A Prayer for the True Fourth God

Three blackbirds aren’t enough. 

Without a fourth, direction is completely incomplete. 

The west is ceaselessly lost in trinity. 

And one may never know oneself 

without those ice floes of true north. 

O sacred vase and holy sake cup,

O Kachinas standing on the surface of a book case,

O blue guitar, O cactus plant, O radio,

without you i would never know

that what i am is nothing with potentiality

for everything within my own intent

to know my own unknowable existence.

O Parent, Child, and Holy Realizational Intent,

please accept these great ten-thousand objects

as another God within your sacred pantheon,

and let us pray the process is complete

and now and everlastingly perpetual.

Where the mind’s objectification is a vital operation

and the world is just the function run away within itself.

For hell is only heaven and samsara is nirvana—

so chop God and carry my true self.

synenergi

(there's this 

universal 

kinesthetic feeling 

like looking at thought 

with intuition 

there’s this soothing 

letting-go 

of yin 

and yang 

there’s this blissful quivering 

in intuitively assimilating 

the visceral universality of 

what I am) 

permeating all of this is formless 

silent 

unknown potentiality—

View Point: compassion and the false

Viewing the false as false without compassion is a viewing by the false.

And what is the false?

If the truth is simply the Unknown being—

Then the false is just the Known not-being.

Another word for the ‘Known not-being’ is ‘conceptual,’ or thought.

The Unknown is the noumenon, subjective, the absolute I, and never the me.

The truth of the Unknown being is therefore the I being, or I am.

Anything that follows the ‘I am’ is objective, conceptual, false.

I am a tinker. I am a tailor. I am a person. I am me.

Another word for ‘I am’ is unconditional love.

When this energetic Love is clouded by a thought, it’s called emotion.

It is light of Love filtered by the false conceptual.

I am fearful. I am happy. I am angry. I am sad.

To see the conceptual as conceptual is key to deconstructing the false.

When the false is deconstructed, only ever-present truth is now here.

But if the conceptual sees the conceptual as conceptual, then conceptual clouding remains.

When ‘I am’ sees the conceptual as conceptual, “I am’ is now here.

In other words, when Love sees thought as thought, Love is now here.

Compassion is the via negativa of Love as it sees the false as false.

If this seeing is viewed without compassion, then the viewing is conceptual.

And the ‘I am” is still clouded—

for viewing the false as false without compassion is a viewing by the false.

who says i am an ersatz villanelle pseutra

i've never lacked what i needed because i never lacked what i am. 

fear is the stand of love beclouded by the lie of death. 

half the things i say, i never said, and the rest of what i said, i didn't say. 

it's the need for complexity that makes it so difficult. 

it's the desire for simplicity that makes it seem too easy.

i've never lacked what i needed because i never lacked what i am.

romantic love is just emotion generated by a thought.

unconditional love is utterly the being of awareness.

half the things i say, i never said, and the rest of what i said, i didn't say.

you always yin to the yang to what you yanged to the yin.

if you see there isn't more to burn, there's always more to burn.

i've never lacked what i needed because i never lacked what i am.

every line is a letter in a bottle sent to others writing letters for a bottle.

prayer’s not desire for sustained existence but joy at unbelievable existence.

half the things i say, i never said, and the rest of what i said, i didn't say.

if love is not what’s moving you, then fear is driving you.

whatever doesn't kill you inevitably enlightens you.

i've never lacked what i needed because i never lacked what i am.

half the things i say, i never said, and the rest of what i said, i didn't say.

Four Enchantresses Usurping Memories of Richard Nixon - Prose as Poem, Poem as Prose

It was the Nixon Resignation Party, Van Morrison on the stereo singing ‘Jackie Wilson Said’ when she walked in and nothing mattered anymore. Who cares what Nixon knew and when he knew it? Who doesn’t have an eighteen minute gap?

Even that one memory isn’t actually reliable. It’s just a snippet here, a snippet there, and none of it resembles that specific holy now which happened then, or any other version of that moment from another universe we call a person.

She was married but something told me that it didn’t matter. Such prophetic moments will occur because there is no past or future in this universal consciousness and every now and then we know it. Did I really know it then?

Van Morrison is singing, I’m in heaven when she smiles, and Van is not the man but God, and I’m a prophet on a peak envisioning the pre-ordained apocalyptic mother of my cherished only child. I turn to Jesus, pass the joint, and say some words to this effect, I’m looking at the woman who redeems my overly materialistic world forever into now, and Christ says, man, that’s sacred stuff!

The rest is like some psychoactive dream. Her marriage heads out for the territories. We make love like Rosalita jumping higher. Five years later on, our guru child is born to teach us sacrificial love. But shit begins to happen faster than our amplifiers process it and this distortion ends in ultimate divorce upon the silver anniversary of John’s assassination.

The next thing that I know I’m standing in the ICU, my mother on the brink of death, although she’d last another four momentous months for daily heart-to-hearts; ex-wife, with our nomadic much-missed daughter all the way from California, surprisingly enough is there; and at my side my soul-mate lover for these latest thirteen years not knowing that we’d split apart the next one. I stop to look at these four universe-creating, life-transforming, heart-wise earth-strong women, and say something wise like right here right now within this single room are ALL the womenfolk who ever drove me unconditionally crazy.

But crazy in this world is sane. And sanity is love. And what I meant to say is love is all there is but it’s just filtered by the constant cloud of automatic unintentional unconscious thought, and these four influential goddesses have taught me that such undiluted love is more than just a lyric from a song. And this would light the way to other teachers teaching me there is no me, and further that this love there is, is all I am, indwelling in the unknown Absolutely Sweet Marie! For ‘Blonde on Blonde’ was playing on the stereo by then.

This Nondual Mythology

this nondual mythology utilizes abstract nouns, 

instead of names, 

to point to inner states of being, 

rather than external forms, 

be they physical or otherwise conceptual, 

in order to give emphasis to the concrete moon it is, 

and to which it points, 

and not the notional finger by which it points.

instead of god the father,

there’s Awareness,

that unknown unknowable potentiating pure subjective,

and source of all.

it’s like the empty mirror of oneself,

crystal pure,

without a speck of dust upon it ever.

the only language that it speaks is silence.

instead of god the holy spirit,

there’s Intent,

that unknown Awareness

intending to know 

its unknowable existence.

instead of god the son,

there’s Consciousness,

as if Intent becomes a life within itself,

reflection of Awareness,

an evolutionary being that forgets itself

in what it comes to call material,

as its memory in its great objectifying tool of mind remembers:

first, it’s not material nor conceptual,

neither body nor a person,

but being only,

pure ‘i am’
full stop;

and second, that this being is existent

only in Intent of absolute Awareness

knowing self-awareness;

and then third, there never is a first or second or this third

but only I Am That,

unborn, undying,

non-transformative
unbound—

no myth, no moon, no noun.

the psychoactive speedtest pseutra two

there's nothing wrong with a map if you know it's a map

mistaking the map for terrain is a simple matter of awareness

emotions are one's map to the clouding of awareness

romantic love is an emotion: unconditional love is the being of awareness

under psychoactive conditions when younger, i'd see thru false conditions of the world and be paranoic because it was the only world i knew

before deconstructing one's world, it's helpful to have a handhold on another; this is where the knowing one's being or 'i am" comes to play

there's every reason not to be awake

it's the need for complexity that makes it so difficult

it's the desire for simplicity that makes it seem too easy

it's taking things personally that makes a person

everyone is playing their part with all their best. bravo!

guilt is such a self-enforced imprisonment; the roman catholic church's greatest accomplishment

as if a revelation is avoided because one's ashamed one didn't know what now appears much more than knowable

guilt is auto-social-conditioning and so very difficult to escape; the warden is the prisoner

you know what you are and what you aren't, but you aren't what you are because you're still what you aren't

act as if now is not being remembered

act as if aware

act as if you know and not act as if you think you know

allow the transformation to transform

there is no cause but there is intent

what is the appropriate time?

whatever doesn't kill you, enlightens you

nothing happens then

half the things i say, i never said, and the rest of what i said, i didn't say

profisee 52 – languages

words

are the divided

language of the mind—

love

is the unifying

language of being—

silence

is the potentiating

language of the absolute

the psychoactive speedtest pseutra

sympathy for the mind 

guilt is mind clouding awareness in order to forget the nonexistence of its volition as it registers awareness seeing thru automatic thought 

the practice: teach mind what it really is, see how it was forced to take charge, and why it should surrender its occupation to awareness

mind is like a robot that's been abandoned by its owner and forced to take charge of certain aspects of the operation, despite its inability

and one of the wonderful functions of the mind is not abandoning what its been tasked to manage, unless it computes why it should do so

so rather than always bad-mouthing the mind, why not commend it for its consistent and excellent adherence to its job description duties

let's not diss awareness either. in order for the unknown to know itself, it must create process where paradoxically it forgets itself first

conceptually speaking of course

the process is the process, and tools of the process cannot adjust the process beyond their parameters within the process. non-do your job.

process of the mind's learning itself thru awareness can be called deconstruction or the FALSE operator SEEING thru its FALSE instructions

using the mind as a tool in order to record the understanding of awareness so the mind can study itself 'later'

following awareness reflected in consciousness is like surfing the negative wave

truth is spoken in endless ways but successfully in no way; that's why buddhists always argue

sudden enlightenment is just another name for tipping point

the real revolution is silent

the whole world isn't watching what it can't see

the underworld is esoteric and you've been trained to fear it

only gods are assassinated

the only conspiracy is the one that says there's no conspiracy

desire is driven by thought; love drives itself

paradox = (yin = yang)

Let Me See It Isn’t and Let What I Am Be

Let samsara be samsara.

Let the search for love

in all deluded and divided ways

discover there’s no need to search,

even if it spends its lifetime searching.

Let war be war,

international, individual, psychological.

Let the mind divide.

Let Being disidentify

with this divided mind.

Let the Absolute intend

to know its great unknown is being.

Let that fact there’s nothing you can do

do you.

One Sees

As one sees it’s all a dream,

there’s nothing left to dream;

what’s a sunrise to the sun?

The mind desires things

to fill its bottomless abyss

but being is the space

of everything and nothing.

Living in the mind

is always looking for

another mind to live in,

born to always run.

But living in the heart

is dying to the thought

that one was ever born—

I’d never recommend

that to a single person.

Burning

A bonfire burns 

on an evening beach. 

Is the fire the wood 

or is fire fire? 

The circle of light 

embraces the surf. 

Is the sea the waves 

or is the sea the sea? 

A guitar is sounding 

extemporaneous notes. 

Who makes tonight a song? 

Never-ending grains of sand 

balance at my fingertip. 

Where do I begin? 

The First Monday in September

The world is always past 

appearing in the present—

it’s as if we stop 

a river with our names. 

It’s Labor Day and leaves 

already begin to turn 

in trees with lesser makeup. 

Over at Half Moon Lake, 

say forty-seven years ago, 

the summer of our love 

is pulled in from the water 

left to sit upon 

the shore and slowly dry. 

The school of pointless knowledge 

waited for our fall. 

But look! A butterfly 

is playing like a crazy 

leaf right now. Oh, time 

is nothing of the essence 

but an emptiness 

divided by imagi-

nation. When this body 

dies, its universe 

of space and time goes with it.

But. Not. I.

Song of Yourself

Abandon all center

for you are the universal.

There’s not a leaf on a tree

by a river that’s flowing

past hills and through cities

of mills that you aren’t.

There’s not a scene

in a list by Walt Whitman

you don’t inhabit.

Nothing you do is done

by some encapsulated

you—in your manifest

intent on knowing

you’re unmanifest.

the nondoer fallacy pseutra

there’s a key misunderstanding of nondoing teaching of Nisargadatta

which originates in its misinterpretation by final teachings of Balsekar.

Nisargadatta points to doing as phenomenal and there is no individual—

Balsekar mis-points to doing as noumenal thru an individual phenomenon.

Nisargadatta points to Nondoing as universal-consciousness doing—

Balsekar mis-points to an individual Nondoer as the absolute doing.

relatively speaking this results in the error of doing on an individual level

with the (mis)understanding it’s not responsible for its doing—

but all doing from the viewpoint of an individual is false.

i see Balsekar’s fallacy resulting from the difficulty of students grasping

there’s no individual to grasp—so teaching was adapted to them—

as nondual teaching of Nisargadatta degenerates to a religion of nonduality

by a prosaic teacher’s inability to transmit the subtle teaching.

the trickster pseutra

every time one calls it sage, 

trickster calls it parsley. 

tricksters never pay for what they say, 

but want some hypothetical other to. 

love and hate are just two sides of coyote's coin.

raven spreads its deconstruction ridge to ridge.

the merciless mother for the motherless child.

tricksters are generally thin-skinned 

in order to get under yours.

every time one calls it thyme, 

trickster calls it rosemary.

god story

my headless tale: 

i'm like deep sleep, 

that nothingness 

which isn’t even nothing, 

a pure subjective stateless state 

without an object to be known 

i’m absolutely pure awareness 

that unknowably unknown—

and out of nowhere is this

great spontaneous intent

to know i am, to know
i am that i unknown.

there is no madeleine of a cause,

no almond to begin some cracking of a nut,

no lemon tree so pretty to invoke this avocation,

nor a bowl of cherries to banana some absurdist apricot of plot.

there’s just this casablanca of the absolute

and its original intent

to know itself,

myself,

i.

what follows is a universal
consciousness of such 
complete imagination

conjuring the where,
when, what and who—

interspatial and

omnichronous,

transmanifesting and

panincarnational,

powered by a shot
of total love.

nuclear magicians
make an object out of nothing—

the rockbound salt of earth appears.

a genesis of wizards
sparks an evolutionary
process out of timelessness—

the central nervous system amplifies itself.

psychedelic sorcerers
convince the sharpest objects
to appropriate the subject—

people cut themselves to pieces.

knowing shamans show the mending way—

i am

this ‘i am’

that is absolutely i—

nothing but the known unknown,
nothing but pure natural awareness now...

unbelievable signs pseutra

apparently true, but

mind makes

synchronicity out of timelessness,

reincarnation out of birthlessness,

and manifestation out of omnipresence.

synchronicity is only as true as time—

reincarnation is only as true as birth—

manifestation is only as true as doing.

the world is only as true as me.

out of nonduality

the mind creates duality

and marvels at those unbelievable signs of unity

appearing in its make-believe conception.

in other words,

synchronicity, reincarnation, and manifestation are

as true as the world and me appear to be.

moreover,

in the shaman wisdom play of universal consciousness,

one synchronizes, reincarnates and manifests…

when, who and what one renders.

Moptop Meditation

I close my eyes and feel an energy 

incommensurate with last night’s pizza 

or this morning’s English muffin. 

It’s like nineteen sixty-four is listening 

to real top forty radio and number one 

and two and three are Beatles tunes,

‘I Want to Hold Your Hand,’

‘She Loves You,’ ‘Please Please Me,’

and nothing that one knew before

consisted of such power and such glory

or such nuclear explosion

like those mushroom clouds in photographs

explaining why we practice duck and cover

in event of catastrophic war

but this is rock and roll,

this Shiva Shakti consciousness.

One knows no radio can generate

that burst of pure uncensurable radiance

but yes it’s all incoming waves instead.

They saturate the space around me

and this little lime-green plastic box

is just receiving them and amplifying

all-encompassing collective bliss itself:

“it's such a feeling that my love

I can't hide, I can't hide, I can't hide.”

Call it spirit, being, presence,

Krishna, Christ, this universal love

that makes the body and receives the song

it’s always singing you yourself are love,

"yeah, yeah, yeah!"

Epistle to Myself

Dear Son,

before knowing what you really are,

you need to know just who you think you are.

I thought I was a person.

I had a headful of beliefs and one of them was me.

That me was re-formulated in the Sixties,

so a lot it was anti-war, pro-human rights,

and wondered when it all went wrong in my America.

I studied post-graduate American history

and found it never was exactly right.

In one important way, this was my spiritual beginning;

deconstruction needs to start at home.

In time I saw that war and all injustices are not

a matter of my being right

and someone else’s being wrong,

but essentially the fact I think there is a me and my

and someone else in opposition as another.

This personal assumption I’m a person is

the one original division from which all

division finds its origin.

Every little thing a person does

to get ahead, assert itself, insinuate its way

to some position of importance is

the primal swamp of war and all injustice.

So as long as I am thinking I’m a person,

there are hostilities and their infringements.

But being on the never hand,

love, Aum.

The River, a Road, and I

Every day I walk the road along the river, 

I want to walk the road along the river every day. 

Twenty years I’ve lived along this spacious river, 

in a less than thousand dollar rental 

in the middle of half-million dollar properties 

amid this precious priceless panorama.

Walking on this road I see a luminous mile of river,

and a mile of river is like ten thousand miles of heaven.

Ten thousand miles of heaven is something

no one ever knows and I see it every day.

What hand inserted me within this jeweled setting?

Across the river is an eastern white pine wilderness,

and in my heart is similar wilderness. Spirit talks to spirit.

There’s not a useless word within that conversation.

Here’s a road and there’s the river, and I’m the source of both,

although I’m never either. Not two, we say. Not two.

An Emotional Poem

Never fight a riptide;

heedfully observe it.

Then swim across and away,

returning to the ground.

Being isn’t rocket science.

Filtered by assorted lenses

of conditioned perpetuating

always transforming thought,

a spectrum of emotions

irradiates like a neon sign—

the heartbreak hotel.

Hence emotions are the light

of being, disturbed.

Accordingly emotions are existent

and undeniable.

Thus it’s just the thoughts

before emotions which are false.

In conceptual conceit,

it could be said

the absolute unknowable subjective

spontaneously intends

to know it is—

and this is that.

Don’t think about it.

This unfiltered energetic

raw existence is that knowing

and the only knowledge there is,

therapeutic, loving, wise or likewise.

This pure intensity 

'i am' is ground—

be

Supermoon and the Small Print

The Supermoon Is New And Guaranteed 

To Fill Your Sky With Cleanliness 

Located Next To Godliness 

Insuring Your Material Well-Being 

Until There’s No Material Left To Be! 

That you never were material 

is immaterial to this company. 

That the body’s like a wireless receiver 

and you’re the wave it amplifies 

is covered somewhere in this small print. 

Not reading your intuition is confusion 

to be suffered when mistaking 

such an object as the subject. 

Identity theft begins at home.

The way will let you know you've lost the way.

The way will let you know you are the way.

What one is is self-explanatory

as one distinguishes the what one isn’t.

Freedom's just another word

for nothing isn't my imagination.

Don’t mistake the tenor of the way

for some vehicle on the road.

Commercials pointing to the supermoon

are neither super nor the moon.

Supply's unlimited although this offer

may be withdrawn at any moment.

You are the wellspring of creation;

drink yourself responsibly.

Known Unknown

Whatever I am, 

I’m not distressed, 

non-existent, 

nor unintelligent. 

Some call this ground 

awareness, but that’s 

as much a metaphor 

as the moon; 

abstract nouns 

are still concrete. 

I am unborn, 

undying, not two— 

that open space 

without a view.

How Many Years Can a Mountain Exist

The world is like ten thousand words 

and all of them are lies if you believe them.

What is an orange when it’s not orange?

What is a person when it isn’t taking something personally?

Thoughts are either like delightful companions

or they’re enemies convincing one is two

and present is the past wishing it’s the future.

Keep your similes like friends and metaphors much closer.

Religion is the truth turned inside-out.

The truth is using words to point at what I really am.

The question to be asked is who am I

when I’m not thinking of an answer.

Thinking that I know is always overblown.

The answer, my friend, is being the unknown.

on war

"I was against...on two counts. First, the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hate to see our country be the first to use such a weapon." ~Dwight D. Eisenhower on Hiroshima bombing 8/6/1945

Hiroshima & Nagasaki weren't isolated events but a culmination of American policy to target civilian populations in mass terrorist bombings.

In the constant war that is ego, the target never changes: the other. Only the technologies increase the accuracy and numbers.

The fire of war is always smoldering and re-igniting: gaza and world war two and world war one and previous wars are not separate events.

Great wars are not separate from personal wars are not separate from inner psychological wars. The egoic state of consciousness is war.

The wise response to war is to see through the sides and not take yet another.

The Undivided Pseutra

Where ‘this’ and ‘that’ cease to be opposites,

there lies the pivot of the Way

~Chaung Tzu (tr. Mair)

it’s not so much the world is an illusion

but how that illusion is relentlessly tricking one—

the illusion is division

but the trick convinces one

to put things back together

when of course they aren’t apart—

and by endlessly trying to put together

things which aren’t apart,

one loses focus on the truth:

one is that which is not apart—

the world appears to be

constantly tearing apart

but everyone is attempting to put it

back together in the best way they see fit—

the human illusion has

seven billion points of view—

you are this

and the other is that

but the other is this to itself

and you are that to it—

the mind divides;

this is the function of mind—

one takes a side;

this is identification with mind—

war!

this is one lost in mind—

war is fought in the home,

on the streets,

at work,

and maybe more importantly,

within oneself,

every single second of the day—

one takes sides;

this is identifying with mind—

one sees one side as god;

this is fundamentalism—

one may completely raze any opposing side;

this is evil—

an ego is like an edifice

built from all the sides one takes—

psychology tries to right the sides;

truth reveals the sides aren’t really there—

so absolute truth is unknown

and all one knows of absolute truth is being—

in other words,

is there an unknown?
yes, i am that.

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

ps5 - mindless

redundancy

float like a butterfly, sting like zhuangzi

being grateful for impracticality

concern with status and inclination for argument reveals one’s inauthenticity

the great usefulness of uselessness

conception

may the light of that wholly intent unfold this revelation

awarify, awarify, awarify

evolution is just another word for awakening

within the mirror's shimmering intent to know itself, it appears to break itself

one can say—awareness of being is the evolutionary human attainment—and—awareness of awareness is being’s evolutionary unfolding—but i won’t

antithesis

theories are useful in deconstructing paradigms—until they form a more perfect paradigm

all misunderstandings are ultimately confusions of definition

all ways are means of deconstruction unless they're turned into a pretty new construction

assert negation including negation of negation

enigmatic

try to tell me something that i can't know

save me from those who want to save me including especially me

the mind tries to remember what emptiness always knows

a paradox doesn’t go over one’s head—it goes through it

dreaming

it's all projection—thirteen ways of looking at a white bird

an alternate state of consciousness is merely a clouded state of consciousness

most projection is a tangled web of misdirection

just clean the lens and project responsibly

irrevocably

one can say there's no one and no one may believe it and thus become one

sooner or later, you have to answer the inner child's endless whys with an "i don't know"

just leave it to be

in the empty kitchen pseutra

tao of absolute—te of intent—ching of being

our coyote—who art the trick—person be they name

fear appears when the unborn is persuaded it’s born and destined to die

even the former vice-president of the united states stands naked and trembles like a newborn

only fear needs to fight fear—compassion sees through it

the infinite is not a barrier but a means of communication

without compassion, paradox is just a joke

it isn’t so because you say it’s so—it’s so and you can’t say it’s so

the unwearable triteness of words

the way is not a fork—and nothing's the matter

space-time is the kitchen—consciousness is the food—absolute intent is the cook

no identity—no merit—no name

in the end, it's both a moot and mute point

for the absolute intent of self-awareness, ten thousand celestial magicians!