The Origin of Poetry, etc.

It is my contention that when our observations have reached a point of sufficient subtly, one may become aware of the manner in which awareness and the phenomena it illumines bring about experience. At the point when the purification of mind has taken hold of perception, awareness yields its sentience to a phenomenon in a gesture of overwhelming beauty and perhaps even ecstasy. This is the proper origin of poetic inspiration wherein one is truly capable of a relaxation into silence of mind realizing that all appearances are gifts to awareness and hence to us as accidental recipients. There is no greater gift than to be bowed with gratitude when fortune smiles on our experience of life's acts of the purity of our experiential depths.

 

 

The acts of sensing, if performed within a shroud of true appreciation and gratitude, will give rise to a kind of satisfaction that excludes desire thereby consecrating these acts with the fullness of sentience making it possible to perceive the acts of generosity that our human circumstances give rise to everyday. Initially, these acts will be conscious and perhaps even self-conscious, but repetition of them with and through the two virtuous minds that started this paragraph will yield all of the satisfaction that one life can contain--always in the here and now.

 

 

 

 

 

  

All for Thee, not for "Me"

Let me begin by being very upfront with regard to the underlying bases for what will follow. My investigation into our sensorium and its functioning led me to these discoveries of more radical depths of, what is sometimes called in phenomenological philosophy, the constitution of experience, or often, the constitution of our intersubjective world. While phenomenology helped me to direct my attention to experience in a more disciplined manner as well as provide me with a language appropriate to it, it was meditation which yielded up or revealed the more profound depths of feeling, constitution, and freedom. Both feeling and kinesthesis are intimately involved in the constitution of experience and must be examined in phenomenology. However, phenomenology has its limits and meditation brings these limits into sharp relief. Meditation takes one to the very depths of what might be called the genesis of experience, from the empty depths of pure consciousness and the primordial desire or intention that one might say is its mate. The two together, distinguishable but separable only through death, function to provide us with our selves and our worlds.

 

As silence roared the music was born,

from its darkness, a flower too. 

The scentless demanded time for its fragrance to arise, 

only to serve up a memory of food from the tasteless.

The absence of feeling connected to the wind

all arising from an ownerless desire rooted in awareness

and it all came to life for awareness, including me. 

 

From the beginning, i.e., from the beginning of experience, there is a unity or wholeness between self, body, and situation. This unity is at such a depth of experience that it is, more often than not, overlooked by most of us, even the most observant. The flowering of phenomena, an ephemeral movement wherein the manifestation of phenomena is a dynamic process of both generation and dissolution occur simultaneously. All creation or manifestation of phenomena, rendering the insentient sentient, must and does occur at the same moment as the dissolution of phenomena leaving behind the trace of the now past present which, in turn, influences the living present in its movement toward a present future. All three times, past, present, and future occur simultaneously in a dynamic that captures sentience thus rendering the movement conscious. 

 

 

Theory and Experience: Never the Twain Shall Meet

It seems there is no end to the curiosity and excitement in the exploration of the ins and outs of the sciences, both hard and soft. They are extremely interesting and seductive for many of us. There is just too much to know. What more can we ask for when we actually love the learning process and consider it to be intellectual growth and even maturity. Does your everyday experience seem to pale when compared to the official narratives of the sciences with all of their nooks and crannies of interest? Actually, this same thing can be said of all the subjects taught in schools and colleges. They seem, for many of us, to be of intrinsic interest. For some of us, the mind seems to search for a topic of interest that will captivate us and even intoxicate us. This path of accumulation will, in the end, not do much to bring us a realization of the greatest source of peace, comfort, and tranquility so we continue to search for some topic that will keep us distracted enough so that our existential situation of being human and encountering the suffering we humans do can be shelved for a time. However, it always promises a return because of three major characteristics of all phenomena, their impermanence or inconstancy, their lack of self-essence, and the suffering inherent in living with and through them--births, deaths, old-age, sickness, grief, depression, anxieties, anger, hostility, impatience, and all the rest, you know it well enough or you wouldn't be bothering with this. 

 

Buddhists and practitioners of Samkhya/Yoga call these the three lakshana(s) or in Pali lakkhanna(s), the three "characteristics" or "designators" of all phenomena:(Sanskrit and Pali, duhkha/dukkha, "suffering"; anitya/anicca, "impermanence," "inconstancy,"; and anatma/anatta, "not-self," "selflessness," "essencelessness.")

 

Perhaps we are not paying enough or the right kind of attention to our direct experience. Its greatness often hides in the shadows, the silence, the tasteless, the ordorless, and or the touchless. All phenomena arise on the basis of their animate absence. We have been trained, from a very early age, to ignore or delimit our direct experience and we are encouraged by many projects to fasten our attention on the theoretical, abstract, and discarnate narratives of naturalism, physicalism, and scienticism. The sciences, hard and soft, do have a lot to offer us, there is no doubt. However, the sciences have been taught as either the only or the most important means to truth at the expense of direct experience inclusive of the six senses (smell, taste, sight, touch, hearing, and mind) and their relationship to phenomena. Therefore, we have been taught to turn our attention, to train our habits of attention, to the so-called physical world, the natural world, and the world as an objective entity that the use of theory will help to come to terms with it.

 

Experience includes all the senses and the historical determinations that either set awareness free of the grip of phenomena or reinforce that same grip. 

 

“𝘼 𝙝𝙪𝙜𝙚 𝙧𝙤𝙘𝙠 𝙝𝙪𝙧𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝 𝙨𝙥𝙖𝙘𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙧𝙗𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙪𝙜𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙧𝙤𝙘𝙠,” 𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙠 𝙞𝙨 𝙨𝙪𝙥𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙢𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩? 𝙄𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚? 𝙊𝙧, 𝙢𝙖𝙮𝙗𝙚 𝙞𝙩’𝙨 𝙤𝙣𝙡𝙮 𝙖 𝙛𝙪𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙨𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙞𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙣𝙖𝙧𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙢𝙥 𝙤𝙛 𝙤𝙛𝙛𝙞𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡𝙙𝙤𝙢. 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙙𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙠, 𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙮 𝙤𝙧 𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚? 𝘽𝙤𝙩𝙝 𝙤𝙧 𝙣𝙚𝙞𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧? 𝙏𝙧𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨. 𝙏𝙧𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙙𝙞𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙩 𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚. 𝘼 𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙮 𝙢𝙖𝙮 𝙗𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙡𝙨𝙤 𝙡𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙞𝙤𝙩𝙖 𝙤𝙛 𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙖𝙡 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮. 𝙏𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝 𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙩𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙣𝙖𝙧𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙨. 𝙁𝙚𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙩𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙤 𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚. 𝙊𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙣, 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙘𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙛𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣. 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙙𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙠? 𝘼𝙧𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙥𝙧𝙞𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙣𝙤𝙩? “𝙆𝙚𝙚𝙥 𝙖 𝙘𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙩𝙘𝙝 𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙨.”

 

Do you know that every action we take--sensing, talking, walking, etc.--however inconsequential, is potentially a doorway into a movement of deeply felt satisfaction? Seriously! When the tranquility of consciousness meets with the various phenomena we encounter, the experience may result in a feeling of deep satisfaction--if we are paying and are permitted by the situation to pay--the right kind of attention. By right I mean we must move, sense, or feel with a mind that is open, gentle, still, and attentive without distraction by way of relaxation not exertion. 

There is a very strange connection, association, contact, access, restfulness, relaxation, and, often, blissfulness between awareness and the phenomena which are made animate or experiential by awareness or consciousness. (These two words will, as you may have already noticed, be used interchangeably throughout this blog entry.) I say strange simply because most of us, myself included, were or are not familiar with the kind of association meant here. It is not your usual sensory or cognitive association or contact but one of a deeply felt and extremely relaxed but subtle, gentle, deliberate, and quiet attention paid to experiencing phenomena. It may happen by accident at first where you might...to be continued...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The All

Let us consider the "All." By all I mean all phenomena, everything that occurs in our experience including those "phenomena" (or "noumena") that do not appear to the senses but are implicit in appearing phenomena. In short, an examination of all experience is the examination of the all.

The All is not limited to explicit phenomena as all appearances but includes the All that appears in and as an implicit dimension. The All is just this, everything, explicit or implicit. The All also includes the manner, the how of all experience. How does anything make itself known as a member of the All? How do all things appear to us and disappear from us? We shall look at some of the structures that appear as well as some of the structured, again explicit and implicit. 

It is important to note that this examination of the All is suggestive in the sense that what is said about any member of the All may suggest another aspect of the All. We cannot make explicit all of the All but for our project here it is not necessary to do so. The actual examination of some of the All has a higher purpose than learning about the All. It is one thing to learn and another to examine experience. Learning is an aspect of living but only one of many aspects or dimensions of experience.  

 

Why should we be concerned with this All? Our What can be said that may prove helpful in understanding this All? Why should we come to know the All? By "helpful" I mean helpful in the alleviation of our greatest human problem, suffering. All of us, yes all, wish to be happy or at least to avoid or lessen our suffering. Yet, there remains so many of us who simply do not know how to address the problem from within instead of relying on the very transient phenomena that cannot be counted on for our well-being. I am attempting to offer a small amount of help, at least I believe the material that will appear on this blog, along with the help others provide by way of their comments and contributions, will help to alleviate some of our suffering or difficulty we find in our experience. 

 

 

𝘼𝙣𝙙, 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙙𝙤𝙚𝙨 𝙞𝙩 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢?

Well, here is one answer that you may choose to give some time to, maybe even a whole lot of time. 

 

 

Could it be? Could it be that the prior acts (karma) of history found a place within us and go on influencing what the mind constitutes as both subjectivity and objectivity, i.e., "My life equals I plus my circumstances; unless I save my circumstances I cannot save myself." Ortega y Gasset wrote that quote in the 1940's, I believe, and it hints at what the Dalai Lama says here. Karma and the mind are what flesh-out a multiplicity of self-senses and an infinite variety of circumstances both driven by intention, i.e., desire. Watch carefully to observe what the Dalai Lama has here pronounced as a truism. In a word, he is telling us that karma constitutes experience using the mind, or vice versa.

 

In the Rg Veda, the oldest known religious/philosophical/mythic text, composed in what is called Vedic Sanskrit and said to have been heard by the sages and poets (rshis & kavis), there appears the following verse:

Desire (kama) appeared as the beginning,

it was the original seed (retas) of mind (manas).

Poets (kavis) searching in their hearts with wisdom,

found the bond of existence (sat) in non-existence (asat).

                                                     --Rg Veda, X.129.4

 

 

 

 

 

 

Listen...

What is the medium in which thought occurs? Thoughts rise and fall ephemerally. There is a simultaneous appearing and disappearing of thought such that it is actually incorrect to say that there is a thought. Thought is a movement occurring within a great within. What is that within like? 

 

Why do we spend so much of our attention on the meanings of the narratives of thought. Our main focus, at least for most of us, is on what the thought says. If, even for a few moments a day, we could fasten our attention to the silence that surrounds the movement of thought we might find an aspect of experience that is of great value in liberating us from some of the difficulties that thought gives rise to. 

 

Experience has assimilated narratives from all sorts of places, good, bad, and ugly. Just consider all of the images of the horror films the average Westerner has ingested. They are still in there wreaking a sort of havoc with many of the other less toxic narratives that may be quite helpful.

May We Find Peace in Our Surrender of the Struggle for It.

 

 

Perhaps you feel its precious dignity flowing as your own 

so you may surrender and allow the stream to achieve its fullest expression 

as your life’s sweet kindness and ever-acquiescing generosity.

We are the ephemeral stream of Chronos...

 

Each and every ripple, whirlpool, eddy, and glistening droplet--as it is perceived--unfolds as feelings within and the entirety is held together with our living, i.e., ephemeral incarnation that provides its source, sustenance, and demise at once in the movement that is time itself. Our bodies are this movement of the all bringing to manifestation even the most minute or the most vast expressions of phenomenal life. This is a concrete and fully alive body in the ever-present. This body carries all of life as a manifestation of the generosity inherent in who and what we are. Our lives overflow with an infinitude of gifts from below into manifestation and their dissolution as time. 

 

Our gift to life is the sacrifice we make when we are established in quietude and find rest in the tranquility of pure awareness, that which, when met by the deep desire as inspired intention from below, to manifest the phenomenal, whose mere contact with the plenitude of the unmanifest gives rise to all that can be held to abide in and as the evanescence of existence. May we find that peace in our surrender of the struggle for it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just a suggestion...

 

Episodic Synesthesia

Every once in a while, we come across or encounter what we might call a blessing, a gift, a present, an opening that is engaged with a scrambled sensorium like the one presented here. It's a little poster by Yogi Ananda Viraj that he created while on safari in the wilds of his daily encounters with his uncivilized circumstances. When asked about these gifts, he merely replies, "I don't know where they come from, nor does it matter. What I do know is they are always welcomed." What about you? Are your circumstances often uncivilized? Do they sometimes transfix and surprise you for a moment, or even longer? Perhaps, like his, do they seem to mix the senses into a surprising concoction that suspends what we often take to be normality?

Pursuing our discussion, he emphasized that these safaris or expeditions are always “unique.” Unique meaning they were special and never the same, yet they had a sameness about them in their ability to remove one from the so-called ordinary and place one in a more than welcomed and utterly tranquil abiding, not an abode but an abiding that was alive and fully aware, having a consciousness that over-spilled the visible boundaries of the so-called situation. He added that these situations were not static or isolated situations at all but dynamic expressions of a timelessness or eternity, if you will, that elicits comparisons with safari, expedition, and even pilgrimage. However, there was always something very ordinary about them. They always occurred in the midst of the expected transforming it into the surprising without changing a thing. Their expectedness, if you will, was not lost but found to be surficial, unless they were seen in their nakedness, without being smothered with who "I am" and "what they were supposed to be." “Nothing changes,” he said, “but everything.”