Today’s Notes

April is the cruelest month, but, generally,

the spring is usually the upheaval time for 

me, when there are changes and obstacles.

Separate times, I moved to a dharma center

on April first, to stay each time for four 

years. I moved to Medellin on April first last

year…a brief disaster. I was back in Mexico

by June. Why do I notice, does it matter? 

Just a pattern. 

Patterns become superstitions. If you listen 

to patterns in the MSM, you begin to believe

in whatever it is they’re saying. Goebbles’ 

trick. Black Lives Matter! Burn the witches!

Ladies and Gentlemen…use your heads!

I saw Paula Poundstone in concert once.

She gave 2 hours and was funny. Then, she

came back again and just kept talking and

talking. People started to leave. Bizarre.

The novelist, like the cinematographer, 

paints a picture…take you with them into it.

Joseph Conrad did that extremely well.

People even get worked up over soap 

operas, tele-novellas. People will believe 

anything. Absolutely anything. I mean, if 

a belief is benign and kinda fills or obscures

that empty center at the heart of us all, why

not, you might think, believe it? Maybe that

works most of the time.

Problem is, beliefs aren’t static. They accrue

over time, strengthen like the ornaments on

the shell of a hermit crab. Good thing they 

can also dissolve. “Belief in anything is 

simply a way of labeling the mystery.” 

Chogyam Trungpa. 

You can’t question a belief. That part is 

abetting the fact that life is a bitch. 

Questioning, observation, are necessary

because things (the situation on the ground)

are always changing. So, in terms of 

confronting situations such as love making 

or war, beliefs are always an obstacle.

And that’s the way it is….Thhuuuulllllllllllpp!