This entire life is a breathing-in, stuff added upon the essential, as a beard upon the face.
It is already in movement, already stepping forward.
Rest in that, put your weight in the rear foot. All goes well.
What’s left but celebration?
I’m becoming more proficient at it, partly through my work with scrapbooks and translating the connections between words and images. Try this. Carefully memorize the meaning of a passage, then read it; you’ll find you can actually read it without the words making any sound whatever in the mind’s ear. Extraordinary experience, and one that will carry over into dreams. When you start thinking in images, without words, you’re well on the way.
(from his Paris Review interview)
And also, compare this from wikipedia:
Religion, entymology: Modern scholars such as Tom Harpur and Joseph Campbell favor the derivation from ligare “bind, connect”, probably from a prefixed re-ligare, i.e. re (again) + ligare or “to reconnect,” which was made prominent by St. Augustine, following the interpretation of Lactantius.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the kings horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again….
Time to break the wall down King Humpty, the men and the horses ain’t gonna do it for you.
After all, Humpty is an egg. Though it might have been better to make him an avocado seed! In either case, such things do not belong on the tops of walls, no matter how many men or horses they might have at their disposal…
Part 3 of the series offers up some food for thought:
The life of a single human, as the life of a family or an entire people, persists as memory. My people must come to see this as part of their maturing process. They are people as organism, and in this persistent memory, they store more and more experiences in a subliminal reservoir. Humankind hopes to call upon this material if it is needed for a changing universe. But much that is stored can be lost in that chance play of accident which we call “fate”. Much may not be integrated into evolutionary relationships, and thus may not be evaluated and keyed into activity by those ongoing environmental changes which inflict themselves upon flesh. The species can forget! (page 119)
This was Muad’Dib’s achievement: He saw the subliminal reservoir of each individual as an unconscious bank of memories going back to the primal cell of our common genesis. Each of us, he said, can measure out his distance from that common origin. Seeing this and telling of it, he made the audacious leap of decision. Muad’Dib set himself the task of integrating genetic memory into ongoing evaluation. (page 82)
A sophisticated human can become primitive. What this really means is that the human’s way of life changes. Old values change, become linked to the landscape with its plants and animals. This new existence requires a working knowledge of those multiplex and cross-linked events usually referred to as nature. It requires a measure of respect for the inertial power within such natural systems. When a human gains this working knowledge and respect, that is called “being primitive”. The converse, of course, is equally true: the primitive and become sophisticated, but not without accepting dreadful psychological damage. (page 69)
(H)owever necessary it may be to say “I” and “mine” for the practical purposes of everyday life, our Ego in fact is nothing but a name for what is really only a sequence of observed behaviors.”
that only works reliably when you do not doubt it?
How do you test something that responds to doubt with failure, but at the same time, does not reliably respond to belief with success?
You cannot test such a thing through attempts at making it fail. It will respond to your attempts as inputs and fail accordingly. Garbage in, garbage out.
Not being able to test it in this usual way, how can one learn more about it?
How can one learn whether it can be improved upon?
If it turns out that it can be improved, how does on learn to go about improving it?
The more you try to see something, the less clearly you can see it. Only when you are relaxed can you see things as they are. Those who don’t try to look for anything, see more. – Sayadaw U Tejaniya
…you must realize that in this life it will be impossible to continue in this work [of contemplation] with the same intensity all the time. Sickness, afflictions of body and mind, and countless other necessities of nature will often leave you indisposed and keep you from its heights. Yet, at the same time, I counsel you to remain at it always either in earnest or, as it were, playfully. What I mean is that through desire you can remain with it even when other things intervene. – Anonymous, “The Cloud of Unknowing”
Don’t seek, don’t search, don’t ask, don’t knock, don’t demand–relax. If you relax, it comes. If you relax, it is there. If you relax, you start vibrating with it. – Osho
“The aim of life is to live and to live means to be aware – joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.” – Henry Miller
58. Tui / The Joyous, Lake
THE JUDGMENT
THE JOYOUS. Success.
Perseverance is favorable
The joyous mood is infectious and therefore brings success. But joy must be
based on steadfastness if it is not to degenerate into uncontrolled mirth.
Truth and strength must dwell in the heart, while gentleness reveals itself in
social intercourse. In this way one assumes the right attitude toward God and
man and achieves something. Under certain conditions, intimidation
without gentleness may achieve something momentarily, but not for all
time. When, on the other hand, the hearts of men are won by friendliness,
they are led to take all hardships upon themselves willingly, and if need be
will not shun death itself, so great is the power of joy over men.
