S6 — Calvin on an Island

Island people have a saying: “Nowhere is an island.” Visitors are puzzled when they hear this spoken. After all, they’ve spent much time and money just to reach this paradise in the middle of an ocean.

Calvin was such a one. He went without for fifty weeks just to have his two upon that isle. So when he breathlessly disembarked only to be greeted by an islander conveying this saying, he strongly begged to differ.

The islander just smiled and said, “It makes no difference,” and danced lightly off to greet another. A recent transplant to the island seeing Calvin’s being at variance stopped to offer a more comprehensive reception: “No matter how you slice it, there never is division.”

S5 — Isle of Eyes: A Myth of the Scientific

In the eye of a hurricane, there’s an eye of a needle. In the eye of a needle, there’s an eye of an eye. The island people call this eye a third eye and take their own eyes out whenever it goes seeing. For what it sees is visible to no one.

There was a visitor who called himself an optical magician, prescribing telescopes to those he diagnosed as near-sighted, and microscopes to those he saw as far-sighted. But the island folk, as far as he could see, were neither.

He plucked his own eyes out in a pique of speculation but it left him only sightless. The island people divined no notion why he’d make a scene like that. And so they led him in a starry-eyed procession to a long reflective beach and cast him out to sea.

S4 — Breaking Up Is Hard Nondoing Too

It was early in the process of discovery

I knew the two of us would lose each other.

Paradox is not unknown in love.

At first our paths continued, one upon the other,

but soon we found ourselves in the yellow wood.

It didn’t happen overnight and all our efforts

to maintain separating ways together met

with personal effects like alcohol on my behalf

and a drier kind of melancholy in yours.

You finally had the nerve to call it quits

but even that was met with one more year of trying.

It’s over now; surrendering to that which is

can really be a bitch. But that’s the price.

You said that day you liked the middle class

and I was always making light of it.

That’s forever been the case with me.

It’s just my form of self-assessment.

Even though I’m living now without

the greater luxuries I once afforded,

I’m not exactly third-world poor—

thank my daughter and her Major.

This is the present empire after all.

So I know these fears about security,

but I’ve seen you lately follow them

and then convince yourself you hadn’t.

That’s the way of people though, divided.

The path I’ve taken teaches seeing this,

to recognize such separation for what it is,

to know the false as false. That leaves pure being,

not being this or that. And being tells one all that is—

and That which absolutely isn’t takes one back.

Song-stream 3 — Incident on Sky Mountain

There’s a mountain lofty enough

it takes two days to make the peak.

It rises in the heart of a desert

where nomads pray to any passing mirage.

They’re satisfied to dine on scorpions

while downing barrel cactus juice.

They hallucinate of cubicles

floating in a glass of cabbages and ginger

looking at the rain streak the skylight

hoping they’ve secured the windows

in their newly-leased Honda Civics.

One of them flies out the door to check

but strikes the mountain there instead.

Soon she’s in a globe of berries.

The air is fragrant with exacting freshness.

She sees above the ripples of heat;

there’s not an office in her eye.

Half-way up she finds a halfway house.

It’s an edifice she’s yet to dream.

She’s genially greeted at the door

and welcomed with the latest reality

of living rooms and large flat screens

with twenty-four hour interruptions.

Exhausted with the climb, she wants to stay.

Twenty years later, she’s out to catch a breather

and meets a mad man coming down the mountain.

Maybe it’s a mad woman. He raves or she raves,

“You’ve stopped believing in a personal god,

but you’re still believing in the personal!”

and then turns to return to the sky.

Song-stream 2 — Compassionist Manifesto

Mind apparently divides 

that nonduality 

and wonders why its world is one 

of separation, violence, want, and war.

Even when this unity appears

in shapes love takes—

like justice, hope, equality—

the mind will take control

with judgment and conviction

and an execution of its end

justifying any of its means.

And so it goes…

There’s no arguing

the utmost advocates of civil rights

within the infamous twentieth century:

Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

Nonviolence was their word,

but more importantly the sacrifice of ego

—this identity with mind—

to universal consciousness;

call it Krishna, call it Christ.

You know it when you feel it,

some holistic intuition

that division is completely inauthentic,

that existence is lovingly impersonal,

that love is unconditional

and the personal is conditioned by division

and that’s the way it is.

And even this spontaneous understanding

is usurped by mind

and formed into religion

and fashioned into dogma, rules, belief

and fought in endless wars where

holy ends are justified

by all apocalyptic means.

Stop! There is no end—

there’s only means,

there’s always only here and now

and every action is reflection

of the clarity within.

Our only call is clear our self—

an empty sky
breezes through and does the rest.

Song-stream 1 — Braids of Glass

Consciousness is the sea

and eyes are like the rays of light

looking deep into itself.

Nothing in this universe is like

this universe of yours—

even this blade of grass is different

than this blade of grass you grasp;

only the name remains the same.

Beneath the summer sky, some huckleberry boy is

gliding high above his freshly-cut idyllic turf

as sonic booms of nineteen-fifties’ fear are coloring

his clarity with contrails of his elder’s ghastly white beliefs.

Nothing that we know is ever knowable

but only viruses received from dreams

infected with ancestral viruses.

The mind divides

this universal consciousness to pieces

claiming only one particular to be itself.

Sword-play of war is what must happen next—

until one finally sees that one is absolutely not

this sharp reflection in the mirror.

It’s as if that pure awareness subjectivity of crystalline glass

intends to know itself, and within that big intent, the whole intent

objectifies itself in galaxies of this molecular imagination

evolving in time and space by calling keenly to itself to see—

it always is and is

never not the mirror.

Now knows itself and a blade of grass

isn’t really a blade of grass—

a blade of grass is only

a blade of grass.

new & recycled prophecies 3 — the non-manifesto

there's nothing more

predictable than

attributing one's

division to

another—

the only difference between

the one percent and

the ninety-nine percent

is the greater means to do

what the one-hundred percent

always does—

there’s only a single

divided universe

and it’s the one

called mine—

non-division is

the work and the way of

the zero percent—

non-do it now!

The Zhuangzi (Chaung Tzu) Translation Awards

This is the summer of Zhuangzi. Or Chaung Tzu, in the older Wade-Giles way. Knowing well the idiosyncrasies of translations, I’ve looked at almost all the ones available. It's interesting that the three I chose were not on my radar when I began looking. Also, considering the Zhuangzi itself in regard to wrong and right, this and that, and just seeing, I’m only listing the translations I chose to play with. (Click on the book's image below to see it in Amazon.)

1. And the winner is Victor Mair. His Wandering on the Way has many things going for it. First, Mair is not only a sinologist, but the Chuang Tzu is his favorite Chinese book. So his work is obviously a labor of love. Next, it is the complete Chaung Tzu, and not just the seven Inner Chapters, the ones actually attributed to the actual person, Chuang Tzu, although even that is debatable. Also, as a physical production, the pages are thick and creamy, the print is agreeably readable, the layout is clean and sharp, and the cover is artistic. Furthermore, for what it is, it is relatively inexpensive new, and a bargain can be had used  (my copy is a very-good used Bantam first edition paperback and cost me $5.14 including shipping; it’s also available new for $20.00, discounted to $18.00 at Amazon, plus shipping). There are no footnotes and the annotation is sparse. Mair’s intent is to present the Chuang Tzu as a literary work of wisdom first and foremost and not a philosophical treatise dressed up in a disguise of stories. His translation appears as true to the text as possible while attempting to make it necessarily clear in English. This is a copy to read and savor. And there is a practical glossary of names, places, and terms at the end of the book.

2. The runner-up is Brook Ziporyn and his Zhuangzi: the Essential Writings. Actually, for the purposes of Kindle, it would be the winner, since the Mair is currently not available in that format. This smooth and readable translation is more on the philosophical end of the spectrum, so it’s heavily footnoted. And that can be a good thing. I especially appreciate his concern with the Chinese terms, often referring the reader to the glossary at the back of the book. It’s not the complete Zhuangzi, but it’s not just the Inner Chapters either. There’s a significant selection from the Outer and Miscellaneous Chapters. Maybe most significantly for some is the inclusion of Chinese commentaries as a separate section at the end of the book, including Guo Xiang, who is basically the editor of the Zhuangzi. As a physical production, it’s along the lines of a paperback textbook. My copy is a very-good used paperback which was $10.99, including shipping. It’s available new for $18.00 in paperback discounted to $16.20 on Amazon, including shipping. For Kindle, it’s available at $9.99.

3. Showing at third place is the controversial A. C. Graham and his Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters. It appears he remains true to the text to a fault. Still, in comparing translations, that can be a helpful trait; it sets a base line for the others. Also, he has decided to edit the book, moving sections around, to meet his own scholastic findings. If I were using this as a stand-alone book, that could be problematic. But my use of Graham is more of a reference work than a reading copy. I find his annotations useful. But his arguments for the way of the text are fascinating and convincing. My copy is not the best. It’s the 1987 Harper Collins Mandala edition. The print is incredibly small and the annotation printing is incredibly, even smaller. But it cost only $4.09 including shipping. New, it’s $19.00 discounted at Amazon to $18.05 plus shipping. Again, as a reference work, it does the trick.

So, these are the three translations I am using in reading the Zhuangzi this summer. In total, they cost me $20.22 (it helped that I'd received a gift certificate for Father's Day). They span the gamut from pure enjoyment to deeper study, from the latest academic findings to ancient Chinese commentary, and are useful in triangulating the way.

new & recycled prophecies 2 — substantiation

one who seeks the proof of truth

needs first to seek the proof of one

who seeks the proof—

if you think you were born,

you’ll think you will die—

but you were only told you were born

and no one has told you they died—

when an appearance disappears—

that in which the appearance appears

does not disappear

(originally appeared within the pseutra of revelations)

new & recycled prophecies 1 — mirror of awareness

if not for all reflections

in the mirror,

i wouldn’t know

i was the mirror—

i am the mirror—

i am intent

to know i am the mirror—

i am reflection

that intent conceives

to know i am the mirror—

i am the mirror—

it takes an evolutionary universe
in space-time consciousness

to watchfully reflect

that absolute
awareness