X & Y

A friend once said that he had a "horizontal relationship"... i.e. the realtionship only worked in bed. I suppose that means that there are vertical relationships which only work out of bed - Platonic. These could be referred to as Y type and X type respectively.

It means that for any relationship we might express the degree of sexual content and spiritual content as a 2 dimensional ordered pair (x,y) and so the types of relationships form an area. Being multi-dimensional there is no interaction between the x and y components, rather that together they position the relationship.

X & Y are also the names of the chromosomes which determine males and females in mammals. Women are all x while men are a combination of x & y - which fits the analysis before in this blog ;-)

I suppose what we are looking for in a sexual partner is the X factor also, since the Y factor is what we find in friends.

Done It :-)

I just cleared my heart - a kind of reboot - when I received a google alert about a new species of large buttercup instead of the long awaited information about my friend.

Everything happens for a reason, at least in retrospect. The water flows the long way around a rock but when it reaches the other side its only grievance is the joy of a different story to tell.

No I don't need to know anything about my friend. She is dead. That means a lot I realise, it means that the future will be completely different from the past, it means that I dream of nothing and have feelings for nothing, that what could have been and what was are of no more importants in the world of the living.

The problem has been all these questions. What if... maybe I did it wrong, maybe i would have been more satisfied had things gone differently, maybe the future would have been better had she lived, maybe I missed out on something important, maybe...

In all of these thoughts something is blindingly clear: I believed that she was important and that I needed her for some reason/completion/satisfaction/bliss state of mind.

In reality however we know that we need nothing. The problem is that 100% of the world around us says something else, and almost everyone we meet strives and takes things from the world which i have understood to mean that they need them - or at least can't do without.

The truth is that we are perfect already and everything we take sits side by side us. We can't incorporate it into us, or make it a part of us. I wished that my consciousness or heart might fuse with this girl - it felt that way. In the cartoon "Ghost in the Shell" this is the romantic notion - it is a myth. Two do not become One, because the sense of 2 is simply a product of desire. She is important because I desire her thus she become my other, there are 2 and to wish they were one is to defeat desires process of separation. Better not to desire in the first place!!

I am healthy, I am fed, warm, happy yet I have suffered more than I ever imagined possible for this emotion/desire/love/need etc. It is insanity/addiction/delusion/mental disease. The truth is that it is utter myth to believe that we "need" anything. The belief that we have gained or lost is myth for this reason. I am enchantedly happy to have been her friend and that is it. Very happy to have loved her purely and without any negative feelings. That is it. It is gone.

To say this yesterday would have broken my heart. But the movement to let go is not one of rejection, non-care, hostility, hatred, unkindness but simply a pure realisation that my Being is sufficient and without need.

It puzzles me however that my rejections in the past - that I made to protect myself from becoming jealous and angry - caused her suffering. Maybe she was not so carefree herself? She said that she feared rejection, and she cried when I left. Ironically my need became a source of suffering for her - had I been as carefree as i am today then I would have stayed to the end - but i would not have generated such absolute devotion - but then I would have been stronger and a better support to her when her father died. Swings and roundabouts. Truth is King, Myth the Demon. I am free (after crying out yesterday to myself for exactly that!)

The question now returns to the Void space she leaves and that eternal question: what to do with thing called Life (before mine runs out also)?

A solution to all problems...

Through the window of my current pain I can see so clearly now the solution to all lifes difficulties and it is exactly as the Buddhists say. I do not have the strength yet, or have not yet unpicked to knotted fishing line in my heart yet, so it remains not fully tested - but it looks very convincing...

When my father died my sister and I drove the Brighton under cloudless morning skies. There was not a car on the 6am July road and we arrived at the shimmering sea in silence. I stripped off and dived into the cool blue waters in a bid to wash off away heart ache. Swimming out and then under the waters I hoped to return to the surface as a new self ready for the journeys ahead...

All around lay the gently rolling waves as far as the wide blue sky which arched vastly above me and within shone the gleaming sun - at that instant I saw that the sun cared not a bit for my suffering, the sky was large enough to hold any day that passed and the sea was gentle and unaffected by what to me was the most catastrophic day of my life - the day I knew I had to find my feet and live without the man who had created me and supported me all these years.

It became obvious that what was at the same time unsurmountable onstacle and grief was also of no gravity or importants at all. The seas, sky and sun gave me the strength that day to go on without real concern and to give birth to the thoughts recently...

Again that new year I went to the hill behind our village and looked at the houses pondering that in that house there my father no longer waited for new year. Looking at the other houses I wondered which have experienced losses like mine; all of them was the obvious reality. I imagined the small valley through time: a hundred years when most of the houses would not have been there; two hundred when the oldest trees would have been young and the estate house and grounds would have been intact; then 10,000 when maybe the first people camped by the small spring and under the huge canopy of oaks; then the future when even I am dead and new people live here; and so on forever. The turning wheel of peoples lives coming and going on this same valley of land made me see again the vastness of all existence and how the lives of the things in this world are simply brief turning of the endless huge wheel. That endless huge wheel, the vastness of the sky which can absorb any day of any gravity that is the end of suffering - the eternal.

So even today i see it. The two days of patience with the ex have taught me not to become angry so easily, and have taught me to rest instead of fight for my desires. I've not made much progress but its a small move in the right direction.

Even today this growing strength is developing. The sun was warm and I wanted to bathe in it as i walked to work... but the building were casting long shadows and I hated them for it. Same route walked every day for years but today its the buildings who are being nasty! Quite absurd I said to myself - it's not the building but because you want to sun that there is a problem. If you can not want to sun then no problem.

The stubbornness of us to let go of desires is the whole problem. "IIIII WANNA HAVE IT" go
the inner movements like a spoilt child - and it screams and fights and looks to get it and there is Suffering bounding onto the scene. See the huge sky looking down without judgementally, caring like a mother and we see how foolish we are to make such a big thing out of something so small. We let go the want for sunlight and we are at peace. It's simply inner movements, positive thoughts and a lot of very hard work and suffering!!

Newton was right with his second law. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. I wanted this girl very badly. Eventually jealousy took over and I punched a letter box - strange thing is it was I who got hurt! (Broken hand to this day - I like it, it reminds me not to make the mistake again.) Same with our whole self. We move out and the world moves out to meet us. Punch out and the world punches back. Need out and the world needs back. Give out and the world gives back. Love out and the world loves back.

That's as far as science goes in helping us tho. The belief that there is an immutable world of external substance which exists independent of us is the most destructive thought that persists in the world - along with the idea that the Natural world works by selfishness. Both are profoundly one sided for their opposite is equally important. The world exists within us, and the "selfish" individual is an expression of forces outside itself!

Whether material existence is inside or outside is unimportant. All we know is that when I punch a letter box there is an equal force backwards. Whether we existed before or after the punch is rather irrelevant!! It's in that moment of interaction between myself and the letterbox that things happen and the world exists. Abstract deductions from moments like this are interesting but profoundly unhelpful.

When we think of the world we need only know that "what you give, is what you get" and that is how the world will seem to you. Post a letter in the letter box and it seems a very nice thing. Punch it and it's a tough unforgiving adversary!!

So we must never think that problems come from outside us, and eventually do away with the thought that they come from inside us (altho this is the better of the two because it helps put away the unhelpful materialistic view). The solution lies simply in how we treat the world and that is a matter of hard work, deep consideration and care - in the face of the nuclear war of sufferings that we might be experiencing at the time.

Thus there is no unlucky me, sad me, abused me, hurt me because the solution to all our problems lies simply in treating "The World" in a better way. And very importantly I say "The World" because it is not any external thing in the world we are treating better, but the vast sky and endlessly rotating wheel of all existence that we must treat like our mother. Picking and chosing the things we treat well, will mean that the world becomes very picky about whether to help us or not!









Matrialism

Status (relative/absolute value)

Reading the economist last week there is good stuff on economics. Finally economists are thinking about the problems.

Back from my experiment in working and financial existence of the past 5 years - keeping down a job with enthusiasm and non-cynicism - I now have nothing but scorn for what I am doing, but it pays the bills and keeps me out of trouble, and gives me the opportunity to experiment furthur.

The problem with economics is that we have gotten ourselves into a mess based upon class and status. According to the economist there is a rapid plateau in happiness and contentment as an economy matures. After that people do not report an improvement in their sense of happiness regardless of economic wealth.

The reason? it is status. "positional" values like having the best car, house and best position in a company obviously are relative not absolute. Thus what we have is not the issue, it is that we have more than other people. The problem with expanding economies is that everyone gets more so the relative merits never change.

If poorer people seem happy maybe it is because they are still dealing with absolute values like food and water, and so relative values are less important. In economies like ours relative values are the only thing. I live an absurdly basic life - recently living in a tent - because it reminds me the difference between absolute values (like the sunrise and dawn chorus) from relative values like the size of my bosses absurd car/tank. Keeping a mind firmly on absolute values reminds me just how lucky I am!! really it is a beautiful world looked at absolutely. Looked at it relatively it's quite ugly.

The only people who are happy are those who could never be rich, and those who are rich. The sad bunch in the middle have to run to stand still. As the economist notes the harder we work to get ahead, the harder we force other people to work and the wheel of wealth just spins faster as faster - generating more and more wealth which goes to make the prize for the few winners. The accelerating pace of work generated with economic systems suspect is showing up in health statistics and general malaise about life. In UK it is expressed in the house prices which mean we are forced to overwork even for basic essentials - unless you take radical action ;-)

Thus people will always make themselves unhappy by comparing their status with those around them - no amount of economics can help that. Altho the collumnist did argue that in a free market their are more niches in the market and so more opportunities for people to find their special place.

Just to recap other stuff in this subject area. Economies also make us unhappy by creating endless desires. Just as we have the latest computer - a new one comes onto the market and soon what was the best is very mediocre. There is a contant creation of dissatisfaction and the belief that by shopping we can make it go away! bad mistake!!

Also Capitalism has really messed the world up. People once thriving in more absolute value systems suddenly found their land taken over by landlords who then taxed them. To pay the rents thinking had to change, and this began the process that led to abandoning the land and looking for money - that is unless they were forced off the land by landlords wanting it for other uses like commercial farming. Once without a mean of living people become helpless and totally dependent upon the economy and enter the machine of wealth production that feeds the rich owners with the vague idea that oneday they might be rich. Its a very exploitative and dependency forming process which we in the West have been in for so long we forget where it started.

The rich of past generations who could relax to some extent from the burden of proving themselves financially came up with lots of grand notions about how special and wonderful the human race was. We have poetry and writing, arts and dance - celebrations of life from those who have time to do it. The sad reality I am realising is - especially in the tooth and nail existence experienced by the middle spectrum wealthy of developed economies - that life is governed almost entirely by over the fence comparisons with others. The frenzy for 4x4 cars cannot be inspired by anything practical - I don't even drive yet am still alive - it is simply the embarrasment of being seen in town with anything smaller. I admit to a small sense of reservation about bringing out this Compaq Presario on the train to Sevenoaks since I naturally compare it to the Sony Vaios and other machines - yet I instantly remind myself that functionally and absolutely I have only complete satisfaction from it.

Thanks to the economist its clear now my unease and rebellion from economics - I will reamin true to what is real and absolute and shall continue to shun with nothing but scorn any thought which would receive happiness or sadness from comparison with others...

unless it is to say how bad I am and how good they are, and how I should learn and be more like them!

Look down in matters of money and only up in matters of the heart.

A gale in the heart

Strong this force which binds us to the Earth, I can see why so many who would be free have faultered, and why maybe I will too. Me ex has communicated a jealous email to the sister of my muse, and I have been furious and now no-one is talking, the narrative ends there - if I want to know more about her I will have to find out myself. It is a very sad situation and brings into focus the power of these feelings for her which remain completely untainted after 9 years. The pain I feel now is exactly what I felt that night tossing and turning the first day we met. This IS my nemesis and also my most important test. The wisdom is there, I can almost see through this - but somehow I lack the strength to get there. I'm so sure these feelings of love are good, yet the world around has only scorn for them, and I am tempted into anger and hatred for them, certainly I will not replace what seems to be the highest with what is certainly the lowest!

This feeling is like a wind that blows through a valley, a gale, an unrelenting unstoppable force. All day and all through the night it howls tearing, through the trees and through the village, driving the clouds across the sun and the moon. I can shelter, but I cannot run or stop it. Sometimes the sun shines but I dare not look at it for my eyes would smart. Through my windows I see that all is well, but I dare not open them. It is bleak in this valley, but the forces that bring us into material existence must be this hard and unbreakable, and the lessons we learn as hard as we are stubborn. I am beginning to see this force within me as a dragon to be despatched. Once it was the form of a beautiful angel, but now its darker side is revealed. When I have the strength I will leave this pitiful hollow in to which I am cowering.

What is it to value?

It is an impossible thing to see that we are valuable. There is no reason for it. There is no proof of it. It just is.

We are not ordinarily valuable. There is nothing more valuable than yourselves. Yet we need not be proud or big-headed because we are no more valuable than anything else.

We have nothing to prove. There can be no clothes, no possesions, no speech, no cleverness, no qualifications, no actions, no memories, no future, no friends who can prove you are valuable. It just is, all by itself.

Watching an Xmas present of U2s 18 videos - a band I have followed on and off since 1986 - it has brought me to remember the reason for their brilliance, the inspiration they have brought to me again and again, that beauty and an open heart in life are real possibilities. One of Bonos greatest moments, and also one of his most personal, the final song and video "You can't always make it on your own" is a sign post to the world of what life can mean if you take it on seriously.

In one take with no editing Bono delievers the song to his recently departed father, and expression of a once in a lifetime loss, in a once in a lifetime performance. Those few minutes capturing the heart of a persons life, the minute details of a precious reality, normally un-noticed in the vast world we inhabit, but here amplified to reach a billion people. It is an extraordinary event.

Is not every moment in our lives as unique and precious as those in which we remember the loss of our own father? is not every moment a once in a lifetime thing? Even if it is a moment of spectacular ordinariness and unremarkable plainness, it is the last such moment in our whole life. The past is gone forever with no turning back, and the future has yet to happen, we have only this moment as it is spreading in all directions throughout present space and filled with cool air as though emerging from the stormy rains of the past, only this moment as it is glinting in bright colours like a newly hatched butterfly, on this moment the first and last in our life.

The moment in which we stand is like ourselves. It is the most valuable thing we have.

I used to struggle to reveal my heart from the abuse and stagnation of a world that seemed to me to put other things above the human. "Human Resources" a term which typified the way the world has learned to value the productivity of humans above them themselves - as though there were other creatures out there more valuable for which our time could be dished up for consumption. I rebelled against this world and with that rebellion came distaste and rejection of it. But it opened my heart, that led to the 9 years I have recently spoke of, and within them learning the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism.

Is not the valuable self, at home and at peace within its valuable moment completely unaffected by any abuse or surround? If my last moments on this planet are wretched ones, will I spoil those moments in despair or hatred? or will I value them, as I do myself, and ensure they do not go un-noticed and unlived? A distant Dutch ancestor died cursing his captors on the execution block - is not our death too important a time to waste in curses? We die every moment and are reborn, there is never a time to waste in curses.

This I must remember, at the risk of embalming it in a tomb of words, that no matter what circumstances I am in, I must never doubt my own value and the value of that moment, so that I am up to the challenge of facing it and living it. It is not that I have anything especial to do, nothing especial to prove, and no memories or certificates to take home with me afterwards, it is just enough to value myself and my presence in this once in a lifetime experience of being here now - that beats all the emotions, feelings, memories that any event may serve me up, it was enough to face it and value it.

Really U2 are saints, prophets of our time, connecting us with God and love - never has the time been that they have not been an inspiration.

& the Void

The problem that emerges with the awareness of higher energy, that which does not need others, but seeks union with them, is that most of what we call life becomes surplus to requirements.

Physical attachment, the need to "share ones life", companionship and all the things we do associated with these lose their meaning. What is the meaning of National, religious, or personal identity when we are no longer the black of white of the yin-yang, but rather in the position of seeing the inter-relationship? We might be black or white, but we don't see the blackness opposed to the whiteness, but the inter-relationship. We might be male or female, but we don't see the maleness opposed to the femaleness, but the inter-relationship. There can be no desire for something we haven't got, there can be no need to change what we are into what we are not, nor the need to change another into what they are not.

What we are left with is the Void. That infinite space from which, and into which, all things pass. The problem that faces beings who still have partiality (either black or white), and desires for things which are apparently beyond them and still in the Void, is that the Void is an abysmal abyss. The problem is the abide in peace with the Void, and not to allow ones disturbed consciousness to make demands of that Void and so set ourselves apart from it. That is the challenge as this life goes into a new phase, a phase with no "relationships" and having lost many of my friends. The next bit is alone I think.