CoachBri’s Blog

Bill Maher is an intelligent man. However, all of his arguments are still put together by a fragmented view of the world. He says some very powerful things that point to America’s deception. Yet the real deception in the world is the external conditioning that creates the fragmenting and deception of our own psychological sickness. Patriotism to any flag creates chaos that robs people of their brotherhood and connectedness. To think from any religious point of view is to put limitations on the power of human possibility for insight. The things of thinking can never in themselves bring about fundamental change! Thought cannot perceive or reach anything deeper than itself. So any movement, be it political, economic, or religious, will never go to the core of the problem that creates all this human disorder. Unless we stop being poisoned by the cultures we live in, or start to raise our children to be citizens of the earth, who don’t have to spend their life conforming to the culture we live in, we will remain self-centered, egocentric and violent. The picture the world has of mental health is of a person able to conform to a pattern of society and succeed in it by making a their fortune, whatever that may be. They forgot that actual success in this society is truly an indication of sickness. Less than 1% of the richest people in the world have 85% of the world’s wealth. This past bailout will end up, when it is all over, costing America trillions of dollars. Once we see we are stimulating the economy for the rich, by the rich, we will also see that we are costing coming generations hardship.

The world economy is based on war and the machine of war. This is nothing more than a reflection of our own consciousness, which is always setting up conflict, or the inability to get along. Bill Maher is a comedian who does a great job of pointing out fragmentation and holding it up for us all to look at. By doing this well he casts the idea into our minds that because we see the fragmentation or sickness of this world is it does something. BUT IT DOES NOT.

The only thing that will change the human experience is to remove from our hearts the things of the mind. That is the journey we are all on. To empty is to have no religion or political identification and to not let conflict become the dictator of thought itself. The pattern set out by thought is the wrong pattern. Any pattern thought projects itself into is a place where it doesn’t belong. Compassion, insight, and love can use thought and then thought has a purpose. Without compassion conflict will never end.

Coach bri

The park was small and quiet. A large river flowed on both sides of the park. After the downpour of rain, the smell of sewage was strong whenever the wind blew through a few tall solitary spaced trees. An old man, walking bent over with a cane, slowly made himself over to the small bench made for one person to sit in the serenity of the green space. As he sat, his hands and movements seemed to be well practised and his long nimble fingers placed the cane comfortably beside him and then he took a deep unencumbered breath. As his chest began to rise and fall he appeared to be somewhat more relaxed and the stress of his weathered face seemed to be removed and lost its hardness. He seemed to sit there for quite some time oblivious to everything around. He seemed very comfortable where he sat and even his feet were placed in a certain position that was known him. The city of Osaka was full of bustle and noise yet in this small quiet green space there seemed to be a break from the known, as well as the noise.

How important it is for us as human beings to be unoccupied and have a mind that is free of all external and internal pressure. Most human beings are occupied all the time with trying to achieve goals, accumulate ideas, money, power, sex or even trying to find the love that they want. We never take the time to look at the fact that we are always so busy inwardly and occupied with so many things that our brain becomes tired, monotonous, and caught in a rut. This rut that human beings are in has become our mediocrity, our prison and our false need of security. We think that through a routine, rituals, traditions, we are safe and protected, protected from hurt, fear and loneliness and all our psychological self-centered problems.

Humankind has been unable to solve many of our external problems such as war, poverty and destroying the environment. These problems themselves are created because inwardly in each of our daily lives conflict, greed, and convenience rule. Each human being has a self and that self is of the greatest importance. We spend most of our time satisfying the self and all its egocentric pursuits. This self is always pursuing pleasure and running away from pain.

Human beings have the greatest difficulty coming to terms with the fact that self is the dominant thing in our lives. When self is the dominant thing in life we lose all sense of relationship. Therefore we are unable to see ourselves as we are because the you that is is defined by your relationship with people and things. We are unable to solve the external problems because we cannot face our internal problems and in this is the revolution that interests me the most. To gather great wealth, have a good position in society, to be well respected for the letters that one has after their name – these are the pursuits of most people. These pursuits are in fact the pursuits of our ancestors and yet they continue in modern world today and are the central cause of the direction we’re headed. We will start looking more and more to other planets in the solar system and spread our poison rather than face ourselves and solve the noise within us.

Everything in life needs the space in order to grow. Even the most beautiful music in the world can be defined by the space between the notes. Inwardly human beings need space. This space means that the noise of thought is not the main occupation of the brain. And then it follows that most human beings would be terrified of such a movement because inwardly their self would not be a priority. Most religions unfortunately have caught onto this and have used methods and systems to get out of thinking, but they cannot see that the methods and systems that they’re imposing are also put together by thinking. Therefore the state of silence that they are trying to achieve is in fact imposed by the noise of thinking. People are happiest when they are doing something they love, mainly being creative. When we are creative, that creativity is in fact a thoughtless action.

As I sat and watched the old man leave and watched another person come and take his place, I began to feel the mechanical mess of ritual. A ritual is something you do over and over that is void of all creativity. In order to be creative, all thinking must come to an end and action flows out of the deep awareness and silence that is not the cultivation of thinking. That action is whole, healthy and responsible. That action is not the action of accumulation or gathering and not part of any premeditated result. In that action there is no regret or flaw because it is void of self. That I believe is the action necessary for change. That action cannot be brought into being through any type of effort, system or method.

I watched the sun slowly move behind the clouds and could feel the coming of another rain. As the sun slowly moved behind the clouds the buildings on the horizon took on different shades of red and gray. There in the beauty of the earth and in this buildings have their place. Several large swans were making their way slowly up the river. Every once in a while they began to honk loudly and then scatter about. On the other side of the river standing between two metal beams was a large beautiful heron. It stood on one of its spindly legs and was absolutely still. In that stillness was its precision. Every so often at lightning speed it would snatch a small fish from the river and then remained perfectly still again. It was a benediction in the current which was full of music and love.

Coach bri