“The arising and the elimination of illusion are both illusory. Illusion is not something rooted in Reality; it exists because of your dualistic thinking.
If you will only cease to indulge in opposed concepts such as ‘ordinary’ and ‘Enlightened’, illusion will cease of itself. And then if you still want to destroy it wherever it may be, you will find that there is not a hairsbreadth left of anything on which to lay hold.
This is the meaning of: ‘I will let go with both hands, for then I shall certainly discover the Buddha in my mind’.”
‘The nature of the Mind when understood, No human speech can compass or disclose. Enlightenment is naught to be attained, And he that gains it does not say he knows.’
-Bodhidharma
—from The Zen Teaching of Huang Po
I’ve been studying the early sources of zen, which is the Japanese name and Buddhist/Indian sources. I use the lower case there because what is written is not Zen. You can’t really study Zen on anonymous social media sites. But the discussions can be interesting and revealing of our dualitic thinking.
Anyone claiming truth is making a power play.
No word can reveal this, silence enshrines it.
Piercing sensory perception and conceptual thought brings an immediate end to illusion. This is directly seeing and perceiving with the mysterious intuition. This awareness is not exclusive to Zen. Plotinus and Eckart seemed to have come to the same place as the sages.
Hands off, yes, indeed.
—-
I think this is where the best art comes from.
Feeling this fire is one aspect, but walking into it is a whole other experience.
Walking into the fire is an act of self immolation, sacrifice and an overcoming of fear and is maybe the only courageous thing we can do.
No longer bound by talent or skill or lack thereof, but truly transcending these.
I would say walking into the fire is an act of faith as well and opens a portal to nowhere and everywhere.
The raw expression of Jack Kerouac from ‘On the Road’ or the writing of his insane mad friend, Neal Cassady, being western examples.
An enlightened, if sad teacher, Harold Bloom, explored the American Sublime deeply through our literature. I like his thinking on these subjects. He’s a bit too brilliant for me though 😉
Reading Jack Kerouac again and Neal recently and Bloom’s Opus, The Daemon Knows as well as the old zen texts.
My secret beloved Send me a secret message Give me your soul Give me your life
Wander like a drifter Now on a journey
Walk into this fire embrace Be like a salamander Come into a source of flame Fire transmutes to a rosebud
Don’t you know that my thought Is better than the queen of roses? Don’t you know my heresy Is the essence of spirituality?
Then surrender your spirt Surrender your life For God I know That darkness is better than a cage!
Walk into this fire embrace Be like a salamander Come into a source of flame Fire transmutes to a rosebud
Don’t you know that my thought Is better than the queen of roses? Don’t you know my heresy Is the essence of spirituality?
Then surrender your spirt Surrender your life For God I know That darkness is better than a cage!
I know a palace is better than a ruin And the owl in this world Loves to live In the ruins of love
I am always learning how to read better between the lines of language and life. Words are just representations. Of what, is the mystery. They are magick in a way. Evoking and caging sometimes something in us. I’ve practiced Zen now for a bit, this is the essence of Zen, to know our true nature where we are, nothing more, nothing less.
I know a palace is better than a ruin And the owl in this world Loves to live In the ruins of love
I studied these lyrics a bit years ago and meditated deeply on what is said and not said. I looked into the Sufi path and what they meant by flame and the beloved. I am not trying to be clever here, but I have felt all the deities are within us, drawn to the light/flame, as we are a shadow, a portal to the nameless faceless. The owl, in this world, loves to live in the ruin of love. I choose not to name or make distinctions. The deity is the one who I point at, when I point back at myself. This is cutting to the root. This is going headless. This is directly perceiving beyond words.
I love Rumi, but I really know Shams, who was behind Rumi. Somehow I feel Shams is close to me and represents my secret beloved. He showed me to let the distinctions go.
“A life without love is of no account. Don’t ask yourself what kind of love you should seek, spiritual or material, divine or mundane, eastern or western…divisions only lead to more divisions. Love has no labels, no definitions. It is what it is, pure and simple. Love is the water of life. And a lover is a soul of fire! The universe turns differently when fire loves water.”
–Shams Of Tabriz
“The universe turns differently when fire loves water.”
That’s a koan.
When I listened to this song first, I felt the flame inside me leap. Yearning for freedom. I felt it. I felt like crying and laughing at the same time. Fire loves water.
Rumi said sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment, that’s got to be one of my favorite written poetic lines.
I think the lyrics point to the freeing of the flame within us, which is always free. This awareness transmutes us, by realizing our lives are not cages, that we are already free. This is the real Alchemy. This returns us to Eden. The world of matter is a ruin in away, a compromise, in between chaos and light.
Somehow it can know itself better in the ruin, but this world is a sham. It is not that the flame needs escape, but that it simply is uncovered.
The water is all around us, love is not the flame, it is the water, which the flame is attracted to. We would think flame fears water, and perhaps it does for awhile, then it seeks to dowse itself in love. When fire loves water, the universe turns differently.
If the bird can get just a glimpse of what is around it and within it, instantly it is transmuted and free. So the body is the cage.
This awareness does not make me want to fly away, it deepens my connection, Aslan, there is no where else to go, here we are. Allah is clothed by rational thought, occulted by matter, but known through awareness. The lion. In Hebrew,
Aslan means ‘satan‘ which means ‘lucifer/first light in the morning’ which means ‘daybreak’. The circle is closed around the point, the central sun. Everything is contained within the circle.
I could not always see with my real eyes I was in a cage. But I embraced the prison and it opened to Eden through my heart, to the point, naked singularity. I can’t show anyone, I can’t really tell anyone, but like knows like. We can point to it. We can sing about it. We can dance around it. Flame joins with And we embrace water seemingly a crazy thing for a flame to do, and then the universe turns differently for us.I was withering in my life 10 years ago, dying. But a great wind blew through me. It lifted me high into the air and brought me face to face with the Our source, itself only a representation. Like words, all form is just a representation.
What appeared to trap me, turned to dust and I flew for the first time.
But I returned, and now I rest here, in the center of it all. I rest in the chaos, in the center of my life. I feel the heat, which is behind all form and I love it, for this is loving and knowing myself. I saw what was behind all esoteric and what was occulted, what was behind all religious and secular symbols.
Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna hide from love?
The morning light dawned inside me.
I don’t cry anymore. I’m smiling and laughing with joy. I feel Aslan within me, laying on the savannah, roaring within. This is the true path to god/love, an ever present connection, it ends where it began, full circle. I drink deeply now from this ocean, I could hardly believe it was real. I was dying because I was thirsting for this love, but terrified of it. This never dies. Anywhere this light breaks into the world, matter forms around it, cults form, religions are born. The matter longs to connect with it or naturally is attracted to it. So we have the planets rotating around the outer sun, as what is inside us rotates around the inner sun.
Bound by gravity.
Bound together by love.
Sometimes I do cry because it is too damn beautiful to contain.
I weep blood into the dirt through my cries and words.
The birds are returning.
All deity reflects love.
All deity seeks to free us.
We are only held back through this egoic force.
In Rumi’s allegories, amongst the free birds, the Owl and the Falcon represent the two primary options once one is freed from the cage. The Owl lives in the dark, far from civilization, only relating with its own kind, whereas the Falcon rests upon the arm of the king, staying close to the power source and maintaining his relations and connection with any and all who venture to the court. The Falcon holds a pure, open vision, flying during the day and returning to his master’s arm at night, while the Owl lives in seclusion, coming out in the dark, lost without the guidance of a master. The Falcon represents a follower who has fallen off track, one who has insight but has pointed it in a skewed direction. Falcon as an exemplary option working in contrast with the Owl who has lost his way after enlightenment.
For Rumi, the last and most powerful bird is the Phoenix, a bird so exquisite it nearly plays the role of God himself. The Phoenix is rare, and when sighted acts as an omen, serving the purpose of reminding humans to stay in awe of God’s power. The Phoenix reminds one to soak up moments with the divine because they may be fleeting and far between. The Phoenix is quite likely an unreal creature and therefore its existence can only rely on faith. The Phoenix reminds us to have faith even when we cannot see it, to hold God close and be open to any help He may have to offer us because He is always there.
The pagan and the religious and secular all experience life differently perhaps but rotate around the same source, are of the same stuff.
The fire is the force, the purpose, the will, that pushes us through life.
The bird knows the way back.
I can’t judge the paths others take in life, but I can see the intensity of the within them. I call out to it in others. Tempt them to let it break free, as they tempt me. Passion reminds us of this contact with the unseen, it celebrates it in whatever form it burns.
All words can provide guidance, but no answers ultimately. I feel that we all must search for the things that we love and feel passionately about and then follow them until death do us part.
Last night had the craziest dream about a gravitational anomaly eating a hole through the earth.
It was depressing and scary.
I kept trying to get further away from the anomaly but the water kept coming and then I was in this giant whirlpool that was spitting the earth into space.
So damn real.
My fear woke me up, I wanted out of that fucking dream.
I heard the ocean waves on my sound machine when I woke up and the central heater was running and I felt like there might be an ocean outside the window.
Sounded like it.
It turned out a military project triggered the event in my dream.
The mind is just amazing.
Since I stopped smoking pot I can remember my dreams incredibly vivid now.
I never thought I’d stop smoking pot, but I stopped drinking and smoking a bit ago and I can tell a big positive difference.
Switched to a vegan diet, started exercising more.
Feeling good, clear.
Got my shovel out and started shoveling the shit, put my back into it.
I was letting my body go.
But my heart and body brought me back.
I’m going to volunteer at hospice I think.
I have a knack helping people let go of their fear.
Maybe I can be of a little service to some before I shuffle off this mortal coil.
I’m 50 now and feel like I’ve lived four different lives.
Maybe I’ll read them poetry and shit like that.
Been working on my writing, can’t say it’s getting much better, but I’m keeping at it.
For I have found the best in life is incommunicable.
How bout that?!
Been writing about the folks I’ve come to know and love through their art, but want to know them deeper.
I want to know their pain and joy. Ralph Waldo Emerson has some good shit to say about that. He says know that all in history thought and felt as you did.
I’ve been digging deeper everywhere and have to say I’ve never felt more alive, focused, productive, calm, in love.
Had a surreal day on Saturday.
Very existential, was just accepting of the whole damn mess of this beautiful life.
Had some serenity I guess.
It was nice.
Had some fun and not so fun interactions with some folks on Reddit and FB.
Peeps are angry.
They don’t like their lives.
Downright miserable.
I like to swim out into the deep water with people.
Can’t say I’m very patient with misery.
Fuck that shit.
Recently even stopped fighting with my wife so much.
I love the girl, she’s crazy about my ole smelly 🐐 ass.
Been talking to my Brother more who I’ve never really talked much with
Been really nice to bond over our pedophile father and insanely religious family, haha.
What a fucked up family we got, let me tell you.
The brother of my sister’s husband killed himself.
Found out that fuck molested my niece years ago.
Found out my dad molested her too.
I hope it hurt when he died.
It’s tough not to wish my dad the pain he inflicted on others.
But I can’t judge anyone.
I never hurt a child, but I inflicted plenty of pain.
God only knows how many people my asshole Father hurt.
One reason my sister, mom and niece turned to Jesus.
The only man who wouldn’t hurt them they dream.
That is what makes them so mad at me.
Cause I turned my back on their savior.
I dared to kill my god.
But I tried to tell them, Jesus met me as a brother and friend, not god.
You can’t love your neighbor until you love the worst of you and the worst you find in life.
They can’t hear me at all.
I’m over their shit, I’ll tell ya.
Heartless bitches, but they are just in great pain.
Unbearable pain almost.
Almost killed my niece before she sobered up.
They hate me more than my puke dad.
How fucking ironic is that shit?!
My brother doesn’t understand it.
I kinda do.
I think I’m gonna write a bit more about my father and my old religion and those bitches.
I remember when he got his belt out and beat us the other day.
He must have hated himself.
He took it out on us.
Probably partially what made me such an angry asshole I guess.
It’s good when you know that fucking child disease is not in you.
My brother and I been going deep together.
We share these inner depth sounding experiences.
I feel like a big brother now.
I feel like a husband.
I feel like a friend.
Took me awhile to hit my stride, but I fucking did.
No, I’m not going to leave my marriage again like I did in the past.
I don’t quit shit anymore.
I follow through.
I won’t give up until I’m dead.
I wasted enough time in my life.
If I had known Plato and Socrates and Diogenes, I would have just had a beer with them and talked about the shit in life we all have to bear.
One thing I can say all us humans have in common, we feel this shit.
Deeply.
All these people in prison, destroyed children, terrified and hardened.
It hurts a lot.
One thing I have is some fucking deep emotions.
I’m very close to them now.
Not letting that pain twist us into monsters is the great work and art of living and dying.
Transmuting the shit of life into gold is godly I find.
Yesterday I saw the trees by the river’s edge, Wrecked and broken beyond belief, Only two or three trunks left standing, Scarred by blades of a thousand axes. Frost strips the yellowing leaves, River waves pluck at withered roots. This is the way the living must fare. Why curse at Heaven and Earth?
No need to attack the faults of others no need to flaunt your own virtues act when you’re acknowledged retire when you’re ignored rich rewards mean great trials deep words meet superficial minds think about what you hear children must see for themselves
The rich man feasted in his high hall, Bright torches shining everywhere, When a man too poor to own a lamp Crept to the side to share in the glow. Who would think they would drive him away, Back again to his place in the dark? “Will one more person detract from your light? Strange, to begrudge me a leftover beam!”
In the deepest dark of the Abyss, I sought my escape.
I heard someone say, “There is no way back unless you find your light.”
No way back unless I find my light?
Hmmmm.
Sounded like some New Age bullshit to me.
I heard someone say, “If you want to come and see me, you can do so from any and every direction, all the gates are open, there is no concealment. In fact it is ‘All Gate’ and nothing else!”
What a strange thing to say in the middle of the dark.
When the dark is all around you, what direction should you go?
There is no direction in the dark.
The separation had existed in my mind only.
I was already that which I had sought.
I was the prison and I was the free bird.
And then I was home again, just like that.
There was a great celebration.
Everyone came to greet me and we all laughed and laughed until my stomach hurt. Like when you have had too much sweet candy.
And I thought to myself…what a strange dream 😴 😴 😴
inside me leap. Yearning for freedom. I felt it. I felt like crying and laughing at the same time. Fire loves water.
I was in a cage. But I embraced the prison and it opened to Eden through my heart, to the point, naked singularity. I can’t show anyone, I can’t really tell anyone, but like knows like. We can point to it. We can sing 
about it. We can dance 
around it. Flame 
seemingly a crazy thing for a flame to do, and then the universe turns differently for us.I was withering in my life 10 years ago, dying. But a great wind blew through me. It lifted me high into the air and brought me face to face with the 
Our source, itself only a representation. Like words, all form is just a representation.
and laughing with joy.
because it is too damn beautiful to contain. 
Quantum Heart 