Month: October 2006

Very happily, I begin to love – Guilhen de Peiteu

Very happily, I begin to love

a joy from which I will have more pleasure;

and, since I want to be back to joy

I well ought to, if I can, aim for the best;

since I love the best, without doubt,

that one could see or hear.

I (you know as much) should not brag

nor dare I praise myself much;

but if ever could one joy blossom,

this one should above all take roots

and shine above all others

just as the day turns brighter.

And never could anyone portray it

for in want nor wish

nor in though nor in imagination

such a joy can’t find an equivalent;

and if one wanted to praise it properly,

he couldn’t do it in a year.

Totz jois li deu humeliar

Every joy must lower itself

and all royalty obey

my lady, because of her kindness

and of her sweet pleasant visage;

and he will live a hundred times longer

who can partake of her love.

Because of her joy can the sick turn healthy

and because of her displeasure can a healthy man die

and a wise man turn mad

and a handsome man lose his beauty

and the most corteous turn into a lout

and the most churlish turn into a courtier.

Since nobody can find a worthier woman

nor eyes see one, nor mouth describe one,

I want to keep her all for me,

to bring freshness to my heart

and to renew my flesh,

so that it cannot grow old.

If my lady wants to grant me her love,

I am ready to receive it and to reciprocate

I am ready to discretion and cajoling

and to say and do what she pleases,

and to keep her worth into account

and to further her reputation

I don’t dare communicate by proxy,

so much I am afraid to anger her;

nor I myself, so much I am afraid to fail,

dare declare my love precisely;

But she ought to choose what is best for me

because she knows that I shall be saved through her.

(P. Picasso – Odalisque/1951)

On The Menu:

Help Bob Wilson out…

Tie A Ribbon

Robert Anton Wilson – The Widow’s Son/An Excerpt

Poetry: The Erotic Spirit

Art: Interpretations of the Odalisque

Don’t forget to paste in Radio Free EarthRites into your media player for music and spoken word!

-o-o-0-0-O Radio Free Earthrites! O-0-0-o-o-

http://87.194.36.124:8000/radio

http://87.194.36.124:8001/radio-low

http://87.194.36.124:8002/spokenword

Have a good weekend, and help Bob out if you can.

Cheers,

Gwyllm

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Help Bob Out…Robert Anton Wilson

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(From My Friend Diana…)

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The Widow’s Son – Volume Two of the Historical Illuminatus Chronicles

Robert Anton Wilson

Moon was whistling as he sat up above in the driver’s chair, guiding the horse. Sir John thought of the coachman with compassion. He had undoubtedly come to England because of legal troubles in Ireland. The ruin of his right hand — the three missing fingernails — told a story Sir John could read without doubt, having been raised in Dublin himself, when his father was a judge there.

There was something wrong with Moon’s right eye, too. It would not quite focus.

Sir John had voted for every bill Burke had proposed to relieve the Irish, to remove the hateful Penal Laws. They had been defeated by overwhelming majorities every time. I am appeasing my conscience, Sir John thought, by hiring an Irishman with a very probable rebel background.

Well, Moon was a good worker. It was not charity to keep him; he earned his wages.

Sir John remembered the first interview. “James Moon,” he had said. “That was probably Seamus Muadhen back in Meath, wasn’t it?” Moon, or Muadhen, claimed to come from Meath — which probably meant he came from Cork or Wexford or any place but Meath.

The look of astonishment on the lad’s face was pathetic, Sir John thought. He had obviously never met and never conceived of an Englishman who cared enough about Ireland to learn Gaelic.

He was still whistling as he galloped the horses. Sir John recognized the tune:

‘Twas early, early all in the spring

The birds did whistle and sweetly sing

Changing their notes from tree to tree

And the song they sang was of Ireland free

A rebel song. Sir John smiled. The boy was concentrating on the horses and did not realize what he was whistling, how incriminating it was.

We all give our away our secrets sooner or later, Sir John thought, and the fear came back as he applied that idea to himself.

The concept of God as a Machiavellian could only occur to a man who was himself Machiavellian.

Do I not always work for the humanitarian cause? Am I not trying to be a good husband? What is past is past. I have “put away all childish things.”

You are living a lie, another voice within him said. You know what you feel at the sight of certain special boys, boys with that brutal beauty that still attracts you.

It was at this point in his thoughts that Sir John Babcock saw what seemed to him at first one of God’s more Machiavellian tricks.

The object came down with a thunderous roar, it glowed like a ghost in a legend — or one of the faeries of Ireland — and it landed with an earsplitting crash only a short distance from the road.

A “thunderstone.”

An object that did not exist, according to the Royal Scientific Society. A myth that only peasants believed.

And it was still glowing.

“Moon!” Sir John shouted, banging on the roof of the coach with his walking stick in excitement. “Stop! Stop at once!”

The two men stood beside the coach, looking at the glowing rock. “You saw it come down?” Sir John asked, feeling like a character in a Walpole novel of demons.

“Aye, I saw it, sir.” Moon did not seem frightened at all. Of course, Sir John thought; he had detected evidence of some education in the lad previously.

“You are not afraid?”

“Afraid of a rock? Sure, it’s those human sons of bitches that scare me, when I am scared. Sir.”

Sir John had already gotten past thinking it was something God had thrown in his direction to teach him something about how inscrutable a Machiavellian deity could be. This was a natural phenomenon of some sort, and its connection with his own thoughts was only coincidental.

“I wish to dig it out of the earth,” Sir John said carefully, controlling his excitement. “It may have great scientific value. Let us see if it is still too hot to be touched.”

The two men walked across the field, and Sir John became increasingly aware that James Moon was not an ignorant peasant. He seemed to understand Sir John’s intellectual curiosity, and he showed no anxiety that faeries might leap out of the rock and transport them a hundred years backward or forward in time.

When they stood looking at the “thunderstone,” which had faded from bright yellow to mild grey already, Sir John felt exactly as he had during his four degrees of initiation into Freemasonry. The Royal Scientific Society was wrong about these objects; the peasants were right; everything was thereby thrown into doubt. This kind of awe and wonder had never come to him in any church, and yet he felt a sense of infinite mystery that was supposed to be what the Churches were all about.

Who was it who had said “There are no rocks in the sky; therefore rocks do not fall out of the sky”?

Well, there were rocks in the sky, and Sir John had seen one of them fall. What else is up there that we do not know? he wondered uneasily. The City of Heaven? That was superstition, but then, where did this Damned Thing fall from?

“Find a large branch,” he said intently. “Something to pry it loose from the earth.”

Sir John had devoted his life to an ideal of justice, which had been increasingly exacerbated by knowledge of how infuriatingly difficult it was to achieve, or even approximate, justice in this world. Now he felt a new passion; a commitment to pure truth such as the dedicated natural philosopher must feel. The Royal Scientific Society — indeed, all educated opinion — was wrong about thunderstones. Sir John had seen one fall with his own eyes; it was not some peasant’s tale. It was his duty to inform the scientific community. He had, at that moment, only a dim premonition that this might be an upopular undertaking. That did not matter of course; he had been vilified considerably for some of his positions in Parliament — his defense of the American colonists, his opposition to slavery, his efforts to remove the Penal Laws and restore religious liberty. He was not afraid of public opinion. Besides, he had his rock, and he was sure nobody could argue away the existence of so tangible an object.

Sir John heard Moon move behind him.

Seamus Muadhen was hesitating, as he had been hesitating for months. It was only partly that Babcock was not the villain Seamus had imagined in the interrogation room in Dun Laoghaire; mostly he had delayed because he lacked the stomach for this job. He had told himself, many times, that he was being clever and crafty; waiting for the right time, the time when he could do it and escape without suspicion. That had all been lies; he had had many opportunities. Opportunities lost, gone, keened only by the wild wicked wind.

It was easy to commit murder in imagination, Seamus had learned. There was the man you hated, the man who deserved to die; and there you were, alone with him. You shot, or you stabbed, or you clubbed him, and the work was done. But now, in the real world, it was more complicated; the man had a wife for instance, and you could not stop yourself from thinking of the look in her eyes when she heard the news; and she was pregnant, and you thought of the unborn child; and you learned, the way servants learn things, that she, Lady Babcock, had a brother who was half-mad because of a wound from a duel, and you wondered what more violence coming into her life might do to her mind….

The plain fact is, Seamus thought in the dar, coming up behind Sir John, the great conquerors and empire builders like the English are people who have learned not to think that way. Here is a man who must die, they think: and they kill him: and there is an end. And the revolutionaries who succeed can only think one step at a time: here is a man who must die, so we kill him. Those of us who think of the next step, and the step beyond, Seamus realized, are not the ones who make history. We are its passive victims. Just because we have too much fooken imagination. If a prime minister anywhere in Europe had the kind of mind I have, Seamus thought miserably, he would never sign a mobilization order for an army: and there would be no history.

History is made by men who do not think of the ultimate effects of what they are doing.

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Poetry: The Erotic Spirit

(J.A.D. Ingres – The Grand Odalisque)

Passion and Love

A MAIDEN wept and, as a comforter,

Came one who cried, “I love thee,” and he seized

Her in his arms and kissed her with hot breath,

That dried the tears upon her flaming cheeks.

While evermore his boldly blazing eye

Burned into hers; but she uncomforted

Shrank from his arms and only wept the more.

Then one came and gazed mutely in her face

With wide and wistful eye; but still aloof

He held himself; as with a reverent fear,

As one who knows some sacred presence nigh.

And as she wept he mingled tear with tear,

That cheered her soul like dew a dusty flower,–

Until she smiled, approached, and touched his hand.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

—

The Guest

All as before: against the dining-room windows

Beats the scattered windswept snow,

And I have not changed either,

But a man came to me.

I asked: “What do you want?”

He replied: “To be with you in Hell.”

I laughed: “Oh, you’ll foredoom

Us both to disaster.”

But lifting his dry hand

He lightly touched the flowers:

“Tell me how men kiss you,

Tell me how you kiss men.”

And his lusterless eyes

Did not move from my ring.

Not a single muscle quivered

On his radiantly evil face.

Oh, I know: his delight

Is the tense and passionate knowledge

That he needs nothing,

That I can refuse him nothing.

Anna Akhmatova

—

The Unfaithful Wife

So I took her to the river

thinking she was virgin,

but it seems she had a husband.

It was the night of Saint Iago,

and it almost was a duty.

The lamps went out,

the crickets lit up.

By the last street corners

I touched her sleeping breasts,

and they suddenly had opened

like the hyacinth petals.

The starch

of her slip crackled

in my ears like silk fragments

ripped apart by ten daggers.

The tree crowns

free of silver light are larger,

and a horizon, of dogs, howls

far away from the river.

Past the hawthorns,

the reeds, and the brambles,

below her dome of hair

I made a hollow in the sand.

I took off my tie.

She took of a garment.

I my belt with my revolver.

She four bodices.

Creamy tuberoses

or shells are not as smooth as

her skin was, or, in the moonlight,

crystals shining brilliantly.

Her thighs slipped from me

like fish that are startled,

one half full of fire,

one half full of coldness.

That night I galloped

on the best of roadways,

on a mare of nacre,

without stirrups, without bridle.

As a man I cannot tell you

the things she said to me.

The light of understanding

has made me most discreet.

Smeared with sand and kisses,

I took her from the river.

The blades of the lilies

were fighting with the air.

I behaved as what I am,

as a true gypsy.

I gave her a sewing basket,

big, with straw-coloured satin.

I did not want to love her,

for though she had a husband,

she said she was a virgin

when I took her to the river.

Garcia Lorca

—

Body of a Woman

Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs,

you look like a world, lying in surrender.

My rough peasant’s body digs in you

and makes the son leap from the depth of the earth.

I was lone like a tunnel. The birds fled from me,

and nigh swamped me with its crushing invasion.

To survive myself I forged you like a weapon,

like an arrow in my bow, a stone in my sling.

But the hour of vengeance falls, and I love you.

Body of skin, of moss, of eager and firm milk.

Oh the goblets of the breast! Oh the eyes of absence!

Oh the roses of the pubis! Oh your voice, slow and sad!

Body of my woman, I will persist in your grace.

My thirst, my boudnless desire, my shifting road!

Dark river-beds where the eternal thirst flows

and weariness follows, and the infinite ache.

By Pablo Neruda

—

Madonna of the Evening Flowers

All day long I have been working,

Now I am tired

I call: “Where are you?”

But there is only the oak-tree rustling in the wind.

The house is very quiet,

The sun shines in on your books,

On your scissors and thimble just put down,

But you are not there.

Suddenly I am lonely:

Where are you? I go about searching.

Then I see you,

Standing under a spire of pale blue larkspur,

With a basket of roses on your arm.

You are cool, like silver,

And you smile.

I think the Canterbury bells are playing little tunes.

You tell me that the peonies need spraying,

That the columbines have overrun all bounds,

That the pyrus japonica should be cut back and rounded.

You tell me all these things.

But I look at you, heart of silver,

White heart-flame of polished silver,

Burning beneath the blue steeples of the larkspur,

And I long to kneel instantly at your feet,

While all about us peal the loud, sweet, Te Deums of the Canterbury bells.

Amy Lowell

—

Hymn To Eros

O Eros, silently smiling one, hear me.

Let the shadow of thy wings

brush me.

Let thy presence

enfold me, as if darkness

were swandown.

Let me see that darkness

lamp in hand,

this country become

the other country

sacred to desire.

Drowsy god,

slow the wheels of my thought

so that I listen only

to the snowfall hush of

thy circling.

Close my beloved with me

in the smoke ring of thy power,

that we way be, each to the other,

figures of flame,

figures of smoke,

figures of flesh

newly seen in the dusk.

Denise Levertov

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(Mariano Fortuny – L Odalisque)

(‘O King, […] The Supreme Lord of all mystic power, the Personality of Godhead, displayed His universal form to Arjuna. Arjuna saw in that universal form unlimited mouths, unlimited eyes, unlimited wonderful visions. The form was decorated with many celestial ornaments and bore many divine upraised weapons. He wore celestial garlands and garments, and many divine scents were smeared over His body. All was wondrous, brilliant, unlimited, all-expanding. If hundreds of thousands of suns were to rise at once into the sky, their radiance might resemble the effulgence of the Supreme Person in that universal form. At that time Arjuna could see in the universal form of the Lord the unlimited expansions of the universe situated in one place although divided into many, many thousands.’)

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Living in exciting times… I have an optimism that things can and do work out. Colour me naive, but I think we are coming to a a crucial moment for the future. Can anyone say, time for regime change? Join in with the thousands, if not millions who will be on the streets tomorrow. Take back the future!

On The Menu:

World Can’t Wait

The Links

Arjuna’s Dilemma

Poetry of Master Hsu (Xu) Yun

Art from the Illustrated Gita & Classical Chinese Paintings…

Enjoy your day,

Gwyllm

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World Can’t Wait…

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The Links:

Jesus Camp – The Movie

The Prophet of Gases

Scroll Down: Orbs… Are energy orbs, visible only in the infrared spectrum, being formed from the sexual frustration of reality TV show participants?

Out-of-Body Experience? Your Brain Is to Blame

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Arjuna’s Dilemma

Dhritaraashtra said: O Sanjaya, assembled in the holy field of Kurukshetra and eager to fight, what did my people and the Paandavas do?

Sanjaya said: Seeing the battle formation of the Paandava’s army, King Duryodhana approached his guru, Drona, and spoke these words:

O master, behold this mighty army of the sons of Paandu, arranged in battle formation by your talented disciple, the son of Drupada.

There are many heroes and mighty archers equal to Bheema and Arjuna in war such as Yuyudhaana and Viraata; and the great warrior, Drupada;

Dhrishtaketu, Chekitaana, and the heroic King of Kaashi; Purujit, Kuntibhoja, and the great man Saibya;

The valiant Yudhaamanyu, the formidable Uttamauja, the son of Subhadraa, and the sons of Draupadi; all of them are great warriors.

Also know, O best among the twice born, the distinguished ones on our side. I name the commanders of my army for your information.

Yourself, Bheeshma, Karna, and the victorious Kripa; Ashvatthaamaa, Vikarna, and the son of Somadatta.

And many other heroes who have risked their lives for me. They are armed with various weapons, and all are skilled in warfare.

Our army, commanded by Bheeshma, is invincible; while their army, protected by Bheema, is easy to conquer.

Therefore all of you, occupying your respective positions on all fronts, protect Bheeshma only.

The mighty Bheeshma, the eldest man of the Kuru dynasty, roared as a lion and blew his conch loudly bringing joy to Duryodhana., drums, and trumpets were sounded together. The commotion was tremendous.

Then Lord Krishna and Arjuna, seated in a grand chariot yoked with white horses, blew their celestial conches.

Krishna blew His conch, Paanchajanya; Arjuna blew his conch, Devadatta; and Bheema, the doer of formidable deeds, blew (his) big conch, Paundra.

The son of Kunti, King Yudhishthira, blew (his conch) Anantavijaya, while Nakula and Sahadeva blew Sughosha and Manipushpaka conches, respectively.

The King of Kaashi, the mighty archer; Shikhandi, the great warrior; Dhristadyumna, Viraata, and the invincible Saatyaki;

King Drupada, and the sons of Draupadi; the mighty son of Subhadraa; all of them blew their respective conches, O lord of the earth.

The tumultuous uproar, resounding through earth and sky, tore the hearts of the Kauravas.

Seeing the sons of Dhritaraashtra standing; and the war about to begin; Arjuna, whose banner bore the emblem of Hanumana, took up his bow; and Spoke these words to Lord Krishna: O Lord, (please) stop my chariot between the two armies until I behold those who stand here eager for battle and with whom I must engage in this act of war.

I wish to see those who are willing to serve the evil-minded son of Dhritaraashtra by assembling here to fight the battle.

Sanjaya said: O King, Lord Krishna, as requested by Arjuna, placed the best of all the chariots in the midst of the two armies;

Facing Bheeshma, Drona, and all other Kings; and said to Arjuna: Behold these assembled Kurus!

There Arjuna saw his uncles, grandfathers, teachers, maternal uncles, brothers, sons, grandsons, and comrades.

Seeing fathers-in-law, all those kinsmen, and other dear ones standing in the ranks of the two armies,

Arjuna was overcome with great compassion and sorrowfully said: O Krishna, seeing my kinsmen standing with a desire to fight,

My limbs fail and my mouth becomes dry. My body quivers and my hairs stand on end.

The bow, Gaandeeva, slips from my hand and my skin intensely burns. My head turns, I am unable to stand steady and, O Krishna, I see bad omens. I see no use of killing my kinsmen in battle. )

I desire neither victory nor pleasure nor kingdom, O Krishna. What is the use of the kingdom, or enjoyment, or even life, O Krishna?

Because all those, for whom we desire kingdom, enjoyments, and pleasures, are standing here for the battle, giving up their lives and wealth.

Teachers, uncles, sons, grandfathers, maternal uncles, fathers-in-law, grandsons, brothers-in-law, and other relatives.

I do not wish to kill them, who are also about to kill, even for the sovereignty of the three worlds, let alone for this earthly kingdom, O Krishna.

O Lord Krishna, what pleasure shall we find in killing the sons of Dhritaraashtra? Upon killing these felons we shall incur sin only.

Therefore, we should not kill our brothers, the sons of Dhritaraashtra. How can we be happy after killing our kinsmen, O Krishna?

Though they, blinded by greed, do not see evil in the destruction of the family, or sin in being treacherous to friends.

Why shouldn’t we, who clearly see evil in the destruction of the family, think about turning away from this sin, O Krishna?

With the destruction of the family, the eternal family traditions are destroyed, and immorality prevails due to the destruction of family traditions.

And when immorality prevails, O Krishna, the women of the family become corrupted; when women are corrupted, social problems arise.

This brings the family and the slayers of the family to hell, because the spirits of their ancestors are degraded when deprived of ceremonial offerings of rice-ball and water.

The everlasting qualities of Varna and family traditions of those who destroy their family are ruined by the sinful act of illegitimacy. (Note: Varna means color, or the make up and the hue of mind; a social division or order of society such as caste in India.)

We have been told, O Krishna, that people whose family traditions are destroyed necessarily dwell in hell for a long time.

Alas! We are ready to commit a great sin by striving to slay our kinsmen because of greed for the pleasures of the kingdom.

It would be far better for me if the sons of Dhritaraashtra should kill me with their weapons in battle while I am unarmed and unresisting.

Sanjaya said: Having said this in the battle field and casting aside his bow and arrow, Arjuna sat down on the seat of the chariot with his mind overwhelmed with sorrow.

(“Lord Krishna blew His conchshell, called Pancajanya; Arjuna blew his, the Devadatta; and Bhima, the voracious eater and performer of herculean tasks, blew his terrific conchshell, called Paundra.”)

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Poetry of Master Hsu (Xu) Yun

Chant of the Heart’s Impression

This is an exquisite truth:

Saints and ordinary folks are the same from the start.

Eventually there’s a difference between them.

You don’t borrow string when you’ve got a good strong rope.

Every Dharma is known in the heart.

After the rain, the mountain color intensifies.

Once you become familiar with the design of fate’s illusions

Your ink slab will contain all of life and death.

—

Mountain Living

Mountain living! There’s deep meaning here!

A place where your spirits open up without limit.

Lean on a pine trunk for your pillow.

Wake from your nap and make yourself some tea.

Mountain living! No guests arriving!

The path through the bamboo grove is locked in smoke and mist.

Near the front door a clear brook flows

The wind carries small flowers on the water.

Mountain living! Spring comes so early.

Plum blossoms are everywhere you look.

Their subtle fragrance captures the attention of your nose.

See or smell the slanting branch just outside the window.

—

Clearing Your Heart of Obstacles

Since there’s no such thing as form

There can’t be image, either.

How then can obstacles arise?

Safe within this principle

Bodhidharma was secure.

—

Song of Walking Standing Sitting Lying

Walking in the mountains

You step through clouds at the tip of the ridge

And seen in the reflected light

The earth has not a speck of dust.

Standing in the mountains

You avoid the road of life and death

You can open your eyes and see a thousand saints

But they don’t turn to look at you.

Sitting in the mountains

You spend the whole long day like this

Sitting till you wear through the mat

No word of any teaching drops into your lap.

Lying in the mountains

You imagine you’ve a mule or horse beneath you.

You’ll get through. Master is an old man.

He knows the way by heart.

—

Describing the Glorious Layman Lin Guangqian

From reciting Buddhist chants

He became a complete Buddha.

Whether moving or still, busy or resting,

There’s never the slightest variation.

He chants to the point where his heart is not scattered.

He is the Dharma King.

This means he presides over every creature on earth!

(Do you realize that this makes us all members of his family?)

—-

Floating on West Lake with the Truly Venerable Xi Tian Mu

Through this impenetrable fog

His mind surges confidently.

Who steers this boat?

His heart – clear as the Autumn water

His body – pure and undefiled as the white clouds.

Being with him is just like being immersed in the True Emptiness;

Why in my breast do I cling to the dross of worldly problems?

This trusted master has the Three Secret Powers.

Can I not, with him, roam the oceans and the heavens?

—-

Traveling Mount Jun … (a mountain in Hunan) which is in central China

and no where near the Indian border …

That year, the Indian border was opened…

That day, I was able to climb Mount Jun.

The clouds were clear and all the peaks exquisite

The forests, high and nestled in the shadows.

I called out and the echo of my voice startled a bird from its dreams.

The soughing of the pines became a song of Chan.

I came to a cave; and in the water floor of its hall

My heart became clear, reflecting both its heaven

And its earth.

—-

On Living at Yun Yi Shi

(a place name which means “the stone moved by the clouds”)

I like it best when I’m living out in the open,

As in the old days when I’d forget the years were passing,

When I’d follow where fate led me.

I thought nothing could change me.

But the Pearl of the Heart works in such an exquisitely subtle way.

It fills you. .. makes you feel complete with Heaven’s Nature.

There’s no need to move.

Before the beginning of this senseless world

The clouds moved this fist of a stone right here

To this very place.

—-

On Living in a Cave of Stone

A stone cave. That’s the ultimate in cleanliness and refinement. But live alone. Don’t concern yourself with the business of life. Get a round mat made of rushes. Take a meditation pose and sit.

Then, the body will become like just so many bubbles. The wheels of life will roll into timelessness. When you enter deepest meditation Your Inner Being will be wrapped in Being, Itself.

The great material world will vanish. How could those grains of sand remain?

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(As Maha-Vishnu, a plenary expansion of Lord Krishna, inhales and exhales, all the innumerable universes enter into Him and again come forth.)

Wednesday… mid-week. A nice bit of reading ahead, hope you enjoy,

Gwyllm

On the Menu:

The Links

On Purpose?

Buddha Nature and Buddhahood: the Mahayana and Tantrayana

The Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke

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The Links:

Kids’ kickabout reveals church’s mystery crypt

Australian researchers back hobbit claims

Robin Hood was Welsh and never went to Nottingham, claims book

Heading in the light direction

_________________

On Purpose?

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Buddha Nature and Buddhahood: the Mahayana and Tantrayana

by Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche

The attitude of the bodhisattva, the Mahayana practitioner, is not being concerned just for oneself, but feeling the same concern for everyone. The reason a bodhisattva has unbiased love and compassion is that when we identify with a certain group and concentrate on its benefit, there is the danger we might harm others outside the group.

Therefore, the Mahayana path cultivates a completely unbiased love and compassion, caring equally for every being including nonhuman beings such as animals. Normally, we care for our friends and relatives and helping them may set others against us. Or we care for our race and set ourselves against other races or cultures. Or we care for humans and subjugate animals in order to make life better for mankind. All of this is the usual way of biased thought.

The Mahayana approach is to care equally for any sentient being (which is any being who has a mind). This is because we realize that since beginningless time, each and every being has had the same basic wish to find happiness and to be free from suffering. In that respect, all beings are the same and therefore we try to help them equally.

Buddha Nature

The union of wisdom and emptiness is the essence of Buddha-hood or what is called Buddha-nature (Skt. tathagatagarba) because it contains the very seed, the potential of Buddhahood. It resides in each and every being and because of this essential nature, this heart nature, there is the possibility of reaching Buddhahood. Even though it is in everyone, it is not obvious nor does it manifest because it is covered up by the various thoughts and defilements which are blocking the Buddha-nature.

That Buddha-nature is present in each and every being but does not always manifest. This is exemplified in the Uttara Tantra by an image of a lotus flower, which is an ugly flower when it is a bud. But inside it there is a small and perfect Buddha statue. At first one only sees this homely flower. Yet, when the flower blossoms one can see the form of the Buddha, which has always been there. Similarly, full Buddha-nature is in everyone’s mind, yet its radiance and presence is covered up.

Another example given in the Uttara Tantra is of honey surrounded by many bees. Honey is quite sweet and tasty but as long as it is surrounded by bees, one can’t taste that sweetness. The example shows again that there is something at the very heart, yet because of these swarms of bees which represent our defilements, one can’t gain access to something which has been there all the time.

The third example is of grains of rice inside their husks. To get the nutritional value from the grains one has to remove the shell, the husk. Whether one dehusks the grain or not, there is always that same grain inside and as far as the grain is concerned there is no difference. But if one wants to have access to the nutritive value, one must remove the shell.

The example of the statue of the Buddha inside the lotus shows how buddha essence is inside beings but is covered up by desires, attachments, and involvements. One has many different defilements. The first main defilement (Skt. klesha) of attachment is represented by the lotus because when one finds something very attractive, one wants to be involved with it.

The lotus flower at one stage is very beautiful and has a nice shape and color which is associated with beauty and attractiveness. Actually, when one considers it, the lotus has a very limited use apart from its beauty. Also that beauty changes—one day it very beautiful, the following days it wilts, fades and rots and the beauty is gone. This is the very nature of desire—at one point things seem very attractive but very quickly one realizes that they are not so useful or lasting as they seemed.

In the example of the lotus it is not until the petals of the flower open and fall away that one can see the form of the Buddha that was there all the time. And it is the same with desires—until one’s desires have been eliminated, one cannot see the Buddha-nature which has been inside sentient beings all the time.

The second example of honey points to the covering or blocking presence of the second defilement of aggression or anger which is characterized by bees. Honey in itself is very sweet and tasty. This is like Buddha-nature which is very useful and beneficial for everyone. Yet, around the honey are all those bees whose nature is the very opposite. The bees sting and are very aggressive. As long as the bees are there, the situation is very difficult. So it is with the nature of aggression and anger which is also very unpleasant; it stings and hurts. The honey is there all the time and one can’t get to the honey because the bees are all around it. If one can find a way of gradually getting rid of the bees, one can get the honey.

Likewise, when one eliminates anger and aggression, one can develop this really beneficial Buddha-nature.

The third example of grains of rice inside their husks is used to point to the nature of the third main defilement which is ignorance or stupidity. The husk is very tough and difficult to separate from the grain which makes it a good example of ignorance which is also thick, strong, and difficult to get rid of. This ignorance stops us from having access to Buddha-nature.

Generally speaking, beings have a great deal of ignorance. Compared to animals, of course, humans are more clever in many respects and have more wisdom. But the wisdom of humans is quite limited. For instance, humans like ourselves can’t see what is happening beyond the walls of this room; they can’t see what is happening in the rest of the world. Knowledge stops where the wall stops. Even though humans can see other people inside the walls, they have no idea apart from a few vague indications what’s happening inside of people because human perception doesn’t stretch that far.

Even when we think we perceive other’s thoughts, we often make mistakes. If we have a friend, for instance, the friend goes out and we may start thinking, “I wonder what he is saying about me” and we develop a whole train of thought and become convinced that he is saying bad things about us. By the time he comes back there can even be a fight just because we have guessed the person’s intentions wrongly. Or we may think an adversary is changing his intentions towards us by acting in an open way which can also cause a lot of trouble if the enemy in fact is still an enemy. It is hard for us to see things as they really are.

When we learn about the Buddha’s teachings, we learn about the nature of desire, the nature of aversion, and so on. It takes a long time for us to understand what is really being taught. Even though we may know about the shortcomings of desire, yet due to our habitual patterns it takes a long time to act in a way which corresponds to our knowledge. The perception of the deeper aspects of truth is very hard for us to quickly understand because ignorance is so pervasive. That is why it is compared to the husk of a grain: It is tough, hard, and takes a lot of effort to remove. These three examples show how Buddha-nature is like a precious essence or jewel inside us, which is covered up by desire, aggression, and ignorance. The Buddha taught the dharma to show us how to have access to this precious Buddha-nature.

There is another example in the Uttara Tantra which illustrates this. There’s a very precious statue made of gold which ages ago had fallen and became covered with dirt. Because no one knows it’s there, for generations and generations people leave their rubbish there and it becomes more and more covered because no one realizes it is underground.

One day a man who is clairvoyant comes along and sees this precious golden statue under the ground. He then tells someone, “Do you know that there is a precious and beautiful golden statue there under the ground. All you need to do is dig it up, clean it, and you will own this extremely valuable thing.” Someone with sense would heed the man, take the statue out of the ground, clean it, and possess what has been there for such a long time.

This example is very vivid: Since the beginning of time this precious Buddha-nature has been in all beings, yet it has been covered with the dirt of the defilements. Because one doesn’t realize one has this precious nature within, defilements build up. But then the Buddha who is like the man with clairvoyance tells us, “You know, there is Buddha-nature within you. All you need to do is uncover and clean it so all the exceptional qualities it has will manifest.”

Those who heed the Buddha’s teachings can discover this incomparable thing which has been within us all the time and which we never knew was there until we were told. For that essence to be revealed we need to meditate on the truth, on the essence of phenomena, the way things really are. If we do that, we clean away all the delusions and defilements which have been covering up that essence. So we meditate on the essence of everything which is emptiness. Through that meditation we will discover this emptiness has within it wisdom and clarity. Through the process of becoming used to the emptiness and clarity which is the universal essence or dharmata we will automatically eliminate all of the delusions which have been blocking that vision.

Once we see the truth of everything, all the deluded aspects can’t exist at the same time. So to clear away the obscurations and blockages to Buddha-nature, we need first to know about the essence of emptiness and clarity. Once we know it exists, we meditate on it to become closer and closer to Buddha-nature.

Buddahood: The Fruition

Now we will move on to fruition which is Buddhahood. The word for Buddha in Tibetan has two syllables, sang gey. These show the two main qualities or principle aspects of this highest goal of Buddhahood. The first is the aspect of purity which means one is free from all the impurities of the defilements, from ignorance, and from all the obscurations.

The syllable sang means “awakened,” “awakened from that sleep of ignorance,” or “purified from that ignorance.” The second syllable gey means “blossomed” because being free from impurities, all of the deep wisdom of the Buddha becomes present and this clarity and knowledge has completely blossomed and is completely free from obscurations. So Buddhahood is the complete blossoming of the highest wisdom and purity.

Now, the teachings of the Buddha can be divided into three main levels or vehicles which are the Hinayana, the Mahayana, and the Vajrayana. Another way of analyzing them is to look at them in terms of the sutra and the tantra level of teaching.

The Sanskrit word sutra was translated into Tibetan as do which means “teachings” or “explanation.” Generally, the sutra level of teachings contains all of the explanations, all the ways of presenting the vast meaning that the Buddha gave in his life of teachings. So the sutra tradition is a way of presentation of the Buddha’s teachings.

The other aspect is the tantra. When this Sanskrit word was translated into Tibetan, it became ju which means “continuum.” Sometimes it is called mantra which in Tibetan is nga.

This word tantra or “continuum” shows that there is this presence of Buddha-nature or Buddha-essence in all sentient beings that they had have from the very beginning of existence and will possess until they reach Buddhahood. So, by gradually working on the path, step by step, one develops one’s full potential and reaches Buddhahood. This constant or continuous presence within us is what is worked with in the tantric teachings. (The Tantra path is also called the Vajrayana)

The Three Vehicles of Buddhist Practice

__________

The Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke

Initial

Out of infinite longings rise

finite deeds like weak fountains,

falling back just in time and trembling.

And yet, what otherwise remains silent,

our happy energies—show themselves

in these dancing tears.

—

The Poet

O hour of my muse: why do you leave me,

Wounding me by the wingbeats of your flight?

Alone: what shall I use my mouth to utter?

How shall I pass my days? And how my nights?

I have no one to love. I have no home.

There is no center to sustain my life.

All things to which I give myself grow rich

and leave me spent, impoverished, alone.

—

Song of the Sea

(Capri, Piccola Marina)

Timeless sea breezes,

sea-wind of the night:

you come for no one;

if someone should wake,

he must be prepared

how to survive you.

Timeless sea breezes,

that for aeons have

blown ancient rocks,

you are purest space

coming from afar…

Oh, how a fruit-bearing

fig tree feels your coming

high up in the moonlight.

—

[World was in the face of the beloved]

World was in the face of the beloved-,

but suddenly it poured out and was gone:

world is outside, world can not be grasped.

Why didn’t I, from the full, beloved face

as I raised it to my lips, why didn’t I drink

world, so near that I couldn’t almost taste it?

Ah, I drank. Insatiably I drank.

But I was filled up also, with too much

world, and, drinking, I myself ran over.

—

Sacrifice

How my body blooms from every vein

more fragrantly, since you appeard to me;

look, I walk slimmer now and straighter,

and all you do is wait-:who are you then?

Look: I feel how I’m moving away,

how I’m shedding my old life, leaf by leaf.

Only your smile spreads like sheer stars

over you and, soon now, over me.

Whatever shines through my childhood years

still nameless and gleaming like water,

I will name after you at the altar,

which is blazing brightly from your hair

and braided gently with your breasts.

_________

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought.

If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him.

If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought,

happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him. “

– Lord Buddha

_____________

On the Menu

The Links

Pagan Dharma

The Poetry of Dogen…

Have a good one!

G

_____________

The Links:

Scientists bid to take Neanderthal DNA sample

Moving Beyond String Theory

Analysing the Dead Sea Scrolls

China tests thermonuclear fusion reactor

_____________

Who speaks the sound of an echo?

Who paints the image in a mirror?

Where are the spectacles in a dream?

Nowhere at all — that’s the nature of mind!

– Tantric Buddhist Women’s Songs, 8th – 11th c.

_____________

Pagan Dharma – Sam Webster

Hail to the Tathagatagarba in all beings!

Our era of profound spiritual crisis is equally an era of spiritual forment rivaled only by that time two thousand years ago that saw the emergence of Gnosticism, Christianity, and the Hermetic Tradition in the West and Mahayana Buddhism and Vedanta in the East. Today, as then, this transformative crisis is being fueled by the confluence of cultures, none of which will remain the same for that contact. Two such cultures, contemporary Paganism and Tibetan or Vajrayana Buddhism, have the potential to deeply revitalize each other and positively effect our world.

Problems with Pagan Practice

Paganism has survived awful abuse for thousands of years. It is a testimony to the vitality and resilience of the culture that it survives in any form today. Outside of the Roman and Greek Churches, contemporary Paganism preserves the only remaining living ritual tradition in the West. Protestantism has vestiges of ritual in baptism and such rites but mostly is a preaching tradition. Even the High Churches have preserved only a narrow range of ritual practice. The Pagans however still create rituals from generative grammars as needed to supplement the more established forms. Yet due to the abuse the tradition has experienced the degree of self-critical reflection and refinement of that ritual tradition is very thin. At most we have only a generation or two’s examination of our process, which, while helpful, is no match for a thousand years of sustained attention.

Over the years of practicing Pagan magickal ritual I have noticed a variety of consistent problems with our practice. Many solutions for these have been attempted with varying success. When I was introduced to the Tibetan contemplative tradition, (read Vajrayana) one of the points my teacher made was how the practitioners noted problems with their practices and with insight (and I suspect lots of trial and error and sharing results) they were able to solve them. Indeed, he noted, most books of Tibetan ritual practice were structured with the first chapter or so giving the practice itself and the remaining many chapters delineate all the ways the practice could go wrong and how to fix them. He also shared some of the more general techniques and what they were remedies for. Perhaps because ritual is ritual and it is humans doing it regardless where on the world they are, the same problems he mentioned among the Buddhists I had seen among Pagans. Shamelessly, and in true Hermetic manner, I began applying some of the remedies in my own ritual practice and with my community. Needless to say it helped.

One of these that was very easy to adopt was the dedication of the benefit of the ritual to all beings (this of course includes the ritual practitioners). Either by verbally dedicating the benefit in this manner or by ‘sweeping’ the good that we have done into an energy ball in the center of the ritual space and tossing it up into the sky to rain down on all beings, we were easily able to incorporate this ritual element. However effective as this sharing might be, the most immediate benefit to the group was the complete absence of the post-ritual blues, ungroundedness and general irritability that I and many other practitioners have experienced. Instead a calm sense of satisfaction tends to pervades the space.

Another more pervasive issue among magickal practitioners is the problem of magick going awry or causing harm, which it can easily do since it is refracted through our subconsciousnesses (thus not wholly under our conscious control) and since it is simply a power of nature. With our practice of magick comes an interaction with the world that requires, due to its power, a deeper level of responsibility and accountability and for non-practitioners. Instead we regularly cause trouble for ourselves, but this is more due to a lack of skill than necessity.

Looking back over our history, I suspect that in the frightful need to transmit the how the Western Magical Tradition lost the why. In the face of oppression and ridicule the practice of magick was nearly, but not successfully, exterminated. But those who transmitted the core of our way forward in time did not include as inherent the process of rooting our work in compassion.

Perhaps those who bequeathed us the magickal tradition thought it obvious or maybe the view as to what magick is to be used for never arose. But its absence today, this lack of high intention cripples us. Though we value the Earth and root to it when we do our work, this is not enough to place the momentum of the greatest good for all behind our magickal efforts, our spells and rites. Yet by generating compassion we can invoke the inherent power of the entire Universe driving us all toward our eventual enlightenment to strengthen and fulfill our magick.

The Buddhists call this “boddhichitta” and make a particular point of generating it at the beginning of every ritual. This is also what the Mahayana brought to the magick users of India and Tibet, giving rise to Buddhist Tantra and the Vajrayana.

Vajrayana is what happens when a magickal culture becomes Buddhist and decides on Compassion. And is not compassion needed by every person, organization, business, government, etc.? Thus a practice that makes a virtue of compassion/Boddhichitta would be helpful to and for all. But, when done by magick users it is particularly powerful. Is it not our responsibility, since we have the power, to invoke compassionate action? In a deep sense this is a means of casting a vote in the ultimate franchise by determining what kind of world we live in.

The great hope that we can integrate Vajrayana practice in Pagan ritual is made clear by Steven Beyer’s work “The Cult of Tara”. There he shows that the only way to interpret Tibetan ritual practice is to take seriously their view of the reality of magick. To do this Beyer had to turn to the Western magickal tradition to find useful categories of analysis. When he returned with these tools to the Tibetan culture, he found that the same (not merely similar) methods were being used in both traditions. I note in my study that the principle difference, besides the presence of the Buddhist view, is the that Tibetan techniques are much more thorough.

The structural identity of the two systems permits us to conclude that should the Pagani adopt the practice of generating Boddhichitta they will (potentially) achieve the same result, a compassion based practice that is both effective and helpful to self and others.

Should the Pagani let themselves be effected by an alien culture

The contemporary Pagan and Magickal communities share an oddly interconnected history with the Buddhadharma. While some scholars have suggested connections between classical Paganism and the classical Far East and some connections may be found during the Renaissance, it is with the first translations of the eastern holy texts into European languages that the initial and most obvious effect appears and that in reaction. Christopher McIntosh, in his biography of Eliphas Levi, determined that one of Levi’s motivations was a sense that it is all well and good that the eastern traditions have all these esoteric spiritual practices, but so has the West-we just have to dig harder. And so while the Transcendentalists and German Romantics were enraptured by the Upanishads and the Bagavadgita and Pali Cannon, Levi was fusing Hebraic Kabbalah with the Tarot and goetic conjurations and Paracelcian elemental work with Agrippa’s methods.

Within a generation Madam Blavatski would be in contact with “the Tibetan” and other teachers from the orient and claimed that her Secret Doctrine was rooted in Buddhist Teachings. While this last was debatable due to the doctrine of the soul she presented being contrary to fundamental Buddhist teachings, both the text and her teachings show evidence of Buddhist philosophy intertwined with western occult thought. Joscelyn Godwin tracks this process in his Theosophical Enlightenment.

In the next generation, Aleister Crowley takes up the same attraction to Buddhism in its Sri Lankan form partly under the tutelage of Alan Bennett, his principal teacher of magick. Crowley later integrated the yogic techniques they learned from their teacher with magickal practice, and further blended some Buddhist principles into the Thelemic Holy Books, particularly Liber B vel Magus. Bennett went even farther by abandoning magick and becoming a Buddhist Monk, the second westerner to do so. He formed the Buddhist Society of Great Britain and Ireland, an organization to bring Buddhism to the west, but the severe monastic tradition he brought was not readily accepted by Europeans. Godwin, at the end of his book, wonders what it would have been like if Bennett and Crowley had discovered Tantric Buddhism, the Vajrayana or Tibetan Buddhism. What would have happened then? [It is clear that Crowley did not have any significant experience of Tibetan Buddhism since in his last great work, the Thoth Tarot deck which he created with Lady Frieda Harris, the Two of Wands depicts what he calls crossed Dorje and the Ten of Wands presents two more. However the image is not of a dorje wand or scepter but of a Purba, a three edged ceremonial knife.]

Telos

One of the key features of Buddhism is its thrust towards enlightenment. The classical Pagan tradition had similar goals. Plato had his aspiration towards Beauty through philosophy, Plotinus towards the One through contemplation. The Mystery traditions were said to free the aspirant from the fear of death and secure a pleasant afterlife. Christianity itself holds out the hope of heaven. Yet, while in each of these systems the ultimate aim was clearly formulated, in contemporary Paganism the goal is vague. Some speak of enlightenment, or of attaining unity with the Godhead (Goddess-head?) or perhaps some particular deity. Ceremonialists have inherited the Renaissance goal of the divinization of the Mage, or Prospero’s attainment of becoming one with the Cosmos and being able to wield its power. However, the methods of attainment are unclear.

Even this being the case, I would still contend that the strongest notions about our goal in Pagan practice are deeply influenced by the impact of eastern religions on our society. Any ideas we have about enlightenment are qualified by our apprehension of Buddhist concepts of Nirvana and the Vedanta Hindu Moksha or Liberation. Some of this comes from the historical intertwining of Buddhism with the Magical tradition. Some of this comes from the efflorescence of the Sixties, formative years for the current Pagan Revival.

Nonetheless there is a certain alien quality to these views with respect to the contemporary Pagan view of the divineness of the Earth. Each of them postulate that there is some place else, some place better, where we would rather be. This is Gnostic dualism, and leads, as amply demonstrated by our current ecological crisis, to the denigration of the here and now, of the world on which we live, even of our bodies and the pleasure available in the immediate moment.

But when we push past the initial understandings of Buddhism, past the Theravada/Hinavana, past the Mahayana, we can find in the most exalted forms of Buddhism a view that corresponds directly to the Pagan view of the sanctity of the immediate. It is in the Vajrayana of Tantric Buddhism and in Dzogchen, “the Great Perfection” that we find a explicit positive valuation of the world and the body. In Vajrayana, the challenging aspects of the world are not avoided, like the Theravadin, or antidoted as in Mahayana, but embraced and transformed into pristine and purified wisdoms. The Vajrayana practitioner strives to experience all sound as mantra (divine speech) all vision as mandala (divine image) as well as all the senses pure and holy, and all beings as Goddesses and Gods, something H.V. Gunther calls the symbolic recreation of the world. In a sense, Pagans strive to do no less. One less than ultimate goal of Paganism is to live in a world that is loved and respected and cared for by all the people in it. To do this most Pagans strive to see the very Earth as divine. Many of our rituals embody the value of a sacred world and many of them seek to “heal the Earth” (however this is understood). Many Pagan ritual also focus on experiencing and calling forth the innate divine nature in the participants. There, of course, remains the question of the efficacy of these rites.

In the pinnacle of Buddhism, the Great Perfection or Dzogchen, this process is taken to its ultimate conclusion, foregoing the transformational quality of Vajrayana. Rather the Dzogchen practitioner seeks the inherent purity in all things, and integrates with the experience while not seeking to change anything about it. This is in accord with the Pagan contra-gnostic view of the immediate goodness of the here and now. In Dzogchen this process is said to liberate the practitioner from creating any more karma and eventually lead to the Great Transference in which the body is transformed in to pure awareness and light upon death, or in advanced practitioners even before then. Certain deep teachings of the Ceremonialist path speak to this realization, yet it is the distinct failing of the Western path that we have not produced anyone of the caliber of a Tibetan Tulku.

Fortunately we are not finished. If we examine the history of Vajrayana’s creation and development as outlined by Miranda Shaw in Passionate Enlightenment we can see that the contemporary Pagan movement is in a state very similar to that of the cultural stratum out of which Tantric Buddhism arose and also similar to pre-Buddhist Tibet when Padmasambhava arrived to spread the Dharma.

Unfortunately the Pagan tradition is floundering and needs a deeper, richer, tap root by which to develop itself beyond mere spellcraft and seasonal celebrations. When Buddhism escaped the hands of the monastics and attained to the greater view of the Mahayana it began to spread outside the Buddhist philosophical colleges to the villages and craftsfolk. There, among the native magick using folk of India who were used to honoring the seasons and their many Deities, some heard the call of the greater view. They embraced the understanding of the void nature at the ground of things (Shunyata) and saw that compassion (Boddhichitta) was the necessary corollary and result. Rather than give up the magick and methods for worship they had known for countless generations, they brought them to bear on the task of attaining to the complete realization of this View. Thus was born Tantric, Vajrayana Buddhism.

I find it striking that, according to Shaw, it was circles of women seeking buddhahood in feminine form (contrary to the prevailing dogma) that lead to this development. They were usually common folk and craftswomen and are accompanied by tales of their enterprising and accomplished skillfulness. They welcomed men into these circles but always with the requirement of the adoration of the feminine as the embodiment of the goal. This is little different from contemporary Pagan circles, whether Gardinarian, Thelemic, Eclectic or Dianic. The automatic authority available to women on the Pagan path is a powerful attraction to women (and men) and one of its deepest strengths.

And so if Pagan folk can learn from Buddhism about sharing the benefit, the compassionate basis for action and a variety of ritual techniques, what can Buddhism learn from Paganism? In a number of conversations I have had during the writing of this essay with folk on this frontier, humor is the first quality mentioned. While I have found Tibetan teachers to be of good humor and Sogyal Rinpoche, in his Tibetan Book of Living and Dying to stress the need for humor, the Pagani raise humor and general silliness to a high, even spiritual art. This levity brings a joy of spirit and a resilience and freshness of soul to the work, especially necessary when our rites become to pompous or weighted with needless gravity. A sense of humor is also required when one is a member of an oppressed under class in order to survive.

Perhaps this is the greatest gift we can offer in return. We believe we belong here is this world now, for all the reasons discussed above. We have been hunted and ridiculed for two thousand years, yet we remain. It is our humor in the presence of the Divine and the Ultimate and our sense of belonging here and now that we can share with the Buddhists and all practitioners. This is what has given us the ability to survive, and this we wish for all oppressed folk of good will.

Godwin, Joscelyn. The Theosophical Enlightenment. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.

McIntosh, Christopher. Eliphas Lévi and the French Occult Revival. London: Rider and Company, 1972.

Shaw, Miranda. Passionate Enlightenment. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.

Sogyal Rinpoche. Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1992.

__________

The Poetry of Dogen…

On The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye

Midnight, No waves,

no wind, the empty boat

is flooded with moonlight.

—

On Non-Dependence of Mind

Coming, going, the waterbirds

don’t leave a trace,

don’t follow a path.

—

Joyful in this mountain retreat yet still feeling melancholy,

Studying the Lotus Sutra every day,

Practicing zazen singlemindedly;

What do love and hate matter

When I’m here alone,

Listening to the sound of the rain

late in this autumn evening.

—

Drifting pitifully in the whirlwind of birth and death,

As if wandering in a dream,

In the midst of illusion I awaken to the true path;

There is one more matter I must not neglect,

But I need not bother now,

As I listen to the sound of the evening rain

Falling on the roof of my temple retreat

In the deep grass of Fukakusa.

—

Mountain Seclusion

I won’t even stop

at the valley’s brook

for fear that

my shadow

may flow into the world.

—

Viewing Peach Blossoms and Realizing the Way

In spring wind

peach blossoms

begin to come apart.

Doubts do not grow

branches and leaves.

—

On Nondependence of Mind

Water birds

going and coming

their traces disappear

but they never

forget their path.

—

Dogen was born in Kyoto, Japan in about 1200. At an early age he entered into a monastery and was ordained as a monk. After several years of training Dogen travelled to Myozen, China in order to study Ch’an Buddhism. Ch’an Buddhism was an important precursor to Japanese Zen buddhism

He was born in 1200 near Kyoto which was, at that time, the capital of Japan. When he was fourteen he was formally ordained as a monk and entered a monastery at the foot of Mt Hiei to begin his training. In 1217 he moved to Kennin Monastery – also in Kyoto – and studied there until 1223. He then accompanied his abbot, Myozen, to China. The purpose of this journey was to engage more fully with Ch’an Buddhism, the Chinese precursor of Japanese Zen.

In the Chinese monasteries the main type of spiritual practise was the chanting and repitition of Koans. (Koans are short phrases which help to focus the mind) However Dogen was rather disappointed with this type of practise. Dogen wanted to return to Japan but under the guidance of a senior priest Rujung, he learnt the art of silent meditation. In this practise the goal was to silence the mind and loose awareness of mind and body. In this type of meditation the goal is to still the mind, thinking of neither good things or bad things.

With this new knowledge Dogen returned to Japan and started to write and teach about these new doctrines. In 1233 he opened Kannondori Temple in Fukakusa and was appointed to be head monk. Dogen was a prolific writer of both poetry and guidance on Zazen meditation.

Dogen states the key is to transcend desire. There shouldn’t even be a desire “to be another Buddha”

In 1252, Dogen became ill and in 1253 he died in Kyoto.

(The power of the Typhoon….)

In Celebration of the Season…

On The Menu:

The Links

A Day of Mass Resistance in Portland and cities across America

John Barleycorn – Robert Burns

John Barleycorn – Traditional

The Ritual of Adonis

From The Golden Bough – A Study in Magic and Religion

The Ballad of John Barleycorn – illustrated by Graham Higgins

Enjoy!

Gwyllm

___________

The Links

The Hills Are Alive, With Pot

A bizarre case: Girl in far western Nepal emits ‘glass pieces’ from forehead

Assistant prosecutor resigns after marijuana found in home

Length of a woman’s ring finger reveals her sporting ability

Government Thugs Handcuff Children, Kill Dog During $60 Marijuana Raid

___________

From my Friend Mr. D….

If you believe this is important, try and be there ..

A Day of Mass Resistance in Portland and cities across America

South Park Blocks – Park and Salmon

Thursday – OCTOBER 5, 2006 – High Noon

http://www.worldcantwaitpdx.org/

PASS IT ON!!

___________

Listen: John Barleycorn

The Ballad Of John Barleycorn

Robert Burns’ version goes as follows:

There was three kings into the east,

Three kings both great and high,

And they hae sworn a solemn oath

John Barleycorn should die.

They took a plough and plough’d him down,

Put clods upon his head,

And they hae sworn a solemn oath

John Barleycorn was dead.

But the cheerful Spring came kindly on,

And show’rs began to fall;

John Barleycorn got up again,

And sore surpris’d them all.

The sultry suns of Summer came,

And he grew thick and strong,

His head weel arm’d wi’ pointed spears,

That no one should him wrong.

The sober Autumn enter’d mild,

When he grew wan and pale;

His bending joints and drooping head

Show’d he began to fail.

His coulour sicken’d more and more,

He faded into age;

And then his enemies began

To show their deadly rage.

They’ve taen a weapon, long and sharp,

And cut him by the knee;

Then ty’d him fast upon a cart,

Like a rogue for forgerie.

They laid him down upon his back,

And cudgell’d him full sore;

They hung him up before the storm,

And turn’d him o’er and o’er.

They filled up a darksome pit

With water to the brim,

They heaved in John Barleycorn,

There let him sink or swim.

They laid him out upon the floor,

To work him farther woe,

And still, as signs of life appear’d,

They toss’d him to and fro.

They wasted, o’er a scorching flame,

The marrow of his bones;

But a Miller us’d him worst of all,

For he crush’d him between two stones.

And they hae taen his very heart’s blood,

And drank it round and round;

And still the more and more they drank,

Their joy did more abound.

John Barleycorn was a hero bold,

Of noble enterprise,

For if you do but taste his blood,

‘Twill make your courage rise.

‘Twill make a man forget his woe;

‘Twill heighten all his joy:

‘Twill make the widow’s heart to sing,

Tho’ the tear were in her eye.

Then let us toast John Barleycorn,

Each man a glass in hand;

And may his great posterity

Ne’er fail in old Scotland!

_________

The Ballad Of John Barleycorn

There was three men come out of the West

Their fortunes for to try

And these three men made a solemn vow

John Barleycorn must die.

They ploughed, they sowed, they harrowed him in

Throwing clods all on his head

And these three men made a solemn vow

John barleycorn was Dead.

They’ve left him in the ground for a very long time

Till the rains from heaven did fall

Then little Sir John’s sprung up his head

And so amazed them all

They’ve left him in the ground till the Midsummer

Till he’s grown both pale and wan

Then little Sir John’s grown a long, long beard

And so become a man.

They hire’d men with their scythes so sharp

To cut him off at the knee.

They’ve bound him and tied him around the waist

Serving him most barb’rously.

They hire’d men with their sharp pitch-forks

To prick him to the heart

But the drover he served him worse than that

For he’s bound him to the cart.

They’ve rolled him around and around the field

Till they came unto a barn

And there they made a solemn mow

Of Little Sir John Barleycorn

They’ve hire’d men with their crab-tree sticks

To strip him skin from bone

But the miller, he served him worse than that,

For he’s ground him between two stones.

Here’s Little sir John in the nut-brown bowl

And brandy in the glass

But Little Sir John in the nut-brown bowl’s

Proved the stronger man at last

For the hunts man he can’t hunt the fox

Nor so loudly blow his horn

And the tinker, he can’t mend Kettles or pots

Without a little of Sir John Barleycorn.

Traditional

___________________

Putting John Barleycorn in the Mythic Perspective:

The Ritual of Adonis

From The Golden Bough – A Study in Magic and Religion

Sir James George Frazer

AT THE FESTIVALS of Adonis, which were held in Western Asia and in Greek lands, the death of the god was annually mourned, with a bitter wailing, chiefly by women; images of him, dressed to resemble corpses, were carried out as to burial and then thrown into the sea or into springs; and in some places his revival was celebrated on the following day. But at different places the ceremonies varied somewhat in the manner and apparently also in the season of their celebration. At Alexandria images of Aphrodite and Adonis were displayed on two couches; beside them were set ripe fruits of all kinds, cakes, plants growing in flower-pots, and green bowers twined with anise. The marriage of the lovers was celebrated one day, and on the morrow women attired as mourners, with streaming hair and bared breasts, bore the image of the dead Adonis to the sea-shore and committed it to the waves. Yet they sorrowed not without hope, for they sang that the lost one would come back again. The date at which this Alexandrian ceremony was observed is not expressly stated; but from the mention of the ripe fruits it has been inferred that it took place in late summer. In the great Phoenician sanctuary of Astarte at Byblus the death of Adonis was annually mourned, to the shrill wailing notes of the flute, with weeping, lamentation, and beating of the breast; but next day he was believed to come to life again and ascend up to heaven in the presence of his worshippers. The disconsolate believers, left behind on earth, shaved their heads as the Egyptians did on the death of the divine bull Apis; women who could not bring themselves to sacrifice their beautiful tresses had togive themselves up to strangers on a certain day of the festival, and to dedicate to Astarte the wages of their shame.

This Phoenician festival appears to have been a vernal one, for its date was determined by the discoloration of the river Adonis, and this has been observed by modern travellers to occur in spring. At that season the red earth washed down from the mountains by the rain tinges the water of the river, and even the sea, for a great way with a blood-red hue, and the crimson stain was believed to be the blood of Adonis, annually wounded to death by the boar on Mount Lebanon. Again, the scarlet anemone is said to have sprung from the blood of Adonis, or to have been stained by it; and as the anemone blooms in Syria about Easter, this may be thought to show that the festival of Adonis, or at least one of his festivals, was held in spring. The name of the flower is probably derived from Naaman (“darling”), which seems to have been an epithet of Adonis. The Arabs still call the anemone “wounds of the Naaman.” The red rose also was said to owe its hue to the same sad occasion; for Aphrodite, hastening to her wounded lover, trod on a bush of white roses; the cruel thorns tore her tender flesh, and her sacred blood dyed the white roses for ever red. It would be idle, perhaps, to lay much weight on evidence drawn from the calendar of flowers, and in particular to press an argument so fragile as the bloom of the rose. Yet so far as it counts at all, the tale which links the damask rose with the death of Adonis points to a summer rather than to a spring celebration of his passion. In Attica, certainly, the festival fell at the height of summer. For the fleet which Athens fitted out against Syracuse, and by the destruction of which her power was permanently crippled, sailed at midsummer, and by an ominous coincidence the sombre rites of Adonis were being celebrated at the very time. As the troops marched down to the harbour to embark, the streets through which they passed were lined with coffins and corpse-like effigies, and the air was rent with the noise of women wailing for the dead Adonis. The circumstance cast a gloom over the sailing of the most splendid armament that Athens ever sent to sea. Many ages afterwards, when the Emperor Julian made his first entry into Antioch, he found in like manner the gay, the luxurious capital of the East plunged in mimic grief for the annual death of Adonis; and if he had any presentiment of coming evil, the voices of lamentation which struck upon his ear must have seemed to sound his knell.

The resemblance of these ceremonies to the Indian and European ceremonies which I have described elsewhere is obvious. In particular, apart from the somewhat doubtful date of its celebration, the Alexandrian ceremony is almost identical with the Indian. In both of them the marriage of two divine beings, whose affinity with vegetation seems indicated by the fresh plants with which they are surrounded, is celebrated in effigy, and the effigies are afterwards mourned over and thrown into the water. From the similarity of these customs to each other and to the spring and midsummer customs of modern Europe we should naturally expect that they all admit of a common explanation. Hence, if the explanation which I have adopted of the latter is correct, the ceremony of the death and resurrection of Adonis must also have been a dramatic representation of the decay and revival of plant life. The inference thus based on the resemblance of the customs is confirmed by the following features in the legend and ritual of Adonis. His affinity with vegetation comes out at once in the common story of his birth. He was said to have been born from a myrrh-tree, the bark of which bursting, after a ten months’ gestation, allowed the lovely infant to come forth. According to some, a boar rent the bark with his tusk and so opened a passage for the babe. A faint rationalistic colour was given to the legend by saying that his mother was a woman named Myrrh, who had been turned into a myrrh-tree soon after she had conceived the child. The use of myrrh as incense at the festival of Adonis may have given rise to the fable. We have seen that incense was burnt at the corresponding Babylonian rites, just as it was burnt by the idolatrous Hebrews in honour of the Queen of Heaven, who was no other than Astarte. Again, the story that Adonis spent half, or according to others a third, of the year in the lower world and the rest of it in the upper world, is explained most simply and naturally by supposing that he represented vegetation, especially the corn, which lies buried in the earth half the year and reappears above ground the other half. Certainly of the annual phenomena of nature there is none which suggests so obviously the idea of death and resurrection as the disappearance and reappearance of vegetation in autumn and spring. Adonis has been taken for the sun; but there is nothing in the sun’s annual course within the temperate and tropical zones to suggest that he is dead for half or a third of the year and alive for the other half or two-thirds. He might, indeed, be conceived as weakened in winter, but dead he could not be thought to be; his daily reappearance contradicts the supposition. Within the Arctic Circle, where the sun annually disappears for a continuous period which varies from twenty-four hours to six months according to the latitude, his yearly death and resurrection would certainly be an obvious idea; but no one except the unfortunate astronomer Bailly has maintained that the Adonis worship came from the Arctic regions. On the other hand, the annual death and revival of vegetation is a conception which readily presents itself to men in every stage of savagery and civilisation; and the vastness of the scale on which this ever-recurring decay and regeneration takes place, together with man’s intimate dependence on it for subsistence, combine to render it the most impressive annual occurrence in nature, at least within the temperate zones. It is no wonder that a phenomenon so important, so striking, and so universal should, by suggesting similar ideas, have given rise to similar rites in many lands. We may, therefore, accept as probable an explanation of the Adonis worship which accords so well with the facts of nature and with the analogy of similar rites in other lands. Moreover, the explanation is countenanced by a considerable body of opinion amongst the ancients themselves, who again and again interpreted the dying and reviving god as the reaped and sprouting grain.

The character of Tammuz or Adonis as a corn-spirit comes out plainly in an account of his festival given by an Arabic writer of the tenth century. In describing the rites and sacrifices observed at the different seasons of the year by the heathen Syrians of Harran, he says: “Tammuz (July). In the middle of this month is the festival of el-Bûgât, that is, of the weeping women, and this is the Tâ-uz festival, which is celebrated in honour of the god Tâ-uz. The women bewail him, because his lord slew him so cruelly, ground his bones in a mill, and then scattered them to the wind. The women (during this festival) eat nothing which has been ground in a mill, but limit their diet to steeped wheat, sweet vetches, dates, raisins, and the like.” Tâ-uz, who is no other than Tammuz, is here like Burns’s John Barleycorn:

“They wasted o’er a scorching flame

The marrow of his bones;

But a miller us’d him worst of all—

For he crush’d him between two stones.”

This concentration, so to say, of the nature of Adonis upon the cereal crops is characteristic of the stage of culture reached by his worshippers in historical times. They had left the nomadic life of the wandering hunter and herdsman far behind them; for ages they had been settled on the land, and had depended for their subsistence mainly on the products of tillage. The berries and roots of the wilderness, the grass of the pastures, which had been matters of vital importance to their ruder forefathers, were now of little moment to them: more and more their thoughts and energies were engrossed by the staple of their life, the corn; more and more accordingly the propitiation of the deities of fertility in general and of the corn-spirit in particular tended to become the central feature of their religion. The aim they set before themselves in celebrating the rites was thoroughly practical. It was no vague poetical sentiment which prompted them to hail with joy the rebirth of vegetation and to mourn its decline. Hunger, felt or feared, was the mainspring of the worship of Adonis.

It has been suggested by Father Lagrange that the mourning for Adonis was essentially a harvest rite designed to propitiate the corngod, who was then either perishing under the sickles of the reapers, or being trodden to death under the hoofs of the oxen on the threshing-floor. While the men slew him, the women wept crocodile tears at home to appease his natural indignation by a show of grief for his death. The theory fits in well with the dates of the festivals, which fell in spring or summer; for spring and summer, not autumn, are the seasons of the barley and wheat harvests in the lands which worshipped Adonis. Further, the hypothesis is confirmed by the practice of the Egyptian reapers, who lamented, calling upon Isis, when they cut the first corn; and it is recommended by the analogous customs of many hunting tribes, who testify great respect for the animals which they kill and eat.

Thus interpreted the death of Adonis is not the natural decay of vegetation in general under the summer heat or the winter cold; it is the violent destruction of the corn by man, who cuts it down on the field, stamps it to pieces on the threshing-floor, and grinds it to powder in the mill. That this was indeed the principal aspect in which Adonis presented himself in later times to the agricultural peoples of the Levant, may be admitted; but whether from the beginning he had been the corn and nothing but the corn, may be doubted. At an earlier period he may have been to the herdsman, above all, the tender herbage which sprouts after rain, offering rich pasture to the lean and hungry cattle. Earlier still he may have embodied the spirit of the nuts and berries which the autumn woods yield to the savage hunter and his squaw. And just as the husband-man must propitiate the spirit of the corn which he consumes, so the herdsman must appease the spirit of the grass and leaves which his cattle munch, and the hunter must soothe the spirit of the roots which he digs, and of the fruits which he gathers from the bough. In all cases the propitiation of the injured and angry, sprite would naturally comprise elaborate excuses and apologies, accompanied by loud lamentations at his decease whenever, through some deplorable accident or necessity, he happened to be murdered as well as robbed. Only we must bear in mind that the savage hunter and herdsman of those early days had probably not yet attained to the abstract idea of vegetation in general; and that accordingly, so far as Adonis existed for them at all, he must have been the Adon or lord of each individual tree and plant rather than a personification of vegetable life as a whole. Thus there would be as many Adonises as there were trees and shrubs, and each of them might expect to receive satisfaction for any damage done to his person or property. And year by year, when the trees were deciduous, every Adonis would seem to bleed to death with the red leaves of autumn and to come to life again with the fresh green of spring.

There is some reason to think that in early times Adonis was sometimes personated by a living man who died a violent death in the character of the god. Further, there is evidence which goes to show that among the agricultural peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean, the corn-spirit, by whatever name he was known, was often represented, year by year, by human victims slain on the harvest-field. If that was so, it seems likely that the propitiation of the corn-spirit would tend to fuse to some extent with the worship of the dead. For the spirits of these victims might be thought to return to life in the ears which they had fattened with their blood, and to die a second death at the reaping of the corn. Now the ghosts of those who have perished by violence are surly and apt to wreak their vengeance on their slayers whenever an opportunity offers. Hence the attempt to appease the souls of the slaughtered victims would naturally blend, at least in the popular conception, with the attempt to pacify the slain corn-spirit. And as the dead came back in the sprouting corn, so they might be thought to return in the spring flowers, waked from their long sleep by the soft vernal airs. They had been laid to their rest under the sod. What more natural than to imagine that the violets and the hyacinths, the roses and the anemones, sprang from their dust, were empurpled or incarnadined by their blood, and contained some portion of their spirit?

“I sometimes think that never blows so red

The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled;

That every Hyacinth the Garden wears

Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head.

“And this reviving Herb whose tender Green

Fledges the River-Lip on which we lean—

Ah, lean upon it lightly, for who knows

From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen?”

In the summer after the battle of Landen, the most sanguinary battle of the seventeenth century in Europe, the earth, saturated with the blood of twenty thousand slain, broke forth into millions of poppies, and the traveller who passed that vast sheet of scarlet might well fancy that the earth had indeed given up her dead. At Athens the great Commemoration of the Dead fell in spring about the middle of March, when the early flowers are in bloom. Then the dead were believed to rise from their graves and go about the streets, vainly endeavouring to enter the temples and dwellings, which were barred against these perturbed spirits with ropes, buckthorn, and pitch. The name of the festival, according to the most obvious and natural interpretation, means the Festival of Flowers, and the title would fit well with the substance of the ceremonies if at that season the poor ghosts were indeed thought to creep from the narrow house with the opening flowers. There may therefore be a measure of truth in the theory of Renan, who saw in the Adonis worship a dreamy voluptuous cult of death, conceived not as the King of Terrors, but as an insidious enchanter who lures his victims to himself and lulls them into an eternal sleep. The infinite charm of nature in the Lebanon, he thought, lends itself to religious emotions of this sensuous, visionary sort, hovering vaguely between pain and pleasure, between slumber and tears. It would doubtless be a mistake to attribute to Syrian peasants the worship of a conception so purely abstract as that of death in general. Yet it may be true that in their simple minds the thought of the reviving spirit of vegetation was blent with the very concrete notion of the ghosts of the dead, who come to life again in spring days with the early flowers, with the tender green of the corn and the many-tinted blossoms of the trees. Thus their views of the death and resurrection of nature would be coloured by their views of the death and resurrection of man, by their personal sorrows and hopes and fears. In like manner we cannot doubt that Renan’s theory of Adonis was itself deeply tinged by passionate memories, memories of the slumber akin to death which sealed his own eyes on the slopes of the Lebanon, memories of the sister who sleeps in the land of Adonis never again to wake with the anemones and the roses.