Fish Tank: A poem

Fish Tank
by me

Red-tailed Black Shark
Buffalo Head Cichlid
Little gods of war

They are conquerors
Alexander the Great
Napoleon reborn

Building empires
Like Genghis Khan and Caesar
They are warriors

A timeless battle
Between Indra and Mars
Fish tank warfare

Ashtavakra Gita: 18.51

18.51

When one realizes
he is neither the actor
nor the one who watches,
the mind-storm is stilled.

Buddha says...

If you compassion doesn’t include yourself it is incomplete.

–Buddha

J. Kitchens

Most of us go through each day
looking for what we saw yesterday. And,
not surprisingly, this is what we find.

-James A. Kitchens

Tao Te Ching (Ch 7, 11, and 51)

Excerpts from...
Tao Te Ching
Translated by Stephen Mitchell

Chapter 7
The Tao is infinite, eternal.
Why is it eternal?
It was never born;
thus it can never die.
Why is it infinite?
It has no desires for itself;
thus it is present for all beings.

The Master stays behind;
that is why she is ahead.
She is detached from all things;
that is why she is one with them.
Because she has let go of herself,
she is perfectly fulfilled.

Chapter 11
We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.
We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.
We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.
We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.

Chapter 51
Every being in the universe
is an expression of the Tao.
It springs into existence,
unconscious, perfect, free,
takes on a physical body,
lets circumstances complete it.
That is why every being
spontaneously honors the Tao.

The Tao gives birth to all beings,
nourishes them, maintains them,
cares for them, comforts them, protects them,
takes them back to itself,
creating without possessing,
acting without expecting,
guiding without interfering.
That is why love of the Tao
is in the very nature of things.

T. McKenna

We have been to the moon, we have charted the depths of the ocean and the heart of the atom, but we have a fear of looking inward to ourselves because we sense that is where all the contradictions flow together.

-Terrance McKenna, The Archaic Revival (1991)

W. Whitman

Happiness…not in another place, but in this place…not for another hour, but this hour.

-Walt Whitman

Lightbulb

Question: How many Zen Buddhists does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: Three - one to change it, one to not-change it, and one to both change and not change it.

Hah

Fenyang

Few people believe their
Inherent mind is Buddha.
Most will not take this seriously,
And therefore are cramped.
They are wrapped up in illusions, cravings,
Resentments, and other afflictions,
All because they love the cave of ignorance.
-Fenyang

Beneath the Hunters Moon

Beneath the Hunters Moon

My feet drum the earth
As I dance to the beat of my Love's heart
I am drunk from the wine of his soul
He is the moon, the grass, the stars
I am Artemis; he is Orion
The huntress has become the hunted
I embrace this insanity
Such fervent ecstasy
Beneath the Hunters Moon

Tawiyela: The Deer Woman

Tawiyela

A red skinned woman lies in the freshly fallen snow on the side of the road. Kneeling beside her, I brush the icy crystals from her cheek; she is alive. I gather her into my arms and carry her to my cabin.

Watery footprints follow me across the den to the sofa where I lay her. I cover the woman with a wool blanket and turn to the stone hearth. Stirring the smoldering embers, I rekindle the fire.

The woman wakes. Are you okay? She remains silent. Her eyes are like a doe, both scared and innocent. As she stares as me in silence, I drown in those eyes.

She drops her bare feet to the floor and walks to the window. Staring out into the night, she whispers in a foreign dialect and drops her head. I walk over to her and regard the winter storm brewing outside. Will you stay? The woman’s doe eyes meet mine; she smiles at me. I think this means yes.

The woman comes to me during the night. She slips into the bed and I surrender to her touch. Her lovemaking is fervent, her hunger insatiable. In the throws of our coitus she moans in her strange tongue. I understand her not, but our bodies speak the same language.

Sunlight pours into the room and I wake-alone. I find the woman outside, standing in the snow. She stares intently into the forest. I join the woman and beckon for her to come inside. She shakes her head and begins to walk towards the woods. I grab her hand, Please, don’t go. She presses her lips against mine one last time, then turns and flees.

I run after her, but the woman seems to fly across the snow and I cannot match her pace. I continue to follow her trail of footprints, but when I turn my gaze downward, I see that they are deer tracks. I look up again and see the white tail of a fleeing deer, but the doe stops. She turns to look at me. I know those eyes.

Then, Tawiyela, the deer woman, disappears into the depths of the forest.

For the Seeker

Dear Seeker,

If you have stumbled across this blog in your search for 'truth' i suggest you look to the writings of Edward Traversa .

Namaste

Ashtavakra Gita: 2.18

Ashtavakra Gita

2.18
I am neither free nor bound.
The illusion of such things
has fallen into disbelief.

Lucidity: A Poem

Lucidity
1-Oct-2009

Flashing lights

Red and blue

Pink and green

Illuminate

A garden

Where the fireflies dance

and sweet-peas sleep

Abiding in awareness

Neither free nor bound

Staring out my crystal window

I long to join them

Staring at the ceiling

The image begins to fade

Alex Grey: Artist/Writer

The Vast Expanse
By Alex Grey

I acknowledge the privilege of being alive in a human body at this moment, endowed with senses, memories, emotions, thoughts, and the space of mind in its wisdom aspect.

It is the prayer of my innermost being to realize my supreme identity in the liberated play of consciousness, the Vast Expanse. Now is the moment, Here is the place of Liberation.

Witness the contents of mind, the visions and sounds, the thoughts, as clouds passing through the vast expanse - the sky-like nature of mind. The rootedness of Being is in emptiness, clarity and awareness: unborn, unspoilt, stainlessly pure.

The infinite vibratory levels, the dimensions of interconnectedness are without end. There is nothing independent. All beings and things are residents in your awareness.

I subject my awareness to the perfection of being, the perfection of wisdom and perfection of love, all of these being co-present in the Vast Expanse. I share this panorama of Being and appreciate all I can share it with...the seamless interweaving of consciousness with each moment.

Create perfection wherever you go with your awareness. That is why this teaching is admired by artists--they sense the correctness of the response to life as creative. Life is infinite creative play. Enjoyment and participation in this creative play is the artists profound joy. We co-author every moment with universal creativity.

To bare our souls is all we ask, to give all we have to life and the beings surrounding us. Here the nature spirits are intense and we appreciate them, make offerings to them--these nature spirits who call us here--sealing our fate with each other, celebrating our love.

I am an intersecting kaleidoscope of Being in a rainbow refractive wave pattern: a corpuscle of light on the ocean...the transparency of my body with the rocks...sometimes the only way to summarize my feelings is to draw--to collapse the frenzy in my limbs enough to make a mark out of profound appreciation for my existence.

Share your presence with others, no boundaries, completely openly lovingly. Love is what makes us alive, that is why we feel so alive when we love. Service is being available to love. Life is the combustion of love. That we love ourselves here, that is the true magnificence in the mountains of being. We are constantly drawing the line between love and not love--enter into the Non-duality Zone, and all judgements dissolve in the Vast Expanse.

It's as though we are co-conspirators of consciousness--everyone, everywhere, everywhen, mixing up our openable minds. It's as though we could gather clouds in the sky and people into our lives. Like an eruption of consciousness, we discover the most important force is love. Experience yourself as the Source and appreciate every moment as perfection. Sunrise--Sunset. Thank you, Thank you, Creator, profound unstoppable connectedness of all beings, pattern to everything, most radical no-thing, the Vast Expanse.

Alex Grey
August 22,1994

To see more go to http://www.alexgrey.com/

A Walk Poem

A Walk Poem
B. N. Dulka
7-Sep-2009

A cicada calls out to its lover
A rabbit returns to the thicket
Tall grasses brush against my bare knees
The ground below me is damp, the air warm
As summer gives way to autumn
I am in the place of my youth
This path is disappearing
Its mother beckons it home
These woods are alive
Between eroded earthen walls
A shallow crick flows
A frog jumps into the water

To the Teacher: A Poem

I know, this is old stuff...

To the Teacher
18-Dec-05

Hello teacher,
hello friend.
Do you see this sword,
I clench within my hand?
Rusty blade,
stained with blood.
It was my sword,
my hand that has slain them.
Dead,
all dead.
Plunge into the dark,
negate negate negate.
Arjuna sits alone,
surronded by the fallen.
Lift my chin,
there you are.
Hello teacher,
where to next?
The Buddha is dead,
Jesus is gone.
Family and friends,
memories and dreams.
Dead,
all dead.
But then they move!
Plunge the sword downward again!
Neti neti!
Negate negate negate.
Teacher,
oh teacher.
Why won't they go away?
I just want silence,
I just need the questions to end!
Hit me with your stick,
knock me over the head.
Drag me to my feet,
and push me foreward again.
You just sit there,
watching me as I pace.
Teacher!
Tell me where to go!
Negate negate negate,
I can't take it anymore!
Silence,
I fall slowly to my knees.
Then you move,
you ask me, "Where is it that you're going?
You're here,
you're there.
Sit down,
negate negate negate."
A tear rolls softly,
down my cheek.
Sword within my hand,
climb back onto my feet.
Neti neti,
negate negate negate.
A cry in the dark,
metal swinging through the air.
Goodbye teacher,
you were never really there.
Neti neti,
negate negate negate.
A river of blood,
sweeps them all away.
Alone,
all alone.
Just Arjuna and his sword.
Teacher,
oh teacher,
I think about your words.
Neti neti,
negate negate negate.
All alone now,
or perhaps it's always been this way.
Just me,
and my sword.
Taking the hilt,
the fear has blown away.
All alone,
negate negate negate.
Thrust it in,
push through the flesh and bones.
I am the archer,
the dreamer and the dream.
Maya is my name.
No, I have no name.
There is no me!
Thank you teacher.
Neti neti,
negate negate negate.

The Rose: A Poem

Here's some teenage angst...

The Rose
25-March-06

Untouchable beauty,
poison tipped thorns.
So perfectly imperfect,
such is the illusion of the rose.
The purest picture of sin,
even Lucifer would fall to his knees.
The gates of hell never seemed so welcoming,
my own dark lord beckoning me home.
Raising my hand I offer one last sacrifice,
the rose.
Bathed in the blood of my past,
dripping with the tears that I've shed.
The wrists ache for the pressure of that blade,
calling, wanting, begging for this release.
Submission to that weakness,
contact, and I draw my lines.
How sweet this lust is,
how simple the addiction.
This pain coursing through me,
who said life was but a dream?
White hot horror,
all the universes are glimpsed within the shock.
An infinite number of infinities,
concealed within the rose.
I'll hide behind my fears and dreams,
my darkest desires and demons are the chains that bind.
Another nail in my coffin,
alone within this prison of my mind.
Such is the illusion of you,
the rose they lay upon my grave.

The Universe

We are so small

so insignificant

we are nothing compared to our universe