Saturday, June 16, 2018

our surround

There is no God.

God is here.

So much depends on what is our surround.

if you pray, know this

prayer is

the calling out

from the one

being

prayed for

what is

being

prayed for

nor is the reader the same at end as beginning of reading this

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man. 
- Heraclitus

Friday, June 15, 2018

mid june

Enfolding time

Presenting prayer

post-humerous

Maybe it’s true

We’re ridiculous —

Who thinks this

Thursday, June 14, 2018

oh

If you ask a zen practitioner where to go to find what is true, here is what is said...

mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja

On a morning talk news show there is concern that the current president is delusional about his personal ability to mold world leaders into his personal will. It’s  all about “attitude.” It’s all about the power of personality.
As you can see, there is writing on his (lower) right hand. It says "Mam Ekam Saranam Vraja", which is part of a famous verse of the Bhagavad Gita: 
      sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja  ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo     mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ || 
      Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you   from all sinful reactions. Do not fear. 
Sri Vaishnavas call this verse the Charama Shloka, and it is one of the Rahasya Traya or three secrets of Sri Vaishnavism, because it explains the path to Moksha known as Saranagati or Prapatti, which involves surrendering to the lotus feet of Vishnu. Since Upilliappan has a part of the Charama Shloka written on his right hand, pointed toward his feet indicating to devotees where to surrender, he is known as the lord of Saranagati.
 https://hinduism.stackexchange.com/questions/6504/why-does-only-uppiliappan-have-mam-ekam-saranam-vraja-written-on-his-hand
If there be gods, there be men who would be as those gods are.

I do not wish to call the realm of the gods into question here (as increasingly difficult to conceive in contemporary intellectual non-theistic scientific evidentiary thinking). Rather, I want to question the behavior and thinking of the motif of superhero deus-ex-machina thought pattern that isolates the ability to right wrong or fix failings by exercising self-extraordinary certainty and self-alone savvy to save the world by dint of miraculous gift.

We worry about the cult of “I alone!”

Nothing has been accomplished from the theater of high spectacle.

We have much about which to be concerned.

If prayer has any place in our spiritual/intellectual ethos, it is a good time to consider praying.

May One be worthy home, an authentic surround of profound surrender, where what is true and good draws us into responsible community!

Wednesday, June 13, 2018

a novel mode of relation

There is poised, some say, something to look forward to.
Of course, it is possible that the forces of regressive masculinity will again literalize the symbolic death of the modern in totalitarianism or nuclear war. And it must be acknowledged that many of us–especially the most vulnerable–are currently suffering in a myriad of ways. However, I think it is more likely, given that we have largely integrated the pain of those collective traumas, that this regressive moment will be relatively brief, and we will soon see a progressive wave of compassion, justice, sustainability, and even kindness in reaction to the Trump-Peterson era. 
I suspect this regressive movement will be viewedby history as the final death rattle of the older mode of relationmaking way for the emergence of a qualitatively novel historical era. As Whitehead writes, “new epochs emerge with comparative suddenness,” and the tragic regression we’re currently enduring may ultimately be understood as the factor that finally propelled us into a novel mode of relation.  
(Grant Maxwell is the author of The Dynamics of Transformation: Tracing an Emerging World View and How Does It Feel?: Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Philosophy of Rock and Roll. He is an editor at Persistent Press and the Archai journal, and he lives in Nashville with his wife and two sons.)(—in, Why Are So Many Young Men Drawn to Jordan Peterson’s Intellectual Misogyny?  Grant Maxwell, in Blog of the APA)
Real relation.

After so much false.

but what's right is each time created new

Think; for yourself.

Between the cheerleading of church hand raising over Jesus and the skeptical nihilism of anti-religionist pop-atheists, where does one stand in the circle of unknowing mystery and spiritual inquiry?

Where is intellectual investigation with regard to matters of self, soul, and sanctification of material manifestation?

Who quotes poetry anymore?

"What's wrong will always be wrong." (R. Hugo)

Tuesday, June 12, 2018

life changes

What does it mean to be born?

It means a death will follow.

What does it mean to die?

It means that life changes.

Monday, June 11, 2018

a Monday in June

Let there

be peace.

As is

Here

Sunday, June 10, 2018

goose, anyone

Late Sunday musing:

Should we worry that Trudeau & Merkel are treacherous while Putin & Kim are our goto guys?

Is it true that DJT has officially become a dangerous and unstable monomath of himself while remaining cold ignorant of world diplomacy?

Anybody out there? What to do? Is our goose cooked?

sordid excellence

Is it possible to return to unconditioned mind?

Reality is unconditioned mind.

Is it possible to return to reality?

In today's world, the one that belongs to Donald Trump and the smiling cohort raising middle fingers to everyone outside their prison of hypnotic ownership, an unreality of false simulacra is sold and bought by an enormous block of unreflective followers.

(Look who's speaking!)

So, we have to ask again and again: what is the real reality?

It is no system of thought.

Is it voiceless appearance of the formless manifesting and materializing before aware attention?

Is that what the real is?

I don't know.

Emily Dickenson writes:

I cannot live with You 
I cannot live with You —
It would be Life —
And Life is over there —
Behind the Shelf

The Sexton keeps the Key to —
Putting up
Our Life — His Porcelain —
Like a Cup —

Discarded of the Housewife —
Quaint — or Broke —
A newer Sevres pleases —
Old Ones crack —

I could not die — with You —
For One must wait
To shut the Other's Gaze down —
You — could not —

And I — Could I stand by
And see You — freeze —
Without my Right of Frost —
Death's privilege?

Nor could I rise — with You —
Because Your Face
Would put out Jesus' —
That New Grace

Glow plain — and foreign
On my homesick Eye —
Except that You than He
Shone closer by —

They'd judge Us — How —
For You — served Heaven — You know,
Or sought to —
I could not —

Because You saturated Sight —
And I had no more Eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise

And were You lost, I would be —
Though My Name
Rang loudest
On the Heavenly fame —

And were You — saved —
And I — condemned to be
Where You were not —
That self — were Hell to Me —

So We must meet apart —
You there — I — here —
With just the Door ajar
That Oceans are — and Prayer —
And that White Sustenance —
Despair —
(Poem by Emily Dickenson)