Hay-Ku (A Last Salute)

A parting salute

To an American Hero/Legend:

CPO Chris Kyle.

[Rich Note:  Felt the following response to a friend's comment on 'American Sniper' deserved "front page" billing:

re: "Wow just saw 'American Sniper,' so well done...what a soldier, what a tough job."

"It's tough to live with once you 'get back to the world,' as the Vietnam guys used to call it, Ray.  

"Took me about 10 plus years to get over it; and that with flying being a lot less personal -- quietly literally, due to the physical, mental and emotional distance involved.  An awful lot don't survive the PTDS even if they do survive the war.

"In my particular case, a DFC awarded for a TIC action that resulted in 150 KBA in support of trapped American and friendly troops south of DaNang AB, documented a reality that could only be internally suppressed for so long. Providentially, the mental and emotional books balance by themselves around 1980.

"In any event, Ray, I feel it is very healthy for folks without military and/or combat experience -- regardless of any particular political persuasion -- to see an un-glamorized, honest and raw depiction of the supreme self-sacrifice some folks were willing to make to build this country -- a sacrifice many of our younger folks are still willing to make, even as we speak. 

"God Bless them all for their service and the freedom we all enjoy and might otherwise lose!"

Rich Hay, Major, USAF (Retired) ]

Hay-Ku of the Day ("Late to the Party")

"Thinking I Am the

Thinker" is an "after-the-

Fact" thought-overlay.

"Thinking I Am the

Thinker" is an after-the-

Fact "cover story."

***

"Thinking I'm Thinking"

Is a "Cover Story" that

The mind fabricates.

After-the-fact thought's

A Mental Cover Story

That mind fabricates.

***

"Thinking I'm thinking"

Is "after-the-fact" thought that's

"Late to the Party!"

"The Story of Me"

Is an "after the fact" self

Construction of mind.

My "play by play" self

Commentary is always

After-the-fact thought.

***

Identified with 

Thought I'm subject to mental

Associations.

Associative thoughts

And feelings are triggered by

Outer circumstance.

***

I am caught in an

After-the-fact process of

Habitual thought.

The associative

Nature of mind has "me" caught

In a stream of thought.

The "streaming" nature

Of self-thought has "me" caught-up

In it's "endless flow."

"What is actually happening when I think I am making a choice? Urges spontaneously arise in consciousness, thoughts arise, interpretations arise...Where do they arise from? Before they've arisen, do you decide that they're GOING to arise? Do you MAKE them arise?  THAT would really be the exercise of choice. But if you look carefully at any process of choice, what we call an act of choice is the after-the-fact labeling of a situation where urges and thoughts have actually spontaneously appeared from nowhere.

Thoughts come from, and disappear, to nowhere.  We think that we're THINKING thoughts, but in actuality we DON'T think about thinking the particular thoughts before we think them, or decide before we think them that we're GOING to think them; in actuality the thoughts just pop-up, and then we identify that we're thinking them. They just show-up." -- Peter Brown ("Dirty Enlightenment, pg. 50)

Hay-Ku of the Day (All I See is Me)

All I Now See is

A Temporal pattern of

Mental Energy.

All I See is a

Particular Pattern of

Energetic Space.

***

All that I See can't

Be Other than Me as a

State of Awareness.

All I Now See can't

Be Other than Me as the

Awareness I Am.

***

Everything is an

Energetic State of the

Awareness I Am.

What "I think to be"

Other than I Am is a 

State of my own mind.

***

In Truth, what I call

"Something" is a pattern of

Mental Energy.

In Truth, what I call

"Something" is a State of the

Awareness I Am.

***

Nothing I See can

Be other that Me as the

Awareness I Am.

What Arises in 

The Awareness I Am is

A pattern thereof.

***

What's there to fear if

It is All a State of the

Awareness I Am?

Afraid of Myself

If Being's a State of the

Awareness I Am. 

***

There is no outer

World without a concept that

Declares it to be.

Thinking is a pre-

Requisite for there Being

Any outer world.

[Rich Note: Here's a "plain text" version of the rather obvious truth that the cross-correlating haiku above are all pointing to -- a metaphysical metaphor used to open Chapter One of "Out of My mind and Back to My Senses (OOMM): 

"What’s going on within the geographic confines of your skull, behind your eyes, right now? Is it not everything you see before your eyes, and is this not actually composed of patterns of mental energy arising within your own head? Is it not also true that the patterns which you presently identify as yourself are composed of the exact same mental material you identify as other? This being true, how is it possible to be so intimately identified with one portion of your awareness, and so self-alienated from the other? Perhaps because the preponderance of your attention is habitually focused on the former, while you are proportional less sensitive and aware of the latter."]

[Rich Note: Inspired, and to some extent resurrected, by several of the following quotes/pointers from "Dirty Enlightenment," by Peter Brown:

"Consciousness is inseparably one with any experience it has."

"All experience exists with, and is made of, consciousness."

"Consciousness is always exactly the same, regardless of what it is, or is not, experiencing."

"There is no 'I' but consciousness; consciousness is the only one home."

"Consciousness is not a 'thing'; it is a capacity to perceive, an openness, a clear field of actuality."

"Being and consciousness are one and the same. There is no such thing as 'objective' being without consciousness; all being is subjective, all being occurs to consciousness."

(Here's the Amazon link to Peter's book:

http://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Enlightenment-Inherent-Perfection-Imperfection-ebook/dp/B00DIL3X16/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422207446&sr=8-1&keywords=dirty+enlightenment .) ]

Hay-Ku of the Day (Thinking Makes It So)

Self-centered thinking

Causes such unhappiness --
Bedeviled by thought.

Hell is in your head,

Heaven is in your heart and

Love is everywhere.

...

It's really simple:

I can't be unhappy if 

I don't think I am.

I am unhappy

Because I believe I am

Other than I Am.

*** 

Unhappy because

I think myself to be a

Separate person.

Unhappy because

I believe myself to be

Subject to Objects.

***

Happy when I Am

Whole but I cannot be that

Thinking otherwise.

Happiness is your

Natural State when You stop

Thinking otherwise.

***

"...The unhappiness

That arises in you is

Created by thought..."

[Rich Note: The first two are OOMM Oldies and the last one is an "embedded natural (or unintentional) haiku" from the following transcribed  audio excerpt from "Know That I AM" 

by Eckhart Tolle:

"On, the one hand, thinking loses its capacity to make you unhappy. That's a relief, because the unhappiness that arises in you is created by thought, not by what happens. It's created by thoughts about what happens."]

Additional Conceptual Cross-Correlators:

"It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters." -- Epictetus. 

***

"There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so." -- William Shakespeare 

***

"The aphorism, "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he," not only embraces the whole of a man's being, but is so comprehensive as to reach out to every condition and circumstance of his life. A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts."--James Allen

***

"For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he..." -- Solomon (Proverbs 23:7 KJV)

***

"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." -- St. Paul (Philippians 4:8 KJV)

***

"Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." -- Jesus ("Matthew 6:34 KJV)

***

"I stated that you are not the thoughts but if you embrace the thoughts as yourself you actually become the thoughts."

"Suffering is only something which has been engendered by a thought or a word -- mind."

"So long as one depends on the mind, the mind will always make us unhappy."

"But for a seeker for reality there is only one meditation -- the rigorous  refusal to harbor thoughts..."

"Refuse all thoughts except one": the thought 'I Am.'"

 -- Sri Nisargadatta

Hay-Ku of the Day (Non-Doer Two)

Part I:

Everything is Done

In, As and Through the Conscious

Awareness I Am.

Relatively Seen

Consciousness is Being and

Doing Everything.

God's Awareness Is

Doing, Being and Seeing

All That's Happening.

***

Consciousness is the

Sum and Substance of what

Seems to Be Many.

Consciousness is the

Sum and Substance of what

Appears Separate.

Consciousness is the

Sum and Substance of what

Self-thought's projecting.

***

Christ is the Awareness

Of Being that is Doing

All that's Ever Done.

Christ is both Being

And Doing Everything we

Seem to Be Doing.

"Christ in You" is All

There is as the Substance and

Sum of All Being.

Re:

"You are formless consciousness, therefore you can perform no action, and have no behavior."

Sri Nisargadatta

"Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all." Colossians 3:11 KJV

Part II:

"Christ in You" is this

"Awareness of Being" that

Is "with You always."

"Christ is "Always with

You" as the "Awareness of

Being" that You Are.

"Christ in You" is "This

Awareness, Right Here, Right Now,"

Witnessing "What Is."

***

"Christ in You" is "This

Awareness, Right Here, Right Now,"

Conscious as I Am.

"Christ in You" is "This

Awareness, Right Here, Right Now,"

Underlying All.

"Christ in You" is "This

Awareness, Right Here, Right Now,"

As the "Living God."

"Christ in You" is "This

Awareness, Right Here, Right Now,"

As "God's Single-Eye."

Re:

"Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: …Colossians 1:26-27 KJV

[Rich Note: Christ in You = Consciousness = Awareness of Being = Awareness Aware of Itself as Awareness = I AM = Aware Sensory Presence = The Son or Child of God I Am, You Are and All Is  = Pure Being = Aware Presence = The Presence or Spirit of God = Dimensionless Still Point Peace = The Mind of God = The One I Am in All = The Holy One in the Midst of Thee.]

Hay-Ku of the Day (Neither Doer Nor Done)

Hay-Ku of the Day (Neither Doer Nor Done)

If Jesus Christ said:

"I can of my own Self do

Nothing," how can I?"

How can I claim to

Be the "Doer" if Jesus

Christ Himself could not.

***

On what basis do

I claim to be the "Doer"

If Jesus could not?

Claiming "Doer-ship"

When Jesus Christ could not is

Clearly playing God.

***

"The Father in me,

He doeth the works" denies

"Me" as the Doer.

"The Father in me,

He doeth the works" denies

Human "Doer-ship."

RE: Scripture:

"I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit." Ecclesiastes 1:14 KJV

"I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me." John 5:30 KJV

"Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." John 14:10 KJV

RE: Advaita/Non-Duality:

"The Heart of Awarenesss - Ashtavakra Gita" (Thomas Byrom translation):

"...It is not really you

Who acts or enjoys.

"You are everywhere,

Forever free.

"Forever and truly free,

The single witness of all things.

"But if you see yourself as separate,

Then you are bound.

"I do this. I do that"

The big black snake of selfishness

Has bitten you!

"I do nothing."

This is the nectar of faith,

So drink and be happy.

"Know you are one,

Pure awareness.

With the fire of this conviction,

Burn down the forest of ignorance..."

Sri Nsargadatta ("I Am Unborn"; "I Am That")

"Whatever is being done, if you think you are the doer, it’s the vanity in you."

"Even if doer-ship remains, it doesn’t matter, you be a witness. You are not in beingness, things happen, you don’t do anything."

An idea of doership -- that things happen because you do something -- also goes away."

                  

RE: "Yoga in the Kashmir Tradition -- Billy Doyle

"There is no doer, only doing, there is no breather, only breathing, there is no one who lives, only life." 

Hay-Ku of the Day (Beloved Friends)

Beloved Friends and

Traveling Companions joined

On the Journey Home.

Two Living Lights on

The Path to the Home No One

Ever Really Leaves.

Two Friends whose Hearts

Are Lights on the Path Home to

"Living Light and Love."

[Rich Note:  The following link is to a divinely orchestrated interview Dr. Stanley El did with Sandy Jones, on his weekly "The American Dream" radio program on Rowan Radio 89.7 WGLS FM. It's a rather understated, though insightful, chat that offers a wonderful introduction to two "Shining Beacons of Love's Living Light" -- Lights I am not only Blessed to have in my Life, but am honored to call Beloved Friends on the Path: 

http://www.rowan.edu/today/podcasts/GET/THE_AMERICAN_DREAM/ad20141217 ]