Essays: 2000s

"The New Society in America"

It seems that Americans are drawn to politics and religion in this New World we live in. Although the old saying is to never speak of these with other people unless you wanted an argument. The different ideas and agendas seep to the very bone of those who want the country to be like their personal ideals. In the "melting pot" that I was taught in school things looked like everybody would be "one" with freedom. Freedom, however, has led to many sects and factions.What should have been taught is tolerance and love. 

I am an educated disabled combat veteran of the U.S. Army. In the fields of death and disease we think only of survival. Where it is peaceful and calm our free will grows to allow us to think and analyze. What we must seek is the truth. How can a finite mind comprehend the infinite? Everything that is done by mankind and society affects people, sometimes for generations.

People with thoughtfulness and knowledge try to prove what is true immediately. For thousands of years we have had the same questions with few answers. The philosophy of "I Don't Know" should be seen as the center. What we believe and teach ourselves is how to live in this world, the Physical Reality. We are selfish in our survival and the dreams that make us happy. The burden of the future and eternal time does not lie in the action of just one man or one woman. Everyone has a part to play in the present moment.

We are still willing to kill each other over land, oil, money, and power under the god we believe. Christians, Muslims, and Jews have waged war on the Earth for all of their existence believing that they are the right and hold the truth. While in every religious book they have god tells them not to kill. In a world of selfishness, hate, and greed the love of the hearts of mankind is growing darker. Where is the peace when all are enemies?

In America we are generally Christian. We believe in the God of Abraham and sent his Son to save the world from sin. Jesus Christ was the embodiment of God's love and mercy. A Christian is to be Christ like, to follow what He taught. Now we fight under God for one nation. Even though Jesus taught peace and love, we sing hymns in church like "Onward Christian Soldiers" as we send our love ones off to kill or be killed. Does God understand our fear, our selfishness? What Jesus taught was to loose the self and think of others before you think of yourself. But do you think of those words when you are behind a gun aimed at center mass? How can one man truly judge another man in the battlefield, in court, in public places, or even in private? We are taught from birth "yes" and "no", "good" and "bad", to take orders and to listen to those in authority. Who do the people in authority listen to? Who orders them? It's not that of a righteous heart and clear mind.

Most people ask just to be left alone and do what they want, a simple form of anarchy of sorts. We establish order in groups so that the majority gets their way in society and culture. We are only free if we obey what the powerful have determined to be the laws of the land and do so as far as they can reach. We all have ideas on what we think is right and true, but what understanding is used? We are not using the historical, secular wisdom of the past or the way that is taught in the book we swear by. The truth is lost somewhere under a pile of profits and gains.

Sitting at my writing desk I am not hot or cold, hungry, or fearful of my safety. As soon as I leave my personal habitat the reality of the present weighs heavily on my heart, mind, and soul. I see potential, hope. Although every media outlet plants the seeds of doom with every second. How can we experience the world while looking at a TV? Instead of having direct experiences millions of people are having pseudo-experiences. It shows that life is black and white, being alive or dead. Nature tells us through the study of science and thought that we are complex machines in a complex cosmos. Our religion tells us which way to go and live by, there is only one path of light and all others are darkness. We must really not believe in what we are supposed to have faith in or this world would truly be heaven on Earth. Just seeing all that we can do, what has been given to us, that there is absolute truth and beauty.

My search of the mysteries has brought me to this answer: There is no reality in Nothingness. Something (Life, Light) cannot come for Nothing (Death, Darkness). Something cannot turn to Nothing. Only life can create life. Only with love will we find love. Every person in this county, on this planet, faces the same fate as all others. What  we do with our time is so precious. You have to take the next step from belief to knowledge and wisdom. In this framework we can harvest peace, love, tolerance, and understanding. We are our only hope to change things for the betterment of all mankind. The Most Valuable Person on the team is every individual that draws a breath, We must live together, sharing this space we were blessed with. It is hard but I think we can do it.
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"When One Grows"

The wind blows through my hair, the sun shining on my face. I knew that this is what God was to me in the times of my youth. I went to church every Sunday, first Baptist, then Methodist. I was baptized in the Methodist Church in 1983. Believing the Christ, God, and the Holy Spirit was with me. In the late eighties things began to change. I was changing. My thoughts and dreams of Heaven were being destroyed by reality.

Beginning to abuse my right to live, I was in self-centered survival mode. Not worried about what I felt, or how others felt. I needed to be better.

I joined the Army in 1991. My training and discipline was good and positive. In 1993 I joined a task force to go to Somalia. My experience of death, disease, and poverty made me lose God. Nihilism was all I could understand. A psychologist there taught me how to meditate to help me sleep through the gunfights and mortar rounds. A captain in my group gave me a book on metaphysics. I read it in a couple of days. I was more lost than ever, few hopes and too many questions. There I decided to make sense of the human condition and study. 

Up till my 30 birthday I walked in darkness. I had problems handling death and my necrophobia, these was taking over. I abused drugs and alcohol. I could never be settled or comfortable. My mind was in a race against time. One day I came home from work and my toommate was on my couch with blood and pieces of brain matter scattered across the room. I realized then that I had to know, I had to learn. 

I decided to formally train in the proper why to meditate from a Zen Master. I went out of town and lived and worked in a Zen temple learning how to empty my mind, my body, and my soul. On January 2, 2002, I awoke to the cosmos while meditating in the meditation hall. I saw that all religions, theories, and philosophy had to hold parts of the truth. Everything was one, everything turned simple. The Sun, the Moon, they were brighter, my tea tasted better, my mindfulness and concentration opened my mind to help learn what I really wanted, to prove that we have a soul logically. 

After years and thousands of hours meditating it came to me. All my studies of philosophy, Zen Buddhism, the Holy Bible, the Quran, the Sutras, the Gita enabled me to come to a realization and inspired a word combination of three sentences of what I believe and the metaphysical argument of the proof we have a soul. Even though I have wrote many short discourses and poems it boils down to this:

There is no reality of Nothingness. Something (Life and Light) cannot come from Nothing (Death and Darkness). Something cannot turn to Nothing. These three sentences are the object of my meditation, the original state of my being.

Every time I smile I see that this simplicity is the energy of my soul. My eternal soul, our eternal souls are what we need to be at peace with love, understanding, wisdom, and compassion. I am like a child again.