I hope you watch this talk because I’m not just talking about martinis and doorknobs. You have to approach these talks with an open mind, a mind that is not preconditioned. These are not ordinary FB live talks. These talks are living metaphors. You may think I’m talking about doorknobs, and I am, but at the same time, I’m pointing to a way you can open doors in your life. You have to make the leap. That’s what a living metaphor is all about; in invitation for you to make a leap from disunity to unity, from being wounded to being healed, and from confusion to clarity. Truth must be discovered in your own life. Truth can’t be given, not the truth that transforms you, that heals you. If truth doesn’t do that, then it is just objective relative truth that is interesting but has no power to change you. You must want to be changed. You must want to be awakened. You must want to be authentic. Otherwise, life is just one double-bind after another.

The irony is that life is just one double-bind after another, but the difference is that unless you become the NutCracker, you will never get to the sweet meat of the double-bind nut. If you can’t crack the nut of the double-bind, all you get is anger.

For some reason Zen has exploded in my everyday life, and I keep coming upon new koans to crack. I have a black walnut tree in the backyard, and have a bushel of walnuts to crack when they dry. My life is a walnut tree dropping koans for me to crack. I’m the Nut Cracker.

Where there is a shell, there is the crack. The gin of my talk is that the “way out” must be created/discovered. It’s created when we see there is no way out; then it is discovered because it comes from outside the nut.