Free Me

 "If you're frightened of dying, and you're holdin' on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. If you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth."

 - Jacob's Ladder, 1990

Ten Years of Nothing

"We experience the universe's current state simply because we exist. We see what we see because these are the only conditions that allow it. The possibilities held in every moment are reduced to a singularity by our presence. This is natural selection on the quantum level. We are birthed from the random: endless possibilities have come and gone in the wake of our presence, leaving only one experience of reality that is entirely observer-dependent.

Randomness rules every aspect of our lives, but ultimately, only one result prevails that is dependent on our mode of perception. In light of relativity, every observer lives their own personal version of the universe with their own perception of time: our own place in a vibratory, multidimensional mandala. 

Though some of our experiences can overlap in symmetry, we find that we are God playing dice, the Brahman playing hide-and-seek with itself, creating uniqueness in every moment, now ad infinitum. We find polarities unified: chaos and order, difference and similarity, organism and environment, unity and separateness, something and nothing, as sides of the same coin. They create each other and depend on each other. All arises together, in and of itself."

-me, January 2011

You don't know what you want because you have it

"I don't know what I want. When you don't know what you want, you've reached the state of desirelessness. When you really don't know.

Why don't you really know what you want? Two reasons that you don't really know what you want: number one: you have it. Number two: you don't know yourself, because you never can. The Godhead is never an object of its own knowledge. It's always an endless mystery to itself. I don't know! And this I don't know is the same thing as I love, I let go, I don't try to force or control, it's the same thing as humility.

'He by whom Brahman is not known, knows It; he by whom It is known, knows It not. It is not known by those who know It; It is known by those who do not know It.' (Kena Upanishad 2.3)

The meaning of the fact that everything is dissolving constantly, that we're all falling apart, we're all in a process of constant death... all falling apart, everything is. That's the great assistance to you. That fact, that everything is in decay, is your harbor. That is allowing you, that you don't have to let go, because there's nothing to hold on to.

It's achieved for you, in other words, by the process of nature. So once you see that you just don't have a prayer, that it's all washed up, and that you will vanish and "leave not a rack behind", and you really get with that... suddenly, you find you have the power. This enormous access of energy. But it's not power that came to you because you grabbed it, it came in entirely the opposite way. And power that comes to you in that opposite way, is power with which you can be trusted."

-Alan Watts

Protectionspell

"I remember the day I walked out of my Lion's mother's cave, the snakes had being awaiting me outside, and I started to play and dance with some fine confidence, full of plain white innocence. and when I learned to fly, I learned a lot about what lifts you up can throw you down and found out that also works the other way around

Thank you for your trust, because that is what makes me believe that we can heal each other cause everything is everything and I know sometimes you’re worried about the future and again and again I said to myself, don't you worry cause everything is everything, everything is everything.

Walking through the same dreams, indescribable and out of control as it seems, dream within a dream

and I try to remember that I don't depend on anything, only in a way that like loving or laughing, sleeping or crying

Creation is the opposite of dying, this is what keeps me sane, when someone interrupted the circle with consciousness, pretending to myself it could last had being the greatest part of it. It is the earth of lying

and its never been healthy to depend on someone's love, rather than the freedom it may give you to enjoy our wonder

I feel all this is a mirror that expands and everyone is free to mirror a part of himself. You can see your self in the way you want to see something

I hope you remember, that everything is everything, everything is everything, is everything, is everything, is everything....." 

https://soundcloud.com/user-347272047-845781678/protection-spell-dj-healer

Memory Ends

 "For the being of love, the process of memory must come to an end. Memory comes into being only when experience is not completely, fully understood. Memory is only the residue of experience; it is the result of a challenge which is not fully comprehended. Life is a process of challenge and response. Challenge is always new but the response is ever old. This response, which is conditioning, which is the result of the past, must be understood and not disciplined or condemned away. It means living each day anew, fully and completely. This complete living is possible only when there is love, when your heart is full, not with the words nor with the things made by the mind. Only where there is love, memory ceases; then every movement is a rebirth."

- J Krishnamurti

Water

 "We should realize that, although they are liberated, without any bonds, all things are abiding in their own state. However, when humans look at water, they have the one way that sees it only as flowing without rest. This "flow" takes many forms, of which the human view is but one. Water flows over the earth; it flows across the sky; it flows up; it flows down. Water flows around bends and into deep abysses. It mounts up to form clouds; it descends to form pools.

The Wen Tzu says, 'The tao of water, ascending to heaven, becomes rain and dew, descending to earth, becomes rivers and streams.'

This passage says that, although the way of water is unknown to water, water actually functions as water; although the way of water is not unknown to water, water actually functions as water.

'Ascending to heaven, it becomes rain and dew.'

We should realize that water climbs to the very highest heavens in the highest quarters and becomes rain and dew. Rain and dew is of various kinds, in accordance with the various worlds. Water extends into flames; it extends into thought, reasoning and discrimination; it extends into awareness and the buddha nature.

It is not the case simply that there is water in the world; within the world of water there is a world. And this is true not only within water: within clouds as well there is world of sentient beings; within wind there is world of sentient beings; within fire there is world of sentient beings; within earth there is world of sentient beings. Within the dharma realm there is a world of sentient beings; within a single blade of grass there is world of sentient beings; within a single staff there is a world of sentient beings. And wherever there is a world of sentient beings, there, inevitably, is the world of buddhas and ancestors.

The reason this so, we should study very carefully."

- Dogen Kigen, excerpt from The Mountains and Waters Sutra, 1240 AD.

How do you say Goodbye?

How do you say Goodbye?

We say it almost every day. Sometimes it's just a word in passing to someone you'll see tomorrow, sometimes it's the last time we'll ever tell a person that without knowing it is. It's the latter I'm concerned with here. 

Many of us have already faced this at some point in our lives. For those who have not, it's only a matter of time. But what is time, really? Can it really be measured? Can it really be felt, time? How long did it take to emerge from your mother's womb? How long did it take to journey across the room, or across the country, to be with someone important to you? How long does a true conversation last with someone you love? I say truly, these things are timeless! They all are.

One day we are born, one day we grow, one day who we were is gone, the molecules in our bodies that were there before are completely recycled, rebuilt, and restructured. Days are just time, one time the Earth spins and returns to a place it never was before.

I'll never forget the last time I was at the Lake in Wisconsin, right around the time my son was size of a lentil in his mother's womb, and I happened upon my grandfather, Dave, sitting in his office, who had just put down a book, I forget what it was. He told me Alex, I've come to a conclusion about spirituality and religion, and there is nothing else, there is only Love. The Universe is made of Love, and that's it. And I nodded, because I knew he was right.

Nothing special, nothing extra. Nothing outside of us. We are it. Love is what surrounds us everywhere and always, whether we accept it or not, it's just there. Love is what makes life, and life is all we are in an otherwise lifeless and chaotic existence of stars exploding in far-off spaces, dust collecting and merging together to form new planets that none of us will ever see except through a telescope, when the vibrations that reach our eyes have traveled for thousands of years at the speed of light across unknown galaxies. How else are these things in our world here, except as things to be seen, heard, felt as living, conscious beings?

So we have to ask, if these things arise together, phenomena and being, and only exist for each other's sake, are they actually separate at all? Is there really an experience and an experiencer? We all were born out of an act of love, we all grew up because of acts of love from others greater than ourselves, and thus we are here now, alive and breathing, nourished, sheltered, with clothing on our backs and most importantly, the capacity to love one another.

To see an end as a beginning, we simply need to take a step back from our immediate selves. Does a drop of water worry about when it will evaporate? Ask a wave on the ocean, what will it tell you? Whooooosh.... CRASH.... again, and again, but never the same twice.

In the same way, events in this life seem to repeat or have patterns, but in the big picture, it's all one big beautiful, chaotic wave, made up of a collection of smaller waves, with even smaller waves inside them, all composed of drops of water, where even one drop is great number of water molecules making it what it is, as it crashes again and again into rock, over eons and eons, gently crushing them into pristine sandy beaches, creating tiny bubbles floating on the surface of the deep ocean, being formed by the chaos and popping so quickly no one could ever keep up, but can only listen to the subtle and unique sound it all makes, vibrating through the air as it reaches your inner ear, becoming sound waves, shimmering across your neural cortex that dissipate as soon as they arrived, just like those bubbles.

Love is what makes our sense of time and self disappear, it's what makes us do things that make no sense, it's what makes us forget about living and dying, it's what keeps us grounded in what's happening now. It's a bedtime story, it's an embrace that seems to last forever but never long enough, it's a lullaby, it's teaching someone how to play, it's holding someone's hand when they are sick, it's making dinner, it's saying a prayer, it's the Sun rising with loon calls echoing across the water. These events are not random!

Those of us who have ever lost all sense of Love, find ourselves trapped in our own loneliness, isolation and sadness, a prisoner of our own minds, belittling ourselves and others by thinking we are just separate things that will live forever, and never change.

My grandmother Bea was someone who seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of this Love. She gave it to everyone around her incessantly, this intangible, inexpressible, infinite thing that you can never quite put your finger on, but you know it's there, because you feel it, because it's literally what is maintaining your and my entire existence, it's the same force that holds the atoms in our bodies together, what helps us through illness, old age, tragedy, loss, and death itself.

My mother tells me that when I was a boy, I once said "There are too many goodbyes, and not enough hellos." 

We have all lost someone and had to say goodbye, whether we knew it was goodbye or not. But if we step back from our immediate selves, death of one person is not a finality, not a goodbye, it's an opportunity to discover a new version of ourselves, not as one person, but all of us who are alive now, remembering and cherishing, as one gigantic crashing wave of vibrations: flesh, blood, synapses, emotions, voices, beating hearts ignited by the fire of Love itself. All of us will never be who we are forever, we are changing all the time, we are change itself.

So, the best way to say goodbye, is to say "Hello". Meet yourself and this world exactly as it is, because there is no other time, no other person, no other way it could be. No inside, no outside, no beginning, no end.

Goodbye Gomma, Goodbye AhAh, Hello us. Let us not sleep in sorrow, let us wake up and meet things as they are with our eyes open, our hearts ready to carry this Love on as long as we can. We need to love ourselves, and we need to love each other. We ARE it. So say Hello. That's how you say good bye.

Say Hello!

Ten year path (re-post)

I posted this quote exactly 10 years ago (May 2011), images added this time:

"Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. I warn you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary.

"This question is one that only a very old man asks: Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you."

- Don Juan

Visiting

Unknown, Hsiang-chi Temple—

Miles and miles into cloud-draped peaks.

Among the old trees, a path no one travels,

A bell deep in the mountains but where from?

A brook gulps among protruding boulders,

And though the sun glows, it’s cool beneath the pines.

At dusk, by a bend in an empty pool,

Meditating quietly I rout the deadly dragon.

-Wang Wei (699 - 761 AD)

The Outside Goes With The Inside

"There are—in nature, in the actual physical universe—no such things as things, and no such happenings as events. They’re all invented by us in the same way as we invent lines of latitude and longitude, inches, meters, minutes and hours. They’re all measures: they don’t really exist out there. But we choose certain lines. For example, we choose the boundary of the human skin and we say this divides me from everything else. Inside this bag of skin is “me,” inside those bags of skin is “you.” And outside that is a foreign world that isn’t me, that isn’t you. But that’s not true!

Alex Grey, Praying

"The skin, from one point of view, can be said to divide us from the external world, but from another point of view it is exactly what joins us to the external world. The skin is full of pores through which we breathe the air. The skin is full of nerve ends through which we become sensitive to what goes on around us. And if, as a matter of fact, the air pressure outside the skin was not exactly fifteen pounds per square inch—if it was anything less than that—we’d blow up. The pressure inside would be too much for the outside. See? What we don’t—we are carefully educated not to notice certain things, because once you start noticing it—in other words, using your spotlight to concentrate on certain areas—at the same time as you notice, you also ignore, you also don’t notice.

"Often I take a blackboard and I draw a circle on it. And I say to people, “What have I drawn?” And they’ll say, “A circle,” “a ball,” “a sphere.” Very few people ever say, “A hole in the wall.” A few smart ones do. In other words, do you notice what’s inside the circle, or do you notice what’s outside? Because what’s outside is just as important as what’s inside. You know, the fundamental secret of life—I’m going to tell you this, and this is worth all your price of admission; it’s the ultimate secret! The ultimate secret is: for every inside, there is an outside. And they go together, and you can’t have one without the other. And that’s the whole problem of metaphysics, of religion, of life and death, so be of good cheer. But normally, you see, the way we are trained to attend our attention is captured by the area inside, just as it’s captured by an object that moves rather than one that’s still. In other words, if a mouse were suddenly to go skitty-skit across the floor here, everybody would notice the mouse. And I keep moving a little instead of standing still, like this, while I talk to you so that you will notice me a little, see?

So by that I mean, the inside always goes with the outside.

"Now then, the whole use of consciousness—this is the point I’m making—the whole use of consciousness is the isolation of certain areas which we pay attention to. And we pay as the price for that kind of attention ignoring what stands outside them. For example, most people think that space is nothing. Space is just emptiness through which we all move. Interstellar space—the space between planets, the space between galaxies—is nothing. But every painter and every architect knows that space isn’t nothing at all. Architects sometimes talk about the influence of space upon behavior. And to the uninitiated this sounds  like nonsense. And if you paint, you realize that you have to paint the space as well as the things in the space. In other words, if you work in oils on canvas, you have to work on the background. You have to paint the background in. And you realize, therefore, that it’s something that’s there.

Ma Lin, "Landscape With Great Pine"

"Can you imagine a solid without a space ’round it? Why, you can’t possibly do so! Can you imagine a space without a solid in it? You can’t possibly, because you have to constitute the solid to imagine yourself in the middle of an empty space. There is no way of having a space without a solid just as there is no way of having a front without a back. They go together.

"But we are trained by our education and by our language—by the patterns of thought which our culture instills in us—to notice the solid and ignore the space. So, in the same way, we notice ourselves as we exist inside our skins and ignore ourselves as we exist outside our skins. And that gives us our peculiar feeling of insularity, of being skin-encapsulated egos who feel ourselves to be different from, to confront, to meet an alien, external, and largely hostile physical universe. And this is the supremely difficult price that we pay for our ingenious ability to use symbols, and to divide the world into the symbolic and the real, the significant and the insignificant, the important and the unimportant.

"We have lost the fundamental physical elemental sense that every single one of us is the entire works, focused here and now. That is to say, every human being—every beetle, every mosquito, every living cell—is something that the entire cosmos, the whole universe, is doing in a particular way. Just as when you hold a magnifying glass to the sun, and you focus the sun as a vivid little point of light at that particular spot on that particular leaf, so every creature that exists is a focus, a special case of what the entire works of existence is doing. Only: we have been taught to forget that. By being concentrated on the here and now—who I am, what circumstances I’m in, what I’m doing, what’s important for me—we get absorbed in it.

"My fingers—all of them move separately and independently, but only because they are part of the hand, and only because the hand is part of the arm, and so on. So underneath our marvelous ability to analyze the world through concentrated attention and through symbols—words which suggest that a tree is a tree. The word “tree” is different from the word “ground,” and therefore it seems that the tree is different from the ground. But it isn’t. The tree is the ground reaching up to grab at the sky and, you know… enjoy. It’s the ground, swinging. So, in the same way, each one of us is the whole cosmos waving and saying,

'Yoo-hoo! I’m here!'

Tianzi Mountains (China)

"So that knowledge is necessary. That knowledge of being one with the totality is necessary to underpin and support the knowledge of being different, and unique, and individual. Without it, the individual goes mad."

- Alan Watts, from "The Symbolic and the Real"

ʻāhu

ʻāhu, on the trail of Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, 2017

ʻāhu : To pile, gather, accumulate, heap up; to lay away, as goods for the future; collect; collection, mound.

On the trail of the park, the ʻāhu are left by former travelers to hint towards the direction of the next campsite.

The Verse:

Others have trodden this Path before you, overcoming the same obstacles facing you now, and making crucial decisions at the same crossroads.

Study their journals, watch for their trail markings.

Gain inspiration and wisdom from the heroes and learn from the mistakes of those who chose a side-path.

All were Seekers, explorers whose daring mapped a course you can follow.

Heart

MAKA HANNYA HARAMITA SHIN GYŌ
The Great Prajñā Pāramitā Heart Sutra

KAN JI ZAI BO SA GYŌ JIN HAN-NYA HA RA MI TA JI

Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, practicing deep Prajñā Pāramitā,

SHŌ KEN GO ON KAI KU DO IS-SAI KU YAKU

clearly saw that all five skandhas are empty, transforming anguish and distress

SHA RI SHI SHIKI FU I KU KU FU I SHIKI

Shariputra, form is no other than emptiness, emptiness no other than form;

SHIKI SOKU ZE KU KU SOKU ZE SHIKI

form is exactly emptiness, emptiness exactly form;

JU SO GYŌ SHIKI YAKU BU NYO ZE

sensation, perception, formulation, consciousness are also like this.

SHA RI SHI ZE SHŌ HO KU SO FU SHŌ FU METSU

Shariputra, all things are essentially empty – not born, not destroyed;

FU KU FU JO FU ZO FU GEN

not stained, not pure; without loss, without gain.

ZE KO KU CHU MU SHIKI MU JU SO GYŌ SHIKI

Therefore in emptiness there is no form, no sensation, perception, formulation,

consciousness;

MU GEN-NI BI ZES-SHIN I

no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind,

MU SHIKI SHŌ KO MI SOKU HO

no color, sound, scent, taste, touch, thought;

MU GEN KAI NAI SHI MU I SHIKI KAI

no seeing and so on to no thinking;

MU MU MYO YAKU MU MU MYO JIN

no ignorance and also no ending of ignorance,

NAI SHI MU RO SHI YAKU MU RO SHI JIN

and so on to no old age and death, and also no ending of old age and death;

MU KU SHU METSU DO

no anguish, cause of anguish, cessation path;

MU CHI YAKU MU TOKU I MU SHŌ TOK'KO

no wisdom and no attainment. Since there is nothing to attain,

BO DAI SAT-TA E HAN-NYA HA RA MI TA KO

the Bodhisattva lives by Prajñā Pāramitā,

SHIM-MU KEI GE MU KEI GE KO MU U KU FU

with no hindrance in the mind; no hindrance and therefore no fear;

ON RI IS-SAI TEN DO MU SO KU GYŌ NE HAN

far beyond delusive thinking, right here is Nirvana.

SAN ZE SHŌ BUTSU E HAN-NYA HA RA MI TA KO

All Buddhas of past, present, and future live by Prajñā Pāramitā

TOKU A NOKU TA RA SAM-MYAKU SAM-BO DAI

attaining Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi.

KO CHI HAN-NYA HA RA MI TA

Therefore know that Prajñā Pāramitā

ZE DAI JIN SHU ZE DAI MYO SHU

is the great sacred mantra, the great vivid mantra,

ZE MU JO SHU ZE MU TO TO SHU

the unsurpassed mantra, the supreme mantra,

NO JO IS-SAI KU SHIN JITSU FU KO

which completely removes all anguish. This is truth not mere formality.

KO SETSU HAN-NYA HA RA MI TA SHU

Therefore set forth the Prajñā Pāramitā mantra,

SOKU SETSU SHU WATSU

set forth this mantra and proclaim:

GYA TEI GYA TEI HA RA GYA TEI HARA SO GYA TEI

Gaté gaté paragaté parasamgaté

BO JI SOWA KA HAN-NYA SHIN GYŌ

Bodhi Svaha!

The Power To Love

 August 3rd, 2013

The "best man speech" for my brother, Brian:

As most of you know, Brian’s got quite a personality, growing up with him wasn’t always super easy. By that I mean physically growing up, as he would lie on top of me so I couldn’t get up, head butt me with his giant “cement head”, and make sure I would never be any good at basketball by deflecting all of my shots into the street.

Eventually he moved from pushing my limits, to pushing the limits of gravity. And by this I mean second-story jumps from our roof to the pool, back-flipping off our trampoline, and in the process breaking pretty much every part of his body. After enough visits to the emergency room, Mom and Dad’s insurance plan actually gave him a frequent flyer card. (No, that’s actually true).

And then Brian discovered boarding… a way to put his life at risk AND impress people at the same time… especially this beautiful girl named HEATHER. She was someone who immediately shared his excitement for pretty much everything, and that kept him in line. She provided the care & support to calm his wild side… just a little bit. And Brian finally had someone to bandage his road rash so other than my Mom.

When I think about what’s really important in this life, it comes down to two things: to do what you love, and to live sustainably. And it sure isn’t easy without a foundation, one rooted in family, friends, and especially a partner. Someone to enjoy the ride with, to navigate the twists and turns of the road, to enjoy the highs, and to tough out the lows. Heather, to me you have been a beacon of light for my Brian, and I couldn’t imagine a better wife for him, and someone I’m really excited to call my sistah.

You both have the power of compassion, the power to love, to forgive, and the ability to find enjoyment in whatever is going on. I love you both!

13

"...But even now, as I stand at the edge of this decision I feel the excitement coming back in the pit of my stomach that is making me let out tears from my eyes, makes my nose run, makes my hands shake, and makes me want to shout in joy, all at the same time. It is this excitement that makes me alive, this feeling that makes me ME, and NO ONE can deny that."

-Me, July 17th, 2008