another bob
14th February 2012, 23:18
I've been drunk for as long as I remember, though it's not from any wine that's crushed from grapes. I stagger through these flickering realms, dreamy realms of time's unraveling, clouds and sun alternating, unnoticed, unbidden. There is no impediment for the mayflies swarming around my dizziness, drunk as I am, drunk as they are on the intoxication of this Mystery.
You might ask a question now for which I have no answer. Whoever I think I am whatever I thought I was that's what disappears. It is not happy, not sad. There is a fine line where the sky seems to touch the ocean. Though it appears to be a line, there really is no line.
This doesn't belong to anyone, it doesn't occur to anyone. This Love floods out of nowhere, sweeping the little leaves of belief and identity in a current of cool forgetfulness, a gentle drowning in the swirling fluidity of Love's own watery simplicity.
Like melting snow in Spring's warming streams, the fascination with any destiny dissolves in the flow timed to a perfection beyond mind's comprehension. In the letting go, something approaches a transparency. The closer to the souce it hums, the more transparent it becomes.
That dreamy sense of independence, the perfume of some separate self-sense, sifts, wafts, and weaves within the full embrace of awareness, of limitless space changing perpetually, in harmony with ordinary circumstance, like white clouds vanishing in an endlessness of blue.
The need for any sort of meaning drops away in the bliss of remembrance, remembrance prior to the arising of anything at all, of any being, bird, or blessedness. The search for Tao is consumed by the Tao that cannot be sought, cannot be lost.
Here is where we always meet, in this boundless silence -- here is where this Love is real.
My forehead rests on the cool stone floor before you; there is no dividing place separating flesh and bone from the pillow of stone. For this reason, without reason, I seem to drift through some immensity, eyes blinded by the brilliance of mysterious light its reflection, my own.
Now, my palms turn upward, effortlessly hold this mountain to the sky. It is light -- this mountain -- light as the feather I am, a feather on the breath of wind, a wind of impossible yearning. The mere fact that the yearning is present is proof it is possible -- that yearning I have always followed.
Really, there is no need of any proof -- everything is its own proof, the proof of itself, the proof of its own fragility in the wind of impermanence. A crumbling mountain left that kiss upon my heart, and now the clouds, filled with light, glide through this night -- each an exhalation, a sigh from deep space, the space between sighs, deepening, deepening into my own sighs.
I am on my knees. I kneel in my own heart, the heart life made so I could feel it. This is what it does, it is what I do. Who speaks, who listens? Does this water sutra depend on any lips?
My lips are pressed against the crown of infinity. There is no distance in this kiss, this yearning. I follow backwards into that yearning, that yearning of water for itself, that breathing song I cannot forget, I cannot.
But Oh, my Friends, Hearts of Faith -- another moment, please:
we have been checked into these drab motels for so long that we have begun to think of them as our actual forwarding address. We are driven hither and thither by a little imaginary machine percolating under our skin, so that we never rest.
In the fervor of our archaeology, we gather up pieces of broken glass and hold them high above our heads, crowing about our new-found treasures. Still, in solitary moods of desperation, we persist in secret craving for that of which we've ever despaired, some glimpse, some taste, of Blessed Certainty.
Meanwhile, at the Ghost Festival, I have spirit money to burn, and the Law of Balance allows for no exceptions: luck and misfortune are intertwined -- and though I've played with these dice my whole life, they are useless to me now, as is any certainty.
It is said that someone who doesn't make flowers makes thorns.
"If you're not building rooms where wisdom can be openly spoken, you're building a prison."
Truly, the slightest breeze of dumb desire can pull us inside those prison gates where even the strongest ox of hope can't pull us out again. Wherever we walk, the monkey is surely not far behind. He even volunteers for jail.
Perhaps this is why the King of Masks remarked:
"The dragon in the shallows is toyed with by the shrimp."
Yes, this world can often seem to be a cold place, but we can bring warmth to it. What other enjoyment can there be in life? A drop of Compassion brings wellsprings of Gratitude, and yet if there is some lingering personal interest, it's not true Compassion.
Is there water in this wine, or wine in this water? When such questions are posed, my eyes drift skyward, drunk as I am. Drunk as I am, I stare, still somehow disbelieving, at the charred ruins of my own boat. How swiftly the fire, once ignited, showed me there is nothing we can own.
You ask from whence I come. I answer, "Here". These ashes are my crib, and in this mud a kind of sprout has pushed up into daylight. Thank you for Your Water!
I stagger, blinded, from The Tavern of the Drunken Idiots, my limp more evident now, but the tricks of the monkey are wasted on me in my condition. The gods takes pity on fools such as I.
I hold you here where we both are blended with eternity, where something quiet lets me hear the whole world sigh in relief. I sit astride the toenail of the Manifest Buddha of Infinite Qualities, yet without any qualities found in myself. Where She roams, a precision of thunder echoes from Her footsteps, yet I hear only the glad murmur of reception from the earth on which She treads.
They say that the heart acts as a translator between mystery and intelligence; that it has its own ancient dwellers who do not speak with those who are merely passing through, but I ask: "Who is there on this shining floor not trampled by Her Dancing Feet?"
The Princess arrives on a Boat of Kindness, along the banks of the bowering Lilac Groves whose fragrance runs riot through the senses. Spring's first Buttercups are enough to quiet all dispute, just as Autumn reveals the destiny of our own dreamy appearance.
Yes, no, maybe so in this lovely garden of perfect souls, what use are any distinctions? When life is this dear, can we not feel the One who summons us Home, even now, even Now?
Don't stop anywhere! Not until we vanish can we know where we truly stand. After this death we can become what we are again, what we've always been before all our becomings.
Here, I have emptied out my pockets there is nothing in them anymore. If you throw your arms around me, what you hold is only air. One after another, each will pass through this gate in their own time, and these words like ashes will be scattered along the boulevards of worlds long ago forsaken. But please forgive my indulgence here my sand has now poured through.
:yo:
You might ask a question now for which I have no answer. Whoever I think I am whatever I thought I was that's what disappears. It is not happy, not sad. There is a fine line where the sky seems to touch the ocean. Though it appears to be a line, there really is no line.
This doesn't belong to anyone, it doesn't occur to anyone. This Love floods out of nowhere, sweeping the little leaves of belief and identity in a current of cool forgetfulness, a gentle drowning in the swirling fluidity of Love's own watery simplicity.
Like melting snow in Spring's warming streams, the fascination with any destiny dissolves in the flow timed to a perfection beyond mind's comprehension. In the letting go, something approaches a transparency. The closer to the souce it hums, the more transparent it becomes.
That dreamy sense of independence, the perfume of some separate self-sense, sifts, wafts, and weaves within the full embrace of awareness, of limitless space changing perpetually, in harmony with ordinary circumstance, like white clouds vanishing in an endlessness of blue.
The need for any sort of meaning drops away in the bliss of remembrance, remembrance prior to the arising of anything at all, of any being, bird, or blessedness. The search for Tao is consumed by the Tao that cannot be sought, cannot be lost.
Here is where we always meet, in this boundless silence -- here is where this Love is real.
My forehead rests on the cool stone floor before you; there is no dividing place separating flesh and bone from the pillow of stone. For this reason, without reason, I seem to drift through some immensity, eyes blinded by the brilliance of mysterious light its reflection, my own.
Now, my palms turn upward, effortlessly hold this mountain to the sky. It is light -- this mountain -- light as the feather I am, a feather on the breath of wind, a wind of impossible yearning. The mere fact that the yearning is present is proof it is possible -- that yearning I have always followed.
Really, there is no need of any proof -- everything is its own proof, the proof of itself, the proof of its own fragility in the wind of impermanence. A crumbling mountain left that kiss upon my heart, and now the clouds, filled with light, glide through this night -- each an exhalation, a sigh from deep space, the space between sighs, deepening, deepening into my own sighs.
I am on my knees. I kneel in my own heart, the heart life made so I could feel it. This is what it does, it is what I do. Who speaks, who listens? Does this water sutra depend on any lips?
My lips are pressed against the crown of infinity. There is no distance in this kiss, this yearning. I follow backwards into that yearning, that yearning of water for itself, that breathing song I cannot forget, I cannot.
But Oh, my Friends, Hearts of Faith -- another moment, please:
we have been checked into these drab motels for so long that we have begun to think of them as our actual forwarding address. We are driven hither and thither by a little imaginary machine percolating under our skin, so that we never rest.
In the fervor of our archaeology, we gather up pieces of broken glass and hold them high above our heads, crowing about our new-found treasures. Still, in solitary moods of desperation, we persist in secret craving for that of which we've ever despaired, some glimpse, some taste, of Blessed Certainty.
Meanwhile, at the Ghost Festival, I have spirit money to burn, and the Law of Balance allows for no exceptions: luck and misfortune are intertwined -- and though I've played with these dice my whole life, they are useless to me now, as is any certainty.
It is said that someone who doesn't make flowers makes thorns.
"If you're not building rooms where wisdom can be openly spoken, you're building a prison."
Truly, the slightest breeze of dumb desire can pull us inside those prison gates where even the strongest ox of hope can't pull us out again. Wherever we walk, the monkey is surely not far behind. He even volunteers for jail.
Perhaps this is why the King of Masks remarked:
"The dragon in the shallows is toyed with by the shrimp."
Yes, this world can often seem to be a cold place, but we can bring warmth to it. What other enjoyment can there be in life? A drop of Compassion brings wellsprings of Gratitude, and yet if there is some lingering personal interest, it's not true Compassion.
Is there water in this wine, or wine in this water? When such questions are posed, my eyes drift skyward, drunk as I am. Drunk as I am, I stare, still somehow disbelieving, at the charred ruins of my own boat. How swiftly the fire, once ignited, showed me there is nothing we can own.
You ask from whence I come. I answer, "Here". These ashes are my crib, and in this mud a kind of sprout has pushed up into daylight. Thank you for Your Water!
I stagger, blinded, from The Tavern of the Drunken Idiots, my limp more evident now, but the tricks of the monkey are wasted on me in my condition. The gods takes pity on fools such as I.
I hold you here where we both are blended with eternity, where something quiet lets me hear the whole world sigh in relief. I sit astride the toenail of the Manifest Buddha of Infinite Qualities, yet without any qualities found in myself. Where She roams, a precision of thunder echoes from Her footsteps, yet I hear only the glad murmur of reception from the earth on which She treads.
They say that the heart acts as a translator between mystery and intelligence; that it has its own ancient dwellers who do not speak with those who are merely passing through, but I ask: "Who is there on this shining floor not trampled by Her Dancing Feet?"
The Princess arrives on a Boat of Kindness, along the banks of the bowering Lilac Groves whose fragrance runs riot through the senses. Spring's first Buttercups are enough to quiet all dispute, just as Autumn reveals the destiny of our own dreamy appearance.
Yes, no, maybe so in this lovely garden of perfect souls, what use are any distinctions? When life is this dear, can we not feel the One who summons us Home, even now, even Now?
Don't stop anywhere! Not until we vanish can we know where we truly stand. After this death we can become what we are again, what we've always been before all our becomings.
Here, I have emptied out my pockets there is nothing in them anymore. If you throw your arms around me, what you hold is only air. One after another, each will pass through this gate in their own time, and these words like ashes will be scattered along the boulevards of worlds long ago forsaken. But please forgive my indulgence here my sand has now poured through.
:yo: