 Fallow Fertility Returning ©2014 Rev. David Seacord 36" x 48" Acrylic on CanvasEveryman's WEEKLY Journal #65
© 2014 Rev. David Seacord
March 9, 2014
Correcting Mistakes…
According to the 6th century Zen sutra Hsin Hsin Ming "To seek Mind with the discriminating mind is the greatest of all mistakes." Another way to say that might be: To believe that we individually are REAL is a trap we can never escape, just like the proverbial monkey who cannot pull his hand out the jar because he will not let go of fruit he is grasping.
We/I, like that monkey, attach to our dramas. We/I then huff and puff our way through them creating our curriculums karma. As A Course In Miracles teaches, none of this is real because who we think we are as 'the separated ones' is not real. The Godness knows only the truth is true. Ultimately, that is the only curriculum. As the Zen sutra says… "The wise man strives to no goals. The foolish man fetters himself."
What does this mean in 'real life' (which usually means 'viewed from within the illusion')? It means we practice by making mistakes and then being responsible for them. We die to our personal significance by seeing from a much larger view. We give up being right. We laugh at ourselves and the revelation of our own foolishness. And gradually, our adventures in the fields of outward pedestal climbing becomes transparent to ourselves, and if we touch those games, we learn to do it as light… as a sun... giving by being.
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One opportunity to remember Truth that I was gifted with this week was through my increasingly transparent court case. In dancing that dance, there are 'the rules of law' to comply with. A couple of weeks ago I reported that I had chosen to appeal my nonappearance default conviction. That choice activated a new set of rules, and this week I was confronted with a 'sudden death' situation… that my paperwork HAD to be 'in their hands' (i.e., not just 'postmarked') by Friday March 7, or I would lose my 'right to appeal'. That set up a potential victim drama, as in "but what if the Post Office screws up?". And true to form, this week it looked like that was in fact happening. I, to be completely on the 'safe side' had mailed the paperwork (certified) Friday Feb. 28… a full week ahead of the deadline. I expected a Tuesday delivery, which was trackable online. Instead, each day this week I followed the surfacing and disappearing of my package, like it was caught in a whirlpool of mistakes, twice being sent out the northern CA sorting center, then coming back in undelivered (as the clock ticked away to the deadline time). I/ego was on pins and needles… until the sanity threshold was touched, and I/ego remembered 'no accidents'. Ahhh… OK God… I surrender it…. it's up to you. If you say it is over by way of missed deadline, so be it. I made my peace with the idea, and watched curiously as my ego adjusted. And God accepted my growth, and gave me a 'go forward' signal… the delivery was made on the last possible day.
In another scene of that same movie, I received the CD recording of my in-abstentia trial where I was convicted. I listened to the judge call the case, describe the charge, swear in the officer, and to the officers testimony about me and what a belligerent person I'd been and why he'd given me the ticket. I was able to practice seeing through his eyes… hum… realizing how his presumptions had set up a seeing that led to different conclusion than the ones I had held. I saw that in his mind, he was right about what he had done. And I saw that he was trapped in that rightness, and quite nervous to have to come and testify about it. I am glad I got to listen… I felt a compassion develop… I saw that war here was not inevitable… that bridges could be built through skillful communication. And I predict that someday we will laugh together.
And thus, the judge awarded the win to 'the People' on a technicality… which I am preparing to challenge. It's like the officers testimony hit the wall (with circumstantial evidence testimony) , but not the bullseye of Proof,… but the court accepted the wall as 'good enough', saying (in this case) 2 + 2 can equal 5 in the absence of anyone to challenge that conclusion. Revisiting ACIM, which says "Mistakes only call for correction"… I am appealing that all involved may reconsider and discover that there are always at least two points of view. Perhaps it is possible that both are 'right'. Perhaps love can enter and be a factor inside of 'the Law'. Of course, you are invited to stay tuned…. :-)
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"I like the sadhu's… I like the way they play…. the wind blows their hair in their face… they go the other way…." (lyric from a Sufi Choir song).
One of my favorite activities is to watch planted things grow. On this little property which has been my laboratory for the last four years I have attempted to give life to many planted things, sometimes with the experience of success, many times not, or not as envisioned. I've noticed, in following the call to do this, that I my self have gradually become more and more rooted here. It's been an interesting process, after a lifetime of many journeys, to find myself 'settling down'. And yet, without this grounding, much that is of value in my life now would in all likelihood never have become. Take this Journal, for instance. It is the current iteration of an original inspiration to redo A Course in Miracles workbook in 2010. And, in so doing, to create a simple support group to do it together…. which led to the need to send out a reminder message each day to the group, which morphed into sharing what I was seeing in the lesson, which led to writing a 'commentary', which led to needing to dig deeper into myself and the course, which created more value to what I was able to say, so that the open group grew by word of mouth, and thus I now write and you receive this Journal. AND, all of this was done AS A FLOW… in other words, it was all a yielding…'a going with the wind'. And what specifically is being yielded? Invariably, it reduces to a yielding up of 'who I think I am'. And, as there is no vacuum in this universe, that yielding becomes a never-ending discovery journey of 'the going beyond, beyond, beyond'.
A story to illustrate… My neighbors Harold and Betty came with the property, so to speak, when my parents bought this place 20 years ago. And he, being about 10 years younger than my parents (and also being very handy) became the go-to person whenever anything didn't work or broke down. After all, he'd known the old man that had lived here previously, and had also helped him. Anyway, the main point is Harold served my parents, and as karma would have it, I am now doing payback service to he and Betty as they become unable to do for themselves.
Inside of this relationship, Harold for many years kept offering to sell me his old Dodge pickup truck, which was mostly just parked in his carport unused. I could see it was a nice old pickup with a new bright red paint job, but I always declined for various reasons… until I realized one day that I would actually be doing Harold a favor if I bought it… that it would take a big load off his mind. Thus I ended up buying it a couple of months ago for a thousand dollars.
Immediately, the lay of the land morphed. Another friend who was a mechanic was visiting me and I mentioned the pickup purchase and just for conversation I showed it to him. He told me he was amazed at the deal I had gotten… that the vehicle was in such good shape that it would be extremely easy for it to become a $30K or $40K show truck…. that the perfectly running 'slant-six' engine was probably worth $7K by itself. In other words, in buying that truck, I had struck gold.
While this was a bit exciting, it did create problems. I realized now that I couldn't actually USE the truck. What if something happened? Now I had to protect the truck, and not even drive it for the most part. And was I the one who was going to make it into a show truck? No… that would be a diversion of my energy. So I put it up for sale, hoping to make a quick profit. And I quickly found out that selling a potential show truck is not the same as selling an old pickup. And thus I still own it, for the time being leaving it parked over in Harold carport by agreement with him, as I have no space to park it on this property.
And as the flow of life continues, it is now spring…planting time. Therefore I have been carving out the time to prepare my little garden beds, excitedly adding new manure and compost to them. And also this week I watched a Youtube video on a new gardening idea that really interested me… planting vegetables directly in old bales of straw ( http://www.nextworldtv.com/page/22800.html). As I was inspired by the idea and it was right now time to be doing it, I went into action… I took a quick gander over to where I'd seen a pile of old straw bales piled up behind the church that my parents had belonged to (yep, still there), came home and sent an email to the pastor asking if I could salvage some bales, (yep, we'd love to get rid of them), and… (after thinking about how to put a couple of bales at time into my Mom's stations wagon)… I suddenly remembered that I now owned Harold's pickup…the perfect vehicle to use to go get a load of straw bales.
Ambrose volunteered to help me do the loading, so we fired up the truck, took it over to the loading site, and proceeded to fill it will the bales. And in the process of loading them (sometimes over the sides and into the bed of the truck) the straw of the bales left tiny scratches on the nice red shiny paint job. At first I didn't notice, but when I did, in the space of a heartbeat I realized I had just crossed a threshold. I had stopped protecting the truck as a precious valuable 'show' thing… I was instead USING it. There was and is something very sane about this… it is called 'non-attachment'. And you know what I discovered WAS actually precious? That freedom-producing heartbeat where I saw I was (in that moment) non-attached.
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May the Blessings of the Godness spread far and wide, illuminating and creating the whole of Life as Love.
Namaste, & Sat Nam,
David
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Rev. David Seacord
Fine Art Painter / Sufi Cherag
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