Simple Mindfulness

Almost two years ago I had a profound experience and as a subtle reminder to myself I added a link here on this blog under the "Listen" header on the sidebar. The link points to the lyrics to the song Don' t You (forget about me) by Simple Minds. These lyrics popped into my head around that time in my life and encourage me to remember. The memory I encourage myself to reconnect with is not one I can distill down to a catch phrase or linguistically expressible statement of truth. The memory is of an experience, of who really experienced it, and how it was experienced. The difficulty of remembering this experience is that the memory is not what was burned in abstracted neurological engrams but the raw input itself; the experiencer not a controlling part of this psyche but the distributed whole; and the experience not tainted by historical bias, or judgment but free of reactive duality. Thus the memory is not to be revisited to analyze the past or to plan for the future but only to remember that the present moment exists.

First time again

Where is all of this going? What am I building again? Do I do what feels right or just make sure that I feel it when it feels wrong? There are tensions physical and mental that need to be let go of. Easier said than done when you realize that the tension is not a result of holding on but it is the holding on, it is the desire for a lack of tension, it is the illusion that there is some distinction between the observer and his predicament. I oscillate between amusing myself to death, horse blinded labouring, and inert contemplation. I take myself way too seriously. I'm moving for the first time in over a year and a half, headed to the other side of the ocean for the first time and I have very few preconceptions about how it will go. I forgot how writing about yourself forces you to ask yourself questions you tend to avoid. I've met so many good people over the past few years but most of them have moved on. Bringing an old friend into my little world. Random thoughts should coalesce soon.

That Bloody Moon

Gets me every time!

Awareness before Action

The word holistic gets thrown around quite a bit these days but I’m not sure that many people fully understand what it means. When I think of holistic I think of operating in a massively parallel and non-linear fashion. This language may not make a whole lot of sense. When I say massively parallel I mean inclusive and concurrent in time, space, and scale; all things simultaneously considered. Non-linear meaning letting go of the idea that you have seen it all before, that what you are experiencing can be completely predicted or understood with a finite number of variables or an existing set of categories and forms; take care in the degree to which you extrapolate and interpolate your past understandings into the present moment. I may have said this here before but I will repeat it: Nothing much matters but everything.

What a Tool

I was at a small art opening at a local gallery the other night and I got to talking with the artist. There were a handful of pieces that had a particular impact on me and I wanted to ask her about motive, message, and meaning. She answered with only the physical and logistical challenges of making and transporting the works. I asked again in a slightly different manner and again only details of the process of creation. This reinforced the idea that we are but tools of a creative force that we do not understand. We are the brush of a mysterious muse. Do we understand sufficiently our implement before arogantly removing it from the hand of its steward to wield ourselves?

Be Happy

I sit.
Gross apparent surface;
Painful and personal;
Coarse, blunt, and abstracted;
Continuously ignorant;
Fearfuly distracted;
Desiring escape.
I remember.
Subtilty lives beneath;
Dispassionate and equanimous;
Fine, sharp, and fresh;
Occasionaly present;
Bravely attentive;
Escaping desire.
Be.
Beyond conditioned relativity;
Detached and impermanent;
Unask the question;
Never and always;
Ultimate truth.

Lunar Convergence

There is a very beautiful feeling that comes with taking the time to do something that deep down you have known you should do for some time.

On Duality

I got to reading about ontology after pondering a friends predilection to use the word semantic. The papers and definitions I was reading pointed out differing schools of thought regarding the differentiation between entities and collections of entities and asked the question "What categories of being are fundamental?" I prefer to think of every human conceived entity as a categorization and that fundamental being or existence is that which is without categorization. Us humans seem to have difficulty with non dualist concepts like this. How can we understand that which is not categorizable? It requires a different form of understanding than we commonly acknowledge using. One based on the experience of intuitive recognition rather than logic. Perhaps the ability to recognize the uncategorizable stems from the fact that we are the uncategorizable.

Thrive

I will not blame my miseries on the words or actions of others.
I will not unearth the past to triumph in the present.
I will not make excuses for genuine inadequacy.
I will develop a deeper connection over time.
I will grow and learn on my own terms and schedules.
I will at times step back so as to move forward.

Strong relationships are built upon sharing what you have experienced of yourself rather than what you believe to have understood of anything else.
Healthy relationships are built upon the ability to accept and see past weakness rather than reacting to it as if you could demand that it disappear.
Thriving relationships lack expectations of strength and health.

Indistinguishably Fresh

Every day I wake up fresh
Which depending on my mood
Might mean being quite stale.
The burden of choice only recognized
When I chose outside of my pattern;
A choice to be made noticed
Or long ago choice remembered.
Regular surrender to the status quo,
Usually,
Except for right now
Except for right here.
I can feel creativity swirling inside
Certainly everything I’ve tried
Was necessary but not sufficient.
Mine the past for a new trajectory,
Hypothesize being wise
And experiment my effect.
A patience virtuoso
Rushing cautiously to the starting line.
My own private Frankenstein
Living proof of life
Indistinguishable from the rest.

The Ignorance Between

Here is my mind
Here is my body
Each a specific
instance of the other
Thought of feeling
Feeling of thought
Pain of fear
Fear of pain
Love of lust
Lust for love
I can't explain it
I can barely feel
myself think

Hypocrisy

It's almost that time of year for me to remind myself of what I know and refresh the faculties of insight. My yearly Mecca which started at Suttama and continued at Surabhi is looking to be at Dhara this coming January. Submitting the application is part of a clarity that is coming over me. Perhaps I will once again walk the walk that I so love to talk.

I am the Wind

Anticipating gust and gale
Knowing when to trim the sail
Flowing on the crest of time
Trying to evoke sublime.

I am the Wind, I am not me
I live by watching myself see
Allowing now to feed what will
While letting full to self refill.

Valuations of the past
Firmly set can be recast
Not by implement of rule
The Wind, not I, must be the tool.

Duality must reunite
Abandoning the flight and fight
By being present and aware
Mindful now and everywhere.

The will can only be a guide
It cannot force a change inside
It is a branch and not the root
It must surrender absolute.

This Wind is not a thing but all
And understanding is too small
To comprehend in just one place
The entirety of time and space.

I am the Wind, I am not me
This experience sets me free
Pride and Fear have me undone
But not when Wind and I are one.

Excerpts from a Drawing

Intertwined with
independence and connected
to every nothing and making sense
of the eternity of limited fields of
fatigue soaked long johns and marshmallow
suppers with grassy hills and glassy villes
Regret for choices imagined permanent and
consequences to die for when addiction spans
and consumes causing writhing confusion within
concerning promises made and continuously broken
Exhausted energy cycles spiral wastefully away
as genuine souls deplete infinite wells
of grounded reality as they come
and go and take and leave
intangible measures of
moments and sublime
time.

Around and around we go. Pain. Anticipate pain. Know pain. Embrace pain. Love pain.
And go and go and go. Fear. The lesson of pain is a lesson in fear. Same same.
This time. This time. This time. This time we will
make the leap, make the
discovery, make the
connection, make
love.

What needs to be said?
Who are you angry at?
Don't be so hard on yourself.

Oh joy. Why am I so happy?
Is it real or
Just imagined
Wishful
Narrow minded
Hope?

Void
filled with nothing
overflowing with
the rest and
made complete
by saying
so

Necessary and sufficient
Absolute and absolutely
Happy Happy Happy

I can't believe
I can't deceive
I can't relieve
I can't grieve
I can't leave.

A story
that begins
with the end,
has no middle,
and goes nowhere
but here, written by
the protagonist, edited
by the devil, and
it's a best seller.

Resourceful Partnership

Do you think what you feel and feel what you think? Do you know what you sense and sense what you know? Are you being what you are? New is hard. I need a guide. A mentor. A friend. A partner. A fool. I dream of clarity. I long for peace. I work for sustainability. My dreams are cloudy. My desires are conflictual. My labour is depleting. Trying too hard as usual.

Got it?

The strength to speak.
The power to listen.
The ability to consider.
The resources to act.
The will to endure.

Wrong Again

I'm wrong again; mistaken myself from where I might have been. I fail to see. I fail to be. I. The dam, the dykes they will succeed. To break. Down will fall. Flow and know. We've done this all before.

Kundalini Crisis for my dear Mother

I don't remember, can't recall
I wonder where how deep the wall.
The albatros invited me
Event sequentiality.
Open source about to dawn
Of the sudden Kubla Khan.
Alergetic there not here
Pulsing; aching; running: fear.
Step on a crack, Karma's back
Keep on paying all the year.

Produce Productive Products

Does I get in the way of true productivity?
Can the million shades of grey be continuously experienced?
Come back to the matter at hand;
The infinite shades of grey are continuously experienced
By the infinite observers of shades of grey
And observer observers ...
Peek-a-boo doesn't really make the rest of the world disappear.
I believe in everything
Inside out.

Reclaiming Together

Twice as old again;
What more will be learned in a lifetime?
Too early or too late?
Technological syncronicity:
I learned it, I heard it, I shared it, he dismissed it,
I saw it, I thought it, they made it, he wants it.
Why now? Critical mass?
To what end?
Reclaiming what has been lost.
Reclaiming what would be lost.
Who says your vision of propriety should rule?
Perhaps Bad is better than Good; it inspires Better.
The cold frost may hinder ripening.
The warm sun may enhance flavour.
Still playing by their rules.
I accept sufficiently.
I will create an island in the storm.
I will bring it all together.