a zen approach

Tim started studying zen meditation in 1976, Jimmy Carter's first year. Up until then he was an alter boy. Over the next 20 years he tried to merge Tibetan Buddhism (the goal to reach the Pure Land while focusing on the journey) with Shinto (we are descended from Gods from outer space, a philosophical path referring to the energy generating the phenomena to the divinity or sacred essence that manifests in multiple forms: rocks, trees, rivers, animals, places, and even people; nature and people are not separate; they exist within the same world and share its interrelated complexity.) [80% of Japanese are Shinto, and what a belief system, huh?] And Shao-Lin (One with the Tao in peace and balance and harmony).

In Tim's words: Consciousness accomplishments appeared. Learned Egypt's Only One has an Only One, Osiris and Horus, much akin to Odin and Thor and Yahweh and Jesus, The Father and Son, Divinity, the teachings that we too are as divine as the Father, and a return to Catholicism, Jesus as Brother. A Zen Catholic, and why not, because zen is older than Buddhism, and Zen is the capstone teaching because zen practitioners abandon labels and smile a lot. I personally believe my reality is my experience, I am the master of my physical reality, and reality is my equal master. We are one. This isn't theory. For 12 years of my 16 year search separation of my physical body and what I could see disappeared. Walking around in the element air was like walking around in the element water because I was submerged in the air. It's called experiencing emptiness. There is form, your body, and there is emptiness, your body one with space. This feeling may come quickly, or it may take six years of twice daily 30 minute meditation. The experience has labels, when it appears you are blown away, your consciousness expands with the knowing you really are everything. The feeling comes and goes. And the feeling reappears when you sit in meditation everyday. I lived with this feeling of constant emptiness for 12 years. I sat in meditation with 2 trees, an Australian Bottle Tree and an Australian Purple Eucalyptus, and the purple girl's trunk was as wide as a car. The bottle tree said, "Woman and trees are the same, we both have deep roots, we both grow tall, and we both bear fruit." Blew me away. I trained with these trees. One day I was walking along and a great green desert dove landed on my head. Another day a preening cactus wren landed on my shoulder. And one day a majestic red tailed hawk sat with me, right there next to me like a brother. In this state of emptiness I could hear for miles and smell for miles. Just incredible. Our potentiality is untapped. And then an event. As I stood the sky, the atmosphere, the great vast blue turned into a giant blue pancake and PLOP! fell to the earth; and on impact rebounded in the direction it belonged, grabbing me by the souls of my feet and flinging me upward at tremendous velocity, blowing my eyebrows back! When the sky was back where it belonged I stood panting, and realized as I stood atop the atmosphere I could breathe, there was breathable energy all around me, just like on Earth! And looking down I saw a band of rainbow from the souls of my feet to my body on Earth, and what a view. I believe that father sky and mother earth work for us, and father sky will plop and, mother earth will rebound for us and make us fly if we want to fly. More importantly, trees are female, they laugh like girls, so please be nice and stop chopping them down! What if we are taught respect and revere loving kindness, isn't this what God is supposed to be, loving kindness? Love loving kindness love God.

For 12 years two way cool lady trees taught Tim about trees and made him laugh. In return he made them laugh and sometimes gush, and he would plop the sky on top of them so the sky would push the girls to stand with him atop the atmosphere. Little did he know that tree species have group consciousness, and every time the girls stood atop the atmosphere, or flew in bending lines into space, all their kind all around the world were experiencing this phenomenon also. How could he know? It wasn't until years later on his travels the trees would stop him and sing thank you zen master. There's just so many dimensions to consciousness. Perhaps it is so that we have attained enlightenment when we can see the whole world looking at us and smiling at us, we smile back and connect, poof, one with all things, one with everything. That's how we can walk around in the world constantly. It doesn't come and go. It is always like this, only ordinary, nothing special. Just a smile. The sky is blue and trees are green. Very ordinary. And he loved everybody all the time, which was very easy with no one around; harder when together with others. Things happen, strange and unusual, that's right. Whether you are standing with your foot on a tree just like an Egyptian or on your way to the bus stop, unusual sometimes appears, yeah?

In Tim's words: In my humble opinion we live in dimensions, in many centuries on many planets, all at once, do not overamp. Everything we think say and do affects us on many planets in many centuries, a vast tapestry, a multi-colored textile. Back to now. We breathe. The big picture's there and here; we focus on our immediate environment and discern what is the correct situation, what is my relationship to the correct situation, and what is my correct function with heal help as motivator. Perhaps I do nothing, yes?