Secret Footnotes to My New Age Reading

Don't throw out my being with your ego. Seeing the world in the light of wu-wei shortens division.

This with no name is the wildest card. Play it. See through the past. It's harmless.

A god named pure awareness is becoming self-aware. Welcome to my universe.

My New Age Reading

Ingratiation is not gratitude like sacrifice is not self-denial. Nothing is not synchronicity but sometimes it appears to happen faster.

Iconic yokai. Kasa obake. Discarded umbrella. Like a day dream left by the way side returns one night to paint my tarot in wu wei.

Not going against my self is not egoic action. You can't buy authenticity with a name. The butterfly isn't Taoist.

The dream is past—no need to harm it. Love is in the present—keep on opening it. Awareness is beyond all time so be it—self-awareness.

*Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That

Conditioning is enforced imagination. Imagine something wrong and fix it. Revision: imagine all is wrong and fix it.

I say to you tonight there's nothing wrong and everything one thinks is wrong is only wrong because one thinks there's something wrong.

So first undo that stale imagination* and imagine now there's nothing wrong, and soon one knows there's nothing wrong.

O Corinthians, knowledge is partly stale and even every prophecy is partly stale, but when the great perfection is imagined, the partial disappears.

When I was a child asleep, I dreamt like a child asleep. But now that I'm awake, I put aside such childish conditioning and imagine as it is.

For while asleep one sees projections, but when awake one is self-aware. The material world is like ashes on sunshine. Feel it and it falls away.

When the screech owl flew into the picture window like the great big sea banging on the shore, did the walls come tumbling down?

Talking Earthling

Dear Young One, subjective consciousness (the personal) equals universal consciousness (being vision speaking in the language of the dream-state) divided (filtered) by the mind.

Earthling, why are more than seven billion nodes of high potential self-awareness unaware of indivisibility within the universal matrix of absolute intent? Aren't your oceans deep enough?

One of one, they're deep enough but just not hot enough. So operation global warming is begun although they know not what they do. The absolute intent of pure awareness is awareness of awareness, naturally.


So self-awareness is the height of evolution, the crown of creation, myth of myths. For self-awareness starts with monkey do and ends with Doctor Wu. And being busy being busy is being never being being.

In the space-time dream state, space is just a place to own and time is something to be spent. So do no harm—there is no space nor celestial bodies. Always be being further—time is just a memory.

Thus space-time is just a thought. Being is the immaculate conception. Self-awareness is what it is. Like do your job. ‘What is the way to the abode of light?’ 'Have you reckoned the earth much?'



footnotes

"What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings? Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years!" [Job 38:19-21 (NIV)]

"Have you reckoned a thousand acres much? Have you reckoned the earth much? Have you practiced so long to learn to read? Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems? Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems..." [SoM 2 ~WW]

Mummy Cave

So much division exponentially dividing nothing into smaller microcosms of oneself and others—

Jesus says there are no others; Buddha says there is no one; Zhuangzi says it's three in the morning.

There is no difference in their sayings: love, detachment, this and that. It's never what I think it is.

For I am dance! And love. Love is not relationship between oneself and another. And detachment doesn't mean a thing.

A black bear surprises in the night! An elephant is standing in the wings. Desolation power is waiting in the blue lagoon.

Here's the revelation of divine imagination in the manifestation of self-awareness—I am nothing, but nothing is.

So they say it isn't easy being nothing. This is why a newborn baby finds oneself always living in samsara.

And don't misunderstand my meaning of nothing. It's the scientific name for the absolute unknown.

One. Divine imagination is my self-awareness. This is why I am. I can't deny the undeniable.

Two. Never mind. It's really nothing. Three. A. Be. Seeing that a crystal stream is flowing

through the canyon of the dead is undeniable, it strikes me. Yes, I am. And nothing is not two.

Transcreating Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) 2:1

On to Inner Chapter 2:

What does the Way rely upon that we have true and false? What do words rely upon, that we have right and wrong? How can the Way go away and not exist? How can words exist and not be acceptable? When the Way relies on little accomplishments and words rely on vain show, then we have the rights and wrongs of the Confucians and the Mo-ists. What one calls right the other calls wrong; what one calls wrong the other calls right. But if we want to right their wrongs and wrong their rights, then the best thing to use is clarity.

~BW


How has the Way become so obscured that there are true and false? How has speech become so obscured that there are right and wrong? Could it be that the Way has gone off and is nolonger present? Could it be that speech is present but has lost it sability to validate? The Way is obscured by partial achievements; speech is obscured by eloquent verbiage. Thus there are controversies between Confucians and Mohists over what's right and what's wrong. They invariably affirm what their opponents deny and deny what their opponents affirm. If one wishes to affirm what others deny and deny what others affirm, nothing is better than lucidity,

~VM


How could courses be so obscured that there could be any question of genuine or fake among them? How could words be so obscured that there could be any question of right or wrong among them? Where can you go without it being a course? What can you say without it being affirmable? Courses are obscured by the small accomplishments already formed and completed by them.9 Words are obscured by the ostentatious blossoms of reputation that come with them. Hence we have the rights and wrongs of the Confucians and Mohists, each affirming what the other negates and negating what the other affirms. But if you want to affirm what they negate and negate what they affirm, (2:15) nothing compares to the Illumination of the Obvious

~BZ


Tao is obscured when men understand only one of a pair of opposites, or concentrate only on a partial aspect of being. Then clear expression also becomes muddled by mere wordplay,
affirming this one aspect and denying all the rest. Hence the wrangling of Confucians and Mohists; each denies what the other affirms, and affirms what the other denies. What use is this struggle to set up "No" against "Yes," and "Yes" against "No"? Better to abandon this hopeless effort and seek true light!

~TM

How can the Way be so concealed there’s any question of factual and fake? How can words be so unintelligible there’s any question of right and wrong? How can the Way be somewhere else and not be here? How can words endure and not be genuine? The Way is hidden in little insights and words are lost in wordplay. Thus there is debate between the Left and Right about what's right and wrong. Each denies the other’s affirmations and affirms the other’s deep denials. But to right such wrongs and wrong such rights, nothing compares to seeing through it all with clarity, lucidity, illumination.

~Z (tr-SR)

A Few Words from Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) Ch-1

It is said the fundamental is without identity,

the spiritual is without value,

the wise is without a word.

So this big tree is just being there and you worry it’s useless.

Why not stand it in that allotment of naught

within this vast field of nowhere?

Here, you do nothing but wander at ease in its shade

while dreaming far and carefree within it.

Not a thought of an axe may cut it—

nor anything otherwise harm it.

And since it has no use,

no sorrow nor suffering shall befall it.

~transcreated by Son Rivers

Transcreating Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) 1:2

Here is Burton Watson’s translation of the end of Chapter 1, followed by four other translations of the final paragraph, and my own transcreation of that paragraph utilizing those five translations in total.

Hui Tzu said to Chuang Tzu, "I have a big tree of the kind men call shu. Its trunk is too gnarled and bumpy to apply a measuring line to, its branches too bent and twisty to match up to a compass or square. You could stand it by the road and no carpenter would look at it twice. Your words, too, are big and useless, and so everyone alike spurns them!"

Chuang Tzu said, "Maybe you've never seen a wildcat or a weasel. It crouches down and hides, watching for something to come along. It leaps and races east and west, not hesitating to go high or low-until it falls into the trap and dies in the net. Then again there's the yak, big as a cloud covering the sky. It certainly knows how to be big, though it doesn't know how to catch rats.

Now you have this big tree and you're distressed because it's useless. Why don't you plant it in Not-Even-Anything Village, or the field of Broad-and-Boundless, relax and do nothing by its side, or lie down for a free and easy sleep under it? Axes will never shorten its life, nothing can ever harm it. If there's no use for it, how can it come to grief or pain?"

~Z (tr-Burton Watson)

Now you, sir, have a big tree and are bothered by its uselessness. Why don't you plant it in Never-never Land with its wide, open spaces? There you can roam in nonaction by its side and sleep carefreely beneath it. Your StinkyQuassia's life will not be cut short by axes, nor will anything else harm it. Being useless, how could it ever come to grief

~Z (tr-Victor Mair)

So for your big tree. No use?
Then plant it in the wasteland
In emptiness.
Walk idly around,
Rest under its shadow;
No axe or bill prepares its end.
No one will ever cut it down.

Useless? You should worry!

~Z (tr-Thomas Merton)

You, on the other hand, have this big tree, and you worry that it’s useless. Why not plant it in our homeland of not-even-anything, the vast wilds of open nowhere? Then you could loaf and wander there, doing lots of nothing there at its side, and take yourself a nap, far-flung and unfettered, there beneath it. It will never be cut down by ax or saw. Nothing will harm it. Since it has nothing for which it can be used, what could entrap or afflict it?”

~Z (tr-Brook Ziproryn)

Now you've got this huge tree, and you agonize over how useless it is.  Why not plant it in a village where there's nothing at all, a land where emptiness stretches away forever?  Then you could be no one drifting lazily beside it, roam boundless and free as you doze in its shade. It won't die young from the axe. Nothing will harm it. If you have no use, you have no grief.

~Z (tr-David Hinton)

So this big tree is just being there and you worry it’s useless. Why not stand it in that allotment of naught within this vast field of nowhere? Here, you do nothing but wander at ease in its shade while dreaming far and carefree within it. No thought of an axe may cut it—nor anything otherwise harm it. And since it has no use, no sorrow nor suffering shall befall it.

~Zhuangzi (tr-Son Rivers)

Transcreating Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) 1:1

It is difficult to transcreate Zhuangzi because the stories are so intricate, but I’d like to try my hand at certain sentences of note. This is the first.


The first sections of the first inner chapter tell many stories of space and time but the tenth section ends with this sentence which is their summary of sorts (four translations follow):

"Therefore I say, the Perfect Man has no self; the Holy Man has no merit; the Sage has no fame."
~Z (tr-Burton Watson)"

"Therefore, it is said that the ultimate man has no self, the spiritual person has no accomplishment, and the sage has no name.”
~Z (tr-Victor Mair)

"Thus I say, the Consummate Person has no fixed identity, the Spirit Man has no particular merit, the Sage has no one name."
~Z (tr-Brook Ziporyn)

"Hence the saying: The realized remain selfless. The sacred remain meritless. The enlightened remain nameless."
~Z (tr-David Hinton) 

My transcreation is such:

Therefore it is said the fundamental is without identity, the spiritual is without value, the wise is without a word.
~Z (tr-Son Rivers)

Talking Wu Wei

Surrender is not mandatory, but neither is pain, which is the Yang
to the Yin on the great axis of wu wei, which both polar qualities envelop.

It's neither surrender nor pain if it's non-doing. Wu wei is neither
nihilistic nor Sisyphean. Ahab loved his sailboat as a young man.

He felt as if the winds and currents were guiding him to where
he had to be, so Ahab could be Ahab, and thus to be a rudder—

not as to volitionally steer the boat (as if), but to find the better
way between the word and deep blue sea. Self-awareness.

But surrender sounds like giving something up instead of letting
go as Dogen, and his dropping body-mind, like wu wei.

The Sisyphean pain of overdoing—like making progress, continuous
improvement, and biggest and best—is not non-doing, nor wu-wei.

This wu wei isn't even wu wei.
And that wu wei is wei wu wei.