We sometimes act or live as if in a predetermined status quo. A weariness that pervades and keeps out needed change, while growing accustomed to things as they are. As we delay filling in the details that define and determine our ultimate time of arrival. We are to be seen in a place where everything we touch is as if it is our child, as we live our dream and be able to touch it.    

Appearing to live in two parallel worlds. One seeing ourselves attempting to live up to the expectation of others that define our worthiness. The second being that was never who we were that was meant to define us. Except for what may be seen as an otherworldly audience. As we have always remained beyond explanation or description. This dualism means we are never able to satisfy our desire to find peace or comfort simply in the present, except to know we are ultimately to return to our beginnings. It makes us feel like we are missing something in our lives. When acknowledging this we compensate with thoughts and actions of doing no harm, doing things strategically, and what we feel connects us to our highest endeavors and sense of virtue… The paradox found as a spiritual being having a human experience – as living and reporting back consequences of human behavior in a new space and time. 

Just what is it that connects us to our highest endeavors? How is it that our thoughts and actions are to take us there? For myself, it has always been ancient China. Interestingly, it is the historical period leading up to when Marco Polo returned to Italy in 1295AD, (He was a Venetian merchant, explorer and writer who travelled through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295.) especially Qufu and Jining in Shandong, and Chengdu in Sichuan Province. With the past expressing itself through my writings. Why I created my own foundation to have a place for hundreds of thousands of words and books, some published most not, I have written over the past many years. As if returning to update the thoughts and words of mentors through the ages in the present. Remaining unconcerned with having a current audience… as you live and write for them. Beyond what may be called simply a hobby and your garden, to a sense of underlying eternal self-expression because all true writing is also auto biographical. A truism I took to heart early in my own writing almost thirty years ago with the words… what you write is who you are to become. Living and writing for an audience that is eternal. 

It is like writing about Confucius, then five years later going to his hometown of Qufu in China (October 1999) and ten years later living and teaching at the school of his descendants in 2011. Then making over forty trips over the years that heightened my awareness that there must be something to this. Finally moving beyond the need to physically return to Qufu because my presence has always been there. The portal I now return to in meditation. Reconnecting with Confucius and the ancients only a reminder to always look inward to nature and virtue for the next step. 

What is it that our spirit clings to that brings us to the present and our connection to who we have always been? Complementing what may appear on the surface as unknown or on the edge of our consciousness with what takes us there. We often confuse the purpose of meditation and silence, without accounting for our memories that serve as the vehicle for remembering. Sitting and moving in silence assists in re-focusing our thoughts and energies to the present moment. Crossing over a river or seeing the view from a mountaintop but for what purpose. We begin to act as if a master planner on an eternal journey. Beginning to see ourselves above this status quo mentioned earlier. To the time and place the earliest Taoists identified as having no need for what can be seen as right or wrong. Living in harmony and rhythm with universal vibrations that act as guideposts along the way. With our heart and mind beating to a different drummer, we follow as our nature takes us there.