Clearly

I, I, I...

don't use the first person singular because my ego is overpowering. It is because I can only know my own experience. Writing in first person is the most honest way I know.

I was showering when I thought to explore the obvious. I believe. But how can I express the presence of a being that transcends and is imminent, that eminates from within and is all around. I closed my eyes and thought the first thing I see when I open my eyes will express this reality. I saw the clear glass of the shower wet with clear drops of water. I looked past it to the red towels thinking they might be what I was looking for. I paused. I had looked past the obvious, considering it superflouous. Clearly, I had missed something...

Today, I saw what appeared to be a sphere of light floating in the backyard! It shone for a moment and was gone the next. I was astonished. They're visiting, I thought, overjoyed. I told my wife who was sitting next to me on the bed. Excitedly, I kept looking for a clue, since she might return, a Circle Maker. The next thing I saw was three soap bubbles floating down over the fence, one the same size as the first sphere I saw. It all made sense but a different kind of sense. The children playing noisily in the alley were uncharacteristically blowing fragile, spherical, beautiful, prismatic bubbles.

"But you love bubbles," my wife said.

Though it had changed, and it was not the visitation I had hoped it was, I decided it was still a gift.

iconimago

Fluid, Spherical Being

Although our minds seem not to be extended in space, apparently having no dimension, and although we experience time as one-dimensional, we should never fall into the mind trap of believing that anything within being is simply linear or restricted to a single point. Least of all is consciousness so restricted, and time is all-pervasive.

We are dropped into being which is fluid, free-floating and spherical like a drop of water in empty space. It is inherent in the structure of a sphere that being, i.e. the nature of things is symmetrical in all directions. The ripples made by our splashdown radiate outward and converge on the opposite side of spherical being. Of course, after they converge they continue to propagate, and because they are within a sphere they converge again back where they began. That is, where we splashed down. Any movement creates more ripples and waves that propagate, converge on the opposite side, grow as they add to one another and return to us where we are. The more we move, the more we create the disturbances that return to us, but we may not identify ourselves as the source of the disturbances because they come to us from elsewhere. If we panic or thrash the agitations can escalate rapidly.

Time is multidimensional, and so is consciousness. Believe it, and do not thrash. If you realize the spherical nature of being, then there is freedom. We may yet experience this freedom as euphoria internally and personally within our isolated consciousness where we may know bliss accompanied by a sense of accomplishment and personal responsibility that defies the confining biopsychosocial truths and lies that shackle us to this dying way of life.

In general, the human way of life rapes and murders the soul of freedom for the sake of what is taken to be a worthwhile life. Mostly, our souls live in threadbare survival and in slavery to our ego-ridden social selves. In short, we build our own cages and live in zoological parks where we are treated like captive chattel and where we will be trapped, unable to avoid the mass extinction brought about by our own unsurpassed intelligence and stupidity. It is easy to believe, and understandable if the reader feels this is hyperbole.

It is interesting to note the apathy with which the recent tsunami in Asia was greeted by humans who encountered it. It was so far outside their experience they could not see it for what it was. Even though they saw something approaching they generally did nothing to evade it because they could not understand that it meant impending disaster for them. The nonhuman animals who sensed it coming, though they never saw it, did what was reasonable. They went inland to higher ground where they generally survived.

Perhaps, there is blessing in having a mind that is silent of language, which often confounds direct experience and deceives its users. Language may serve us, but we do not always serve ourselves if we rely on it to understand anything. Ultimately, its usefulness is to facilitate enlightened self-interest which benefits the whole sphere of being. That cannot be achieved with language or without it. Our way of error can only be uprooted when we see that we have been deceived by our teachers into believing that if we are to understand anything it must be named and described, and that if you have not named and described it you have not understood it.

This error may be inherent in teaching with language. This truth may be exemplified by the oft-repeated idea that the best way to understand anything is to try to teach it to someone. Anyone who understands learning knows that there is no such thing as teaching. Learning is all, and many conditions may make learning more or less likely. Now, if you have learned anything by reading this verbiage, destroy it that we may both live free of it!

http://www.well.com/user/davidu/sixthextinction.html

http://filebox.vt.edu/artsci/geology/mclean/Dinosaur_Volcano_Extinction/pages/studentv.html

iconimago

All one alone

I live in dread or regret
of what others deny or forget,
but I have cultivated remembrance
to assimilate some semblance
of something I haven't been, yet.

The object of Zen
is to be frozen,
forget the past, at last,
and eliminate the future
so this hyper-present instance
has no (other) reason for existence.

No vagaries or ambiguity,
and this would make perfect sense to me
were it not for the sound
of my hand, and a sneeze
brings that logic to its knees
with a thousand mysteries.

I hesitate to mention the obvious
of which I am oblivious.

iconimago

Water Way

We all know this.

Water gathers and finds its way as if by will, with ineluctable force or with infinite patience.

It weaves and courses, drawn downward by gravity, or it seeps, emerges through the smallest capillary or crease.

It may even create a way by force, if necessary.

If it is prevented from making its way dowward, it may just disappear as it is taken up, leaving no trace but perhaps ridding itself of impurities in the process of making good its escape.

The kindest, gentlest way is the best way for things to be accomplished between people, and if everyone is reasonably happy, that is highest goal for any given social situation.

Pain is immediate.

Regret is insidious.

There are moments of suffering in the lives of self-reliant creatures, but they are generally brief, and if there is irreparable damage, those moments of suffering generally result in death, which relieves suffering without undue delay.

Even the suffering in the moment is often minimized for these self-reliant creatures.

If the creatures are not self-reliant, that is, if they rely on humans for quarter, humans recognize a duty to relieve their keep of unecessary suffering through humane means.

Human beings are not self-reliant.

They rely on one another.

In the social reality of human life, painful moments are long and drawn out by acts of complicity, purposeful interventions or by "heroic means."

Human pain is seen as necessary, and suffering often works to the advantage of those who have more power and advantage.

Humans often profit from the pain and suffering of those at a disadvantage.

Interventions to lessen the suffering of human beings is often treated as a crime by those in power because it lessens their advantage or profit, and there is either great suspicion or an unassailable assumption that a human being's death is the worst thing that can possibly happen.

Death is often considered the highest penalty, the greatest punishment.

Where is the humanity?

Why should humans have misappropriated the term humane to refer to acts of kindness and mercy?

Men may cry "peace!" when there is no peace, and they may wish "peace on Earth and good will to all men," who are endowed with inalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The use of the term "men" which excludes women is not accidental and there has always been heated debate about what constitutes a "man."

It has never actually been treated as true or mandated by law that men may pursue happiness, only money and property which yields advantage over other women and men.

No matter how humanity tries to prevent it, even if those ways may masquerade as humane or benign, it is only the selfish materialistic primate at work, and like water I will find my way.

We all know this.

iconimago

Self Interest

Pretense is posing
as prestige.
Illusion in shroud
is emboldened, proud.
Negligence excused,
children abused,
wasted, confused.

Imagine a nation
of imagination,
liberation,
where Titans overgrown
are overthrown,
rather than eating us
out of house and home.

The truth unalloyed,
we cannot avoid
nor choose the method
of instruction employed.

What will come will.
Come what will.

Abdicated, or it was abducted,
dharma seems to have
graciously self-destructed,
uploaded and imploded.

Believe.
It did not leave.

Unseen, it is protected,
and so, perfected.
It will come when
it is least expected.

iconimago

No Great Matter

We live in a storm
of imagined form.
How clear, we see the light
(while surrounded by the night!)
From how far behind us
has it come?
We wonder.

How does it follow?
Who's who?
What's what,
and what-not?

On a biggish bang
we look back.
It's a nick nack,
a brick-a-brack,
as serious as a heart attack.
An infarction of information,
it is in formation,
an accident, an incident
insentient in intent,
intransigent.

It belies
the skies.

We know not no!

We are sated
encapsulated,
restrained, contained,
instincted, ingrained.

In being and knowing
the passing thing
and the painful sting,
we capitulate and grant
that matter is all import(ant).

What a falling-off is there.

It is, that's all.
What matter?

This is.
This is so.
So, what?

This microcosmic macrame,
it is (k)not binding on me.
Neither will this
body of mass, a measure,
of vacancy in the ether
ever matter, either.

You say not so?
Why not?
No now is now known.
What next?

iconimago

unspoken

seer, seeing seen,
sleep, sleeper, sleeping
are all one.

mysterious, her mercy is
beyond understanding,
quietus.

a simple circle,
0 - a ring
signifing nothing.
not only zero, though
but also
a day, a month,
a year, a lifetime,
our Sun, our Moon!

in the solar eclipse
on this day
they couple,
making love
and a bright ring.

in a fortnight,
the moon will be
overshadowed.

clockwork time.
22, 23...
solstice and equinox
51, 52...
weeks and years
come walking in
a forgotten way.

She visits!
in dream.
i awake,
myself
in a forgotten way.

overshadowed.

iconimago

laughing ghost

it is the laughing ghost
you feel this way about.
he's lovely and jocular
and immaterial.

he's in your kitchen
having honey and chilies
on toast for breakfast.

he's blessed.
he's lost,
but he doesn't care
because he doesn't
need to be anywhere.

he seems to be lonely.
you know you would be.
he's touching,
touched and impalpable.

he reaches in your window,
and he leaves a note of thanks.
sometimes, it's the first
you've heard of his being there.

never let him hurt you.
he can't hurt you.
there's no such thing
as a ghost.

if he tells you anything,
doubt it.
if he says he loves you,
believe him.

iconimago

we assume roles. socialization. we assume character. politics and the judiciary. we assume that character is predictible and stable. mutual assured destruction. corporal punishment. advertising. operation desert storm. children need to be disciplined. four out of five dentists recommend sugarless gum for their patients who chew gum. the forbidden city. public schooling until the age of majority is a right, not a privledge. under the goods for oil program. we must provide consequences. exorcisms. we assume that we maintain law and order in society by providing consequences for people's behavior. the lambada is the forbidden dance. the emporor is the center of society, and he is the source of all that is good. straight jackets. electro-convulsive therapy. he got what he deserved. operation enduring freedom. yellow jackets. prescribed insulin comas. we assume the role of the one who maintains order in society by providing consequences for people. we will develop hydrogen cars to lessen our reliance on fossil fuels. black mollies. the king is second only to god. it was a police action. civil war. world war. we assume we are the best. stoning. we are making the world safe for democracy. an eye for an eye. we assume god approves of us. ritual scarification. genital mutilation. we assume god loves us. september 11, 2001. menstruation. evolution is a fact. leviathian. we're number one. god is love. bodhidharma sat for nine years in a cave to attain enlightment. crucifixion. it was a quick fix. that was then. this is now. we assume control. there is no way to get to the father except by me. thank you for not smoking. i am the way, the truth and the light. we assume power. love conquers all. i'm loving it. apocolypse. these are only necessary means to accomplish reasonable ends. in god we trust. the buddha twirled a flower in his hand, and only mahakasupa smiled. novus ordo seclorum. dharma transmission. mountain lion attacks two mountain bikers. your teeth will be whiter in seven days. you can choose direct deposit for your social security check. life goes on. he doesn't know where his next meal coming from. don't bite the hand that feeds you. we are animals. is that sigfried or roy? trying to make ends meet. please do not feed the bears. kali wears a garland of severed heads. don't tap on the glass. life is but a dream. george w. bush is the president of the united states. awake. we play our roles by choice. appetite is necessary, but it is also desire whose focus is elective. the buddha sat for six years under the bodhi tree until he reached elinghtnment. what is the meaning of this? he was persecuted under pontius pilot, crucified, died and was buried. this is daylight savings time. i want you. the middle way. he drinks to intoxication. we are all originally buddhas, but we have forgotten our true nature. he drinks to excess. there is no god but allah, and mohamed is his prophet. she stands on the corpse of her husband, siva. and on the third day, he rose again. a rose is a rose is a rose. sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. this is central standard time. we are powerless over our addiction. i love you. consult a physician before beginning any exercise routine. she is emaciated and black, and she lolls her bloody tongue. she rolled her eyes as if to say, whatever! nothing is sacred. charlie brown, you blockhead! don't touch me! what is you name? i over did it this weekend. nothing is imperishable. wet paint. oh, my god! he's a dreamer. no means no. are we having fun yet? nothing will come of nothing. the federal income tax is unconstitutional. he's a day late and a dollar short. ring around the rosey. there's always tomorrow. siva is static. he is an underachiever. moderation in all things. he's the life of the party. the republican party. the bible is the inspired word of god. it is literally and absolutely true. i saw it on the news. shakti is active. come into my parlor said the spider to the fly. and god was not in the whirlwind. god is everywhere. my heart is an open book. i wear it on my sleeve. what do you mean? what are you doing here? i'm confused. i feel really fat! do these jeans make my butt look big? what are you having? what's that supposed to mean? why don't you have the cheesecake? what time is it? what's the difference? are you serious? how long can this go on? what do you want? what are you doing? is this going to take long? this isn't going to hurt, is it? how can i help you? what the hell is going on here? why? i don't know. does any of this make any sense? what are you referring to? you and me. there is no you and me. there's a you and a me, but there is no you and me. there is no us. i know. why not? there just isn't. what a waste of time this is. don't you think so? yes. yes? really? no. not really. well then? so what, right? what would you rather be doing? nothing. well then? what? be here now. what's the alternative? we have no choice. we always have a choice. no, we don't. yes, we do. no it isn't. yes it is. i'm right and you're wrong. this is ridiculous. is it? isn't it? what do you think? i don't. since when? since always. always? always. you say that now. then what? go on. what were you saying? when? you know. before. i don't remember. it will come back to you. i hope not. so do i. me too. you too? yes. yes, what? i never repeat myself. yes, you do. no, i don't. i never repeat myself. yes, you do. no i don't. i never repeat myself. yes, you do. no, i don't. i can't. yes, you can. no, i can't. you just did. no i didn't. yes, you did. i did not, but you did. i did not. yes, you did. no i didn't. yes you did. no you didn't. yes i did. you did not. no, you did. yes, i didn't. no, i did. yes, you did. no, you did. you did not. you didn't. i did. i didn't. did so. did not. did. didn't. you so did. you always do this. no i don't. yes you do. no i don't. i never do. yes, you do. never. now? not. no!
iconimago