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Sea breeze

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Thursday, 20 Jan 2022, 21:41

An image of an abstract painting (done by me)


Can also be a flower deva...

An image of an abstract painting

...or sparks from a camp fire next to the sea, carried away into the night by a breeze:


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Wood sprite

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Thursday, 20 Jan 2022, 21:22

An abstract painting by me

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Metta sutta (teaching on loving-kindness)

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Saturday, 11 Sept 2021, 22:36

A picture of an abstract painting - by me

This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech,
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied,
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways,
Peaceful and calm and wise and skillful,
Not proud and demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing:
In gladness and in safety,
May all beings be at ease!
Whatever beings there may be,
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short, or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and those far away,
Those born and to-be-born –May all beings be at ease!

Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life,
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings.
Radiating kindness over the entire world:
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths,
Outwards and unbounded,
Free from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down,
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to wrong views,
The pure-hearted one,
Having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is never again born into this world.


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Practising meditation to perform at death

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Wednesday, 15 Dec 2021, 18:07

Some wise advice.



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New blog post

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Sunday, 12 Sept 2021, 12:28

I think I need a break from the media for a bit. It is doing my head in. All of it, the mainstream and the alternative media. Can't bare any more of it, is just making me feel fight or flight, which is bad for the immune system. I don't know who is telling me the truth. They have all lied about things before, and I don't trust the government. There really is an information war going on at the moment and I think I have had enough, need to look after my mind.

Going to have a media blackout for a few days, will try to sit outside in the garden without any technology, need to get away from the media mind-games and fear. Let go and meditate in the fresh air with my plants and animal friends, try to find some inner peace. I've had enough of it all, depressing the rubber duck out of me.

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New blog post

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Sunday, 12 Sept 2021, 17:20

Of course I don't have a problem with Jesus, he seemed like a noble person, telling people to love one another is good advice, how much less suffering and better karma there would be in the world if people did this. I don't believe that there is an eternity in Hell for not being a Christian though. That way of thinking is like an unhappy prison for the mind, and the sooner people get out of the delusion of superstition and dogma the better. The name of the Hebrew God is: 'I am'  Perhaps there's a clue right there. When we search the depth of our being and ask ourselves who we are, the answer is usually 'I just am. ' Perhaps that is the omnipresent God that is in everything. We all have an 'I am'. Maybe that is what Jesus meant when he said I and the father are one. Who knows? I certainly don't know. It may be one of those questions that can never have a satisfactory answer. One thing I do know is supreme being or not, people don't get sent to Hell because they practise critical thinking. People shouldn't be afraid to ask questions about anything. The only way to learn is to ask questions and do your own research, find out what is true from your own practise. Experience is the ultimate teacher. Others that have walked the path can help as guides, but you still must walk the path yourself. Don't believe something blindly just  because someone says it is so, test it as thoroughly as you need, be scientific and discover the truth for yourself. Be your own guru. Your own master. Don't let another tell you what to think or  believe.

 

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Enlightenment... not easy

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Sunday, 12 Sept 2021, 12:41

Man, I don't know how the Buddha did it. The spiritual masters make it look and sound so simple. But in practise it feels far from that. My mind is challenging and instead of getting enlightenment, I seem to just get crazier... I'll keep trying though, keep picking myself up when I fail and try try again... it is the only consolation I can feel in this mad world, that therein is the path to liberation, the great masters all say there is a way out, that it is possible. And what a motivation for practise death is, the reminder that  every body on Earth has an expiry date.


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Guilt

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Sunday, 12 Sept 2021, 12:44

Watch out for guilt. Many of us in the West are brought up with guilt complexes. Guilt is no help at all, let that shit go.

The past is dead, learn what you can from it, but don't drag that corpse around with you.


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New blog post

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Sunday, 12 Sept 2021, 12:48

I think I am tired of this world. The violence, sickness, suffering, dirty crooked politicians, programmed TV-eye opinions, egoic delusions, ridiculous flags and wars on this, wars on that, and the guilt... oh God the guilt, we are constantly being made to feel guilty about one thing or another, from just being different in some way, to the shame of not being able to reach the lofty heights of the rat-race. The next thing we are lacking advertised by invisible data miners... and in religion, more guilt... more delusion.. more shame and heavy concrete blocks to carry up the mountain, more fear, confusion and programming. 

Can anyone really break free of this? 

Is mind itself the prison?

Why did life start? What are we? Why does the body have an expiry date? Why all this striving for something which doesn't last? 

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The Goddess

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Friday, 24 Dec 2021, 22:12

Had this vivid dream of being in possession of a magical pebble.

I skimmed it across the water and each time it skipped it grew larger and larger until it became an island with ancient Aztec-style ruins on it. Me and some companions went to explore the island. We found an entrance to an underground tunnel and entered it. Whilst down there we accidently activated a secret entrance that held a sarcophagus, with horror we watched it  open and a female zombie with glowing eyes emerge. She was immensely powerful and terrifying to behold. She butchered all my companions but for some reason spared me and when I was the last person standing, she changed from the form of a zombie to a beautiful self-assured Goddess. She led me out of the underground tunnels to the top of the island, where she stood by the entrance to a cave. She did not seem to want to harm me, in fact she seemed quite protective and motherly towards me. And she had a strong sense of the wild about her, reminded me of the feeling of connection and kinship I feel with nature and other species of life.

Anyway I had no idea what any of that could mean, but it left a strong impression on me. I researched ancient goddesess, from all cultures. And found out some amazing stuff about how humans used to live in a matriarchal society. And it was women who invented agriculture and were leaders during the Neolithic times. The garden of eden story symbolises this, the move away from being hunter-gatherers to farmers.

 Women would often die in childbirth, and those that did would be venerated as fallen heroes. The neolithic peoples worshipped the Goddess. Silbury hill for example took 400 years to build and has stood for over 4000 years. A symbol of the ancient Goddess in the shape of a breast. 

 Things changed roughly around the time of ancient Greece, things became more and more patriarchal, and women became suppressed and demeaned; at the same time the natural world also started to become oppressed. Nature became seen as something to be dominant over, something to exploit and control. The idea of ownership developed, not just of the land, but also of people. Something which still continues to this day.

 Anyway, after much digging I finally found the Goddess from my dream. She was an Aztec goddess. Portrayed sometimes in their art as a frightening zombie-like figure. It is all symbolic though, she was actually quite benevolent, the frightening zombie side to her nature symbolises her consuming our misdeeds/impurities, so we can become pure enough to travel onward. The companions in my dream must have symbolised my impurities. The cave she stood beside, I think symbolised the womb. Ancient caves almost always symbolised the womb. And perhaps I am meant to enter it to become reborn, or maybe it means the world is about to be reborn. Perhaps the cave is the safest place to be in these turbulent times, a place to change, develop and grow into something new.

I dunno, I am maybe reading too much into this dream,  left a strong impression on me though and was odd that I would dream of a Goddess I had never heard of before and find out she was based on an actual ancient mythology. Cool dream anyway... but perhaps I am reading too much into it. 

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New blog post

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Sunday, 12 Sept 2021, 14:00

Sorry for all the spiritual stuff. I know it isn't everyone's cup of tea, but then noone has to read this.

 I guess I just don't feel much hope for the future. Feels like the world is ending. The oceans are dying, the forests are burning, the insects are dying, many species are going extinct. The rise of the right wing fascists and the surveillance state. The loss of welfare and worker's rights, loss of human rights next, and the misery of low wage crap jobs, working long hours in sweatshop conditions, suffering from lack of sleep, and despite working so hard having to survive on food banks is the experience of many. And when the shit really hits the fan, there will be a refugee crisis unlike anything the earth has known, worse than the one even now. 

I don't feel much hope for this world, and it causes me to want to escape and look deep within for solutions and freedom from all this madness and oppression.

This world is so fucked man. Our poor kids having to inherit this hell.

The only positive I can find is that this amount of suffering makes the incentive to become enlightened much more appealing. A grand opportunity to become awakened for everyone in these times, and there's so much spiritual knowledge at our fingertips, more than at any other time in history, that is something at least.


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The Witness

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Sunday, 12 Sept 2021, 14:03

(This is something I need to remember for 2020)

The idea of being a person (a personality with likes and dislikes) is just a construct of the mind. Your ego, social class, race, beliefs, purpose, ideas and opinions, they are all just constructs of the mind. What appears and disappears is not real. The one thing consistent through all experience is the one who is the seer, the silent observer, the watcher. To discover the truth about who you are, ignore the constructs of the mind and find out who the seer is.


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Equanimity

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Sunday, 12 Sept 2021, 14:05

'When we mindfully observe and accept both the situation and our mind's reaction to it, equanimously and without judgement, then the mind will remain unified.' 

quote - (Culadasa: The mind illuminated)

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Murmurations

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Sunday, 12 Sept 2021, 14:08

I am depressed at the moment. It is a struggle each day just to get out of bed and do anything. My energy levels are low. Studying is difficult, my cognitive abilities are getting worse and I am finding reading difficult, constantly have to read and re-read the same paragraph for the information it contains to eventually sink in, and even then I am not sure it has. Starting to doubt if I have what it takes to finish this degree. I'll keep going though...

It could be this dark time of year, I find November a difficult month. I feel like a hedgehog that wants to go hibernate somewhere, maybe humans should hibernate, that would save energy and resources and maybe help the planet not die from over-exploitation.

We got some cool starling murmurations here, look really amazing, and when they pass overhead you can hear their collective wing-beats.

There are some that think everything is conscious, even molecules and atoms, that it is a natural consequence of an interconnected Interdependent form. Meaning every level of reality could be conscious from atoms, to molecules, to cells, to neurons, to a human. And consciousness could even go beyond that, to perhaps a family, a neighbourhood, town, city, nation, the Internet, an eco-system, biome, planet, solar system, galaxy, the whole universe might be conscious.

A lot of things in reality are like fractals.

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The atmosphere

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Friday, 24 Dec 2021, 22:07

There was a beautiful sunset this evening with orange blue clouds. I sometimes look up at the sky and think wow here I am on the surface of a planet breathing and looking up at an atmosphere. What a wonder this is, a fragile wonder that protects us from the vacuum and meteors of outer space. A wonder anyone can look at all over the Earth.

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...

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Thursday, 30 Sept 2021, 23:13

Struggling a bit with motivation for learning at the moment. Feels like the world is ending and part of me just thinks what is the point? All work and industry does is f#ck up the planet. The ocean here is dying, there is a significant lack of life in it this year. It's all disappearing, even the shell fish, there's hardly anything now, there used to be loads.

Got a doctors appointment today, I can't face going in, so am going to cancel it, change it to another day. I can't handle being around people at the moment and I dislike doctor waiting rooms, depressing places full of posters about possible things that might be wrong with you. It is a mission for me to get there and I don't want to talk to anyone just now. Feel like I need to be on my own and ride out this depressed state o mind.

Can't seem to meditate or get into anything at the moment.

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The era of constant tiredness

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Thursday, 30 Sept 2021, 19:46

Feeling a bit under the weather. Depression seems to be getting the better of me again. Mostly because I can't sleep well at the moment. It really frustrates me hearing all these experts telling how important sleep is, and the health dangers of not getting enough, but no matter how hard I try I just cannot get the bare minimum of 7 hours a night. I always wake up tired and unable to go back to sleep again. Eventually lieing there and not sleeping I get fed up of being in bed awake and I get up and study, but to be homest my brain just does not work well when it is tired, even with coffee. I look at the study materials and just struggle to comprehend them in this state of mind. I really hate insomnia. I've tried so many different things to help with sleep and nothing works. 

From talking to different people I realise I  am not alone with this problem. It feels like this modern age is cursed to be one where we humans are always tired and sleep deprived. No wonder the world is so crazy.

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):

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Sunday, 3 Oct 2021, 11:22

So sad about the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. The ocean is also dying. And the insects. Human civilisation is going down a dark path. We have reached the point now where a mass extinction event is happening around us and refugees are left to drown at sea; humanity is in a bad place.

Wish I could do something. Feel so powerless against this global madness. I don't know what to do? I feel like I am witnessing the end of the world...

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New blog post

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Thursday, 30 Sept 2021, 22:55


Don't believe everything you think.

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):

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Thursday, 30 Sept 2021, 22:58
I hear a cow mourning for her calf, forcefully taken from her by a farmer. A deep soulful heart wrenching sound fills the sky, and echoes over the town. She will never see her baby again. I feel her pain and sadness. And I feel ashamed and sorry for the way humans treat other animals. They have as much right to live and be free in this world as we do. All that suffering inflicted on another being to fill our supermarket shelves with milk and the myriad other dairy products that are sold. We see it all nicely packaged in neat rows on the refrigerated aisles, a world away from the reality of where it comes from. The way we humans treat other animals is despicable.
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This moment

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Thursday, 30 Sept 2021, 22:59

It is the breeze that moves the leaves in the trees across from my window.
The sound of someone using a chainsaw
My sadness
My aching body
And a flapping wing

A myriad vibrations sail across the element of air to my eardrum.

This is the moment where the wave energy of the Big Bang is currently at.
On its long journey back to the void from where it came
This is where all the magic and mystery and true knowing is.
Even just writing about this the wave has passed, it does not pause for anyone.

Even the mightiest of stars and black holes will one day disappear
Nothing lasts, not this civilisation nor any that will follow.
Our lives are brief flickers

If we are too caught up in beliefs and delusions about what reality is or should be
If we keep chasing things we think will make us happy.

We miss the voice of God

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Good friday

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Thursday, 30 Sept 2021, 23:05

Melancholic seagull shanty,
sounds across the bay
the ancient sky
fragile
smokey blue membrane between life and space,
I listen through open window and humid air,
no breeze, no chill, not a wave on the sea,
as blackbird sings, and pigeon wings flutter
the crunkly pebbled sound of a car approaches
my relative position in time and space.




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Save the Firth of Clyde

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Thursday, 30 Sept 2021, 22:10

These salmon farms are an environmental menace and cruel, they are proposing to build one of these horrors round the coast here. It will be terrible for the wildlife. Please sign to save the Firth of Clyde:

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-proposed-cumbrae-fish-farms-going-ahead

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Hitler and the song thrush

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Thursday, 30 Sept 2021, 22:11

Tired man, feel like my legs are made out of concrete and my brain is in a jar somewhere. Sometimes online in social media and on forums I just post stuff for the sake of it and don't really add anything to the conversation. It's not really ego or wanting to be noticed, it is more stupidity lol. Maybe I should stay away from discussions for a bit, my contributions are a bit shit anyway to be honest, I either state the obvious or I waffle on like a fool.

Chack Chack is singing on the window perch, with the breeze blowing through her feathers. Nice day man, semi-blue skies, warm sun. A song thrush is also singing, it is a beautiful sound - feel lucky to be able to hear it.

I remember a crazy dream I had where Hitler was hunting me down to try and assasinate me with a gang of his elite soldiers. I was just about to be caught by him when a songthrush appeared in my dream and started singing and the world changed around me and I was safe.



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March 1st 2019

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Thursday, 30 Sept 2021, 22:13

Not feeling too great today. My self confidence is a bit low. There's this part of me that is constantly putting me down, making me feel inadequate and stupid. I have been doing OK so far with the Open University, but there's always this voice in the back of my mind telling me it won't last and I just am not smart enough to do a degree. The human psyche is such a complicated place man. I try not to hate that part of myself. I am gently working with it, attempting to re-train those neurons to be put to some better use. It is a part of me that has seen a rough part of reality and it will take time to re-programme myself. Yeah this world is a hard place for many of us. Sometimes wonder what the point in any of it is. There are so many different pressing problems coming together just now globally, that it feels like the end of the world and worrying about career and stuff just seems irrelevant when we are currently in the Earth's sixth mass extinction event. There is so much war and violence in the world. So many refugees and so much homelessness. So much depravity among many of the wealthy, much like how things may have been before the collapse of the Roman empire I guess.

Pretty much every generation thinks the world is going to end; perhaps it is time to create a better world where future generations don't feel like that. A world that isn't oppressive, violent and lacking in love. Human society doesn't have to be this way, there are alternatives. The people who keep telling us there is no alternative are the ones who profit off the status quo. Change can happen and is still possible, but I fear there is not much time left now for that change to happen before everything around us collapses. I think any humans that manage to survive the looming collapse could find themselves living in another dark age, but one far worse than any that have happened before. If land and oceanic eco-systems die it will be a bleak and harsh world to try and survive in, it is possible humanity may not even survive this time.

The odds don't look great just now; but I am trying to keep hope alive in my soul. There is evil in the world; but there is also good.

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