A few words of welcome

        Jottings is a collection of philosophical meditations that I noted in my journal as things occurred to me over the years. One or two were probably inspired by things I wrote during the later 1960 during my first years at Ohio State; but I date this bunch of thoughts from the early '70s and '80s. Originally these thoughts were in prose; a quickly typed sentence or two in most cases-- at most (when time allowed) a few paragraphs.

        Among my notes to myself were encouragement to keep on plugging, the importance of imagination to problem solving, making it through hard times--and good times--, reaching for the unreachable, and searching for the ineffable that is within each of us. Some people would call this behavior spiritual; I call it simple pragmatism: I believe that any intelligent person reaches, stretches, looks within. It is simply our nature.

        My studies at the San Francisco Zen Center provided material for other thoughts as did a long-time interest in both Eastern and Western philosophy. (Although, my interest in philosophy in general stems from my high school senior Literature teacher who introduced the class to Plato and other ancient Greek thinkers and stories.) Events at Berkeley lent reason for other ponderings. By the latter 1980's I found nearly 150 miscellaneous thoughts of a paragraph or two or three in various files on my home computer. Most were easily dispatched!. Others I reworked and joined with like thoughts. Eventually there were around 80 ponderings that I read when I was tired or blue, or otherwise stressed out ... sometimes within millimeters of breaking. When events slammed me, I found some comfort and peace of mind, even a smile, by reading what I had written during my more contemplative moments. (I think this works for virtually anyone; try it the next time you feel blue or stressed. See for yourself.) We need all kinds of ways of promoting health and wellness, and this is my contribution on the mental/spiritual/hilosophical/ethical side.

        In the late 90's, a fellow computer geek suggested that a collection of my thoughts might be publishable on one ezine or another. He also suggested that my stuff might be more effective if they were transformed from prose to poetic notation. He said that poetry's use of metaphor and imagery might help get across the more abstract jottings--and after years of rewrites, some of my writing had become a dense thicket of abstraction. Now, I knew more about the dark side of the moon than about writing poetry, so I turned to my local pvblic library where a new writing group had just begun. Thanks to the help of this group, over five years, these jottings began the transition from prose to poetry.

        What I think of as meditations cannot be considered as poetry in its purest sense. (Or can it?) The poetic notation lends the freedom to employ color, symbology, metaphor, and simile to express ideas that would otherwise get lost. Hmm...   .

        These jottings reflect life as it its essence may be grasped. The ideas jotted down here are a kind of philosophy; the Natural metaphysics that enhances the concepts we use daily. The ideas suggest ways of developing these ideas to bring us to the limits of our own possibility, and beyond.

        Most people assume that realizing any state of awareness beyond the normal happens exceedingly rarely--only by Zen masters or Tibetan monks or the solitary sage. I believe that flashes of transcendent insight happen much more frequently than is commonly believed. This flash of enlightenment may come upon the deathbed, it may happen as early at late childhood or young adulthood. It would seem to be most common in older people--after lifetimes of experience. Several of my thoughts touch on this theme, not to teach any particular road to an enlightened state of mind--for this state is, to borrow a phrase from Schopenhauer, beyond subject and object; it is beyond communication. Still, it is possible for words to point the way.

        Gary Kline
Seattle