Exportation from Costa Rica, and most countries, took a huge hit in 2020 due to the pandemic. Procomer is thinking ahead to 2021 and making plans to strengthen trade, especially with the U.S., Japan, China, and Russia.
The post-pandemic reactivation of exportation will have many facets. There will be Commercial Promotion Offices, outsourcing of contracts with business chambers, and support of embassies via an agreement with the Foreign Ministry.
Two Commercial Promotion Offices will be added in the U.S. New York and Miami already have them and they’ll be added in Houston and California, because Texas and California represent 25% of the GDP of the U.S.
The intensity of promotion in Chile and Korea will be lower and more focus will be on Nordic and Baltic countries and Japan. Japan has a growing interest in high-quality products, such as coffee from Los Santos.
11,700 vaccines against covid-19 are entering Costa Rica this week, on top of the 9,750 doses that arrived on December 23rd. The vaccination is made by the pharmaceutical company Pfizer and the company BioNTech.
The vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 (covid-19) will be given out in a priority based order, keeping in mind that certain populations are more likely to be exposed and then expose others and that other populations are more susceptible to complications if they were to get covid.
The first doses have already been given out, and just in time for Christmas. The priority 1 group includes healthcare workers, because of their increased chance of exposure, and seniors who reside in long-term care facilities, because of their increased chances of both contracting the virus and having life-threatening complications arise from it.
The vaccine is a bit complicated to prepare because it must be defrosted, diluted in a serum solution, and inverted various times without being shaken. Each vial must be split into five individual doses.
Those being vaccinated must sign a consent form and are asked to report any adverse effects. They are given a vaccination card which indicates the date when they must receive the second dose.
Is human ingenuity sufficient to meet the crisis of climate change and species extinction, or will only a radical change in human consciousness itself, beginning within the individual, be adequate?
The usual, outer-directed view is that all we need is “human ingenuity, unleashed in coordinated, well-funded fashion on the climate crisis” as has been to develop a Covid-19 vaccine.
However “human ingenuity” is what has decimated the Earth. Even if “we deployed the planet’s best minds, funded them well and turned them loose on the problem,” climate change and “The Sixth Extinction,” not to mention economic injustice and political chaos, would continue.
Viewed from satellites that afford a whole view of the Earth, even conventional thinkers say, “There’s something sacred to this sight. As the source of all life, as the birthplace of our species, it deserves veneration. It follows that any harm done to it — and we’re doing plenty — is a desecration.”
But then, with unbelievable obtuseness, they go on to say, “We need an all-hands-on-deck fusion of the Manhattan Project and the Marshall Plan, only this time funded by all of the world’s major economies and led by the largest: the United States, the European Union and China.”
Those are examples of human ingenuity all right: building atomic bombs with the destructive power of the sun at its core on one hand; and rebuilding a devastated continent after a war that killed over 50 million people on the other.
Besides, nation-states are incapable of leading in a global society, even in the dream world of “the world’s major economies and led by the largest.” Nations serve their own self-interests. If we really want to meet the crisis of climate change, the cornerstone must be cities.
It’s dreadfully mistaken, when referring to the ecological crisis, to say, “The war has started. We’re losing.” The Earth is not at war with us; the only war is by man. The Earth is merely reflecting and boomeranging us back to ourselves.
“A fusion of the Manhattan Project and the Marshall Plan” is absurd. We need an authentic worldview by a sufficient minority of people. Apparently even people who make a hobby of studying the Earth from space (apart from astronauts perhaps) haven’t acquired one.
The truth is that the advocates of “human ingenuity” venerate man and thought more than they venerate the Earth.
Why did the Earth evolve man, a creature of increasing fragmentation, when nature’s first principle is seamless wholeness? Does life make such a ‘mistake’ wherever so-called intelligent life emerges? If so, is it completely up to the potentially intelligent species to awaken true intelligence?
The first is a question that science cannot answer, and theology, or even philosophy doesn’t even ask. I propose the answer to the second question is yes, although some symbolic thought-bearing, technological species are obviously more pig-headed and slow to change than others.
Clearly, whatever “the mind of God” is up to in the universe, it’s completely up to us to awaken true intelligence. That isn’t a matter of ‘free will,’ because the will is never free. It’s a matter of response and responsibility for the whole of humanity, which is within each one of us in microcosm.
Therefore, while questions of vision, political strategy, technology and policy are important, the deeper, more critical and rarely examined challenge is the fundamental question of whether human beings can bring about a revolution in consciousness.
We emerged as “fully modern humans” tens of thousands of years ago, possessing the intellectual capabilities we have today. Since then our consciousness has been dominated by images, memories, assumptions and identification with particular groups, from tribes to nations.
Man is a psychological, social and political animal, and for the human being to emerge, a conscious transmutation is required.
While thought, accruing knowledge, has created tremendous technological developments, global markets, medical breakthroughs and great architecture, it has also created organized crime, terrorism and immense injustice and insecurity.
Many of the unseen consequences of self-centered activity and self-interest, such as racial, class and religious division, now threaten our very survival, including global pandemics, climate change, extinctions and mass food insecurity.
A psychological revolution would overthrow the limitations of thought in the individual and in the global society, allowing a coherent movement of true intelligence, propelled by shared insight and inclusive participation.
So can human beings, for the first time in historical and evolutionary history, radically change within, and thereby change the basic course of humankind?
In this perilous epoch, we can adequately respond to the existential dangers of environmental, epidemiological, political and social crises through a revolution in consciousness. We can transform ourselves into human beings of insight, rather than the symbol-based, limited and selfish hominids we have been since “fully modern humans” first exploded onto the scene less than 100 millennia ago.
To hell with personal resolutions — let this be the intent of awakening human beings for 2021.
Before I talk about the Werewolf of Bettembourg, let me tell you about the White Wolf of Luxembourg. During my time with the US Army, I took a nice R&R break to Paris, France, with a stopover at Luxembourg. The year was 1974. I was stationed at Merrill Barracks – Nurnberg, Germany. The thing that was nice about being stationed in Germany is that there were so many European countries close to Germany and it was so easy for me to travel here and there. Travel was inexpensive when you are in the Army and I definitely took advantage of all the traveling deals that the Army threw my way. Being stationed in Germany, I met a German girl named Hilda from Luxembourg and she invited me to Luxembourg and promised me that she would show me the sights. When I arrived in Luxembourg, I was given an assignment. I was at the time working for CID (Criminal Investigation Division) DST (Drug Suppression Team). I was an MP (Military Police) working undercover narcotics. My code name in CID was “Porkchops”. CID asked me if I was going to Luxembourg, if I could go to a discotheque and try to locate a drug supplier to Army soldiers nicknamed Doctor Feelgood. Doctor Feelgood was supplying Army soldiers in Nurnberg with Black Opium Hash; Tripping Green Hash and Brown Bombers (a type of barbiturate). I agreed that I would try and seek Doctor Feelgood out and make a controlled purchase from him. I met up with the German girl named Hilda and she showed me some of the sights of Luxembourg. We visited Vianden Castle and the Victor Hugo Literary Museum. In the evening, we went to a discotheque that Doctor Feelgood would frequent. While at the discotheque, I tried to locate Doctor Feelgood without any success.
This was the first time I ever went to a European disco. What I did learn was watching the dancers dance to disco music. Songs like “Rock the Boat by the Hues Corporation” and other songs like Do It by B.T. Express, Lady Marmalade, Kung Fu Fighting, etc. I was amazed on watching the dancers execute their fancy steps. Little did I know that CID later on in my career would send me undercover to various discotheques throughout Germany, seeking out drug dealers. While watching these dancers, I became a dancer myself. I became a very good dancer, winning first place in various dance contests. When I got out of the Army in 1976 and went stateside, the first job I landed was with Arthur Murray’s Dance Studio as a dance instructor. Later I would go for the Guinness Book of World Records and danced 205 hours, 8 ½ days, holding the record for over a month, before I was beat by a disco dancer in South Africa. My first attempt at gaining the world record was by dancing 72 hours. This was not good enough and I eventually attempted the world record and succeeded with 205 hours. But, this article is not just about my career in disco dancing, it was also my fascination with the paranormal.
Many Europeans have stories of the paranormal and Hilda was no exception. Hilda told me a story about how her brother when he was 12 years old encountered a white wolf in Luxembourg and that the white wolf actually attacked him and left claw marks on his chest. I had the opportunity to meet Hilda’s brother and he opened his shirt to show me the scars on his chest from this white wolf. I learned that stories of wolves and werewolves were common in Luxembourg and many other countries in Europe. Below is a story about a werewolf in Bettembourg.
Bettembourg is a commune and town in southern Luxembourg. It is part of the canton of Esch-sur-Alzette, which is part of the district of Luxembourg.
Apparently a creature of some kind, believed to be a werewolf, prowls the hills of Bettembourg and its howls can still be heard today. Here is the story behind the legend:
A young man who was supporting his elderly parents went off to war. The townsfolk heard nothing from this young man and the townsfolk wondered if he was still alive. His elderly parents were very concerned on the whereabouts of their son and wondered if he was killed in the war.
The parents with a broken heart passed on, it had been many years since they last seen their son. Their son became a forgotten memory to the townsfolk.
On one given day, a disabled soldier came down a road to Bettembourg. He seemed to appear out of nowhere. It was evident that this disabled soldier had witnessed horrifying things and undergone nightmarish times. His eyes were full of shock and horror and he was cursing underneath his breath as he approached the town. The disabled soldier finally took a seat and kept mumbling to himself. He spied a crucifix made of stone and like a crazy man, started throwing stones at the crucifix. The disabled soldier acted like he was possessed by a demon. He destroyed the stone cross and then after the destruction of the cross, he left the town of Bettembourg.
From that day on, the town of Bettembourg became haunted by a savage horrific beast that looked like a wolf. This wolf would violently slaughter any living animal or human crossing its path. The townsfolk no longer thought this to be a wolf, they made the determination that it was actually a werewolf. A monk asked the townsfolk to create a silver bullet to kill this werewolf. On the silver bullet they would engrave holy names from the Bible. The townsfolk sought out one of their own, a marksman who was known to have an accurate shot when hunting deer. The townsfolk marksman made good with his expertise with the rifle and killed the werewolf. To the surprise of the villagers, when they approached the dead body of the werewolf, it transformed into the crazy disabled soldier. The dead disabled soldier was cremated and prayers were said over his ashes. The villagers spread his ashes in an unknown location and the town was never terrorized by a werewolf again.
There are some townsfolk who still make claim that they can hear the howling of the werewolf late in the night. So with stories like this, I only wonder if the White Wolf of Luxembourg could also be a werewolf?
“We are waiting…for change, for the future, for news, for tenderness, for each other, for patience to wait some more.”
That pitiably truthful vicious circle, in the [Philosopher’s] “Stone” of America’s leading newspaper, captures the zeitgeist of the moment. Never has the truth, “Waiting is death” been more clear.
Another pundit adds sentimentality to the waiting. “This is the great promise of the solstice: Like steadfast friends who see us through everything a cold world can throw our way, the solstice reminds us, every year, that light is coming. It tells us that darkness is never here to stay.”
Waiting for the darkness to end is like waiting for depression to end; both only deepen with waiting. You have to turn and face the sources of darkness and depression, or they grow.
Conflating the natural cycles of light and dark with man-made darkness is an existential mistake. Man-made darkness is here to stay because it comes from within us. The weight of it will increase until enough of us turn, face and take responsibility for it, and in doing so, transmute ourselves, and the human species.
Hear the echoes of man’s primal fear, psychologically maintained: “We are mortal creatures with no fangs and no claws and no fur, shivering in the cold, vulnerable to predators lurking in the darkness.”
It’s inane to ask in the next breath, “Why wouldn’t we pray for the return of light and warmth?” Such an attitude confines us to a human condition that has become completely untenable.
It’s simply doesn’t cut it to say, “Modern pagans still celebrate the solstice, but this year has brought fresh reminders to everyone else of just how close we remain to the earliest peoples, even deep into the 21st century.”
Romanticizing humankind’s indigenous past has become au courant, but it amounts to avoiding the imperative for radical change in our age, beginning within.
Besides, we aren’t living during the childhood of our species, praying for the sun to return after a long winter, and fearing that it may not. We aren’t the Mayans, who could predict with astonishing accuracy the movements of the stars and eclipses of the sun and moon, but still sacrificed people to placate the gods.
The darkness of the night, or the season, or even the perpetual darkside a planet tidally locked to its star, has nothing to do with the darkness generated by human consciousness. There is no inner darkness in the universe except in man, and creatures of thought like man, wherever they exist, that are destroying their planets as we are.
Having reached the limit of what the Earth can endure of human fragmentation and rapaciousness, our individual and collective darkness will only increase until we become lights to ourselves. If this pandemic does not compel reflection and insight, which cannot be as long as we pray, wait and hope for a “return to normalcy,” some other man-made manifestation of the crisis of our consciousness will ensue.
Why do even children “feel the weight of time now?” Is it because time’s “openness and elasticity has closed down?” No, it’s because parents and teachers aren’t learning, in the inward, non-accumulative sense of the word, about themselves, and so are passing down the weight of the past, with its illusory “openness and elasticity” of time, to the next generation.
Since our darkness as individuals, peoples and a species is being reflected back to us, let us seize this interregnum between presidents, wars and man’s destructiveness to learn within ourselves, and teach children about thought and time, death and love, nature and humanity.
The present in not a water slide from the past to the future. With self-knowing and attention, it is the portal to the timeless, the immeasurable, the sacred.
Working through and doing the spadework of individual and collective consciousness (which at bottom are the same thing), we take the journey of inverse learning and reverse growth that nurtures our potential as human beings.
It’s those people who are not waiting, who are seizing this pandemic-induced pause in man’s march to nowhere except increasing fragmentation and disorder that will inherit the earth.
The sky was a hazy gray above the hills, and the creek was a lazy trickle at my feet during the sitting beside the stream. But as I rose to my feet on the winter solstice,
the sun was a huge and brilliant orange ball on the horizon.
One was present with the beauty and mystery of the Earth, but traces of the fear and sorrow of world remained.
The endless journey into the infinite depths of the unknown can only begin each day when the mind and heart let go of increasing weight of the past, and one enters the open portal of the present.
When I investigated the Porter Building in Woodland, CA, little did I know that it was so haunted. I first learned about it, because a musical band posted that they would practice their music at this building back in 1997 through 1999. They said that every night around 2am, they would hear knocks on the 2nd floor. They would open the door and no one was there. They also heard little children giggling, laughing and running down the hall. The band members say that the paranormal activity was witnessed at times by 20 people.
When Deanna Jaxine Stinson and I, investigated this building, Deanna witnessed ghostly children coming out of the walls of the building. I took my digital recorder and captured a Class A EVP of a little girl’s voice, saying “you are pretty lady”. The ghostly girl was most likely saying that to Deanna. As we walked around this building, I felt a presence behind me and as I turned the corner, I felt a jab to my waist. It felt like an index finger jabbing my rib cage.
If you are ever in Woodland, CA, stop by the Porter Building, located at 501-511 Main Street. The Porter Building is a historic building listed on the National Register of Historic Places located in the Downtown Historic District of Woodland, California. The building was designed in 1913 by architect W.H. Weeks, architect of many other landmarks in Woodland such as the Woodland Opera House and the Yolo County Courthouse. Note: The Woodland Opera House is very haunted and I investigated the Opera House with my team and captured a lot of evidence. I also investigated the Yolo County Courthouse and one of my psychics was touched by a ghostly cowboy. One of my investigators captured a man’s disembodied voice saying…”love Missy”. This could have possibly been the cowboy that touched my psychic. Today the building is a part of the Downtown Woodland Historic District.
I received a phone call today (11/25/2020) in which the caller claims he explored the building during the time it was abandoned. He says that he was tripped by an unseen force and fell to the floor. As he was trying to get his composure to get back up, he felt a strong hand grab his hand, as to lift him up. After this experience, he said he would never go back again, it frightened him to no end. As he ran out of the building, there were knocks on the wall that followed him all the way to the door. The caller says this is the most scariest thing that ever happened to him.
I plan to go back to the Porter Building, sometime in the near future with Deanna, to see what other kind of evidence that I might get, it’s definitely an interesting place to investigate. If anyone has investigated the Porter Building or had experiences at the Porter Building, I would love to hear about it. You can email me at: jazmaonline@gmail.com
After spreading plastic and pads to ward off the dampness, a flock of robins greet me as I take my seat amidst the wet leaves. They land close by, and one swoops down and swerves within inches of my head. It seems more like play than aggression.
Stillness and mystery pervade the familiar streamside meditation place after the first rainstorm of the season. Despite or because of the overcast day, subtle light and color invoke immense, sublime beauty.
Soon every thought is incinerated in the flame of attention effortlessly gathered by passive observation. Near the end of the meditation, the sun pokes through the now-bare trees. Death, one realizes, is not the end, but the ground of being.
An unknown black and white bird with a huge crest lands on a branch in front of me, remains for only a second or two, and flies off downstream.
What is consciousness? Is it only that which takes place between our skulls, and is confined to humans? Or was the universe aware before it evolved conscious beings aware of the universe?
I understand consciousness in a twofold way: the clamorous, disordered consciousness that we know; and intrinsically ordered consciousness that that emerges when the movement we know is silent, negated in undivided and undirected attention.
The consciousness we know is comprised of words, images, memories, experience and knowledge. Whereas the consciousness we don’t know can never be part of the known, since it is always of the present, perpetually beginning.
What’s remarkable and paradoxical is that the evolution of the consciousness we know, based on symbolic thought, gave humans the capacity to commune with the consciousness of the universe, but it also prevents the human being from sharing in the awareness of the universe.
In deeper states of meditation, when the mind-as-thought is completely still and effortless, undirected attention to the outer and inner movement obliterates the distinction between the inner and outer, and one enters, without fear, the house of death. Without a trace of morbidity, death becomes an actuality, present in every breath, as it truly is.
The actuality of death is only fearlessly seen and felt when psychological time ends. Clearly, the separation of life from death was the first duality of thought. Apparently as soon as humans became conscious of our death and began to think in terms of time, we feared it, as the end of ourselves.
However the self is but a construct of thought emotionally experienced as separate and permanent. It’s actually just a bundle of images, memories and conditioning, infused with emotions and egoic attachment.
The self is not character, which to some degree we’re born with, or the soul, as the essence of ourselves in some indefinable way. But we cling to the self as if it were life itself.
In short, the self is a thing of thought, and human beings aren’t things, however much we may download our petty selves into the thought machines we’ve made in our own image.
The continuity of thought that we think of as ‘me’ certainly ends when the body expiries. So what is death with the ending of the self, at the end of our lives or while fully alive?
When the division between life and death ends in attention that quiets the entire movement of thought, one enters the house of death without fear. One doesn’t physically die, but death is present, as it actually is inside and outside the skin every moment.
Death, like love, is not personal. To ask, “What is death to you?” is not merely to ask the wrong question; it is to preclude asking the right one.
The death of a loved one is a crucible of grief and sorrow. But inwardly, can we live with death every day, so that when we physically expire, we’ve made a friend of death, and perhaps even transcended it?
Before the cycles of birth and death, including the birth and death of the universe itself, there was death, the ground of all matter, energy, life and being.
Touching that ground every day by allowing space for the silence of being, what is death? It is synonymous with awareness, creation and love.
The first Costa Rican to be vaccinated against covid-19 is Carlos Abarca. He was vaccinated in the United States, at his place of employment, the Texas Children’s Hospital. The Consulate of Costa Rica in Houston was there to photograph the event.
The Costa Rican resident of Texas was inoculated on Thursday morning, day four of the vaccination campaign in the United States. The vaccine was developed by Pfizer/BioNTech and is delivered to the vaccination sites in refrigerated boxes.
Abarca said that he feels fine and is looking forward to the end of this pandemic. He encourages all without contraindications to vaccinate as soon as we are given the opportunity, so that we can get the pandemic under control.
The National Vaccination Commission has defined the populations who will get the first doses in Costa Rica, when the vaccines arrive in the first quarter of 2021: healthcare workers, seniors over the age of 58, and those with jobs where they come into contact with others, such as domestic workers.
What do fake news, misinformation, disinformation, virtual reality, Q-Anon conspiracy theories, and AI have in common? All are products of the human mind, and none have anything to do with truth and actuality.
The commentariat is beginning to realize that “the chorus of angst over misinformation has focused too sharply on the channels supplying it, when the bigger problem is the public’s appetite for consuming it.” But no one is sufficiently asking: Why is there such a demand for disinformation and conspiracy theories?
A superficial diagnosis inevitably results in an ineffective prescription. Many academics assert that things can be put right if the educational system produces people who are capable of “intellectual virtue,” which “is the ability to embrace nuance…a realm of opacity that is neither stark truth or fiction nor obvious right or wrong — without collapsing into nihilism.”
Though it sounds reasonable to say, “the rejection of nuance is the most compelling explanation for the rise of disinformation,” it’s deeply mistaken.
In truth, the philosophy of nuance is one of main reasons that reasonable people are incapable of addressing blatant lying and disinformation.
The false choice is between the ineffectual prescription of “embracing nuance” and “a Manichaean worldview that sees everything as wholly true or entirely false, a patina of plausibility leads to an extreme conclusion.”
However “a Manichaean worldview” is a classic straw man. Nonetheless, profs and pundits have erected a mammoth intellectual structure against it, which, like the Burning Man, they perennially ignite in a ceremony of self-congratulation.
Embracing “opacity”–the gray area between true and false–is not a state of humility. It’s a conceit of the cunningly confused, intellectuals incapable of seeing the true as true and the false as false because they don’t believe the human mind is capable of doing so.
“Nuance” is just another word for relativism, for blurring the lines between true and false, and for not seeing things as they are.
That’s precisely what has led to this pervasive culture of nihilism. It’s the end product of a philosophy that maintains all ‘perspectives’ are equally valid, and that truth doesn’t exist except as we individually and collectively determine it. Is it any wonder why so many people have come to believe that since nothing is clearly true or clearly false, they may as well believe whatever they want to believe?
The confusion and crisis of human consciousness obviously goes much deeper than the philosophical bog of Western civilization however.
All data and knowledge are being collected, linked, collated and analyzed in ways that have already gone far beyond our capacity to understand, much less control the outcomes. Consequently people who should know better (and I’m not referring to creepy Musk) are advocating welcoming the brave new world of being cyborgs.
The ‘thinking’ goes like this. Since “The expanded mind of AI overseeing the Internet of Things as well as the Internet of Bodies will not only extend from outer devices and processes to the inner recesses of what we once thought were our private selves,” then I may as well embrace the world and consciousness where “I have become a node in this network of networks and no longer can live without it.”
The quote is from professor of religion at Columbia no less. He idolizes human thought and the machines it has made in its image: “As sentient environments and distributed cognition continue to expand, I along with all other smart things and smart bodies will be contributing to the complex intervolutionary process that will continuously shape everything and everyone for a long, long while to come.”
Such revolting spiritual wrongheadedness unabashedly puts the cognitive realm (human plus computer) above direct perception, feeling and religious experiencing. If allowed to prevail, it will be the end of humanity, under the guise of “gestating nothing less than the human being of the future.”
Without radical change of this basic mindset, climate catastrophe, species extinction, and ecological collapse are also inevitable. Yet professors of religion, as well as many scientists speak and act as if this is a valid and viable way ahead.
The continuity and interconnection of data and knowledge in the AI cloud marks the end of man as we’ve been for tens of thousands of years. Will it mark the end of the spiritual potential of the human being as well?
Though not achievable as an end or fixed state of being, clarity is essential. The lifelong basis of having insight into what is and discovering the living truth is seeing the true as true and false as false, without “nuance.”
We can both grow as free human beings, and use the AI cloud of the Internet of Things. But to do so one has to be willing and able to regularly stand alone in the cloud of unknowing.
Covid has spiked so badly in the USA that we’re receiving emergency warnings on our cell phones not to go out. The necessity of physical isolation makes daily contact with nature all the more imperative.
The winter rains still haven’t started California. They’re nearly six weeks late. Climate change is undeniable here. Rain is predicted in the next few days, but with only about a 50% chance.
The color has faded from the parkland, and most of the brown leaves are down. I meditated for an hour and a half at creekside as sunlight drained from the treetops, and dusk descended on the short day.
The stream of thought cleared and quieted, and once again one could feel the truth beyond words, “Be still and know that I am God.” One doesn’t seek stillness and sacredness; one simply enjoys sensory awareness and attentiveness in nature, and stillness and sacredness flood in.
After all the years of meditating, it’s still a wonder how simply observing the movement of thought and emotion in the mirror of nature, and not interfering with judgment or choice, the mind spontaneously falls silent and the heart instinctively knows peace.
The secret to daily peace and renewal is ending the continuity of thought and emotion. No effort or concentration can bring about the silence and peace of being. There is no ‘how’ to doing so, and all methods and techniques of meditation prevent the phenomenon of meditation from occurring.
One simply passively observes the movement of thought and emotion without the observer, that is, without judgment and choice. Attention gathers within one, and acts on the ‘me’ and all its contents, quieting the mind and opening the heart.
Into the spaces between thoughts flows direct perception and insight, which illuminate and extinguish the psychological movement of thought. All that is true, good and holy flows from stillness, silence and emptiness.
Teilhard de Chardin’s cliché quote notwithstanding, that “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience”, the problem of time and temporality remains unaddressed.
Psychological time is continuity, and continuity is psychological time. There is no continuity in nature as such; there’s only perpetual beginning, ending, and unfolding–birth, death and creation.
One can develop a proprioceptive sense for time. Proprioception has to do with the position and movement of the body, as when you close your eyes with your arm held out and know where it is.
One can learn to feel the movement of psychological time in the body. Thought-time is subconsciously assumed to be real and fundamental, but it’s a construct, not an actuality. Experience is the continuity of time; experiencing is seeing, feeling and being in the present as it is.
Of course most intellectuals, by virtue, or rather vice of being intellectual, dismiss such a proposition out of hand. Never having experienced a state beyond experience (a paradoxical but not contradictory statement), they insist that the human brain is incapable of experiencing life unmediated by symbols, words, images and memories.
However moments of ‘immaculate perception’ are not only possible; they have become essential to surviving and thriving as a human being.
Watching and remaining with thoughts and emotions as they arise without trying to change or end them, the movement of thought, emotion and time suddenly and spontaneously ends.
Emotions are residues of experiences that persist largely unseen in our limbic memory. Whereas feeling, whether it is painful or joyful, sad or ecstatic, is of the present.
Most people don’t want to feel anymore, and make themselves numb one way or another. But to not feel is to be inwardly dead.
Like with other things, Teilhard got it backasswards. We are temporal creatures with latent spiritual potentialities. To be a human being means awakening our spiritual potentiality while living in this temporal world.
It isn’t our lifespans that make us temporally bound, but rather the illusory continuity of psychological time.
Meditation begins by asking oneself, ‘Is the observer operating?’ and watching its infinite regress until it stops.
Meditation flowers in asking, ‘Is time operating?’ and watching and feeling the movement of time in the mind and body until it suddenly stops.
Then there is simply the strangeness and mystery of being.
Sara Donald 