Feed the Earth/ How to be Unhappy

Feed the Earth:

here's some garden I'm preparing for the spring
tearing up junk mail, old newspapers, old jottings
putting on the hill
already made of weeds and plant debris
to be covered with dying tomatoes
weeds and
then
compost

feed the Earth
and the worms
and micro organisms will
do your rototilling for you

---

how to be unhappy:

want
wish
demand
wait for
count on
think you need
feel bad until you get

another person to
be different
than they are



ah,
what
hell to go with that insanity

and I did
that yesterday

what a pity

hours wasted
in
unnecessary
suffering

la,
la

hope I learned
my slow learner
dumb me
lesson

!!!!

Why are people unhappy?

Why are people unhappy?

Well, there's pain and starvation:
neither of which are any fun.

Beyond that, though,
most people in this culture
are unhappy
because they want "my" happiness
rather
than
happiness.

"My" happiness
is something for
"me"
that I can go out and
"get"

Two problems with that
and I won't go into either one.

Puzzle it out on your own.

The other
happiness
isn't
gotten,
and really is a by product:

of what?

Ah:
various things.

I don't feel like going into that either.

Hint:
it's a by product of
something beyond
words.

can you absolutely?

Can you absolutely know that it's true?

that's
it

that's
question number two
of the Byron Katie work:

CAN YOU ABSOLUTELY KNOW THAT THIS THOUGHT IS TRUE?


What thought?

The "should" thought.
The "shouldn't" thought.
The so and so is such a way, thought (with the implication: they
shouldn't
be)
And so on.

The work is about getting our hearts
free
from the mind's insistence on
being right.

We have these thoughts.
We are so sure they are right.

"Dad shouldn't have done..."
"Ma should have ...."
"The wife should..."
"The husband shouldn't..."
"My children should..."

And so on.

If after the first question,
we aren't clear that we are in the land
of opinion
instead of the land of truth,
then the second question,
"Can I absolutely know that this thought is true,"
gives us another go at
our conviction
that we are just so right,
just so righteously,
totally and completely
the one
who says:
this is the truth.

So,

we now have two of the four questions:

One: Is it true?

Two: Can I absolutely know that this thought is true?

Two more to go.

Good.