Returning to the world after many years wandering the metaphorical, sometimes literal, desert is a truly strange experience of which I am not entirely certain I can describe because, even though I am living it, I am still not sure that I myself completely understand what it is.
What am I supposed to want now? Beyond being present to my life and the beings in it, I am not sure I want anything. Yet, I am existing and interacting, and I must work and I am developing a communicable identity. I suppose I am exploring the boundaries of what is possible within the American situation on every level relative to my own subjective condition.
Are there limits to the type of identity I can create and move into the world?
I have always found myself in a position of learning identities and performing them in order to integrate “successfully” into society. The only time I felt I was truly myself was when I was on the land, particularly Matilija Canyon in the Los Padres Forest in Southern California where we had a little land we could say we owned, and when I was sitting in ceremony with Native community. I was not required to become someone then.
But when I realized around nineteen that I was gonna have to contend with America, that my ways out were cut off or unrealistic, I changed tack. My strategy became to go into it fully. To learn the system and make my goal to accomplish it. Not because I believed it was the default condition, but because I felt that no one would take my perspective seriously if I didn’t first prove that I could win this game on the table. Win it and walk away. Because it is not reality. It is not all there is. It is a consensual participation. A collective imagination. And I think, although imagination has it’s place, it would be far more effective for the lessening of suffering if we started living in actual reality.
The Path
Photographed near the Ojai Foundation circa 2000 on 35mm transparency.
Walking away is the win…
I didn’t realize that would be the only way. That there is no winning. That it is simply the trap. The belief that one must participate. Karma. Action. Cause and effect. Like it or not, our decisions are driven by attachments. And it is not to say this is wrong or right, this is not about judgement, this is about reality.
The truth of the moment and what one can and cannot do in that moment.
And the result.
“Verify for yourself,” the Buddha said, “whether what I teach corresponds with the truth.”
One thing leads to another. Paths lead places. Choices compound. We require reasons to do or not do. Our beliefs guide our actions, but who is creating our beliefs?
There are definite limits even to correct positions. Especially if the behavior is rooted in attachment. The question becomes…
What is truly the goal? and How is it possible to actually create that?
Not a fantasy of it. Not the endless grasping. But the actual establishment.
Satipatthana
Wisdom is established in Sati which means, “remember to observe”.
Life is long. Time is strange. Memory is like a dream. Philosophy is meaningful, to a point. To stay a path that does not exist objectively, that is invisible to all, yet utterly real, as much as time itself, requires something.
Matilija Sunrise
Photographed in Matilija Canyon, Summer 2005 on FUJICHROME Provia 100F 35mm.
Liberation or bust.
I have created some new items in my GIFT SHOP as a joyful reminder to stay the path.
We embrace our limitations not because they are good or what we want, but because that is simply the way through suffering.