William Martin's Blog, page 10

New Hand Bound Books

I am delighted to announce that NW Bookbinding, of which my spouse, Nancy, is the bookbinder, has now put into production beautiful hand-bound editions of two of my books which have up until now been available only in Ebook form.  30 Days of Tao and Lost in the Tao are now available for special order. We also continue to bind The Parent’s Tao Te Ching, The Couple’s Tao Te Ching, The Sage’s Tao Te Ching, and my newest, The Activist’s Tao Te Ching.

You can view these editions at this link: NW Bookbinding Editions

If you are considering a hand-bound book as a holiday gift, the time to order is now. Nancy is already busy with orders and can only handle a limited number in order to have them ready by the holidays. An order form is available on the above link or here: Order Here

Again, we both want to thank you for your support and for the world-wide community you have formed. It was a joy to “chat” with some of you via a Facebook event this past Sunday. May the approaching busyness of the season bring you only joy, companionship, warmth, and peace.

Bill and Nancy Martin

Why is Simple so Complicated?

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion.

These three are your greatest treasures.

Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.

Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are.

Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.

From The Tao Te Ching, Chapter 37 – trans. Stephen Mitchell

There is a passage in the book or Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament that states: “God made us straightforward, transparent, and without guile but we have become fearful, closed, and full of devious plans and strategies.” We all sense the truth of this sentiment. We say, and to a degree mean, that we would prefer an easier, simpler, and more natural life but we continue to create more and more complex and self-destructive patterns of living. What’s stopping us from returning to what we know we truly desire? What’s so complicated and difficult about living a simple life?

As the passage from Ecclesiastes infers, our complexity is self-made. As humanity evolved its social structures, a twist occurred that skewed our development and created a deluded sense of what progress, achievement, and a “good life” should mean. There is a pervasive sense of a “lost Eden” in our psyches that is reflected in the myths and stories of our various spiritual traditions. We feel there is something awry in the way we go about our lives, but we seem unable to regain our balance. There are complex conditioned stories and myths that contribute to our dilemma. Our intricate psychological makeup and our convoluted social and economic structures create an almost impenetrable shield against any meaningful change.

One of the many factors that I notice operating in my own life is the process of habituation. In psychology, the term refers to the way an emotional response to a stimulation will decrease as the stimulus is repeatedly given. Substance addiction is a prime example of habituation. Like an alcoholic whose tolerance gradually adapts to the alcohol in his system, creating the need for increased intake to achieve the desired feeling, we have become habituated to a sense of accumulation and complexity so pervasive that our understanding of “enough” is that of an alcoholic friend of mine who tells me, “Bill, there’s never enough!”

I intellectually affirm simplicity. I believe, and have experienced, that freedom comes from needing less of the things that I purchase with the hours of my life. But I am habituated. My culture is very much like a schoolyard drug dealer, promising me excitement and pleasure, then hooking me on his product and making me his customer for life. I say I can quit anytime, but I don’t. I find myself almost unconsciously back in the corner by the street, hiding behind the bushes looking for the dealer because I “need” just a little something more.

At the moment we live in a three bedroom house. One of the bedrooms is Nancy’s studio/workshop. The rent is more than we can afford so we are planning to move to a tiny/small cottage of some sort in order to live more appropriately and freely. Yet, after a year in this house, we have expanded to fill it. We have furniture and possessions scattered throughout the place and are flabbergasted when we find ourselves feeling that a smaller place would be a “sacrifice.” We are habituated to the space as if it should be the norm for a family on this small blue dot of Earth. The myth says, “Earn more so you can buy more – things, space, comfort. It doesn’t matter how distasteful the work or long the hours. Get to work!”

“Bill, is there really anything wrong with wanting to have nice things?”

Well, honestly, wrong is not the word I would use. We can’t be blamed for our wants because they are created by a complex and mostly unconscious process. The question we need to ask is, “Does wanting nice things enhance my experience of the moment-to-moment joy of my life, or does it detract from that joy?” Corollary questions are, “What is the source of this wanting? Why do I want these things, really? What have I seen, heard, or experienced that creates this want? What will happen when I get whatever this want happens to be? Will I be satisfied and content? And if I didn’t seek this thing, what would I be doing instead?”

To chastise myself with, “You don’t need all this. You should be satisfied with fewer things. Give it all away.” is as effective as telling the alcoholic, “You don’t need to drink. Simply stop!” Perhaps cold turkey is often an effective strategy, but let’s not make the mistake of thinking that it is easy, a simple matter of strength and willpower. A great deal of my writing over the years has been the work of a drunk, knowing what the times of sobriety feel like, instructing others (and thus himself) to get sober and stay sober.

Simplicity is complicated. It is complicated for many reasons and habituation is merely one of them. Over the coming months I’m going to be investigating the complexity of simplicity in more depth, using the resource of The Tao Te Ching as my guide. It is the clearest and most helpful guide to simple and authentic living available. I’m doing this because I want to experience more of the freedom that I have sometimes tasted in my life, but have trouble sustaining. Perhaps my exploration will be helpful to you. I hope so. We all need help to feel free.

How Would Lao-Tzu Vote?

Let every state be simple

like a small village with few people.

There may be tools to speed things up ten or a hundred times,

yet no one will care to use them.

There may be boats and carriages

yet they will remain without riders.

There may be armor and weaponry

yet they will sit collecting dust.

The people must take death seriously

and not waste their lives in distant lands.

Let them return to the knotting of cord.

Let them enjoy their food

and care for their clothing.

Let them be content in their homes

and joyful in the way they live.

Neighboring villages are within sight of each other.

Roosters and dogs can be heard in the distance.

Should a man grow old and die without ever leaving his village,

let him feel as though there was nothing he missed.

    The Tao Te Ching, Chapter 80 – trans. Jonathan Star

In a recent discussion I was asked if I could comment on what the ancient Sage, Lao-Tzu, might say about the approaching Presidential election in the United States. The question was asked sincerely and I tried to consider an honest answer.

Lao-Tzu lived during a chaotic period of China’s history. Several powerful kingdoms were vying for the power to establish an Empire. Great armies were being raised on all sides and the wealth than had been spread throughout ninety percent of the population who lived in rural villages was being siphoned into the urban areas where it was concentrated in the hands of a very few. Loyalty, civic duty, and patriotism were the watchwords of the day. Expressions of dissatisfaction were viewed with suspicion. It was in this context that the teachings of Lao-Tzu’s Taoist philosophy were formed.

The power structures of his day considered him an anarchist. He was a rural idealist and felt that the only legitimate government was that of the small community, free to decide it’s own common good and purpose. Leaders would not be those who marched out front and set the goals, but those who discerned with the community wanted and unobtrusively helped them achieve it. Armies would not be necessary because no one would want to amass territory or resources. It’s idealism, to be sure. But the Tao Te Ching is a book of ideals; a series of poetic observations of the way the Cosmos spontaneously unfolds itself. It is a call for humanity to wake from its dreaming and return to its proper place in the Mystery of Life.

So my honest answer is that I believe that he would long ago have left this society behind and the question of how he would vote would never arise. He would consider the country ungovernable and would ignore the empty rituals that perpetuate and legitimatize the privilege and power of the few. He did believe he had a civic duty and he fulfilled it through his teaching and through his life. His advice to us today would be the same advice he wrote to the Chinese people before he disappeared “into the West” twenty-five hundred years ago: the 81 poems of the Tao Te Ching.

What about the specter of Donald Trump? Wouldn’t that be enough to convince him to vote? I can understand that feeling. In truth, Donald Trump is a misogynistic, ignorant, bigoted, sociopath and it is horrifying to think of him as President. But the office of President itself has turned into a horror show; an office no one in any sane society should be allowed to hold. That Donald Trump would be for a nanosecond considered for any leadership position illustrates the dysfunction and insanity of what we have come to call “democracy.”

I will cast what informed votes I can in local issues and participate in my community in as many authentic ways as I am able. But more and more I have the feeling that this nation is no longer functional. It is a shared illusion built on the flawed premise that the nation-state is a viable form of human social arrangement. So, what are we to do? Do we take to the hills? Do we revolt and man the barricades? Those are both possibilities, but neither addresses the true problem: that the modern nation, as it exists, can no longer meet the true needs of humanity. Something entirely new is needed, and I believe the Tao is taking us in that direction. It is inviting us back to an understanding of government that values simplicity, humility, and service in leadership.

New forms of human community are already emerging. People are gathering to support each other in a multitude of ways. My hope is that these creative forms will emerge quickly enough to lessen the chaos of the decline of the nation-state. But there will be many decades, even centuries, of difficult transitions, experiments, failures, and successes. You and I will see the beginnings. Our children, grandchildren, and following generations will have to supply the creative vision and the courage to bring a new world into being. We can help them by ourselves ceasing to cling to a dream that has turned into a nightmare. By waking up, taking their hands and pointing them toward a new humanity, we will fulfill the most important civic duty we will ever face.

Thank You

A Zen teacher once told me, “If a voice inside your head is speaking with anything other than loving kindness, do not listen to it. It is telling you lies.” But it is difficult for an introvert such as me to look outward. Introversion has its blessings, but it can make me vulnerable to the circling of conditioned mental patterns that were laid down decades ago. Sometimes these internal voices seem as if they are, “telling it like it is,” rather than what they are actually doing: telling long dead stories that were lies to begin with.

So last week’s blog, reaching out to a broader community for help, was a terribly important step for me, one that was rewarded by a community of people around the world offering acceptance, support, encouragement and generosity. Nancy and I are profoundly grateful.

Some sent gifts of money with which we started a “Tiny House Fund” to be saved and used to help us make our move to a Tiny/Small house sometime in the spring and summer of next year. This fund now has almost $2,000 in it toward a goal of $10,000. Thank you all.

Some wrote with wonderful encouraging advice. Several people who wanted to give a monthly gift to support our work suggested a website I had never seen before called “Patreon”  I have put up a beginning page on this site and I invite you to check it out. www.patreon.com/williammartin

Other suggestions I want to pass on for ways to help out:

Buy my books to give to friends, colleagues, or as items for charity auctions. Give them anywhere you think they might spark interest.
Buy hand-bound personal journals or hand-bound editions of my books from NW Bookbinding. These proceeds benefit us directly in a very helpful manner.
Share my work on your social media connections and encourage your friends to visit our sites: www.taoistliving.com and www.nwbookbinding.com
If a particular book has been helpful to you, please write a review on Amazon. These reviews actually help sales. The Activist’s Tao Te Ching in particular could use some more reviews.

I’m sure there are many other creative ideas that will pop up in the coming months. For now, we are settling down to work and will spend the winter right where we are. We will research Tiny Houses and similar options and make an appropriate move in the spring/summer. Be assured we will spend the winter warm and comfortable.

People are far more accepting, supportive, and generous than the voices inside your head. Self-depreciation is primarily an inside job. When you venture out, stop believing the voices, ask for help, support, and encouragement – it will come from sources you never even imagined.

You have my gratitude and my blessings,

Bill

Tiny House

Nancy and I have long been fascinated by the “Tiny House” movement — the idea that a person’s home should provide basic and comfortable shelter, but require only a minimal amount of expense and maintenance, thus allowing a spaciousness and freedom in life. For a couple our age, the “Tiny House” turns out to be a good sized 5th Wheel travel trailer – comfortable and affordable.

For years we have taken hesitant steps, occasional leaps, and the odd tumble toward a simple, free, and joyful life. Long ago we left traditional careers and with them traditional income and security. We have moved many times, experimenting and finding out what worked and what didn’t. Over the past 20 years we have talked of simplicity but have been able to live in  nice houses with quite a few perks because of a little supplement each month from a modest inheritance. That supplement has come to a close and we have to take a further step into appropriate living.

A travel trailer is, to be honest, what we can reasonably afford and what will allow us freedom to do our work. My sister owns a couple of acres and a rustic vacation cabin here in Mount Shasta and we will set our 5th Wheel down there with her blessing. If our work begins to earn more in the future, we may add some extras – storage, etc. This is where we will spend our remaining years, and we hope and trust they will be filled with writing, publishing, book binding, and keeping our two small candles burning all the way down to the end.

We are delighted to be finding a more apt lifestyle, but it is a disturbing move in some ways. For all our talk of simple living, we now look around at the stuff that will have to be sold, given away, or stored before we move and we feel a sense of loss and sadness, as if we are losing something of our own self-definition. We’ve begun looking at 5th Wheel trailers and are attracted by the compactness and simplicity offered, but uneasy at the cramped storage, the small bathroom, the three-burner stove, and the oven that will bake one loaf of bread at a time. “This is going to be interesting!” we say to each other.

When will we make this move? Probably pretty soon, perhaps even before winter sets in, but certainly by early spring. Finding workshop space for the binding and repair work will effect the timing. Our focus is to have our living space be in service of our work.

The payments on the trailer will be affordable at our current income, but the improvements necessary to enable us to settle in will be a stretch and may take us several years of some kind of “camping out.” Many of my readers have called and written over the years saying, “Your work is very important to me. If you ever need help, just let me know.” I deeply appreciate these offers and I am letting you know now.

The fact is that being a “successful writer” does not translate into earning power in today’s publishing world. I have readers and students around the world, my books have been translated into eight languages, all of my books still in print, and am consistently in the top ten percent of Amazon authors, yet my royalties amount to between ten and fifteen thousand dollars each year. So… we believe we have found the most appropriate and economical way to do the work that is ours to do. But we could use some help.

It is a bit awkward for me to raise this issue. I’m trying to find ways for the expressions of appreciation and value of my work that friends and readers have shared over the years to be expressed in tangible forms that will help us continue to offer our gifts. If my books and other writings have been, and continue to be, of value to you, would you consider helping us make this transition?

If you would like to talk with me about this, call me at 530-321-5393 (the cell phone service is sometimes spotty so please leave a message if you don’t reach me.) You can email me at: williaminshasta@gmail.com. You can write me at PO Box 982, Mount Shasta, CA 96067

Thanks for everything,

Bill

Taoist Art

The simplicity and “ordinariness” of Taoist thought is often expressed in the traditional ink brush painting that developed in China over 2,000 years ago. Because Taoist thought emerges from a direct experience of the world of mountains, oceans, forests, rivers, clouds, seasons, and all things “Earthy,” this art uses nature themes as its usual subject matter. Rather than painting on site, the artist usually returns to the studio and sits with the memory and the “Qi,” or “Spirit,” of the scene and attempts to express that Spirit with simple brush strokes and monochromatic shadings of black and grey.

Lao-Tzu began his classic, The Tao Te Ching, with the verse: “The tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.” I have spent much of my life trying to capture and express that Tao in the words of my books and essays. That’s fine, it’s what I do. However I am also trying to express in brush strokes the Tao that I can never express in my words, so I have turned more and more to my meditative art practice.

The time it takes to grind a stick of ink in a bit of water on an ink stone until it has the desired texture and color, slows my thinking and my breathing. I put some more water in a small bowl and mix in some ink to get a grey shade. Combining the two shades on my brush I make a swirling stroke that I intend to be the beginnings of a twisted tree trunk. I stop and look and see instead the eddies of a stream as it flows around a rock. I feel less like a “picture painter” and more like a improvisational pianist. Words fade away. The attempt to communicate in concepts and ideas seems less important.

I have been reticent to share this work, but several people have broken through my defenses and communicated their appreciation. So I have decided to publish some note cards with a few of my paintings along with verses from my translation of The Tao Te Ching. I use these as note cards and perhaps you might find them useful as well – for that occasion when email just doesn’t seem “enough.” I have also made some 8”x12” prints of a few paintings as well. Cards and prints are available at the new “Taoist Art” pages in the menu.

note cards

prints

I hope you enjoy them.

Blessings,

Bill

Light

It is easy to slip into self-preservation as the dominant mode of consciousness, especially as one grows older in America. The pursuit of security, comfort, health, wealth, and a certain kind of pleasure-seeking dominate the cultural atmosphere. It is difficult to ignore and I have often been caught by it recently, sinking into a state of anxiety and self-recrimination for reaching “this age” without the markers of success and security firmly established. Thankfully, counter to this cultural angst, I a being greatly nurtured by an emerging sense in my life, and in the life of Nancy and I together, of a mission – a mission symbolized by the theme I wrote of a few days ago: Don’t Let the Light Go Out!

On further reflection I realize that it is not really my job to keep the “Light” alive. The Light which emerges from the Tao and illumines the Cosmos is eternal and beyond any danger. However the smaller, “light,” of human reason, kindness, and compassion may flicker out unless humanity finds a way to let itself be a medium of that greater Light. So when Nancy and I dedicate ourselves to, “don’t let the light go out,” we are saying that our remaining years will be spent doing our tiny part of being “alight” – a medium of the flame of the greater Light. In our case that will be the work of keeping tangible well-crafted books in existence because we believe that the feel and texture of a book in one’s hands is an essential element in the overall communication of the beauty and spirit of the words within. I will continue to write. Nancy will continue to hand-bind and craft beautiful books and personal journals for other writers. Together we will burn until our particular candles are used up.

I realize that I am not the light. I am a candle (to continue with an overworked and over-lyricized metaphor). I simply want my life and work to provide a medium in which the light of reason, compassion, and mystery can burn for as long as I live. Death, then, holds no worries. The rampage of unreason and hatred might sweep over me and snuff out my life, but can never extinguish the Light of the Tao. It will go on shining throughout the Cosmos in its eternal dance. But while I am alive, this Light can be seen through the form of “me” as long as I allow my fears to recede and my actions to emerge from a sense of mission. (for an example of our beginning attempts to articulate this mission, see the new website of NW Bookbinding: nwbookbinding – mission statement.)

It has been a freeing experience to watch the internal messages of a lifetime emerge with a force that threatens to overwhelm me with their judgment; then to watch them fade away in the light of my deeper, truer, nature as it actually shines brighter in its later years. Don’t let the light go out of your life, my friends. Let each passing year, each step toward what our fears call “old age and death,” find it getting brighter and brighter.

Don’t Let the Light Go Out!

I sometimes wake around 2:30 in the morning when my mind is most vulnerable to the scary stories waiting in the shadows. Sometimes I am able to go back to sleep before the stories gain momentum, but other times I watch them slowly get a foothold and begin to terrorize me with nightmarish images. Donald Trump’s angry face is often the poster child in my anxiety closet. For me, he is the archetypal “bully” and I’ve always been afraid of bullies. These middle of the night thoughts are not rational and recede as morning comes, but they make me aware of my semi-conscious fear that the forces of fear, hate, and ignorance will triumph.

It does not help me to try to convince myself that reason, love, and wisdom will triumph. These qualities aren’t fueled by the potent energy that seems to fire the darker aspects of our nature. History is no comfort. Historically the fires of empire, greed, and fear have never been extinguished. They have been challenged, resisted, and even stopped temporarily, but have always returned. Here they are again, burning their way across my culture and the cultures of the world. It is perhaps possible that a new version of the Dark Ages will descend and the jackboots of bigotry will march through our streets.

These images are the stuff of my nightmares and may be somewhat irrational. But the world does seem to be divided between reason, tolerance, cooperation and compassion on the one hand, and ignorance, bigotry, greed, and hatred on the other. What the future may bring is not something I can control. Keeping the light alive, however, is not only within my capability but is also my most important responsibility.

In the historical Dark Ages, the light was kept alive in communities of men and women who dedicated their lives to copying, by hand, editions of books that had been banned and burned; by individuals who kept reading, thinking, and exploring; and by isolated schools which taught wisdom rather than propaganda. Eventually the light of reason and compassion, kept alive in thousands of small candles, returned to the world.

But in the eternal dance of Yin and Yang, the light can never be taken for granted. The time has come for a reaffirmation of depth in our lives, for intellectual discipline, for an affirmation of reason, and for a deepening trust in the goodness and compassion that lies within us. In a culture where books are being replaced by digital pixels and tweets are substituting for mindful consideration, Nancy and I have committed ourselves to preserving the book as a source of learning, pleasure, wisdom, information, and illumination. We desire, above all, to keep the light of knowledge burning in a world that sometimes threatens to tip into darkness and ignorance. We feel that a book, held in the hand, savored, appreciated, and slowly absorbed, is a potent antidote to the forces of mindlessness and blindness.

Writing, publishing, and binding books is our way of keeping the light alive. There are thousands of other ways. I urge you to find your candle. Light it! Keep it lit! Don’t let the light go out!

(And don’’t leave without listening to this video link to Peter, Paul, and Mary. Make this song your anthem for the days ahead.)

Light One Candle – Peter, Paul, and Mary

Elder Wisdom

There have been times long past in places not that far away when grandparents were the primary teachers of children. Parents nurtured, provided and protected, but grandparents taught. They didn’t have to be blood grandparents. Anyone of grandparent age knew their role and accepted the responsibility for transmitting the essence of culture, history, and wisdom to young people. The young naturally accepted this arrangement because the “teaching” was nothing like what we now know as “school.”

Geography and geology, biology and botany, history and literature, science and art were all taught and learned not as isolated subjects but as elements of life. Exams were gentle questions for the purpose of guiding study. Every day was a combination field trip, experimental laboratory, observation, and practical application.

A history lesson might be shared on a walk, around the dinner table, or in front of the evening fire. A botany lesson was often called, “growing, gathering, and cooking.” An astronomy class would be a whole night spent under a clear sky with telescope, hot chocolate, and perhaps a notebook. Wonder, attention, reverence, mystery, and gratitude were the primary learning skills.

I was not the recipient of such an education. School was my lot and I did very well at it – grasping what the teacher wanted, parroting lessons, answering test questions, and getting good grades. It seems like only in the past twenty years, since about age 50, that I have learned anything of real value – some from the wisdom writings of elders from other ages and traditions, some from my own wandering in the world and bumping into things. I don’t have regular close contact with my grandson and granddaughter at the moment. Perhaps that will change in the future and I can offer them what I have that seems appropriate at the time.

I’m not writing this essay to bemoan the state of modern education nor to regret my own missed opportunities. I’m writing it to remind myself and you my unknown friend, the reader, of the fact that the path of wisdom and true learning is not yet closed to us. To take that path we must break our addiction to what is called “information” – brief snippets of tweets, twitters, and posts that are twisted entirely out of context and presented in a manner that grabs our emotional attention and leaves us stirred up but with no depth of understanding or clarity of vision. Wisdom, clarity, and depth are still within and without us, waiting for our attention; and I swear it’s not too late, my friends.

First, take a break from the usual information that pretends to be urgent and important. Forget Facebook, “breaking news,” links, arguments, and all the rest of the cacophony to which we are all addicted.

Take yourself on a walkabout; in the city, country, desert or forest. Take a journal, a lunch, a pair of binoculars, and a blanket. Now and then spread the blanket and sit for an hour and “learn” something from what is around you. Imagine that, when you arrive back home, the elder wisdom keeper in your family/tribe will gently ask you to speak of everything you have seen today. He or she will then ask questions to guide you to explore in more depth one of these things you have learned – in books, on the internet, or, if possible, by speaking to someone in the field. The questions might be:

 “What trees did you see? What are their names? How might you find out their names? How can you tell a Fir from a Spruce? How many different birds did you see? How were they different in their calls, their behavior, and their feathers? What people did you see? What were they doing? What differences did you see? What similarities? If you saw buildings, how did different architecture affect you? In what ways? Which things would you like to see again? What shapes did the clouds make in the sky? Was there a breeze? From which direction?

Now see every day as a walkabout day. Pay attention to everything, everywhere. Notice your areas of ignorance and what facts you might want to look up or whom you may want to talk with. Notice your opinions and judgments and where they might have originated. Do the work of the day, but realize that it is really a “school day” – the Latin/Greek root of the word school is skhole, meaning “place of leisurely learning.” Again, imagine that a wise elder inside of you is waiting to help you learn. You may include formal classes in specific subjects, but always remember that the goal is wisdom, intelligence, good judgment, and artistry in life. Formal classwork is a very small part of such a curriculum.

We are not culturally set up for this kind of learning, so you will have to gather internal and external supportive guides who will help you place specific learning in the broader context of life. Don’t believe the message that we don’t have time for wisdom. Such a message will keep us caught within the current paradigm of society, playing within the rules set up by the conditioning that is taking us inexorably to ruin. An entirely new Path is needed and it will be found only when we stop looking for it in what is called, “information,” and simply admit our ignorance, thus opening ourselves to a Wisdom Path that may yet lead us home.

Elders of the world, wake up! You have never been needed more than you are needed now.

Information or Addiction?

I have a reverence for the symbolism of “sacred images.” Certain images have a palpable power that I feel as I see them, whether or not I follow the traditions represented. I have my own sacred images that, because of associations and experiences, create a literal and objective response within me. Older, and in many ways, wiser cultures than ours have long known the power of images and were very conscious and careful of their use. Sacred objects were carefully designed and used to elicit specific responses in the mind, body, and spirit of the individual. In Buddhist cultures, long hours spent contemplating an image of the Buddha was thought, correctly, to produce a calmer, more Buddha-like inner world. Even a brief glimpse of a Buddha image was known to have an effect. The same has been true across all traditional cultures. Perhaps this is why the desert Hebrew tradition so strictly prohibited any images that would counter their more abstract ideas of deity.

When I sit in the forest with open eyes and relaxed mind, I become forest-like; complex, fecund, and green. When I watch the water bubble up from the headwaters spring of the Sacramento River, I become water-like; fluid, powerful, and unstoppable on my journey home to the sea. When I spend time looking at Internet posts, I become Internet-like; full of half-truths, opinionated, and shallow.

Just as nutrients for the body must come in a broad and complex context, so the work of the mind must occur in a broad and complex context, not in a series of isolated, incomplete, and highly-refined snippets. Processed foods provide the illusion of nutrition, giving a quick jolt of satisfaction, but leaving the body hungry for something more. This is by deliberate design on the part of the food industry. It keeps people coming back and buying more and more, yet leaving them still hungry, thus buying more yet again, leading to the most obese culture in history. “Bet you can’t eat just one!”

In the same way, media provides the illusion of information and connection, giving a quick jolt of emotional energy but leaving the mind and spirit hungry for more so we click yet another link and think we’re becoming more informed and connected, all the while becoming less educated and more isolated than ever, therefore more susceptible to manipulation and control.

Our minds are made of mystical stuff. They are sacred ground which must be entered with care, humility, and reverence for the power that inhabits them. Most of us would draw back from tossing trash on a Native American burial ground out of respect for the sacredness of the location. Why, then, do we take the sacred territory of the mind, the locus of our connection with the Tao, the Universe, and the Mystery of Life, into the arena of Facebook, Twitter, and other Internet “News?” What are we thinking?

We’re not thinking because we are addicted, deliberately hooked by economic interests as surely as kids are hooked by dealers. The gateway drug was television – exciting, entertaining, mesmerizing, and addictive. It was sold by the advertising “mules” on behalf of the “cartels” of business. We were purposefully hooked, addicted, and strung-out so that we would sink our earnings into the bottomless abyss of consumerism that can never be filled. Now we are on the “hard stuff” of Facebook, Twitter, and Internet “news.” It spews opinions, prejudices, hatreds, and distractions, presented in a format that is hypnotic, fast-paced, and screen-focused. It inserts images directly into our brains without the filters provided by natural context and our brain interprets them as “real.” It does not distinguish between the image on a screen and an actual occurrence in the direct experience of life. We tell ourselves we know the difference, but the brain itself does not. The image is there and no amount of intellectual temporizing can stop it from altering the brain. It has already done so.

I have some issues with the traditional 12-step programs, but they acknowledge a fundamental truth: we are powerless over our addiction unless we turn to a Power greater than ourselves. I have my own name for that Power – I call it Tao Mind, and it is, and will always be, the essence of who I really am. This Tao Mind, this Deep Wisdom, is potentially the awakening force of my life. This Mind alone can satisfy the hunger for belonging, connection, and awakening. It is to this power that I am dedicating my life.

Like an alcoholic who knows he should quit but easily convinces himself that the consequences of his drinking are “not that serious,” I tend to go through my life always a bit-off balance. This unstable stumbling seems benign enough, but when set against the possibility of an actual awakening to the essence of Life, it is revealed as a deadly addiction. There are not that many days left and it would be so easy to remain asleep until the Big Sleep takes me. The question: Do I want to wake before I die?

There is a political “debate” this evening. Television and the Internet will be serving up an orgy of emotion-laden images and sound bites that will fill the make-believe world of social media for the next week. No one will be convinced by any argument because no venue exists for reasoned and thoughtful presentation, let alone for any depth of wisdom. I will not be watching. I will be paying attention instead to the direct experiences of my life, as it is in the moment. I will be continuing my quest to live as I think human beings should live on this fragile planet.

Hi, my name is Bill, and I’m an addict. I’ve been sober for forty-eight hours now.