There is no authority but yourself.
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Man is his own star; and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man,
Commands all light, all influence, all fate;
Nothing to him falls early or too late.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.
Cast the bantling on the rocks,
Suckle him with the she-wolf’s teat;
Wintered with the hawk and fox,
Power and speed be hands and feet.
From: Self-Reliance – The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (@ www.rwe.org)
The Final journals of William S. Burroughs and Burroughs Live: The Collected Interview of Wiliam S. Burroughs, 1960-1997
William Seward Burroughs II (February 5, 1914
In Tibetan Buddhism Samsara is uncontrollably recurring rebirth, filled with suffering and problems.
And that does not sound like a lot of fun.
Oh, dear, where can the matter be When it’s converted to energy? There is a slight loss of parity. Johnny’s so long at the fair.
Some later representatives of one Yogacara subschool (Prajnakaragupta, Ratnakirti) were proponents of extreme illusionism and solipsism (as well as of solipsism of this moment). The best example of such extreme ideas was the treatise of Ratnakirti (XI century)
“Refutation of the existence of other minds” (Santanantara dusana).
by Henry Rollins. Now this is a true hardcore Zen / Tao / Dharma whatever book. I recommend every seeker on the path to get this book and read it ! Then do a re interpretation of your boring fucked up life and get on clear terms with yourself and stop acting yourself but become you. Every single Paragraf is a kick in the guts, a smack on the face and a spiritual vision.
It is sit down , shut up and read time !
People spend to much time trying to make themselves happy. They never know what its like to feel the sheer, silent weight of existence. They’re too busy running from something that they havent even dealt with. How can they be the master of their own lives without this knowledge
(page 29)
Some info on the side:
Solipsism is first recorded with the Greek presocratic sophist Gorgias (c. 483–375 BC) who is quoted by the Roman sceptic Sextus Empiricus as having stated:
Nothing exists
Even if something exists, nothing can be known about it, and
Even if something could be known about it, knowledge about it can’t be communicated to others
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism
Amazon: Henry Rollins: Solipsist
I got a new Tattoo yesterday. The design made by Aswin, was put into skin by Moe, who is working at the Jungbluth tattoo studio, here in HH. And it looks great !! There is more in the pipeline, but I will wait to see how this one looks in 2 weeks.
When the designs are chosen with care, tattoos have a power and magic all their own. They decorate the body but they also enhance the soul. ~Michelle Delio
by Henry Rollins. Acknowledgments Introduction High Adventure in the Great Outdoors Pissing in the Gene Pool Art to Choke Hearts Bang! One from None Black Coffee Blues See a Grown Man Cry Now Watch Him Die Get in the Van Eye Scream Do I Come Here Often? Solipsist Three Short Stories Photo Credits…
Yes at Amazon: The Portable Henry Rollins
Experiences of a Zen Student Out on His Ear by Janwillem Van De Wetering.
Synopsis
On one level a collection of unorthodox solutions to classic Zen Buddhist koans or riddles, the eagerly-awaited final volume of van de Wetering’s “Zen” trilogy is just as much an installment of the author’s witty and engaging autobiography. van de Wetering’s comments on the questions philosophy raises are mirrored in his encounters with a wildly varied group of characters beautifully “collaged” as the author says, “from bits and pieces of fellow students and seekers who kindly came my way.” He has discovered the ideal way to produce a work on Zen – and life – that is insightful, humorous and very human.
At Amazon: Afterzen
What is the Way? asked Chao-Chou Nan-Ch’uan. Nan-Ch’uan answered, “Ordinary mind is the Way.”
(by Steve Hagen)
Synopsis
The book “Buddhism Plain and Simple” (by Steve Hagen) shares the fundamental teachings of the Buddha, explains the twelvefold path, and includes Zen stories.
At Amazon: Buddhism Plain and Simple
At that moment Aos realized he was not alone; and a voice asked:
“Hast thou no fear?”
Laughing aloud, Aaos answered:
“Hidden from thy small susceptibilities, monstrous enormities are commited! On the day my wind bloweth a little the cow-dust away-thou O fool, shalt vomit hot blood at thine own prostitution and incest. When thou knowest not, the lust wills non-rationally, the belief bindeth with modest Ideas; the body is subject and suffers. What man can prevent his belief from incarnating? Who is free of filth and disease? All men are servile to the great unconsciousness of thier purpose in desire. The I thinks, the Self doth. There is no salvation from desire, neither day nor night does it cease its lengthy procreation of cause and effect: penetrating all things inexplicably. Endless are its elements and nothing whatsoever escapes its embrace-but its own Self-love. . . . Should I fear my I?”
Coming back to Burned Norton, the whole Poem reminds me about the mystic state of Neither-Neither as the manifestation of non- manifestation. Neither-Neither, is a concept from the great Artist and Master Austin Osman Spare.
From The Focus Of Life by Austin Osman Spare:
Reality exists but not in consciousness of such: this phenomenal ‘I’ is noumenal and neither-neither. Now thus is concentration explained: “The will, the desire, the belief; lived as inseparable, become realization.” Truth concerns exactitude of belief, not reality.
He who has no law is free. In all things there is no necessity.
“Behold thou hoary, white headed, thou silent watcher of night and day: thou death-clutch on the smallnesses of Time! This neither-neither I, shall transvalue ennui, fear, and all diseases to my wish. Dead is my misery in suffering! How could it exist in my Zodiac, unwilled? I, who transcend ecstasy by ecstasy meditating Need not be in Self-love! Verily, this constant ecstasy I indraw from Self-creation. By castrating ‘of,’ my belief is balanced: my arbitrary automatism serving its diverse self-pleasure.”
Then Aos meditated and murmured: “All things exist by me: all men exist in me, yet who doth not turn away from his own superabundance while realizing? All desire is for unity: thus my vision seeth through mine ears. Let my unity be realized sufficiently, thus shall my sexuality be convenient unto itself and escape the conceivable . . . Where is lust when the tests wither? Verily these senses have a further pupose beyond their own: thus shall thou steal the fire from Heaven. All things return to their earliest functions.”
While I was searching on the Internet for definitions of the word “time” I stumbled upon Four Quartets from T. S. Eliot. It ist one of the most beautiful poems that I know.
And whenever I read it, the words directly touch my heart or something deep inside me. The first time that I have read the words (It must have been 15 years ago):
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point..
I almost hat an feeling of enlightenment or similar religious experience. I used to meditate a lot at that time, the words “Neither here nor there” “I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where. And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.” were my Koans, Mantra’s. And now that I am reading a lot about Zen and Tao at the moment, these word do get an new meaning to me. As if they are new to my mind.
Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Burnt Norton is a deep meditation on the meaning of time and its relationship with human beings and the Christian meaning of Redemption. (The restoration of man from the bondage of sin to the liberty of the children of God through the satisfactions and merits of Christ. blah blah blah)
At Amazon: T. S. Eliot
Non-Volitional Living – Wei Wu Wei
What am I ? As far as I can understand I am the absence of my presence and the absence of the presence of my absence.
Little is known of the mysterious Wei Wu Wei, and yet his contribution to the body of modern mystical literature is profound. Using examples from the writings of the great sages of Taoism, Zen and Advaita, in a most captivating and erudite original style, a sense of the noumenal presence, which is what everything is before thought, is conveyed to the reader with irreducible clarity and precision.
While much of what is written around the subject of enlightenment and the nature of reality as presented in the esoteric traditions of the East is couched in narrative or dialogue form, Wei Wu Wei goes straight for the jugular, espousing ancient wisdom in a penetrating philosophical language, including nothing superfluous and leaving nothing out. Quoting Huang Po
The nature of the Absolute is neither perceptible nor imperceptible; and with phenomena it is just the same. But to one who has discovered his real nature, how can there be anywhere or anything separate from it?…
…Therefore it is said: ‘The perception of a phenomenon IS the perception of the Universal Nature, since phenomena and Mind are one and the same.
“Nothing is the great mystery. It cannot be described. Words can try to touch it. Zen may be such a word and Tao, Christ, Allah, Buddha, and others. There is a word called ‘God.”
Janwillem van de Wetering in A Glimpse of Nothingness
Janwillem Van de Wetering writes in his great book “The Empty Mirror” about his experiences in a Japanese Zen Monastery. He does this in a verry nice, funny self reflecting way. I enjoyed this book so much that I will start reading the sequel (?) book about his Zen experience, A Glimpse of Nothingness, today. I found The Empty Mirror verry inspiring and you get to know much about Zen-Buddhism and a glance at the daily life in a Zen monastery. Funny to read that serene Zen-masters also like to watch baseball on TV, drink and smoke and laugh about stupid jokes like everybody else.
As a Dutch I am verry familiar with his writings, the famous Grijpstra & de Gier Mystery’s, which I always really liked. Probally I will read those again sooner or later.
At Amazon: The Empty Mirror: , A Glimpse of Nothingness
This was posted on a mailing list. Some people have way to much
time on there hands:
Bedbugs. They’re now in the best hotels in North America and Asian.
And they are really terribly horribly hard to get rid of – especially
if you bring them home. A tenant down the hall from me did that on one
of his trips and it resulted in me having to toss out my entire bed and
guest bed, doing more than 40 loads of laundry, sticking a *lot* of my
stuff in clear plastic bags for months on end (including daily-use
clothes, towels, unused pillows, etc.) and it was *months* of agonizing
sleepless nights because I would get, literally, eaten at night by the
things. And this wasn’t even considered an ‘infestation’ because *I*
caught on to what the bites were long before the other signs (marks on
bedsheets and along mattress seams).
Oh, my household insurance didn’t cover the costs (opver $1,000),
either. The only blessing is that my landlord was quick and the
exterminators must have done really well in ‘calm clients down’
class… .
So now when I travel, I make sure everything gets zipped up in those
zip-loc bags, the luggage is *never* around the bed or put *on* the bed
(since that’s always the epicentre of bedbugville), I only take out
when I need when I need it and everything stays packed in those
zip-locs… including knapsacks, camera bags, etc. before things get
dark at night or if there’s not a lot of light in the room during the
day. Bedbugs move around at night mostly and darned if I’m going to be
giving them a lift when they crawl into seams and the interiors of
available bags.
If I have even the remotest thought that I’ve been bitten, I notify the
hotel staff and check out and TAKE PRECAUTIONS before checking into a
new hotel (I won’t bore you with those).
Zip-locs! They come in a variety of sizes (including some big enough
for mid-sized backpacks) and they’re sanity-savers.
Keeping Your Cool in the Chaos. Another book with an inspiring title. It took me 3 chapters to recognize that the books sucks, well I did read the whole book just to see if it would start to suck more. Fuck, why are all those Americans so paranoid ? well most off them seem to me pretty Angst driven in their daily life. Why Why would somebody who writes a book about Dharma (compassion), wants to talk so much about violence, terror and the like ? Is Mister Angst trying to cool him self down ? You create your own environment, roughly speaking in a Buddhist mindset. Basically this book is as with Mister Dharma Punx book an ego trip. “Look how enlighten and Nirvanaminded I am. I deal with my little world in a Buddhist Way”. Fuck, go and tell that to the people in the Middle east, or preach on a market in Baghdad for 15 minutes then talk about “Keeping Your Cool in the Chaos”. What Chaos is mister Angst talking about then ? Stress at the Mac Donalds counter ?.
The Dharma goes one step further and suggests that the ultimate recognition is to realize there is no “I” at all, that “I” is a construct of the mind.
What is the answer when we ask ourselves the age-old question “Who am I?” Are we our education? Our beliefs? Our jobs? Our families? Our thoughts? Society would say yes. But is it true? This is one of the main inquiries of this book.
The Dharma says we are not any of these things. We are not the small self, the little “me, me, me” of conditioned personality imprisoned by our attachment to and identification with people, experiences, and material possessions.
If we are not the small self with its constant striving, filled with desires and fears, thinking constantly about acquiring and then protecting what we have acquired, what is the truth of who we are?
We will get to that. But first we must take a long, deep look at who we have been trained to be.
Well Mister Angst has some training and work todo then.
At Amazon: City Dharma: Keeping Your Cool in the Chaos
Several weeks ago I digged into Dharma-Punk, the book from Noah Levine . And what sounds like and is a great idea for a book and also for an educated mindtrip appears an ego ridden book.
Mister Levine should load the script in a texteditor and do a word count for the word “I” or “My”. Or do a “cat /home/noah/documents/mybook | grep “I” | wc -l ” when he is using some kind of unix.
(Excerpt from an interview with Noah Levine) “Over the years I’ve come to see the intention or foundation of both punk rock and Buddhism as so similar, as being this energy of dissatisfaction. The Buddha was dissatisfied with the ordinary suffering of life and wanted to find freedom from that suffering. I think that the punk movement is founded on that same dissatisfaction—that all of this oppression and inequality and political corruption sucks!
So the first part of my life was focused on rebelling outwardly. As I’ve gotten involved in spiritual principles it feels very much like this inner rebellion—that outward dissatisfaction is a core dissatisfaction that’s in me—is turning that energy inward, to purifying the greed and hatred and delusion within myself, and doing what I can to alleviate it in the world and help others…”.
Buddhism is more then calling the yourself an “spiritual revolutionary,” Sure he has “wisdom” and “compassion” tattooed on his hands and images of Buddha and Krishna on his arms, but is that what counts ?
They sell the book at Amazon: Noah Levine – Dharma-Punk