Tuesday, July 3, 2018

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 4

Supremely independent in the clouds,
this mountain needs no landowner.
In descending to the pass, I use a walking stick.
Ascending to the peak, I climb the vines.
In the valley, the trees are evergreen.
In the gorge, the rocks are variously colored.
Although I’m cut off from companions,
when spring arrives, the birds sing dawn dawn.


219-red pine; 105-tanahashi; 64-henricks

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 3

Breathtaking and mind-boggling, the waters of the Yellow River,
on and on without end, its way is coursing eastward—
drifting drifting slowly, obscure and never clearing,
slipping by body after body, whose lives appear to pass instead.
But if you wish to ride majestic white clouds,
how can one develop wings?
While your hair is still jet-black, begin—
active or at rest, drop away completely.



from translations: 67-red pine; 100-tanahashi; 64-henricks

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 2

Wang, the Literary Master,
laughs at my unsophisticated poetry—
I know nothing of the 'wasp's waist'
and never incorporate a 'crane's bill'
and as for metric feet, I’m completely ignorant,
and my words are nothing special, and misused.
But I’m laughing at the poetry he writes—
a sightless man creating handiworks about the sun.


from translations: 283-red pine; 28-watson; 95-tanahashi; 286-henricks

Monday, July 2, 2018

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 1

Yesterday I saw these trees by the riverbank
injured and damaged so—unbelievable!
Only two or three were still left standing
scarred by ten thousand axe-blade wounds.
Their ragged leaves had been stripped by frost.
Countless swells had withered their festering roots.
And this is what it’s like to be born—
why would anyone blame eternity?


from translations: 198-red pine; 65-watson; 90-tanahashi; 191-henricks

Saturday, June 30, 2018

Epistle to the Americans

Everyone in the world enjoys a paradigm. If it isn't lucid dreaming, it's believing someone else's. Maybe one is waiting for some nirvikalpa Sunday samadhi. Exactly that is someone else's dreaming. And most of you accept the scientific explanation that the mind will know the great unknown in time.

You cannot petition the lord with science! You cannot know the great unknown with mind. One can only be it, and in being, know it. The one that worships at the ordinary, but secretly believes the specialist, is just another religious crusader.

You will know them by the PhD they follow. Physician, know appearances in consciousness. Lucid dreaming is another name for embodiment. Not to drop a name on you.

The only respect an honest teacher expects from an earnest student is disbelief. It's the student's job to build an honest myth. S/he not fully manufacturing a meta-paradigm is busy as a parasite upon another body-mind.

There's nothing right nor wrong with rhyming. It happens. The interpretation of a happening is always after the fact and never without some bias from the interpretation of previous happenings.

Pure awareness being self-aware is the essence of my myth and I interpret every happening as such. Myth is how I stand. I'll sit when I'm dead. Love without myth is to be continued. Myth without love—see 20th century scientific materialism.

Friday, June 29, 2018

My Particular Myth—Epistle to One and All

Love says: 'I am everything'. Wisdom says: 'I am nothing' Between the two my life flows.

In and for my own understanding—there are two lines of spiritual inquiry establishing themselves along the lines of Indian jnana and bhakti, which I prefer to call personal deconstruction and mystic insight, but a well-known quote from Nisargadatta simply names them wisdom and love.

As to personal deconstruction, social conditioning is challenged on every conceivable front including that of the modern religion of scientific materialism.

Deconstruction without mystic insight leads to rational nihilistic perceptions with a futile search for scientific materialist confirmation.

Science by itself is a method of inquiry. But materialism is an unproven faith in the fundamental nature of material existence, a religious belief propagating theories as dogma without investigating the obvious experiential fact that this material is an appearance in consciousness.

For my own mythic arrangement—the beauty of Arthur M. Young's reflexive universe is the placement of this paradigm of material manifestation within its meta-paradigm of being—utilizing the scientific method to discover that the universe is an evolutionary process of self-awareness.

As to mystic insight, consciousness or being, known in the world as unconditional love, is embraced as primary or fundamental or all.

Mystic insight without a deconstructive approach leads to idealistic new age reverie without a mythic framework. See Apollo and Dionysus.

Pseudo-eastern trappings are just as much new age as Timothy Leary is dead—that's a lot of love to be without a ground to stand on. And there's nothing immanently wrong with this. It's being lost in the western material world looking for some overhanging myth to hang a head on.

Similarly the hopeful crowd announcing our collective consciousness is now preparing for a better day in some not distant newborn age is new age through and through, forgetting one’s not of the world, as well as last lines from every film in Chinatown—forget it friend, it’s samsara.

Beyond, one is being the unknown.

The way as I see it—the body-mind and its world is not to be renounced, but to be embodied as the supernode of my universal soft machine of self-awareness, and embraced for the revelatory dreamwork that it is.

This doesn’t imply involving oneself in the affairs of the world. In fact, as Ramana Maharshi says—non-resistance is the highest way. And the Diamond Sutra says the bodhisattva frees by knowing there’s no bondage.

There is no world other than my projection. When this simple fact is seen—there’s no one but myself—there may be fire on the movie screen but the world isn’t really burning—and no reason to extinguish artificial flames—embody the universal—being only is the way of self-awareness.

Self-awareness is a private showing.

In the west, self-effacement is somewhat easy, especially for one with an undeveloped ego. but world-effacement? How dare one?

Ego is not an individual construct. Ego IS the world and my conditioned place within it, of it.

Some find themselves in a dissociative state having lost the egoic sense of self while holding on to the egoic sense of the world—like the separation anxiety of a child who needs to hold on to a parent for dear life because the sense of self is undeveloped.

It’s not collective. It's not preparing for some future heaven. It's even not about my helping others although this love is in the world and dreaming does go on and some samsara tells nirvana do what your samsara says.

The false religious and progressive invention that the spiritual or humane height of achievement is an egolessness displayed in one’s social consciousness—is one of the most devious protectors of worldly egoic samsara—and the sly guarantor of no awakening from its sleep.

This isn’t saying the liberal view is wrong and pulling yourself up by the bootstraps in a free market world is right. Both are neither. Love is not of the world—and one’s not a body surviving in the world. Consciousness is fundamental. Just imagine the inference of that truth for self-awareness.

Of course there’s such a power as manifesting—look out my window—it’s already happening—great intent is always manifesting my projection—urging the self to self-awareness—the only question for one embodying the universe is—how do I collaborate—and the answer is—divine imagination.

The Self-Reflexive Manifestation

Words wear out. This is why metaphor. But metaphors also wear out. This is why paradox. Paradox never wears out—it was never here.

No name for Tao—not spiritual—not mystical—not even nonduality. The way without a name—call it source of self-awareness.

Still I need a myth to live by. I couldn’t eat without it—just know that myths transform into beliefs when my experientially known unknown is thought to be literally known.

Call it—The Self-Reflexive Manifestation. In consciousness, where all appears, self-awareness is the only constant narrative within my evolution—and its source is obviously myself.

The Self-Reflexive Manifestation is a grand unifying story satisfying all the conflicting plotlines of the micro, the macro, and beyond.

In this myth of The Self-Reflexive Manifestation, the unmanifest emptiness takes form and caveat emptor.

Do you really think the mountains and rivers are outside, Shan Shui? I now know without a doubt the universe is completely inside. And so are the mountains and rivers—appearances in consciousness.

It's the same old story—pure awareness being self-aware. Is the water falling?

Or is the waterfall a temporary closing? And the mist arising from the burning waters is its re-opening. Such is self-awareness.










original

1.
In and for my own understanding—there are two lines of spiritual inquiry establishing themselves along the lines of Indian jnana and bhakti, which I prefer to call personal deconstruction and mystic insight, but a well-known quote from Nisargadatta simply names them wisdom and love.

Deconstruction without mystic insight leads to rational nihilistic perceptions with a futile search for scientific materialist confirmation, while mystic insight without a deconstructive approach leads to idealistic new age reverie without a mythic framework. See Apollo and Dionysus.

In other words, in my particular mythic arrangement, social conditioning is challenged on every conceivable front including that of the modern religion of scientific materialism, while consciousness or being, known in the world as unconditional love, is embraced as primary or fundamental or all.

2.
Science by itself is a method of inquiry. But materialism is an unproven faith in the fundamental nature of material existence, a religious belief propagating theories as dogma without investigating the obvious experiential fact that this material is an appearance in consciousness.

For my own mythic arrangement—the beauty of Arthur M. Young's reflexive universe is the placement of this paradigm of material manifestation within its meta-paradigm of being—utilizing the scientific method to discover that the universe is an evolutionary process of self-awareness.

3.
Pseudo-eastern trappings are just as much new age as Timothy Leary is dead—that's a lot of love to be without a ground to stand on And there's nothing immanently wrong with this. It's being lost in the western material world looking for some overhanging myth to hang a head on.

Similarly the hopeful crowd announcing our collective consciousness is now preparing for a better day in some not distant newborn age is new age through and through, forgetting one’s not of the world, as well as last lines from every film in Chinatown—forget it friend, it’s samsara.

One is being the unknown. It’s not collective. It's not preparing for some future heaven. It's even not about my helping others although this love is in the world and dreaming does go on and some samsara tells nirvana do what your samsara says. No. Self-awareness is a private showing.

4.
The way as I see it—the body-mind and its world is not to be renounced, but to be embodied as the supernode of my universal soft machine of self-awareness, and embraced for the revelatory dreamwork that it is.

This doesn’t imply involving oneself in the affairs of the world. In fact, as Ramana Maharshi says—non-resistance is the highest way. And the Diamond Sutra says the bodhisattva frees by knowing there’s no bondage.

5.
The false religious and progressive invention that the spiritual or humane height of achievement is an egolessness displayed in one’s social consciousness—is one of the most devious protectors of worldly egoic samsara—and the sly guarantor of no awakening from its sleep.

This isn’t saying the liberal view is wrong and pulling yourself up by the bootstraps in a free market world is right. Both are neither. Love is not of the world—and one’s not a body surviving in the world. Consciousness is fundamental. Just imagine the inference of that truth for self-awareness.


The Self-Reflexive Manifestation

Words wear out. This is why metaphor. But metaphors also wear out. This is why paradox. Paradox never wears out—it was never here.

No name for Tao—not spiritual—not mystical—not even nonduality. The way without a name—call it source of self-awareness.

Still I need a myth to live by. I couldn’t eat without it—just know that myths transform into beliefs when my experientially known unknown is thought to be literally known.


Call it—The Self-Reflexive Manifestation. In consciousness, where all appears, self-awareness is the only constant narrative within my evolution—and its source is obviously myself.

The Self-Reflexive Manifestation is a grand unifying story satisfying all the conflicting plotlines of the micro, the macro, and beyond.

In this myth of The Self-Reflexive Manifestation, the unmanifest emptiness takes form and caveat emptor.


Do you really think the mountains and rivers are outside, Shan Shui? I now know without a doubt the universe is completely inside. And so are the mountains and rivers—appearances in consciousness.

It's the same old story—pure awareness being self-aware. Is the water falling?

Or is the waterfall a temporary closing? And the mist arising from the burning waters is its re-opening. Such is self-awareness.

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Biggest Medicine


Eat my universe! Drink my ouroboric acid! The sun gives and the moon takes away.

If hydrogen is one and oxygen is the sign for infinity, then water is the great mirage—duality!

The first time I took LSD, there was a full blood moon over Half Moon Lake.

Even though this knowledge is omnipresent, in this particular way, the unknown knows itself.

Look, wave-particle duality depends on what the eye expects to see. So much depends on self-awareness.

Samsara is the baddest trip—believing life is survival of the fittest while knowing death is the biggest lie.

Sometime after the wood frogs but quite before the crickets, lightning bugs or fireflies!

As it is—is heaven or nirvana. As feared, project a world of worm and stone around a heart. Await there. Loving sees through all.


Saturday, June 23, 2018

Omnipresent Reflection

Only when the universe has my undivided attention, am I self-aware. This is called Omnipresent Reflection. In my experience, one returns to one within the way of self-awareness. Otherwise one remains conceptual.

This one of which I speak is not conceptual, and so beyond all words, spontaneous, nondual. In other words, the only knowledge is the knowledge of the unknown knowing.

It took me twenty years of hiking mountains to understand that breaking through the wall is stopping thinking period. I started feeling trees are legs, the southern ridge my spine, and what is the summit but one peak and sky?

There is an easy trail on Mount Desert Island beginning with a masonic rock stairway, scrambling up desert bedrock slope, and ending in apocalypse of sea and sky. Every spring it came to be my first sign.

Deconstruction is easy; belief is hard. This is the little lower layer of all kinds of comedy. It's not as if I dream each night and not know the concepts well. What is God but pure awareness? What is the universe but self-awareness? Who am I but both?

Thursday, June 21, 2018

An Epistle in Julian of Norwich


Look! Body-mind is the world. So know the weight of what one drops before you think it's only personal.

Compassion is the love one has for something one can’t change nor should—but the world can give ten thousand reasons why you will.

All of this is happening spontaneously without a so-called ‘my’ and so-called ‘doing’ anything at all. This is just a play-by-play with a colorful point of view.


It's really not that bad. What happens in the world stays in the world, excepting love. And love is all there is.

Love of daughter, granddaughter, son-in-law, brother, brother's husband, nieces and nephews and their families, friends, colleagues, cousins, and all memories of mother and father.

Also Jesus, Sister Mary Charles, The Beatles, Lao Tzu, Whitman, Melville, Frost, Thoreau, Jack Kerouac, don Miguel Ruiz, Eckhart, Adyashanti, Emily, Krishnamurti, Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, and Zhuangzi.


Between Basho and Shakespeare is breathing in lines, full stop.

The mind divides because—self-awareness. Any kind of politics is getting stuck in two. Look! Love is the spinning of the wheel. Wisdom is the sand.

Either one follows one's bliss, or one is thinking one is not, or has not been, or should not be following his or her bliss—but unknowingly is.