Reclusland

One day Dogen instructed,
“Once, while in China, I was reading a collection of sayings by an ancient master. At the time, a monk from Shisen, a sincere practitioner of the Way, asked me, “What is the use of reading recorded sayings?”
I replied, “I want to learn about the deeds of the ancient masters.”
The monk asked, “What is the use of that?”
I said, “I wish to teach people after I return home.”
The monk asked, “What is the use of that?”
I replied, “It is for the sake of benefiting living beings.”
The monk queried further, “Yes, but ultimately, what is the use?”

Later, I pondered his remarks. Learning the deeds of the ancient masters by reading the recorded sayings or koans in order to explain them to deluded people is ultimately of no use to my own practice and for teaching others. Even if I don’t know a single letter, I will be able to show it to others in inexhaustible ways if I devote myself to just sitting and clarifying the great matter. It was for this reason that the monk pressed me as to the ultimate use [of reading and studying]. I thought what he said was true. Thereupon, I gave up reading the recorded sayings and other texts, concentrated wholeheartedly on sitting, and was able to clarify the great matter.

As someone recently said to me “Time to apply your ass to the cushion and keep at it!“. I’ve been working with meditation teacher Kenneth Folk, both through his website, his weekly classes, and hopefully soon one-on-one via skype.  I can’t recommend his website highly enough, a lot of really great people, strong practitioners, very helpful information, and to top it all off a well thought out teaching method.  Kenneth has several decades of meditation experience and it shows.  If you’re interested in learning more, you can get started here (or ask me questions in the comments).

Now, about that great matter…

A moment comes when the voice that says, ‘I” must jump from the intellect to a more interior, more real life, and this new life sees that it is different from the intellect. Then it must put the intellect into service. But there is a period of transition between the two, when one feels a disgust at the emptiness of ordinary discussions (those that one has with oneself and with others, and I include the most brilliant philosophical ones). They will no longer do, but one has yet to find a new language at one’s disposition.

(via tumblr buddy Crashingly Beautiful)
thanks to this
I happened to go on amazon
and find a sweet hardback copy
of Daumal’s “A Night of Serious Drinking”
for four bucks!  Thanks Luke!

I’ve been noticing something lately about the ego.  Or whatever you want to call that thing with which we identify with which we probably shouldn’t be identifying with quite so much.

There is a sense that the ego tells me: “I am complete”.  Or perhaps, “I have a complete understanding of things”.

The ego is usually described as a separate self and I am not disputing this.  I think the two concepts might be describing the same thing, though I am not nearly far enough along the path to say for sure.  But I do notice that there is an “ignoring” quality to the ego, or a tendency to ignore that leads to suffering, in any case.  There is a sense that I have a complete understanding of what I am and what is going on in the present moment and so do can ignore it.   I think this is a lie, but it happens so fast I don’t notice my own agreement with it.

Still, what is it that is being ignored?

Its not exactly clear to me yet, but I think there is a connection between the “separate self” and a sense of not needing to pay attention to some core process going on with us.  Its the feeling that that process is done or doesn’t matter, whereas were we to turn toward that process, it would develop on its own and THAT would make us complete.  Or reveal what was actually complete within us.  Or something like that…

Like I said, this is vague stabbings in the dark toward what seems to be some kind of connection.  But its certainly not clear yet, and there’s no guarantee this isn’t just something I’ve dreamt up.  But it feels important, and I wanted to try to make sense of it…  More to come, if there is indeed anything else to this.

Weak desires can be removed by introspection and meditation, but strong, deep-rooted ones must be fulfilled and their fruits, sweet or bitter, tasted.

I threw my back out on Sunday at parkour, and have been bedridden for the past few days.  Finally able to get up and move about today.  I have to keep things reeeallly slow, but its a happy improvement.  I’m still not sure what happened.  I wasn’t doing anything complicated, must have just landed wrong or something.  But anyway, the three days off of work has been a welcomed rest (nothing like being stuck in bed all day to make you get the proper amount of sleep) AND I’ve found a new medicine for backaches/muscle sprains, stuff like that.  This stuff is great.  The pain goes away within seconds and its got that all-important menthol burn…

(I don’t normally shill for things on this site, not counting the google ads, but this stuff has proved so helpful, I wanted to mention it)

Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled programming soon enough.

An amazing article posted by Jackson of Truth A Paradox at KFD.

Go check it out, good stuff.  And the responses are top-notch as well.

So I’m off for another sesshin, this time at the temple in Brooklyn.  I’ll be beyond the realms of electronic communication for the next 4 days (no verbal communication either, for that matter), and back here probably on Monday.

Tongue planted firmly in cheek, I have to admit that I can’t hear the word sesshin without thinking of this old Offspring song:

Session! I’ll never learn
Session! God knows I try
Session! Keep coming back for session and I don’t know why
Session! I’ll never learn,
Session! I’ll never see
Session! Just tell me why these sessions got a hold on, got another hold on me

I love these guys.  Even with Pretty Fly for a White Guy taken into account…

The book is a fable told using the story of Jesus as a starting point.  In Pullman’s tale (Pullman of the Golden Compass series) Jesus was born with a twin brother, Christ, who (ironically given his name) is the less divine of the two brothers.  A continuation into my contemplations on no-self.

Pullman’s Jesus is scathing about “smartarse priests” who talk about God’s absence really being his presence. Well, yes: Christians use this kind of language. But not to let themselves off lightly; they’re arguing that you only get anywhere near the truth when all the easy things to say about God are dismantled – so that your image of God is no longer just a big projection of your self-centred wish-fulfilment fantasies.

What’s left, then? This is the difficult moment. Either you sense that you are confronting an energy so immense and unconditioned that there are no adequate words for it; or you give up. From Paul to Luther, George Herbert or Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Hitler’s prisons, there are plenty who haven’t given up; and they haven’t given up because they see their experience in the light of something like this understanding of Gethsemane and the crucifixion.

read the whole thing here or check out the book on amazon or wikipedia.

Just found out about this guy.  Amazing.

He did engravings for the Divine Comedy, The Bible, The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, and a bunch of other stuff.  The best site I could find on him is here.  Wikipedia here…

Go here to watch the whole thing.

(You’ve got a few hours, right?)

I’ve tried to get out of the habit of stating in advance what’s going to be posted here, since my expectations usually end up diverging pretty widely from reality (in a way that almost seems intentional…). Best laid plans and all that.  But I have to admit, it’s been quiet lately in Reclusland, and, seeing as it’s a holiday weekend, this is a good chance to get some stuff together to put up.

I also recently realized that my latest art post was, sadly, in last June, and that’s something that needs to be remedied as well..  I haven’t stopped making it, I’ve just been lazy about posting it.  So my plan for the weekend was to get those up as scheduled posts throughout the week.

However, as part of a large parcel of (for) Valentine’s Day gifts, I helped my girlfriend setup a blog for her artwork (check it out, it’s awesome).  Doing so inspired me to not only post the abstract art and photography I usually post, but also a few of the other artistic type projects I’ve documented over the years.  Some involve black masking tape, some are oil pastels, and some are ink-pen-bored-at-the-office type affairs.  But they’re all awesome, and you’ll enjoy them.

It’s an “It’s art week here at Reclusland!” kind of thing.

Stay tuned…

Found via a link (again on tumblr) to one of my old posts…

Just finished reading an amazing article on Virgina Woolf, where it mentioned a book called “The Illusion of Conscious Will” by Daniel M. Wegner.  It intrigued my enough that I ordered a used copy right away, but while doing a little research, I found this short summary (PDF) of the book that includes this:

Wegner sometimes describes this as the thesis that the will is epiphenomenal; but that it misleading since on his account acts of will can have causal consequences. The central point is rather that they never directly cause actions, but can do so only indirectly, via other effects on the agent. He compares them to a compass. The compass doesn’t directly steer the ship. Instead it indicates the direction that the ship is taking, and may thus indirectly affect its direction via its effects on the pilot.

This excites me.  Plus the idea that it’s not so easy to consciously choose to do something fits in with my Gurdjieff studies as well.

Just thought this was awesome.

Drawing of a magnetic field by René Descartes, from his Principia Philosophiae, 1644.
This was one of the first drawings of the concept of a magnetic field.

Now, perhaps his definition of “meditation” is not all that exact (WTF Bill Gates?), but it’s his take on Zazen that I like here: the mind quiets down and we come into contact with reality as it is.

There’s some humbling news from the chemical world for anyone who has ever found themselves lost in a garden maze. A simple droplet of organic solvent can find its way through a complicated labyrinth with nothing more to go on than a slight pH difference.

Makes we wonder how much of our decision making is really just a more advanced form of chemistry and logic…

“The highest that a man can attain is to be able to do.” - Gurdjieff

Been in California visiting family for the long weekend, didn’t have time to think, let alone get any writing done.  But I did find this video, which is awesome.  It’s done mostly (if not entirely) by hand.  Enjoy:

PRESS + from benjamin ducroz on Vimeo.

by Mr. J. H. Marshall

From here.

Found this today.  It’s good enough that I’m going to just cut and paste the whole thing.  Original is from Allspirit, to whom I owe many thanks.  If anyone is offended by my having this up, let me know and I’ll take it down immediately.

The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.

If you wish to see the truth then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind.

When the deep meaning of things is not understood the mind’s essential peace is disturbed to no avail.

The Way is perfect like vast space when nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.

Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject that we do not see the true nature of things.

Live neither in the entanglements of outer things nor in inner feelings of emptiness.

Be serene in the oneness of things and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves.

When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity your very effort fills you with activity.

As long as you remain in one extreme or the other you will never know Oneness.

Those who do not live in the single Way fail in both activity and passivity, assertion and denial.

To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality; to assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality.

The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you wander from the truth.

Stop talking and thinking, and there is nothing you will not be able to know.

To return to the root is to find the meaning, but to pursue appearances is to miss the source.

At the moment of inner enlightenment there is a going beyond appearance and emptiness.

The changes that appear to occur in the empty world we call real only because of our ignorance.

Do not search for the truth; only cease to cherish opinions.

Do not remain in the dualistic state — avoid such pursuits carefully.

If there is even a trace of this and that, of right and wrong, the Mind-essence will be lost in confusion.

Although all dualities come from the One, do not be attached even to this One.

When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way, nothing in the world can offend,
and when such a thing can no longer offend, it ceases to exist in the old way.

When no discriminating thoughts arise, the old mind ceases to exist.

When thought objects vanish, the thinking-subject vanishes, as when the mind vanishes, objects vanish.

Things are objects because of the subject (mind); the mind (subject) is such because of things (object).

Understand the relativity of these two and the basic reality: the unity of emptiness.

In this emptiness the two are indistinguishable and each contains in itself the whole world.

If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion.

To live in the Great Way is neither easy nor difficult, but those with limited views are fearful and irresolute;
the faster they hurry, the slower they go, and clinging (attachment) cannot be limited;
even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment is to go astray.

Just let things be in their own way and there will be neither coming nor going.

Obey the nature of things (your own nature), and you will walk freely and undisturbed.

When thought is in bondage the truth is hidden, for everything is murky and unclear,
and the burdensome practice of judging brings annoyance and weariness.

What benefits can be derived from distinctions and separations?

If you wish to move in the One Way do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas.

Indeed, to accept them fully is identical with true Enlightenment.

The wise man strives to no goals but the foolish man fetters himself.

There is one Dharma, not many; distinctions arise from the clinging needs of the ignorant.

To seek Mind with the (discriminating) mind is the greatest of all mistakes.

Rest and unrest derive from illusion; with enlightenment there is no liking and disliking.

All dualities come from ignorant inference. They are like dreams or flowers in air: foolish to try to grasp them.

Gain and loss, right and wrong: such thoughts must finally be abolished at once.

If the eye never sleeps, all dreams will naturally cease.

If the mind makes no discriminations, the ten thousand things are as they are, of single essence.

To understand the mystery of this One-essence is to be released from all entanglements.

When all things are seen equally the timeless Self-essence is reached.

No comparisons or analogies are possible in this causeless, relationless state.

Consider movement stationary and the stationary in motion, both movement and rest disappear.

When such dualities cease to exist Oneness itself cannot exist.

To this ultimate finality no law or description applies.

For the unified mind in accord with the Way all self-centered striving ceases.

Doubts and irresolutions vanish and life in true faith is possible.

With a single stroke we are freed from bondage; nothing clings to us and we hold to nothing.

All is empty, clear, self-illuminating, with no exertion of the mind’s power.

Here thought, feeling, knowledge, and imagination are of no value.

In this world of suchness there is neither self nor other-than-self.

To come directly into harmony with this reality just simply say when doubt arises, ‘Not two.’

In this ‘not two’ nothing is separate, nothing is excluded.

No matter when or where, enlightenment means entering this truth.

And this truth is beyond extension or diminution in time or space;
in it a single thought is ten thousand years.

Emptiness here, Emptiness there, but the infinite universe stands always before your eyes.

Infinitely large and infinitely small;
no difference, for definitions have vanished and no boundaries are seen.

So too with Being and Non-Being.

Don’t waste time with doubts and arguments that have nothing to do with this.

One thing, all things: move among and intermingle, without distinction.

To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non-perfection.

To live in this faith is the road to non-duality,
because the non-dual is one with trusting mind.

Words!

The Way is beyond language, for in it there is no yesterday, no tomorrow, no today.

Wind stirs water by penetrating it. Thus the superior man, when obliged to judge the mistakes of men, tries to penetrate their minds with understanding, in order to gain a sympathetic appreciation of the circumstances. In ancient China, the entire administration of justice was guided by this principle. A deep understanding that knows how to pardon was considered the highest form of justice. This system was not without success, for its aim was to make so strong a moral impression that there was no reason to fear abuse of such mildness. For it sprang not from weakness but from a superior clarity.

should escape dishonor. That recoil had at last urged him to make preparations for quitting Middlemarch. If evil truth must be reported of him, he would then be at a less scorching distance from the contempt of his old neighbors; and in a new scene, where his life would not have gathered the same wide sensibility, the tormentor, if he pursued him, would be less formidable. To leave the place finally would, he knew, be extremely painful to his wife, and on other grounds he would have preferred to stay where he had struck root. Hence he made his preparations at first in a conditional way, wishing to leave on all sides an opening for his return after brief absence, if any favorable intervention of Providence should

(via facade)

Sorry it’s been so quiet here. The move is finally done, the new place is great, and I finally got my internet set up last night.  No house is a home until you’re plugged back into the noosphere.

Today I’m off to the monastery for 4 solid days of silent meditation, which I am certainly looking forward to. My nerves are feeling a bit raw and worn out after all the stress of moving and needing to rearrange my lifestyle to fit the new environment. A quick dip into the I AM is just what I need right now.