Of all places to find a moment of clarity: Ugly Betty on Friday night!! She was criticised for not fighting and letting her man go, and she retorted that "maybe she was a bigger person".
If we are a small person clutching to a small world the tiniest breath of wind will fill our life with turbulence. If we are a large person we can consume even the biggest upset and not be overwhelmed.
===
I am beginning to see how to overcome boundaries to find peace.
Peace is not a happy feeling. If we make the boundary "I am now happy" then we are no longer at peace because we will dread the passing of that feeling.
Instead it is the weakening of the boundaries.
Normally we try to identify things. We identify the objects around us. We identify feelings, emotions and characteristics of ourselves. We calculate things like "I am in love" and "I am happy".
The question is at what time did we fall in love and what did the boundary between not being in love and being in love look like? Was it like a marker on the road so we knew when we were travelling out of "non love" territory into "love" territory?
When we enter a room we think "I am outside the room" and then we think "I am in the room". But at what point did we make the transition? Was it with our first step into the room, or was it as our last step left the hall? or was it when we closed the door? Maybe with the door opened we might still be thinking about something in the hall and so we do not get around to entering the room for a while.
While it happens that we enter a room there is no exact boundary, no distinct being the hall and no distinct being in the room: there is no clear difference between them.
However when we think about it we like to think there is a complete difference between being in the hall and in the room. When we argue that the murder happening in the room and so the murderer had to have entered the room we like to draw a picture of the room and hall with distinct lines and exact situations. Its useful to think like this, but it missed the non-exactness of actual living.
In exactly the same way we like to think "I am in Love" and "I am not in Love" and if we like being in love then we start to amplify problems for ourself because when we identify in that exact kind of way that we have made the absolute transition into "not being in Love" we feel that "Everything" good is gone. When actually there was no exact total transition, and no exact total difference between the two.
The same with phobias. We think there is a spider in the room. Its an exact situation and completely difference from the safe one I had before. So I have a focused and exact response to the spider "being in the room". But how "in the room" does it need to be? and at what point does it trigger the phobia and at what point does it not. In reality there is no exact onset of a phobia, but in our exact minds the phobia is triggered very sharply. Weaken the boundary between triggering situation and non-triggering situation and then ask "when exactly do we respond?" There isn't such a time.
When we stop looking at the boundaries between things then the things blend together much more smoothly. Start painting without first drawing in the lines with a pencil. The colours can run together and smudge and one thing becomes another without the exactness that the mind pencils upon it.
This way we suddenly find that there is no important transition in life between one event and another and so the worst and the best can flow between one another with little mental drama.
We expect that we should pencil things in so we know what is going on exactly. But if we do this we will have just one pencil outline of things and will not be spontaneous to find other lines and divisions that we may need. We become narrow minded like the phobic who sees only the outline of their phobia in a situation and not the infinite other outlines.
Its a hard thing to realise but actually we should not pencil in so heavily and in such a fixed way all the time. The death of "my muse" is something true, but I should not pencil it into my life so strongly. This is life, and death and I should accept the fluidity between them and not fight them. She will not blame me for letting the outlines fade, there never was an exact one anyway. Her anniversary comes up on Friday I am wondering whether to make it such a big deal in my mind, or just to let the day come and go in quiet respect and fluidity.
Monday, 30 April 2007
Friday, 27 April 2007
I want therefore I am
I am caught between these two extreme views.
Either "I am" because I think, OR "I am" because I want.
With "my muse" I existed so profoundly. The world was Real because I had this profound passion that rooted me to this world.
Without the passion I am lost, adrift upon the ocean.
This is the doubt that still exists in me: unresolved. The body related to the world in many ways. Thought is only one sense, one way of expressing oneself. The body is diverse and we can express ourselves through physical means also. In the realm of sexuality and sensuality there is whole arena of expression. Why should thought be primary?
There is no central thing in this world. The mind is not characterised by thought, it is not characterised by emotion, desire, sensuality. All these are upon a level playing field. The mind has no character: why promote one over the other?
Either "I am" because I think, OR "I am" because I want.
With "my muse" I existed so profoundly. The world was Real because I had this profound passion that rooted me to this world.
Without the passion I am lost, adrift upon the ocean.
This is the doubt that still exists in me: unresolved. The body related to the world in many ways. Thought is only one sense, one way of expressing oneself. The body is diverse and we can express ourselves through physical means also. In the realm of sexuality and sensuality there is whole arena of expression. Why should thought be primary?
There is no central thing in this world. The mind is not characterised by thought, it is not characterised by emotion, desire, sensuality. All these are upon a level playing field. The mind has no character: why promote one over the other?
Monday, 23 April 2007
The long view
The only difference between the worldly path and the spiritual and between good and evil is the length of view we take.
The person who only has faith in today is trapped into grasping for everything they can get.
The person who has faith in a lifetime can chose and settle for life long acquiantances.
The person who has faith in the afterlife, or many lives or at least in something beyond death can sacrifice things in this life for benefits in the next.
The person who has faith in enlightenment can sacrifice endlessly lifetime after lifetime for attainment of that eternity.
Thus the person with long view builds their life on more secure and unchangeable foundations that the person who only believes in today.
The person who only has faith in today is trapped into grasping for everything they can get.
The person who has faith in a lifetime can chose and settle for life long acquiantances.
The person who has faith in the afterlife, or many lives or at least in something beyond death can sacrifice things in this life for benefits in the next.
The person who has faith in enlightenment can sacrifice endlessly lifetime after lifetime for attainment of that eternity.
Thus the person with long view builds their life on more secure and unchangeable foundations that the person who only believes in today.
Real is Not-real again
It is a fully recognised features of experience that to really feel acquainted with someone or something we need to get our hands on. We need first hand experience. This is what makes things Real to us.
However if things are not Real enough until we have first hand experience, then there is an irony that the very first-person nature of Real things means that they are only Real to us! In this sense they are Un-real is a larger sense!
This I argued that Real is really Un-real!
This is not to say that we take our experience as anything but fully Real. Afterall we have nothing but our experience. The point is that the very Realness is conditioned and so is Un-real in an absolute way.
I have experienced the death and also the birth of many people recently. It is most amazing that I have not see in this process the complete conditionality of human existence. We come and we go. I come and I go.
More through the Real/Un-Real window I have seen the boundary of myself. The limitation present in everything from my experiences, to the very nature of personal experience itself. Everything is limited and the true "Reality" is this.
There is a boundary around our existences. It does not have anything outside that boundary however, it is like a folded piece of paper which goes back to where it started. At the center things are both Real and Unreal and all the dualisms. And the self is nothing but the conditioned centre of this.
However if things are not Real enough until we have first hand experience, then there is an irony that the very first-person nature of Real things means that they are only Real to us! In this sense they are Un-real is a larger sense!
This I argued that Real is really Un-real!
This is not to say that we take our experience as anything but fully Real. Afterall we have nothing but our experience. The point is that the very Realness is conditioned and so is Un-real in an absolute way.
I have experienced the death and also the birth of many people recently. It is most amazing that I have not see in this process the complete conditionality of human existence. We come and we go. I come and I go.
More through the Real/Un-Real window I have seen the boundary of myself. The limitation present in everything from my experiences, to the very nature of personal experience itself. Everything is limited and the true "Reality" is this.
There is a boundary around our existences. It does not have anything outside that boundary however, it is like a folded piece of paper which goes back to where it started. At the center things are both Real and Unreal and all the dualisms. And the self is nothing but the conditioned centre of this.
An impermanent romance
I found the box of letters and poems from my muse that I buried on April 2000. After 7 years in a plastic bag they have all survived altho soaking I was able to separate the pages and dry them. Her picture is completely clear and unfaded, her world still with the writing on it and the bottle of Eternity fragrance still as fresh as when I buried it.
Reading her letters briefly in the cold light of a less passionate heart as I did the forensics, a clear pattern emerges. She never felt love. She didn't even believe in it. She was trying to escape this as much as I was. Within a few months a peom describes how her "picturesque orb" was smashed and her feelings and the words became hollow. The initial flurries of excitement and passion that had so enthralled her faded so quickly. The following two years we battled through poems and letters, me trying to keep it alive to create a lasting heart and she sceptical. The normal course of this would have been a sexual relationship but only as long as our feelings remained and both of us were profoundly aware of how short lived that would have been.
The rule I had created ages ago was the deferal of sexual pleasure builds a stronger heart. That has been the yoke around my neck. I knew that were this to become a sexual relationship it would become very ordinary and the special quality would be lost. I have deferred sex all these years and so kept the dream alive. I wonder if she ever understood and how far our hearts were pulled through the imperfect world of temporary meaningless liasons. I made myself precious by noit giving in, I made her even more precious by treating her as more than just an object of sexual gratification.
Well its undone now. I broke this most fundamental rule this morning. Everything is impermanent. Sex and female/male union is about childbirth and the vain attempt to set back the process of aging and death. What use is there for men and women after death? What is the use of love after death? How can there be people desiring each other after death? When Death strikes we have lost and our petty romances are shown to be what they are. With a photo of her recovered picture I had a short and pointless wank this morning in which she was simply an object of gratification and so broke the rule. She is not that pretty, she is not that special to the eye.
What does remain however is her poems and they still enthral as much today as when I met her. She had such an extraordinary talent. I always wanted to learn and match her writing but I never will, that was a talent unmatchable. In this sense and the sense of our friendship she was very special. It is such a shame that the body and the mind were never going to unite, that the temporary sexual boy-girlness and the joy that gave us had no place in the purer picture of our souls. I am more convinved now that such a unity is impossible that we much make our friends independent of sexuality and make our sex independent of our friends. Its a sad day for romantics and life long partners. In this sense she was right and my attempt to say otherwise has fallen into the void, just as she said it would.
An extraordinary bird has taken up residence in my mothers garden. It is a black bird with the yellow eye ring but a finer and redder beak, and has the behaviour of a thrush. It is clearly a Turdus sp. But it's song is loud and extraordinary. Like nothing that exists in the UK. From early morning to late evening it sits in the horse chestnut next to where I buried the poems and fills the garden with its simple motif. Horn Pipe, Horn Pipe then a falling note. I was looking at it on Sunday and wondered if it might show me where I had buried the memories. I have been looking for them for 3 years. Later I went to the spot and had a think. I realised that the path through the undergrowth may have moved in those years. I took a spade started to dig at one point but gave up quickly realising it was futile. I looked again and moved to a different spot. Within seconds I saw the plastic of the bag. i couldn't believe after all these years and all the trying to remember I had it. No emotion that has all gone, I just opened it all up and began the task of separating the pile of papers. All this really has and must come to its close.
My mother said later in the day that the bird must have a special affinity with me because whenever I am home it sings all day and doesn't leave the garden. i didn't know that. We have silly thoughts I wonder what it means?
Reading her letters briefly in the cold light of a less passionate heart as I did the forensics, a clear pattern emerges. She never felt love. She didn't even believe in it. She was trying to escape this as much as I was. Within a few months a peom describes how her "picturesque orb" was smashed and her feelings and the words became hollow. The initial flurries of excitement and passion that had so enthralled her faded so quickly. The following two years we battled through poems and letters, me trying to keep it alive to create a lasting heart and she sceptical. The normal course of this would have been a sexual relationship but only as long as our feelings remained and both of us were profoundly aware of how short lived that would have been.
The rule I had created ages ago was the deferal of sexual pleasure builds a stronger heart. That has been the yoke around my neck. I knew that were this to become a sexual relationship it would become very ordinary and the special quality would be lost. I have deferred sex all these years and so kept the dream alive. I wonder if she ever understood and how far our hearts were pulled through the imperfect world of temporary meaningless liasons. I made myself precious by noit giving in, I made her even more precious by treating her as more than just an object of sexual gratification.
Well its undone now. I broke this most fundamental rule this morning. Everything is impermanent. Sex and female/male union is about childbirth and the vain attempt to set back the process of aging and death. What use is there for men and women after death? What is the use of love after death? How can there be people desiring each other after death? When Death strikes we have lost and our petty romances are shown to be what they are. With a photo of her recovered picture I had a short and pointless wank this morning in which she was simply an object of gratification and so broke the rule. She is not that pretty, she is not that special to the eye.
What does remain however is her poems and they still enthral as much today as when I met her. She had such an extraordinary talent. I always wanted to learn and match her writing but I never will, that was a talent unmatchable. In this sense and the sense of our friendship she was very special. It is such a shame that the body and the mind were never going to unite, that the temporary sexual boy-girlness and the joy that gave us had no place in the purer picture of our souls. I am more convinved now that such a unity is impossible that we much make our friends independent of sexuality and make our sex independent of our friends. Its a sad day for romantics and life long partners. In this sense she was right and my attempt to say otherwise has fallen into the void, just as she said it would.
An extraordinary bird has taken up residence in my mothers garden. It is a black bird with the yellow eye ring but a finer and redder beak, and has the behaviour of a thrush. It is clearly a Turdus sp. But it's song is loud and extraordinary. Like nothing that exists in the UK. From early morning to late evening it sits in the horse chestnut next to where I buried the poems and fills the garden with its simple motif. Horn Pipe, Horn Pipe then a falling note. I was looking at it on Sunday and wondered if it might show me where I had buried the memories. I have been looking for them for 3 years. Later I went to the spot and had a think. I realised that the path through the undergrowth may have moved in those years. I took a spade started to dig at one point but gave up quickly realising it was futile. I looked again and moved to a different spot. Within seconds I saw the plastic of the bag. i couldn't believe after all these years and all the trying to remember I had it. No emotion that has all gone, I just opened it all up and began the task of separating the pile of papers. All this really has and must come to its close.
My mother said later in the day that the bird must have a special affinity with me because whenever I am home it sings all day and doesn't leave the garden. i didn't know that. We have silly thoughts I wonder what it means?
Sunday, 22 April 2007
Brain is not Human
There is a line of materialist thought which argues that brain chemitsry, structure and function is what unlies human experience and behaviour. This is wrong.
If for example we wish to investigate "Love" we would collect a sample of people and study their brain chemistry and structure for patterns. We would also need to ask them whether they were in love or not in order to make sense of our findings.
Love then is not something that we can "find" in the brain. It has an emotional and linguistic meaning that must be calibrated with brain patterns.
Once this calibration is made we can then quite accurately tell people from their brain chemitsry whether they are in love.
However - and this is the point - humans can tell they are in love independent of knowledge of brain analysis and further this other knowledge is of no real use to them. If we had to go to a researcher to find out if we were in love I can assure you no-one would bother because a piece of paper with a test result on it which distinguishes us from other people is meaningless. It is the experience and implications of being in love which makes it human, not the knowledge. And it is that human quality which the researches will always have to return to in order to make sense of their test results.
Thus test results and knowledge of brain function while true are not meaningful by themselves. They lack any human qualities.
If for example we wish to investigate "Love" we would collect a sample of people and study their brain chemistry and structure for patterns. We would also need to ask them whether they were in love or not in order to make sense of our findings.
Love then is not something that we can "find" in the brain. It has an emotional and linguistic meaning that must be calibrated with brain patterns.
Once this calibration is made we can then quite accurately tell people from their brain chemitsry whether they are in love.
However - and this is the point - humans can tell they are in love independent of knowledge of brain analysis and further this other knowledge is of no real use to them. If we had to go to a researcher to find out if we were in love I can assure you no-one would bother because a piece of paper with a test result on it which distinguishes us from other people is meaningless. It is the experience and implications of being in love which makes it human, not the knowledge. And it is that human quality which the researches will always have to return to in order to make sense of their test results.
Thus test results and knowledge of brain function while true are not meaningful by themselves. They lack any human qualities.
UFO Sighting 1983
This is an old event that I have remembered and dug up the info.
Date: 13th July 1983
Time: 2.15 am
Place: 15minutes outside Chambery on Sorrento Sleeper Train: Route Nationale 6
On a school trip we had been playing around in the 6 person sleeper. Everyone had gone to bed and I had stayed up looking out of the window not wanting to sleep. I think I remember wishing that something would happen.
A dot of light like a plane appeared above the horizon. As it came closer I saw that it was disk shaped. I was stunned. It then dipped down out of sight. I turned around and yelled that i had seen a flying saucer. Everyone told me to shut up, but I insisted. Eventually someone got out of bed and looked while it was still down. I was wishing that it came back to prove what I had seen. Then it popped up again closer. When Mike saw it then he yelled and everyone came down to look.
It was a typical flying saucer composed from two white glowing plates together with a black strip between them and tiny glowing holes in the strip, like a ring of port holes. I could not tell if the saucer was spinning. A photo was taken after 5 minutes as it came toward the train and within a few minutes it went over the train - which was travelling around a valley wall - and over the mountains.
I missed the close approach because I was looking for my camera. As I got down I asked where it was and people said it had gone over the train and so I wondered why they had not gone to look out of the other windows.
I have written this event from my current perspective which is that it was a group hallucination. I had wanted something to exciting to happen and made others believe it.
I have just recovered the information from a school diary and this is the first time I am looking at this properly.
Route National 6 runs out of Chambery. This is the area i would later return to to go caving.
Date: 13th July 1983
Time: 2.15 am
Place: 15minutes outside Chambery on Sorrento Sleeper Train: Route Nationale 6
On a school trip we had been playing around in the 6 person sleeper. Everyone had gone to bed and I had stayed up looking out of the window not wanting to sleep. I think I remember wishing that something would happen.
A dot of light like a plane appeared above the horizon. As it came closer I saw that it was disk shaped. I was stunned. It then dipped down out of sight. I turned around and yelled that i had seen a flying saucer. Everyone told me to shut up, but I insisted. Eventually someone got out of bed and looked while it was still down. I was wishing that it came back to prove what I had seen. Then it popped up again closer. When Mike saw it then he yelled and everyone came down to look.
It was a typical flying saucer composed from two white glowing plates together with a black strip between them and tiny glowing holes in the strip, like a ring of port holes. I could not tell if the saucer was spinning. A photo was taken after 5 minutes as it came toward the train and within a few minutes it went over the train - which was travelling around a valley wall - and over the mountains.
I missed the close approach because I was looking for my camera. As I got down I asked where it was and people said it had gone over the train and so I wondered why they had not gone to look out of the other windows.
I have written this event from my current perspective which is that it was a group hallucination. I had wanted something to exciting to happen and made others believe it.
I have just recovered the information from a school diary and this is the first time I am looking at this properly.
Route National 6 runs out of Chambery. This is the area i would later return to to go caving.
Thursday, 19 April 2007
Real is Not-Real! ?
My lab partner came in and said "a problem is only a problem when you are faced with it"
The boss only identifies problems when he is personally inconvenienced, not when there is a problem for someone else. Well that might just be self centredness, but it also holds a necessary truth.
It is true that a problem is only a problem when it personally effects us. Even when we empathise we are really only putting ourself in anothers situation to imagine what problem we would face if we were them. "problemness" still centres around the personal perspective of a situation. If there is no personal perspective to a situation there is no problem. It is not a problem for example when there is a dust storm on Mars because there is no one on Mars. If there was a storm it is still not a problem until we are in some way personally connected to the situation.
Thus a problem is only a problem given a particular standpoint and perspective, it is not a universal problem that is relevant to people outside the situation. That is to say in Buddhist language that a problem is conditioned, and arises within a particular set of circumstances and to people within that situation. It is Karma that you are the person in that situation. No problem is a universal problem that can extend its influence beyond a particular situation.
So to understand a problem we also need to be in that situation, and so a problem is not a real thing that can be picked up and shown around to everyone. It stops being a problem when it is removed from its circumstances. Thus problems come and go and always will come and go and there is no solution to all problems. Progress is the myth that we are step by step solving fixed problems - like the wheel - as if these problems were of universal nature and not bound within particular situations.
This is the nature of all things - conditionality. And with conditionality and particularity comes transience and impermanence.
Now I turn my attention to the first person perspective which is the only real perspective because it understands the full significance of events as being bound to particular situations. Let us consider this from a conscious perspective.
When a problem arises it becomes very important to us. It fills our consciousness. In the extreme case a problem can seem so big that we can't see around it and it overwhelms us and we lose touch with other things. We become very lost.
In a similar way some things become very special to us and they too fill our consciousness. "My muse" is the greatest example of that in my own life, and the issue of our relationship was the greatest problem I have ever encountered.
When something is big and close up in consciousness it seems very real! It is this quality of big and close up things which leads me into serious situations. I want things to become real, very real so I bring them as close as I can and make them as big as I can. They become the most important things I can make them and they become so solid and fixed. My consciousness becomes concrete and vivid - the world is Real.
However view this from an understanding of conditionality. The larger and more close up the experience becomes the more and more localised and personal it becomes. It becomes more and more relative to my own perspective and less and less universal. The more Real it becomes the more irrelevant to others it becomes and the more un-Real it becomes!
Thus I now understand that I have been looking at everything the wrong way around! I have been seeking to solidify reality in the belief that it would be Truth by making everything incredibly personal. The whole relationship with "myy muse" which I have been remembering in the past few months was characterised by the sense of complete personal significance. I remember saying to people that I simply could not tell them about it because it was so Real and personal. But now I see the irony that in makingit that solid and Real I was actually making it Unreal! What we call tangible and experiencable is Unreal because it seems Real! That which seems Real in our-consciousness we must understand is Unreal for the very same reason!
Now this is because our experience is fixed in a particular time and space. I or Ego is a centre around which the events of the world fall and that centre is what gives them their personal perspective. But by falling around an Ego they are made at the same time Unreal.
This links together the whole syndrome of personal experience in one nexus. Particularity, Experience, Tangibility, Here and Now, Reality, Self, Identity all come together to make experience which is apparently Real but because it is Real-To-Me it must be Unreal in general.
Thus we need to look at our consciousness again and see an irony, that what is most apparent and important to us is actually least Real by definition.
Now this does not work in reverse. This is not to say that Reality now exists in the hidden, subconscious, or objective world that somehow surrounds our Unreal consciousness! We can't just infer that because what is Real is really Unreal that what is Unreal is really Real. That is non-sense and a misunderstanding of the point. What is Real is the same as what is Unreal. If you want find somthing Unreal find something that seems totally Real to you. There is the tree no doubt, but that no doubt ensures that the tree is firmly within your situation and therefore it is not in other peopes situation and so it must be Unreal.
The use of this is to understand that we are immune then from Reality! Because that which seems the most urgent and important to us, is actually not Real at all. It is localised conditioned and a mirage that can only been seen from one perspective, namely ours. Find a different perspective (i.e. be a different person, have a different Karma) and it will and DOES look different. That is the true Reality.
Now there is a final stage to travel on this journey. What I am saying here is relevant to me at the moment because I thought it today, and am writing it down today. It can't be Real because I would have written it down yesterday or a year ago. So what is happening right now is quite personal and so is conditioned and so it is not Real it is Unreal.
So the ultimate irony to grasp is that even this "raft" of an idea that Real things are actually Unreal because they are conditioned and personal itself is Unreal. The very importance that I attribute to this idea today shows that it is Unreal. That the true profound liberation that Buddha speaks of cannot be captured or fixed within any single idea of text. That the Reality that I seek is not the awareness that Real things are actually Unreal, because that is just a new awareness within my consciousness and so should be viewed as Unreal itself. It transcends everything that is momentary, it will not arise on a given day, because then it would be conditioned. I will not be writing this blog in the future and suddenly say with any meaning that I am enlightened because to think that it started today is to make it personal, centred around my own perspective and so to make it Unreal to everyone else. Enlightenment is not personal, it is not exoteric or esoteric, it cannot be placed.
So there is no new thing that will occur to me that I am to expect. There is no thing to center in my consciousness. There is no new state of consciousness, no personal thing that will make me enlightened or wise. Because all this is personal and Unreal. If anyone ever say "I" ignore them because how can anything that centres around their perspective be of use to you? And vice versa how can anything that is of use to you actually be of any use? If it is of use to You then it is Unreal.
So I am at a loss as to how to transform this irony with itself. What is the meaning of Reality is Unreal is both Real and Unreal itself?
The boss only identifies problems when he is personally inconvenienced, not when there is a problem for someone else. Well that might just be self centredness, but it also holds a necessary truth.
It is true that a problem is only a problem when it personally effects us. Even when we empathise we are really only putting ourself in anothers situation to imagine what problem we would face if we were them. "problemness" still centres around the personal perspective of a situation. If there is no personal perspective to a situation there is no problem. It is not a problem for example when there is a dust storm on Mars because there is no one on Mars. If there was a storm it is still not a problem until we are in some way personally connected to the situation.
Thus a problem is only a problem given a particular standpoint and perspective, it is not a universal problem that is relevant to people outside the situation. That is to say in Buddhist language that a problem is conditioned, and arises within a particular set of circumstances and to people within that situation. It is Karma that you are the person in that situation. No problem is a universal problem that can extend its influence beyond a particular situation.
So to understand a problem we also need to be in that situation, and so a problem is not a real thing that can be picked up and shown around to everyone. It stops being a problem when it is removed from its circumstances. Thus problems come and go and always will come and go and there is no solution to all problems. Progress is the myth that we are step by step solving fixed problems - like the wheel - as if these problems were of universal nature and not bound within particular situations.
This is the nature of all things - conditionality. And with conditionality and particularity comes transience and impermanence.
Now I turn my attention to the first person perspective which is the only real perspective because it understands the full significance of events as being bound to particular situations. Let us consider this from a conscious perspective.
When a problem arises it becomes very important to us. It fills our consciousness. In the extreme case a problem can seem so big that we can't see around it and it overwhelms us and we lose touch with other things. We become very lost.
In a similar way some things become very special to us and they too fill our consciousness. "My muse" is the greatest example of that in my own life, and the issue of our relationship was the greatest problem I have ever encountered.
When something is big and close up in consciousness it seems very real! It is this quality of big and close up things which leads me into serious situations. I want things to become real, very real so I bring them as close as I can and make them as big as I can. They become the most important things I can make them and they become so solid and fixed. My consciousness becomes concrete and vivid - the world is Real.
However view this from an understanding of conditionality. The larger and more close up the experience becomes the more and more localised and personal it becomes. It becomes more and more relative to my own perspective and less and less universal. The more Real it becomes the more irrelevant to others it becomes and the more un-Real it becomes!
Thus I now understand that I have been looking at everything the wrong way around! I have been seeking to solidify reality in the belief that it would be Truth by making everything incredibly personal. The whole relationship with "myy muse" which I have been remembering in the past few months was characterised by the sense of complete personal significance. I remember saying to people that I simply could not tell them about it because it was so Real and personal. But now I see the irony that in makingit that solid and Real I was actually making it Unreal! What we call tangible and experiencable is Unreal because it seems Real! That which seems Real in our-consciousness we must understand is Unreal for the very same reason!
Now this is because our experience is fixed in a particular time and space. I or Ego is a centre around which the events of the world fall and that centre is what gives them their personal perspective. But by falling around an Ego they are made at the same time Unreal.
This links together the whole syndrome of personal experience in one nexus. Particularity, Experience, Tangibility, Here and Now, Reality, Self, Identity all come together to make experience which is apparently Real but because it is Real-To-Me it must be Unreal in general.
Thus we need to look at our consciousness again and see an irony, that what is most apparent and important to us is actually least Real by definition.
Now this does not work in reverse. This is not to say that Reality now exists in the hidden, subconscious, or objective world that somehow surrounds our Unreal consciousness! We can't just infer that because what is Real is really Unreal that what is Unreal is really Real. That is non-sense and a misunderstanding of the point. What is Real is the same as what is Unreal. If you want find somthing Unreal find something that seems totally Real to you. There is the tree no doubt, but that no doubt ensures that the tree is firmly within your situation and therefore it is not in other peopes situation and so it must be Unreal.
The use of this is to understand that we are immune then from Reality! Because that which seems the most urgent and important to us, is actually not Real at all. It is localised conditioned and a mirage that can only been seen from one perspective, namely ours. Find a different perspective (i.e. be a different person, have a different Karma) and it will and DOES look different. That is the true Reality.
Now there is a final stage to travel on this journey. What I am saying here is relevant to me at the moment because I thought it today, and am writing it down today. It can't be Real because I would have written it down yesterday or a year ago. So what is happening right now is quite personal and so is conditioned and so it is not Real it is Unreal.
So the ultimate irony to grasp is that even this "raft" of an idea that Real things are actually Unreal because they are conditioned and personal itself is Unreal. The very importance that I attribute to this idea today shows that it is Unreal. That the true profound liberation that Buddha speaks of cannot be captured or fixed within any single idea of text. That the Reality that I seek is not the awareness that Real things are actually Unreal, because that is just a new awareness within my consciousness and so should be viewed as Unreal itself. It transcends everything that is momentary, it will not arise on a given day, because then it would be conditioned. I will not be writing this blog in the future and suddenly say with any meaning that I am enlightened because to think that it started today is to make it personal, centred around my own perspective and so to make it Unreal to everyone else. Enlightenment is not personal, it is not exoteric or esoteric, it cannot be placed.
So there is no new thing that will occur to me that I am to expect. There is no thing to center in my consciousness. There is no new state of consciousness, no personal thing that will make me enlightened or wise. Because all this is personal and Unreal. If anyone ever say "I" ignore them because how can anything that centres around their perspective be of use to you? And vice versa how can anything that is of use to you actually be of any use? If it is of use to You then it is Unreal.
So I am at a loss as to how to transform this irony with itself. What is the meaning of Reality is Unreal is both Real and Unreal itself?
Wednesday, 18 April 2007
False Self; the Crux
The crux of this issue is the false self. This is the self image that is not true.
As we gain awareness of ourself and we seek to look at ourselves we form an image of ourself.
Obviously we want to gaze upon something appealing and do not want to see something unwholesome so we are biased in our self image - filtering out the things we don't want to see and focusing on the good things. We like flattery, we dislike criticism because we want to have a nice image that is appealing.
So the biggest stress comes when we discover something, or do something, or something happens to us which challenges this self image. We are forced to look at unpleasant things about ourself.
But like a man who walks past the deformed cripple, if we walk past ourself we are doing ourself the worst injustice! We are abandoning our true self, we are refusing to accept ourself and we now how rejection feels by those who we love. So if we reject ourself how deep must this hurt!
So the false idol that we form that enables us to look upon ourself in pleasure (the Narcisism) invariably leads to us rejecting our true self and then we are deeply and incurably unloved! So we seek the love of another who can reinforce our self image, a sycophant one who will flatter.
But actually what we need to do is be humbled into accepting the true self and letting go the false idol. Face the negative and unappealing parts of ourself. Stop on the road and help the disgusting homeless, unloved cripple for only through that will we find love ourself.
There is much Christian metaphor in this. It does seem to be a central threat of the Christian message. Jesus died a pitiful death, unloved a criminal, totally humiliated and abandoned. Some say he was perfect, but isn't it essential in this reading to understand he was a Man with all the failing of a Man! If we can look to him, can't we also look to our own abused self accept it in its degraded and imperfect form and in so doing show ourselves love even when we have the greatest disgust in what we are and what we have done. That is the only foundation of healing and forgivenness that we acknowledge our true self and give it the support to grow.
As we gain awareness of ourself and we seek to look at ourselves we form an image of ourself.
Obviously we want to gaze upon something appealing and do not want to see something unwholesome so we are biased in our self image - filtering out the things we don't want to see and focusing on the good things. We like flattery, we dislike criticism because we want to have a nice image that is appealing.
So the biggest stress comes when we discover something, or do something, or something happens to us which challenges this self image. We are forced to look at unpleasant things about ourself.
But like a man who walks past the deformed cripple, if we walk past ourself we are doing ourself the worst injustice! We are abandoning our true self, we are refusing to accept ourself and we now how rejection feels by those who we love. So if we reject ourself how deep must this hurt!
So the false idol that we form that enables us to look upon ourself in pleasure (the Narcisism) invariably leads to us rejecting our true self and then we are deeply and incurably unloved! So we seek the love of another who can reinforce our self image, a sycophant one who will flatter.
But actually what we need to do is be humbled into accepting the true self and letting go the false idol. Face the negative and unappealing parts of ourself. Stop on the road and help the disgusting homeless, unloved cripple for only through that will we find love ourself.
There is much Christian metaphor in this. It does seem to be a central threat of the Christian message. Jesus died a pitiful death, unloved a criminal, totally humiliated and abandoned. Some say he was perfect, but isn't it essential in this reading to understand he was a Man with all the failing of a Man! If we can look to him, can't we also look to our own abused self accept it in its degraded and imperfect form and in so doing show ourselves love even when we have the greatest disgust in what we are and what we have done. That is the only foundation of healing and forgivenness that we acknowledge our true self and give it the support to grow.
Buddhism and Hormones.
The Duke of Marlborough effect is the observed rapid increase in testosterone in successful males and the comparable decrease in failed males. One study was done on contestants in an tennis championship. Good nights for the partners of winners, and nothing for the partners of losers.
However success and failure do not really exist! because we can chose whether to enter the contest and therefore whether we will judge ourselves a winner or a loser!
If we win or lose it is because we chose to accept the rules!
Contrary to the vapid belief or libertarian democracies however choice is not something we have that much choice over! Does a man chose his own desires?
This is the process of Karma. It is karma that builds the world in which we exist and builds the propensity to enter certain contests.
Some are involved in the contest for money. Some for love. Some for power. Some for possessions. Some for learning. Some even for spiritual awareness!!
One person may consider themselves a winner because they have the car they wanted. While others who do not have that car feel no sense of loss because they never wanted it! It is because of the rules we have chosen to judge ourselves by, the desires that we have, the things we want.
So it is the most obvious thing about the latest struggle that I chose "my muse". It was the most important decision, indeed the only decision I have ever made. I threw myself into that game with total abandon. But once having entered I spent the rest of my time trying to escape the rules because I knew I was trapped and bound into her decisions and I didn't want to be anything but a free and loving creature for her. I was afraid to show her how powerless i was and how much I had lost my own sense of determination. With good reason I feel, because it is never an attractive sight to see someone without self determination.
So it is apparent that we form our own success and failure and our own joy and unhappiness simply through the decisions that we make, and the desires that we manifest.
Karma cannot be switched off. We have desires! life is the process of accepting these desires, chosing them and fulfilling them. However we must aim for that awareness whereby we understand that success and failure is entirely created through this personal view we have, and that there is no such real thing as success and failure.
Its an odd irony then to enbrace life, while at the same time understand on a different level that it isn't real!
So I begin again! adandoning the dead rules that have governed my life. My desire for her acceptance, the desire not to have thoughts of hatred, my desire to not be socially inadequate and realise that the failures which these things then constitute are not real. Go through these failures, not hide from them, not hide from anything, and seek new horizons and new appropraite temporary rules for new places.
However success and failure do not really exist! because we can chose whether to enter the contest and therefore whether we will judge ourselves a winner or a loser!
If we win or lose it is because we chose to accept the rules!
Contrary to the vapid belief or libertarian democracies however choice is not something we have that much choice over! Does a man chose his own desires?
This is the process of Karma. It is karma that builds the world in which we exist and builds the propensity to enter certain contests.
Some are involved in the contest for money. Some for love. Some for power. Some for possessions. Some for learning. Some even for spiritual awareness!!
One person may consider themselves a winner because they have the car they wanted. While others who do not have that car feel no sense of loss because they never wanted it! It is because of the rules we have chosen to judge ourselves by, the desires that we have, the things we want.
So it is the most obvious thing about the latest struggle that I chose "my muse". It was the most important decision, indeed the only decision I have ever made. I threw myself into that game with total abandon. But once having entered I spent the rest of my time trying to escape the rules because I knew I was trapped and bound into her decisions and I didn't want to be anything but a free and loving creature for her. I was afraid to show her how powerless i was and how much I had lost my own sense of determination. With good reason I feel, because it is never an attractive sight to see someone without self determination.
So it is apparent that we form our own success and failure and our own joy and unhappiness simply through the decisions that we make, and the desires that we manifest.
Karma cannot be switched off. We have desires! life is the process of accepting these desires, chosing them and fulfilling them. However we must aim for that awareness whereby we understand that success and failure is entirely created through this personal view we have, and that there is no such real thing as success and failure.
Its an odd irony then to enbrace life, while at the same time understand on a different level that it isn't real!
So I begin again! adandoning the dead rules that have governed my life. My desire for her acceptance, the desire not to have thoughts of hatred, my desire to not be socially inadequate and realise that the failures which these things then constitute are not real. Go through these failures, not hide from them, not hide from anything, and seek new horizons and new appropraite temporary rules for new places.
Learning To Fly
I am becoming aware of a whole horizon that i have only seen at certain points in my life. It is one of the oldest syrgggles that I have known. At 2 points in my life before I have gotten a control of myself, overcome my fears and my sadnesses and pushed out into the new terrirory of being myself. The first began with learning to juggle. I thought that combining the teaching my brain to take into account two things and a third would push me out of the confines of a depression. I began a new phase in life. The second was at college where I put all social anxiety behind me and learned just to talk and be extrovert. In all cases it ended back in depression because some failure (especially with girls) pulled away my joi do vie and my desire to go on. I retreat too easily.
So I am coming back to this point again. How? The issue of my current phase is that I have let go of th perfection that I found with "my muse". With her I was able to be the person I am, to enjoy life for itself, to be at peace with being. It was glorious, but it did depend upon her recognition of me. Had she turned me away, it would have been simpler but I would have lost this perfection. I knew this. It was always tainted because it depended so entirely upon her and that is a terrible burden for someone else to take - to realise that someones whole happiness depends upon you!
It has been a painful and humiliating process to let my castles run to ruin and fall intpo disrepair, to adandon this perfect child to the wolves. It has felt wrong again and again to abandon that Eden in which I lived for a few years, a sanctuary without trouble or fault, without equal.
i am smoking again. An imperfection that my Eden would not tolerate. I am enforcing lust again an imperfection that my Eden could not house. I am lazy, I am careless, I am without respect for beauty or mankind at all. I am a lothesome creature again one that does not deserve to be in Eden.
And so I am being liberated from the past. I am letting go of the box and prison that Eden became. I am not perfect. i never was. It was a myth. It was a self intolerant ideal that I became controlled by.
Peace is not Peace but the acceptance of imperfection, of the horrible and base within us. This is what we are. Creatures of foul substance, with foul thoughts and unwholesome feelings and desires and what is worse it is good!
We must in no way shy or deny recognitiuon of what we are - no matter how horrible or unpleasant or humiliating or depressing. This is the greatest courage for which we will be rewarded!
It is infinitely better to be defeated and have the strength to see oneself as a failure, than to succeed and never have reason to look badly upon oneself! Love defeat for this reason!! Face the humiliation of defeat! for liberation from the fear of seeing oneself badly is the greatest victory.
There is nothing wrong in seeing ourselves badly if it is the truth because truth is the only foundation upon which to build the future.
This is absolutely NOT the call to abandon dignity and self respect! Rather dignity and self respect come from the courage to see oneself in whatever light is true. If we have done wrong, if we have failed, if we are sad, depressed then we must have the courage to look peacefully upon ourselves and not overt our gaze bacause we find ourselves too awful to contemplate! Always have the respect for oneself to see oneself for what we are, and that is alot easier if we abandon the Edens that we feel so important to attain.
And so I begin again. I have nothing but myself again. I live in no Eden. I have failed in many respects, especially "my muse" a useless friend and an even more useless potential partner. And I have failed myself because i let my greatest love, my life's love go unchallenged.
But I must face this for this is what I am and anything else is a lie.
So now Buddhism finally becomes relevant! Buddhism was not telling me that I should abandon my greatest love and make my heart fail in its purest endeavour, rather it was telling me that whatever happened it would be alright!
This continues into the next post...
So I am coming back to this point again. How? The issue of my current phase is that I have let go of th perfection that I found with "my muse". With her I was able to be the person I am, to enjoy life for itself, to be at peace with being. It was glorious, but it did depend upon her recognition of me. Had she turned me away, it would have been simpler but I would have lost this perfection. I knew this. It was always tainted because it depended so entirely upon her and that is a terrible burden for someone else to take - to realise that someones whole happiness depends upon you!
It has been a painful and humiliating process to let my castles run to ruin and fall intpo disrepair, to adandon this perfect child to the wolves. It has felt wrong again and again to abandon that Eden in which I lived for a few years, a sanctuary without trouble or fault, without equal.
i am smoking again. An imperfection that my Eden would not tolerate. I am enforcing lust again an imperfection that my Eden could not house. I am lazy, I am careless, I am without respect for beauty or mankind at all. I am a lothesome creature again one that does not deserve to be in Eden.
And so I am being liberated from the past. I am letting go of the box and prison that Eden became. I am not perfect. i never was. It was a myth. It was a self intolerant ideal that I became controlled by.
Peace is not Peace but the acceptance of imperfection, of the horrible and base within us. This is what we are. Creatures of foul substance, with foul thoughts and unwholesome feelings and desires and what is worse it is good!
We must in no way shy or deny recognitiuon of what we are - no matter how horrible or unpleasant or humiliating or depressing. This is the greatest courage for which we will be rewarded!
It is infinitely better to be defeated and have the strength to see oneself as a failure, than to succeed and never have reason to look badly upon oneself! Love defeat for this reason!! Face the humiliation of defeat! for liberation from the fear of seeing oneself badly is the greatest victory.
There is nothing wrong in seeing ourselves badly if it is the truth because truth is the only foundation upon which to build the future.
This is absolutely NOT the call to abandon dignity and self respect! Rather dignity and self respect come from the courage to see oneself in whatever light is true. If we have done wrong, if we have failed, if we are sad, depressed then we must have the courage to look peacefully upon ourselves and not overt our gaze bacause we find ourselves too awful to contemplate! Always have the respect for oneself to see oneself for what we are, and that is alot easier if we abandon the Edens that we feel so important to attain.
And so I begin again. I have nothing but myself again. I live in no Eden. I have failed in many respects, especially "my muse" a useless friend and an even more useless potential partner. And I have failed myself because i let my greatest love, my life's love go unchallenged.
But I must face this for this is what I am and anything else is a lie.
So now Buddhism finally becomes relevant! Buddhism was not telling me that I should abandon my greatest love and make my heart fail in its purest endeavour, rather it was telling me that whatever happened it would be alright!
This continues into the next post...
Wednesday, 11 April 2007
My Life is not fun, but I must be even more earnest again!!
I am sobering up after the roller coaster of unpacking the mental boxes of the past 10 years. A most beautiful girl captured my heart but I did not want to play it for fun. Instead she played with others for fun and I have been tempted to rethink and make things fun myself. But when i am strong enough the journey is not one of fun it is a long journey that is better under taken in earnest lest we get lost!
She is dead. This is the futile end of every piece of fun. I will be dead so sober up and do not waste time in jealousy at others fun, and my wasted opportunities! What I have missed out on are experiences beyond my wildest dreams. But! sober up! what use are they to me today? Be serious for a minute and don't wallow in the misery of lost opportunity especially when I have today.
Purity, concentration, beauty are the only ways. The phenomena of the world experiences are cardboard worthy only to those who seek fun, but vapid and lacking nutrient to those who seek perfection, eternity and truth. Do we really want to live in Disney land?
I have been dreaming, they may be truth in what I have dreamed, they may be horizons I will never see now. But we can't see everything, we can't fulfill every desire and every wish - even the most profound which we thought would make our life.
Be earnest! be true to oneself! contain the energy and realise that we can chose whichever future we need - so why go staring in the mirror of vanity. Reflections are empty! so are the phenomena of fun! they are self gratification and vanity.
Be earnest! be liberated from the world around. We rush to the mirror to see who we are! STOP who is looking into the mirror to find out? Who is asking the questions? who wants to know? who is suffering? Who is happy or sad? Who is searching?
We cannot look in the mirror to know these questions because mirrors don't see!
Stop going out into the world! Stop!
Recall the troups and be in earnest.
She is dead. This is the futile end of every piece of fun. I will be dead so sober up and do not waste time in jealousy at others fun, and my wasted opportunities! What I have missed out on are experiences beyond my wildest dreams. But! sober up! what use are they to me today? Be serious for a minute and don't wallow in the misery of lost opportunity especially when I have today.
Purity, concentration, beauty are the only ways. The phenomena of the world experiences are cardboard worthy only to those who seek fun, but vapid and lacking nutrient to those who seek perfection, eternity and truth. Do we really want to live in Disney land?
I have been dreaming, they may be truth in what I have dreamed, they may be horizons I will never see now. But we can't see everything, we can't fulfill every desire and every wish - even the most profound which we thought would make our life.
Be earnest! be true to oneself! contain the energy and realise that we can chose whichever future we need - so why go staring in the mirror of vanity. Reflections are empty! so are the phenomena of fun! they are self gratification and vanity.
Be earnest! be liberated from the world around. We rush to the mirror to see who we are! STOP who is looking into the mirror to find out? Who is asking the questions? who wants to know? who is suffering? Who is happy or sad? Who is searching?
We cannot look in the mirror to know these questions because mirrors don't see!
Stop going out into the world! Stop!
Recall the troups and be in earnest.
Did I read her mind? v reincarnation
So I found out on Friday that she believed in this idea of reincarnation and people following people through many lifetimes. I don't remember that, though I must have known.
So last night the coincidence seems too great. She is guessed by her family to have followed her father into death because her great bond is to him. Why should I then think that my bond is with her? Its just to coincidental that we both feel we are bonded like this.
If I believe that Acashic record stuff then I know I live to 2048 and I'm certainly not giving up on life that is certainly one thing about me that I don't die for any reason! So did I read her mind? and it was not my thought that we had known each other in a past life but really hers?
I remember the moment I first saw her as clearly as if it was yesterday. She was at the back of that group of trainee staff. she was tall, fragile and seemed to be floating as she excitedly talked to some guy. My thought was wow I should speak to her, but nothing that special. Later that day the training ended and I saw her walk out of the shop. My thought was "there goes a wonderful opportunity" but I was still able to put it behind me and get on.
Then 2 days later I turn around and she is working next to me. I hadn't seen her move onto the till I must have been busy. Of all the outlets she could have worked in and of all the departments she came to mine. It was the book section - that was to be our connection. My thought now was "this fortune ensures I must not waste this opportunity".
So I talk to her. My thought, "she is not what i am looking for". My next thought, "really? have another look". My next thought, "yes is worth it". And so it went on. The more we talked the more extraordinary that "yes" became. It was then I guess that I began to think I had found someone who I really belonged with.
OK so I don't remember when this idea came around. A more likely explanation then is that we live in a society which once valued the idea of people being made for one another - and we do live our lives looking for "the" partner to spend our lives with. So it's quite natural when we find someone who we feel that close to that we should want to believe we were made for one another.
And then it follows that when you meet such a person you will wonder how did I know to wait my life for them. So it seems natural that we may think that we knew them in the past and have been waiting for them. Something the Aristophanes myth in the Platonic Symposium explains through the splitting of humans into their male and female parts. Certainly it was the conjoining of our souls which is what I wanted more than the conjoining of our bodies.
This is the whole problem of my life at the moment. If I'm joined to her then I have a vast problem. If I'm not joined to her can i escape the need to join to someone else? Cos being joined to something other than yourself is both a pleasurable but also a tragic thing frought with danger and insecurity.
So at this moment I can't remember exactly when this idea happened I know it was early on in the first week. And my experience of her was definitely the source of my belief in reincarnation which removed my doubt of karma and opened me fully to Buddhism.
But I now see that she held this thought before me. And, so it seems another explanation is that I read her mind. That it is her who is following her father through the many lifetimes, and I have only accidentally absorbed this thought. In which case I am free.
Except where this idea of us having
So last night the coincidence seems too great. She is guessed by her family to have followed her father into death because her great bond is to him. Why should I then think that my bond is with her? Its just to coincidental that we both feel we are bonded like this.
If I believe that Acashic record stuff then I know I live to 2048 and I'm certainly not giving up on life that is certainly one thing about me that I don't die for any reason! So did I read her mind? and it was not my thought that we had known each other in a past life but really hers?
I remember the moment I first saw her as clearly as if it was yesterday. She was at the back of that group of trainee staff. she was tall, fragile and seemed to be floating as she excitedly talked to some guy. My thought was wow I should speak to her, but nothing that special. Later that day the training ended and I saw her walk out of the shop. My thought was "there goes a wonderful opportunity" but I was still able to put it behind me and get on.
Then 2 days later I turn around and she is working next to me. I hadn't seen her move onto the till I must have been busy. Of all the outlets she could have worked in and of all the departments she came to mine. It was the book section - that was to be our connection. My thought now was "this fortune ensures I must not waste this opportunity".
So I talk to her. My thought, "she is not what i am looking for". My next thought, "really? have another look". My next thought, "yes is worth it". And so it went on. The more we talked the more extraordinary that "yes" became. It was then I guess that I began to think I had found someone who I really belonged with.
OK so I don't remember when this idea came around. A more likely explanation then is that we live in a society which once valued the idea of people being made for one another - and we do live our lives looking for "the" partner to spend our lives with. So it's quite natural when we find someone who we feel that close to that we should want to believe we were made for one another.
And then it follows that when you meet such a person you will wonder how did I know to wait my life for them. So it seems natural that we may think that we knew them in the past and have been waiting for them. Something the Aristophanes myth in the Platonic Symposium explains through the splitting of humans into their male and female parts. Certainly it was the conjoining of our souls which is what I wanted more than the conjoining of our bodies.
This is the whole problem of my life at the moment. If I'm joined to her then I have a vast problem. If I'm not joined to her can i escape the need to join to someone else? Cos being joined to something other than yourself is both a pleasurable but also a tragic thing frought with danger and insecurity.
So at this moment I can't remember exactly when this idea happened I know it was early on in the first week. And my experience of her was definitely the source of my belief in reincarnation which removed my doubt of karma and opened me fully to Buddhism.
But I now see that she held this thought before me. And, so it seems another explanation is that I read her mind. That it is her who is following her father through the many lifetimes, and I have only accidentally absorbed this thought. In which case I am free.
Except where this idea of us having
Tuesday, 10 April 2007
The other worlds that are this world
Spoke the the sister of "my muse" over the bank holiday weekend and we spoke a lot about her. She really was special in a real way beyond the horizons of my own admiration. She had been born with her third, celestial, eye open and could see and communicate with spirits. Something she had mentioned but I had ignored cos 10 years ago this stuff was rubbish to me. She had been told that she was a very old soul n now I begin to believe it. I've tried to block this stuff out to find other explanations, to think its just my own flights of fancy, we always like to believe that the people we love are special but beyond my own love she was someone special and the story goes way outside my own little world. That boy in a dream I had in the first weeks of knowing her may have said something important that "she was special and I should not let her go".
She believed in many lives and how people would follow each other lifetime after lifetime. Either she communicated that across the floor of the WHSmiths when I first saw her, or it's coincidence, or I had that thought myself because I really was waiting to meet her again from past lives. I can't believe the coincidences, it really makes me think that this is reality, just so far removed from the world i was brought up in.
Her great bond in life was with her father. She believed they had been cycling around the realms of rebirth of hundreds of lifetimes. It seems it is possible that the car crash they were involved in which injured them both did really lead to their deaths in the years that followed, especially the father who had a head injury n who died of a brain tumour. What was my connection with her and what did I need to meet her in this life for? It wasn't sex she said that herself, maybe it was to open my eyes to other realities.
When you start to look at this stuff properly all sorts of things become apparent. Walking back from the station yesterday I saw this youth dressed in a T-shirt standing in the doorway of a building. I assumed he was there, but when I looked around to check there was nothing there. I've always assumed that is just me being tired, but maybe it means something else.
"My muse" has not passed on unfortunately. Often when we talk about her at work the room grows cold and I can feel a faint breeze upon my face. Uptil now I have been very selfish wishing she had not gone, still wanting to see her again. In a dream I met her and I kept asking whether we would meet again and the answer was just a blank, and the harder i pushed for an answer the more blank it was. Maybe it's a choice i can make and the future is not set. For her own good she should go and we will meet again when the time is right.
My lab partner who has been told he is one of the oldest souls has given some advice about Hindu ceremonies for this kind of thing. I hope so much she is happy.
What is evidently clear at the moment is that we humans are connected in so many indescribable and multidimensional ways and that the workings of the universe go far beyond the confines of our petty selfish minds. To understand the world needs us to take a very back stage in our own lives to see the enormity and diversity of the worlds that are this world.
She believed in many lives and how people would follow each other lifetime after lifetime. Either she communicated that across the floor of the WHSmiths when I first saw her, or it's coincidence, or I had that thought myself because I really was waiting to meet her again from past lives. I can't believe the coincidences, it really makes me think that this is reality, just so far removed from the world i was brought up in.
Her great bond in life was with her father. She believed they had been cycling around the realms of rebirth of hundreds of lifetimes. It seems it is possible that the car crash they were involved in which injured them both did really lead to their deaths in the years that followed, especially the father who had a head injury n who died of a brain tumour. What was my connection with her and what did I need to meet her in this life for? It wasn't sex she said that herself, maybe it was to open my eyes to other realities.
When you start to look at this stuff properly all sorts of things become apparent. Walking back from the station yesterday I saw this youth dressed in a T-shirt standing in the doorway of a building. I assumed he was there, but when I looked around to check there was nothing there. I've always assumed that is just me being tired, but maybe it means something else.
"My muse" has not passed on unfortunately. Often when we talk about her at work the room grows cold and I can feel a faint breeze upon my face. Uptil now I have been very selfish wishing she had not gone, still wanting to see her again. In a dream I met her and I kept asking whether we would meet again and the answer was just a blank, and the harder i pushed for an answer the more blank it was. Maybe it's a choice i can make and the future is not set. For her own good she should go and we will meet again when the time is right.
My lab partner who has been told he is one of the oldest souls has given some advice about Hindu ceremonies for this kind of thing. I hope so much she is happy.
What is evidently clear at the moment is that we humans are connected in so many indescribable and multidimensional ways and that the workings of the universe go far beyond the confines of our petty selfish minds. To understand the world needs us to take a very back stage in our own lives to see the enormity and diversity of the worlds that are this world.
Tuesday, 3 April 2007
Time v Species Diversity fairly constant for taxa
New study shows that species diversity has high correlation with time, old taxa have more species.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-04/uocp-wat040207.php
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-04/uocp-wat040207.php
Sunday, 1 April 2007
Nature of Death is Nature of Life
What irony that i should have started a blog about life and now i am almost completely gripped by death.
I was told on Wednesday the details of where "my muse" came to rest and now the full hard nature of reality is unavoidable.
Everything that was so soft and beautiful now just dust in the wind and nothing remains of the girl i loved.
There is the greatest mystery here. How are we the living made from such lifeless stuff, and what happens to that life when we die?
Everywhere I see is death. It is unavoidable like the shadow of a great ant eating bird over the ants that scurry about in their daily lives trying to pretend that everything is ok.
All our lives is just a scurrying to avoid the shadow falls upon over everything and from which there is no escape.
If we lengthen our lives through medicine we are just putting it off.
If we think of the whole expanse of life upon this planet through its many incarnations, the evolution, we are avoiding the fact that 'I' will die.
Every goal and satisfaction in life is just a pointless hurdle to make us think we have control, to take our mind of this thing we have no control over - death.
It brings ones mind to a complete stop to see that there is nothing we can do. We struggle in vain, it is hopeless.
i was very clear on Thursday night saddened but crystal clear about the nature of reality. Everything is shadowed by death and there is no escape.
What we call "normal" life, of fun, and games, entertainments and diversions is really a masquerade to put off looking at death.
Normal man says that this is depressng talk but why? because with the games gone then yes reality is depressing.
But really should we hide. Red or blue pill? well i can't hide anymore that beauty which once filled my life has been reduced to ashes with no remainder no escape and no compensation. Everything is completely gone.
She kept and treasured some of the things i gave her. There are memories of how she lived her final years, memories of what we had.
But now the buried box of letters and poems at the end of my garden becomes of utter importace. In there lies a big chunk of her life, the only memories of something I foolishly wanted to believe would last forever!
i may have anticipated the End, written about the pain I anticipated, but I never saw it, not until now. Now i see death in his huge dark form.
I was clear but not clear enough. Life is very cool now, the fun has gone, the joy has gone, the cold light of day shines on all things which are stark in its unforgiving light.
But i understand this is what the monastics must go through to see the truth. There can be no more hiding "my muse" has unavoidably created her greatest inspiration.
So i haven't made it yet to a clear and deep undrstanding of the relationship of living people to this unfeeling world. Of the compassion that I should have for others when the unreal distractions have been evaporated.
Death is still a complete mystery, and life in the same breath is a complete mystery.
I was told on Wednesday the details of where "my muse" came to rest and now the full hard nature of reality is unavoidable.
Everything that was so soft and beautiful now just dust in the wind and nothing remains of the girl i loved.
There is the greatest mystery here. How are we the living made from such lifeless stuff, and what happens to that life when we die?
Everywhere I see is death. It is unavoidable like the shadow of a great ant eating bird over the ants that scurry about in their daily lives trying to pretend that everything is ok.
All our lives is just a scurrying to avoid the shadow falls upon over everything and from which there is no escape.
If we lengthen our lives through medicine we are just putting it off.
If we think of the whole expanse of life upon this planet through its many incarnations, the evolution, we are avoiding the fact that 'I' will die.
Every goal and satisfaction in life is just a pointless hurdle to make us think we have control, to take our mind of this thing we have no control over - death.
It brings ones mind to a complete stop to see that there is nothing we can do. We struggle in vain, it is hopeless.
i was very clear on Thursday night saddened but crystal clear about the nature of reality. Everything is shadowed by death and there is no escape.
What we call "normal" life, of fun, and games, entertainments and diversions is really a masquerade to put off looking at death.
Normal man says that this is depressng talk but why? because with the games gone then yes reality is depressing.
But really should we hide. Red or blue pill? well i can't hide anymore that beauty which once filled my life has been reduced to ashes with no remainder no escape and no compensation. Everything is completely gone.
She kept and treasured some of the things i gave her. There are memories of how she lived her final years, memories of what we had.
But now the buried box of letters and poems at the end of my garden becomes of utter importace. In there lies a big chunk of her life, the only memories of something I foolishly wanted to believe would last forever!
i may have anticipated the End, written about the pain I anticipated, but I never saw it, not until now. Now i see death in his huge dark form.
I was clear but not clear enough. Life is very cool now, the fun has gone, the joy has gone, the cold light of day shines on all things which are stark in its unforgiving light.
But i understand this is what the monastics must go through to see the truth. There can be no more hiding "my muse" has unavoidably created her greatest inspiration.
So i haven't made it yet to a clear and deep undrstanding of the relationship of living people to this unfeeling world. Of the compassion that I should have for others when the unreal distractions have been evaporated.
Death is still a complete mystery, and life in the same breath is a complete mystery.
Apart from vain distraction. Apart from the selfish attending to ones own needs and feelings. Apart from the drug addiction that is love and sex. Apart from the one man band that is the absorbed individual enjoying his life. What lies out there? what is life itself? and what are we to make of it before it comes pointlessly and unavoidably to death.
We dream that what we do will have a lasting significance. There is no avoiding death for every single thing we do. There is no way to enter the future forever, everything will end, all meaning and significance of my life will be lost in time as it has for countless people before us. At best only transformed without recognition into new things.
Famous names remain but for how long, and famous to who? The inventer of the wheel forgotten though his invention remains as long as we have use of wheels, one day to be forgotten and rediscovered I am sure. No there is no escaping death. This is the final unsurmountable hurdle for the ego. In the flames of death it must accept defeat. "I" am of no immortal substance and the things that I surround myself with have no immortality. The dream must end.
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