An Epistle to Death

The universe is called the universe because it’s one holistic entity but yet we cling to superstitious magical beliefs

of separate body parts that live untouched by universal interactions, are endowed with free volition, and are born, survive, and die—

like me—although, as me, I never actually experienced my birth and only know about my future death by some conceptual conjecture.

In truth, there’s only self-aware existence, name it God the Child, and that unknown unmanifest foundation, name it God the Parent,

and its Immaculate Intent to know itself, which seems to take a universe to execute, evolve, and do.

First Epistle to the Meaning of Life

Please listen, love. You’re in the middle of a process which when viewed within that process will appear absurd at best

and downright scary at its worst. So join me for a moment, step away from all the world, and let's consider myth and metaphysics.

Let's talk about this God the Father, call it God the Parent, Absolute Reality, instead.

Such a God would have to be that one without another. In other words, that absolute reality would be the pure subjective subject.

In our experience, there’s no perception of this state, except the one of deepest sleep.

The closest metaphor there is to this subjective subject is a mirror without reflection.

And the closest experiential terminology we have for such a state is pure awareness.

Now, let's take another view of God the Parent, Absolute Reality, Pure Awareness.

That god could never be a god and never know itself. The pure subjective subject thus intends to know itself, and this intention

sets in motion what we call the universe, an evolutionary process by which pure awareness is aware of pure awareness.

The process is reflexive, first creating something other than the pure subjective subject, then intending

this universal object of reflection to evolve as such awareness permeating being, seeing it’s no object but that pure awareness.

Let's call this being God the Child. Let's see that's what existence is. Let's know that all the world is just an object’s alienated view of this intention.

And with that understanding, let's return within the middle of this process and look again with open, clear, and natural eyes.

With my Daughter at the China Blossom

Enjoying such a lotus world

of lineage and love,

knowing there’s not anything

other than this spontaneity,

for the past is purely anecdotal

and the future nonexistent—

I open up my fortune cookie

and there’s open space within it.

Seventh Day Moon

Last evening i was suddenly contacted

by a crescent moon with mystic earthshine—

"peace-loving aliens tried to save america from nuclear war"

—earthlight on the dark side of the lunar landscape

saying awareness is native, belief is the only alien.

There’s Nobody Born Every Minute

Which came first, the hermit or the cracking of the world's illusion? Never mind, it doesn't matter.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss it though. But in the inhalation following such a mournful sigh arrives this further insight:

no longer does it hold undying interest. The world is just a sideshow thought to be the main attraction, but it's not—I am.

Listen, the wind is whispering through mid-September branches that the sun is going nowhere.

An Epistle to a Dream

Every person is a psychological dysfunction of this universal being. Whether the person is a functioning component of society is all that matters to the world. It doesn't want to cure

because it doesn't know the cure. It's all about alarm clocks, peak efficiency, and credit scores. The fact that personal existence is absurd is not a product sold at stores or sermonized on Sundays.

And the further fact that love is proof the personal is not sustainable is usually kept within the family unit if it's kept at all. Possessions are another thing.

Self-inquiry seems to be an esoteric practice even though it would appear to be the question being asked by every two-year-old. Why is just another way of asking who am I.

To answer I am that which is aware of this absurdity of personal existence may not be most appropriate to tell a two-year-old, or sixty-two-year-old for that matter, but loving wisely is.

Yet on another theme, the leaves are turning yellow on the butternuts.

The Gospel of the Great Blue Heron

Self-awareness is an evolutionary height the mind is turning the matter of all being toward.

The universe is functioning with all its processes and heart to make this happen.

Everything in space and time is how reality appears when viewed within the great divide—

although reality is not divided. Inside the process of an absolutist subjectivity aware

of absolute existence is the paradox of relative objective functioning, in which the crucial turn

appears to be to that which turns, volitional, although it's absolutely not. And with that said,

the blue September river sparkles with an afternoon abundance while a great blue heron turns into an eagle.

A Reflexive Triptych

*

The world is where the mind is turning back to what it is. Recluses are Arjunas too.

I want to say more in less. Or less in something. Unthinking, consciousness gets to know a mind and thinks that's all there is.

A metaphor is the dream language of all communication between deep sleep and sleep-walking. Neither traditional, nondualist, or free.

**

Awareness is the primal absolute—intent to know myself—being is the universal name for big bang—mind suffering the turning—

Silence is the mind reflecting—realizing is seeing I am the mirror—self-awareness is the primal absolute.

Billions of so-called years happening in no time. That's my story and I'm wearing it. Pure awareness and self-awareness are not two.

***

Running is meditation for type A. And vice versa. My heroes have always been type zero.

Being is more than enough practice. Thinking is a way too hard. The reflection of a room inside the picture window.

Basho walking through quicksilver woods. Ninja kanji hanging in the silence. Ryokan studies the branch of a cherry tree outside his window.

The Letter of Intent

One false in the equation means all is false. Receive and surrender. Now trumps memory. Beauty is happening.

Statistics are merely how one divides things. What's more important than the divided knowing it's holistic? More pieces?

I am the mirror. The world is just reflection. Identity plus action equals intent. Transformation is love.

Personal deconstruction is the ultimate revolution. Either one deconstructs oneself or one dies trying.

The razor's edge is nothing but seeing nothing while not believing in nothing. Beyond all marketing, I am.

Right now, one is being doing the best one knows how being is done. Please continue. Love, Intent.

Duty Calling Back to Sun

Our first September heat wave since nineteen eighty-two but I’m conditioned to want cooler weather

ever since this Wednesday indicated back-to-school. Of course, my calendar is empty on this day as most

and weather isn't necessarily a factor in my schedule. No school, no work, or no vacation interrupt my planned existence.

For America, I'm not exactly wealthy, but today I feel I have it made in the shade—while most are busy struggling

in the sun of their survival. How could I not stop to see the sun that shines from these eyes is the same sun

shining through that picture window. Yes, I owe such self-awareness to our social contract.

Between the Two

On Labor Day the lake is suddenly abandoned but my father likes to leave on early Tuesday crack of dawn instead.

Monday evening I walk the shore and sit on docks and rafts now stacked on land and look out on an empty lake.

It feels like winter melting summer into nothing but a blank reflection of a vacant sky.

On this cusp, I rise. Between the love of summer and void of winter stands I.

The Unknown’s Creed

Feel the happening. Accept the transformation. Surf the sea’s intent. Unknowing is the turning.

The teacher explains the wave; the sage is pointing to the sea. Revelation is not deconstruction like space is not the building.

There's no reason to change the world. It works for what it's worth. Oh physicist, know first thyself.

Between boredom and the great unknown is the dream. Between the plan and self-inquiry is coyote.

Not of the world equals no-mind. In the world equals chop wood carry water. One is always irradiating

Certain Silence

Fourteen months of reading

writing speaking poetry

self-publishing a book and now

I wait to see the final proof.

I find a certain silence setting in

but I'm so focused in those ways

I even write a poem about

this certain silence setting in.

There's nothing else to say.

Exegesis of Self-Awareness and Prayer of Oneself

Being truly fucked-up is not knowing you're fucked-up. Many have had this deconstructive experience.

Being truly fucked-up is in direct proportion to lack of self-awareness. Everyone is aware; self-awareness sees through everyone.

Oneself transforming oneself sees through oneself. One seeing through itself is absolutely it!

Warning. You are probably emotionally damaged if you need to see through yourself. So think about it if you can.

Self-deconstruction is founded on forgiveness, insight, and devotion. The golden rule: don't pass on your shit.

One equals forgiveness plus compassion plus love times the unknown. If one is the unknown, one is.

If one is other than the unknown, one is divided and separate and alone. As long as you're playing, don't leave any love on the table.

Ourselves—forgive oneself forgetfulness—see with clarity oneself—and devote oneself to that oneself as one does—realize oneself—love, no one.

In the name of pure awareness, enlightening intent, universal being, and the turn of deconstructing mind.

The Precipice of Emptiness

Half-way up the Precipice, I stopped to summarize the situation. This hike had been my nemesis since I had started hiking in Acadia.

In summer it was closed because of nesting falcons and in autumn it was blocked by my own fear of hiking something almost vertical and sheer.

In winter ice prevented even thinking anything about it and in spring I had to ramp things up on Connor’s Nubble or that simple trail

up Gorham Mountain with an ocean view to kill such obvious egoic thoughts or two.

But here it was September, and my hands were on the iron rungs sunk deep into the granite ready to ascend my apprehensions

toward the peak of no return. That's when I heard the runners breathing down my neck.

I stepped aside and watched two high school students jogging up the trail between the end of classes and their evening homework.

They passed me in a flash of adolescent joy. And absolutely I was humbled but it didn't really matter.

I was such a one now with that mountain nothing personal could destroy, even those same harbingers later laser-streaking by

while I was somewhere only near three-quarters to the summit. A quarter later there was nothing left to say.

The beginning of the end of days spent hiking in Acadia was under way.

Nondual Tractate on Poetry

No words describe the truth and yet I am the truth. Even pointing to the truth is much too brazen of an act

and maybe dangerous to another who mistakes it for a thought and then believes it going on to form a new religion resulting in empirical destruction, inquisitions, holy wars, and waiting for the end of times which may require their personal intervention on authority of voices in their head or paragraphs they read inside their venerated book.

But poetry may be more subtle. Lines are written in a way where nothing solid is ever said—

because it's in-between the lines that's really talking. Here between the lines the spirit of the poet speaks

and here between the lines the spirit of an audience is listening. And spirit equals spirit.

There’s no difference. There’s no two. There's just an open clarity of knowing, being, loving space. No hat is hanging there.

Instant Apocalypse

The world is like a training ground in which the matter of illusion learns to see right through itself, or not.

It may not seem our lives are filled with quiet desperation but that Facebook face is neither truthful nor original.

Something truly broken can't be fixed by all the empire's holy bishops or its countless soldiers.

Neither will the revolution never be the status quo. A picture only tells ten-thousand words because it stops

the transformation in a freeze frame. Never try to do the same at home. When ice is melting, melted water helps

to melt the ice some more and not attempt to change the ice's shape to something moderately nice.

Daydreams in the mirror are much closer when they disappear. This rhymes with neither now nor here.