The Sequence of Fortunate Events

I am very fortunate to be living right at the seashore. When I get up in the morning, I can go right out to the beach if I don't have any classes scheduled for the morning. When you look out at the ocean, especially in the off season when there fewer people around, it seems to be a metaphor for just about everything.

Sometimes, I will walk along the beach and look for seaglass. Seaglass is basically discarded glass bottles that have fallen into the ocean, broke into many different pieces, and then land on the ocean floor where time, water, salt, and movement smooth out the jagged edges. The pieces of glass are moved back to the beach after many years by storms, rough waves, and every day tides. After the tide moves out, you can see a few glistening pieces here and there.

Seaglass is not really that easy to find. Mostly there are rocks and shells on the beach in large numbers. Finding seaglass is like finding a needle in a haystack. It's best to concentrate on what you are doing to find it. If you are walking along talking to someone, you will not have enough directed attention to find seaglass. You have to focus yourself to look for certain colors like green, brown, rose, and milk of magnesia blue. Milk of Magnesia blue is extremely rare because they don't make blue glass bottles anymore. When your attention is directed in this way, looking for seaglass becomes a type of walking meditation. After I come back, I feel like i've been on a "Mental Vacation". Most of my mental energy has been spent lately on ways to make a living, running from class to class or client to client......getting stuff done. Repetitive thoughts of various kinds start to become boring and stale. When you are walking along, allowing the wind to blow through your hair, breathing the fresh sea air, looking for your desired object, you can get away from your usual mudane issues.

I never find a lot of seaglass, so what I do find has "special-ness". I've found a few pieces of milk of magnesia glass but no more than 2 or 3. I found an ambered colored piece that still says "no retu" on it. I found part of the very top of an old milk bottle that is still rounded. There's a connection between the bottle's past and the present moment when i'm finding and picking up this piece of glass.......sequences of events from past to present.......recovering something that has been discarded and broken ,and smoothed and changed by forces greater than itself. These ideas are halligraphic and true for everything on the planet.
I often think about sequences of events in my life. .....all of the people that i've known and all of the different experiences that i've had. I bet you do the same...wondering what is happening when things come back around again changed and made new by forces beyond your own control.

In Master Patanjali's Yoga Sutra(book 2, 2.1)--That which is seen is there to serve the seer. Our world is made up of many different events, some good and some bad. All of it is there, however, to point out something. You don't have experiences just to say," I've had so many experiences." Something is meant to unfold. You noticing the unfolding with your careful attention......that is what Master Patanjali is saying.

Are you there God, it's me Jeff Reed?

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna(who represents the physical manifestation of God) and Arjuna( Krishna's warrior student) are walking through a vineyard. Krishna says to Arjuna , "Arjuna, what do you see in front of your eyes." Arjuna replies, "I see a vine with many bunches of grapes on it." Krishna says, " Look again, look more closely."
Arjuna took a second look. when he looked again, he could see the face of Krishna in each grape and the image of Krishna throughout the length of the vine. The basic fundamental nature of everything is God.

Look into things, instead of at them. Practice cultivating a mind that is able to see the presence of God in every thing, every one and every situation......including "bad" ones. I'm definately not the first person to say that there is great value in looking at a negative situation as a secret gift to you. By staying open to the unfolding of the teachings in the loss, problem, or difficult person, you will move toward the secret treasures not easily seen with the first glance.

No matter what, it's the god-force that determines the outcomes. Master Patanjali in the Yoga Sutra (2.1) says, practice yoga to reduce both physical and mental impurities, develop a capacity of self-examination and reflection, and understand that, in the final analysis, we are not masters of everything we do.

We are not masters of everything we do????? Is Jeff Reed the master of everything he does? ? Is Jay Cutler??? Mike Tomlin?? Barak Obama???

Has Jeff Reed not worked hard perfecting the art of kicking???? He is so reliable and has accomplished many great game winning field goal kicks for the Pittsburgh Steelers. How could he have missed two in the same game, it's statistically impossible. Maybe it was something else then.....the forces that be, maybe the wind. Something that's statistically unmeasureable. Jay Cutler too.....he lost his first game as a Chicago Bear quarterback against their arch-rival the Green Bay Packers the week before. The Fans of both teams expecting their outcome to be the wining outcome.... The Bears won at the very end with a field goal kick that was not affected by the wind. Look closer now....where's the divinity in this?

If you're a Steeler fan, the season has just started and an early loss does not hurt as much as a loss in January. By losing , the Steelers are able to see their errors more purely than if they where the one's to win by a kick. The timing of losing early in the season will give them more room to examine themselves and improve so they will not be placed in the position of having to win just by a fieldgoal kick in the future.

If you are a Bear's fan, Jay Cutler is now relieved of the burden of looking bad in your eyes. The Chicago Bears get to win against the World Champion Pittsburgh Steelers. All is well in Chi-town.

But wait......They won only by a field goal kick...

so, you see....

It's all just Emptiness

There's a side of human nature that makes us unhappy when we see someone else getting something that we really wanted to have for ourselves. There's a belief that life isn't fair and that karma doesn't really work consistently all of the time. Why do bad people prosper and good people suffer???
With karma, we are both subject and object at the same time..what we do we do to ourselves , since the mind is the movie projector of our experience. The bad people prospering and the good people suffering are actually projections from our own minds. There's nothing really out there, except what is planted in your mind. To change these projections, you must change the contents of your own mind. If the mind is a movie projector, then you must go to the projector itself and change the reels. It's foolish to throw popcorn at the screen....this is just the after effects of the karmic imprints.

What does the term "emptiness" mean from the perspective of karma? Emptiness means that everything we see is valueless from it's own side and that we project values on experiences/things. The values come from us, from our actions toward others karmic seeds are imprinted. For example , if we are not honest with people in our lives then we see people being dishonest toward us.....in various ways and degrees.

Karma is relative. Every karmic act is mixed; nothing is purely "bad" or "good". Even at the level of mental intention, no act done by a normal living being is devoid of at least some selfishness and thus at least some negativity. If the predominant intention or belief is that one's act is "good" that plants one kind of impression on one's consciousness. But if one is aware that the act seems to harm another, that awareness also leaves a karmic imprint on one's mind.

we are subject and object, we experience ourselves as we do because of what we've seen ourselves do to others. But also and simultaneously, we experience others the way we do because of who we think we are.

It's enough to remember "what goes around comes around". States of deep meditation roast the seeds of negative karma......sit down and work out the antidote mentally....when you take away the pain of another, your pain is taken away. When you trick another person, you also will be tricked. Realize that you control what is coming back to you.

The Diamond Cutter Sutra is called the "diamond cutter" because it takes reality as you know it and cuts it.....it's not by grasping for things that you get them, it's just the opposite...it's by giving things away.