An Epistle to Nothing but Water

A person is like a fish out of water but call it brainwashing instead—there’s nothing but water in this divine analogy.

They call it selling water by the river but it’s really selling water in the river.

It takes a certain kind of sick infected suffering imagination to think that any phenomenon, no matter how personal it may appear to be, is not in consciousness.

Consciousness is the only manifestation of the unmanifest noumenon. The material world is as immaterial in consciousness as a dream is in mind—call it emptiness, impermanence, transformation, even vanity, but it’s not a real world.

Manifest consciousness is the unmanifest Absolute knowing it is the unmanifest Absolute. The dream state is how consciousness facilitates this knowing within consciousness. Call this evolutionary story the specter of self-awareness.

This fluid specter of self-awareness is called divine imagination when imagination is not sick infected suffering. Whether a butterfly or a Taoist wandering at ease, such a fish knows it’s in the wholly holey holy water.

Festival Manifestation

This weekend marks the height of New England summer heat—the sun is dropping body-mind. 

Everything appears in consciousness and it's abundantly apparent if one doesn't think about it.

Body-mind is like the dream machine of divine imagination getting lost within the nuts and bolts of its survival—but it's just my imagination running away with me. 

Next week the summer starts to fall. Nagarjuna's emptiness is Han Shan's transformation. Nothing not cold can stay.

Looking inside is called leaving the world. Dropping body-mind is called experiencing oneself.

Being is called self-awareness. This is called That.

Belief is about a single point of view but I contain multitudes!

Let my summers go; manifest one's current understanding.

Being is non-doing. Non-doing doesn't mean no choice. Choicelessness is choosing love.

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 22

In this seam of cliffs 

there’s enough of a crystalline breeze.

No fan needs rousing.

Cool air arises on its own.

A bright moon is shining.

White clouds are encircling.

He is sitting alone—

one ancient man.

304-red pine; 308-henricks; 145-tanahashi

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 21

I abide beneath Cold Cliff 

marveling at its manifest shelter. 

I carry a basket and gather greens and roots

using it to pluck some fruit as well.

Returning, I spread out a simple mat and eat

while chewing on some purple immortals.

I rinse my bowl in a clear pool.

I boil what’s remaining into a soup.

Sitting in sunshine, wrapped in a cloak,

I scan unhurriedly poems of the ancients.

290-red pine; 293-henricks; 255-tanahashi; 295-rouzer

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 20

Nowadays people search in the clouds for a path—

but the way of clouds is obscure and lacks a sign.

The mountains are high and the passes steep.

The streams are wide with little daylight.

Green mountains rise before and after.

White clouds stretch west and east.

But if one is truly looking for the way of clouds,

it’s here in the space of open sky.

255-red pine; 256-henricks; 69-watson; 244-tanahashi

Direct Tao

Here's my latest hottest take: the monolith in 2001 represents duality. The monolith is the birth of the binary. If there's a one then there's a zero. Dave, fast forward to the age of nanotech.

But nonduality is one being nothing. So the monolith is misunderstood. It was believed and not received as a gift to see through. Thus, we expel ourselves from paradise daily.

The intent of evolution is self-awareness, but in the act of chopping wood and carrying water, I discovered the fire of death. (Ever since I started using a fountain pen for writing, I have ink-stained hands and I like it.)

This is the 39th night of the 40 days of summer. Soon there will be purple loosestrife! The hardest part of my conditioning is thinking there are others, not knowing everyone at best is my projection.

Footnote. Love is not projection. Love is universal being. But too often it is filtered by the coloring of thought. O empire of scientific materialism, how do I know thy great intent?

of an evolutionary universe is self-awareness? Because I am. Question everything. Goddess is love. It's all about imagination. Imagination is another name for seeing through.

Remember. No healing. no growth. The so-called ego is not a bad guy. Seeing through the world is Self-awareness 101. Ego wants to be the bad guy. Believing right and wrong reinforces all the webs we weave.

Look, give the sense of ego half-a-chance. It's like the tool for focusing one's attention toward self-awareness. If not for love, I'm not self-aware. So always love the one you're with.

Nothing is wrong unless you think it is. Nothing is right, either. Everything is as it is. Self-awareness is the name of my best myth. The left is collective. The right is individual. 

Love and wisdom is the heart of nonduality. Butterflies! Gypsy moths? It's all about my point of view. Imagine that. It is as it is and all shall be well. That's easy for me to say.

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 19

A thousand clouds and ten thousand streams—

among them is one individual at ease.

In the light of day, he wanders in green mountains.

At night, he circles back to sleep beneath a cliff.

The springs and autumns quickly pass.

Untroubled, he is free of worldly entanglements.

Light-hearted, he depends on nothing.

Becalmed, he is as placid as the waters in an autumn river.

279-red pine; 282-henricks; 61-watson; 241-tanahashi

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 18

Since I’ve been dwelling on Cold Mountain 

how many ten-thousand years have come and gone?

Following my fate, I came to a place of woods and water

and here I stop and stay, observing being as it is.

No one troubles this cold cliff—

impenetrable white clouds obscure.

Meager grass makes my mattress.

Expansive blue sky is my quilt.

Satisfied, I rest my head on a pillow of stone

letting heaven and earth attend to transformation.

26-red pine; 163-henricks; 241-tanahashi; 7-snyder

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 17

I experience the peak of the Platform of the Sky, 

most eminent among that mass of mountains.

Pine and bamboo murmur in the swaying of the wind

like the ocean tide seesawing beneath the moonlight.

Contemplating green slopes below,

I consider the dark principle with white clouds.

My wild delight concurs with these mountains and rivers.

My prime intent is being with such companions of the Way.

  

226-red pine; 228-henricks; 60-watson; 231-tanahashi

New Cold Mountain Transcreation 16

I sit on a large slab of rock.

The valley stream is icy, cold.

Quietly, joyfully, I take in the enchantment

enveloped in the mists that cling to empty cliffs.

This is such a still restful place.

The sun is slant and shadows of trees grow enhanced.

I can see the bottom ground of mind—

a lotus is emerging from the sediment.

264-red pine; 266-henricks; 219-tanahashi; 267-rouzer