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#1435 - Monday, May 19, 2003 - Editor: Jerry
Great
Temple, graphic by Rod Garrett, design by Larry Harvey and Rod
Garrett
At this year’s Burning Man, we will
erect a temple at the geographic center of our city. We will
consider it to mark an axis mundi — that type of
cosmic center that was anciently believed to be the origin of all
existence. Full article: http://www.burningman.com/themecamps_installations/bm03_theme.html
See related article below.
Melody of the Eight Types of Nonduality
By Gyalwa Götsangpa
http://hjem.get2net.dk/civet-cat/poetry-stories/melody-of-nonduality.htm
Namo Guru!
The precious Lord embodies enlightenment’s five dimensions.
I prostrate to and praise this Precious One
Who dispels the darkness of wanderers’ suffering
With nondual, great, everlasting bliss.Wonderful visions of yidam deities and
Fearsome apparitions of obstructing demons are
Not separable within the pure expanse—
So! How joyful! How happy! Sudden Victory!Obtaining high rebirth or liberation and
Falling into the three unhappy destinations are
Not separable within the pure expanse—
So! How joyful! How happy! Sudden Victory!The mind busy with perceived and perceiver and
The peaceful state of nonconceptuality are
Not separable within the pure expanse—
So! How joyful! How happy! Sudden Victory!Complete happiness and comfort and
Overwhelming pain and suffering are
Not separable within the pure expanse—
So! How joyful! How happy! Sudden Victory!Being well-respected and worshipfully served and
Being derisively laughed at and beaten are
Not separable within the pure expanse—
So! How joyful! How happy! Sudden Victory!Wandering alone in mountain retreats and
Traveling the countries of the world are
Not separable within the pure expanse—
So! How joyful! How happy! Sudden Victory!Having the finest food and drink and
Living in hunger without nourishment are
Not separable within the pure expanse—
So! How joyful! How happy! Sudden Victory!Not crashing the ground with your skull and
Taking birth again and again are
Not separable within the pure expanse—
So! How joyful! How happy! Sudden Victory!This is the melody of the eight types of nonduality;
I have but a mere understanding of what true union is;
Not falling into confusion is very important.
Under the guidance of Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamptso Rinpoche, translated by Tony Duff in January 1996, and edited by Ari Goldfield, June 18, 1997.
Raphael Cushnir
Two Questions That Could Change Your Life
What is
happening right now?
Can I be with it?
http://www.livingthequestions.org/o_1.html
"For most of us, the first time we shift from resistance to expansion just by accepting what's already happening, there's a similar 'aha.' Once that occurs, and we're motivated to continue with self-inquiry, we see that we're in some degree of resistance almost all the time."
Warriors
prepare themselves to be aware, and full awareness comes to
them only when there is no more self-importance left in them.
Only
when they are nothing do they become everything.
The Fire From Within
(from
The Other Syntax)
On the
higher levels of spirituality,
heaven and earth are one and the same.
For the truly righteous man,
a stone is as valuable as a sacred book.
There is no distinction between the fruit
and the blessing one makes over it.
Isaac Bashevis
(contribute by Lorraine to Talking Stick Wisdom)
Curtain
May Fall on Desert Arts Festival
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4603-2003May17.html
By Rene
Sanchez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 18, 2003; Page A02
Revelers who come by the thousands every summer to Nevada's Black Rock Desert for the Burning Man Festival call it a celebration like none other, a surreal spectacle of counterculture art and play that features everything from spiritual drum-banging to dancing naked around fires.
But their wild party may be over.
A few days ago, Washoe County, which hosts the event, refused to allow Burning Man organizers to create a permanent staging facility for it.
For several years, the weeklong festival has been held on a desolate desert plain about 100 miles north of Reno. It drew 30,000 people last summer, and has become so big that organizers say they need a place to store supplies and vehicles, house dozens of volunteers and build their large and unusual props.
They bought 200 acres of land in the country two years ago just for that purpose. But some residents fear the proposed site would be a sprawling junkyard that saps limited water supplies and threatens public safety.
County leaders who blocked plans for the staging area say they are not trying to shut down the festival. "We support it," said Mike Wolterbeek, a county spokesman. "They'll just have to find another way to have it."
But festival organizers say finding another staging site may be impossible. They are contemplating filing a lawsuit to keep it.
The Burning Man Festival blossomed in San Francisco. In its early days, organizers there lugged all they needed to the Nevada desert. But Larry Harvey, a festival director, told the Reno Gazette-Journal that's no longer an option. "We're done being Californians who trucked the entire city over the Sierra," he said.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
There are bees in every hive with inherent imperfections: they cannot navigate from the directions given by others. They fly off everywhere. They are always getting lost. They never gather much pollen. Yet, by an incongruous twist of fate, these bees can still dance directions to others. And so, they occasionally return from their misguided wanderings with delirious gospel of what they have found. Good god, what they have found! It is the lost bee who finds new flowers.
from The Dream of Being, Jack Haas http://www.iconoclastpress.com
A New Slice on Physics
By K.C.
Cole
Times Staff Writer
May 17, 2003
Plato considered it first.
What if everything we hold dear is but a thin slice of some
larger, unreachable reality, like a flickering shadow cast on the
craggy wall of a cave? What if the moon and stars, your home,
your thoughts, your cat, are but projections on this wall —
mere suggestions of unfathomable realms beyond?
http://www.latimes.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=la-sci-branes17may17002430§ion=/printstory (Contributed by
Mary Bianco to NDS News)
Seraphim
Live Journal
http://www.livejournal.com/users/seraphimsigrist/99007.html#cutid1
I would
like to offer two proposals for the Matrix which could
have saved it from the dour "boys philosophy" it got
mired in.
One will be a fine excerpt from C S Lewis and the other David
Bohm the speculative physicist. And invite your thought and
proposal.
~ ~ ~
1) From THE GREAT DIVORCE: C S LEWIS
"I saw
a great assembly of gigantic forms all motionless, all
in deepest silence,standing forever around a little silver
table and looking upon it and on the table were little silver
figures like chessmen who went to and fro doing this and that.
And I knew that each chessman was the 'idolum' or puppet
representative of some one of the great presences that stood
by. And the acts and motions of each chessman were a moving
portrait, a mimicry or pantomine, which delineated the inmost
nature of its gigantic master. And these chessmen are men and
women as they appear to themselves and to one another in the
world. And the silver table is Time. And those who stand and
watch are the immortal souls of those same men and women..Then
vertigo and terror seized me..."
(2) This
from
http://www.bizcharts.com/stoa_del_sol/plenum/plenum_3.html
"Referring
to quantum theory, Bohm's basic assumption is that
"elementary particles are actually systems of extremely
complicated internal structure, acting essentially as
amplifiers of *information* contained in a quantum wave." As
a
conseqence, he has evolved a new and controversial theory of
the universe--a new model of reality that Bohm calls the
"Implicate Order."
The theory
of the Implicate Order contains an ultraholistic
cosmic view; it connects everything with everything else. In
principle, any individual element could reveal "detailed
information about every other element in the universe." The
central underlying theme of Bohm's theory is the "unbroken
wholeness of the totality of existence as an undivided flowing
movement without borders."
During the
early 1980s Bohm developed his theory of the
Implicate Order in order to explain the bizarre behavior of
subatomic particles--behavior that quantum phyicists have not
been able to explain. Basically, two subatomic particles that
have once interacted can instantaneously "respond to each
other's motions thousands of years later when they are
light-years apart." This sort of particle interconnectedness
requires superluminal signaling, which is faster than the
speed of light. This odd phenomenon is called the EPR effect,
named after the Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen thought
experiment.
Bohm
believes that the bizarre behavior of the subatomic
particles might be caused by unobserved subquantum forces and
particles. Indeed, the apparent weirdness might be produced by
hidden means that pose no conflict with ordinary ideas of
causality and reality.
Bohm
believes that this "hiddeness" may be reflective of a
deeper dimension of reality. He maintains that space and time
might actually be derived from an even deeper level of
objective reality. This reality he calls the Implicate Order.
Within the Implicate Order everything is connected; and, in
theory, any individual element could reveal information about
every other element in the universe.
Borrowing
ideas from holographic photography, the *hologram*
is Bohm's favorite metaphor for conveying the structure of the
Implicate Order. Holography relies upon wave interference. If
two wavelengths of light are of differing frequencies, they
will interfere with each other and create a pattern.
"Because
a hologram is recording detail down to the wavelength of light
itself, it is also a dense *information* storage." Bohm
notes
that the hologram clearly reveals how a "total content--in
principle extending over the whole of space and time--is
enfolded in the movement of waves (electromagnetic and other
kinds) in any given region." The hologram illustrates how
"information about the entire holographed scene is enfolded
into every part of the film." It resembles the Implicate
Order
in the sense that every point on the film is "completely
determined by the overall configuration of the interference
patterns." Even a tiny chunk of the holographic film will
reveal the unfolded form of an entire three-dimensional
object. Proceeding from his holographic analogy, Bohm
proposes a new
order--the Implicate Order where "everything is enfolded
into
everything." This is in contrast to the explicate order
where
things are unfolded..."
(3) I think
these are the sorts of things the Matrix was
reaching for or would have been if it were a deeper felt and
realized conception...
The problem
perhaps starts with this: that the Matrix sees our
everyday awareness as of a higher level than our "real"
situation, whereas it is surely the more probable that our
everyday reality is the lower and the Reality of the world the
higher...
Or in
Lewis' Perelandra, the madman Winston thinks one must
remain in this life which he sees as the "rind" on a
world of
blackness into which in dieing one sinks, this delusion is
more or less what the Matrix allows itself. But what is your
feeling? any responses to Lewis or Bohm...or proposals of your
own on this sort of thing? Of course I may be underrating the
thought behind the films and have put it in an opinionated way
partly to invite discussion if anyone out there is a Matrix
geek who can set us right!
Song
of Enlightenment
attributed to Ch'an Master Yongjia Xuanjue (7th cent.)
(Excerpts)
When the Dharma body awakens completely,
There is nothing at all.
The source of our self-nature
Is the Buddha of innocent truth.
Mental and physical reactions come and go
Like clouds in the empty sky;
Greed, hatred, and ignorance appear and disappear
Like bubbles on the surface of the sea.
When we realize actuality,
There is no distinction between mind and thing
And the path to hell instantly vanishes.
Once we awaken to the Tathagata-Zen,
The six noble deeds and the ten thousand good actions
Are already complete within us.
In our dream we see the six levels of illusion clearly;
After we awaken the whole universe is empty.
No bad fortune, no good fortune, no loss, no gain;
Never seek such things in eternal serenity.
For years the dusty mirror has gone uncleaned,
Now let us polish it completely, once and for all.
From Petros-Truth http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Petros-Truth
