Watcher's Pathless Path

"You have to pretend to believe while always knowing the truth."

2012-01-18T19:53:00.003-05:00

for the seeker...

"What is enlightenment, no, I mean really, like what is it?"

by Steven Norquist

Many friends and family have been after me for some time to write about my experience and understanding of this topic. I have hesitated to write about it not because enlightenment itself is so hard to describe, but because enlightenment tends to make one quite lazy. Before my change I was a busy beaver, reading and writing and playing music and sports and really actively getting out there. But after “the change” as I call it, there was a clear vision of how silly all this activity was and how much incredible effort is required to perform it.

But before I get ahead of myself let me lay out one basic fact, I am awake. I woke up about a year ago. I know what I am, what I have always been and what it is impossible to stop being. Some call this enlightenment or ultimate truth, unity consciousness, infinite mind and so on. But all those names don’t tell the non-awake what it is. Even I calling it "the change” is not really accurate because nothing really changed, yet paradoxically, huge change took place. In simple terms I was once Steve living his life but now I am the experience of Steve living his life. It is a shift in perspective. Before this perspective shift occurred I had practiced about three years of medium intensity meditation consisting of some breath watching, a little mantra repetition and some light self inquiry Ramana Maharshi style. These techniques were coupled with an intense desire to find and know the truth. I read everything on enlightenment I could get my hands on.

After about three years of this I had my first experience of “nonduality” as it is called. I had just read a passage in Ken Wilber’s “The Spectrum of Consciousness” where he points out that ordinary awareness is ultimate awareness. This struck a chord in me, I set the book down and stared at a paper that was sitting on the table in front of me, after about a minute or two an exciting and frightening thing happened, I disappeared! By that I mean the middle fell right out of the equation. Normally there would be Steve over here looking at the paper on the desk over there, now there was only the experience, "paper" but no Steve over here seeing it. It was clear that the middle that normally separated the paper from Steve did not really exist, there was only the experience, "paper."

Now let me try to make this more clear by giving an illustration.

Imagine as clearly as you can that you enter a large house that you have never been in before. You feel strange and kind of scared, there is furniture and drapes but no people. You wander around feeling the creepiness of being alone in this big house. You go from room to room not knowing what you will find. You start to get nervous and a little fearful being alone in this big house. You wonder how long it has been empty like this. In time the sense of the bigness and emptiness of the house starts to weigh heavily on your nerves. Finally, when you can not stand it any longer a shocking realization occurs to you, your not there either! Only the experience, "house" exists.

This is how nonduality feels and is the real truth of existence. Remember the question, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Now you know the answer.

You see, with enlightenment comes the knowledge that even though there is much activity in the world, there are no doers. The universe is in a sense, lifeless. There is no one, only happenings and the experience of happenings. Enlightenment reveals that the universe emerges spontaneously. It’s emergence and pattern are perfect in mathematics and symmetry and involve no chance. Nothing is random, everything emerges exactly as it has to. There is no random chance, or evolution based on chance. The universe is perfect, nothing is wrong or could be. There seems to be chance or unpredictability from a human perspective but that is only because our time frame reference can not see the universe emerge through its whole life span in a matter of minutes. If we could see that, then we would clearly see how every event was not only perfect and necessary but even predictable.

Now lets summarize so far, the universe is perfect, no one exists, yet the experience "universe" persists. How can this be? Consciousness. Consciousness is aware. If it were not, then there would be no universe. The very nature of existence implies consciousness. One can not exist without the other.

There can never be a universe that does not involve consciousness. There are no universes or dimensions where there is no consciousness. Matter and form would never arise without consciousness. Universe/Consciousness, Mind/Matter, Wave/Particle, call it what you will, the reality is that the manifestation, the very appearance we call the universe, is consciousness.

Now don't mistake me here, there is no observer. There are no persons in existence experiencing the universe, but more than that there is no Ultimate Person, God, Mind, or anything else observing the universe. There is only the experience of the universe being there with no experiencer.

This seems like a paradox but who cares, this is the way it is. Experience "is," that is all, that is the way the universe is, an experience by no one. The universe spontaneously arises out of consciousness yet at the same time is itself consciousness. We must lose the idea of matter being observed by something we call consciousness, that is not true. Some teachers talk of the Witness, the ultimate passive mind that observes all things moment to moment. This implies some level of separation, a witness over here watching the universe over there. It's not like this, there is only the experience, universe. There is no observer. Even if there were no manifestation the feeling would be the same. Once again let me make this clear: consciousness is not aware "of" the universe, consciousness is aware "as" the universe.

Now don't mistake that last sentence. Don't think, "Oh yeah Steve, I get it now, consciousness is not aware of the universe from a vantage point separate from it, like a disembodied soul, consciousness is instead aware of the universe as one of the billions of beings in it, like man, or dog, or fish." No! Such thoughts are false. When I say consciousness is aware "as" the universe I mean the very act of existence is consciousness. A carrot is itself consciousness, is itself awareness. There is not carrot aware of itself as carrot nor disembodied invisible consciousness aware of carrot as carrot, there is only the experience "carrot" and that is consciousness and that is enlightenment. There is no observer.

Let's talk now about how this fits in with human life. All people who do not know what's going on believe that they are the people that they are, an individual with thoughts and desires and hopes and dreams, a body and a house, a wife and a child. The list goes on but you get it.

Now the truth. Even though the above is happening, it is an automatic machine like emergence out of Universe/Consciousness and is following a strict nonchance pattern. More importantly, no one is performing any of the above and Universe/Consciousness is what is going on.

To make it more clear, stuff is happening but no one is doing it. Emergence proceeds and consciousness is aware. The unawake person, the person that doesn’t know what's going on believes that they are acting, that the human them exists. The reality is, the body exists, the thoughts exist, the memories exist and that is consciousness and that is all.

Someone might say consciousness has temporarily mistaken it’s experience of the body and the body’s memories as a person. But even though that answer may seem to explain the why, really there is no mistake at all. Universe/Consciousness has never been confused. The person can fall away at any moment restoring the original state of matter and consciousness which has never actually been obscured. This happened to me, but in that happening nothing was lost because there never was a me to lose, only a confusion to correct that never existed.

Knowing this, I mean really knowing this, not intellectually, but as a direct experience of everyday life is enlightenment. Now once this is known it is impossible to go back. Once you have drawn the curtain and seen who Oz really is you can’t cover him back up and pretend not to know the truth.

So how do we proceed once we know? We let experience manifest unmolested. As has been said, “The universe is perfect, intervene at your peril.” The enlightened person never acts. This is the riddle of karma solved, there is no karma, never was, never could be. There is no reincarnation, how could there be? Who is there to reincarnate? There are no persons, there is no birth or death, there is ultimately nothing except Manifestation/Awareness.

99.999% of the spiritual books and teachers out there are completely wrong. They are wrong for one simple reason, they are not enlightened, they don’t know what's going on. So in order to keep the illusion of personality, of the idea that there is something or someone, they invent stories, or theories, or ideas, wear special clothes, perform certain rituals and so on. They teach this stuff. But the truth is so simple, it is laughable.

Now let me make a clear distinction on one point, mystical experience is not enlightenment. You may have mystical experience, see God, get abducted by aliens, receive messages from an angel, contact your spirit guides, the list could go on. But always and forever, no matter what is going on the truth is, every experience, mystical or ordinary is a happening of Universe/Consciousness.

If I could teach the world a lesson it would be, no matter what you experience always remind yourself, “There is no experiencer, there is no observer.” If you do this long enough and often enough you will one day know what's going on. When that day comes you will realize nothing has changed, yet everything has changed. It is a feeling and a knowing. An inescapable falling away of untruth. If you think you know it then you don’t. When you know it, you do. And when you do know it, no one can take it away from you.

Some points to clear up. When I said the enlightened person never acts I did not mean such people sit in a cave and die of starvation and exposure. I mean the body can be quite active and manifest all manner of good and bad behavior, the mind can be racing with thoughts and feelings, but consciousness, now enlightened, knows no one is acting. It is only the universe blossoming forth spontaneously and perfectly.

As consciousness you are more aware of the feelings of the body, physically and emotionally. You don’t feel these things but you are aware of them because there is no division between them and consciousness. The Universe and Consciousness are equivalent, remember the formula, U=C. Also the thing we call personality or ego does not totally vanish. It can remain intact along with the body. It behaves and interacts and changes over time like any person would but the enlightened one knows they are not that ego.

Some schools emphasize the destruction of the ego as the only means of liberation. All that is really required is the realization that you are not that ego. That the ego really doesn’t exist, is an illusion of sorts that can be left to it’s own designs. It’s not really there, but it appears to be there and that is just fine, don’t worry. If the ego begins to fade that's ok. Remember, there is no experiencer.

Let me talk briefly about practice. Meditation and book study are useful and can ripen an individual towards awakening, but the most important thing is to change your perspective. You must learn to see what is really going on. Understand, in reality everyone is enlightened, but not everyone knows how to perceive this. The reason is, enlightenment is so natural, so obvious, that from birth we have become accustomed to ignoring it in preference to anything else that manifests. Meditation can train you to still the mind and gain concentration but it will not give you enlightenment. A radical shift in perspective must occur, the habitual focus of your awareness and your way of perceiving must be changed.

Study of books will not get you there, you need a shock. The easiest way I know is for an enlightened person to talk you into this perspective shift. The best books I have read were the ones that talked you into enlightenment. Feeling experiments such as the house scenario above are good to help evoke the feeling of enlightenment. Feel what it is like to not be there. The real breakthrough will come when you “feel” the truth.

It’s creepy, not blissful or ecstatic. It should scare you, the body should react defensively, or there could be uncontrolled laughter at how stupid you have been for so long. It’s like one of those 3D dot pictures, you stare and stare at those dots until bingo the picture emerges! After that, you can always see it, you can’t unlearn it. The same with enlightenment.

Basically any practice that can shock you into seeing what is really going on is acceptable. But understand, you want to know what's really going on, to feel it, to contact reality. It shouldn’t take long, a few years at most, less for some. If a practice or a teacher tells you it will take 10 or 20 years, find a new practice or teacher. Remember you are your own salvation, ultimately it is you who will wake you up. Any method that can shock you into seeing what is really going on is acceptable but the perspective shift must occur.

Let me try to bring some clarity to the subject of enlightenment and morality. It has been said that enlightenment produces compassion and love and that many enlightened ones forgo release into Nirvana and reincarnate again and again until all souls have obtained enlightenment, the Bodhisattva vow and such. None of this is enlightenment. Enlightenment is not about morality or vows, it is simply existence in the truth, that is all.

Enlightenment carries no requirements and expects nothing, the universe manifests and just that is enlightenment. We don't seek enlightenment to be happy or to give our lives meaning or to feel bliss or ecstasy. Loyalty to a flag is not enlightenment, love is not enlightenment, hate is not enlightenment. If you see these as the fruit of enlightenment then you are wrong. Instead each of these are enlightenment themselves. Each of these are spontaneous emergences out of and as consciousness. Action, feeling, creation, performance, love, hate, murder, salvation, compassion, each is enlightenment itself. There is no doer, no experiencer, only manifestation. This is the truth, this is enlightenment.

I want you to understand that while nothing ultimately changes, in human terms much change takes place. This happens because once you recognize what's going on the main motivations of life begin to drop away. The level of dropping away is no doubt unique to the individual but is directly proportional to how much you desire to resolve into reality. What I mean is that it is possible to be enlightened and still try to retain a level of unconsciousness in order to interact in human affairs. As time passes this state will be harder to maintain.

It is similar to suspending your belief when watching a movie. You pretend to believe the reality of what is going on. You cry with the characters, you laugh with them, you hope with them etc. You do this for the entertainment, to get your moneys worth. This is the way real life is with enlightenment. You know there really is no one. You know that it is just a display, a machine like emergence out of and as consciousness. Yet you must believe it at some level or you will simply lose the ability to interact in the world.

I can see why some enlightened ones have isolated themselves or become hermits. For the last year this has been an issue I personally have struggled with. How to know the truth and continue to interact with the world as if you believe it? You basically have to employ a little Orwellian 1984 doublethink. You have to pretend to believe while always knowing the truth. Some things are unavoidable of course, I was an avid reader but now can barely open up a book. I loved and played the guitar for years but now have zero interest in picking one up. Even writing these few words is a colossal effort. The reason is that deliberate effort is an affront to reality where nothing is deliberate, everything is spontaneous, and nothing at all is going on.

Don't mistake me here, I have not invented a rule of behavior where I have decided I must act less because to do otherwise would be an affront to reality, rather the natural outcome of enlightenment is less and less action, less and less thought. This is a natural development within the enlightened person. Eventually all action will be spontaneous and the person will not be acting.

Of course to say this is not ultimately true, because in reality no one ever acts. But from the human vantage point this is how it plays out. Memory is also a tricky thing, the memories of your life are still there and can be jogged into awareness but as time progresses and enlightenment begins to dissolve you, your access to them becomes more difficult. Your awareness becomes centered in the events of the present as they manifest, this is natural since these are the only events that actually exist. The person and the ego are simply dissolving. They don't really exist but the illusion that they do becomes less a part of awareness. You don't remember and you don't care.

Let me make a point about Zen breath watching. Most people just don't get it and most Zen schools don't make it any easier for students to get it. There are all kinds of books on Zen meditation, catalogs where you can buy all the cool silk clothes, cushions, gongs, incense and a host of other aids to Zen breath watching. But once you have all that stuff and finally sit your butt down, close your eyes and start watching your breath what exactly are you doing? Why are you doing that? I ask people this all the time and really piss them off, "Why do you meditate? What are you trying to accomplish? Why do you watch your breath?" I have never met anyone that has given me the correct answer.

The reason they don't know is because they are not enlightened. If they were, then they might not even meditate anymore, or they might, it would make no difference. You see, the simple truth that is missed by almost every meditator is this, the act of sitting there watching your breath is enlightenment. That is all. You are not doing something to gain something, just sitting there is enlightenment. That still state with calmed mind, just that is enlightenment, yet that annoying gossip over there interrupting your meditation, just that is enlightenment and that guy flipping you off in commuter traffic, just that is enlightenment. There is no doer, no experiencer, no one who acts. Manifestation emerges, actless, mindless and just that is enlightenment.

People meditate today because it is popular or because they want to have a mystical experience or just relax. The latter reason may actually be the most legitimate for the average person. But no one I know says they meditate because they are deliberately engaging in an actless act, or attempting to resolve a false sense of being into a beingless existence. And of the many meditators out there, I suspect that the majority would be shocked if I told them the guy flipping them off in traffic is more enlightened than they.

The point I'm trying to make and have been trying to make is that enlightenment is so natural and so easy that any attempt at deliberate practice towards it will get you farther from it, yet paradoxically, you have never once not been enlightened and no matter how strained and deliberate your efforts towards it, you never once acted!

So in closing, Enlightenment can be talked about, it can be understood, it is not mysterious nor does it need to be cloaked in a secret "Boy's Only" club language. Enlightenment is the feeling/knowing that no one exists including you and that everything that happens does so spontaneously and perfectly. Enlightenment is the feeling/knowing that what exists is Universe/Consciousness, they are the same, U=C. Existence is itself consciousness and that is why there is something rather than nothing. This is the real state of things and because it is so natural, so simple and so obvious, we miss it daily.

The Art of Smoking Bees

2011-12-08T00:55:00.000-05:00

The Art of Smoking Bees

I gave up tobacco and marijuana

and started smoking bees.

The trick, you see, is in the drying.

Sun dried bees are best,

honey bees or bumble bees,

but never yellow jackets.

Wasps just don’t smoke right.

I crush my cracker crisp bees,

pack them in my pipe,

mmm, tastes like honey.

I Ching Readings of a Struggling Poet

2011-12-08T00:54:00.003-05:00

I Ching Readings of a Struggling Poet

Obstruction

An abyss stretches before me

The precipice rises behind

Obstruction on the path ahead

Temporary retreat- Wait

A friend rises on the horizon

Look within

Influence (Wooing)

The attraction of the resting and the joyful

An image of a lake, warm air rises

To mountain peaks above

Holy the firm

The influence is in the neck

Perseverance- tomorrow we wed

Possession in Great Measure

A fire burns in heaven

All is manifest

The wheel of karma turns

The path before us set

Possession lies in great measure

I ready my wagon

My Good Friends Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, and Jesus Christ

2011-12-08T00:52:00.001-05:00

My Good Friends Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, and Jesus Christ

Down at the old bar, you know the one,

the dive on the corner of Old State and High,

I met a man, he drank a light draft beer,

and played pool throughout the night.

The patrons flocked around him,

they knew him not, though many thought they did,

“Aren’t you one of the Capaldi boys?” and,

“Didn’t you play ball for Cardinal High?”

The man was not, and did not, but they loved him anyway.

You should have seen the way they stood there,

thoughts of booze and sex no longer on their minds.

Then he came towards me, empty mug in hand,

I slid a beer across the bar, “That’ll be three twenty-five.”

He laid a five down on the counter and I went to fetch his change.

As I dropped the coins into his hand our fingers briefly touched,

I gave a start and drew away, suddenly ashamed.

Every wrong I’d ever done was right out on my sleeves,

but his eyes met mine and he smiled warmly back at me,

and then I remembered what I have always known.

Gypsy

2011-12-08T00:51:00.000-05:00

Gypsy

Gold rimmed eyes

stare back into mine,

so long, that I forget my name.

How wonderful it as,

as these forms rise and fall,

awareness alone abides.

A hand reaches out,

strokes smooth brown hair.

How wonderful it is, indeed.

My Heroin Girl

2011-12-08T00:50:00.001-05:00

My Heroin Girl

My heroin girl sits in an empty car in a parking lot of hell, waiting.

It's been three days since her last fix. Three days of shit and vomit and pain, fistfuls of sleeping pills each day. Finally the devil answers her call. He climbs in and kisses her full on the mouth, but she knows it doesn't mean anything. It's just the lust and the drugs and all the numb fucks. He brushes her tear stained cheeks. I'll take care of everything, he says. Spoon, rock, and water…He drops the cotton in the mud, draws the dope up through the filter. But it’s not that she can’t do it herself; she just loves the way he does it. How he pulls her in close, traces a finger down her vein before he sticks her with the needle. Her blood rushes in, mixes with the drug. He pushes the plunger down and she shivers. The warmth spreads across her body. The red haired one prepares his own fix. All else forgotten, they surrender to their shared sedation. The pupils of those emerald eyes shrink to pinpoints. Her breathing slows. Slower and slower. Overdose.

My heroin girl stands on a silver beach a thousand miles away. When she closes her eyes she dreams of two white faced boys. Goddamn junkies, I can't get to her vein. The steady roll of the ocean against the land replaces their voices. She sits in the sand and looks across the horizon, a lifetimes passes. The voices grow louder now. She's not going to make it, one says, but Mercury rises. The beach begins to fade and she stares up at the paramedics. She cries. If she closes her eyes, she can almost hear the ocean.

My heroin girl, in heaven dreaming of hell, in hell dreaming of heaven.

summer salamander

2011-12-08T00:49:00.000-05:00

sleep summer salamander

the fire in your belly

quenched now

by the milk of the moon

sweet love's poison

sleep summer salamander

dream of autumn's trees

the moist forest floor

the call of the creek

sleep summer salamander

winter soon approaches

dawn breaks

a water newt wakes

Ode to the Tree People of Lincoln Street

2011-12-08T00:47:00.001-05:00

Ode to the Tree People of Lincoln Street

They dance and sing

in the language of trees

tonight the forest celebrates the stars

As grandfather oak tells tales of their ancestors

maple saplings listen in awe

and two birch lovers exchange vows

Summer’s final firefly

blinks a premonition

but the warning is lost in the jubilee

Dawn approaches

the trees sway in song

gentle lullabies rock the woods to sleep

Giant steel cats break though their dreams

fossils of ancient mastodons and pterodactyls

fuel that anguish that dwells in metal

Trees scream

splendid roots rip from the ground

as the forest falls

10-21

2011-12-08T00:41:00.003-05:00

10-21

I shiver loose my skin,

lower myself into the cool clear water,

and there, in the reflection, you!

Playfully we once hid:

god and goddess,

sun and moon.

The realization that we are one, not two,

and the celebration, of that,

on our wedding day.

now and zen...

2011-12-08T00:33:00.002-05:00

1
A shallow crick flows
Between eroded earth walls
The sound of summer.

2
The spots of the fawn
Flutter and take to the sky
As white butterflies.

3
A cricket calls out
Across the Cuyahoga
The birth of autumn.

4
Sleep salamander
Underneath the harvest moon
Wake now as a newt!

5
A carp dives beneath
The water’s rippled surface
Where the orange leaf fell.

6
The phalaris grass
Bows its heavy head and prays
For the first hard frost.

7
Rising from the field
This white tide blacks out the sun
A sea of snow geese.

8
The hungry dog howls
The song of a full cold moon
To dead cicadas.

9
Still it lingers here
The smell of horses and hay
In this empty barn.

10
The frozen prairie
This small South Dakota town
Now I’m a stranger.

poetry 2011

2011-09-29T21:34:00.002-04:00

working on some new poems...working on some old poems...

thought circles

2011-09-29T21:32:00.001-04:00

thought circles

dawn approaches, and we start for the sloped hill outside

the earth below my bare feet is cool with morning's dew

we stretch a blanket across the damp grass and lie down

there are five of us, six including my dog, gypsy

"it's a thought circle." paige says,

us, lying there, our heads all together

with legs that point out like a lopsided human star

forming the spokes of our medicine wheel

gypsy walks around for a few minutes

finally she settles herself on the blanket at my feet

the sun creeps up above the trees

my friends begin to name shapes they see in the clouds above

"i see it too," everyone else agrees

except for me, i can't see anything

every time i open my eyes the blue sky above me blurs together

so i shut my eyes and listen to the others

[ ]

2011-07-25T03:18:00.000-04:00

the silence between
each beat of the locust's wings

Ashtavakra Gita

2011-03-02T23:40:00.000-05:00

Ashtavakra Gita

18.42
Some believe in existence;
others believe nothing exists.
Rare is the one who believes nothing
and is never confused.

The Most Alive Moment

2011-02-13T21:02:00.004-05:00

The Most Alive Moment

The most living moment comes when
those who love each other meet each

other's eyes and in what flows
between them then. To see your face

in a crowd of others, or alone on a
frightening street, I weep for that.

Our tears improve the earth. The
time you scolded me, your gratitude,

your laughing, always your qualities
increase the soul. Seeing you is a

wine that does not muddle or numb.
We sit inside the cypress shadow

where amazement and clear thought
twine their slow growth into us.

-Rumi

another poem

2011-02-02T19:08:00.000-05:00

poem-oct 2010

the milky way blooms
stars are born and die
my universe unravels
within his eyes
unlimited possibilities
reflecting back at me
cosmic pools
infinity

Gazebo Poem

2010-09-30T17:48:00.001-04:00

Gazebo Poem
26-Sep-2010

a
cricket
calls
across
the water
silence
and autumn is born

Turtles All The Way Down...

2010-08-22T22:02:00.003-04:00

From Wikipedia

Stephen Hawking's 1988 book A Brief History of Time starts...

A well-known scientist once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever", said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!

---
yes
---

From Stephen King's Dark Tower:

"See the TURTLE of enormous girth!
On his shell he holds the earth.
His thought is slow but always kind;
He holds us all within his mind.
On his back all vows are made;
He sees the truth but mayn't aid.
He loves the land and loves the sea,
And even loves a child like me."

---
yessss
Dark Tower ftw

words

2010-08-04T23:38:00.002-04:00

i know it isnt exactly may 30th, but thats when i wrote this. been sitting on it awhile, thought about trying to rewrite it. polish it up. but then i realized, why?
so here are some words for you...

30-May-2010

in this moment
i am a ripple out to sea
a sea of blissful awareness

i turn inward on this awareness
each moment is sacred here
each moment separate

and in this moment
i am thankful for the nothingness between each moment,
because it is here I appreciate the beauty of this awareness

in this moment
i am this person
this girl
lost out at sea
alas, where are the winds to fill my sails
to guide my drifting boat

and in this moment
these is no bliss
only emptiness
perhaps i am simply caught between moments
but i let it go

for on this pathless path
i have found
there is beauty in the death of awareness
i embrace this emptiness

i breathe
and rejoice, as I witness the birth of a new moment
for each is a universe onto itself
and it is beautiful
love unbound

The Flashbulb

2010-08-04T00:59:00.002-04:00

I've been really into The Flashbulb movie lately. This is off of "Sound Track to A Vacant Life" the songs are "Prelude" and "Kirlian Voyager"

Lyrics to Kirlian Voyager:
Down through the centuries the notion that life is rounded in a dream
has been a pervasive theme of philosophers and poets.
So doesn't it make sense that death, too, would be wrapped in dream?
That after death, your conscious life would continue,
in what might be called a dream body?
It would be the same dream body you experience in your everyday dream life,
except that in the post-mortal state - you could never again wake up.
Never again return to your physical body.

I just like that. I love all the Flashbulb stuff. Check it out.

Red-spotted Purple (Limenitis arthemis)

2010-07-25T02:39:00.002-04:00

Red-spotted Purple or White Admiral (Limenitis arthemis)
Photographed in North Royalton, OH by me

Gospel of Thomas

2010-06-26T01:09:00.001-04:00

Coptic Gospel of Thomas

3)
the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you.
When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father.

13)
Jesus said, "I am not your master. Because you have drunk,
you have become intoxicated by the bubbling spring which I have
measured out."

42)
Jesus said, "Become passers-by."

51)
He said to them, "What you look forward to has already come,
but you do not recognize it."

77)
Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find Me there."

tao tao tao tao tao tao

2010-06-26T00:58:00.000-04:00

1

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

silence: a poem

2010-05-14T12:43:00.000-04:00

14-May-2010

the silence between
each beat of the locust's wings

Dreamscape

2010-05-07T00:00:00.001-04:00

Dreamscape
(photoshopped) by Me

Maya: A Poem

2010-04-12T01:38:00.003-04:00

Maya

The girl,

Like a lotus,

Sits beneath the Joshua tree.

She is Maya, goddess of illusion.

Transfixed by the object of her meditation

She pays the world no heed

The rose in her palm

Conceals unlimited possibilities.

Each atom is infinite

Infinity.

She holds time in her hand;

Every life is hers to command.

Life...

2010-02-17T16:23:00.000-05:00

"Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always." -Rainer Maria Rilke

"I can feel guilty about the past, apprehensive about the future, but only in the present can I act. The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness." -Abraham Maslow

"You have everything you need for complete and total happiness right now." -Wayne Dyer

"God exists in eternity. The only point where eternity meets time is in the present. The present is the only time there is." -Marianne Williamson

"Wherever my travels may lead, paradise is where I am." -Voltaire

Robert M. Pirsig

2010-02-17T16:21:00.001-05:00

"The only Zen you find on tops of mountains is the Zen you bring there."

-Robert M. Pirsig (author of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance")

Mexico: A Poem

2010-01-21T21:06:00.001-05:00

Mexico
by me

I want to taste the ocean
on your lips and whisper
quiero hacer el amor a tú
now let my body translate that for you

I could be your desperado
a thief in the night, stealing
the breath from your lungs
exploring your chest with my tongue

Rocking back and forth
my pelvis grinds against your hips
faster now, your thrusts increase
my hands gripping sheets, I join your release

I hold you between moist thighs, rest a cheek
across your beating breast and must confess
necesito perder mí mismo en tú
now let my body translate that for you

Lalla

2010-01-12T01:39:00.000-05:00

Selected Writings of Lalla

Playfully, you hid from me.
All day I looked.

Then I discovered
I was you,

and the celebration
of That began.

---

When my mind was cleansed of impurities, like a mirror of its dust and dirt,
I recognized the Self in me:
When I saw Him dwelling in me,
I realized that He was the Everything and I was nothing.

---

I didn't trust it for a moment,
but I drank it anyway,
the wine of my own poetry.

It gave me the daring to take hold
of the darkness and tear it down
and cut it into little pieces.

Fish Tank: A poem

2009-12-08T20:42:00.001-05:00

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

2009-12-02T23:31:00.001-05:00

18.51

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

Buddha says...

2009-12-02T23:29:00.000-05:00

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

–Buddha

J. Kitchens

2009-12-02T23:27:00.000-05:00

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)

2009-12-02T23:24:00.001-05:00

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

2009-12-02T23:21:00.001-05:00

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

2009-12-02T23:18:00.001-05:00

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

-Walt Whitman

Lightbulb

2009-12-01T23:56:00.000-05:00

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

2009-12-01T23:49:00.001-05:00

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

2009-11-11T14:04:00.006-05:00

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

2009-10-23T19:54:00.000-04:00

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

2009-10-14T03:50:00.005-04:00

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

2009-10-06T21:22:00.001-04:00

Ashtavakra Gita

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

Lucidity: A Poem

2009-10-01T19:51:00.004-04:00

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

2009-09-25T21:38:00.005-04:00

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

2009-09-16T00:05:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-23T23:16:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-23T23:09:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-23T22:56:00.007-04:00

We are so small

so insignificant

we are nothing compared to our universe

Little Moments of Zen

2008-12-10T15:47:00.005-05:00

Do you ever get those moments of zen....nirvana....whatever you want to call it...do you ever just have the sudden realization of truth. The world seems to slow down, and you are in the moment....

I don't know if I like it or if it scares the shit out of me. It's a confusing feeling really.

It's hard to explain...these moments of zen..... It seems to make so much sense at the moment, and then it begins to fade away.

Their is one moment of zen that has stuck with me throughout the years....

I think it was the summer after my freshmen year of high school....

I was away for summer break visiting my dad-I lived the rest of the year a thousand miles away with my mom. I was sitting at "the drop zone" a place where my dad went skydiving. I was bored, its not much fun at a DZ unless you're the one jumping out of the planes. So I was sitting in a chair in the sun reading Moby Dick. And then...a butterfly....landed next to me.... Curious, I put my hand down gently next to the butterfly, and it walked into my hand. I picked it up and rested my hand in my lap. The butterfly sat in my hand...and then about five minutes later it took off into the sky. It fluttered slowly, and I followed it. For several minutes I meandered around a grove of apple trees, following the butterfly....And in that moment of zen...I wasn't sure if I was the butterfly or the girl. I realized in that instant, that somehow we were one and the same. I was that, and it was me.
The butterfly flew away, and I returned to my book.
On a side note: I spent the rest of the summer seeing butterflies everywhere I went, and even began to count them after a while. No joke, for several weeks straight I counted between 30-80 butterflies every single day. And then one day...it just stopped.

I am beginning to think that insanity and enlightenment are very closely linked.

My moment of zen today....
Dog=God
God=Me
Me=Dog
Playing with my dog, I had a similar expierence like the one I had with the butterfly. I felt as if my dog was an extention of me, a piece of my being.

Namaste!

2008-12-06T12:56:00.004-05:00

Namaste and welcome to my blog!

I am Watcher...a seeker on this pathless path of life.

I am hoping to use this blog to share some of my writings. I also plan on posting about many other things, including spirituality, life, and many other things from the world around me.

I guess we'll just see where this goes...

Namaste
Watcher