Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nonduality Highlights each day
How to submit material to the Highlights
#3481 - Tuesday, March 24, 2009 -
Editor: Jerry Katz
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
This issue has two features bearing on popular culture: the movie The Matrix and the culture of Hiphop.
http://mojo1000.com/1000cuts/embrace-the-absolute-and-the-matrix.html
View
The misunderstanding of and identification with the self-centered ego is the source of all wackness. When identified with, one becomes wack in that they separate themselves from reality and attach themselves to a conceptual self that is always changing. How can one exist definitely if one’s existence is always moving? What is real is that the “I” that “I” think “I am” is an illusion. All that I am is manufactured, my style comes from another’s style, my dress comes from another, my accent, vocabulary and mannerisms all are not of my own doing, but “I” think of myself as real, existing independently and definitely. And I seek to reinforce that self. “I” even give myself other names, aliases, illusions on top of illusions to reinforce my feelings of this other self. This “I” likes certain clothes, people, rhyme styles etc.
This “I” also battles others who threaten that sense of self in order to maintain legitimacy. Both are false and only serve to reinforce the false emcee. Even though this may bring one fame and accolades, it is hardly the joy that comes from joining with one’s true nature. Why is this? The false emcee suffers at his/her own hands because there is no end to their quest to satisfy the false emcee self, which does not exist.
The false self is never satisfied, all pleasure soon fades and needs reinforcement because all things with beginnings have no lasting existence; they are subject to laws of birth and death. They depreciate as soon as you appropriate. No matter the brand of clothes, type of liquor consumed, media praise, women defiled, fancy wordplay, beat selection, stage show, or number of fans, none of those will bring the false emcee happiness.
Until the emcee’s egocentric desires are cut through they will suffer even to the point of death in the never-ending search for illusory happiness. True happiness is found in that which does not change, which does not go away, which does not need to be born, which is the nature of the emcee itself.
Real emcees fight the inner battle and only battle against worthy enemies or like minds when trying to establish what Hiphop is and is not. Those that are not worthy enemies had no desire to be emcees in the first place and have no care for what is or is not the essence of Hiphop. Battling with them is useless. Worthy enemies are those who would benefit from their egos cut through in order to wake them up to the nature.
True emcees do not battle up (those at higher stages of development). Those that battle up do not realize their nature, are confused and seek to expand their egos. The true emcee does not rhyme for himself as this only closes himself off more from the masses. The true emcee has no desire to build their ego.
Because the true emcee has no desire to build his/her ego, he attempts, through challenging himself, at conquering self-centered intent and scope, in order to expand his awareness into as many conceptual realms as possible, until the realms become homes, but even these homes must be abandoned and burnt down.
The true emcee knows that Hiphop is not something you do, nor is it something you live, nor is it something, nor is it nothing. It is nor and not nor…if a true emcee does create from the ego, it is done out of exploration of what the ego seems to be, not out of establishment of permanence nor out of attachment. She shares her experiences only as a way to wake others up, not as a way to expand her ego.
The true emcee is a citizen of nowhere and realizes that because Hiphop fundamentally does not exist anywhere or as anything, Hiphop is wherever you are not. You are not. The true emcee is not the name behind the mic. He is the one behind the one on the mic. There he abides in Hiphop and in larger view abides in Hiphop everywhere.
One may ask, “How does this writer know with such confidence about the existence of Hiphop?” It is because I have no knowledge about the existence of Hiphop, nor of existence anywhere, nor of fixed ideas, nor of fixed material existence, nor of death, nor of birth. I have no evidence which verifies permanence at all.
It is only when I sat still that I understood that all of Hiphop’s manifestations arise out of the same vastness that all manifestation did. In that, there is nothing that can be said about Hiphop without reference to what was before Hiphop or before what existed before that. I could trace this line of existence back to the original nature itself and I would find that Hiphop exists as the great cypher, the great code, the great circle out of which all things arise and fall. Hiphop cannot be validated by its form no more than anything else.
Path
Understanding the nature of an emcee does not happen on accident. This discovery must be brought about by diligent practice.
As an exercise, focus your mind on your microphone and leave it there, every time your attention wanders bring it back to the mic. Rest in this way until your mind calms. Then ask yourself, Where does this object come from? What is it made of? Who made it? Who made them? What food did they eat? Where did the food that fed the animals come from? Who is looking at the mic?
Try to locate this emcee. Is the emcee your name, your body, is it a concept, is it your profession, where does this emcee exist, if you cannot find this emcee what does that mean? Who created this emcee? Who created them? No thing that truly exists relies upon anything else for its existence or it cannot be said to truly exist on its own. Therefore how can you be the emcee you think yourself to be if your existence is based on all other existence? What is the danger of believing in solidity?
One cannot find a true origin for anything if one is honest and looks deep enough.
Hiphop manifests to allow its practitioners to experience their nature. All of existence is a path to enlightenment in this way. Hiphoppers can reach their natures through diligent practice. Becoming a true emcee is possible, not through egocentered exploits such as wittiness, hyperconceptuality, material appeal, cadence, or anything that comes and goes, but through practicing resting their minds in the nature of Hiphop through meditation on the emcee and abandoning all illusions about how I exist. This steers their minds from their egos, reveals natural openness and relaxation, and brings about the motivation and wisdom to create rhymes with the intent of all listeners experiencing their own nature.
Frution
Practicing in this way, one’s awareness will grow away from herself or himself and towards the nature of all things. This expansion reveals happiness, openness and discovery of the “zone”. One will gain a respect for those in their communities and in foreign lands, find post-conventional culture, art and poetry appealing, respect the environment and see spiritual paths as unified and worthy. Such a person will be without aggression, will see others’ views within their own, will see others in themselves and learn patience. They will be moved to be generous even to their own detriment and will practice cultivating the wisdom of Hiphop in everything they do.
This is not philosophy, this is nature mechanics.
–Ascience Gnown