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5 Book Descriptions
Description: Something For Nothing
This book is a compilation of sayings useful to understanding Eastern thought and General Semantics. The agreement between General Semantics and Eastern philosophy is profound, illuminating, and deepens the understanding of both. For instance, the expressions, "The description is not the described," and, "The thought is not the thing," are found in both Eastern philosophy and General Semantics. Both systems arrive at reality as nonverbal, silent, and beyond comprehension with thought. This despite the fact that one is spiritual and one is atheistic. Two entirely different approaches arriving at the same ultimate conclusions is exciting and enlightening.
You will find the sayings herein amusing, helpful, interesting, and thought provoking. Many of the sayings are like Zen koans; if you sit with them, they reveal the other side free of words. Many of the sayings are open to multiple interpretations and meanings. New meanings will arrive on different journeys through the book. The same insight shared different ways helps you not to miss deeper felt experiences for simple surface meanings. It often happens that a slight change in wording allows someone to drop their mind long enough to hear something fresh. One person's, "that's obvious," is another person's "ah-ha" moment. Let the sayings pass that don't open to you now. Focus on the sayings that bring stillness. Listen beyond the words. Feel, rather than think, the sayings through. Sense, rather than think, the music behind the words.
If you are not familiar with Eastern thought, the word "nothing" can have a profoundly positive meaning. For instance, "nothing" can mean the unknowable creative source of everything. Eastern philosophy has two major divisions; one that has gods, and one that has a void instead of gods. The word "nothing" in this book often refers to this invisible, unfathomable, and all-powerful Eastern void. The word "void" is also to be considered positive in the Eastern philosophy sense. Perhaps, because of the negative connotations of the words "void" or "nothing", the Western mind would do better to think of "positive pure-energy" in place of void and nothing.
The word "nothing" in this book can have many meanings other than zero: emptiness, empty space, formless energy, God, invisible power, no thing, no things as referents, no thoughts, no thoughts as referents, no thoughts being what they only represent, not thinging, self as space, the creative source, the ineffable, the life force, the nature of being, the positive Eastern void, the way of life. Try considering the word "nothing" as a shortened form of the two words "not thinging"!
The word "something" in this book mainly refers to: conceptualizing, concretizing, ideas, images, labels, making thoughts into reality, names, objectifying, reification, some thought, some thought-thing, terms, thingifying, thought as delusion, thought as illusion, thought pretending to be the real, thoughts as what they represent, thought-things, treating thoughts as things. Try considering the word "something" as a shortened form of the two words "some thought-thing"!
Two reading suggestions. One, you will understand more if you read "nothing" as two words "no thing" or "not thing" and "something" as two words "some thing" or "some thought-thing". Two, always consider the word "nothing" to be implied even if it is not stated. "Nothing" is the constant counterpoint to "something". The words "nothing" and "something" have lost some of their original meaning through repetition and usage. Simply, you will find that "nothing" and "something" often have opposite or contrasting meanings in the sayings. More could be said, but less is often more helpful. Find what you will. Take what you want and leave the rest to leaven.
If you are interested in quotations, then please visit the author's website. There you will find lists of quotations organized by topic. If you find quotations intriguing, but not fulfilling, then please examine some of the author's other works listed at the end of the book.
Buy: Amazon
Buy: Barnes&Noble
Description: Anything Goes
This book is a compilation of sayings useful to understanding Eastern thought and General Semantics. The agreement between General Semantics and Eastern philosophy is profound, illuminating, and deepens the understanding of both. For instance, the expressions, "The description is not the described," and, "The thought is not the thing," are found in both Eastern philosophy and General Semantics. Both systems arrive at reality as nonverbal, silent, and beyond comprehension with thought. This despite the fact that one is spiritual and one is atheistic. Two entirely different approaches arriving at the same ultimate conclusions is exciting and enlightening.
You will find the sayings herein amusing, helpful, interesting, and thought provoking. Many of the sayings are like Zen koans; if you sit with them, they reveal the other side free of words. Many of the sayings are open to multiple interpretations and meanings. New meanings will arrive on different journeys through the book. The same insight shared different ways helps you not to miss deeper felt experiences for simple surface meanings. It often happens that a slight change in wording allows someone to drop their mind long enough to hear something fresh. One person's, "that's obvious," is another person's "ah-ha" moment. Let the sayings pass that don't open to you now. Focus on the sayings that bring stillness. Listen beyond the words. Feel, rather than think, the sayings through. Sense, rather than think, the music behind the words.
If you are not familiar with Eastern thought, the word "nothing" can have a profoundly positive meaning. For instance, "nothing" can mean the unknowable creative source of everything. Eastern philosophy has two major divisions; one that has gods, and one that has a void instead of gods. The word "nothing" in this book often refers to this invisible, unfathomable, and all-powerful Eastern void. The word "void" is also to be considered positive in the Eastern philosophy sense. Perhaps, because of the negative connotations of the words "void" or "nothing", the Western mind would do better to think of "positive pure-energy" in place of void and nothing.
The word "nothing" in this book can have many meanings other than zero: emptiness, empty space, formless energy, God, invisible power, no thing, no things as referents, no thoughts, no thoughts as referents, no thoughts being what they only represent, not thinging, self as space, the creative source, the ineffable, the life force, the nature of being, the positive Eastern void, the way of life. Try considering the word "nothing" as a shortened form of the two words "not thinging"!
The words "everything" and "anything" in this book mainly refer to: conceptualizing, concretizing, ideas, images, labels, making thoughts into reality, names, objectifying, reification, some thought, some thought-thing, terms, thingifying, thought as delusion, thought as illusion, thought pretending to be the real, thoughts as what they represent, thought-things, treating thoughts as things. Try considering the word "everything" as a shortened form of the two words "every thought-thing"! Try considering the word "anything" as a shortened form of the two words "any thought-thing"!
Two reading suggestions. One, you will understand more if you read "nothing" as two words "no thing" or "not thing", "everything" as two words "every thing" or "every thought-thing", and "anything" as two words "any thing" or "any thought-thing". Two, always consider the word "nothing" to be implied even if it is not stated. "Nothing" is the constant counterpoint to "everything" and "anything". The words "nothing", "everything", and "anything" have lost some of their original meaning through repetition and usage. Simply, you will find that "nothing" and "everything" or "anything" often have opposite or contrasting meanings in the sayings. More could be said, but less is often more helpful. Find what you will. Take what you want and leave the rest to leaven.
If you are interested in quotations, then please visit the author's website. There you will find lists of quotations organized by topic. If you find quotations intriguing, but not fulfilling, then please examine some of the author's other works listed at the end of the book.
Buy: Amazon
Buy: Barnes&Noble
Description: Acid Test
This book is a compilation of posters from the author's counseling practice. Some posters were designed to hang in the office, some in the waiting room, and some for clients to take home. Most of the posters presented in this book were never seen or shared. This was because of a focus on many of the other handouts developed by the author for his clients. Additional sayings have been added, and many of the posters have been rewritten or modified.
Pithy sayings can be either instantly helpful or meaningless. Often the best results from sayings or aphorisms come after they have grown slowly in the garden of your mind. Ideas you may reject at first can come to have more meaning in time. Aphorisms that make no sense today can suddenly reveal themselves to you years later. Some sayings can follow and teach you for a lifetime. For example, "Drink from your own well," has taught the author again and again for many years. Making yourself contemplate a saying that you do not understand can reveal much about your thinking styles. Is it the saying or your lack of openness that is cold? Feeling your way to the inside meat of a saying is the best approach.
You will find the sayings herein amusing, helpful, interesting, and thought provoking. Some of the sayings are like Zen koans; if you sit with them, they reveal the other side free of words. Some of the sayings are open to multiple interpretations and meanings. New meanings will arrive on different journeys through the book. The same insight shared different ways helps you not to miss deeper felt experiences for simple surface meanings. It often happens that a slight change in wording allows someone to drop their mind long enough to hear something fresh. One person's, "that's obvious," is another person's "ah-ha" moment. Let the sayings pass that don't open to you now. Focus on the sayings that bring stillness. Listen beyond the words. Feel, rather than think, the sayings through. Sense, rather than think, the music behind the words. Manage to touch the energy behind the words and your heart will be touched.
The first chapter consists of sayings related to both right and wrong thinking patterns. You are helped to discover how thinking can easily lead to misperception. You are encouraged not to make thinking the screen between you and life. Thought can be either a wall or a door depending on how you use it. Chapter Two contains sayings that help to make real the difference between being a container versus being the contents of a container. You are helped to rediscover your child nature as a container, in favor of your adult nature as contents. Understanding the nature of self makes it easier to choose to live in authentic moments. The third chapter gathers sayings that help point to what is and what is not genuine self. You are helped to discover and live in self instead of in ego. Chapter Four is mainly concerned with how and why you are responsible for your feelings. You are helped to become more mature by owning and accepting responsibility for your feelings. Owning your feelings is necessary for awareness and honesty. Being responsible for your feeling is necessary for leading an empowered life. The fifth chapter collects sayings that did not easily fit into one of the first four chapters. Most of those sayings continue ideas presented in the previous chapters. You will discover as much meaning as your ego defenses will allow. Chapter Six consists of longer posters that could and should not be reduced to sayings. The seventh chapter consists of poems related to the ideas of the book. Chapter Eight is the final chapter which includes end matter such as a recommended reading list. Chapters 1–5 contain 365 sayings making them suitable for daily reflection or a calendar.
It is important to understand the usage of the word "change" in this book. Change is considered an impossibility for psychological entities such as thoughts, feelings, and sensations. However, sometimes the book recommends change or describes how to change. This is consistent because change can have the meaning of transforming into something else, which is wrong for psychological usage. And change can have the meaning of switching to something else, which is right for psychological usage. You do not change your dog into a cat. You can change from having a dog to having a cat. You change your shirt by switching to a different shirt, not by mutating your current shirt into another shirt. Switch, not change. Or change in the sense of turning, shifting, transferring, or redirecting, not evolving.
If you are interested in quotations, then please visit the author's website. There you will find lists of quotations organized by topic. If you find quotations intriguing, but not fulfilling, then please examine some of the author's other works listed at the end of the book.
Buy: Amazon
Buy: Barnes&Noble
Description: 3D: Daily Dose of Discernment: 2003-4
This book is a collection of sayings for each day of the year 2004. Additionally, there are daily quotations for 2003 starting with the month of June. Each saying is dated in the mathematical fashion, that is, with the numbers in descending-size order. The sayings cover various topics. Topics include psychotherapy, psychology, philosophy, psychological skills, General Semantics, Eastern psychology, Eastern philosophy, meditation, flow, identity, authenticity, responsibility, the nature of self, and social commentary among others. The sayings were originally posted on the author’s website. They were edited for this book, and the edited versions now replace the original website versions. Editing was done for typos, grammar, and spelling. Editing was also done for duplicates, clarity of meaning, and precision. However, attempts were made to maintain the original meanings and intentions.
You will discover sayings useful to understanding Eastern thought and General Semantics. The agreement between General Semantics and Eastern philosophy is profound, illuminating, and deepens the understanding of both. For instance, the expressions, “The description is not the described,” and, “The thought is not the thing,” are found in both Eastern philosophy and General Semantics. Both systems arrive at reality as nonverbal, silent, and beyond comprehension with thought. This despite the fact that one is spiritual and one is atheistic. That two entirely different approaches arrive at the same ultimate conclusions is exciting and enlightening.
You will find the sayings herein amusing, helpful, interesting, and thought provoking. Many of the sayings are like Zen koans; if you sit with them, they reveal the other side free of words. Many of the sayings are open to multiple interpretations and meanings. New meanings will arrive on different journeys through the book. The same insight shared different ways helps you not to miss deeper felt experiences for simpler surface meanings. It often happens that a slight change in wording allows someone to drop their mind long enough to hear something fresh. One person’s, “That’s obvious,” is another person’s “ah-ha” moment. Let the sayings pass that don’t open to you now. Focus on the sayings that bring stillness. Listen beyond the words. Feel, rather than think, the sayings through. Sense, rather than think, the music behind the words. Manage to touch the energy behind the words, and your heart will be touched. Find what you will. Take what you want and leave the rest to leaven.
Pithy sayings can be either instantly helpful or meaningless. Often the best results from sayings or aphorisms come after they have grown slowly in the garden of your mind. Ideas you may reject at first can come to have more meaning in time. Aphorisms that make no sense today can suddenly reveal themselves to you years later. Some sayings can follow and teach you for a lifetime. For example, “Drink from your own well,” has taught the author again and again for decades. Making yourself contemplate a saying you do not understand can reveal much about your thinking styles. Is it the saying or your lack of openness that is cold? Feeling your way to the inside meat of a saying is the best approach.
It is important to understand the usage of the word “change” in this book. Change is considered an impossibility for psychological entities such as thoughts, feelings, and sensations. However, sometimes the book recommends change or describes how to change. This is consistent because change can have the meaning of transforming into something else, which is wrong for psychological usage. And change can also have the meaning of switching to something else, which is right for psychological usage. You do not change your dog into a cat. You can change from having a dog to having a cat. You change your shirt by switching to a different shirt, not by mutating your current shirt into another shirt. Switch, not change. Or change in the sense of turning, shifting, transferring, or redirecting, not evolving. More discussion on change can be found in Attitude Is All You Need! Second Edition.
If you are interested in quotations, then please visit the author’s website. There you will find lists of quotations organized by topic. If you find quotations intriguing, but not fulfilling, then please examine some of the author’s other works catalogued at the end of the book in the section “Books Alphabetically by Author.” The author has read and studied innumerable quotations by others. Sometimes, these quotations have been absorbed into the author’s thinking and so are repeated in the author’s words. If any quotations of the author’s appear too close to those of another, then it should be considered a compliment to the other. The author copies and repeats his own sayings too. The author has no shortage of original quotations, hence, repetition of the sayings of others is a tribute to them.
The author’s works offer six different approaches to self-help. (1) In Breathe, you discover methods for congruence, self-relaxation, self-calming, and self-centering. (2) In Garden, you discover methods for sorting out what thoughts work for you and what thoughts work against you. You also learn how to increase your productive thoughts and to decrease your unproductive thoughts. (3) In Not, you discover methods to stop using the number one mistake that underlies failure. You also learn how to be a more effective parent or leader. (4) In Ego, you discover methods to reduce your devotion to and dependence on ego. You also learn how to be free, happy, and more creative. (5) In Attitude Is All You Need!, you discover methods to sort out what attitudes are working for you and what attitudes are working against you. You also learn how to increase your productive attitudes and how to decrease your unproductive attitudes. (6) In the five books Something For Nothing, Anything Goes, Acid Test, 3D: Daily Dose of Discernment: 2005, and 3D: Daily Dose of Discernment: 2003-4 you are given sayings and aphorism to use for introspection, contemplation, and meditation. Please experiment until you find the one or two approaches that work best for you. Worry not if the approaches are the best for anyone else.
Buy: Amazon
Buy: Barnes&Noble
Description: 3D: Daily Dose of Discernment: 2005
This book is a collection of sayings for each day of the year 2005. Each saying is dated in the mathematical fashion, that is, with the numbers in descending-size order. The sayings cover various topics. Topics include psychotherapy, psychology, philosophy, psychological skills, General Semantics, Eastern psychology, Eastern philosophy, meditation, flow, identity, authenticity, responsibility, the nature of self, and social commentary among others. The sayings were originally posted on the author’s website. They were edited for this book, and the edited versions now replace the original website versions. Editing was done for typos, grammar, and spelling. Editing was also done for duplicates, clarity of meaning, and precision. However, attempts were made to maintain the original meanings and intentions. For the sake of a general audience No was placed after some of the sayings that are ironic. They are ironic because they state principles people follow that they should not be following. Please excuse the few we missed to notate this way.
You will discover sayings useful to understanding Eastern thought and General Semantics. The agreement between General Semantics and Eastern philosophy is profound, illuminating, and deepens the understanding of both. For instance, the expressions, "The description is not the described," and, "The thought is not the thing," are found in both Eastern philosophy and General Semantics. Both systems arrive at reality as nonverbal, silent, and beyond comprehension with thought. This despite the fact that one is spiritual and one is atheistic. That two entirely different approaches arrive at the same ultimate conclusions is exciting and enlightening.
You will find the sayings herein amusing, helpful, interesting, and thought provoking. Many of the sayings are like Zen koans; if you sit with them, they reveal the other side free of words. Many of the sayings are open to multiple interpretations and meanings. New meanings will arrive on different journeys through the book. The same insight shared different ways helps you not to miss deeper felt experiences for simpler surface meanings. It often happens that a slight change in wording allows someone to drop their mind long enough to hear something fresh. One person's, "That's obvious," is another person's "ah-ha" moment. Let the sayings pass that don't open to you now. Focus on the sayings that bring stillness. Listen beyond the words. Feel, rather than think, the sayings through. Sense, rather than think, the music behind the words. Manage to touch the energy behind the words, and your heart will be touched. Find what you will. Take what you want and leave the rest to leaven.
Pithy sayings can be either instantly helpful or meaningless. Often the best results from sayings or aphorisms come after they have grown slowly in the garden of your mind. Ideas you may reject at first can come to have more meaning in time. Aphorisms that make no sense today can suddenly reveal themselves to you years later. Some sayings can follow and teach you for a lifetime. For example, "Drink from your own well," has taught the author again and again for decades. Making yourself contemplate a saying you do not understand can reveal much about your thinking styles. Is it the saying or your lack of openness that is cold? Feeling your way to the inside meat of a saying is the best approach.
It is important to understand the usage of the word "change" in this book. Change is considered an impossibility for psychological entities such as thoughts, feelings, and sensations. However, sometimes the book recommends change or describes how to change. This is consistent because change can have the meaning of transforming into something else, which is wrong for psychological usage. And change can have the meaning of switching to something else, which is right for psychological usage. You do not change your dog into a cat. You can change from having a dog to having a cat. You change your shirt by switching to a different shirt, not by mutating your current shirt into another shirt. Switch, not change. Or change in the sense of turning, shifting, transferring, or redirecting, not evolving. More discussion on change can be found in Attitude Is All You Need! Second Edition.
If you are interested in quotations, then please visit the autho's website. There you will find lists of quotations organized by topic. If you find quotations intriguing, but not fulfilling, then please examine some of the author's other works catalogued at the end of the book in section "Books Alphabetically by Author."
Buy: Amazon
Buy: Barnes&Noble
6 Different Approaches
The author's works offer 6 different approaches to self-help.
1) In Breathe, you discover methods for congruence, self-relaxation, self-calming, and self-centering.
2) In Garden, you discover methods for sorting out what thoughts work for you and what thoughts work against you. You also learn how to increase your productive thoughts and to decrease your unproductive thoughts.
3) In Not, you discover methods to stop using the number one mistake that underlies failure. You also learn how to be a more effective parent or leader.
4) In Ego, you discover methods to reduce your devotion to and dependence on ego. You also learn how to be free, happy, and more creative.
5) In Attitude Is All You Need!, you discover methods to sort out what attitudes are working for you and what attitudes are working against you. You also learn how to increase your productive attitudes and how to decrease your unproductive attitudes.
6) In the four books Something For Nothing, Anything Goes, Acid Test, and 3D: Daily Dose of Discernment: 2005 you are given sayings and aphorism to use for introspection, contemplation, and meditation. Please experiment until you find the one or two approaches that work best for you. Worry not if the approaches are the best for anyone else.
