August 27, 2024

Don’t be a reflection of others, a parrot or a mirror. Be yourself...truly yourself. Don’t be the opinions and judgments you’ve taken in without thinking. Think for yourself. If you want to see how the world and its inhabitants are clearly, eliminate your biases and preconceived ideas. Walk into the world empty and see the way it is. Then you can begin.

August 24, 2024

Your body has a mind of its own. Its mind is mostly subconscious but it is connected to and speaks to your conscious mind. Most of the time we don’t listen. The minor aches and pains, the sometimes mysterious discomforts. the passing moods and feelings, are noticed but dismissed. But if you practice listening to your body and learn to understand its saying, you may come to know where the blocked energy lies. you may come to a higher level of harmony within yourself, and a higher level of harmony with the true nature of the world.

Aug. 8, 2024

Just Curious.

When a couple is wed the woman and man are respectively referred to as the bride and the bridegroom. It almost sounds as if the man has agreed to a subservient position. If we explore the meaning of groom, we find that it can mean someone who tends to and cleans an animal, especially by brushing its fur. Also, to prepare someone for a special position, or job, which now includes the dark inclination to manipulate a child to employ him or her for sexual purposes. So, the position of the man in marriage is, first of all, to serve the woman, tend to her needs, while she is seen as an animal in need of service, and, secondly, to prepare her for her duties as wife, including her sexual duties. None of these archaic meanings seem suitable and our adherence to them, perhaps subconscious, like leads to plenty of marital disharmony. No one really wants to be a servant and no one want to be seen as an animal, trained and taken for a ride. Maybe it’s time to do away with this old marital nomenclature and replace it with ‘best friends’ committed to the beneficial support of each other’s life journey.

Aug. 5, 2024

If you are good to your garden, care for it, nurture the ground and look out for your planta, birds and animals will find you and enjoy your company. And, because of this, your garden will be good to you. Keep in mind then that the whole earth is a garden and if you care for the earth, it will take care of you.

July 18, 2024

Thing-Being

In the interest of a better society the government imposes a legal system. the people agree for their own security and protection. However, if in the prosecution of the law, the only consideration is the objective evaluation of the criminal act and not the person, then the person has, in effect, been eliminated and what remains is the act objectified. The person then has been stripped of his or her humanity and been objectified. the overall view of the legal system, out of the necessity of fairness and equality, is one of objectification. Causes, conditions, circumstances and history have been eliminated. the system itself becomes a totality, the human being absorbed within it as a thing among all the other things. The elimination of causes denies humanity. the necessity of equality in evaluation eliminates individuality and subjectivity. People without individual subjectivity are reduced to things. Paradoxically, the legal system, organized to be objective and fair, viewing people as things, easily slides into inhumanity, corruption and bias. Justice without consideration is tyranny.

July, 3, 2024

That I am not the kind of person most people think I am is a statement of the condition of modern man in these modern times as well as a personal conclusion. People nowadays are more concerned with appearances than with living a real life. Modernity has formed a society in which the incorporation of distrust, ill will, greed and falsity are the basis for business, and relationships today are considered a form of business. I have a belief in an ancient way that continues to be strong. Because of this I see with enough clarity to be able to say that this a lonely yet agreeable way to be. I am satisfied with simplicity and my journey is free.

June 28, 2024

To be a free thinker you must be a stingy talker.

June 26, 2024

A clever title does not a painting make nor does a pretty cover improve a vulgar tale.

June 23, ,2024

Politically speaking, free health care is dangerous to the authoritarian leader; good health care is the first requirement of free thought.

June 22, 2024

Traveling alone has three great benefits: you are always in excellent company, no one can blame you if you get lost and there is no commentary on the view.

June 19, 2024

I thought of being a beggar with a sign that said, “Exceptional Wisdom for a Small Donation,” but that seemed too unlikely. Then I thought of being a wise man who went around giving talks entitled, “Very Little Wisdom for an Exceptional Donation,” but that seemed too ordinary.

Any wisdom that comes from me is unexpected and literally priceless.

June 18, 2024

Freedom doesn’t exist without enlightenment. Before enlightenment, freedom is undermined by conditioning, unexamined agreements and denials. Once enlightenment liberates the mind, clarity emerges and wisdom expands. The mind can focus like a beam of light. Only then can the choices be made that can generate actions that can change the social order.

June 17, 2024

Can free will exist within the limits of social order? You have not lost your freedom. you can choose freely to accept the limits of social order. You can also choose to revoke your decision. If you accept the limits of social order, you can still choose freely within the social order, even choose to rebel by refusing some aspect of what you have accepted. This is how freedom molds the social order. Social order does not mold freedom. It only defines agreed upon limits to your freedom. At its extreme, the social order crushes the soul until the soul explodes or dies. The social order, then, creates its own revolutions, by the unwise and excessive application of the limits it places upon free will.

June 16, 2024

Facebook is not a place to begin or try to establish personal relationships. That has to be done in person, face to face, over time. A picture of someone is not who they are as a person. The words of someone may be interesting but they are not the person. At best, Facebook is a roundtable of ideas and entertainments. Nothing more.

June 10, 2024

Hang on tight friends, it’s only going to get weirder and more chaotic. Climate change, water and food shortages, heat domes, economic instability, increased migration, more armed conflicts and more. Life will be offering an unprecedented opportunity to practice spiritual resistance. If you can find a place to hold steady, do so, and wherever you go and whatever you do emanate all the love in your heart.

June 8, 2024

If you have regrets, which most people do, it does no good to avoid them. Let them arise and spend the time necessary to understand where they come from and why they exist. If you do this, they will transform into a kind of grief, a sadness over opportunities lost and mistakes made, things done and things undone. With practice, eventually, this grief will dissolve into integrity and inward peace.

June 6, 2024

I don’t waste my time analyzing people anymore. There’s no benefit that comes from labeling people’s character or behavior. People are who they are. It’s best to be observant and non-discriminating. Most people are trying to become better people. Accepting people as they are goes a long way toward making a better world.

June 4, 2024

For many people the life of the mind is enjoyable, creating a story, solving a problem, inventing something interesting or useful. Thinking can be a pleasurable or rigorous activity. Even a Buddhist would say this is so. The study of life requires it.

June 2, 2024

Why do you think you have to be thinking about something? You really only need to think when there is something that requires thinking.

May 31, 2024

The problem with religiosity isn’t faith, it is presumption. The religious person makes the error of leaping from faith into presumption, saying, “Now that I am faithful, I can be the judge of all that is around me.” In that brief passage, the moment of faith vanishes and the reign of presumption begins.

May 28, 2024

Work in the yard and the flower beds is a better meditation than traditional sitting practice. In a very short time, my mind is clear and my body at peace. The work itself sometimes calls for a break and, at that time, traditional sitting in silence (the silent mind) comes easily. Several hours may pass in the garden this way and, when I come to the end, the carry-over of quiet presence lasts throughout the day.

May 25, 2024

A recent study concluded that people who buy rebel grandpa t-shirts are more sophisticated and intelligent than those who don’t.

May 22, 2024

Reality isn’t what you think.

May 20, 2024

The Watchful Eye of Original Nature, experienced within ourselves, is the true, constant, ever-present ‘who’ that we are. It experiences everything outside in the world and everything within, our thoughts, our emotions and sensations, and our dreams. While our minds judge what is good or bad, right or wrong, acceptable or not, even what is real or not, in shades of black and white and gray, the watchful eye of original nature lets all of that pass. Presence is reality.

May 17, 2024

It’s fine when you’re younger to be enthusiastic about knowing. Studt different subjects, jump in deep when your interest is piqued. But now I’ve reached an age where I know what I need to know, whether to topic is spirituality of building a house. I prefer being to knowing. When people start spouting things they know, I just let them be. I relax and sink into being, quietly enjoying the time of my life.

May 16, 2024

There have always been gossips and liars. Just ignore them and keep going forward. True friends keep you safe.

May 14, 2024

Having coffee with a friend, we sat outside on the coffee shop patio. We had been discussing how just accepting things as they are along the way, perhaps adjusting something or other that you notice needs attention as you go, exemplifies ‘going with the flow,’ or harmony with Dao. next to the wall where we sat a water pump with a filtration device, a pipe coming from the ground and other pipes joining the parts of the mechanism connected to another pipe going into the wall of the shop. My friend pointed out the meter attached to the housing of the mechanism. “Measuring the flow!” We both laughed at the absurd incongruity of measuring something as immeasurable as the flow.

May 12, 2024

Belief is made of attention and repetition. Attention is focused consciousness. Consciousness is energy. Belief then is repetitive attention focusing the energy of consciousness on an idea. Belief is a form of energy.

The old maxim has a certain power: If you repeat something enough times, people will believe it. Unfortunately, belief doesn’t require facts or truth to exist. And therein lies the essence of a problem.

May 10, 2024

Is there something supernatural in a tree, a spirit or a soul that we can’t see? We think of it as a wood thing with growths of branches and of leaves. I think we may have lost some skill, a way to talk before mouth made speaking in our minds. If we could again converse with trees in the old unspoken way, what would the trees say?

May 8, 2024

The best things in life are free, yet we ignore and destroy them so we can watch TV.

May 5, 2024

In life we seem to stay the same as we always have been, but we are always changing like everything is always changing. Due to our continually changing nature it becomes difficult to really ‘know’ oneself. It is in relationship to others that we find a glimmering of that kind of knowledge. We are glimmers in the stream.

rebelgrandpa.com  May 2, 2024

Spiritual resistance is not about believing. It is about clear seeing. Believing narrows your view and makes you vulnerable to the biases of others who believe as you do. Spiritual resistance strengthens rational thought through clear seeing. It supports observation from a distance. It promotes understanding. It advances freedom.

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April 24, 2024

What is spiritual resistance? It is not defiance though it can defy. It is the assurance that whatever you face you will see through it. Why? Because your sight is not in your eyes. Neither is your sight in your mind. It is in your being and its power comes from awareness, the subtle energy that makes light. Nothing can withstand it. Cultivate spiritual resistance. You will need it in the times to come.