THE RIVER is RUNNING DOWN THE HILL

Saints and jerks fill the space, or so it seems. The appearances and disappearances of people and phenomena come and go. Thoughts, perceptions, sensations, and beliefs exclaim their temporariness.

We see the river running down the hill. We demand that the river run up the hill. Who is demanding and who made us in charge of anything?

The demand remains the same, stalwart. “The river should be running up the hill if ‘I’ have anything to do with it. I don’t care if you don’t like me, the river should be running up the hill.” Separateness prevails.

Is this freedom? Or is this imprisonment? Is there compassion in returning the assault of having it our way? We say, “But why have compassion for a fascist?! “ Separateness abides. Where is our own compassion for our own self-imprisonment?!

Without compassion we fill our container options with the vitriol of hate -just like the types of individuals we are separated from because of their disdain for us. We become the analogue of our perceived enemy, only with opposite views and a load of polarization. Separateness is the problem not the solution. A lack of compassion is the fertile ground for the seeds of aversion to grow mightily.

Compassion allows us a moment to see and not get caught up in the hysteria of separateness. Compassion is unity.

‘Reality’ may have the river of “What Is” running down the hill. When we dictate and demand that the river run up the hill, we are constructing our ideas into what the Universe ‘should’ be doing. Pushing away from the Reality of the Universe is also, contemporaneously clinging to what we ‘think’ we have to have. That is, ‘thinking’ and objectification, puts it in the conditional framework. To wit, the unreality of our thoughts, meets and greets the unreality of the conditional impermanent world.

When we cling, we suffer. We ‘push’ into the separateness from the flow of the Universe. Accepting “What Is” is freedom to Be. Acceptance is not necessarily approval. Approval or action is what we ‘do’ in the world. Acceptance, is acceptance of unity first, allowing connection to Being, first. What we ‘do’ or how we ‘act’ is always subsequent to Being.

To leave the connection of Being and ‘act’ out of reaction and disconnection, is to betray whom we really Are, all the time (eternity). ’Suffering’ is the predictable outcome of “having it our way”. The “our way” is inherently separate and distorted and uninformed. It is the ego calling the infinite stupid.

Whom we Are, is eternity in the Now, eternity in the ‘Here’ of everywhere and the eternal Awareness that is never tainted or diminished, or even cognizable by the mind. This permanence is Us, always. This Is the starting point and the endpoint at the same time, of our identity.

I am not I.
I am this one walking beside me whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;
the one who remains silent while I talk,
the one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,
the one who takes a walk when I am indoors,
the one who will remain standing when I die.

Juan Ramón Jiménez

Acceptance of the river running down the hill, is the starting point. Without acceptance, there is resistance to the natural flow of the ups and downs of life. The rapids of the river require flexibility. Additionally, if we pepper our resistance with an attack against others (us), we suffer the carrying of this energetic poison.

The Dali Lama has no issues at all with the Chinese People. He is not against the Chinese. He is for the freedom of the Tibetan People. This is the way of the skillful. Purity and unity is thereby not polluted or corrupted.

The ‘I” is Us and can be no other. Start with fullness and end with fullness. There are no gaps in the Fullness.

The river flows effortlessly without regard to mine and thine. The river regards everyone equally.

This Iz Daddy’O