If the heart is pure, you are put to use.

Ordinary people have been revolving in circles since time immemorial, being born and dying. Because of clinging fixedly to self-images, false ideas, and misperceptions, the habits of illusion eventually become second nature to them. Even if they suddenly awaken in this life and realize that their essential nature is fundamentally empty and silent, no different from the Buddhas, nevertheless past habits are difficult to remove all at once.

- Master Chinul (1158-1210)

"As soon as you look at the world through an ideologyyou are finished.

No reality fits ideology.

Life is beyond that. That is why people are always searching for a meaning to life. But life has no meaning; it cannot have meaning because meaning is a formula; meaning is something that makes sense to the mind. Every time you make sense out of reality, you bump into something that destroys the sense you made. Meaning is only found when you go beyond meaning. Life only makes sense when you perceive it as mystery and it makes no sense to the conceptualizing mind"

.Anthony de Mello, SJ

Leonard Cohen's poem

"There is
something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man (or woman)
setting the universe in order..."

PENTECOST

Unless the eye catch fire,
God will not be seen.
Unless the ear catch fire,
God will not be heard.
Unless the tongue catch fire,
God will not be named.
Unless the heart catch fire,
God will not be loved.
Unless the mind catch fire,
God will not be known.

~ William Blake

The Little Vagabond

Dear Mother, dear Mother, the Church is cold,
But the Ale-house is healthy & pleasant & warm;
Besides I can tell where I am used well,
Such usage in Heaven will never do well.
But if at the Church they would give us some Ale,
And a pleasant fire our souls to regale,
119
We'd sing and we'd pray all the live-long day,
Nor ever once wish from the Church to stray.
Then the Parson might preach, & drink, & sing,
And we'd be as happy as birds in the spring;
And modest Dame Lurch, who is always at Church,
Would not have bandy children, nor fasting, nor birch.
And God, like a father rejoicing to see
His children as pleasant and happy as he,
Would have no more quarrel with the Devil or the Barrel,
But kiss him, & give him both drink and apparel.

-William Blake, Songs of Experience

Down some cold field in a world unspoken
the young men are walking together, slim and tall,
and though they laugh to one another, silence is not broken;
there is no sound however clear they call.

They are speaking together of what they loved in vain here,
but the air is too thin to carry the things they say.
They were young and golden, but they came on pain here,
and their youth is age now, their gold is grey.

Yet their hearts are not changed, and they cry to one another,
'What have they done with the lives we laid aside?
Are they young with our youth, gold with our gold, my brother?
Do they smile in the face of death, because we died?'

Down some cold field in a world uncharted
the young seek each other with questioning eyes.
They question each other, the young, the golden hearted,
of the world that they were robbed of in their quiet paradise.

Humbert Wolfe, Requiem: The Soldier (1916)

H.Sapiens violated the
first law of a successful parasite, moderation.
===================================
After I'm dead, I
don't really care what happens to the human race. The only way a massive
die-off might affect me after I'm dead is to drive up the price of real
estate in Heaven-or Hell. I'm sure both places will be booked solid until
the powers that be find another planet on which humans can run amok.
===================================
Book: Century's End- "We now know that the idea of the future as a
'better world' was a fallacy of the doctrine of progress." German novelist
Thomas Mann, 1938
===================================
I do not believe that people will stop using technology until the
system completely breaks down.
===================================
One reason I keep hanging on to life's cross of iron
is because I have an apocalyptic vision of a world laid to waste. I pray to
God that I live to see it! No matter how the world ends, it will be a
surprise. One day mankind may be hovering on the irrevocable brink of
nuclear war, with everyone thinking that this will be our common end, only
for everyone to be smashed out of existence at the eleventh hour by a stray
asteroid. No matter what the end, it will arrive accompanied by a load of
irony. I think mankind's end will occur as suddenly as a heart attack.
Everything will appear just as it always has until the blade suddenly
drops.
===================================
"The word "paranoid" is designed to make people not like it. There
is an implicit assumption that there's nothing to be paranoid about. In
fact, in a very dynamic and unsteady universe, paranoia may well be a true
sensitivity to the facts of the matter." -Terrence McKenna
===================================
Book: Cambodia: a book for people who find television too slow,
by Brian Fawcett.
===================================
"In Buddhist writings, mention is often made of "the abyss of birth". An
abyss indeed, a gulf into which we do not fall but from which, instead, we
emerge, to our universal chagrin."
===================================
"When they made a desert, they called it peace." -Tacitus
===================================
"Delusions, errors and lies are like huge, gaudy vessels, the
rafters of which are rotten and worm eaten, and those who embark on them
are fated to be shipwrecked." -Buddha
===================================
"For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as
though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things
that seem than by those that are." -Machiavelli
===================================
* In medicine as in life, until the mind has been prepared to see
something, it will pass unnoticed, as invisible as if it did not exist.
-Ovid, ancient Roman poet.
===================================
* Do you not see how necessary a world of pain and trouble is to school an
intelligence and make it a soul? -John Keats, Letters
===================================
* The mad mind does not halt. If it halts, it is enlightenment.
-Chinese Zen Saying
===================================
* To see truth, contemplate all phenomena as a lie. -Thaganapa
===================================
* Our reason has driven all away. Alone at last, we end up by ruling over a
desert.
-Albert Camus
===================================
You dream you are the doer,
You dream that action is done.
You dream that action bears fruit.
It is your ignorance, it is the world's
delusion that gives you these Dreams.
-Bhagavad Gita
===================================
*"Paradoxically as it may seem, modern industrial society, in spite of an
incredible proliferation of labor-saving devices, has not given people more
time to devote to their all-important spiritual tasks; it has made it
exceedingly difficult for anyone, except the most determined, to find any
time whatever for these tasks." -E.F. Schumacher

Life is like being a skydiver without a parachute. At birth, we aredropped into the Void. At first, we scream in terror, but by and by, werealize that we're not going to die-just yet. So we settle down to thebusiness of living as well as we can in the interim, until the groundfinally comes rushing up to greet us.

http://www.pd.org/topos/perforations/perf8/bigdeath2.html

There is no greater mystery than this -
that being the Reality ourselves, we seek to gain Reality.
We think that there is something binding our reality and
that it must be destroyed before the reality is gained.

It is ridiculous!

A day will dawn when you will yourself laugh at your effort.
That which is on the day of laughter is also now.

Ramana Maharshi

The year is 1877, southern Wisconsin"...

Dave was 37 years old, and his Whitehall homestead was running smoothly. That year he’d broken 15 acres of virgin prairie land. Number 1 Eureka wheat was sell ing for $1.57 the bushel. The new Baptist church, he reports, was attracting “a goodly attendance.”

Wife Mary’s chronic headaches had virtually disappeared. Sons Archie, age 13, and Jim, 10, were old enough now to help out with chores. Little daughters Kippy, 7, and Alta, 2, were healthy and lively kids, the apples of their father’s eye.Then, on Sept. 11, the day Holcomb’s threshing rig rolled into the yard, Dave reports that “Alta has signs of Diptheria to day.”

Succeeding entries give ample ev idence that life on that prairie frontier wasn’t all barn raisings, spelling bees and socials on the church lawn:

“Sept. 14—Alta has been better to day and played some.“

Sept. 15—Thrashed to day. 810 Bushels of oats & 150 bus. wheat. Alta is quite sick to night.“

Sunday, Sept. 16—did not go to (church) meeting to day . . . Alta is quite sick. Kippy is sick to day with sore throat.“
Sept. 17—Alta is very sick & it is likely to be a hard case for her.

“Sept. 18—-Thrashing to day. have not been near the machine. Was up all night with Alta poor Girl how she suffered till this morn, when death came to relieve her & leave us only sad hearts & the memory of her. Kippy quite sick allready.

“Sept. 19—little Alta was burned to day. We shall see her no more in this world but hope to in the better land. Kip is verry sick.

“Sept. 20—Kip had a verry bad day of it

“Sept. 21—Kip seems some better this mor. but has been bleeding at the nose. . . got Kip nose to stop bleeding

“Sept. 22—Kip seems to be better to day.

“Sunday, Sept. 23—Kip is very low,, but we have hope that she will recover

“Sept. 24—We are in care & sick ness & Trouble but hope God will sustain us in trial & affliction

“Sept. 25—Kippy is some better &, we hope to have her spared to us by the Master. Still she is weak & feverish.

“Sept. 26—Kip is quiet but weak & nervous, took wheat to town. Paid for a doll for Kip $.50

“Sept. 27—Kip is weak & low

“Sept. 28—Kip is some weaker to day & her pulse is low so we are giving her China (quinine)

“Sunday, Sept. 30—Kippy much the same she has no appetite yet. Archie came down with Diptheria this mor[ning].

“Oct. 1—Hazy & damp. Jim came down with Diptheria this mor. Archie is quite bad. Poor Kip is low & weak so that we have to give her China to keep her up. Will (the hired man) went to Independence & got a bottle of Brandy to bathe Kip with to night. Cost $1.25

“Oct. 2—Kip is growing weaker to day. the stimulants give her a nervous life & raise her pulse some. the boys are quite sick still we have hope

“Oct. 3—little Kip parted from us at six 0 clock this mor. Archies throat seems a little softer. Jim rather drowsy. how our poor hearts ache with sorrow but we can only trust in god & pray that he will direct us & give us strength to bear to trust in him.

“Oct. 4—fair cold & blustery. we buried little Kip to day & so we see our hopes & Joys fade & vanish away. yet God will be ever by the side of those who Trust in him. Will plowed to day.”

And so it went. Archie and Jim pulled through that autumn nightmare, went on to keep their own taciturn diaries, to get educations, to make peace (Archie) and war (Jim) with their Maker, to get married and to lead productive lives.

But Alta and Kippy never got to school, never learned to read and write, never were baptized in the muddy waters of the Trempealeau River, never met a beau at the annual Methodist ice-cream social and never discovered what it was like to stand by as a helpless adult and see one’s “hopes and Joy fade & vanish away.”..."

Ultimate Ki workout routine:

1. Spiral energy exercises / Chan si gong: of Chen style taijiquan, follow the version of this taught by Chen Xiaoxing and Chen Xiaowang, not other versions.

2. Abdomen/spine work based on kundalini yoga. Best known to me is "Navel Power" by Ravi Singh. Cheesy presentaiton but very effective. You only need to do the first half, about up to the first standing posture, and the meditation/chanting stuff and also be skipped. Any other yoga-oriented abdomen/spine strength/flexibility routine could be used instead.

3. Strength work: bodyweight stuff is simplest and best. For example I use: Hindu pushups; reverse pushups; gynmastics tuck planche (static hold); gymnastics L-sit (on fists, static hold), and wall handstand pushups or partial dips.

4. Cardio: jump rope in intervals (high intensitiy interval training style).

Key to all the above is the "chan si gong" as that is the best engine of ki generation known to me after practicing dozens of styles and methods over decades.

The strength and other stuff is only there to help build a strong physical platform for the ki, in an efficient and pleasant way.

"To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three
requirements for happiness, though if stupidity islacking, all is lost."

--Gustave Flaubert

These are some guidelines the Monk Ryokan wrote down for himself.

Ryokan's Precepts of Right Speech

Take care not to:

talk too much
talk too fast
talk without being asked to
talk gratuitously
talk with your hands
talk about worldly affairs
talk back rudely
argue
smile condescendingly at others' words
use elegant expressions
boast
avoid speaking directly
speak with a knowing air
jump from topic to topic
use fancy words
speak of past events that cannot be changed
speak like a pedant
avoid direct questions
speak ill of others
speak grandly of enlightenment
carry on while drunk
speak in an obnoxious manner
yell at children
make up fantastic stories
speak while angry
name-drop
ignore the people to whom you are speaking
speak sanctimoniously of gods and buddhas
use sugary speech
use flattering speech
speak of things of which you have no knowledge
monopolize conversations
talk about others behind their backs
speak with conceit
bad-mouth others
chant prayers ostentatiously
complain about the amount of alms
give long-winded sermons
speak affectedly like a tea master

—Ryokan (1758-1831)

Theory and Practice

Whichever path one follows, the thing is to follow it,not to argue about it.

A Christian priest once toldBhagavan that he considered the goal of mystic unionenvisaged by Christians to be different from the Hindugoal of moksha[liberation] and superior to it, and Bhagavan replied,"All right, attain that first and then see whether youstill find any difference or anything to criticize".

That was always his reply - to turn the critic fromtheory to practice. Argument did not interest him,only understanding and sincere effort.

Divorce, American Style

The Daily Reckoning

Baltimore, Maryland

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

---------------------

It's all sex and lies.

Everything. The debt bubble. The real estate bubble. The trade deficit
bubble.

Why is there a $600 billion trade deficit? Because Americans want to buy
things they can't afford. Why do they buy things they can't afford? To
pretend to be richer than they are. Why do they want to be appear richer
than they are? Because it gives them higher social status. Why do they want
higher about social status? So they will have better access to the opposite
sex.

We are back in the United States after an absence of several months.
Suddenly, the roads are crowded with Hummers. Why would anyone want to drive
around in a big, awkward, ugly, expensive car when a small, cheap one would
get him where he was going just as well?

Because they want to "maximize their inclusive fitness" say scientists. They
want as many of their genes floating around the gene pool as possible. The
Hummer is like long, bright tail feathers on a bird. Or a big rack of
antlers on a deer. From a utilitarian point of view, they are worthless.
Worse than worthless, as a matter of fact. They increase the risk that
rivals and predators will notice the animal. They take energy to carry
around. And they slow the animal down, making it hard for him to maneuver in
a fight or to get away.

The huge cars are only useful, near as anyone who thinks about such matters
can figure, as conspicuous consumption; they wink to the opposite sex that
the animal is game for a little hanky-panky. If he can carry around all that
extra baggage and still survive, he must be tough. So, too, if a person can
live in a McMansion and drive a Hummer without going bankrupt, he must be a
good prospect for a date.

But it's all relative. If everybody on the block buys a Hummer and puts in a
swimming pool, the man who has those things already loses his edge. He has
to spend even more - bringing himself even closer to bankruptcy - in order
to show off. What can he do? Write poetry and put a feminist bumper sticker
on his old Hummer?

"Forget sensitivity," said a woman over dinner last night. "The man must
show that he's capable... that he's strong... that he knows what he's
doing."

"Yeah," said a divorced friend who has been studying dating strategies, "you
have to be 'the man with the plan.' You signal to the woman that you've got
it figured out... that your time is valuable... and that, if she wants to
hook up with you, she can to so, but
only on your terms. What you don't want to do is to take her out on a date
and spend a lot of money on her. You have to show that you have a lot of
money, but you don't want to give her the impression that she'll be in
charge of how it is spent. That would start the relationship off on the
wrong foot."

Women aren't stupid, of course. They know you can move into a McMansion with
no money down and no money anywhere else. They know you can lease a Hummer
and buy an Armani suit with credit cards. They try to find out if the man
really has money or not. It is the
beginning of the battle between the sexes. The man tries to deceive the
woman about his fitness for procreation. The woman tries to detect the
deception, while deceiving him - with make-up and various artifices - about
her own attractiveness. The poor man has to show more and more evidence that
he's really the one with the large rack and the bright feathers. He has to
take on more and more expensive burdens. Second and third houses... European
vacations... a home theatre... cosmetic surgery. The schmuck needs to spend,
spend, spend - or he's going to be spending his nights alone.

You might say that a "smart" woman would see her way through the foolishness
of it all and prefer a man with no desire to show off - maybe a good, solid
schoolteacher who cares about the environment and drives an old Pinto. But
if she mates with such a man, she dooms her offspring, say the scientists,
for the man is likely to father sons much like himself - men who are only
attractive to smart women. How many of them are there? Her own genes will
find fewer opportunities for reproductive success, in other words... And
what's so smart about that?

In order to spread her genes as widely as possible, a woman needs offspring,
particularly males, who are "high ranking," - that is, those who can carry
around gaudy expenses without going broke. Her best strategy is to make with
a high ranking male. Her good fortune would be to have many sons with him -
high ranking boys who would find many mates of their own. And for that she
must make herself as desirable to him as possible. This, too, begins with
deception and often ends in disappointment. She must spend much of her
time and money as though she were a candidate for public office - that is,
deceiving people about what she is. The scientists call it "impression
management." She must appear high ranking - by wearing expensive clothes
instead of cheap ones... by driving an expensive car, rather than a cheap
one... by living at an expensive address... eating in expensive
restaurants... going on expensive vacations and sporting expensive jewelry.
She must also appear as physically attractive as possible. Remember, it's
all about sex.

Meanwhile, driven by these ancient impulses to sexual reproduction... and
chauffeured by the Fed... Americans arrive at the cusp of bankruptcy.

We evolved to lie to ourselves because it makes us better at lying to
others. Read Wright's THE MORAL ANIMAL.

People like Gandhi or Gates will use any excuse that works to gain social
power (the actual content of their phlisophy is irrelevant). Why? Because
gaining social power tended to increase fitness in the past.

Here are some other folks who got it right:

"In the first place, I put forth a general inclination of all mankind a
perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in
death." -- Thomas Hobbes

"The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie." -- Joseph Schumpeter,
1942

"Wherever men hold unequal power in society, they will strive to maintain
it. They will use whatever means are convenient to that end and will seek to
justify them by the most plausible arguments they are able to devise." --
Reinhold Neibuhr

"In fact, telling primates (human or otherwise) that their reasoning
architectures evolved in large part to solve problems of dominance is a
little like telling fish that their gills evolved in large part to solve the
problem of oxygen intake from water." -- Denise Dellarosa Cummins

Jay

Bhagavan:

Silence is of four kinds: silence of speech, silence of the eye, silence of the ear, and silence of the mind. Only the last is pure silence, and it is the most important.

~ While God sustains the burden of the world, the spurious ego assumes its burden, grimacing like an image on a tower seeming to support it. If the traveller in a carriage which can carry any weight does not lay his luggage down but carries it painfully on his head, whose is the fault? - Ulladu Narpadu Anubandham, verse 17:

~Whatever happens, let it happen; whatever does not happen, Let it not happen.” A mind with this attitude will be well established in the Self.

from: 'Padamalai' by Muruganar, Edited by David Godman.

Recent finding conducted by author have concluded all humans suffer from Bi-polar Disorder. Range is extensive and subject to daily conditions such as weather, degreee of success in the achievement of any desired obect, condition, person, place or thing, bio-rhythms, ad nauseum.

Location: land of wind and ghosts.

"I do not see how one can surrender to suffering."

Forget about surrender for a moment. When your pain is deep, all talk of surrender will probably seem futile and meaningless anyway. When your pain is deep, you will likely have a strong urge to escape from it rather than surrender to it. You don't want to feel what you feel. What could be more normal? But there is no escape, no way out. When there is no way out, there is still always a way through.

So don't turn away from pain. Face it. Feel it fully. Feel it -- don't think about it! Express it if necessary, but don't create a script in your mind around it. Give all your attention to the feeling, not to the person, event or situation that seems to have caused it. Don't let the mind use the pain to create a victim identity for yourself out of it. Feeling sorry for yourself and telling others your story will keep you stuck in suffering. Since it is impossible to get away from the feeling, the only possibility of change is to move into it; otherwise, nothing will shift. So give your complete attention to what you feel, and refrain from mentally labeling it. As you go into the feeling, be intensely alert.

At first, it may seem like a dark and terrifying place, and when the urge to turn away from it comes, observe it but don't act on it. Keep putting your attention on the pain, keep feeling the grief, the fear, the dread, the loneliness, whatever it is. Stay alert, stay present -- present with your whole Being, with every cell of your body. As you do so, you are bringing a light into this darkness. This is the flame of your consciousness.

- Eckhart Tolle

It would make for one hell of a story to leave for the history books. And why are we even here if not to write history and entertain our descendents.

-Viper

The Art of Nothing

Thomas J. Elpel

Westerners who first met the Shoshonean bands of Indians in the Great Basin Desert typically described them as being "wretched and lazy". Many observers remarked that they lived in a total wasteland and yet seemed to do nothing to improve their situation. They built no houses or villages; they had few tools or possessions, almost no art, and they stored little food. It seemed that all they did was sit around and do nothing.The Shoshone were true hunter-gatherers. They spent their lives walking from one food source to another. The reason they did not build houses was because houses were useless to them in their nomadic lifestyle. Everything they owned they carried on their backs from place to place. They did not manufacture a lot of tools or possessions or art, because it would have been a burden to carry.We often expect that such primitive cultures as the Shoshone must have worked all the time just to stay alive, but in actuality these were generally very leisured peoples.

Anthropological studies in different parts of the world have indicated that nomadic hunter-gatherer type societies typically worked only two or three hours per day for their subsistence. Like the deer and other creatures of the wild, hunter-gatherer peoples have nothing more to do than to wander and eat.The Shoshone had a lot of time on their hands only because they produced almost no material culture. They were not being lazy; they were just being economical. Sitting around doing nothing for hours on end helped them to conserve precious calories of energy, so they would not have to harvest so many calories each day to feed themselves.

Today many of us westerners find ourselves fascinated with these simple cultures, and a few of us really dive into it to reproduce or recreate the primitive lifestyle. In our typical western zeal we get right into it and produce, produce, produce. We work ambitiously to learn each primitive craft, and we produce all kinds of primitive clothing, tools, containers, and art, and just plain stuff. True hunter-gatherer cultures carried all their possessions on their backs, but us modern primitives soon find that we need a pickup truck just to move camp! In our effort to recreate the primitive lifestyle we find that we have ironically missed our mark completely-- that we have made many primitive things, but that we have not begun to grasp the true nature of a primitive culture. To truly grasp that essence requires that we let go, and begin to understand the art of doing nothing.

Understanding the art of nothing is a somewhat challenging concept for us westerners. When we go on a "primitive" camping trip, we take our western preconceptions with us. We find a level spot in a meadow to build our shelters, and if a site is not level then we make it so. Then we gather materials and start from scratch, building the walls and roof of a shelter. We do what we are accustomed to; we build a frame house on a surveyed plot in the meadow. Then we gather materials and shingle our shelter, regardless of whether or not there is a cloud in the sky, or whether or not it has rained at all in a month.

Part of the reason we act this way stems from our cultural upbringing. Another part of it is simply because it is easier for those of us who are instructors to teach something rather than to teach nothing. It is much easier to teach how to make something than to teach how not to need to make anything. The do-something approach to primitive skills is to make everything you need, while the do-nothing method is to find everything.For example, the do-nothing method of shelter is to find shelter, rather than to build it. Two hours spent searching for a partial shelter that can be improved upon can easily save you two hours of hard-working construction time, and you will usually get a better shelter this way. More so, the do-nothing method of shelter is to look first at the incoming weather, and to build only what is needed. If it is not going to rain then you may be able to do-nothing to rain-proof your shelter. Then perhaps you will only need to put your efforts into a shelter that will keep you warm, instead of both warm and dry.

There are many things, both small and large, that a person can do, or not do, to better the art of doing nothing. This can be as simple as cupping one's hands to drink from the stream, instead of making and carrying a cup, to breaking sticks to find a sharpened point, rather than using a knife to methodically carve out a digging stick. Hand carved wooden spoons and forks are do-something utensils that you have to manufacture, carry, and worst, that you have to clean. But chopsticks (twigs) are do-nothing utensils that do not need to be manufactured or carried, and you can toss them in the fire when you are done.Henry David Thoreau wrote of having a rock for a paperweight at his cabin by Walden pond. He threw it out when he discovered he had to dust it. This is the very essence of a do-nothing attitude. The do-nothing approach to primitive skills is something that you do. Doing nothing is a way of saving time and energy, so that you can finish your daily work more effectively. One thing that I have found through the years of experimental research into primitive skills, is that there is rarely enough hours in a day to complete all of a day's tasks. It is difficult to go out and build a shelter, make a working bowdrill set, set traps, dig roots, make bowls and spoons, and cook dinner. Hunter-gatherer societies succeeded in working only two to three hours per day, yet in our efforts to reproduce their lifestyle we end up working all day.

Doing nothing is an approach to research; it is a way of thinking and doing. For instance, I do a lot of timed studies of various primitive skills: i.e.: how long does it take to construct a particular shelter? How much of a particular food resource can I harvest per hour? Can I increase the harvest using different gathering techniques? One thing I have noted is that it is only marginally economical to manufacture common primitive deadfall traps. It is time intensive; it adds weight to carry, and the traps often have short life-spans. The do-nothing alternative is to use whatever is at hand, to pick up sticks and assemble them into a trap, without even using a knife. Preliminary tests of this "no-method" have produced results equal to conventional, carved and manufactured traps, but with a much smaller investment of time.Primitive hunter-gatherer type cultures were very good at doing nothing. Exactly how well they did this is difficult to determine, however, because doing nothing leaves nothing behind for the archaeological record. Every time we find an artifact we have documentation of something they did; yet the most important part of their skills may have been what they did not, and there is no way to discover what that was by studying what they did.

Nevertheless, what you will discover for yourself, as you learn the art of doing nothing is that you are much more at home in the wilderness. No longer will you be so dependent on a lot of tools and gadgets; no longer will you need to shape the elements of nature to fit our western definitions. You will find you need less and less, until one day you find you need nothing at all. Then you will have the time on your hands so that you can choose to do nothing, or even to go do something.

(Thomas J. Elpel is the director of Hollowtop Outdoor Primitive School in Pony Montana)