My Practice

It's come to this. The world is mind, and being in the world is like a dream, its forces being memory, transformation, love, and karma.

Everyone is just a secondary character, most of whom exhibit great divisional peculiarities, the worst of which is selfishness,

a manipulative attempt to manifest their personal desires. It is, in essence, what black magic really is. I know this to be true because

each one is just a mirror of myself, and though I know the mathematics of division, when I interact with people in this play,

I feel those age-old forces tugging at me too. And so I stay in Pleasant Valley like a recluse Chinese poet drinking wine or playing with myself

like Ikkyu of Kyoto does, writing what becomes revealed while going further in this forest toward the sky. I try to leave most everyone alone

but love them like the living pieces of my great mosaic mirror when I allow myself to play within this dream of me and you.

The Diamond Sutra says a bodhisattva saves the world by knowing there's no world to save. So that intention is my latest practice on the way.

Door Way

One is

afraid

to be one

and so

there's people.

It doesn't matter

what you think

the world to be—

the world is what

you think.

Being

isn't part

of any poly-

nomial equation.

Astonishing

alliances are

formed in all-

embracing

consciousness.

Personal memory

demands payment of

legal tender

in the form of

being

to keep one

safe and secure.

Sadness is

like feeling

all is one

but thinking

one's all alone.

Fear is feeling

all is love

but thinking

another wants

to finish me.

The world is what

we think

but I feel like

a whole

lotta

love.

If one is

being

and being is

absolute—

there is no then.

Thought is always one-sided.

It's either

do or

s
a
m
a
d
h
i

Mountain.

No mountain.

Way.

Releasing the Birds of Mythology

Words describe experience as translated thru one's localized mythology. No mythology is alike and much is lost in translating a translation. Nisargadatta in I Am That is actually dozens of Nisargadattas in translation thru dialogues. When one gets close to 'yours,' others open. As various translations are seen through, consciousness speaks to consciousness.

Localized mythologies gets one through the long day's journey thru the night. Seeing thru one's mythology is the work of personal deconstruction. Transforming one's mythology is the work of clarification. Not knowing one keeps a localized mythology is as good a definition of delusion as there is.

Experiential mythologies utilizing names such as awareness and consciousness are still mythologies. If this is unseen, it's just another belief. And one holding to the myth of scientific materialism as if it's not a myth: what a tangled web one is weaving. Don't even get me started on the dangerous lunacies of religion.

Scientific theories of theoretical physicists are inconspicuous mythologies and evident swindles. Here’s another. Every person, every conditioned localized aspect of universal consciousness, is a universe to oneself, and the black hole connecting each one is love. Such a transformation of mythology is named Opening the Window.

Experiencing: Being and Unknowness

Being is the river and only the river knows the source. When the dream jumps in, splash!

Leave belief behind and feel experiential. Thinking is the memory of light but feeling is still the light, although diminished.

In experience, the dandelions are exploding on the southern slope above the exponential sunlight in the wide expanse of river.

I am the experiential and the experiential is what I am. This is not a special knowledge. This is the only knowledge.


The world is an image in memory, mistaken to be, alive, but it's not my fault I caught this virus. Forgive yourself and see.

Knowledge must return and learn to be before being the unknown. Consciousness is like a baby.

In being, what appears to be appears to be an appearance. A beautiful plan is just a piece of paper to the fire of experience.

Life is a testament to being self-aware. Consciousness speaking to consciousness is like experience speaking to inexperience.

This is about the experiential and not the existential—that's not that. Love is the exception that always proves the rule.

One can only remember the door. One never remembers walking through it—so sudden!

This is Called Nine Names

Mistaking the current definition of a word for its usage in another spacetime rendering is another way of getting lost in translation. Definitions also transform. Obviously.


A wave becomes a frog becomes a wolf becomes an owl becomes a stormy Monday.

Yesterday is false. Tomorrow is a fantasy. Today is just the smoke of potentiality.

Note the two unstressed syllables in 'smoke of potentiality.' For prior to that, it's all iambic. Form is emptiness and emptiness is form.


A broken arrow once meant peace but now means accidental nuclear detonation. Thus all definitions pass.

Light of being is filtered by belief—or transformation frozen in the memory of mind—i.e. attachment—becoming an emotion—i.e. moving action.

This lack of self-awareness is an evolutionary step between the active known inanimate and non-doing of the great unknown.


Dragons only breathe out fire. Sages breathe it in. This is Tao of Thrones. Revisited.

It's not the nothing of atheism nor the something of religion, but this being that unknown which knocks me out in out in out in...

Suspending disbelief is practice for the seeing through belief as comedy is deconstruction. The popular is smoke. Esoteric is the fire.


I’d begin at the beginning, but there’s no beginning.

Instead, let me begin now.

By the way, every change in meter is a change in voice.


Remember, for every metaphor, there’s a vehicle and tenor.

In every Travis Bickle, there’s a Luciano Pavarotti.

Singing the song of self-awareness. Walt Whitman style or Emily Dickinson.


The grass reflects time. The recluse reflects space. The mirror is always Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva.

This is almost the end of the preface.

Now begins the apocalypse of Son Rivers.


John Lennon said war is over if you want it. This is dedicated to that spirit.

The world is what you think, believe, it is. So war is over when you think it is.

This is called Learning to Eat an Apple.


Remember death is just a concept and being is the only truth one knows.

This is called Utilizing Memory Efficiently.

It also makes an acronym.


Irony aside. Dying is easy. Deconstruction is hard.

This is called Primal Sutra.

Knowing when to stop deconstruction is not knowable. This is called Grace, Faith, or Trust. Depending what you call your self.


Dreaming lucidly is creating your own mythology. This experience is called Naming the Nameless.

In the Name of Only I Make Mountains Move.

That fine line between deconstruction and being that unknown is called Spontaneity or Sudden.


Only something knows how to believe in nothing. This is called Last House on the Left.

The world is either mirror or mystery. Clarity or mist. Subject or object. I or me. This is called It Is What It Is.

This is called This Is Called.


Number Nine

Signs of the Revelation

At Dunkin Donuts,

I was saying to a friend

I finally accepted what I am

within this dream of nature.

I'm a songbird

and songbirds sing.

Later, driving home,

listening to Open Source

on public radio,

I heard an interview

with John Luther Adams,

not John Coolidge Adams,

who is saying birdsong is

his primal inspiration.

Synchronicity is music

of this universal consciousness

and that goes deeper

than primordial baptism.

Such a sign is confirmation

I am singing what I am.

The Self-Awareness Game

Practice paying mindful attention. Dream lucidly and creatively. Only self-awareness shall spontaneously evolve!

This is the self-awareness game: dreaming what the world shall be. And it is written that shall is such a timeless word.

Now is the time for some beauty. Imagine spring. The daffodils bow to the winter and then. They say nothing gold can stay. But quicksilver shall.

I was raised in the church of fear and loathing. Only thought is deconstructed. Being is immortal space.

To take things personally is the original misdeed of universal consciousness appearing localized. Being is where potentiality is.

We were conditioned to be mountains. And then you saw the mountain is conditioned. I am the mountain. I am the sky.

Belief is magic. Desire is enchantment. I am in the world. My prayer: may they all see that I am not what we believed us to be.

Like kissing every thought before it becomes belief. Like balancing deep sleep and the ordinary mystic. Self-awareness! What else is there?

Alone and Drinking Under a New Moon

Lately a week feels like seven days.

And April has a tendency to freeze frame.

So I wouldn't say this is enlightenment

but I've deconstructed so much bullshit

I can see it in another almost instantly.

This makes it difficult for new relationships

and all the old ones have gone South

to die or be with loving grandchildren.

I like the Chinese poets and their way with wine.

I choose a stout instead seeking moderation

only because I value benefits of deep sleep.

This is where the poem will take a turn.

The absolute unknown is what I am

and every night I like to circle back

to pure awareness, black as Tao,

completely lost to memory or moon.

This is why Li Po jumped in the pond.

Tao. The Poem. Verse 28 to 36.

28.

Know splendor—

abide in obscurity—

return to the natural.

When something uncut

is split, it is used.

But a sage is unhewn and divides nothing.

29.

One can’t improve

the world—

it’s perfect spirit.

One’s hot—then cold.

Strong—weak.

On—off.

So a sage avoids indulgence in extremes.

30.

As armies occupy,

thorns arise.

The adept are resolute,

but never favor force—

for things gone overgrown decay.

That isn’t the Way.

31.

Weapons are tools of misfortune—

the sage avoids them.

When many are killed—

clearly mourn them.

But even in a victory—

observe it with a funeral.

32.

Tao is ever nameless—

none command it.

Rain falls without an order.

Make rules—

names rise—

stop!

Tao in use is like a river flowing to the sea.

  

33.

To know others—

wise.

To know self—

enlightened.

To overcome others—

strong.

To overcome self—

all-powerful.

To not be lost in status—

enduring.

To die yet not die—

immortal.

34.

Tao

floods all directions.

All rely on it for being

yet it claims no name.

Thus a sage not acting for oneself

accomplishes greatness.

35.

Whoever follows the Great Image

enjoys peace.

Song and cake entice the passersby

to stop.

But the Way is tasteless—

never seen, heard, or exhausted.

36.

To weaken—first brace.

To take—give.

This is Dark Light.

Soft breaks hard.

Fish aren’t caught in depths.

A nation’s weapon is its peaceful villages.

Tao. The Poem. Verse 19 to 27.

19.

Abandon knowledge, morality, and profit—

people will thrive.

Yet one more item is crucial:

hold to the unhewn—

self erodes, desires fade.

 

20.

What’s the difference between good and bad?

People conform—they’re all so full!

I’m homeless and useless with the mind of a fool.

I nurture on the Mother.

21.

Tao alone is truth.

Formless—it holds an image.

Indistinct—it shelters fact.

Hidden—it embraces essence.

How do I know? It tells me.

22.

Yield—

and be whole.

As hollow—

so filled.

Thus the sage embraces unity.

Not self-absorbed—

self-evident.

Not empty talk—

the way to the whole.

23.

Speak sparingly as nature—

wind and rain doesn’t storm all day.

To follow Tao is to be Tao.

In gain be gain, in loss, loss.

In Tao trust.

24.

On tiptoes, one can’t stand.

Showing off, one doesn’t shine.

For one on the Way, it’s called

excess food and a tiring pace.

Never indulge.

25.

Before all—

there was something silent,

empty.

Name?

Call it Tao.

Humans follow earth

follows heaven

follows Tao.

Tao follows itself.

26.

Firm—root of light.

Still—lord of the wilderness.

Sages walk with resources near—

calm amid lookouts.

Lightly—lose footing.

Wildly—lose direction.

27.

Perfect action is not undone.

Students are enshrouded light.

Teachers employ that fact

or lack all resources—

simply confusion!

So a sage sees subtly