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writing for godot

Focusing On Not Focusing

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Written by Terry Sneller   
Thursday, 18 September 2014 05:51
Bob Alexander's incredible article, By My Clock It's Always 9/11, pointed out that I am one of the, “... less that 30% ...” who is old enough to actually remember JFK's assassination. It also means that conversely 70% of those who are alive today have no direct experience or memory of the state of existence that the world was in BEFORE Kennedy was shot and thus, unfortunately, have no personalized awareness of the value of all that has been taken away from them, since.

The day he was murdered, I was in college and driving a delivery truck part time for the largest department store in Wichita Falls, Texas, which is a stagnated, oil based city about 140 miles from Dallas. The startling, breaking news on my little transistor radio compelled me to immediately swerve over to the side of the Seymour Highway, turn off the engine of the van and start to quietly cry.

You see, there is a powerful emotional difference between someone dying in the abstract and someone dying with whom you had a direct connection. Nineteen-sixty three was one of the more remarkable years of my life! I had spent a wonder filled and exciting summer teaching sailing on Cape Cod Bay and toward the end of that season, one Friday afternoon, I found myself standing at a counter in the Hyannis Airport waiting for a paycheck to be processed, when a sweeping crowd of people began flooding into the main lobby. It rapidly became obvious what was occurring as the Secret Service and press people started filling up the previously empty area and creating an expanding opening as the Kennedy family plowed through the crowd on their way to their private compound, which was down the road in Hyannis Port.

Striding through the buzzing swirl of people in flowing, rotating motion came John, Jackie and their nanny with John-John and Caroline on leashes -- mischievously giggling and torturing the nanny by simultaneously hopping off in opposite directions from her. Then unexpectedly a direct, eye-to-eye contact was made in unison with that instant and genuine broad smile combined with a definite nod in my direction and the most powerful man in the world exclusively acknowledged me! Not much, some would say, but enough to forever convert that person from being just another familiar abstraction into becoming a very real person to me … for the rest of my life.

A little over a month later, I was back in Wichita Falls, attending college and making my deliveries when one of my well connected Democratic friends asked a favor. She was in a bind and needed to rapidly pick up a large order of posters and flyers from the printers and deliver them to a meeting hall for a Democratic work party, that was scheduled for that same night. Having access to a delivery truck made me the logical candidate for the job. So, I forfeited my lunch break to help the Democratic Party out. A few days later, I received in the mail an invitation to join Kennedy in Austin for a fundraiser … on November 22. Since I had to work and had classes that day, I never made it to Austin – and obviously, neither did John.

Since my father's early career was in the military, I spent the first sixteen years of my life as a Military Brat. And, since my father was raised on a remote farm in Michigan, we always had guns around and Dad made it a point to teach my brother and I how to hunt and fish. As a result, before I gave up shooting living things, I had shot enough animals to know that when Life Magazine published their enlarged color photos from the Zapruder film – which showed JFK's head being blown backward -- I KNEW, without a doubt, that the final fatal headshot had come from the front and that someone besides Oswald had been firing shots in Dealy Plaza, that dreadful day. I was initially, and still am, amazed at how little was made of this obvious point!

Until that day in Dallas, I had NEVER doubted my country. As far as I knew, the US had ALWAYS stood up for freedom and as a nation consistently took the highest moral perspective. After all, we had almost single-handedly just saved the world from fascism and were now in the process of beating back the Commies while dedicating ourselves to going to the Moon! But when MY government started lying to me about what actually happened in Dealy Plaza, I began my decades long descent into total distrust and disillusionment with the direction that democracy was taking in my country.

It is hard for me to put my finger on exactly when I think that we lost control of the US. I sense that the seeds of overwhelming greed were planted in 1886, when a law clerk for a judge illegally inserted a few lines of text into a judgement in California which began the slowly evolving, but previously highly restrained, corporate legal evolution into super human status. However, I eventually came to realize that the under regulated corporations were just the preferred “tool” of choice, for the socio/psychopaths who -- as far back in recorded history as our historic documents can reflect -- have been the consistently detrimental, controlling 1% of our human family.

There is no point in me listing all of the insanity inspired mayhem that has come to pass since John Kennedy's murder. All of my friends and family are throughly schooled and quite bored to distraction with my many frustrated and frustrating rants, my excited and excitable raves which punctuate the continual and unrestrained, blatant onslaught of illegal and immoral abuses that we in the US, as well as all of those other people around the world, have experienced. Indeed I am, along with most of my contemporaries, rapidly becoming burnt out with all of the mind-numbing and fruitless struggles against the numerous and nebulous forces that are simply too overwhelming to even imagine, much less divert or defeat. The enormous monster just has too many heads, which are barely concealed beyond our feeble sight by shadowy clouds, floating in a semi-opaque, golden haze.

I was raised on and suckled at the teats of freedom, justice, honesty and concern for all sentient beings and our fragile environment. In the last few years, while my growing hunger for these diminishing values has been unabated and thus persistently gnawing away at me, I recently went searching for some form of relief. My youthful quest to leave this world in better shape than I found it, had long since been dispensed with by the growing mass madness I was constantly being subjected to. My Boy Scout motto to, “Camp without leaving a trace!” now only applies when I am actually out camping in the woods with my grandkids.

Rarely have I ever discussed this next series of experiences with anyone – much less put it to print. But as I move into my 70s, I'm less concerned with containing my secrets and/or what others may think of me and instead am more concerned with what I perceive to be the accelerating pace of the dissolution of world harmony as well as the instinctive peace seeking unity of mankind.

So, in the mid 1970s, I noticed that I had unexpectedly acquired a unique and remarkable ability! At the time I couldn't (and still can't) put my finger on what had led to my development of this technique. It could have been any one, or a combination, of several things that created this amazing capability. I recall that I once tried to determine if it was a certain, or several particular books that I had read, my Kundalini Yoga or meditation practices, the biofeedback experiments I was into, various drugs I had tried, a singular or perhaps a combination of experiences I had had or just the Psilocybin Mushrooms I had been ingesting on a near daily basis for almost two years. While those Shrooms may have been some kind of igniting spark, I feel that this ongoing effect can still be activated – even after 40 years without them!

Whatever the catalyst, I suddenly began to notice that I could actually will into my reality whatever I needed or wanted! Not necessarily every “little” thing that I desired on a whim, but rather just the “big” things of a grander nature. I had little control over the timeframe that these objects would appear, nor did they always materialize EXACTLY as I imagined. In fact, they ALWAYS manifested themselves exactly in time and usually not configured as I had imagined, but even BETTER than I preconceived. Now, before you drop out of this narrative and go grab some brain gargle, allow me to at least relate the first few times it happened.

About 1974-5 I was living south of Houston in a small waterfront community just outside NASA called Clear Lake. I had moved there for several reasons, one being that I'd seen a map of the world that indicated that area to be one of two of the best regions in the world for Magic Mushrooms. After learning from an experienced local fan how to find, identify, store and properly ingest those wonderful fungi, I decided to move away from the many obvious sources of pollution that were creeping into that area. At the time, I was ending a year of divesting myself of cigarettes, meat, alcohol, sex, all forms of credit and owning cars. In fact, I had “lavishly” existed the previous year on a total income of only $1,200.

I determined that in order to move myself and the new lady I was living with -- as well as all of what were mostly her possessions – to Huntsville, Texas, I needed a van. Rather than getting out the newspaper and haunting the want ads, visiting car lots and/or just shopping around, I instead decide to just put that desire into what I came to call, Background Processing. I didn't keep focusing on it or spend much time visualizing exactly what I wanted or needed, I just “accessed” the general idea every-so-often, mostly during my meditations at night, as I drifted off to sleep.

Sure enough, about two weeks before the apartment rent was due and a notice to the landlord could avoid a penalty, one of our neighbors came by one evening and asked if I knew anyone who wanted to buy his Ford van. Of course I did and was even surprised to find that his price was quite a bit less than I had set aside for transportation. So, at the end of the month we packed up and drove about 60 miles north to Huntsville. On the way north, I started thinking about finding an apartment but actually began conjuring up a house.

Once we got to Huntsville, I stopped at a gas station to fill up. I casually mentioned to the attendant that I was looking for a place to rent and he said that he thought that the guy who owned the Chevrolet Dealership sometimes had rental places. So, I went down the street to the dealership, walked in, asked for the owner and was promptly ushered into his office. He explained that the only thing that he had available was an empty duplex, which was on the hill just above the dealership. He gave me the keys, I went up, took a quick look around, found it to be perfect, went back down the hill and told him I would take both sides of the duplex. We shook hands on it, I went back up the hill, started moving in and immediately began my Background Processing for a renter to take over the other side. At some point that afternoon, as I was attempting to unload a large bulky trunk, a guy who just happened to be driving down the road stopped to offer some help. Once we had deposited the trunk in our new bedroom, he asked if I knew of another rental place, in the area and I instantly became his landlord as well as fast friends with him and his likewise friendly lady.

As we settled into our new digs, I expanded my friendship with the guy who owned the dealership and our duplex. Within a few weeks, he hired me as his personal and business Financial Consultant, but frowned on me for driving around in a FORD van. So, I began Background Processing for a Chevy and within days I happened to spot one along the side of the road a few miles out of town. It was a beautiful, older GMC van which, at that point in time, was broadly considered a cut above the Chevy van. It ran like a top until, a almost a year later, I traded it in for a brand new, custom designed, Chevy van -- which I promptly used to move to Northern California.

And so it went, for several years thereafter. Background Processing happened so often and in so many unique ways, that it became almost second nature and eventually required barely any serious concentration to become activated. The last time I recall really using that technique, was many years later, in the Spring of 2004. I was attending a Spring Daffodil Party with roughly a hundred other sunlight seeking souls in the countryside some 50 winding miles north of San Francisco.

Of the many varied participants was a very old, European lady who was almost continually offering individualized, free, prophecies. One evening, at some point during a dance on the patio, she caught my eye and beckoned for me to come sit beside her. She immediately informed me that I should stop trying to find an American woman. Right up front, she told me that she KNEW I had already been married to four American women and that they would never fully understand my true nature. I was amazed, intrigued and seriously took her freely offered advice to keep my eye out for a woman in, or from, another country.

Something about her sincerity and the fact that she somehow knew about my previous wives, motivated me to decide to take some action. So I once again plugged her suggestion into my Background Processing mode and let it “germinate.” Sure enough, within a month I was almost arbitrarily contacted online by an amazing woman from Spain -- who was living in Canada! I now live in Canada and we have been happily married for over nine years. However, since living here I haven't, until now, found a serious need to use my Background Processing method of manufacturing my reality.

So lately, I have begun to dust off my “secret skill” and have been meditating on the prospect of running a major Background Process on all of the crap that has been coming down around all of our heads. It is the largest request I have ever attempted! The other night, toward the end of my meditation, an old book that I had read sometime in the sixties suddenly came to mind. I couldn't account for what brought it up, as I swear I hadn't had a single thought regarding it for, well, maybe 45 or 50 years. However, it is the primary reason I've keyed in this rather long, personal narrative!

The book is called, Zen in the Art of Archery, by Eugen Herrigel, it is free, online (follow the link) and in .pdf format. I downloaded and skim read it again, just to confirm that it contained the messages that I thought I originally imagined and was delighted to find that it was now even more meaningful than I recalled.

The book was written in the early fifties by a writer from the West who traveled to Japan and spent ten years learning how to use Zen techniques to master the art of archery. As he explains, there are many paths that one can take to gain an understanding of Zen. Archery is just one, flower arrangement is another, the Tea Ceremony is yet another, as well as swordsmanship, et al. In other words, mastery of Zen is a paradox that can be resolved using another paradox. One way it is explained in the book is that, “One knows it by not knowing it.”

Here is another small explanation of the concept from that book --

“Should one ask, from this standpoint, how the Japanese Masters understand this contest of the archer with himself, and how they describe it, their answer would sound enigmatic in the extreme. For them the contest consists in the archer aiming at himself and yet not at himself, in hitting himself and yet not himself, and thus becoming simultaneously the aimer and the aim, the hitter and the hit. Or, to use some expressions which are nearest the heart of the Masters, it is necessary for the archer to become, in spite of himself, an unmoved centre. Then comes the supreme and ultimate miracle: art becomes 'artless', shooting becomes not−shooting, a shooting without bow and arrow; the teacher becomes a pupil again, the Master a beginner, the end a beginning, and the beginning perfection.”

For many reasons, this eerily sounds very similar to my Background Processing. I am drawn to the concept of focusing on not focusing. Not struggling to attain a “goal” but instead using subliminal will power to achieve an objective. Practice being aware of what I may need or want and then let the events of the world bring what is best for me, to me. Create no internal or external struggle for goals and achievements and, as a result, experience no tension or stress.

Here is another way that Herrigel puts it:
“Only, so we are informed, by the pupil becoming purposeless and egoless. He must be taught to be detached not only from his opponent but from himself. He must pass through the stage he is still at and leave it behind him for good, even at the risk of irretrievable failure.”

Certainly problems abound and there is a large and growing barrage of concerned people, all around the globe, pointing them out. However, what is missing are not viable solutions – those we have in abundance -- but viable and ACTIONABLE solutions are non-existent. The observable reality is that out-of-control, capitalistic greed can't, at this point in the history of mankind, realistically be stopped!

So, perhaps it would be best for all concerned if we simply take a note from the manual on non-violent resistance and just go limp. Stop struggling! Release ourselves from our stress related and futile objectives. Remove ourselves from our external discontentment and instead dispassionately observe our internal existence to discover what we can bring forth, without actively trying. Let go of our useless reins and let the wild horse run free.

There are Zen masters who, for eons, have pointed the way, as this final excerpt from Herrigel's book points out:
“'You worry yourself unnecessarily,' the Master comforted me. 'Put the thought of hitting right out of your mind! You can be a Master even if every shot does not hit. The hits on the target are only the outward proof and confirmation of your purposelessness at its highest, of your egolessness, your self−abandonment, or whatever you like to call this state. There are different grades of mastery, and only when you have made the last grade will you be sure of not missing the goal.'
'That is just what I cannot get into my head,' I answered.
'I think I understand what you mean by the real, inner goal which ought to be hit. But how it happens that the outer goal, the disc of paper, is hit without the archer’s taking aim, and that the hits are only outward confirmations of inner events ̇that correspondence is beyond me.'
'You are under an illusion,' said the Master after a while, 'if you imagine that even a rough understanding of these dark connections would help you. These are processes which are beyond the reach of understanding. Do not forget that even in Nature there are correspondences which cannot be understood, and yet are so real that we have grown accustomed to them, just as if they could not be any different. I will give you an example which I have often puzzled over. The spider dances her web without knowing that there are flies who will get caught in it. The fly, dancing nonchalantly on a sunbeam, gets caught in the net without knowing what lies in store. But through both of them “It“ dances, and inside and outside are united in this dance. So, too, the archer hits the target without having aimed ̇more I cannot say.'
Much as this comparison occupied my thoughts ̇ though I could not of course think it to a satisfactory conclusion ̇ something in me refused to be mollified and would not let me go on practicing unworried. An objection, which in the course of weeks had taken on more definite outline, formulated itself in my mind. I therefore asked: 'Is it not at least conceivable that after all your years of practice you involuntarily raise the bow and arrow with the certainty of a sleepwalker, so that, although you do not consciously take aim when drawing it, you must hit the target ̇simply cannot fail to hit it?'
The Master, long accustomed to my tiresome questions, shook his head. 'I do not deny,' he said after a short silence,'that there may be something in what you say. I do stand facing the goal in such a way that I am bound to see it, even if I do not intentionally turn my gaze in that direction. On the other hand I know that this seeing is not enough, decides nothing, explains nothing, for I see the goal as though I did not see it.' 'Then you ought to be able to hit it blindfolded,' I jerked out.
The Master turned on me a glance which made me fear that I had insulted him and then said:
'Come to see me this evening.'
I seated myself opposite him on a cushion. He handed me tea, but did not speak a word. So we sat for a long while. There was no sound but the singing of the kettle on the hot coals. At last the Master rose and made me a sign to follow him. The practice hall was brightly lit. The Master told me to put a taper, long and thin as a knitting needle in the sand in front of the target, but not to switch on the light in the target sand. It was so dark that I could not even see its outlines, and if the tiny flame of the taper had not been there, I might perhaps have guessed the position of the target, though I could not have made it out with any precision. The Master "danced" the ceremony. His first arrow shot out of dazzling brightness into deep night. I knew from the sound that it had hit the target. The second arrow was a hit, too. When I switched on the light in the target−stand, I discovered to my amazement that the first arrow was lodged full in the middle of the black, while the second arrow had splintered the butt of the first and ploughed through the shaft before embedding itself beside it. I did not dare to pull the arrows out separately, but carried them back together with the target. The Master surveyed them critically. 'The first shot,' he then said, 'was no great feat, you will think, because after all these years I am so familiar with my target−stand that I must know even in pitch darkness where the target is. That may be, and I won’t try to pretend otherwise. But the second arrow which hit the first ̇what do you make of that? I at any rate know that it is not 'I' who must be given credit for this shot. 'It' shot and 'It' made the hit.'”


Terry Sneller
September 16, 2014
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