. 

To do without thinking and to act with virtue without concern for the outcome. A purposeless Zen experience with recognizable conclusions acting on a premise as though everything is the Tao.  

Consequences that may be applied to any conceivable human activity that leads to a certain quality of life, eliminating what is blocking us and going ahead without hesitation.

For more in-depth study I recommend reading Alan Watts – The Way of Zen. We read as though we are on a journey opening doors to wisdom and understanding ourselves. We ask what opens the door to greater understanding of the true meaning of our journey, when friends we encounter along the way are ready to assist in taking us there. Watts is someone who readily acts as a guide through his writing.  

There is an ancient term in China that refers to wu wei as the way to live. The answer lies in what takes us there when our mind, body and spirit are free as both internal and external are blended into unity. 

We find this wu wei when we follow our inherent, for lack of a better word, self, and go where it takes us. When we identify with the needs of all things found in nature, not simply ourselves. How we often arrive at decisions spontaneously and know we must lose attachments that clutter or act as a crutch to the universal flow of spirit. We learn to only listen and follow what contributes to what is eternal where we do no harm to ourselves or others as we embrace both compassion and sincerity.

For each of us, there is a decision to make. What is it we do when we have a choice to make? Do we do those things that clear our minds as if we are following a master plan, or road map, which will take us there without needing one. Do we stop along the way at places that distract us from our destination, like watching the TV show Wheel of Fortune, or do we keep going to the place beyond the horizon?

In the end, most are happy to be lost along the wayside, with only a few willing to look beyond the present and go there, or the wheel of the sutra that gives us eternal guidance. It no longer becomes necessary to concern yourself with the next step, because you’ve already taken it. 

The key is to act as if you are living beyond the present as you have arrived. Being present means you have assessed what is here to take with you in a selfless matter, versus what you leave behind as a teacher for others. I have even heard it expressed that we should “fake it until we make it” (a phrase that has multiple meanings) as our mind takes on its own natural inclination. Taking the next step learning that “it’s not where we are, but who we are” that matters. As we know where the outcome will take us, the only thing in question is the time of our arrival. With some simply coming home for return engagements. 

Why the focus on living in wu wei becomes important. This idea of self-introspection becomes essential to our growth and not becoming too caught up in the present verses appreciating our eternal presence along the way. As a student of the Tao (referred to by many as the Dao), it helps to demystify and impersonalize the meaning of virtue.  

That all things found in nature are sacred. Why do we keep returning to those things that take us there with the belief and hope that upon seeing them we too may acknowledge our own sacredness as well. 

Why Eastern thought and philosophy are so homogeneous, looking to both Buddhism and Taoism like a prism that allows many looks and angles to follow all leading back to one source.

The path, or way, is not difficult once you can see yourself both in, and as the light. It is here that the way becomes clear, and we can begin to see that it is not only for us to decide. Often, we must be shown the way out of the darkness that resides within us, by and through the light that resides there as well. It is when our light catches the reflection of that which is eternal, often from a kindred spirit, we will choose to follow. 

So, we set the stage for our next encounter not knowing when it will arrive, only living in the meantime beyond the present. When someone asks what it means to live in the present, it means you are ready when the right outcome arrives. 

It is as if we are storytellers of where we have been and who we are yet to become. We live an on-going saga as we imprint ourselves on others and all we touch with memories and an eternal presence. We live in a theatre watching the story of our lives with others present as they tell their own stories as well. Thier take on events similar but much different than our own.  

On the theatre’s big screen, we tell of successes and loss, trials, and tribulations, detailing both what we have seen and done as both good and bad reflecting bridges we have crossed both real and imagined. 

Seated in the theatre next to you is your father and mother who have watched and tried to support you over the years. Next, a former teacher who has watched your life with some sense of pride, and disappointment who knows of your untapped abilities, and finally friends you have always known. All watching the story of your life, but seeing an entirely different movie with certain expectations, verses seeing how things turned out. 

We ask ourselves; have we been grounded by gazing into the resonance known as quantum physics, beyond simply cause and effect, as we relearn the benefits of virtue? To look to sacred texts and oral traditions of native Indigenous cultures, of the shaman and storyteller who have kept universal truth alive and passed this divine attribute down to us.  

Looking back, we can say that it was not just family or friends, but teachers who helped to meld or frame who we are to become through the sacredness of our thoughts and actions.

   And as with any movie, have we been concerned with the salability to our audience and who may be watching in history? Are there flashbacks to past events, or can we even fast-forward to anticipated outcomes? Are we in turn watching ourselves as if ninety feet in the air? And most importantly, does the part we are here to play have any real significance in the lives of others? Are we a part of all the characters that ever played with an open-ended finish with words and music saying and saving our immortal soul. 

These are not simply random thoughts, but a collective vision that permeates everything found in nature and the cosmos. Following up from my last entry, we can ask what our task is that helps to unify our purpose with divine order intact.  

Do we have a sense of direction as the vehicle to further our ultimate sense of selfless ego and are we ready for the ride? And more importantly, what have we imparted as teachers along the way and what have we learned as well?

I see many changes occurring now in early March in my garden as Spring approaches. Annuals from last year that will not return, and perennials, some of which will return, and others that won‘t.  

Nature is always in the process of change, both reconstructing and deconstructing at the same time, which reminds us of both impermanence and resiliency. 

In the past before retiring in my professional life I was a city planner focusing on neighborhood revitalization and master plans, and later teaching English in China, I always tried to focus on teaching what people could do for themselves that would sustain both minds and communities. Tearing down impediments to our understanding of sustainability, and how we are sustained as individuals and collectively. 

I often think about the bodhisattva vow and Maitreya Buddha [the future incarnation of the Buddha on Earth]. Maitreya Buddha can be seen as the ground of our reconstruction, and represents a just society at the individual, communal, institutional, and global level.

What we are to base our own decisions on? Except to vibrations employing the four qualities of a just society embodied as lovingkindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity.  

We should remember that every human personality has shortcomings. If we are engaged in observing the imperfections of others, we deprive ourselves of the opportunities of learning from them. I find meditating on this principle helps to see them in a different light and asking what theatre we are in, and what movies we are watching. That we all have a spark of goodness, of what is called Buddhahood, or bodhicitta. That when we concentrate on the faults of others, we deprive ourselves of the light emitting from them.     

And by equanimity, I do not mean accepting anything. For myself, equanimity means divine order and profound stability. Equanimity comes from an open heart, open mind, and a clear direction of energy toward enhancing the direct trajectory of history from which we came and to which we will return.

It is the small things we usually give little attention or importance to that keep our mind settled and tuned to our highest thoughts and consciousness. We are to think and act of living in the presence of this aspiration of our greatest good. Not only ourselves, but for those we are responsible for and to. Why it is thought that meditation and prayer take us to places that exemplify the embodiment of wisdom. To a place where when we speak others listen as we listen as well, and when we act in keeping with nature’s teachings.

We become successful by surrounding ourselves with what takes us there. Every living creature in nature does this as it matures over time to its highest self; however, it is what guides us that determines our fate.

From where is it that our innermost DNA, or thoughts derive and how we learn to express this innate wisdom through what we already know but may have forgotten. It is these vibrations from the universe and our heart/mind that always tell us the next step. It is that the first step always conveys the next… and the next step… etc., etc., etc. We are to proceed fearlessly into what may appear as the unknown, but it is the path we all must take. 

Calling up the forces within ourselves we are meant to be both students and teachers. As the more we teach, the more we learn of our own inclination and innermost nature. All things found in nature have this basic universal attribute needed for survival. (Picture above from the Hubble Space Telescope)                

For thousands of years man has looked to nature, our origins, and the stars as our teacher. First symbols, then language that taught to use things found in nature as our guide (To what became known in China as the I Ching) as we moved from simply killing animals to growing grain to sustain ourselves.

Following the seasons, we learned there was a method to follow and structure that would sustain us and our environment as spirit. That there was something out there beyond us. Over time it was our attempts to complement this innateness universally that we began to see ourselves and our role as nature’s keepers. Today we know that due to global warming this balance is in peril. 

Everything found in nature has and maintains this universal spirit. Seen as mother elephants guiding and caring for their young in Africa, or trees that connect their roots underground to help sustain and nurture each other.     

Animals speaking to each other as if protecting the flock or working together as a unit. Intelligence found in nature can be seen speaking to a higher consciousness. It was this higher consciousness that taught man/us that we are guided by something greater than ourselves that makes us and them universal. Why the ancient teaching in China was so profound… that man is one of the ten thousand things. Living within the confines of what nature teaches as illustrated by Indigenous people the world over. The underlying task for man has always been that as we acknowledge this connecting spirit, how do we connect to it, and how do we sustain its and our own viability. 

For myself, this is best illustrated by what became known as the undefinable Tao, for lack of a better name, Taoism, the Te Dao Ching, and I Ching.         

An adherence to what nature teaches us and living in accordance with would we have learned. Nature is not meant to be tamed for individual benefit, but as a unity for the whole. To what Ralph Waldo Emerson taught us in the 1840’s and 1850’s about our own divinity and nature, what became known as transcendentalism that reinforces this eternal cosmos, that we are all a part of and responsible for. Emerson was conveying this universal truth that we each have a responsibility to create a world the is emblematic of what we are to create for ourselves as spirit. This becomes definable by understanding our task while we are here. 

Which brings us to the point and back to the earliest shaman thousands of years ago. If we are to live as spirit here for but a moment, then what is to become of our role? Do we live in support of this universal spirit beyond ego and self, or do we only selfishly take what we deem as ours for the taking even using spirit as our shield.                    

It is this universality of spirit that Joseph Campbell spoke of so well. That we do create our world by what we see as our place in it as the building block connecting us to universal truths tied to spirit.

I especially like his work called The Hero’s Journey. In mythology, the hero’s journey is the common template of stories that involve a hero who goes on an adventure, is victorious in a decisive crisis, and comes home changed or transformed. The journey we all take when we open ourselves to the unknown within us and fearlessly go there. That there can be no separating our spirit from the needs of others and nature itself. Finding comfort beneath our own skin by recognizing who we are beyond both past and present to an unknowable future we gladly go. We always hear the phrase that we are to live in the moment, it is this spirit of bliss and the Kung Fu we are here to create and emulate I spoke of a few entries ago.    

It is as if we are storytellers of where we have been and who we are yet to become. We live an on-going saga as we imprint ourselves on others and all we touch. We live in a theatre watching the story of our lives with others watching as they tell their own stories as well. Thier take on events much different than our own.  

On the theatre’s big screen, we tell of successes and loss, trials, and tribulations, detailing both what we have seen and done as both good and bad reflecting bridges we have crossed both real and imagined. 

Seated in the theatre next to you is your father and mother who have watched and tried to support you over the years. Next, a former teacher who has watched your life with some sense of pride, and disappointment who knows of your untapped abilities, and finally friends you have always known. All watching the story of your life, but seeing an entirely different movie with certain expectations, verses seeing how things turned out. 

We ask ourselves; have we been grounded by gazing into the resonance known as quantum physics, beyond simply cause and effect, as we daily relearn the benefits of virtue? To look to sacred texts and oral traditions of native Indigenous cultures, of the shaman and storyteller who have kept universal truth alive and passed this divine attribute down to us.  

Looking back, we can say that it was not just family or friends, but teachers who helped to meld or frame who we are to become through the sacredness of our thoughts and actions.   

And as with any movie, have we been concerned with the salability to our audience and who may be watching? Are there flashbacks to past events, or can we even fast-forward to anticipated outcomes? Are we in turn watching ourselves as if ninety feet in the air? And most importantly, does the part we are here to play have any real significance in the lives of others? 

These are not simply random thoughts, but a collective vision that permeates everything found in nature and the cosmos. Following up from my last entry, we can ask what is our task that helps to unify our purpose with divine order intact?  

Do we have a sense of direction that becomes the vehicle to further our ultimate sense of selfless ego and are we ready for the ride? And more importantly, what have we imparted as teachers ourselves along the way and what have we learned as well?

I see many changes occurring now in late February in my garden as Spring approaches. Annuals from last year that will not return, and perennials, some of which will return, and others will not.  

Nature is always in the process of change, both reconstructing and deconstructing at the same time, which reminds us of both impermanence and resiliency.

In the past before retiring in my professional life I was a city planner focusing on neighborhood revitalization and master plans, and later teaching English in China, I always tried to focus on teaching what people could do for themselves that would bolster both minds and communities. Tearing down impediments to our understanding of sustainability, and how we are sustained as individuals and collectively. 

I often think about the bodhisattva vow and Maitreya Buddha [the future incarnation of the Buddha on Earth]. Maitreya Buddha can be seen as the ground of our reconstruction, and represents a just society at the individual, communal, institutional, and global level. What is it that we base our own decisions on?                   

Except to vibrations employing the four qualities of a just society embodied as lovingkindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity.  

We should remember that every human personality has shortcomings. If we are engaged in observing the imperfections of others, we deprive ourselves of the opportunities of learning from them. I find meditating on this principle helps to see them in a different light and asking what theatre we are in, and what movie are we watching. That we all have a spark of goodness, of what is called Buddhahood, or bodhicitta. That when we concentrate on the faults of others, we deprive ourselves of the light emitting from them.          

And by equanimity, I do not mean accepting anything. For myself, equanimity means divine order and profound stability. Equanimity comes from an open heart, open mind, and a clear direction of energy toward changing the direct trajectory of history. 

Gaining an appreciation for how things used to be by listening and becoming the ultimate storyteller of our lives. Telling about both the good and bad in all things.

To the right preparing to pass through the Doorway of Heaven and below the steps that take us there on HuaShan Mountain 

Not simply through our thoughts and words, buts by our actions and deeds. Following the good and learning of our roots and how things used to be we are here to build upon and answer to. Sometimes it means being a rare breed where solitude manifests as authentic lifestyle. Guided by nature and virtue not what can be seen as current events. No matter how many people you are around, quietness permeates your soul. It is like maintaining your natural sense of identity that spans time, space, and centuries. How does someone come to this timelessness? As if there is no such thing as original thought as it has all been said and done before by us and others. Taking our thoughts of having an original identity beyond the present that speaks for and to both our past and future. 

There is an ancient Nez Pearce belief and tradition that with men wearing their hair long that they would gain more knowledge and wisdom. Chief Joseph would say that the religion and beliefs of the Nez Perce tribe was based on Animism that encompassed the spiritual or religious idea that the universe and all natural objects animals, plants, trees, rivers, mountains rocks etc., have souls or spirits. Like what we say in Taoism that we are simply one of the ten thousand things. The connection goes back to the power we gain from animals, and I would add nature itself. To do otherwise is like cutting ourselves off from the spirit.

Traditionally, the teachings of  Confucius in ancient China, wrote that people inherited their hair from their ancestors and ought not to damage (cut) it. Even stories of Samson from the Bible denote his loss of power comes directly from his cutting his hair at the urging of others hoping to gain from his loss. To men growing beards that denote a connection to something greater than themselves. Indigenous people also refrained from killing as it cuts off another’s power. Paying tribute when necessary to do so. With the feeling of everyone and everything coming together with a responsibility for all.

Myths and legends also help color a true story to convey the message of the storyteller through history. To think in terms of being all the wiser and staying in agreement with what has come before us. That what we find in nature and staying in-tune with our hopes, our prayers, and our dreams becomes most paramount. 

Underlying contradictions confuse us with ideas that opposites attract instead of acknowledging that it is complimentary opposites that endure and take us to rightful conclusions. Complimentary opposites that strive for common ground are what find conclusions and outcomes that last. 

To the left the Azure Cloud Temple, constructed under the Song Dynasty that sits atop Mount Taishan in Shandong Province in China depicting the yin/yang symbol.

The secret to longevity, and the yin and yang that it speaks to and for in all things, is that sometimes our paths are decided by powers greater than our own.  As we in turn get to choose detours that may only delay the time of arrival. Stories and writing telling this eternal truth have always interested us. Conveying spirit’s hand regardless of place or time.

A favorite book and reference I like is called The Way of the White Clouds by Lama Anagarika Govinda. His journey through Tibet gives a life changing account of spirit and guidance. Taking us beyond mere imagination and conscious connections. It is like studying our own cosmic origins and recognizing the origins of all life and what I have tried to do here at The Kongdan Foundation.

The ancient shaman would tell of finding our origins and destiny in the stars. Looking to the sky we could see our world appear to move from night to night, like mistaking the sun revolving around the earth. Much later learning that we are instead on a planet circling the sun.

As we sometimes appear to just drift away on the clouds. To the left Yellow Mountain visited in 2016. 

Following the horizon and stars, we too become mystical and look to origins and explanations simply to find and come to know contentment. That we are forever a part of all that is and will be. To look to from where we came and where we return. To an inner experience that takes us there where we learn to embody that there is no competition between reality and truth. 

Knowing true bliss is adapting this environment to the way we live that best identifies the path that takes us to our highest enfoldment. It in and of itself is not complicated, except for the baggage we carry that slows our eventual arrival. Not concerned with when we arrive, only what we have learned about ourselves that contributes to our journey and the quietness of the spirit found in nature that guides us. This is true contentment as we release underlying contradictions mentioned above that attract what may be seen at first as opposites but remain complimentary and universal…

As we become again as Carl Sagan reminded us… star stuff as we embody what we are here to transmit. 

Just how does this enlightenment occur? Why does it appear to come easily for some and not for others? Sometimes it happens as if a switch is turned on as we become fully aware, or awake, and have one or more spirit guides that direct us? Do we know of our true origins and beginnings? If our spirit is eternal, who is it we answer to but ourselves? 

For myself, it is an open door to what remains unknown with hints and nudges along the way. Sometimes appearing as a portal, or even as a two-way mirror, reflecting both an inner truth and outer world. Guided by innate intuition as if learned attributes over the ages. With vibrations open to the unknown allowing us to go unencumbered to where our universal spirit lies. It is here that we become in-tune with inner certainty, our inherent intuition.

Sunrise on HuaShan Mountain October 8, 2018

To where being unsure of the answer is not as important as knowing the right question to ask, as we are seen peering over the horizon.  

The answers lie in what tasks we are here to perform that console and contribute to our eternal spirit. For some, this may seem to be too difficult a task, but one we cannot ignore, or run away from.