Day 552: We're All Fellow Travelers

Day 552: 27 December 2022, Tuesday

Another trip, another note, another day in the rat race.

Mindful of each one and yet not a moment between them—nothing is lost, even in sleep and death.

Glimpse the reality of this moment where the vitality of things shines clear. Is there anything more alive than this?

This way, that way. Back again? How was the trip? Where we’re going, there is no good and there is no bad. Good and bad are just what they are, part of this or that trip, but never the whole thing. Pleasant is just as full and alive as unpleasant. Nothing is the same from moment to moment. The fact is: whatever arises must also pass away. Everything fades. Nothing lasts. And here we are.

But what do we do along the way? Sit around? Just wait for things to get better? It’s possible. But wait for what, exactly? 

Not for what, but how?

Like this. And this. And this.

Here, now. Now,

Here. Follow

Me.

You’re getting it. That’s it. 

Now, do you see this one?

Here is all there is. 

Just like this.

Whatever it is, being is always becoming, and becoming is always the being of becoming.

Back and forth and back again. Returning pure difference. Breaking off and becoming dis-jointed. And wherever it is, becoming and being are one, and one is multiple. 

Another trip? How is this one? This is it. One and the same. All pasts and all futures are like conspiracies lurking in the periphery, shadows roaming and casting their influence.

Thoughts—in all their simplicity and complexity—are like thieves in the night, threatening our balances and possessions, but if the mind is clear, as it is, and it is empty in accordance with its essential nature, then the thieves (thoughts) have nothing to steal, nothing to disturb. 

An ocean that knows itself to be an ocean is not disturbed by a ship’s waves. 

Don’t hold yourself hostage. You cannot wait until all of your problems are solved to be free.

Without mindfulness, one becomes like a corpse dragging around the weight of a decaying past. It is possible to begin living now. Tomorrow never comes. All we have is here. 

What thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. 

‘Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it's a feather bed.’

Terence McKenna