Illusion isn't the problem. Neither is deceit nor deception. Not even the fact that we reside in a dream state wandering through great disorganized spliced narratives.

Acknowledge God as the substance, law, cause, and activity of all that is, and immediately refrain from meddling physically or mentally in the without. Get back inside yourself, and there resolve all appearances
(-from The Infinite Way, by Joseph Goldsmith)

If we love life we have to live it as it is as we are.

There is no changing life, only changing how we see it.

Get back inside yourself.

There is where all meaningful change is originating.

As God.

Is.

If there's anything worthwhile about being alive and in prison it's got to be that you are alive and you happen to be in prison.

Alive, you have a chance to watch the ego successfully manipulating everyone. But you see this. And seeing this, you are not fooled.

Prison is a monastery awaiting the awakening of those who dwell in the cloister.

As in any monastery, some awaken, some don't.

Tomorrow we'll talk about how to watch, how to connect, and how to serve time with reverence, respect, and resolve equal to what was once called eternity and infinity. It is now. And nothing need substitute for it. Nothing.

See everything, say nothing, serve what is holy.

If this life is a dream, waking up will be part of the dream. If it is not a dream, waking up will be a dream.

Wake me when you’ve got it figured out.

Water Fall

It tumbles over, turbulent like a cloud of rain.
One line becomes two,
And were anyone to ask
Wherefrom comes its source,
It's the fierce thunder
Whose roar breaks asunder the high rock.
- Daichi (1290-1366)

Peter, who came often to the shop, died today.

I greet him through the dream.

Reading Descartes again, 44 years later. I see things differently.

I now know that physical objects are grasped, not by the senses or the power of having mental images, but by understanding alone. (-- Rene Descartes, in Meditation II)

The Course in Miracles puts it this way:

"I am not a body. I am free.
For I am still as God created me."
(--Lesson 204)

biopsy |ˈbīˌäpsē|
noun ( pl. -sies)
an examination of tissue removed from a living body to discover the presence, cause, or extent of a disease.
ORIGIN late 19th cent.: coined in French from Greek bios ‘life’ + opsis ‘sight,’ on the pattern of necropsy.(--Dictionary, Apple Inc)

I love that 'life sight' often signals death.

What will Apple announce tomorrow? Will the ipad1 have a price reduction?

Trouble is they all make sense -- Al Ghazali, Descartes, Hume, Hegel, Heidegger, Sartre, Gebser, Wilber, Panikkar, Leonard Cohen.

Shakespeare:

"Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more...".

(Henry V - Act III, Scene I.)

The brokenness, the crack, the doubt, the open wound -- lets in what doesn't wish to be outside.

Coming home.

With what is, within.

Am I tired of living?
Would I be just as happy to die?
These questions receive no answers.

The eyes are to be trusted. They don't lie. Watch the eyes.

Wearing black robe and straw sandals,
I walk soundlessly.
Thinking of the far distant future,
My eyes never cease to gaze
Toward the ultimate reality.
- Soen Nakagawa

He says, "gaze toward."

Maybe that's all we can do, gaze toward.

We might not see. But we look into the direction.

Someone else's eyes will have to gaze in our direction.

Meeting each other in the soundless encounter of mystery, mystic interweaving, and holy yes.

If you love someone, it is said, you will protect their solitude.

Note: Today, Sunday, There will be no hospitality this afternoon -- and no formal practice this evening, although the meditation space is open for use.