Critical Mass Walk

07-10-20 5:28
good morning.
I'm on the iceplant in a canyon.

I left the house at 3pm yesterday. On the way out I told my grandma I might not be back till Sunday morning.

I didn't have any plans. But then began to wonder what I might do if I did not return till Sunday. And I thought about walking to the beach.

So I am--or at least to Point Loma. From there--maybe to La Jolla.

After writing yesterday I ate and rested. Nothing too mindfully or mindlessly. Then I got up and--oh I read the paper before all that.

I looked at Mary Baker Eddy's _Science and Health_ for a bit. My friend had asked to borrow _7 habits of highly effective people_ , which got me looking at some books as I found that one, and a few others.

I visited the fig tree.

Returned and got ready to go.

Got some lima beans for Grandma Ann. Only a few. There aren't a lot yet.

The three p.m. time was set by my friend. So I waited at her place and imagined starting a "critical mass walk."

We talked for a bit and then I left.

The walk has been good. Not super mindful. Not all the way mindless, and if it is mindless, a not very harmful kind.

I found the United Lodge of Theosophists-- TheosophySanDiego.org, and Patti showed me their library and garden and filled me in on a few events.

I had known about this canyon I'm in. . . It is ringed by houses, and with the moon--and now with this glowing PDA--I was a bit concerned about detection.

I got to bed early, slept all night mostly.

At first for a bit, I lay there imagining feeling estatic reverence: "The dark sky is suffused deep with the presence" or something like that. And then I was laying there with silent wonder.

I imagined wandering along seeing everything glowing, shimmering with spirit. (I walked down El Cajon--a main strip with lots of cars and low commercial buildings.)

I also walked by a poker room on the way here and watched the people through the windows for a while. Frat type guys with Vietnamese and Philipinos and others, I think. Female dealers, all sitting down--it looked like some of the most community I saw the whole walk.

--

I don't have any more ideas about how to point my life from Theos.

Other than to walk to La Jolla and maybe stay there a while and just see what happens. I did imagine walking in Baja too.

Peace, Colin.

5:48

Walking times, other notes:
1606 leave college & el cajon
1717 Leave United Lodge of Theosopht 3766 El Cajon
1800 Park Ave
1900 Hillcrest (6th & University)
1931 Mission Hills Park

www.reiki-sun.com

Theos

07-10-18 22:54

Legacy.

In some way I have my bios and noos concerns more under control--at least compared to when I started making these entries.

So, I can consider my life, longer-term, from theos, from what would be most mindful, rather than least painful.

I use this writing to help my wandering mind track on this issue--mind really wants to avoid this for some reason.

--

I visited my friend and we walked. She said she'd like to have a house. I said I did not want one.

I might call this post "Economy". I was considering listing expenses. I don't, for example, pay for Internet access at the house--somone has an open WiFi point. I don't pay for utilities--my grandma does. I wanted to list here bills for the house. So we could see the dollars that go in.

[Here's a start:
Water bill 09-05 to 10-03--
actually the previous month's bill was estimated, not actual--so it is:
08-06 to 10-03.
58 days, 296 gallons per day.
Last year they say 120 gallons per day.
There was a leak in a soaker hose during this period, I believe.

For now I'll collect utility data--maybe later I'll comment more.

As a result of that water bill, I turned the soaker time from 2x/week to one--and cut second cycle to 45 min. from 90 min. First cycle is still 90 min.

The past water bill was $80.47. 09-05 to 10-03. One before that: $45.15

I'll either collect other bill info here (editing this post) or make a new one called Economy with this and that info, or do no more with this topic.
]

--

The main thing is, I say I don't want a house, but I am enjoying(?) benefits of having access to one.


2007-10-19-0631
I'm not getting anywhere--I came inside and got to internet messing. . .
probably forty-five minutes.

Mindlessness, mindfulness, insights from yesterday.

I covered a bit already.

I got up. Applied for a teambuilding assignment that would pay $225 (something like that)/half day. Rare. Did not get it. But was happy to write this bio, in part:

In my facilitation, I focus on transcending personal perspectives and on decision-making based on awareness of role in team, organization, and world. Recent influences include John P. Milton, Holacracy, Barry Oshry, Integral Leadership, and Theory U.

And to update resume for them.

Earlier I'd avoided responding. . . the job would involve travel from the negihborhood. I don't need the money. Those were the thoughts. What I'd be doing otherwise is more important. I need to run out of money. (in mornings I can get around those thoughts?)


Then swam, did weights. Sat on the cardboard in the iceplant. Then went to park. Read the _Varieties of Religious Experience_ chapter, "The Value of Saintliness." That took a long time--till 4pm probably. Walked, found some different figs, went home, read paper--it was interesting yesterday--I remember Van Jones. . ., gunshot wound to head (the bang I heard), that's all, offhand. Watered bushes a bit before that.

A main event was G. Ann's concern, expressed to me before I left, about a bush I had cut. It is an emotional issue for us. Causing suffering or at least mind turmoil. I don't want to take the time to detail it. But I know "It is It" - the heart of practice.

---

There's a great section on poverty as valuable asceticism in that chapter. I marked it to type it in, but I want to now focus on my main concern.

First though--nevermind.

0658

With the space my practices have been providing from mindless eating, reading, etc. . . I can organize life more from a creative point than a reactive pain-reducing point.

Let's do that.

0703 some more distraction:

While pot cooling--went to visit friend. We walked. Sat in park silently.

I don't always know a good way to be with people--

We are both unsure, I think--

Came back here--shared a lima bean that was growing--

She left. I ate. Then got to this eventually after not sleeping.

For a moment though-- I just knew it was not a time to write, but rather for silent appreciation (from the James' chapter). [p276: ". . . lost in gratitude, and silent." -- from a criticism of how Teresa of Ávila was not.]

The mindlessness then--got to be corn popping in microwave. Till it was gone--not much. Mostly for something to do other than to think about this!!

That's all I'll do with mindlessness, mindfulness, insights from yesterday.

0707


0714 Yesterday was crisp, clear.

Put God First. A message from _How to mess up your life before you are 40_ (something like that) in the new books section. Let's do that now.

The whole cycle I'm in--the daily routine--gets to feel mindless.

So I sabatoge it--or, more creatively, organize trips. Or consciously change it.

Here's that poverty section from William James. I may be here all day at this rate.

This is after explaining how "war is a school of strenuous life and heorism," retaining a psychological value in a life where we are otherwise slaves to our own comfort. Quotes throughout, such as, "If the soldier is to be good for anything as a soldier, he must be exactly the opposite of a reasoning and thinking man."

"But when we gravely ask ourselves whether this wholesale organization of irrationality and crime be our only bulwark against effeminacy, we stand aghast at the thought, and think more kindly of ascetic religion."

Read the whole chapter to understand his use of "effeminacy."

One hears of the mechanical equivalent of heat. What we now need to discover in the social realm is the moral equivalent of war: something heroic that will speak to men as universally as war does, and yet will be as compatible with their spiritual selves as war has proved itself to be incompatible. I have often thought that in the old monkish poverty-worship, in spite of the pedantry which infested it, there might be something like that moral equivalent of war which we are seeking. May not voluntarily accepted poverty be "the strenuous life," without the need of crushing weaker peoples?

Poverty indeed is the strenuous life--without brass bands or uniforms or hysteric popular applause or lies or circumlocutions; and when one sees the way in which wealth-getting enters as an ideal into the very bone and marrow of our generation, one wonders whether a revival of the belief that poverty is a worthy religious vocation may not be "the transformaiton of military courage," and the spritual reform which our time stands most in need of.

Among us English-speaking peoples especially do the praises of poverty need once more to be boldly sung. We have grown literally afraid to be poor. We despise any one who elects to be poor in order to simplify and save his inner life. If he does not join the general scramble and pant with the money-making street, we deem him spiritless and lacking in ambition. We have lost the power even of imagining what the ancient idealization of poverty could have meant: the liberation from material attachments, the unbribed soul, the manlier indifference, the paying our way by what we are or do and not by what we have, the right to fling away our life at any moment irresponsibly--the more athletic trim, in short, the moral fighting shape.

. . .

It is true that so far as wealth gives time for ideal ends and exercise to ideal energies, wealth is better than poverty and ought to be chosen. But wealth does this in only a portion of the actual cases. Elsewhere the desire to gain wealth and the fear to lose it are our chief breeders of cowardice and propagators of corruption. There are thousands of conjunctures in which a wealth-bound man must be a slave, whilst a man for whom poverty has no terrors becomes a freeman. Think of the strength which peronal indifference to poverty would give us if we were devoted to unpopular causes. We need no longer hold our tongues or fear to vote the reolutionary or reformatory ticket. Our stocks might fall, our hopes of promotion vanish, our salaries stop, our club doors close in our faces; yet, while we lived, we would imperturbably bear witness to the spirit, and our example would help to set free our generation. The cause would need its funds, but we its servants would be potent in proportion as we personally were contented with our poverty.

I recommend this matter to your serious pondering, for it is certain that the prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers.

pp. 290-292. The Varieties of Religious Experience. William James.

-----------------

0810 It's nothing others have not said--the same message in new and different ways from different voices helps it become lived.

0827 What should come of this time? A clear plan of action or at least a plan of how to get one?

My recent life change experiment has been successful: a synthesis or integration of the life I live when I have been traveling away (walking in the forest), with the life I live while here.

The changes I made will stick or evolve.

They came from the realization that I can incorporate forest-walking elements in this house-centered life: being outside almost all day, or at least out of the house; sleeping outside; cooking with fire; sitting outdoors; no excessive computer work or garden work; lots of sitting time or time to read texts written from connection with creative force.

Elements, positive, that are here that are not on the forest walk: my friend to visit. My grandma (in a certain way). Indoor space and libraries. A weight practice. Sometimes an opportunity to do interesting work on challenge course. A garden to harvest from and watch grow. Not a need to carry a pack with food, other gear.


Main lack: the organizing principle. devotion to some cause, some goal worth pursuing. Lack exists in both forest and suburbia environs.

Additional hypothesized lack: a community which shares more of my leanings and tendencies--at a monastery, permaculture farm, or anarchist gathering more of the people may be more similar to me, for example.

0843


0913 Scenarios?

1. I stay here, do not think about change, practice meditating. Continue with this basic routine. Organizing principle is: keep time free, meditate, focus on present. That is it. Eventually change will occur whether I do anything or not. Grandma Ann might die, and different things might happen.

2. I go off on another trip somewhere, planning to return after a while.

I do not stand for . . . I stand for being content where you are, doing as little as possible.

I sit by as my friend, and maybe other friends, pay rent, taxes, get jobs.

My organizing principle is: stay where you are, doing as little as possible.

I am a Chinese Hermit. (_Encounters with Chinese Hermits_)

I am not a social activist, except by silent (or minimal Internet) example.

Pathways for continued development:

More mindfulness, less mindlessness (?)

Eat only so that I do not become lean and die (?)

Focus on whatever I'm doing at the moment, e.g., intense focus on weight lifting, very in body while swimming (?)

Look at Wilber et al.'s Integral Life Practice?

Not be concerned about helping directly those who have not had as much privilege (?)

Legacy: carfree life, peaceful time in midst of madness (?)

Garden, plant more food plants around this neighborhood (?)

Avoid talking about friends' housing issues (?)

I am not all that different than Grandma Ann's cat (?)

a pet kept for company to remind her she is alive, but with occasional additional usefulness (?)

0927

I have no action plan. I'm not getting one this way. For now, default to scenario one. Peace.

0935

Something I was trying to remember for a friend:

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Botero

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Botero

1001

It seems I did not really focus on God here.

Still in avoid suffering mode. How to come from Theos?

future

07-10-17 20:11
I made it here once more.

I thought I might write inside--but distracted self with Internet, and with popping corn in the microwave.

That particular renunciation has lost a bit of steam.

I am outside on the ground though. I did cook the pot over the fire. But used the microwave for a squash, lentils, corn.

---

Having written yesterday's update, I went to swim, do weights, then to park, but, hungry, did not sit more than a moment, and went to fig tree, ate figs, then sat, with dogs barking at one point, children playing.

Then passed time at library (2pm-4?) looked at some books in the "new" section.

Then here to cook, eat--which I was eager to do, since I didn't cook yesterday.

--

Mindfulness, mindlessness, insights?

Mindlessness--well the last bit of eating while using computer was probably the most notable.

All other eating was eating--often with mind running, but for now I settle for just eating without reading--gradually I'll work on eating food, not thoughts or plans--eating and really paying attention to eating.

Picking out books from the new section in library was a bit mindless. I have my yoga book and _Varieties of Religious Experience_ to read.

Some of my written speech this morning probably was a bit mindless. And this too.

Mindfulness: Only greeting the owner(?) Alfred of Buddah-to-go(.com?) [buddha-for-you.com]with palms in the lotus position comes to mind. Rest of day I don't have special accomplishments in mindfulness coming to me.

(One great use of the lotus greeting was to say goodbye to some Mormon missionaries.)

While distracting self with computer I did watch a mahamudra meditation led by Patrick Sweeney.

I felt the potential there for a more intense experience.

This morning, waking, walking out of canyon, greeting my friend, that stands out.

Waking up outside.

Making the fire.

Being with grandma a bit.

Right now. This has been interesting.

--

On this corner of the house there seems to be yet another abusive (verbally at least) parent to listen to. This one is in the apartments.

--

insights: future?
20:51

Mahāmudrā Meditation with Patrick Sweeney

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A34CaZdudWs

http://holons-news.com/node/95

http://www.satdharma.org/Meditation1.php

http://www.google.com/search?q=patrick+sweeney+mahamudra

Princesses

2007-10-17-0726
0731
so, I missed writing to you yesterday. And here I am.

The oats were a problem, but that is over.

A thing of value I read two days ago was "this is it." I think Kabat-Zinn quoted Gary Snyder about how the routine aspects of life aren't things in the way of our practice, they are our practice. Whatever we're doing, that is it.

I got up, looked at paper, went to swim, did weights, went to sit. The park worker was working on his weedeater, so I went back aways into a nearby canyon-sort of space and sat there. I still heard him though, weedeater, leafblower, plus the usual helicopters. I got to feel/move through a bit of despair about the noise. A bit of fear about the neighbors whose backyards I was behind.

So my violent thoughts included imagining sniping the park worker. From that, I worked on compassion--but even then I was compassionate imagining how he might change.

Here I'm at the house--gann's. Already heard from her. Now hearing the neighbors whine. Now hearing the cat wanting to go in, if in, wants to go out.

So, I was sitting on some cardboard on the iceplant. The park worker finishes leafblowing--goes to another section of park.

I meditated on spirit. Or on the bios, noos, theos distinction. I got to asking "what is theos?" again. It may be sitting with creative force as a friend. In all other ways of being, I am being used by creative force. In other ways, I am following drives for agency/communion.

It's not a straight dichotomy.

Eventually I walked on, visiting the prolific fig tree.

Then--went back to house. Definitely seeking to avoid grandma ann, climbed over fence, and she was back there with her friend, and I had to stay still and listen for a while.

I managed to get in and out with my sleeping stuff + books to return.

Eventually went to library.

I xeroxed sewing patterns from a Ray Jardine book I was returning, and pages from _The seven spiritual laws of yoga_ by Chopra and Simon before that.

Bad effects of oats + figs were starting to slow me down.

I read _7 spiritual laws_--

I like it. I've been checking it out over and over, without reading it, because it has a practice to learn--like the kata. The part I xeroxed is the summary of the practice at the end.

At the library, I was waiting, and an old woman looked at me and went in front.

I lost it then. . . not in any bad way externally, but really that was it--break in practice, break in just being aware.

(as was hiding from G. Ann), probably other things too.

The physical feelings of oats+figs was reducing my "Transparency to the divine" making it harder to just watch.

I read outside a while. Went in, looked at mags. Looked at _New Yorker_ for an odd sort of reason--a Boston friend says she reads it.

Noticed, in a way, I was reading to reject--but not entirely. That is the mocking feeling I addressed earlier, reading, but looking for reasons not to read. Some drew me in. And I was more aware of this whole process--a sort of reading from inadequacy. "Wouldn't it be nice if I were like the people who read the New Yorker?" But I'm not.

Walked around a bit more to places I have not walked. Found an unharvested dragon fruit plant, but did not harvest or ask to. (feeling oats and figs).

Eventually sat on bench. Sun was setting. Watched people in their cars.

Walked to visit my friend. I had been by earlier. She was there this time. She asked if I'd want to do the kata.

What a wonderful thing.

We did, in canyon. I stayed there for the night, not wanting to move after that. A bit concerned about detection.

After a bang, a while after, helicopter with search light came out. And was sort of close by. They also have infra-red.

Got the worse part of my digestive indiscretion out of me--these were steel cut oats, not cooked, that is the main reason for the problem.

I know not to do that but my no-microwave affirmation was getting in way.


Had some time to just be there, in the night, maybe for an hour after midnight, or more. Body scanning, being in the body, letting go of mind-impulses to move or do.


Woke the last time, after dream that took me away refreshingly, in the drizzle. 5:48am. Went to see friend. Then went to visit far away fig tree, before coming here.


------------

So, the main issue that is coming up--remember: mindlessness, mindfulness, insights--is my avoiding Grandma Ann. That is not awareness of being already enlightened.


The old woman in the library was a pile on to that. A second issue was the park worker, and all other noise makers, police and news copters, and the confined natural space of the canyons, so close to the backs of houses, where relaxation is more of a challenge. Another issue was the harm I did to self by eating. Another issue was the oddness of my way of being compared to those of others here--the many users of cars. Another issue was the _New Yorker_-related inadequacy.

The main one may be Grandma Ann. She is good, wants to be caring, to have someone to care for, and she also is everything I don't wish to be--an enforcer, liver out, of habits. She is where witches come from. Other times, when her habits have had to been lost (a recent return via airplane), she looks entirely different, while her concerns are not.

---

The recurring question, "Stay or leave?" The recurring issue is the same.

How does a buddha living with his grandmother act? Does a buddha do that?

---

Thankfully, mind is shutting down now. But a central issue has been here.



peace,
Colin
0842

nothing

Nothing much happened today. I got up, swam, did weights, sat in the park a bit, but machine noise (sewer work) was eventually too much, tried another location, visited fig tree, ate too many, sat / rested in new spot for long time, went to library, waited for it to open while police helicopter flew around telling us who it was looking for, looked at books in library, came home, overwhelmed by kitty litter perfume or something, not sure how to deal with that--should I leave?, etc.--calming down, going back inside, it is not so bad, and I'm camped out outside anyways.

Cooked up pot, enjoyed making, tending fire, watching smoke.

Began looking at a Kabat-Zinn book I got from library. Went to visit friend to take break from chainsaw noise. She has become happy with moving away. Me, a bit taken aback considering the possibility. Ate dinner, finished looking through K-Z. Beginning this. Eating raw oats--then knowing how bad that is--put some in microwave. . .

So, now?

Harmful mindlessness: fig eating, oat eating.

Wonderful mindfulness: wanting to stay away from house all day and doing so, even though I hadn't thought about it. Cooking dinner early. Sitting in new spot in previous no-man's land. Mindfulness, sitting with excessive noise: sewer truck, police copter, chainsaw. Moving through Grandma-Ann kitty litter perfume resentment. Moving through possibility of friend moving sadness (or was it just escape?). Kabat-Zinn has good pointers. Suggests to not write about meditating. Has written much on mindfulness.

Insights? A day of really doing nothing. No grand meditative visions. Just being in the neighborhood with its people and machines.

Some concern about me staying here, isolated, with a grandma.

Maybe I should look more deeply into the truth that the only reason I'm here is that I can live here free--is that a good reason?

When I can't live here, future that most appeals is just to not have a home.

Now, those thoughts are there. But I am more and more spending time just being where I am, not doing.

Organization for System Consciousness

07-10-14 20:59
I'll eat some rice and lentils in the morning too.

I am here to help me be more mindful. In the evenings I want to go comatose and forget. This is not letting me.

The main event was sitting for most of the day in an empty classroom.

The revelation was focusing on system consciousness.

"What is the most creative system action I could take?"

I had thought I might have been done, and then that came up.

And got me thinking of the system as if it were an individual consciousness.

I got there from considering beginning: "How best do I help people?" and changing that to: "How do I best help the system?"

If I identify with self as vehicle for system consciousness, system enlightenment, rather than as vehicle for individual enlightenment--

motivationally more tenable? More accurate?

While Andrew Cohen points to this approach, it is in Holacracy that I have found it in most detail.

In holacracy, in the presentations I've seen, they focus primarily at the level of one organization.

Ultimately, though, there is one system, one organization.

I have no sub-organization to practice with, or hardly any--

Why not start an "Organization for System Consciousness"

We free individuals to do system work--

to help system be agile, responsive, and free of limiting behavioral crusts.

I asked, do I attend Holacracy trainings?

There was no answer--meaning, usually, try another question.

What message do I want to give:

stay where you are, work there.

What systems are you embedded in?

Just as we renounce in life, help the system renounce--

Make a "requisite system" (from Elliott Jaques "requisite organization", but I only understand it through holacracy--sense tensions, create minimal organization necessary to address tensions)

This calls up a theory of development of system consciousness.

Rather than embracing the all, the all of cultural productions as all manifestations of spirit (following, sort of, Ken Wilber integral), see the current madness of the all as similar to the uncontrolled running of an individual mind.

In fact, system consciousness is out of control and could benifit from practicing meditation.

To enable it to do so, we need individuals to become "transparent to the divine."

They need to be free, as I am, to sit and meditate for long periods, in order to sense the most creative system action they can take.

What are the requisite organizations for the system?

I am seeking a larger role for my self.

I do not wish to go traipsing around the world after teachers and trainings. Wanting to travel as sovereign, not as tourist. Or not to travel.

I want to be an example of how sitting where one is can take one there-

With Andrew Cohen, in that individuality (I am the savior) can serve the collective.

Steps for action:

Personal steps: each time I return to Ann's house, clean up/out more of my stuff? Till there's not much left to leave? Till only requisite posessions remain?

System steps: Share system vision? See if that motivates others to wish to be more transparent to creative spirit, which, perhaps, means to renounce in order to be free to sit?

Now those who still have their drives retain them and do their work.

Those like me who lose it all and wander--

And those who grasped something in order to not have nothing--

So we sit with system consciousness in mind.

We withdraw from (renounce) non-requisite systems and orgs. We support the most basically requisite:

fruit and nut trees (so all can be free as I am)


And so on?

p. 510-13 of _Permaculture: A Designers' Manual_ ("Bioregional Organization")?

----
that's about the extent of it. Before that, during, after, I did focus on breathing. I did consider relationship with Grandma Ann--both of our behavioral crusts and what is under them. If I can not act from mine, she can not act from hers, but if not, I set hers off.

And my action plan of cleaning up/out a bit every time I return here.

Other aspects of the day went well--the only more mindless bit was a raid of the fig tree while waiting for pot to cool and while avoiding starting this.

--

So, I'm not content just to sit there--I do want to help organize people, system, to be agile, responsive, free of limiting behavioral crusts.

I love to imagine that I can, not having an organization, not being a CEO of any kind, organize on a more fundamental level than many of them.

Here I am not a Daoist--defining myself in difference, in opposition to others. . .

And when I asked what the most fundamental system action was:

"Is it going on alms round in La Jolla?"

silence. It is not a physical-realm action. It is something that operates on the highest (following Wilber) level at which you can operate.

(Very easy to criticize self for seeking abstract non-action, but, here, I won't)

It is some sort of idea. It may be only the viewing of self as vehicle for system consciousness.

And what does system consciousness look like?

Many conscious, mindful cells at least.

Creating requisite systems, organizations--

So system is agile, responsive, free of crusts--so system is enlightened--enabling awareness to present rather than to past/tradition. . .

Holacracy has a vision of this?

Time to leave this.

Another in a series of messianistic dreamings--a more refined, clear version of what I came up with earlier: "WeDevelop--organizational development for everyone."

My challenge is to come up with something that does not involve trip generation--no conferences, workshops, physical meetings--except with those we are already near--work where you are with those you are with. I'm not sure if that is correct or just reactionary to everyone else's jetting & driving around.

And how to get more people free to sit and wonder.

Peace,
Colin
22:30

way of nature

07-10-13 19:43

I'm in Grandma Ann's backyard.
20:09
And in that time ate a pot I cooked on the hobostove.

So-mindfulness, mindlessness, insights?

Woke up in drizzle and walked to the further away fig trees, not optimistic, but got some prime ones.

I was somewhat mindful eating these, and as it happened, there were not enough to eat too much of by much.

Then went to warm, empty classroom and sat.

Then rested, then sat, then was peaceful enough to read more of _The Varieties of Religious Experience_ (VRE)

The Saintliness chapter. Which is perfect for the kinds of concerns I have now.

He quotes St. John of the cross--

I want to spend more time with those pointings.

A rough summary from memory: do the opposite of what you are inclined to do.

--And for a moment, I was ready to go to the monasteries--Deer Park, Metta Forest. When I feel that way, though, I am at peace enough, I almost feel no reason to leave.

I swam later, did weights, walked back here, stopped by friend's house, once home read paper and looked a book by John P. Milton that had arrived.

Then cooked dinner over hobostove.

Before all that and in the past three days, I've been eating figs and guavas.

I wasn't sure I'd keep true to my renunciation of gas stove and microwave, but so far so good. And the hardest night cooking over a fire is always the first. It requires more patience (leads to good habit), and often a waiting for even more time letting coals, heat, cook the pot more thoroughly.

So, continuing, today no serious harmful times of mindlessness--and more space for mindfulness.

Insights:

In considering my desire to help people--I considered who has helped me the most.

Tom. The people who have spurred me to new ways of being. Tom, of NYC Ishmael, slept on the floor of a friend's house, did not pay health insurance, and was an activist with RAN (rainforest action network).

Many others--

And there are those who do this on the cultural level-- such as the quakers mentioned in VRE who ended the custom of bowing and doffing hats to people.

Insights: Jealousy/ mocking when reading John P. Milton.

Why?

He has done what I wish to do.

I don't understand why I have this gut mocking reflex to people who are more accomplished than I--often in the very way I want to be. (Not true for TNH, though, so there seems to be some distinction the feeling is making.)

I can react differently--the negative doesn't help me.
20:49
No immediate action plans.