Individual Self Expression

Those who languish for an affirming identity are vulnerable to ostentatious displays of self expression. And this quite simply because they have something to prove to themselves and to the world. There exists a pervasive brand of mischief spawned only by practitioners of nervous self expression.

It is categorically impossible to not express ones self. Grotesque displays of self expression are inversely proportional to the progress of individuation.

Zen Pretzel

Twisting ones self into a Zen pretzel is not the way to freedom.




People Like Me

people like me
aren't like me

they are, like



them selves

Local Limitations

Any discription of what is real is a discription of "local limitations". A single photon screaming through space is a manifestation of "local limitations". A walking talking stack of atoms known as a human being is a manifestation of "local limitations". A universe ablaze with imploding galaxies is a manifestation of "local limitations".

If the organism that we are were not limited in the eye's perception of the electromagnetic spectrum there would be no light.

Our life is the swim of conscious awareness through the sea of local limitations.

What is the Who 2.0

If you do not own what you are, what you are will own you.

He

he wore a man-skirt from India

and a beanie from some South American tribe

and the smock from some table waiter in Japan

and he loved to speak in shopworn riddles

the same cloth

will clothe a wizard

or a clown

Uniformly Uniform

When one dons a uniform one is in costume. And each costume represents an idea proclaiming the wearer as an advocate playing a role. The Dali Lama, the tattoo gangster, the stripper, are advocates playing a role. As human beings there exist necessary functions, but roles are made necessary only by collective naivete. There also exist myriad functions made necessary only by the un-evolved state of the creatures we are. A world without uniforms will be a world in which the power of symbol is wholly awake.

In spite of ones self one finds admirable those individuals who so dedicated themselves to their vision of truth that they would make a symbol of themselves for the good of history and of humanity. Without them ignorance and injustice would proceed unchallenged.

There is a very good chance that things could sort themselves out if intelligent people were simply brought to the fore.

And role playing is part of that.

The Meaning of Life

The question is a misguided twisting of an observation. The life of meaning is life its self. Where there is no life there is no meaning. We ask the meaning of life in the same way the eye must seek a mirror if it is to see its self.

Field Guide To Reality

only if we recognize the difference

between imagination and perception

can we touch the inconceivable truth

which is the abode

of being

Distraction

After several seasons lost in the Om zone it is time to return to work, and I shall start with a poem that suggests the silence of my normal winter day.



The Fire Is All There Is


tending the fire is all that there is in the world

a boistrous band of crows call to each other
hunting down the ridge

the fridged morning breeze sends the smoke swirling through the snowclad bare trees
oak twigs pop in promise
the yellow flames snap like some searing fluid whip


and tending the fire
is the only thing there is in the world

Garland Crown of Flowers

the girl-child's little legs carried her back and forth
her hands full she ran rampant flowers to the garden table

"What will you make for me?" cried she

"A garland for a crown"
said I



they were daisy-like
a brilliant yellow aura around the blood red core

I plaited long stems into a flower spangled crown
and set it upon her head

the gold of her hair shone in the summer sun
and the brightest flower of all
was she
in her garland crown of flowers

she struck a pose and she cried out
"I'm Beautiful!"






and I was struck through the heart

I saw the garland crown of hours plaited for me
by you
in the moments of our life together

and I found my self whispering her words

I'm beautiful





.

The Only Sound

the cool dark of the forest
was shelter from the blazing moon

and fire flies punctuated the darkly seen



crunching foot falls



the only sound

Hearing as Seeing, the Noise of Being

In the market today I couldn't avoid the sense that I was hearing the being of those around me. Just as each creature in its movements makes a sound, each creature in its existence is a noise in the silence of non-being. Civilization en-mass is rather like the roar of the 17 year locusts, and the sound of a given individual is the noise of its hopes and dreams, its disappointments, its weight of archetype, and the cacophony of its individuality.

We could be perceived as singing our selves into being. And though we are taught to sing certain songs, the song of our individuality can always be heard through the chorus by those who know how to listen. Most individuals are a source of random noise; the modern jazz of being I suppose. One finds greater and lesser degrees of harmony, but a being that strikes an awakened chord of being is a rare find.

Until we have met the silence that is the substrate of our existence we will never hear the sound that is the fact of our presence. All that exists is noise. Music is the product of integration. To hear the music of the spheres is to know ones self.

Slice and Dice a Bucket Full of Stress

The slice and dice guru guys crack me up. Last night on the TV the guy says that no one can bring him a bucket of stress. Well now. He says that there are only stressful ideas. Well I don't live in my head the way that he does, and I guarantee that if he would like a bucket full of stress, I can deliver.

The salesmen of self-hypnosis make a darn'd good living. The sick part is that they teach posture as being.

We are what we are. Perhaps we should start from there: discover ourselves before we launch off into some exercise of self improvement.

The Monkey Factor

There are all kinds of dogs. There are all kinds of cats. There are all kinds of birds and all kind of bees. There are all kinds of monkeys. As animals go we are apes. And the only thing that will make us happy is the life that makes the ape that we are happy.

Perhaps we are unique in the animal world in that some of us are capable of a radical awareness that transcends the chipmunk-like unreflective consciousness we recognise as life even in paramecium. We are hypnotized by form, and fail to recognize in ourselves the endless awareness which is all manner of existences.

Would we castigate a Water Buffalo for not recognising the fact of its existence? No. Humanity has all ready specieated. If you have ever been in front of a dot matrix color-blindness test you will be in a position to recognise that you either see the dots or you don't. You can not connect dots that are invisible to you. We are animals. And we are as different amongst ourselves as wolves are to sheep.

People really are as confused as they appear to be. And if the universe should wake up in the space that you occupy my condolences. Its not much fun to be a wake-up monkey right now. Unless you content yourself with the monkey life.

The Fire Monkey

We are the fire monkeys

The smartest of them all

Noses itch same way ours do

They reach up and scratch-it: just like we do

We are the fire monkeys

No more

No less

Lest the substrate of our existence wake up in the space we occupy.

Befriending Shadows

We are conditioned from childhood to be critical of our thoughts and our actions. This manipulation of the instinctual need for tribal approval is probably effective enough left unaggravated. Much unnecessary suffering is caused when instictual habitual assessments are made with a view that is hostile to vagaries that are inherently human.

We do not expect our friends to be infallible. We tend to see our friends more or less as they are, and accept with good-will the idiosyncrasies that are the marks of individuality. We extend good-will when they trip on the stones of their humanity, and comfort when error has led them to sorrow. We will not jeopardise friendship by harping on some small flaw. Friends extend counsel in the face of error, and in the face of error give support such as can though the friend may have been foolish or unwise. If you have no friends who will tell you when you are fucking up, you don't have any friends at all; but this is a far cry from a beating over the head for every failure to operate in optimum mode.

Many actions for which we berate ourselves express a need to jump fences we have made in ourselves. Fervor that religious sects exhibit is due to fear that without ridged behavioral guidelines humanity would reduce to chaos. This is not so. The will to good is instinctual, and the natural aversion to disorder does not require pathological proportions. Self destructive behaviors: emotional, intellectual, physical, are almost always unconsidered attempts to jump fences that we have set up in ourselves with the generous help of others.

We cannot be set free by chaining ourselves to a self image, and unless we befriend ourselves we can never afford to see ourselves as we are. We run from our shadow because we have not embraced our shadow.

Shadows

the setting sun has put the sky ablaze

trees loom black

shadows reach long

there are shadows without

there are shadows within

vacancies in luminance

when perceived

appear as creatures of a nether light

Dream Good Things

the me that looks out
drinking up the sunlight exploding from every leaf

the me that so delights in symphony of breeze and limb


the me that loves the new burgeoned closing green
closing off all avenues of vision but for its self
the tambourine of spring rain
the bandstand of the chorus frog

this me
is the only Me that is

and when not hypnotized by self
I am all creatures
and everywhere I hear the hum of Me
awakened from the silence of dumb matter

all creatures sing Me
our song is the Divine chord of Me existing



if the sleep of self hood is our fate

let us dream good things

Enlightenment Imagined

When the imagination passively flows into and saturates what we find in ourselves as "reality" the fabric of the real begins to glow with awareness. This is called enlightenment. When imagination amends "reality" with an application of its projections it is called "normal". It is not necessary or even particularly desirable to separate the dye and the stain of our person hood from the fabric of pure being. And though it is not necessary or normal, it is most certainly desirable that the fabric of being be soaked with the Awareness that is substrate of our person hood.

Origami

in all creatures the universe has folded itself as in a faceted white-paper swan

is it ours through discipline and discipleship to fold ourselves tighter

ever tighter

to heat and press upon ourselves 'till we become a diamond lucid and alone

refracting recieved colors into colors of experience

or should we through self knowledge

in perfect freedom unfold ourselves

and once again become the universe

Reason to Believe

The line between knowing and believing

Is in degrees of assumed certainty and not in point of fact

They lie equidistant from existence as fruits of the intellect

The knowing that is being

Is not believing.

Bad is Pushed, Evil is Pulled

Truth and Being

If we succeed in securing the precipice at which human understanding falls away we discover for ourselves that Being exceeds the reach of knowing. All that is possible is such narrative as tells the story of being as it appears to us. And this is Truth.

Social Thinking

In my reading the other day I encountered the thought: “societies don’t think, people think”. Well, that’s an interesting thought, but coming from the other direction it is rather like saying “cells don’t have a life, people have a life”. It’s all how you look at it. And a thought the phrase stirred in my mind was of the weight of society in most every human thought.

If we were to make note of our thoughts in the passing of a day, in most cases there would not be a single thought that was not colored by societal elements. What to wear, what to eat, on the job, in the home: every thought is a juggling of societal elements by the mysterious pressure of human existence. It is just about impossible to have a thought that is free from any societal consideration. And if one should retire to a monastery to dodge the societal bullet, one is out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Societies are myriad, and the legitimacy of their demands upon the thought patterns of their constituents is generally accepted without consideration. These “societal demands upon thought patterns” make up the bulk of what passes as thinking.

That’s the way it looks to me, what do you think?

A Personal Note

This blog is not about my personal life, but today is a good day for a personal note. When I moved to the woods after returning from the war, I committed myself to the cultivation of a sustainable life style. I hoped to find a way of life as close to nature as made sense. Well, its 32 degrees in the house right now and comfortable as can be. Its around 20 degrees outside, but the earth floor always keeps the house a bit warmer than ambient. The forest is covered in ice and it is quite beautiful. I have no waterpipes to freeze, and if it gets into the thirties today I'll open the windows. Of course I'm dressed like an eskimo, but that's why they dress that way. Its not for everyone, but I like it. I like taking it as it comes and being in it and of it.

Loss of services can have tragic implications for the service dependent, but every service we avail ourselves asks something of the earth.

Living Words and Dead Words

Early Chan Buddhists made a distinction between living words and dead words. Living words were those rooted in the soil of fact. Dead words were those rooted only in the fevered imagination of dreamers.

‘Twere ever thus.

Principles of Wealth

All wealth comes from the Earth. There is no wealth of any kind that will not lead back to the earth if followed to its ultimate source. People who at labor remove what-ever from the soil receive modest compensation. Captains of industry deciding the fate of these resources receive maximum compensation. It seems natural that it should be so, and perhaps it is: but not for the seemingly obvious reasons. 

A ship must have a captain. A ship must have seamen. The responsibility of stewardship that lies upon the captain deserves just compensation, but the fact remains that without a crew the ship goes nowhere, and without a ship they are all just beach bums; so it is with the ship of state. Compensation rises with proximity to the pool of wealth accumulated by value added to fruits of the earth: wealth is inversely proportional to closeness to the earth. Compensation amounting to millions and millions of dollars a year for chief executives cannot be considered value for value: it is profiteering. 

The pools of wealth accumulated by successful industry could not exist without the complex social fabric of which any one industry is but a part. Profit as a motive is always an element of human endeavor even if it is planting a flower garden, but when does the legitimate right to profit become avarice? How many millions of dollars ought one to be able to squeak by on? And what is the responsibility of those bathing in the pool of wealth to those who labor at the headwaters?

Thy Fearful Symmetry

Blake’s use of the word “symmetry” in “The Tiger” exactly conforms to the mental structures I am referring to when I use the word. I find it very annoying when philosophic discourse resorts to convoluted, complex, private, jargonic use of words. The difficulty is that unfamiliar conceptualizations must be conveyed in familiar terms. This necessitates a bending of words and phrases in and as the attempt to make the symmetry of the conceptualization apparent to the intended recipient. 

The emergence of any faculty whatsoever, whether fiddling with calculus or raising a spoon to ones mouth, is wholly dependent upon the assimilation and recognition of symmetries. These symmetries are an inner library of correlations of elements perceived as outer world: even psyche is external to pure awareness. The lamb jumps and gambols minutes after birth because of symmetries coeval with its very existence. Men love women in the characteristic way that they do because of mental symmetries coeval with their very existence. The moth flies to the flame because moth existence is coeval with the certainty of the moon. It is so simple that it may be difficult to grasp, but the capacity to recognize symmetries is coeval with the emergence of an Albert Einstein as progeny of the first replicating molecule. 

There is only one way we know or recognize anything at all. The newborn brain recognizes a basic set of symmetries and this is called instinct. The newborn brain also comes with a primitive capacity for knowledge, and what we call knowledge is an accumulation of awareness symmetries. And it is like stacking blocks: if symmetries necessary to the concept or behavior are not in our mental library then we will not be able to add one and one, or to pole-vault, or to understand the meaning of life: hence the inestimable value of education. 

Tiger, tiger burning bright In the forests of the night 

What immortal hand or eye 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry

And did he smile his work to see

Did he who made the lamb make thee? 

 excerpt from William Blake 1757-1827 “The Tiger”

The Art of Solipsism

“Art for art’s sake.” The statement is inherently solipsistic. And in a survey of the art considered to be “modern” it must be admitted that solipsism is a distinguishing characteristic of the “modern”. In music, in sculpture, in painting, in architecture, in literature; we find the same stamp. This does not mean that it is bad, and of course the best of it is quite good; but if it is solipsistic, then it is solipsistic: and it is obviously and blatantly solipsistic. What interests me is the phenomenon of the genius of a culture turning in upon its self, and becoming its own subject matter. When art no longer serves truth, beauty, and good; should one not ask why? And for that matter what was ever in it for culture with that “truth, beauty, and good” thing anyway? Is there any reason that it should not be abandoned?

At present we exist in the so-called “post-modern” era, but the solipsistic narcissism of the “modern” era has inoculated the popular mind. There is a navel-gazing element awakened by modernity that must be assimilated if culture is to advance beyond self-worship. Art cannot but express the seething flux of human aspiration, and perhaps the “modern” period is the cultural equivalent of the adolescent’s rebellion against the constraints to will imposed upon individuals by the dictates of society.

If so, then it is a milepost on the path of cosmic maturation. And when we have become the future we will look upon these creations as charming mementos from our rambunctious youth.




Bad Art


a lot of people these days don't trust themselves to know bad art

well, you can always tell bad art
because it needs an essay to prop it up


and a crowd of boot lickers and apologists to appreciate it

Word and Symmetry

The existence of words is made possible by the mind's spontaneous recognition of symmetries. Trees, for instance, share common elements that could be described as the symmetries of tree-ness. The symmetries of tree-ness can receive an additional mental symmetry in utterance. 

This utterance becomes a cultural artifact, and we say something has been named. When the culture of utterance achieves a palette of symmetries that enable communication of even the most rudimentary sort we have a language. Crows have a language. Dogs have a language. Almost all animals have a repertoire of utterance as behavior cuing specific symmetries found in their environment; i.e. a language. None of these languages seem rudimentary to their native speakers because any language is limited by the physical ability to form sounds, and by the native ability to recognize and bring into the field of consciousness, symmetries. 

Words do not symbolize their referents. Words become part of the mental symmetry of their referents; and symmetry is the foundation of the recognition of anything what so ever. To perceive something is one thing and to recognize it is another. What ever the reality of trees may be the only way we know anything about them is through information assembly in the brain. The assembly of this information into meaning requires the spontaneous recognition of symmetries, and utterance becomes an integral element of the corresponding symmetry. Words do not re-present their referents; words are an integral element of presence.

In My Opinion

Harboring opinions is like keeping pet vampires.

A Poem

it is not the Fall that saddens

the honey-brown forest floor and black branch rivened sky
hold promise of a Spring
the sun is with us
and the birds of winter warm the yard

it is the Winter
we approach a Winter with no end but the abyss


we dwell not upon it
but within




so let us warm ourselves at the fire of the moment
and build that fire to make radiance the fruit of our existence

and in so living


never die






.

Counting From Zero

Considering the mystery of being is rather like a mathematical problem. In mathematics it is necessary to start counting not from one, but from zero. 

Most systems claiming some inside track on reality start their consideration from an arbitrary point: say, man as a spiritual being. This is tantamount to a mathematics that starts counting from, say….seven, or twenty one, or any other quite real number that has its true value only when the counting starts at zero. Starting from a pre-existing point of value shifts all subsequent value judgments, and makes it quite impossible to make any accurate declaration about anything other than heat and cold and similar self-descriptive elements of the real. 

All things must be compared to the existence of nothing at all.

Much Ado About Nothing

Between molecular atoms loosely hung by shared electrons is Nothing

 

Between the galaxies spinning in loose knit groups is Nothing interspersed with very little 

Born into Nothing and Nothing permitting it’s expansion 

This universe and all within must have a number

But there is no end to Nothing 

Nothing is beyond the reach of Nothing 

Nothing is everywhere 

Everywhere there is not something 

Nothing can be found 

In want of Nothing we lose the meaning of all things 

An insight gained to Nothing’s nature must be treated as a treasure 

For then 

We have Nothing to lose