driftwood (a short poem)

What is this drifting question? Who am I?

The river bends like an infinite question mark.

When was this winter? Where did all those ice floes go?

Listen to the sea. To the sea. To the sea.

A Beautiful Yogic Bone

A new enlightened paradigm for the western mind to counter its scientific materialist conditioning: this is what I appreciate about Young’s ‘Reflexive Universe.’ The mind may hear the Tao that can be spoken is not the real Tao, but it still thinks it hears the ground when it falls on it.

(Speaking of which, is there a better said description of the unsaid than what Nisargadatta says:

In reality there is only the source, dark in itself, making everything shine. Unperceived, it causes perception. Unfelt, it causes feeling. Unthinkable, it causes thought. Non-being, it gives birth to being. It is the immovable background of motion. Once you are there you are at home everywhere.

Beautiful.)

Like I replied in a comment: i find something like this to be a beautiful yogic bone thrown to the western scientific mind that's always in the background barking incessantly about the material universe it thinks it knows in order to keep it somewhere in a corner chewing at it contentedly and quiet. While we listen to the light.

As for the seventh stage in that heroic journey of light, Consciousness: I thought Wilber’s ‘Atman Project’ would supply the key, but after further review, and although it may do so for the early psychological stages, it fails to truly understand the turn involved in what must be the crucial egoic fourth substage: disillusionment and suffering.

Wilber follows the western psychological belief in an integrated ego without questioning the possibility of integrating anything into an insane dream state. Rather, after the self, or consciousness, passes through the membership phase of its social conditioning, and the so-called ego becomes entrenched, something called suffering and disillusionment occurs. That is the critical turn for consciousness.

It has condensed out of the material aduality, only to identify itself with the body, then the mind, and then an image supplied by its conditioning: three prisons of the seventh stage. Now it begins to see and feel that’s something is entirely wrong. And I would posit that the seeking phase becomes the aftermath of that turn. And what it seeks, of course, is itself.

And it’s in the fifth substage, if it ever gets there in this lifetime, that the yogas of wisdom, love, and being, introduced to itself by itself, will begin to vaporize that egoic fog and its social conditioning, leading inevitably towards, after the subsequent awakening stages rid it of the remaining twin bondages of mind and body, the Light that it always has been.

Consciousness to Consciousness

Arthur M. Young built a helicopter and in so doing came to an understanding of process and evolution. That’s the short story. Science and the laws of nature become a longer one. Purpose: an even longer one. In the end, he came to an understanding with the number seven in creation mythologies. And then there was light.

Evolution is a purposive process, with a reflexive shape. The first half is a fall into material determinism. Then there is a turn. And the second half is the return to freedom. Rather than laws, there is this freedom. Rather than statistics, there is individuation. Rather than objects, there is action!

The seven stages are: Light, Nuclear, Atomic, Molecular, Vegetable, Animal, Dominion. That first stage, Light, is completely free. Since light travels naturally at the speed of light, it’s outside of space and time, and has no mass. Spirit needs no church; consciousness is its own god. Its power is Potential.

The second stage, Nuclear, loses one element of freedom, and things are Binding. There is substance; there is force. But there is also the fog of probability. Wave? Particle?

Next, Atomic, loses another element, and Identity is gained. There is center, order, property. Chemicals have moved in. Hydrogen. Oxygen. Iron. Oh my!

Then, in the midpoint, the Molecular has zero degrees of freedom; Combination has been attained. There appears to be determinism. Classical physics lived here. Not to mention DNA: the holy book of life appears in its final act.

A lengthy interlude:

“The seventh substage, DNA…requires cells for the completion of its function, and cells belong in the next higher kingdom. It will be found that all seventh substages require the next higher kingdom to function. For example, the flowering plants depend on insects for pollination.

…What would this mean to the dominion kingdom? Since it is already the highest kingdom for the solar universe, we are led by this and other evidence to expect yet higher stages - a super arc which deals in galactic evolution. In other words, the dominion kingdom requires something beyond itself, which may help to explain why all human cultures, with the possible exception of modern man, depend on a belief in higher orders of beings, gods.

This dependence of seventh substages on the next higher stage is one of the most difficult concepts to accept because it suggests that process, at the seventh substage at least, anticipates its own future.

But there’s a turn in the molecular, at the fourth substage, with functional compounds, the organic chemicals, important to life. And sex hormones. Separation has occurred. Freedom will return.

Then, in the Vegetable, there is Growth, Organization. Reproduction. Negative entropy! Flowers. A rose is a rose is a rose.

Next, in the Animal, there’s Mobility, action, satisfaction, seeming choice. The nervous system makes it appearance. Turn it up! Also, in addition to DNA, now there is the animal soul. The birds in planetary flight and the importance of the queen bees will attest to that.

And then appears the individual soul, Atman. On that stage of the Monad, the actor we call Human Being, there’s Dominion. And the road to Consciousness.

Finally, Atman is Brahman.

The Reflexive Atman

I wish to write some words concerning two books that I’m in the process of reading: ‘The Reflexive Universe” by Arthur M. Young and “The Atman Project’ by Ken Wilber.

Young’s book considers the manifested universe as a reflexive process of light manifesting into the material and then ascending back to light. It is a seven stage process, each stage incorporating seven stages.

Each stage itself is one of four states of freedom, each stage on the descent becoming less free, and each stage on the ascent becoming more free, the fourth (no freedom) stage, the molecular, containing the all-important turn.

Light is Consciousness. It is timeless and not of the manifested world. Therefore it is nondual. Our mind, though, sees a material universe. In that vein, and understanding that duality is an illusion created by the mind, the entire process still can be seen as one great metaphor for consciousness knowing itself.

Wilber’s book can be viewed as the process of consciousness waking in the human being. It too is reflexive, in that there is an outward arc and an inward arc. Wilber incorporates the insight of psychology with that of the wisdom traditions in tracing the human being from birth to self-realization.

Before I begin, I’d like to place some caveats here. Although Young’s book is brilliant, it is not transcendent, in that Young’s analysis of the seventh and final stage, that of the human being, or what he refers to as the monad, appears to me to be limited by his own limited realization.

This is where Wilber’s book comes in: as a substitute for Young’s seventh stage. But one caveat here as well. I’ve never been a big fan of Wilber; he appears too cerebral in instances. But this book is, to this point, although dense sometimes, and sometimes overly technical, eminently understandable, and possibly transformational, but definitely emblematic.

the immutable center

some quotes from a crucial chapter in Nisargadatta's 'I Am That:'
72. What is Pure, Unalloyed, Unattached is Real;
previously formatted as tweets for Nisargadatta_M
and now separated into basic triads for clarity.

Find the immutable center where all movement takes birth.

Just like a wheel turns round an axle, so must you be always at the axle in the center and not whirling at the periphery.

Immobility and silence are not inactive. The flower fills the space with perfume, the candle—with light.


It has nothing to do with effort. Just turn away, look between the thoughts, rather than at the thoughts.

It is all quite simple. Turn away from your desires and fears and from the thoughts they create and you are at once in your natural state.

Nothing stops you from being a jnani here and now, except fear. You are afraid of being impersonal, of impersonal being.


There is nothing to renounce. Enough if you stop acquiring.

The problem is excessive interest, leading to self-identification. Whatever you are engrossed in you take to be real.

The 'I am' in movement creates the world. The 'I am' at peace becomes the Absolute.


I am not concerned with the universe. Let it be or not be. It is enough if I know myself.

Pity the self that is, not the world that is not!

All these attributes; being, consciousness, love and beauty are reflections of the real in the world. No real—no reflection.


Change the current of your desire from taking to giving.

The passion for giving, for sharing, will naturally wash the idea of an external world out of your mind, and of giving as well.

Only the pure radiance of love will remain, beyond giving and receiving.


In love there is not the one even, how can there be two? Love is the refusal to separate, to make distinctions.

The world has only as much power over you as you give it. Rebel. Go beyond duality, make no difference between east and west.

You are eager to separate right from wrong, because you need some basis for action. You are always after doing something or other.


It is right to be oneself, it is wrong not to be. All else is conditional.

Awareness is dynamic, love is being. Awareness is love in action.

By itself the mind can actualize any number of possibilities, but unless they are prompted by love, they are valueless.


Love precedes creation. Without it there is only chaos.

Chaos is movement for movement's sake. True action does not displace; it transforms.

Just remember, nothing perceivable is real. Activity is not action. Action is hidden, unknown, unknowable. You can only know the fruit.


Through the film of your mind you project a world and also a God to give it cause and purpose. It is all imagination—step out of it.

Pure being, filling all and beyond all, is not existence which is limited. All limitation is imaginary, only the unlimited is real.

To be free in the world you must be free of the world. Otherwise your past decides for you and your future.


First return to your true being and then act from the heart of love.

the sun

in the ultimate
metaphor
that is manifestation,

that star,
our sun, is
the great 'i am,'

its light is pure
living love,
and i am

the sun.

light—action

and then there was light—action!
and the light turned to certain
particles; and the particles, solid

bound matter; which evolved towards
the living heat of movement in mind,
that found itself lost in the thought of illusion,

of objects and subjects in memory that’s time,
then saw in a dreaming that all is always
awareness—and now there is light

final concept

the final concept:

see
the conceptual
as conceptual,

knowing
the nonceptual
is not

a concept.

precipitating

i am nothing
but light
precipitating

into thought
creating laws
with which

its universe
obeys allowing
order for

the thing
it really
isn't.

said equation

in a subject
without meaning,
the order of this

said equation
holds all
the meaning

in its subject:
i am not god;
god is me.

of nothing

when you
become aware
of nothing

but awareness,
you become
nothing,

as awareness
is you
becoming nothing

but aware.

in your ocean

i am thinks
therefore i forget
i am.

is that a wave
in your ocean
or are you just glad
to be 'me'?

deep sleep is
the closest one is
to being wide awake.

belief is easy;
nothing is hard.

you are not i.
are you?

stop believing

the real cosmic
breakthrough comes
not when you,

a human being,
stop believing
in god,

but when you,
god,
stop believing

in the human being.

only consciousness

there is no universe
in which
a body-mind has
consciousness;

there is only consciousness
that has a body-mind
in which there is
a universe.

to know

to know
that i know
is to know everything
that's knowable;

to know
that i don't know
is to know
the unknowable.

to be is seen to be

in time
it appears to be nothing
because the something it seemed
to be is seen to be
not anything
at all.

in truth
the stance will turn
to where it's always stood
and that nothing it appears
to be is seen to be
one ever-loving
everything
in all.

three dimensions of nothing to do

in Truth, there are three dimensions to the fact that there’s nothing to do.

there is nothing you can do to reach the absolute reality; it is beyond all perception, thought, and experience of doing. it reaches you.

there is nothing you can do to reach the intermediary between ‘you’ and reality, because you already are that intermediary: ‘i am’. just be.

what you do do, on the other hand, can hinder: indulging desire, fear, emotions, thought, etc. therefore, do as little as you need to do.

the double-secret 4th dimension is there is no doer; you’re being done. but not doing on purpose is a doing! so, do as little; be as much.

angels of 'i am'

i.

answers are fascist; questions are revolutionary.

you haven't seen nothing until you question everything

there's no question that a question isn't something of this world.

questions are the angelic intermediaries between something and nothing.

it’s not the murk; it’s the cloud! self-inquiry is our sun dance.

like alice, if one is to begin at the beginning, the first question is: who am i?


ii.

going inside to look for those messages from our sponsors.

esoteric is still exoteric, but selectively so.

rethink? unthink? dethink? athink!

to be sane is to be insane; be outsane and be!

live by the mind, die by the mind; live by the heart, live by the heart.


iii.

life knows!

lost in concepts: thinking about life will never get it.

here and now newborns know but are taught to forget by remembering then and there.

knowledge doesn't know.

the angels of 'i am' are singing in your heart right now; listen!

all window

the world is nothing but definitions.

reality is all window and no pane.

science is well-written fiction.

time is really not of the essence.

everything in the world is actually the past.

you haven't happened yet, nor will you.

one flash of love

there is no violence & suffering
except in thinking there is,
because thought is the essence of violence & suffering:
divisive & impermanent.

there’s no way of the world
that’s not in the end violence & suffering
for the world’s a creation of thought
which is divisive & impermanent.

any middle way may see suffering for what it is,
but any middle way will ultimately be violent,
and induce such suffering as well.

there then is only one way,
and that is the no way
through the doorway of love
in seeing we are being
nondual pure awareness.

no agendas, no leaders, no nothing,
but that love.


one flash of love is
worth more than thirteen-plus billion years of thinking;

one flash of love is
worth more than all the financial security
or insurance you can purchase in a lifetime;

one flash of love is
neither more nor less;
it's all;

one flash of love is
the real big bang;

one flash of love is
penniless, homeless,
and full of bliss, amen!


one flash of love considers
the lilies of the field
and not a field of occupation;

there is no mind in one flash of love:
no fear, no anger, no sorrow;

in one flash of love is
the momentary death of everything
and the timeless birth of nothing;

one flash of love incinerates
the gurus, lamas, patriarchs, and priests,
leaving what is real to void their space;

fear can temporarily darken one flash of love,
but one flash of love will absolutely eliminate all fear.


so much depends on one's point of viewing—

don't just see, but be
the flash of love.

introduce yourself

i'm just talking to myself. smile if you hear me.

hey! here i am!

before you die, why not introduce yourself?

it's eleven o'clock, do you know who you are?


if the everyday doesn’t get you,
maybe the supernatural will.

if your language doesn’t get you,
maybe another language will.

if your old god wasn’t working for you,
maybe a new god will.


find out who you think you are in any given moment

& understand you're not and it isn't,

but what you really are is being unthinkably right now.

fool

our individuality is always sourced
in another individual.

in other words, there is no individuality
except the individuality of the indivisible.

thus thought is openly promiscuous.

not a single thought is in itself original;
so where did that thought come from?

it’s not where the thought originates;
it’s where the thought becomes an actual experience.

you can fool yourself some of the time,
& you can fool some of yourself all of the time,
but you can’t fool all of yourself all of the time.

when you realize there’s no fooling, stop!
don’t let an opportunity like that just get away.
there you really are.

no fooling!

no good

thinking
          is good;

knowing you think
          is better;

understanding nothing is what you think
          is best;

seeing there is no good, better or best:
          ah!

shimmering four

silence is sizzling.

darkness is shimmering.

a nonoccurrence is becoming.

the immaterial is materializing.

this nonentity is identified.

that unspeakable is named.

it is you me them us.

what is god.

the curtain is a curtain (poem)

you can’t unlearn

the things you’ve learned but you

can learn the things you’ve learnt

aren’t really true.


the curtain is

a curtain still, yet now

you know it’s just an act

your mind can do.


releasing the curtain

will reveal—no curtain!

that’s enough to let

the light shine through.


the light reveals

this loving truth—i am

the light! there really isn’t

any you.

the somethingness of nothingness

you really can’t be in the world but not of the world,
because you are the world.
you can think you’re in the world
and you can think you’re not of the world,
but then you’re only what you think.
but what you think is not the real world.

for this moment, set aside all the wonderful
or ironic things you believe the real world to be,
for the real world is not any thing.
wonder is an educational experience,
but irony may be the most ignorant state of all.

irony is the atheism of paradox.
nothing is actually ironic;
it’s just the mind’s inability to answer its own ultimate questions
that makes it seem so. to answer is irony;
to accept there’s no answer is paradox.

omg!
irony says white is the new black;
paradox says white is black,
truth says there is no white and there is no black!
what am i to buy?

it’s ironic that we easily accept the scientific view
of a quantum universe;
it’s paradoxical that we really don’t.
yet, for the most part, we understand the world of matter
is some atomic illusion,
but we find it difficult to know the same about ourselves.

gotama saw the impermanence of somethingness;
nagarjuna saw the emptiness of impermanence;
shankara saw the nothingness of emptiness.
are we still to discover the somethingness of nothingness?

so the sun

we not only depend

on everything for living

from the sun, so the sun

is absolutely not only

our manifested god,

we are in truth the sun!


i see the sun,

i hear the sun,

i feel the sun,

i breathe the sun,

i eat the sun,

i am the sun!


there is no space between

the sun and myself except

the space that i create—

i am burning in

my own amazing blazing

bliss of pure awareness!

one word left unsaid

space is the stuff of illusion.


evolution is the latest greatest myth,

like saying the summit is something separate

in this moment from the mountain.


the world is a circular expression of division

and violence is its inevitable quotient;

it doesn’t matter what you or i think.


please excuse all the power politics,

betrayal, violence, and total war;

it's been a big misunderstanding. love!


it's not that the world changes;

the world IS change.

only the mind attempts to make the world,

including its thought of itself,

permanent.


that which lives by thinking this

which changes is permanent dies

when that which is thought

permanent inevitably changes.


it's not that we the people are out of our minds;

it's just we're too much in our minds.

if you think you know the meaning of life,

you really don't.


all i can really say about that is silence.

but silence says a lot more when you listen.

one word left unsaid is more.


it is what it is,

and is is all there is:

pretty amazing!

a reminder

i'm looking for a teacher who doesn't want to teach;

inquire within.


have you ever noticed

the world doesn’t make sense

because the senses make the world?


it’s not that certain substances are addictive;

substance itself is addictive, man.

give me another shot of something!


sometimes you think you're you

and sometimes you know you're not.

don’t worry; the white elephant in the room

is just the fact there is no room.


you’ve forgotten you are the universe;

any sign is just a reminder.

shimmering three

awareness is reflecting

in this entity

of space and time


like sunshine is reflecting

on this shimmering

of body-mind


like tens of trillion nuclear

explosions are enjoying

all this rhythm rhyme.

reaches

the senses don't locate the body in a universe of space;

the senses actually create the universe of space.


here & now isn't this place & moment;

it's no place & no moment,

that which is before sense-created space

& thought(memory)-created time.


the senses create the body in space

and thought creates the mind in time.

here and now there is no body and there is no mind.


you cannot reach here and now;

here and now reaches you.


here and now reaches you through being, intuition, and love.


'i am' is the way of being;

'who am i' is the way of intuition;

and 'i accept' is the way of love


to not accept what i am

is the beginning of all ignorance & fear

and desire & suffering.


the senses, including thought, were made for survival,

but thought, by following love,

has found its way to intuition—


i got it now.

known through

there's something

in the woods

that's not a thought


and only known

through intuition—

yet known as not


a thing at all,

but what in that

i am

doubly nonexistent

holding on to who we think we are is the hardest work we ever do; almost everything we do in fact is in service of that chore.

letting go of who we think we are is therefore letting go of almost everything we think we do.

it appears that the nonexistent self is therefore doubly nonexistent.


scientific materialists are so immaterially unscientific.

it's all -ing.

if every word spoken didn’t take the world for granted, would there be a world to which any word could speak?


conditioned consciousness is most insufferable.

this is the best collective dream we could come up with. really?

i'm calling a do over.

shimmering two

before the beginning,

the timeless is shimmering

i am,


with six senses creating

time and

space—


and here

this universe and now

its beginning...

your dreamer

consciousness is a pre-existing condition.

intelligence first manifests as love, then becomes memory where it moves as thought; thought is therefore leftover love in slow decay.

you can't think intelligence.

if none of this was here, where would you be?

you are not reading this.

take me to your dreamer.

i’m thinking i won’t be thinking about thinking any more; what do you think?

the world is anything you say it is, but reality is not anything you can say.

when love is the underlying music of your life, the mind can follow with its lyrics.

shimmering

there is a shimmering

and the shimmering holds itself,

divides itself,

names the parts,

identifies with some,

and wars with the rest,

yet loves!

for there is a shimmering...

Psychological Analysis of Buddha’s Enlightenment

from H. W. Schumann “The Historical Buddha” (emphases mine)

As an event which originated a new school of thinking and a new religion, the enlightenment of the Buddha deserves psychological analysis. Under the influence of Zen Buddhism modern writers have -- wrongly -- described this enlightenment as like a lightning-flash. From Gotama's account... we learn that the enlightenment was spread over three night-watches (about nine hours), and was a gradual process. This agrees with his statement that in his doctrine progress is gradual and there is no sudden, spontaneous understanding (anna), just as the seashore does not lead abruptly into deep water, but slopes away gradually. In addition, the process of enlightenment was guided by reason, as appears clearly from the words, three times repeated: "I directed my mind to the understanding of. . ." We must therefore picture Gotama's enlightenment as a happy condition, lasting several hours, of extreme mental clarity, which activated all the intellectual abilities and focused them, like a burning glass, on one point at a time. There was nothing ecstatic about this bodhi, it was not an out-of-body state or a trance.

Nor was Gotama's search at this point a blind fumbling in the dark. He knew precisely on which objects to direct his attention. Since he had been familiar with Upanishadic ideas of rebirth from his stay with Uddaka, he was able to direct his mind to the profounder penetration of this theme. The same applies to the system of four truths, which he will have known from the well-developed medical theory which already existed in the India of the sixth century BC. According to this, one asked first about the disease, then about its cause, then about the possibility of annihilating that cause, and finally about the medicine. Gotama's enlightenment consisted largely in the analytical understanding of pre-existing thought.

But it went further, because it was also synthetic, i.e. an understanding which opened up new areas of knowledge. The "aha" experience of analytical penetration was accompanied by the "oh" experience of joyous creative intuition, in which accepted opinions and fresh insights combined in Gotama's mind like crystals to form a new truth and doctrine (dhamma). In the glorious clarity of bodhi a new system of thought was formed out of elements old and new, which explained the world "as it is" (yathabhutam), pointed out a way from suffering to deliverance, and finally transcended all previous insights into one all-comprising truth. It is just this overriding element of illumination which points to beyond the visible and gives the Buddha's teaching that magical fascination that still moves mankind and leads people towards the good. There is no contradiction between Gotama's statement on the one hand that his doctrine is like an old, overgrown path that he has rediscovered, leading through the jungle to a forgotten city, and his insistence elsewhere that it is something new, "never heard before".

We must distinguish the rational element of the enlightenment, which forms the content of the doctrine (dhamma) from its psychological effect on himself. It has always been a basic conviction of Indian religions that knowledge, understanding or wisdom could remove the factors that bind us to suffering and rebirth. The Buddha, too, never doubted this. How did he justify breaking off his ascetic practices? Because, he says, they do not lead to "that wisdom which, when one has it. . . leads the practitioner to the total destruction of suffering). Lack of knowledge (avijja) binds us to the cycle of rebirths, while understanding (nana), knowledge (vijja) or wisdom (panna) liberate us from it: They are the means of emancipation. And therefore it was clear to the Buddha that his enlightenment had definitely freed him of the burden of rebirth and delivered him: "There will be no more re-becoming (for me)!" was his cry after attaining Buddhahood.

great synchronicity

lately i've been lovingly haunted

by a great synchronicity


of course the secret

behind synchronicity is

there's nothing to be synchronized:

not two!


synchronicity is the timeless

visiting the world of time


like a partly cloudy day

in monument valley:

many rays; one sun


to the mind,

paradox appears ridiculous;

to consciousness,

it's just another day in the timeless

another true believer

you're gonna have to serve somebody ~bob dylan


ah, the fresh incense of fallen leaves.

God is only real when you don't believe.


a self-proclaimed atheist! just another true believer.

atheism is just another religion. but instead of worshipping the god of gods, it worships the god of no god.

ah, but to worship the no god of nothing. now that would be something!


as long as you think you're a person, you have to worship some god.

maybe an agnostic worships whatever.

or to worship 'i am' until that god disappears and then you're left with nothing.


the self being empty must knowingly or unknowingly fill it (unwillingly) with something (aka some god) seen as outside itself.

an infinite succession

right now has left now.


why not enjoy the world? after all it is completely my creation.

but why obsess on any single aspect of the world; that's like cutting off your face to delight in the sight of your nose.


there's no need to catch the bus of bliss; there's another one coming now!

understand that bliss is the energy released when the consciousness that i am creates any aspect of the world within that consciousness i am.

love involves the great return of energetic bliss when, after a momentary self-forgetting, consciousness accepts itself within its own world.

mahalala!


in the world of zeno's paradox, only the mind can take that last step and it takes it in an infinite succession. it's what we call the world.

logic can only go so far; the mind fills in the gap.


there's nothing to be known

nothing known there is to be

to be known--nothing there

is.


the amplifier is not the song.

the truth sings in silent acapella.


thought is original technology

space is my original face

love is our original voice.


to deny duality is duality

repetition is a fetish

affirmation is denial

being is

there's nothing else

this web has caught too many thoughts—

the spit of politics and drool of naked tongues are publishing their comments left and right.

what would robinson jeffers do?

seven turkey vultures are massed in a tree, their raw pink heads just waiting for some unintended crucifixion—

they will have their bone to pick!

but on a lovely thread that falls away from time itself, some lovers talk of love and nothing—

there's nothing else.

halloween haiku

as the maple leaves

return to silence—colors

shrieking in the wind

enjoy the hay

The problem is not enjoyment; the problem is attachment. ~Tilopa
The ocean is not very far away if you know how to flow. ~Osho


between the poles of religious myth and scientific materialism lies nothing.


it's midnight; do you know where your avatar is?

any word spoken now is love; words spoken from memory are just zombie thoughts in slow decay.

but every word i write is in a movement towards never writing another word.


the fog above the river is of the river but not the river.


such variety and abundance will appear confusing when concentrating on one particular aspect; so forget the needle and enjoy the hay!

accept everything. attach to nothing. enjoy all as one.

in a world of ten thousand miracles occurring every ten-thousandth second, holding onto a single one is not greedy; it's just blind stupidity.


love is not an effort; love is the opposite of effort; love is the complete acceptance of one and all.

in complete acceptance of one and all, one and all disappears, and the bliss of nothing remains.


just same of the more.

o lila the poem

o lila the leaves!
o lila the fall!
o lila the time!
o lila the call!

o lila the sun!
o lila the ray!
o lila the red!
o lila the play!

o lila the wind!
o lila the dance!
o lila the turn!
o lila the trance!

o lila the sky!
o lila the ground!
o lila the sight!
o lila the sound!

o lila the snow!
o lila the white!
o lila the glow!
o lila the light!

real reading

this is *not* it, if 'it' is filtered through thought

most people who read only think they read

real reading is an act of love

most readers have been trained to challenge the text rather than accept it

note that accepting the text does not indicate one need to believe the text; challenging and believing are just different facets of thinking

one first accepts the text in order to understand the text; if the text is true, the real you will tell you so

as said in the gospel of thomas, truth will first disturb, then amaze, and finally reign over all

say the word

all words descend

from one word:

love.


so many permutations

and so many once-removeds,

there's a dictionary full


of impostors

and wannabes

and woebegone forgottens.


it all becomes

so much simpler

when you realize


the translation of any word

(minus the unnecessary complexity)

is simply love.


in the beginning was the word.

saving my original face

nothing is out there

everything is in i am


compassion is self-concern

love is the right hand naturally joining the left hand _/|\_


being is the body of reality

wisdom is Self-intelligence

love is the mind of the absolute


don't make thoughts; make love

***

not only is it a story, but saying that it's a story is a story

this reality seems so real, it's hard to see it isn't

i'm saving my original face for halloween


pull-up socks; tie sneakers

pump heart, drive car

circle sun, look for parking space


are we having none yet?

gather 1

The world is a thought thought by a thought.

But what I am has never been a thought.

Unthinkable but always there behind this thought—

this truth shines its truth when thought stops thinking.

purpose shmurpose verse

reality has no purpose;

love has no purpose;

purpose is a red herring

in the pulp fiction of your memory.


anything done on purpose

is already done

before it's done

so nothing is done.


reality does

the unknown

in the name

of love.


there's one purpose

in the paradox of life

without a purpose:

wake up!



love is causeless;

all the rest have more

than ten thousand and thirty-one,

except compassion

which is also causeless.


my 'i am'

and your 'i am'

are the same 'i am.'

one and all together,

it's called love.


love,

unlearn

and be.

the rest:

wait and see.



beware of any truth

that thinks

it is the highest truth;

that's not truth

but just another religion.


there is only

the one good book:

being.

read its silence today.


this is the first line of the rest of this verse.



bye bye sweet duress,

hello emptiness.


there’s a point when it takes such an effort

to play the role of yourself

or watch the play itself

that the curtains close

all by themselves.

that self-preserving poem

o samsara!

o you piece of intricate bullshit!

o you never-ending stream of self-deceiving selfishness!


o you sleeping behemoth

gone slouching to bizarro bethlehem

in little buddha bumper cars!


o emptiness

so madly full of nothing

but that self-preserving thought you call yourself


in constant wars of great denial of

said emptiness!

just say i love you.

houston, there's a koan in my poem

hello? hello? any who home?

     ground control to major major.

houston, there's a catch-22 in my koan.

     all your words are breaking up.

since you’ve always been the moon, how can you ever point to it?

     you must objectify in binary; nonduality does not compute.

space is just that something in the middle of your face.

     time is something nonexistent that we think is of the essence.

consciousness is blowing in the wind.

     are you or are you not still working on maggie’s farm?

space is emptiness but not the light.

     the naked city has six billion causes.

toto, i have a feeling we’re not in thinking any more.

     i could be god if i only had a heart.

love is never having to say


if a tree falls within a forest, do you love it whether it makes a sound or not?

do you love the wind blowing or the flag flying or the mind moving? or none of the above?

if a train leaves los angeles at nine and another train leaves atlanta at eleven, do you love three?

if love was a mirror and the world its reflection, who would you love?

if you love to love a cause, and everything is either causeless or the result of untold causes, what cause will you tell yourself you love?

if freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose, then is love just that wordless absolute with all the world to give?

just one big game of tag

just understand; there's no need to try to be a saint

in fact, understanding is all you can do, because you really can't do anything but

you are, in some degree, bipolar

from one extreme to another. been there and done that.

bipolarity is merely the uncertain world of thought, but the more lost in it, the greater the swings

and the greater the swing, the more necessary the snap

and if the snap doesn't kill you, then the truth will

because sooner or later, whether it's some snap or some time, the person called you will cease to exist

but that existence beyond the person called you is always existing

not that it will do you any good; it will do you and do away with you; in the end you're it

just one big game of tag and you're always running away from being it

tag! you're it!

ps don't think about it

does your reflection in the mirror make a poem?

we are not meant to be anything.

meaning is a plaything of the mind.

we be.


being is a reflection of that

which is neither being nor nonbeing

but beyond.


so call it beyond.

beyond! beyond!

o wild beyond!

o that beyond this thought.

beyond this world of consciousness.

beyond equality of all there is in being.

beyond the body. beyond the mind. beyond intelligence.

beyond beyond!

but not beyond its love.


today the leaves are changing colors;

tomorrow the trees will lose their leaves.

next week all trees shall leave

and then next month no words remain.

how wonderful that all remains the same!

(does your reflection in the mirror make a bang?)

after the last leaf fell,

love grew on every branch.

i felt it through the picture window.


if you meet this poem on the road, kill it.

so tired

so tired of irony; it's just thought trying to do paradox; isn't that ironic!

so tired of there's nothing to do because this is it; because as long as you're thinking this is it, it isn't, so there's something to don't

so tired of affirmations because reality doesn't need to be affirmed

so tired of buddhist drama; so much crap swirling about so much emptiness

so tired of nonduality; just say one

so tired of being tired; who's tired? what's awake?

reset

love is now and you are so tomorrow

if thought is obviously incapable of knowing the transcendent truth, why are you thinking about it?

isn't thinking about the unthinkable just downright stupid?

then what is the alternative to thinking?

philosophies are all about thinking and religions are all about believing; where does that leave You?

it's so obviously overused but unfortunately misunderstood; but love, as you may have heard in some distant song, is all there is

love is that nothing you can't pin a thought on

love is that way you find yourself going despite all the thoughts that say not to go

love is that irrational direction

love is that undeniable that can't be denied

love is simply truth in action and you are merely a thought in its way

love is now and you are so tomorrow

everything you fear is love

nowater

we interrupt this stream for an important rock

whitewater whitewater whitewater whitewater whitewater whitewater nowater whitewater whitewater whitewater whitewater


the apostle's creed: be if you can; co-opt if you must

maybe an epilogue to previously unending series: but thought is one unending conglomeration of forgetful energy of which we (as thought) are


never -ism; it makes an object out of nothing

look; whatever. if you can say it, it ain't it. if it's comforting, forget it. if you want to teach it, wait one thousand years. otherwise


beware of any thought that tells you it's not a thought

this is a tricky landscape; watch out for anyone saying watch out!


first thought; your thought. but you're not a thought.

all ants spread the word: no grasshoppers!

Mary Christ Dakini

O Mary Magdalene, apostle of apostles,

loving mystic witness of our death and resurrection,

Christ Dakini,

here occur to us and teach your paradox of feminine

and masculine uniting in the truth transcendent,


emerging from the centuries of ignorant

paternalistic western sado-masochism masked as true religion

into now, this moment soft with love in being,


now receiving, now accepting, now

in understanding of your true surrender,

not to then or there, but hand in hand with Jesus now

to bliss and consciousness and spirit,


emptiness in cognizance,

the kingdom and the queendom of

our god the mother and the father,

loving energetic true

orgasmic miracle of one,

of one, of one!

letting go the string

religions poorly translate words of wisdom into the language of samsara, and then forget it's a translation. thus truth becomes myth.

my deity is being; my mantra is ‘i am;” my contemplation is affectionate awareness


if you care what the world thinks, you will think like the world thinks. rather, care for the world and don't think.

most thought is like the detritus of love long gone that collects in the collective mind, slowly deteriorating and devolving into anti-love.

thought is the refuse of mind; love is the nature of mind.

don't hold on to thought; use it when necessary, and then let it go. the mind is self-cleaning.


there's nothing you can do but understand and that's not a thing you really do

to understand, one needs to see without prejudice or judgment, as crystal clear as a crystal clear day

in other words, it's not what you do that understands; it's what you don't do

and it's not you as thought that understands, but You, Reality, that always understands, that *is* Understanding

you just allow the cloud of you to fly away by letting go the string of some great dark sky-wide thought balloon and understanding shines

don't practice; don't try; don't do all the things you've been taught to do. just understand; the rest will follow naturally.

endnote: in truth, understanding is just the other side of that great coin of love; its motto is therefore also 'see, accept, transform.'

potentiality in particular

It's time to give thanks and leave our personal caves.

let the sunshine, let the living, let being be.

what more than this?

all else is diversion, division, the great divide.

entertainment is an exit.

there's only one real star on earth and that's the sun.

there's only one director in the universe and that be you.

thought will always seek another thought.

every thought is just desire not to be in general and a fear of nothing in particular.

but being is nothing in general and all potentiality in particular.

being is; end of story.

LA Truth picturized

Layout: by Patty LaPlante; Photo: "Mirage" by billyunderscorebwa

an omnipresent geography

o be! existence!

that which cannot be denied!

for here and now i am.

not this i am nor what i am

and not the thought i am

but that essential seed i am.


no identity of noun

and no possessiveness of pronoun

but a movement just before

the silent space becomes a verb—

that dawn before the dawn,

when sky is not the sky but not the night,


when sun is not yet in the east

but somewhere where it's always been,

some timeless time zone

in a longitude of love

and latitude of an omnipresent

geography of god knows where!


there! i am! o be!

something passing

nothing real was ever wrong

but that you only thought it wrong,

and even that which thought it wrong

was just a thought that thought it wrong,

and not a thought is even wrong

for thought is something passing—

never something real which could be wrong,

for only something never changing is the real

and nothing real is ever wrong.

Merton's Moment

I am able to approach the Buddhas barefoot and undisturbed, my feet in wet grass, wet sand. Then the silence of the extraordinary faces. The great smiles. Huge and yet subtle. Filled with every possibility, questioning nothing, knowing everything, rejecting nothing, the peace not of emotional resignation but of Madhyamika, of sunyata, that has seen through every question without trying to discredit anyone or anything – without refutation – without establishing some argument. For the doctrinaire, the mind that needs well established positions, such peace, such silence, can be frightening.

I was knocked over with a rush of relief and thankfulness at the obvious clarity of the figures, the clarity and fluidity of shape and line, the design of the monumental bodies composed into the rock shape and landscape, figure rock and tree. And the sweep of bare rock slopping away on the other side of the hollow, where you can go back and see different aspects of the figures. Looking at these figures I was suddenly, almost forcibly, jerked clean out of the habitual, half-tied vision of things, and an inner clearness, clarity, as if exploding from the rocks themselves, became evident and obvious. The queer evidence of the reclining figure, the smile, the sad smile of Ananda standing with arms folded (much more “imperative” than Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa because completely simple and straightforward).

The thing about all this is that there is no puzzle, no problem and really no “mystery.” All problems are resolved and everything is clear, simply because what matters is clear. The rock, all matter, all life is charged with dharmakaya… everything is emptiness and everything is compassion. I don’t know when in my life I have ever had such a sense of beauty and spiritual validity running together in one aesthetic illumination. Surely, with Mahabalipuram and Polonnaruwa my Asian pilgrimage had become clear and had purified itself. I mean, I know and have seen what I was obscurely looking for. I don’t know what else remains, but I have now seen and have pierced through the surface and have got beyond the shadow and the disguise.

... It says everything, it needs nothing. And because it needs nothing it can afford to be silent, unnoticed, undiscovered. It does not need to be discovered. It is we... who need to discover it.

~Thomas Merton (from 'Asian Journals of Thomas Merton')

from director to nobody

driving through the connecticut river valley in nh this afternoon: old houses, ramshackle barns, cut corn fields, sparkling river, vt hills!

colorful oranges and yellows but many trees still lime green and perfect blue october sky with that certain slant of autumn dazzling light.

mesmerizing manifested wondrous beauty of unbelievable mindstuff impossible to comprehend so eyes just drool with almost tears & look see!

when thought asks this question: why does a magnificent landscape sometimes appear more loving with an old house or barn in the foreground?

& thought answers itself: the observer of this scenery is a dream character which is just a thought & appreciates a thought within its view.

in other words, thought needs another thought within its vicinity to keep it company & give the wilderness of consciousness a familiar face.


so all of that scenery was prologue to this: can awareness really awaken to itself when thought is immersed within its world of thought?

is some kind of monastic separation necessary? not necessarily a monastery. or hermitage. or even complete solitude. but some kind of refuge

& by refuge, it's not pointing to some religious refuge in belief, texts or congregation but an honest to goodness separation from the world

some separation that kindles that freedom, that grace, that blessing, that reality, that that of being in the world but not of the world.

because when immersed in thought, thought just loves to keep on thinking; it is what it is. & moments of meditation can't ungap that bridge.


i feel no coincidence a need for busy-ness (or business) in usa; it's self-preservation of thought and usa is just a thought!

& the massive mass entertainment world around us in usa is nothing but thought enabling thought: tv movies fiction & nonfiction (the worst!)

and then there's the thought of spiritual thought which just might be the most enslaving thought of them all. all those dream state coaches!

between the rock of religion and the hard place of business, where can awareness catch a break from the tyranny of thought?

that is the real question that a 21st century hamlet needs to address. it's really not to be or not to be. it's first how to know to be.

everything in our environment is stacked against 'to be.' it's seen up close and personal in those near and dear. it's heart-breaking.


in gratitude for the circumstances of the past several years. from director to nobody (ah, emily!). roll credits. maharshi to maharaj.

only the evergreen

quoth the crow, i'm not a raven

sooner or later, if you were brought up christian & then found yourself to be a seeker, you're going to have to hug it out with jesus

in the worldly divide between china & tibet, the usa chose china; that tells you more about this nation & its future than you need to know

looking at all the greenery on both banks of the river before the coming frost; only the evergreen will make it through december

wisdom! don't think about it.

being that this prayer is thought invested in the me-thought requesting that the no-thought of its Self manifest as love within its being.

sacrifice! thank you.

"      " ~awareness

how to (a catechismic poem)

how does love write a poem when the mind is grasping at the pen?

we write with the heart and follow its freedom on the page.


how to avoid the fear and horror of the void the divided mind avoids?

we write from the void; the unitary heart discerns it's nothing to engage


the source of everything named anything,

the source of any concept we call source,

the source of what we think is mind,

the source of what we know is love,

the source of universe and superstring,

the source of Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Rishis,

source unmanifest, the source of sources,

source! of course! O Source!

in that dwelling

blessed is being knowing being

for that shall know there's nothing else to know;


there's nothing to one's mind but what one thinks there is,

there's nothing to one's sense of self except the sense of self one thinks there is,

there's nothing to the universe of matter but the whole wide world of miscellaneous things one thinks matter:


all there is is, being aware of being, awareness being awareness;

say it any way the way your way will have you say it,

say it gloriously in song or say it knowingly in silence but after saying it just stop & settle down and in that dwelling—


be.

wondering at the movie

in the morning i awaken

and the movie starts

by wondering about the movie

that was playing in the movie

of my sleep.


afternoon the movie continues

to a scene in which the movie star

is wondering at the movie

in which he plays a movie star

& wonders.


in the evening there's a movie

in which the movie is the movie star

and all the world within,

his and her own camera,

lights and action!

and no one said i am

verily i tweet unto you this very night with some very good news. for beneath the wine-darkened clouds, a star is born.

and their instant karma created teas and lots of other stuff to hang your hat upon. but i say unto you there is no reason. just stories.

you may not be surprised to hear there is no plot. but verily the characters have disappeared as well! as for the setting, it changes.


the message is written clearly in the sky as if that's the only why it's there. see the sun. see the sun sear the sea. see the crazy clouds.

and lo! to houston there came much problems. and to the rest of the lesser known world as well. their name was adam. their name was eve.

they sing their song but they know not who is singing. their song is sad but they know not why they sing.

and someone said who am i. and no one said i am. & the bush was glowing & the river was flowing & the seed was sowing & the tree was growing

and the clouds were parting and the sun was shining and the stars were singing for loving is knowing is being & that is all ye need to know

being wisdom love

not activity but Being! not knowledge but Wisdom! not thought but Love! these are the three Truths


three truths: being wisdom love

three modes of truth: positive negative transformative

three modes of love: love compassion forgiveness

three modes of wisdom: intelligence intuition paradox

three modes of being: being deepsleep sacrifice

*****

thoughts try to create an alternative world, inevitably fail, and then new thoughts bemoan the failure: woe is thought

thought never sees the world as is because it's always trying to see another one, but love sees. that's its primary nature: seeing.

thoughts reject; love accepts. that is not to say thought is bad or useless...when utilized appropriately, i.e. to reject the false


there's a paradox in all of that, but what else is new

logic can only bring you so far; love will need to take you the rest of the way

logic is human-made and so it works well in this world. but love is a reflection of the absolute. it will draw you in...

not that there are two worlds of course. more paradox. thought thinks there is; love knows there isn't.

love loves paradox


paradox is innately transformative, as is forgiveness and sacrifice

these 3 modes of Wisdom, Love, and Being function in the neutral zone and are always moving back and forth between the 2 poles of duality

that's why you can't pin them down; they are illogical by nature; forgive? sacrifice? paradox? there's no sense in them.

but they are the highest energy of the absolute working in the relative, and so are highly transformative


so how did i get here from there? sacrificed my original intent. paradoxical in and of itself. but i forgive myself.

going to be

there is no being good because there is no good or bad; there's only being

but most religions have it bad for being good

even love is sometimes misunderstood as being good; but love is being being


many people try to be good or try to love but there is no trying in being

one doesn't try being; one is being

although being may try you and find you don't really fit

that's when you may discover you aren't really you


when you aren't you any longer, who are you going to be?

when you aren't who you think you are, who are you going to be?

when you is no longer a viable pronoun, who are you going to be?


when you can't ask the question 'who are you going to be,' there's only 'to be.' hamlet exits stage.

red leaves

see and receive in a sea of simplicity without a previous belief interfering in the wonder that one now sincerely so sees

i'm told cecil taylor gives his sidemen the first and last notes and tells them to get there; we have one note, consciousness: be there


we are tmi

my practice is actually nondual duality because i know my limits


red leaves are not red leaves

the plural is strictly personal

the individual is nothing of its kind

quality is just a comparison of here and now with there and then

but love is the essence of self-existence

and i love those red leaves


translation: if the body falls in a forest and there's not a single identifying thought about it, are you really dying?

a bedtime prayer

o here i lie

naked of form

and silently open

waiting for the rush of night

to madly love me

into everlasting day

source

a leaf falls and the leaf is mourned until the branch is seen as source of leaves

a branch falls and the branch is mourned until the tree is seen as source of branch

a tree falls and the tree is mourned until the earth is seen as source of tree

the earth falls and the earth is mourned until the universe is seen as source of earth

the universe falls and the universe is mourned until nothing is seen as source of universe

nothing falls and nothing is mourned

because the moon

because the moon loves the earth,

the pleasure boats docked on this river

begin to rise


because the sun loves this river,

fish are jumping for joy

to dry their eyes

you are

everything in the world

is your child

not excepting the person

you think you are


if you're thinking it,

you're not being it;

if you're being it,

you're not being;

if you're being,

you're not not;

if you're not,

you are


and then there was water,

and a cormorant diving,

and sailless saiboats sitting

in the stillness of no wind

bringing in the light

transcendental panthers are perambulating jungles mixed among the mill yards in the darkest corners of my mind.

somewhere there’s a turbine turning. somewhere there’s a monkey typing. somewhere there’s a song without a single lyric or a suicidal note.

it’s singing in the silence, bringing in the light, and raising up the curtains to unknowable delight.

i’d tell you all about it or draw a face or two, but it’s famously unspeakable and blacker than the night.

reality training

Parents are more blessed than cursed, in that they have had some intuitive training when it comes to action from the nondual mind.

But the curse of possessiveness comes with parenting as well: MY child. This is from what most children ultimately rebel. Nuff said on that.

The nondual mind training that the parent receives comes in the nurturing element that parenting brings. Parent and child as one.

If you follow that training further, one can see that there is no parent person or child person but no one but one.

If you take off the training wheels and face reality, you see there are no persons anywhere but only one reality that is manifested as love.

For nurturing is nothing but the manifestation of reality as love for itself.

This nurturing is what most religions speak to in their golden rules and noble truths, etc, etc, etc.

But they either hide what lies behind it or have entirely forgotten.

But the fact of the matter is such nurturing, such love, arises only in a nondual consciousness.

To leave that fact out is a great error, and leads to further suffering.

The goal should be, as much as there is anything like a goal, is to recover/uncover one’s original state of nondual consciousness.

The goal etc etc cannot be to act as if one has recovered/uncovered nondual consciousness.

Unless one realizes one is acting in training for the real goal.

And parents are blessed because they've already had some reality training for that kind of acting.

nothing permanent

nothing is etched in stone, not even stone

root power!

when you see there's nothing permanent, you see there is no you seeing

the thought of me is all of me

when you see there's nothing permanent, you see there is no you seeing

ask not what do i think but know what is felt

dream state or imagi nation

what a day for a daydream!

in the land of fern and mountain laurel, the pine needle is king

let the mind be a servant to love as the world is manifested from reality

seeing all clearly is love; accepting things as they are is love; letting love transform what is seen and accepted is being

nothing up my sleeve

i am the green leaf turning red.

i am the eye without a head.


i am the dew point underdone.

i am the ever-present sun.


i am the world within the rain.

i am the resurrecting cain.


i am an adam and an eve.

i am the nothing up my sleeve.


i am the clarity of now.

i am the pure before the pow.

Let it Reign

The mind of God

is like the clear

October sky


in which a film of personal

accumulated cumuli

is screened by clouds we name an I.

great and thoughtful

the mind admires itself to pieces.

the mind will pay any price,

bear any burden,

fight any foe

in order to defend

its great and thoughtful

creation of itself

right here right now a simple poem

in that

the universe is truly

three dimensions

here and now and bliss

and all are bursting through

one consciousness

as space and time and love

with nothing less to rhyme below

or reason more above

than this:

don’t forget the bliss

Some Mystical Poetry Notes

About a month ago, an interest in writing poetry began to rekindle itself here. It’s not as if it had completely disappeared because it always smolders. But the urge was again being felt. Interestingly enough, soon after this recognition, some remarkable quotes were discovered in an article ‘Poetry and Wisdom’ by Bruno Barnhart (which is worth reading in itself) and were duly posted on the tumbler ‘son rivers not 2’ quotes and links blog. But they should really be here, with some discussion, and that’s the reason for this post.

The first quote is from Bede Griffiths (from Pathways to the Supreme):

Both poetry and mysticism spring from the depths of the soul beyond the senses, but whereas the poet seeks to embody his experience of this inner mystery in words and images, the mystic seeks to go beyond word and thought to experience the hidden mystery from which all words and thoughts are derived.

There is a nice sense of the source here, but I question the either/or. Embodiment is an integral part of the mystical process. In the beginning, Nisargadatta would call it the test. In the end, who knows?

The next quote is by Jacques Maritain from his book, ‘creative intuition in art an poetry’:

Poetic experience brings the poet back to the hidden place, at the single root of the powers of the soul, where the entire subjectivity is, as it were, gathered in a state of expectation and virtual creativity. Into this place he enters, not by any effort of voluntary concentration, but by a recollection, fleeting as it may be, of all the senses, and a kind of unifying repose which is like a natural grace, a primordial gift, but to which he has to consent, and which he can cultivate, first of all by removing obstacles and silencing concepts….In such a spiritual contact of the soul with itself, all the sources are touched together, and the first obligation of the poet is to respect the integrity of this original experience. Any systematic denial of any of the faculties involved would be a sort of self-mutilation. Poetry cannot be reduced to a mere gushing forth of images separated from intelligence, any more than to a discursus of logical reason…

There is so much mystical intelligence in this quote that it’s worth rereading and rereading. It is more a spiritual practice. After all, “removing obstacles and silencing concepts” is what it’s all about. There is still a dual presence here but poetry almost demands that paradox (Merton will address that later). But there is a unitive consciousness as well where “the integrity of this original experience” is recognized, and from that recognition arises a nondual intelligence that Whitman alludes to in a more mystical manner (unfortunately Maritani’s walk does not exactly match his talk when lecturing): “Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my eyes...?” Whitman understands it is impossible to “cipher and show me to a cent, / Exactly the contents of one, and exactly the contents of two, and which is ahead.” No, the answer comes: see and accept all equally and then write the poem.

The last quote is from Thomas Merton:

Poetry can, indeed, help to bring us rapidly through that early part of the journey to contemplation that is called active; but when we are entering the realm of true contemplation, where eternal happiness is tasted in anticipation, poetic intuition may ruin our rest in God “beyond all images.”

Now this is a much different intelligence speaking. Merton is truly the mystic and understands the sacrifice involved in the act of mystic poetry. It's not exactly the either/or that Griffiths speaks to, but an all or nothing. Poetry can be a help in the beginning, where the process is still active or dual. But what of true contemplation, true meditation, where thoughts and images interfere with the taste of the absolute? Barnhart writes and quotes:

Having faithfully established the principle, however, Merton turns from this vision of an unforgiving straight ascent toward spiritual repose, to imagine several different possible ‘vocations,’ among them that “a man should remain at the same time a mystic and a poet and ascend to the greatest heights of poetic creation and of mystical prayer without any evident contradiction between them.”

Merton’s essay (Poetry and Contemplation: A Reappraisal) would need to be read in its entirety before an intelligent comment on Merton’s conclusion can be made, but it does raise an interesting query. But I would conclude that writing poetry is another form of chopping wood and carrying water: there is something in the survival process that requires words as well as tea. Call it the Bodhisattva Call.

here now squared

the mind is a nice place to visit but you wouldn't want to live there

the absolute is manifested as physical presence; awareness is manifested as pure love. but the timeless becomes time and memories, mind.

the absolute mass of presence is here; the timeless speed of light is now; the energy of awareness is love

love equals here now squared

right here, right now, now love

the meaning of life

thinking about the meaning of life is like getting caught in thought like a fly in a spider's web

it makes much more sense to query the meaning of thought since life and meaning don't mix

what's the meaning of an egg; why is there a chicken; to get to what other side

*****

the mind is the name we give to a mob of thoughts

but there is no mob; tony soprano was right

the capo is a 'me' thought but it too comes and goes and although it can be quite violent it ultimately is powerless

The consciousness is the mind of the Absolute; the power of knowledge, the power of memory, the message of "I Amness." ~Nisargadatta

*****

being is the teacher, understanding is the course, action is the test, love is the math, nothing is the answer

even though one's not a person; one acts like one: do the math

in the new grammar, only verbs are nouns, and love is the only verb

know what you're not and love what you are

*****

I would therefore leave all those things of which I can think and choose for my love that thing of which I cannot think. —Cloud of Unknowing

*****

the body-mind is not within this world; this world is within the body-mind

love is not within the body-mind; the body-mind is within love

love is out of this world and so are you.

*****

the love of awareness is where the rubber of emptiness meets the road of the world

thoughts are like passengers in a train station: they don't originate there and they're always passing through

*****

warning: whatever you do, do not!

this is not a test; lights will flash and sounds will buzz

there will be repercussions; you will be bad forever; payment must be made

whatever you do, do something else; stop doing what you're doing; this is your final warning

never mind; mistakes were made; act as if nothing had been said; have a great day

warning: whatever you did not do, start doing

*****

a computer is a binary illusion within a binary illusion

*****

meanings are like apples; pick one but don't bite it

it might bite you back

imagine god's surprise when he finally sees there is no richard dawkins

*****

there is no such thing as peace of mind. where there's mind, there's no peace; where there's no-mind, there's peace

*****

just with a moment's worth of thoughts the world is made; pretty awesome when you think about it

and nothing when you don't

*****

there are ten thousand ways to describe the truth and none of them are true

there are ten thousand ways to describe what the truth is not and all of them are true

it's really not rocket science; it's just being honest

You are nothing perceivable, or imaginable. Yet, without you there can be neither perception nor imagination. ~Nisargadatta Maharaj

Self's honor

*****

if one needs a meaning of life, then it can only be to discover what you're not

*****

Go deep into the sense of ‘I am’ and you will find. How do you find a thing you have mislaid or forgotten? You keep it in your mind until you recall it. The sense of being, of 'I am' is the first to emerge. Ask yourself whence it comes, or just watch it quietly. When the mind stays in the 'I am' without moving, you enter a state which cannot be verbalised but can be experienced. All you need to do is try and try again. After all the sense ‘I am’ is always with you, only you have attached all kinds of things to it -- body, feelings, thoughts, ideas, possessions etc. All these self-identifications are misleading. Because of them you take yourself to be what you are not. ~Nisargadatta

in this pattern

in this pattern

named a meadow

full of patterns

that this pattern

named an I

names grass, an empty

space emerges

devotion to wonder

love comes from the source through you. love returns to the source through you. therefore, loving the source leaves the middle man out.

another name for 'loving the source' is wonder. emphasis on not-two.

wonder is easy; thinking you know is hard

thinking you know is the real nihilism

unknowing all, including who you think you are, is the real way to all

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it is. ~Whitman

devotion to wonder is just staying in love

innocence doesn’t know; experience knows; wisdom knows one doesn’t know; the way is unknowing

do not mistake naming for knowing; many names, all unknown

unknowing is not two; unknown wonder is one

untitled by anonymous

pip

move along, still nothing happening here

i like signs

eagles flying upriver like witchy women

just waiting for an urge for going

fish are jumping like jacks, jane

turn off your mind, relax, and float down stream ~JL

consciousness is the sea and this thought of me, pip

dragonfly, grasshopper!

a mass

a mass of colored lights

and flutes of atomizing

splatter! still, a fountain:

nothing but pure water.

an ancient desert

an ancient desert saturated

with ten thousand eyes is walking

through my personal mirage

.-- .... --- / .- -- / ..

before would, enlightenment; after would, enlightenment

.-- .... --- / .- -- / ..

.-.. --- ...- . !

ignorance is the new hope

smug buddhists and overbearing christians: two sides of that particular coin

o but i'm not that kind of smug buddhist; i'm the other secret kind

what he said; which is an exemplary example of what i said; which we both know is what cannot be said; yet both have said it; or have we?

it's the language stupid

belief is an insiduous thought, especially when you think you have none

it's time to stop the faction steeped in time and trust the timeless

buddha and christ are then; buddha and christ is now

nothing is spelled l-o-v-e

something is spelled b-e-l-i-e-f; smoke 'em if you got 'em

beware of affiliation; it's just ignorance supporting ignorance; truth is ultimately alone

all politics are local, whether christian or buddhist. truth is, well, non-local. no sheep. no wolf. love. compassion.

there are many rationalizations we can conjure in a moment's notice; there's only one truth that's unthinkable here and now

how much we want to know the truth is the limit of our knowing truth; inquire within

not everything is black & white; somethings are white & black

the ignorant know the way, the wise weigh the unknown

all words lead somewhere and the truth is nowhere but still we keep on talking; solve for x

what would buddha tweet

the dog was walking the man when the sky barked or was that vice versa

water water everywhere and just a bottle to drink

if it's a secret it's not known

just how much will thinking it's a secret make the secret not anything at all

democracy is an illusion; there's only the tyranny of self or the timeless revolution.

even this!

behind my world

behind my world there's something

vibrantly silent singing

from a place without

the knowledge of a song

i'm glad i'm glad

everything in the world is a reflection of light in a constant impermanent shimmer; and darkness is merely its temporary shadow

just to be in this world is a wonder; look up! a blue sky! blue! space the color of blue. amazing.

it's not that i love this sparkling lake, green trees, and deep blue sky; it's that lake, trees, sky, and me are waves of love.

i'm glad i'm glad i'm glad i'm glad i'm glad

gong!

don't believe in nonbelief

no words can take you there except to say in so many words that no you can take words there

sometimes i get a great notion, sometimes it gets me

i hold all six billion of you responsible for me

and don't go thinking i don't know your ancestors had a part in this funny business too

gong!

just like a virgin

in to it!

feel real

think the kitchen sink

remind me to forget

no goes!

say good night puck

the wave of awareness

love is the wave of awareness; ride one today

wipeouts happen [fear, anger, sadness, overwhelming desire] — be alert and just catch the next wave; it's right here, right now

boredom, apathy or cynicism is just forgetting there's a wave & thinking it's the doldrums; there's always a wave. Self-remember: surfs up!

Thought Man!

something doesn't happen on purpose but nothing happens by accident

everything in your dream is here to remind you that you're dreaming

every object is your sign

testing. if action appears not to be rising directly from the light of love, it's rising through the cloud of ignorance. understand; retest

Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do Thought Man! Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do ...

our default setting is love; just hit that button when caught in a whirlpool of thought and emotion

rational mysticism is a form of spiritual masturbation; nothing will ever be born of it

sooner or later you have to let go

there's nothing wrong with duality; understand it's a package deal: for every pleasant experience, there's outrageous atrocity. your call.

are you there? if so, who are you? in your own words, please.

the saddest words never spoken: who was i?

the antichrist is not coming

the only thing stopping the christian way has been the anti-christian way

the antichrist is not coming; it's been here for more than 1600 years

the triumph of the antichrist was the shotgun marriage of christianity with the roman empire

just an interesting dichotomy of names in early christian mythology: irenaeus versus valentinus; ire vs heart. the Word uses words.

the christian mystics always walked a fine line between truth and consequences

if it looks like an antichrist, swims like an antichrist, and kills like an antichrist, then it's the antichrist

history-wise, can one really understand that moment when christianity became the religion of the roman empire: who ate whom?

the winners not only write the histories, but also the conspiracy theories; the losers were all offed by conspiracies

even in the 20th century christian mystics met strange untimely deaths: see thomas merton and anthony demello for examples. grassy knolls?

all religion is politics

in the case of christianity, you could follow the money, but follow the excommunications or condemnations instead

in the end, is there a living christian way? personally i needed to find ramana and nisargadatta to find that holy impersonal.

but i love jesus and the christian mystics; for the west, they always will be the way; all western bodhisattvas need to run through rome

three qualities of bliss

three qualities of bliss: love, compassion, forgiveness

one thing about duality is it works in triads

the energetic trinities of duality always consist of positive, negative, and neutral, which is really transitional

it is within the neutral, the transitional, in which unity, that is nonduality, occurs

that is, a 'return' to original nonduality

thus bliss consists of love (via positiva), compassion (via negativa), and forgiveness (via [transitional]) which is in essence at-one-ment

Jesus H-Christ

for Ed Gandolfo

O Jesus,
middle eastern rising guru,
single in your nondual teaching,
paragon of parables in koan-like power,
tantric master living life without a second wasted,

loving bastard child of Mary,
loving brother, loving friend, and loving lover,
loving teacher teaching loving,
loving son of loving father loving spirit,
loving all as loving one is manifested in your loving word,

its liveliness of breathing in and breathing out,
accepting all, attached to nothing,
even in that darkest hour of brutal torture,
loving energy of living flesh is whipped and torn,
good-natured energy of head and scalp is pierced with thorns,
adoring energy of legs and arms is pressed beneath the weight of wood,
devoted energy of life itself is nailed and hung upon

your Shiva Shakti Cross where you O Jesus, O Tantrika,
shall receive all chakra suffering within your own mandala,
and within the exhalation of your mantra of forgiveness,
knowingly and willingly and in your tender lotus death release
its kundalini to the world, a single awe-inspiring blood atomic bomb!

with energy reverberating so completely in its scope of overwhelming power
the Roman Empire is consumed within its breathtaking blast,
and worldly hells of hieronymus inquisitions
and worldly heavens of michelangelo cathedrals
become created in its aftermath,

while underneath samsaric surface,
white waters of nirvana teaching,
floating in their mystic whirlpools,
ever one and lasting loving,
knowing only love and wonder,
always here and now unknowing...

~Son Rivers 2010
after Cynthia Bourgeault

trip ahoy!

turn on, tune in, drop out, trip ahoy!

it all has to be real; cnn says it is

in case of maya, break the glass

i desire a chocolate chip chocolate cookie with extra chocolate

the only emperor is the emperor of double chocolate ice cream

tv commercials are the rabid guard dogs of the dream state, foaming at the mouth about desire and insurance: arf growl bite!

the mind is just an energizer bunny; it just keeps on going and going and going #truthinadvertising

there's a fine line between recognizing the relative and getting stuck there; tradition will almost always gravitate to the latter: be aware

there is no middle class middle way

act as if you're dead; be that you're eternal

many ways; no destination

many blah blah blah; no yada yada yada

can you really talk about now when you're confident about tomorrow?

beginner's luck is really original unknowing

delusion plus compassion equals zero

one person's pointer is another person's opinion

rip van awaking

rip van awaking in the catskill of no mind

the more you get to know the card trick, the better you understand the sleight of hand that hides its beautiful truth

everyone is trying to be someone because they misunderstand what it is to be no one

each and every someone holds that certain beauty of a photographic negative; even the darkest quality is just another way of light

loving someone's (& one's own) darker qualities is just seeing through the relative negative into its light; the word for this is compassion

compassion is just love via negativa

compassion receives

only compassion ends an endless chain

love moves; compassion receives. all is pure acceptance.

it's not that all is vanity but all conditioned thought is

the less thought, and the more love, the greater the art. when there's no thought and all love, then art disappears within creation itself.

dreaming you dreaming

you are being dreaming you

sleeping, you are being dreaming you dreaming

lucid dreaming locates the doer of said dreaming: sleeping, you; waking, being

the transitive property of transformation: That dreams me in thought; I am That in seeing; I dream me in love.

Ripples of the Great Blue Heron

Five years ago today, on a day I had taken as a vacation day, which turned out to be the day before I was laid off from a company I had worked 18 years, I saw a Great Blue Heron standing on a rock in the middle of a pond in Maudslay Park.

I watched its great wings rise slowly and magnificently as it flew away. There is quite the transformation when that particular shore bird takes off. Its tremendously long legs seem to disappear and wide wings magically appear instead. I was mesmerized. But what I felt cannot really be written in words. It was a mystical experience, with workaday prophecies and spiritual intuition, that still reverberates to this day.

I went for a walk in that same park today, in honor of that mysterious bird and mystic day, and wrote this poem tweet by tweet as I walked a similar path I took five years ago. I had no idea where the poem would go, but after its few miles, here it is (with just a few punctuation revisions):

The Ripples of the Great Blue Heron

begin again at the bright green light of outside seeing in.

in the meadow of no name, the blue jay breeze of empty words will fly away with future forests and the past of trees.

in the woods of Ra, ten thousand yellow leaves are playing in the shadow webs of ash and flesh of fast graffiti.

in the orchard of old maple trees, the sugar color of the summer turns to paradisiacal sweet nothings.

the acorn road is filled with dead oak leaves and living horse shit.

but the mushroom swamp is dry with nothing but the mud of who am i

two roads diverged in an eastern wood but Robert Frost doesn't live here any longer.

the dark hill rises by itself until it turns into a shining tower.

the silver grove of arms and eyes is always fun and ever free in purple asters and the sitting thought of me.

hark! but something concrete this way comes.

below the bank, the river of a million mills is making something new today.

in the great white pines of absolute eagles, the sun is like a shadow on the ground.

not a sound, not a sound, not a sound.

the material is immaterial: so says the ripples of the Great Blue Heron.

~@sonrivers 2010

dream is seeing

i am rock, i am scissors, i am paper

i am that eye of non-identity within don draper

we come to nirvana by means of sam's club

there's no better wisdom spoken than: shut up!

survive and thrive, above all love

this line is now your dream too

the seeing of the dream as dream is seeing

when the going gets tough, who's going?

out with the old; in with now

freedom's just another word for nothing left of you

write a one word paragraph on truth: no way!

love doesn't move in mysterious ways;

the mystery moves in loving ways

white light

this nuclear now that we call consciousness!

one nanosecond in its spaciousness is timeless!

nothing is impermanent except the thought of something permanent

getting unstuck from the consensual story is not a minor sticking point

while everyone around you is busy keeping their heads, just let yours go

just let that thought of you go and what remains is everything


love is the only movement in our world; thought may hinder it, divide it, chop it up in pieces and vomit it upon the floor: pay it no mind

in other words, no matter what thought does with love, absolutely no matter what, it's still love; thought does nothing

in the most heinous act in this world, there is love

red light is white light filtered red

be earnest in seeing your (you're) white light; That is all.

stay in ha!

when the moon is in the mortgaged house

and jupiter aligns with bah!

then police will rule the planets

but love will stay in ha!

this is the dawning of the age of the cosmic laugh!

none cried out

in the beginning there was none,

& none cried out, "let there be one!,"

which in a blink of an eye evolved into who,

and then there were two


and who that was two cried out,

"why do i die," each day after day,

until two sighs, "who am i," & dying to who,

none knew it's not two.

and so on

seeing, accepting, transforming, seeing, accepting, transforming, seeing, accepting, transforming, seeing and so on and so on and so on and

brahma, vishnu, shiva, brahma, vishnu, shiva, brahma, vishnu, shiva, brahma and so on, and so on, and so on, and

father, son, holy spirit, father, son, holy spirit, father, son, holy spirit, and so on, and so on, and so on, and

birth, life, death, birth, life, death, birth, life, death, birth, and so on, and so on, and so on, and

being, love, awareness, being, love, awareness, being, love, awareness, being, and so on, and so on, and so on, and

one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one and so on, and so on, and so on, and not one.

#emmys

i'd like to to thank the cast and crew of all these thoughts for creating such an unbelievable story #emmys

first and foremost i'd like to thank my social conditioning without which i wouldn't even be here #emmys

oh, and let me not forget the indefatigable maya who helped put this entire project together; stand up maya wherever you are! #emmys

and last there's real love; clear-sighted seeing, non-judgmentally accepting, and completely non-volitionally transformative: namaste #emmys

resembling an NDE

had something resembling an NDE last night; what follows are my notes immediately following; fwiw

appears to have just experienced NDE when breathing stopped while sleeping due to mucus build-up in throat

immediate response felt like fish flapping back into element and breathing: a flopping onto face down and arms spread forward (was on side)

immediately before that there was an electric shocklike closing down maybe accompanied by a flash of blue light

it was definitely an impersonal event until a second or two after recovery when a sudden comprehension came of what had just occurred

the comprehension was accompanied by a moment of animal fear and then a more calm understanding with some bodily reaction of breathing

back to the NDE electric shock: emphasizing the shut down response; quick electric switching off with feeling, probably breath-related

electric feeling of closing down, falling down, not falling down but a leaving? there was a consciousness that saw something

definitely a flash of light but nothing eye bright, more electric blue

not a consciousness of death though; an impersonal electrical transformation occuring but immediately accompanied by bodily response

bodily response was coming up for air, empasize the coming up. and then flopping down on the bed

surprised at conscious experience of electric whoosh (for lack of a better word) but 'death' approaching was not deathlike but experiential

like an experience of the power closing off on this outlet. not returning to a source because power still there. just a switching.

also surprised at 'my' somewhat calm after response :-) no real shaking psychological fear following the quick animal fear response

but a quick and growing comprehension of what had just been experienced with an appreciation of still being alive, but again not emotional

ha! it doesn't take long for the mind to create stories. thinking who would have discovered my body? what would my body look like? position?

that's it. 18 hours later, all i would add is the awareness the body immediately had in its all-out attempt to survive; it was traumatic!

also, what was experienced was a nanosecond in length; even the description 'electric whoosh' is ten thousand times longer than experience

as for feeling after near death, no real carpe diem stuff, but definitely a fuck the bullshit, but that was already there. now confirmed.

fuck bullshit!

let's add a love to that though.

fuck bullshit; love truth