Bob moved back in with his mom and dad in their house , a castle by his standards .. .dad was 92 and mom was 86. not quite ready for assissted living yet, but close... . Bob's favorite space was the big empty rectangular sunroom. with outdoor carpet .. and some patio furniture , .the sunroom was sealed from the outside.... between house and garage... no central heat or a/c big windows north and south..the south view was of the big oak tree set in a nice green front yard stretching down to the road...across the road was a lake..nice and with a small fountain....such a peaceful setting. The northern view was of a maple tree with a busy bird feeder that attracted sparrows titmouses, finches cardinals, squirrels and some hanging suet that attracted his favorite, the redbelly woodpecker ..To see the natural show better, he removed the window screens. Now he could really look at it all in its infinite detail....it was a. joyfull meditation just watching the birds on the lake and on the feeder...
a swan
canadian geese
the occasional kingfisher
a great blue heron
humans are just one species ....Tao Tao is in them all and enjoys them all!!!
the brain is an organ!!! not really necessary for consciousness ..most of cosmic history occurred before life began, so there had to be consciousness.. the universe is not dumb.. its brilliant.
the wildlife, the birds especially, since they are around.. . fascinating. uplifting . .very much alive .. very conscious.. Bob was so grateful that the birds shared this habitat with people.. now whenever he saw birds in an unusual place or formation or felt a connection, Bob felt blessed.. and this feeling of blessedness uplifted him.. nature loved him and he blessed nature back..
..
If, as he now believe, that soul/consciousness is inside every life, and is the basis of all existance..then his own spirit . his own consciousness looking out at that bird .. is matched by the soul inside that bird who may or may not be looking back at him ..because the consciousnesses are the same.. the bird can be just as aware of you looking at it as the bird is aware of itself looking back at you . its a relationship. its more than empathy, its identity... you wonder how the bird feels. their emotions, their courage which gives back courage..,,,,,,
He made the sunroom more comfortable,,,more his own style...
he installed a cumfy cushioned chair to look south and a office chair and rectangular table facing north.. then he
brought in spiritual books and started filling up the space. His folks were not happy about him personizing the space around the main entry door..but he did it anyway . .couldn't help it..
his collection of spiritual books kept growing , and so did bob , , , , ,they were almost all Eastern philosophys , , ,Toaism ,Buddhism, zen ,even shinto, , the first out of the gate was Taoism ...which existed in ancient China , , ,people followed it somehow, but it wasnt written down , , ,it wasn't utill about 500BC that Lao Tzu wrote it down in the short book , "Tao te Ching" where he opened with "the Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao . . . ." mysterious , a reality above language. wow, ,, so he began to probe the mystery , , , ,what fun . . .
Zen and Tao encouraged, loved creativity .. .. poetry, song, and painting,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,and drawing . . . and whatever
creativity was ion his bones , , , ,
he sat at the table
facing north and
started to write poetry ....it was so much fun, he started writing everyday for one hour..with lyrics that rhymed and came from his soul...mostly about love of nature and the earth..
Thus he knew the joy of being creative and that joy brought him closer to the Tao.
Tao
When he sat and wrote a poem.. his mind was receptive to the muse.. close to a blank for a whole hour.. meditating on the words he was bringing together....
he helped his folks..Cooked for three....helped dad get up and down from his chair...he was old and so weak
Bob continued reading non-fiction,
like the " Tao te Ching"...which had many translations from the Chinese into English . . . one of the best was by Steven Mitchell....
He also collected books on Zen and added to the list E. Tolle
..and Thich nhat hanh
He continued to outline and map all his ideas and readings
Bob's writing lyrics everyday was the highlight of his day...the highlight of his lfe .. .Lyrics that rhymed were difficult but he persisted. . one hour of intense creativity . . .day after day month after month . . he found that the act of creativity to be the ultimate meditation .. . calms the mind ... a state where he could feel the connection between himself and the Tao . Tao . .. .sometimes Bob would take the lyric and put it to music .. .. over a month ,over a year the poems started to accumulate
and he put the poems into notebooks with the year on the spine . ..
the seasons changed . He liked the spring but not the winter.. but he knew that what mattered in life was to enjoy whatever time you were in. he would never pray for time to speed up. not to anticipate the spring but to enjoy the NOW...... in the autumn he was thinking these things. he was saying goodbye to summer nature..going into hibernation and he wrote this song..
he contiued to map out reality .on paper..outlined it systematically until
he came to a major division ..
MATERIAL vs SPIRITUAL
OBJECTIVE vs SUBJECTIVE
and finally:
OUTER vs INNER .. outer went on and on but the inner was somewhat blank . and unexplored.. so here is one page out of the journal: a map/outline:
Bob had already mapped out the OUTER extensively...and in the outer world,.. the meltdown at Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant was one of the biggest elephants in the room...another elephant was global warming and getting bigger every day....
so he concentrated on the INNER . by meditating and introspection...there was definitely something there but what was it.
He came to realize that his
Stream Of Consciousness = (SOC)
was inner and and it was real... and so as he observed his own SOC over time . . he came to realize that he was jerking his SOC when he had an unpleasant memory and this was most unhealthy, interfering with his quality of life, so . .he worked on it and got himself to stop jerking somehow .. then he realized that his sensory input was quite random . . especially the sense of sight . so he began to control what he looked at and for how long.. . . then he worked at controlling his attention . .and then on to observing his emotions . knowing fear, shame, or pride but not dwelling on them. He started saying the mantra "Love" .. ..whenever he felt a little down.. . and the final frontier was boredom . .to not fear it . to embrace it and know that all is well .. and he was happy...so
that night he took the little GRIN seed out of his pill box..climbed into bed, slipped under the covers .. turned out the light and finally that night just before he closed his eyes to sleep he popped the seed in his mouth and chewed...It tasted nice, a little oily ..nothing happened .. ..he fell asleep.. ..
to the Ego Tree