The Zen N! #52

An update from me and the ongoing series on connecting to existence.

The Zen N! #52

The Focus of The Newsletter

The Paths, 0, 1, 2 Part II


The Paths, 0, 1, 2 Part II on YouTube


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Hi! I'm Tyler Choice. I created this publication to improve your conscious and critical thought. Thank you for reading!

Part 1 was saying that when we understand, we connect to an understanding that exists outside of ourselves. Based on the claim that the fundamental quality of existence is celebration, that means that we can connect to that quality and connect to all of existence, right now.

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The metaphor for this used is Music or Song because these are an apt way to describe becoming connected to the ever-flowing, ever present quality of the timeless, eternal reality.

Inner Quality = Outer Quality.

As with many things in this world, connecting to existence is a “fake it till you make it” process.

As you cannot cause a connection to take place; you cannot cause yourself to fall in love with someone, it can happen when you are near them. It might not happen. It might.

If your lover is at the river, you cannot reach them where you are now. You will have to go to the river. You might see them the first time you go to the river, you might not see them for years.

The connection part is not under your control, but, one day it might happen.

The odds of you hearing the “song of the universe” when you are with a person connected to this song is high. This is a reason for pursuing teachers.

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The song of the universe, the song of existence, is a suitable metaphor for a quality of existence that can be experienced.

There is only one issue with the first path.

It may be easy for a person to connect to the song one time, a first time.
It may be easy to make contact, but it is not so easy to stay connected.


From my understanding, only a person who has exhausted his desires for this world could ever be ready to stay connected, to live totally in the song.

Naturally, there are only two people like this: The young, and the old.
The young is already connected. The old person, having nothing left to live for, finally stops striving and, in that moment, remembers what life is.

Only a person who has said,

“I have had enough of this life, I have tasted all I wanted to taste and done all that I wanted to do, and now I am ready to rest, I have had enough.
I am ready to go in a different direction. I am no longer concerned with my mortality.”

Only this person could live totally connected to existence. This is in part because as long as you have things to do, the first path is not available to live in. This is what philosophy calls, “your egoic pursuits”. Your egoic pursuits are the dreams you want to finish, the people you want to prove wrong, the statement:

“All that I’ve done and worked for cannot have been for nothing. I must finish what I started.”

The typical motivations and drivers that come with this are not compatible with connecting to and living in the song, the harmonious existence.

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At this time, I believe it is possible to strive for pursuits and be in tune with this metaphorical song, but from a different set of drivers.

The reason for getting disconnected from existence is that when you follow these pursuits in your mind, you conflict with the deepest desire in your true heart–in your soul.
This desire you may have long forgotten–though it is always there, even if it must be resurrected.


Ram Dass once talked about this deepest desire, saying,

Ram Dass - Portrait

"As if in each of us
There once was a fire
And for some of us
There seem as if there are only ashes now
But when we dig in the ashes
We find one ember. And very gently we fan that ember
Blow on it, it gets brighter
And from that ember we rebuild the fire."

- Ram Dass - Sit Around The Fire

Simply put, the heart lives and operates a certain way.

There are things it does and does not do,
there are things it wants and does not want,
there are things it strives for and does not strive for.

The difficulty with this path is that the world is currently incompatible with the heart, and so there is guaranteed confliction and consequence of suffering due to the outside world.

In this way, the easiest path, the path of the heart, is also the most difficult path in our world today.

It is easier for a poor person to enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Thank you for reading! - Tyler



You can share your thoughts, stories, feels with me at contacttylerchoice@gmail.com.