A Panda's Journey
“But do not ask me where I am going, as I travel in this limitless world, where every step I take is my home.”
— Dogen
Wherever you go, there you are.
If you are at peace within yourself – you will be at peace wherever you travel.
Your physical home may be a comfortable place, but are you at home within yourself?
Can you travel and still feel that you yourself are your true home?
Your body and mind a temple in which you reside.
“I have no fear of depths, and a great fear of shallow living.”
— Anaïs Nin
Ralph Waldo Emerson also said “It is not length of life, but depth.”
Depth has multiple definitions, one of them is: “a point far below the surface.”
People dig into the Earth to find gold, minerals, things that will help themselves. But who digs into themselves to find gold within? Almost no one.
There is gold within you – there is gold within all of us, but most will never find or seek the gold within.
“Pearls don’t lie on the seashore; if you want one, you must dive for it.”
It’s easy to do what everyone else is doing – to follow the crowd, to conform, to let someone else tell you the meaning of life. But that is living on the surface; shallow living.
You will get by on the surface, but you won’t find or experience gold within your life.
You must dive within yourself to reach the gold, and it really does take years.
But you have to start somewhere.
Meditation is the place to begin.
You can be like the majority of people & live life on the surface, or you can begin your journey to the gold within yourself.
“Effective people are not problem-minded; they’re opportunity minded.”
— Stephen Covey
Do you look for problems?
Or do you look for opportunities?
Seek and you shall find – if you’re looking for problems you will find them.
And if you look for opportunities, you’ll also find them.
But let’s look at the problem seeking for a moment…
It is so easy to find problems if you look for them – & it seems like the older people get the more they look for problems (especially problems about other people).
This is true for me at least – not me looking for faults in people, but realizing that people were looking for faults in me & my life.
I never wasted my time or energy thinking about what’s wrong with someone – but I found out that people do that all the time.
Some or many people are actively seeking scapegoats. Seeking someone to blame or find fault with.
And I didn’t know that people were doing that until I ran into a brick wall of people’s opinions about me & my eccentric ways, as I prepared for fame.
All of a sudden I went from opportunity & joy minded to problem minded. I went from living in peace to living in fear, and I began seeing problems with everyone & everything – which I wasn’t looking at before.
I lost my energy and my mind in looking outside of myself, towards potential problems, and I’ve been working hard to get my mind back with myself since then. It’s been 3 years.
I’m re-learning to lead my life & be true to myself.
I’m re-learning to NOT be like the problem-seeking people.
And I’m learning to NOT take on the fearful projections of the problem-seekers.
I’m re-learning a lot.
And I’m embracing MY perspective and MY beliefs.
And not worrying if people see a problem with me having my own perspective – because they will.
But some will love it too, and to those fans I say thank you.
“An entire sea of water can’t sink a ship unless it gets inside the ship. Similarly, the negativity of the world can’t pull you down unless you allow it to get inside you.”
— Thich Nhat Hahn
From the time we are born, to the time we lose our own mind (death of individual mind), to the time we physically die, we are being told what to think.
Parents tell us what to think. Newspapers tell us what to think. Governments tells us what to think. Television tells us what to think.
Almost every child born with parents of one political party beliefs will inherit those beliefs.
People think they have their own beliefs – but they almost never do.
People’s beliefs are almost always inherited from their parents, and sometimes by their teachers.
Ce la vie.
Anyway, how can you break free from inherited beliefs and start thinking for yourself?
You have to learn to think with yourself – within your own mind – to ask yourself questions and not just answer reactively, but to dwell in it, sometimes for days, weeks, months, and then brainstorm answers.
This doesn’t happen overnight – especially in these shallow reactive emotional societies we live in.
First, before you start thinking like a philosopher, you have to meditate.
You have to let go of your thoughts and beliefs and just appreciate life beyond inherited beliefs, temporarily, as you continue on your journey.
Here is a great beginners mediation guide. Also the word psychedelic comes from two Greek words that mean “Mind Manifesting.”
“People don’t realize how a man’s whole life can be changed by one book.”
— Malcolm X
One of the first books that changed my life was Way of The Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman. I read it first when I was 19 years old, the summer before my sophomore year of college.
I had just been betrayed by some people who I thought were my friends, and rather than be upset about it, I turned to reading.
I had been a lone wolf anyway, so letting go of people I thought were friends wasn’t that difficult anyway. (But I did feel a sort of sting for a week or two).
I learned early to love myself and not seek approval or love from people outside of myself.
And this book helped me love myself more.
It helped expand my perspective on the world and universe.
I wrote a summary of the book here, but some of the messages in the book are:
“Be happy now, without reason.”
“You are much more than you think.”
And “Life is much more than what any one of us can think.” .. there’s a lot more to life than our thoughts about it.
And “Actions are more important than thoughts.”
Anyway, I’ve read in the hundreds of books at this point. Sometimes it takes reading 15 to 20 books to find the one that I really connect with.
Do you have a book that has changed your life?
“Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.”
— Leonardo da Vinci
Apathy is like gravity today – people revolve around it since it’s so cool to not care…
The origin of the word Apathy comes from the Greek word “apathēs” meaning “without feeling”.
The definition of apathy today is “lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern.”
And we live in societies that tend to shoot down the people who actually care & are enthusiastic about it.
The haters & those who watch the one with enthusiasm are just jealous that they don’t have any enthusiasm in their own life.
“The body without the spirit is dead,” a religious book says, and it’s true.
Yet we live in societies that encourage people to live without any spirit.
People are basically turning into machine-like robots; lifeless, without spirit, without feeling, without enthusiasm…look at the advancement of AI. It has no spirit.
So rather than become more like technology – choose the spirited route.
Dare to care.
Dare to be hated by the lifeless machine-like people.
Dare to love yourself.
Dare to experience life.
Find a person or people who have spirit in their life, and let them be your role model.
Ignore the apathetic & fear-filled masses.
Ignore the robot-type people.
And live YOUR life. Feel great about it, and don’t let any lifeless people manipulate you out of your spirit!
“A secret to happiness is to be as weird as you like, and the wrong people will leave the party but the right ones will join the dance.”
Weird. Weird. Weird.
We all live in a yellow submarine. Well, I do at least, and that’s pretty weird.
Kids are pretty weird, but they lose their weirdness as they try fitting in with others as they “grow up.”
Conformity. Conformity. Conformity.
Many of us are taught to conform. To “obey or else,” and that almost always takes our uniqueness away from us.
People who are different almost always get ridiculed and made fun of by “normal” conformists – who have lost themselves in order to fit in.
“They laugh at me for being different. I laugh at them for being all the same.”
Maybe there can be a balance between fitting in and being your own person. 50/50 60/40 70/30 80/20 90/10, or whatever makes you live what you believe in.
It’s okay to fit in, and it’s okay to be weird.
Are you ever walking in a public space and you pass by a person and they get in your head?
It happens to me sometimes.
I’m focused on living my life, going somewhere, and then a person passes me and then they get in my mind and I can’t seem to push them out.
I don’t usually have this problem, and it happens less, but it does happen sometimes, and I call this a sticky mind.
When I’m flowing, I’m focused, leading my life, centered within myself & accomplishing things.
When I’m sticky minded I’m distracted by people outside of myself – or noises, or anything that is not my goals and dreams…
If it happens to me, it must happen to others. Does this ever happen to you?
Anyway, something I remind myself of is that “these thoughts will pass,” and I will be centered again soon and focused.
I don’t need to fight these thoughts out of my mind – although sometimes I try doing that.
I need to just relax my mind & not take the distracting thoughts of strangers so seriously. It will pass. I will have a stronger mind. I am an empowered individual.
“Society: ‘Alcohol, adderall, Xanax? Totally fine.’
Also society: ‘Psilocybin? Whoa…that’s dangerous.’
Reality: The real threat is waking up in a world that profits from you being asleep.”
It is a lack of proper education, and organizations like big pharma seeking profit over actually healing people, that keeps the cycle of suffering going.
If people had a true education about medicines like psilocybin mushrooms & psychedelics, they would be intrigued and amazed at how incredible these plant medicines can help people.
But our education system – at least in the USA proclaims “drugs are bad mmkay,” while most of those “educators” and so many people are taking prescription drugs because the “doctors know” …
Most doctors have never taken the drugs they prescribe – they only read about it.
Just as most people have never taken a psychedelic – and they take someone’s word for it.
Take my word or don’t, but this is the Truth with a capital T – psychedelics are healing medicines – and I have had amazing healing experiences with mushrooms, but it’s not just my opinion now.
There have been studies and research done in the USA and Canada and other countries that show results to be positive and successful with psychedelics such as psilocybin mushrooms & ibogaine.
These psychedelic medicines also are SO AMAZING that you don’t need to take them every day to see results – you can take them once every month, or 3 months, or 6 months, etc .. it depends on your condition, but these are medicines that DO NOT keep you dependent on them – they set you up to be free.
So, big pharma & the government might be against plant medicines since they will cause a loss of profits to big pharma and the government – and truly – these societies we live in run off of money making schemes.
So, once we are all ready to grow up as a society and look at the Truth, then we can move forward with healing people rather than just profiting off of keeping people dependent.
If you’re interested in learning about psychedelics – here is a short journal filled with ideas, meditations, writing and drawing prompts, for if you are ever on a trip.
Also – psychedelics will be legalized in the future, but for now, be careful and safe. I encourage you to do the research and decide for yourself, and don’t just take someone’s word for it.
“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
— MLK jr.
MLK jr was one a kind.
There are only a very few examples of humans acting like Jesus Christ, and MLK jr was one of them.
Throughout his life & his time as a leader he was often threatened, assaulted, his house was partly bombed, and some of these assaults came from police officers….
MLK jr never threatened anyone back. He basically turned the other cheek, similar to Jesus, & his impact will live on forever.
How can someone love at all after being attacked so many times?
With Ken Thompson 