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Free Will and Choice

2020-01-28T18:17:53-05:00By Jason Stern|Choice|

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Let’s paint the cabin!

Let’s paint the cabin!

Climbing the razor’s edge, “Jolt”, at The Hi

Climbing the razor’s edge, “Jolt”, at The Hinterlands. #rumneyclimbing #rockclimbing #rumneyrocks

@this_is_trivial cranking the first beautiful pitc

@this_is_trivial cranking the first beautiful pitch of Birdland. A day in paradise. #gunksclimbing

Back on Retribution 30 years later. Love the reac

Back on Retribution 30 years later. Love the reach to the arete and delicate move to the finger lock in the corner.

#gunksclimbing #rockclimbing

Esteemed Reader of Our Magazine: Q: How much "ego"

Esteemed Reader of Our Magazine:
Q: How much "ego" do you need?
A: Just enough so that you don't step in front of a bus.
—Shunryu Suzuki
As many readers have pointed out, we are in a time of transition, faced with the results of past deeds whose waves have rippled across the ocean of time, bounced off a distant shore, and returned in equal force. This is a peak in the intensity of our collective life together, a time that stirs conscience, and we awaken, if only a little, to some of the absurdities and injustices of our collective life as a society, and perhaps individually as well.
Collective and personal histories are characterized by these peaks and troughs, like the waves. Life follows cycles, though our great difficulty is in remembering the trough at the height of the peak. How easily we forget the challenges of an intense period and become complacent during times of habit-impelled ease.
This is the essence of meditation—to be both present in, and impartial to, the state of the moment. Whether I’m feeling good, up, strong, shitty, depressed, or ineffectual, the task of meditation is to stay with the technique as a gateway to a capacity for clear and impartial awareness. Technique, in meditation, is like the long, heavy keel of a sailboat, holding the vessel upright and providing stability as it cuts across the waves.
As in meditation, so in life. How do I allow myself the freedom to stay present, alert, and aware? How do I stay whole whilst receiving what comes: the buffeting of injustices, shocking events, divided politics and opinions, the many wrongs of a society founded in ignorance? How do I keep a sense of the long body, recognizing the cyclical nature of a society with its ups and downs? How can I recognize and remember how reliably things become their opposite while retaining the same name?
In my personal inquiry into the cyclical nature of time, I revisited some journals from seven years ago. I found a passage that jumped out as instructive for this particular time. It is a record of a conversation with my son, then six years old. The context is a walk along a country road on a warm night in June.
#gurdjieff

Get your motor running...

Get your motor running...

Three worlds intersect here. #gunksclimbing

Three worlds intersect here.

#gunksclimbing

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the book

Learning to Be Human
By Jason Stern

Compilation of Stern’s columns from Chronogram in which he explores the intriguing concept of regional culture in its full meaning.

Copyright 2020 Jason Stern | All Rights Reserved | Developed by Now Age New Media

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