WS Chronicle

By English Bradshaw

My fellow universal family, I ask that each day you will join me and devote eight minutes and forty-six seconds in peaceful meditation for intentional healing for our planet. Please feel free to use the guided meditation I have provided for you. I humbly beg the indulgence of my more patient readers to forgive me for my typological adaptation of the “Tao Te Ching (Book of The Way)” by Lao Tsu. 

Let us begin: Make yourself comfortable … Close your eyes … Relax … Take in a deep breath. Breathe in. Breathe out … wheeew … empty your mind of all thoughts … let your mind communicate with your subconscious mind and listen softly to the music of the universe. 

One: The Truththat can be told is not the eternal Truth. The Lovethat can be named is not the eternal Love. Naming is the origin of particular things – you know, things like black, white, brown, red, yellow and even Red/White/Blue. When you become free from your desires, you realize their mysteries. When you are caught up in your desires, you see only the manifestations, yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same source. This source is called Darkness – Darkness within Darkness … this is the gateway to all understanding and misunderstanding. 

Two: Truth/Love tells us when people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly (Black Lives Matter)? … When people see some things as good, other things become bad (no, justice, no peace)? … Difficult and easy support each other (police brutality and protection)?… Long and short define each other (health care and life expectancy)? … High and low depend on each other (white privilege and food stamps)? … Before and after follow each other. (wealth and poverty)? 

Three: Truth/Love leads us by emptying people’s minds, weakening their ambition and toughening their resolve. Love/Truth helps people lose everything they know, everything they desire, and create confusion in those who think that they know. It confuses us with deep quizziness of the understanding of when nothing is done; nothing is left undone. 

Four: Truth/Love is like a well: used but never used up … It is hidden but always present … I don’t know who gave birth to it … (please don’t ask a preacher)?It is older than God. Before God was: Truth and Love Is. 

Five: Truth/Love doesn’t take sides; it gives birth to both good and evil (thugs and patriots)?… It welcomes both saints and sinners (There are good people on both sides, Charlottesville)? … Is it like the bellows; (Ican’t breathe)?Empty yet infinitely deadly and capable? … The more you use it, the more it produces … The more you talk of it, the less you understand. Truth/Love begs you to know our own life. When you realize where you come from, you naturally become tolerant, kindhearted as a grandmother, dignified as a king. This is the essence of wisdom. 

Six: Truth/Love is like the Great Mother: It gives birth to infinite worlds. You can use it any way you want. It only asks you to keep simple in your thinking. It asks if you are governing that you don’t try to control (POTUS 45)? … In work, do what you enjoy .,, In family life, be completely present. It tells you that when you are content to be just simply yourself and don’t compare or compete with others, everybody will respect you. 

Seven: Truth/Love cautions: If you fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill … Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt …. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench …. Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner. Just do your work, be quiet, then step back. It asks: Can you love people and lead them without imposing your will? Can you deal with the most vital matters by letting events take their course? (Are demonstrations now witnessed around the world a moment or a movement and/or inextricably linked to these vital matters)?Truth/Love asks: Can you step back from you own mind and thus understand all things? Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving until the right action arises by itself? 

Eight: Truth /Love reminds us that we shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want. We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner space that makes it livable. (Is the hollow filled with hope, justice, dignity or fear)?Truth/Love tells us that hope and fear are both phantoms that arise from thinking of ourselves. When we don’t see the self as ourselves, what do we have to fear? Truth/Love tells us to see the world as ourselves. If we love the world as ourselves, then we can protect, respect, tend to and care for all things like we do for ourselves. Knowing others, says Truth/Love, is intelligence; but knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; but mastering yourself is true power. 

Nine: Truth/Love tells us that our ancestors were profound and subtle. Their wisdom was unfathomable. There is no proper way to describe it. All we can describe is their appearance which has been handed down to us through Hollywood, folklore and bleach. (Maybe Lysol)?I contend, they were careful as someone crossing an iced-over stream … Alert as a warrior in enemy territory … Courteous as a guest … Fluid as melting ice … Shapeable as a block of wood … Receptive as a valley … Clear as a glass of water … and the wisdom exceeding Exodus 35:1. 

Ten: Truth/Love tells us that when good leaders govern, the people are hardly aware that they exist. The best leader is one who is loved, not one who is feared, or the worst one who is despised. Truth/Love tells us a good leader doesn’t talk (Tweet)?S/he acts. A leader who tries to shine dims his/her own light. Leaders who defines themselves can’t know who they really are… One who has power over others can’t empower themselves … One who clings to their work will create nothing that endures. (Mexico will pay for it).

Truth/Love tells us that when a country obtains great power, the greater the need for humility. Humility means never needing to be defensive. A great nation is like a great person: When it makes a mistake, it realizes it … Having realized it, admits it … Having admitted it, corrects it. It considers those who point out faults as its most benevolent teachers … It thinks of its enemy as the shadow that itself casts … And when it makes a mistake, it is forgiven. 

Finally, if a nation is centered in Truth and Love, and nourishes its own people and doesn’t meddle in the affairs of others, it will be a light to all nations in the world. (MegaMAGA)? 

Now, open your eyes, breathe in deeply and exhale … welcome back! Feel free to set aside eight minutes and forty-five seconds each day and I am sure you will be able to withstand the Tweet Storms and Hannitized America. 

Dr. Bradshaw taught Political Science and African American Studies and established the Ethnic Studies Program at the University of Hawaii where he received his undergraduate degree in political science and Master’s degree in American Studies. He taught African American Studies at the Phillip Brooks House at Harvard University where attended Harvard Graduate School of Education and the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Dr. Bradshaw also taught Political Science and African American Studies at Tuskegee University and received his Doctorate at the University of Amsterdam.