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ALEKS

reading about one of my favorite writers, was reading that
Thomas Merton, one year prior to his death, became
fascinated with concrete or visual poetry. he wrote to a
friend, fellow word lover: "thanks for the Concrete Poets.
Magnificent. Great to have and soak in. I see what you mean
by the square effort. True does not connect at all.
..Wow!"

the sound of words, and the visual effect on the page is to
me a big part of the poetry experience of these poets.

here's one of Merton's early efforts:

WHISKE
WHI SK
WHISSS
KE E Y
SHKEE Y
WHISKW
HISKWY
WHISKY

wisky EY
EYE hisky
WHISK W
aaaashky
wh ISkey
whi SK y
YK ehwik

WHISKI
hseykW
HIsk ey
WISHKI

--Thomas Merton
1968

in his pre-monastic days, Merton was already writing in
words for sounds sake.
this is from "My argument with the gestapo:"

Yherezt nopitty ont dzhe steirs. ..
Dzhere eitz nobbudy onz dhe stoirs. ..
Dzhere idz nyubbodi omn dlhe stiarts. . .
Tzere its noobodo uan we stairs. ..
Dear has nopretty in the stars. ..
Dzhere ess know's doddy on these stairs...
--thomas merton
1941



l ove
lo e
eo l
over
&&&&
b e s s
bl s s
i ngs

a s
!

____________________________________________________________________

Since everything is but an apparition,
perfect in being what it is,
having nothing to do with good or bad,
acceptance or rejection,
one may well burst out in laughter.

Longchenpa (offered by Xan)

----------------------

And this is reason enough to think seriousness a
dis_ease, which assessment itself requires some seriousness
if it is to be taken seriously.

--peon

___________________________________________________________________


"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion."


Tenzin Gyatso - 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet (contributed by
Lynne)
___________________________________________________________________

TIM

Interesting... I utilized an online I-Ching predictor,
thinking of nothing at all but OM (empty mind), and got the
following:

Fellowship: Tong Ren (or 'Union of men') appears here as we
find it in the remote districts of the country, indicating
progress and success. It will be advantageous to cross the
great stream. It will be advantageous to maintain the firm
correctness of the superior man.

The upper trigram (three lines) represents heaven, which is
above; the lower represents fire, whose tendency is to mount
upwards. All these things are in harmony with the idea of
union. But the union must be free from all selfish motives,
and this is indicated by its being in the remote districts
of the country, where people are unsophisticated, and free
from the depraving effects endemic in large societies. A
union from such motives will cope with the greatest
difficulties; and yet a word of caution is added.

The divided lines (yin) and the undivided lines (yang) can
change from one to another. Since 2 lines are changing,
additional judgments are indicated:

The changing bottom line:
Shows the representative of the union of men just issuing
from his gate.
There will be no error.

The changing third line (from the bottom):
Shows its subject with his arms hidden in the thick grass,
and at the top of a high mound. But for three years he
makes no demonstration.

'Crossing the great stream,' an expression frequent in the
I-Ching, may mean undertaking hazardous enterprises, or
encountering great difficulties, without any special
reference; but more specifically it is understood to be 'the
great stream', the Yellow river, which the lords of Zhou
must cross in the revolutionary movement against the dynasty
of Shang and its tyrant. The passage of it by King Wu, the
son of Wen in 1122 BC was certainly one of the greatest
deeds in the history of China
_______________________________________________________________________

TIM

What about all the mindful drivel? All words are drivel.
Only in "subjective experience" is truth found.

The free live by no rules.

The strong know they are eternal, and do not need to
"attempt" to survive. Survival is eternal and automatic.

Anyone on a "quest to stay alive" is one of the weak, not of
the strong.
Beware the weak.

______________________________________________________________________

SKYE AND DAN

skye: so you believe it is purely an activity of the
neurons?


Dan: Skye, I admire your ability to ponder rationally while
those around you engage in personal columnies of the most
assaultive and unpredictable kinds. To answer your
question, no, I believe neurons are the results of human
perception and cognition.


dan: There is no "mental substance" upon which it is based.
The substanceless nature of this, the lack of any underlying
foundation, is what turns "me" to "This." Releasing any
dependency on a framework or substance underlying thought,
"I" am no longer based in thought's parameters. Thought is
free to continue to operate according to the needs of a
given perceptual situation.


skye: I can see as confirmed by quantum physics the
possibility of a substanceless foundation but I am
nevertheless humbled by its apparent creative powers
reflecting in me and remain open to the possibility that I
ponder from slow dense vibrational awareness, couched in a
vast benevolent cosmic mental and astral sub standing
awareness. That it may ultimately lack an underlying
foundation does not not diminish my awe of this voidless
void as it bestows on me, the ability to create a universe
as 'idea'.


D: Yes - there is an awe to beholding the creative aspect
of awareness. It creates me and it creates "idea." There
is then an "attraction" to move beyond beholding "creation"
to awareness itself. Resting in awareness itself there is
that which is neither creative nor destructive - pure
awareness beyond concept, beyond the concept "awareness" -
really all that is - no description there, no reaction, no
where to go ---

skye: But I am gathering that you see the mind as an 'idea'
a belief thought has and you don't believe that such an idea
is a substantial basis for operating and making intelligent
creations or fun holograms to play in?


D: Yes. Thought uses its own ideas to try to perpetuate
perception of an underlying reality to itself, a self to its
thinking process. Thought attempts to use perception for
thought's ends, rather than "surrendering" its "self", so
that, along with perception, the One can shine through all.
These words I speak are merely a way to conceptualize the
ending of thought's illusory creation of a self apart from
the simple "is-ness" of reality.


skye: And in realizing the non separation of "is-ness", the
mystery of the vastness of this sub-stanceless "One Mind"
remains, no?


D: Indeed - what remains, remains. It remains after there
are no words, no concepts, no one to label it, experience
it, discuss it. What remains after all that can be taken
away is gone, after all that can arise has subsided, after
all that depends on dichotomous contrast for its "existence"
has faded, including the dichotomies of
existence/nonexistence, unity/chaos, one/many, mind/body,
substance/emptiness. We invent ways to discuss it for the
sake of expression, poetry, communion, and also to dispel
false rumours :-)


Calling "it" "One Mind" (or Void, That, "isness," God, Self,
Being, Emptiness)
is a convention used for discussion. Its reality is "far
beyond the parameters" of unity and mind (or self, god,
emptiness, nothingness, isness). With no edges, no
dichotomies, no beginning and end (of course, saying
anything suggests "parameters" - yet we speak).


skye: So the mind exists no matter what we think. With this
insight that thought has created an illusion of a separate
mind will you really be that much freer to operate
omnipresently within the corporal brain?


d: More likely, you would not feel invested in the concept
of "operating within a coporeal brain".


skye: Perhaps but a small beginning step only will have been
taken and your "aye more vast than any "I am" or "monadic
being" that you conceptualize yourself to be, may be still a
long way off.


D: Please let's be careful here. What hasn't arisen and
can't depart cannot be a "long way off." Placing it
elsewhere is itself the illusion of separation.


skye: most certainly, after all it is the foundation of
nonduality, dan, silly question :-) Its just that you often
expound as though you are 100% aware of being "That" and
have leapt the lot already and I'm far from convinced that's
all. Not that it matters what I'm convinced of, of course
:-)


D: I wouldn't want you to be convinced of a claim I'm not
making, and I have no investment in you believing that I've
leapt the lot, or even half the lot. In the context of our
discussion, I would view the One that is None as, Itself,
the entire Lot. There is then no leap and no one to make a
leap. When we speak here, for me, it is for the joy of
discussing our vision, the wonderment of our ability to use
words that convey energy to and fro, round and round. Maybe
we can lessen the hold of illusion in the process, who
knows?


_____________________________________________________________________

SKYE AND GENE

gene: I am unsure of others, but my own goal is to clear
obstacles to unassuming clarity. For me, this means to
state myself, rather than my 'beliefs'. I am not dogma, I
am me. [snip] It is in the security of myself, that I
propose to write here.


skye: lovely gene, I see various layers of an inviolate
self, one being a kind of personality matrix not really a
conscious individual but one of the infinite viewpoints
operating within the inviolate self.


Gene: Yes. In this letter, I deliberately reveal/project
such; that is what I am doing.
Thank you for acknowledging it. Such personality does
definitely exist, at least as a recurrently evidenced body
of tendencies. I watch it as it behaves. Having it around
is similar to having a pet dog. This agglomeration of
traits is gradually being decommissioned. I see that most
others also have a similar attached cloud of reaction.
That is why I say below, that 'community is the sharing of
the burden of personality'.


It is useful to be able to point out, or to differentiate
between this cloud of reaction and the one who is real.
Personality behaviour can be embarrassing, and it is defense
of it that causes attachment to become even tighter.
Pants-down in public, is a chance to let go of defense of
personality; that is true 'em-bare-ass-ment'. Perhaps
humility comes with humiliation.


gene: I note that myself is not an idea, although the idea
of myself does exist as an idea. I experience myself as an
unseen, unknown (usually! Not always!) quality. If anyone
has an idea of what I am, and they do not approve of that,
they my certainly point that out to me, in their own way.


skye: You can bet your life someone will, our personality
matrixes are going to have disapproving and approving ideas
about each other, agreeing or not agreeing till the cows
come home and so we work together here to create an
atmosphere of respect whilst expressing those different
viewpoints.


Gene: Agreed! Indeed, respect can include the knowledge
that sensitivity to criticism is to be expected, and that
scrutiny is inevitably a two-way street. Vulnerability to
feeling ashamed seems to be a universal quality.


[snip] Contention occurs around ideas in discussion; it also
occurs around evaluation of other's behavior and the
assumptions behind those evaluations.


skye: something you are most adept at gene! and I have a
great respect for it.


Gene: Thanks, Skye. My attempt is to maintain open eyes,
open heart, open mind, open Being. Militating against this
attempted openess is the immediate contraction which results
from my perceptions of being disrespected or invalidated by
others. This contraction is something real.
I am not in denial of it. It is in the moderation of this
contraction, that my work with myself is mainly involved.
Perhaps the most difficult aspect of this work is to
condition myself to overcome the tendency to blame others
for my contractive reaction.


[snip] gene: I have written many of these letters; this is
the first one that I am sending.


skye: but you're kidding aren't you gene! my archives are
full of this kind of letter from your personality matrix??.


Gene: No Skye, I am not kidding! Your archives would be 10X
larger if I had sent every such letter that I have written.
So either count yourself fortunate, or mourn the loss of
that much of my pithy insights!


gene: I do not wish to clog the bandwidth with my personal
whinings, especially if I think that I will be seen as some
vast pontificating stuffed shirt, or worse. (heaven
forbid!)


skye: Oh dearest gene please dont stop or worry how anyone
else sees you, just be yourself and allow others to
pontificate sometimes too ;-)


Gene: Actually, I have few such worries. And I ask... by
what means, can I 'disallow' others pontificating? I myself
indulge in the 'joy of expounding', and I heartily encourage
others to expound.


gene: I ask you... what is going on with you? Do you enjoy
the tensions of unexpressed anxiety and fear?


skye: I think we are expressing our tensions quite well.


Gene: Yes, I agree, tensions are being expressed. What is
the nature of the 'coiled spring', and why does it not
spring into release? What criteria exists, to inhibit that
uncoiling? Is it the fear of appearing the fool, of 'having
a personality', or of revealing 'ego' to such an esteemed
body of highly evolved persons?


gene: Why do you tolerate it? I propose that it is
tolerated, because in their own way, each has a vested
interest in maintaining it. It serves to 'shake out'
loyalties and provokes side-taking; in that regard, it is
also interesting to note that some will placate, and others
will fan flames.


skye: better to express tensions than get cancerous about it
don't you think and somehow I think you know very well what
sort of faulty upbringing makes us behave unlovingly. And
that's why we are all here to grow to see from a function of
conscious (enlightenment) which embraces all that unloving
programming, thereby dissolving the need for it.


Gene: I have no objections to expressions of unloving
behaviour, _as long as the game continues_.
It is this opportunity to share not only our best, but our
worst also, which is the possibility of resolution. That is
why I speak of 'tensions'. Maintenence of tensions is
different than release of such; sometimes, release requires
actual complete honesty, not just offering what is supposed
to be approvable by some imagined 'gods of correctness'.
This has been my point, but I must say again, that the
benefit occurs only if the game is allowed to continue.
Popping off, trading jibes, implying the inferiority of the
other, are just the first steps toward openess. Hiding in
the trenches will not do; standing up and walking into
'no-mans land', risking taking hits, and continuing on,
seems to be what is called for.


I have been doing this (via the 'net, and in person) for a
long time. I have the benefit of having stayed around when
the going gets sticky for me; I have the reward of
continuing to play, even when the game seems really
serious. If I see that the condemnation of one by another
is designed to push one out of the game, is when I feel like
intervening.
If allowed to continue, it is all grist for the mill. I
feel that it is our job to allow the mill to continue to
grind; I throw myself into the path of the stones, again and
again, in an attempt to show that the pain is only of short
duration.


We are blessed here to have as members, some of the most
intelligent and compassionate people on Urth. I would like
to extend invitation to let the process continue.


[snip]

Comment invited.


"Community is the sharing of the burden of personality"


==Gene Poole==


skye: to me it is the celebration of it. I want it all.


Gene: It is all around; drink deeply!


____________________________________________________________________


GENE

I do not use emoticons (smileys) ever; I prefer to make my
writing so unambiguous that it is understood by most every
reader.


PETROS

I do not use emoticons because I like my writing to be
ambiguous.


JAN

In that case comma spelling out punctuation is even more
ambiguous colon right angle bracket

To an emotico_nono more than 3 neighboring occurrences of a
character, exclamation and question marks are emoticons as
well:
Ohhhhhhhhhhhh Darn!!!!! Does nothing go right today!?
Translation one: According to statistics, the probability of
any success today has been reduced to almost zero as the
event that just happened, happened to throw a lasting shadow
over the remainder of the day.
Translation of translation one: My mother in law just called
she'll be here in an hour and I don't remember having a
mother in law...


So perhaps Jerry can appoint an emoticonoethics committee to
ponder over the question, if in an example like "Please
answer the following question:
how much is 1+1?" the question mark is ambiguous or not :)))
____________________________________________________________________

ANDREW

The NDS is a loose cluster of stars in intricate orbits
around each other and around their shared centre of
gravity. Each star has its own colour and character. (See
Petros off to the left, glowing lurid red?) The orbits of
the stars are influenced by gravity of course, but also by a
strong electromagnetic force, some develop like charges and
repel each other, some develop opposite charges and attract
each other. From time to time, two or three of the stars
may go into a tight orbit around each other, then fly off
into new orbits.
The charges change over time. The stars are all of equal
mass, every one is from its own perspective the still centre
around which all the others revolve. From the point of view
of an outside observer, there is no centre around which they
orbit.

_______________________________________________________________________

The Pathway of Nonduality

by Raphael

Chapter 7

The Three States of Being (continued)


Hiranyagarbha is a plane, a vibratory state or an
existential condition even more extensive than the state of
Virat. We do not perceive it with out physical senses
because these are only capable of perceiving the Virat
sphere. When the jiva-entity leaves its gross body -- due
to illness or other reasons -- it moves on to the state of
taijasa which is luminous; luminous because it illumines
itself. Thus, dreams are illumined by our own light.


The taijasa-entity with its vehicle made of more subtle and
vibrating matter, having, like the dense physical vehicle,
instruuments of contact -- senses and faculties --
experiences life inherent in the universal plane of
Hiranyagarbha. During physical embodiment,these senses and
faculties belonging to the subtle body are dormant, although
some are able to develop them; in this case we speak of
extrasensory perception.


The sphere of Hiranyagarbha -- as the Virat one -- has many
'environmental levels' where the jiva-entities with their
luminous bodies find opportunities of manifestation.
Particularly on the subtle level what guides the jiva
towards one or the other dimension is its vibratory state,
its 'qualities', its energetic patrimony that it has
qualified in a certain way.


Thus we speak of kamaloka, manavaloka or of Hiranyaloka.
Kamaloka (loka: place in the sense of state) is the
'environmental level' characterized by the quality of
desire-sentiment in all its expressive range. Manavaloka is
the 'environmental level' characterized by the more
creative, mental, ideal qualities, though still under the
sway of ahamkara, the sense of ego or individualized state.


Hiranyaloka is the 'environmental level' no longer
characterized by individualized qualities but by universal
ones. It is the sphere of archtypes, or 'Ideas' that do not
belong to the ego, whose sphere is manavaloka, but to the
universal Being. The soul (jiva) upon its true plane
'contemplates' not its own ideal reflections, but 'Ideas'.


Where do the highest expressions of Genius come from? The
come from the sphere of Hiranyaloka. One may say that the
Soul has found its 'homeland' at last, its 'place', its
'home'. The kama-desire and the manas-empirical mind are no
longer needed upon the Hiranyaloka level; the Soul sees,
contemplates, and immediately comprehends. Here, to see
means to know (veda in Sanskrit derives from the root vid
which means to see-know).


The kama-desire, being an expression of 'want', of 'lacking'
(not being and not possessing the ego desires), has no cause
to exist as the Soul, although upon its own plane, simply
is.


In dreams everything comes to us. In dreams we are not in
need of anything. We only have to project all we desire
within our particular sphere of existence.


But Hiranyaloka, manavaloka, etc., are not dreams as such.
They are equated to dreams only because they are analagous
to them, and analogy is not identity.


Noetic life is fullness of action; in that it is a
reflection of the atman, it possesses the consciousness of
sat, cit, ananda.


"This is the life of the gods, without sorrow and blessed;
evil is nowhere here, and if things had stopped here there
would not have been any evil, only a first and the second
and third goods." (Plotinus, Enneads: I,8,ii)


______________________________________________________________________

"The life of Don Quixote was a life of Zen; indifferent to
the opinions of his fellows, without a single thought of
self, of self-aggrandisement or self-expression. he Lived
twenty four hours every day, following his instincts (his
ideals) as wholeheartedly, as truly, as naturally, as the
blooming flowers in spring, as the falling of leaves in
autumn."
--Blyth

ZEN IN ENGLISH LITERATURE (1941)


R.H. BLYTH

Selections from Chapter 14: Don Quixote

Petros commented that Don Quixote is not English literature.
Yes, and Blyth actually admits the impudence of that. You
gotta like the guy. So on we go...


...though Don Quixote has taken his place with Hamlet,
Joseph, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver, Mr. Pecksniff, and
Alice, his true character is not yet recognised either in
his own country or that of his adoption. Of the work of
Cervantes more than that of any other, are Goethe's words
true, that a poet has to be taught his own meaning. The
genius is hardly aware of the significance of his
performance, since so much of it is the God that speaks
through him as a mouthpiece. In the case of Don Quixote
this is further complicated by the fact that Cervantes, in
the Second Part of Don Quixote, destroys, unconsciously, his
own creation in the First Part.


Not only Don Quixote but Sancho Panza also, is utterly
different in the two parts. This is to some extent due to
the fact that the Second Part was written (as an
after-thought?) nine years after the first... In Don
Quixote the importance lies entirely in the character of Don
Quixote, the man himself and his ideals; and the change of
character means that the two Parts are two entirely
different books and are about two entirely different people
of the same name.... In Don Quixote we have ... sudden
degeneration, the sudden putrefaction before our eyes of a
personality. The explanation of this apparent
disentigration, this metamorphosis of a butterfly into a
grub is that Cervantes did not himself understand clearly
what he had done in the First Part, what kind of being he
had created. Cervantes' conscious and uncouscious
intentions in writing the First Part were opposed.
Cervantes tells us ad nauseam that the Romances of Chivalry
were the cause of Quixote's madness. He seems to have
approved of the burning of them by the curate and the
barber, not on the ground that they made people go on crazy
adventures, but because they were poor as literature, at
once unrealistic and inartistic.
At the end of Part II, Quixote recovers from his madness and
declares:


"I am now enemy of Amadis of Gaul and all his tribe: all the
profane histories of Knight errantry are hateful to me. I
now realise the danger and peril into which I fell by
reading them. By mercy of God, I learned by my own
experience, abhor them."


On the other hand, as I shall show later in quotations, the
Don Quixote of the First Part is the quintessence of all the
chivalry of the Romances, all the knighthood of the Middle
Ages, together with spiritual and noble qualities derived
from Cervantes himself. His madness is partly his idealism
(of which we sane people have so little) partly an
overstrung imagination at the service of this same idealism.
The Don Quixote of Part II is a kind of travelling lecturer,
whose senility is taken advantage of in the most odious way
by a couple of impudent, sophisticated creatures, the Duke
and Duchess. He analyzes himself and his illusions:


"Doubtless, Senor de Diego de Miranda, you look on me as a
crazy, mad fellow. And it may well seem so, for my conduct
testifies to this alone. Yet, for all that, let me tell you
that I am not so crazy and half-witted as you take me for."


and discourses on the probabilities of the veracity of the
romances of chivalry:


"There is much to be said," replied don Quixote, "both for
and against the truth of the romances of Knight Errantry."

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