Back in the Game

Here’s a repost from several years ago; it always bears fruit:

Today, on the radio, I heard two famous scientists discussing consciousness in clinical terms, and brain research, which was in many ways fascinating.

One, a nobel laureate, said: “Awareness is a form of consciousness.”

While this assessment might sound correct, I would disagree. Awareness is a form of art. You can raise your awareness, but not consciousness. You can’t have a form of consciousness; it is already whole and not open to divisions or categories.

As the Buddha observed: “Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.”

What did you learn today?

The Athlete

Seven-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens was indicted by a federal grand jury Thursday for allegedly lying to Congress about using steroids and growth hormone. The criminal case writes a new chapter in one of Major League Baseball’s worst scandals, the rampant use of the banned substances.

This legal matter is yet another red herring; does anyone in the room believe that if they took steroids or a human growth hormone, they would develop the pitching prowess of Clemens? Sure, these substances might harm your health, but to ban them because it might give one an advantage (level playing field notwithstanding) is ridiculous and hypocritical.

The Scientist

According to believers, ‘Francis Crick, the Nobel Prize-winning father of modern genetics, was under the influence of LSD when he first deduced the double-helix structure of DNA more than 50 years ago.’ Whether this questionable and anecdotal account took place or not is irrelevant.

Regardless of how it happened, we do know this discovery was the result of ingenuity coupled with passion: a circumstance of a prepared mind meeting intuitive information. We thank Crick and his research associate, James Watson, for being sufficiently aware in March of 1953 to ‘see’ what was in the genie’s bottle: the molecular structure of DNA. Unless you were looking for it, how many would have recognized the double helix, the genetic instructions, or blue- print of life, if they saw it standing on their kitchen table? How many in the presence of an innovation in art would recognize the breakthrough for what it was before it was sanctioned by the powers that be?

The Artist

The topic of drugs and art is a volatile one; and we know that many an artist has, with disastrous results, turned to drink or substance abuse to cope with feeling blocked, rejected, or even accepted. If you think that ingesting substances will make you a better artist or give you courage, then you don’t yet see a clear picture of what I am writing about in this book (An Artist Empowered).

An artist in dharma is already ‘perfect’ because he acknowledges the source of his gift. Nothing from the outside can improve upon the inner harmony that already exists. If you have a gift of art, you are then also charged with a duty: you must protect that gift from any vice that would destroy it. 

El Coyote staking out the situation

About six weeks ago I had an unexpected visitor show up at my doorstep: Baby Aldo, a young parakeet who is not indigenous to the harsh and unforgiving climate in the high desert.

Aldo is like the man who came to dinner; he has become part of the family here, along with Sweetie Boy, the cockatiel.

Late this afternoon, I opened the main door to my cabin. There in front of me stood a coyote. He looked at me, and I looked back. Although he didn’t run off, he was on high alert. Every now and then in the middle of the night, I would hear the distinctive and plaintive howls of coyote packs way back in the vast mesa beyond the cabin.

This coyote had put fear behind him and had ventured down near the humans, the most dangerous of predators. I slowly closed the door, grabbed my camera, and took this photo through the kitchen window. After a while, it became clear why he came here: the fruit trees. He sniffed about, looking here and there, and behind him. Then, he began eating the pears that had dropped off the tree. Coyotes will eat what’s available, which is their ace in the hole when it come to adaptation and survival.

After eating his fill, which took about twenty minutes, he dashed off, up the steep hill, and back to the mesa.

Our mindless encroachment into the wilderness is unsustainable. Putting people first, regardless of costs, will eventually unravel the beauty of balance and evolution. Whatever happened to zero population growth? It’s a touchy subject that, if ignored, will come back to haunt us into oblivion. 

We don’t need more consumers who fuel the engine of disaster; we do need more evolved people who will steward the earth—and I can think of no better dharma.

If you’ve been thinking of purchasing my book, An Artist Empowered, for yourself or a friend, now is a good time.

Get free shipping from Lulu.com (offer ends August 23rd).

Click on this link: An Artist Empowered

Enjoy and get out on the farthest limb that will hold you—that’s where you’ll find most of the tastiest fruit.

Eden

He said it thousands of years ago. Ignorance is the enemy of man. There is no doubt that the Buddha was clear on this point. Test this observation by looking at the world around you.

There is another trap we can call complacency—as we move through our finite days, taking things for granted in an ever-changing and temporal existence. Look around again and see what you can do to overcome the insidious trap and smugness of self-satisfaction and the inertia that it manifests.

Without an awareness of complacency, the artist becomes a hack, a murky cowardly reflection of what could have been.