Long Road to the Road

One morning, while hanging out in a Yosemite community kitchen, several friends began talking about the future. “What would be the ideal living situation? What would a perfect home look like? Where in the world would be the best place to settle?” These were some questions that were asked, and all of the answers given were surprisingly similar. Thus was born the dream of the Conscious Creation Community (CCC).

Since we all envisioned practically the same communal living space, we thought, “Why not work on it together?” For weeks, the discussions circled like an eagle on an updraft around this distant target. Would such a grand vision be possible? So, I heroically stood and declared that there would only be one way to find out. We stacked ourselves fearlessly into a cheerleader-like pyramid and shouted, “Let’s do it!” ...Or, “Go Team!” ...Or... something like that.

Well, actually, most of my friends suddenly became quite terrified at the prospect of pursuing their dreams. This is an aspect of human ego that has always mystified my rather driven nature. To date, dozens of these totally amazing people remain “on the fence” about their own creation. “To be or not to be,” seems to be the question at hand. Also: “Get busy livin’, or get busy dyin.” Or: “A bird in the hand, gathers no moss.” And: “Would you like fries with that?”

Before anything can happen, however, several steps need to be taken. First, we need a better idea about what we are looking for in a community. Second, we need to know where in the world this space will evolve. Finally, we need enough financial backing to follow through with these abstractions. A number of us collected and wrote down some thoughts about the CCC via e-mail. Our numbers contain experts in every subject from permaculture and carpentry, to medicine and the culinary sciences. We are a well-rounded group to begin a social-circle. Others of our number are fairly wealthy already, owning multiple houses (for liquidation) and large savings accounts. One of our family is even currently traveling to find the appropriate spot to settle. (At this moment she is in Tasmania, but will probably continue her search in another place soon.)

Within our approaching success, I realized that in this material world money would play a large part in cementing our creation. So, in order to speed this along, my best friend Marina & I decided to leave the comfort of Yosemite for the open road. Yup, ya’ll may not have seen this coming, but we became long-haul truck drivers. The most common response to this news is, “I just don’t see you doing that, John.” As though I belong locked in lotus-posture on a mountain top, or running a free-clinic in downtown Berkley. C’mon people! I love my new job! :o) This position affords me the chance to meditate 10 hours a day, listen to all the audiobooks that I can stand (or...sit), study Mandarin full-time, hang out with my buddy, practice taiji quan whenever I want, do tons of qigong, AND... make piles of money. We can pull-in almost $500 a day on our beginning pay-scale, and build our savings for the CCC. Also, this is our chance to tour the beauty of America before leaving her forever. (I have no intention of staying in this place for long. Let’s just say that I have studied history in detail, and am not a fan of the US.) "O to be a sailor of the world, bound for every port!"

Well, that’s about all that I’ll write for today. I recently discovered a Facebook account for Amaris Hossli, and will create a fake account to let her know about this Blog. She is, after all, a large part of the reason that I’m sitting here writing instead of enjoying this gorgeous, crisp, COLD Montana morning. Below, I’m going to attach the CCC letter that was written to friends as an overview of my own hopes and aspirations for our community.
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Ho Ho Ho! Merry CCC-Mas! So, here are my initial thoughts about how the farm will look.
(Disclaimer: all statements are subject to radical change as better ideas come along.)

Physical location: I'd like this space to be large. That is, the area
that we live on to be reasonably small (comfortable), but the land
where the home is resting should be large. I like the idea of
purchasing large swaths of "un-sullied" land in order to nurture the
nature. Humans can give back to the land as caretakers, right? …Just
to have a number to play with, we often talk about 1,000 acres, but
that number is only a reference point for discussion.

I'd like for the family on the land to be able to live independent of
the outside world. (Not that I'm seeking an isolationist life, but the
freedom is worth developing.) As such, I think that a fully productive
garden and perhaps a greenhouse would be fun. If a surplus of food is produced on this land, perhaps then we can provide for any locals that may have trouble finding enough food for their own families.

This brings me to another point: I'd like to leave the United States
of America. Truly, I'm quite sorry to say so, but this government
bites! After finishing medical school, my friends and I began studying
history along with our socio-political economic tendencies. After
becoming horrified, I decided that this is not a place that I'd like
to create a home. At the moment I'm playing with the idea of Costa
Rica or Nicaragua; but, again, those are just more reference points.
I do love trees. A forest would be nice. Rainforest? How `bout a
jungle? Well, you get the idea. I'm open for several variations.

Water is very important to me. It's good FengShui to live near a slow
moving small river, with a hill or mountain behind the house (did I
mention that I like mountains?), and with a lovely lake in the
distance in front of the house. Sounds nice to me! In general FengShui principals are very important to me.

One important piece of discussion will be "global warming" & and other environmental / political/ economic changes that are a-comin'. For example, we won't want to be too close to sea level, or in a place
where people will find a cache of oil.

I would like to be in a beautiful and extremely rural location, but
close enough to a real city that we can make a day trip if needed.

My home will be completely "green." This is part of the reason that
we'll be creating this space. No more half-measures. No more saying,
"Sure, that's nice, but wouldn't it be really great if…" Finally,
we'll have the chance to do it right the first time. It'll be
difficult, but way fun. As little a footprint as possible. The space
itself should be built to compliment nature, rather than detract from
its beauty.

Family: I'd enjoy a community of like-minded people. Of course this
has a number of implications that will be explored (along with all of
these other subjects) in great detail over the next little while.

A daily practice would be an important requirement for people wanting to live on the farm. All people need (in the very least) a method of processing their life experiences. Without those practices drama can become an issue, issues can become problems, and problems can tear apart a community. "Ego" is a term often used in meditation circles. I think that the dissolution of the ego (or at least this process) is a very important way to keep a village healthy. This is the same for lifestyle choices. I don't think that it's possible to live an
"internally" healthy life, while living an externally unhealthy one.
For example, I don't believe that substance abuse is complimentary to a balanced mental/emotional lifestyle, and no spiritual master that
I've ever heard of would ever recommend such crap. Positively &
optimism will be a way of life, so that the social environment itself
supports a healthy mindset.

I'd like to create a space where people can come to heal and to train
over a long period of time. Perhaps they can pay, or maybe they can
just work hard for this opportunity. (That'll be figured out later.)
This can be the same if they come to learn a skill from another person living in the CCC.

No money should be needed in this space, but everyone does their part equally. (Communally based economy?) However, there will be a way to build a reasonable income for the family, and I'm sure that we all have ideas about this.

People will never have to "work," but everything will get done. That
is, some of us like to run a kitchen and cook, some of us like to
garden, and some enjoy cleaning. Why not let everyone do what they do for fun anyway?

I am unsure about whether or not people there should be vegan. No
single choice has more profound an effect on the world at large as the choice to go vegan. (For instance, the single largest source of
green-house gasses comes from the cattle industry. Even more than the entire transportation industry!) However, I can see instances where the eating of meat has no detrimental effect to anyone but the person doing the consuming (for example, eating road kill). This, as well, deserves further discussion. Veganism is not a religion to me.

Finally, we have noticed that people want to reap the benefits of the
CCC without doing any of the work. "Call me when it's done" is the
most common phrase we've heard lately. We also realize that people
de-value things that contain no real investment on their part. Perhaps
some sort of investment should be mandatory for anyone wishing to join?

Well, these are some of the things that I've been dreaming about for
the past few years. If everyone else will write some of their own
hopes & fantasies down, maybe we can consider them a blueprint for the future? :oD
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If your meditation
Is truly high and deep,
Then you are bound to have
A silent dialogue with peace.

The No-Thing-Ness of Spirit

I have a few scattered remarks about spirituality. Spirituality is not an achievement, a salvation, an accomplishment, a technology or technique for living. It is not an ideology, not dogmatic, has no scriptures nor practices. These experiences belong to paradigms alien to spirituality. These experiences are heavy and are attempts to anchor our existence to something for purposes of security.

There is not a way, path, exercises, ideology, teaching, dogma, etc. that one uses to find it. It finds you, sometimes gradually, sometimes slowly in mini insights or maxi insights that happen to you but that you do not propose or cause to occur. There are many ways of talking about it but none of them can get you to it. All one can say is that if any of the above are what you are looking for, spirituality will escape you.

[I love it when people make up a story to explain their non-linear insights. These can range from magical people & animals, to aliens & accidents. The one about the pirate and the magic stone is great (Mormon), and the alien overlord brainwashing alien ghosts is fantastic (Scientology). However, my favorite has to do with worlds resting upon the backs of giant turtles. The stars move overhead as the oblivious reptile swims through the galaxy, looking for a mate. New worlds are born as they copulate. (Talk about a big bang theory!) ]

There is an incredible lightness of being in spirituality. Light as opposed to darkness and light as opposed to heaviness.

Heaviness is often sought to anchor our lives down and promote security of salvation, a strong foundation to stand on, a belief system to secure us, a teaching or practice to keep us on the track to salvation / enlightenment / meaning /value / importance. Curiously, this stable, salvation grounded security is usually focused and considered as reaching fullness in some other existence than the present. Spirituality is about the present. It is always at hand. It is a way of experiencing life now.

It is incredibly light in that it is not anchored down to any "thing", mental, behavioral or otherwise. It is generally experienced as liberation in comparison to the slavery of the "egoic self". It cannot be calculated or measured by any calculation of degree or depth.

It carries no baggage at all. Liberation from the baggage, the heaviness of the above is, for me, it's most treasured quality. It is not-denominational, not subject to schools of teaching, not ideological, not achieved, not serious, not defensible nor convincible, in no way judgmental and not what most people associated with religion call religious, pious, or formulaic, not dogmatic, does not depend on exercises or paths which are as heavy and stilted as they can be. Zen, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism are suggestive substitutes for spirituality that all too often distract from spirituality. Zen, often considered the most transformative way into spirituality, is, in my estimation, a finger pointing in the right direction, but has been compromised in its traditions and organized "paths" and "ways".

Spirituality is full of mercy and compassion, non-judgment and empathy. Absent these qualities, what passes for spirituality is farce and illusion.

For many people, spirituality is often entered a few minutes before death. That is a shame considering that it is available from at least the age of 60 or on, give or take 60 years.

Subjectively, it feels like a huge burden has been lifted from one's shoulders. I am often asked how it happens to one. Sometimes it's like a flash of lightning in a life, most of the time it beckons to us in suffering or the daily upsetness or stresses of our experiences or in situations when our world is falling apart. When one becomes sick of the sickness of not experiencing life spiritually, the opportunity for entering it opens up. Sometimes one slides into it as easily as a hot knife cuts soft butter. Whatever way it happens to one, the happening is not a paradigm, a technique, or a path for others to follow. It's not something you have, it has you, and then you find it leaves you being a liberated you with a lightness of being beyond previous imagining.

The entrance into spirituality is always idiosyncratic and always involves the loss of the mind-made self and a discovery of the actual self.

I cannot say any more about it. Experience it and let me know what words you might use to talk about it. Like mine, they will always seem as articulate as a baby babbling.

(Thanks to: excentrik-spirituallity.blogspot.com for the wonderful phrase-ology!)
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The Way that can be told of is not an unvarying way;

The names that can be named are not unvarying names.

It was from the Nameless that Heaven and Earth sprang;

The named is but the mother that rears the ten thousand creatures, each after its kind.