to arms, then;

Tags

1907, 2017, 8*, attention, Bodhichitta, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, body, carelessness, eyes, fate, fields, fire, focus, hell, ideals, identity, inner-self, karma, kleshas, laziness, Louis de la Vallee Poussin, mind, mindlessness, monster, mother sentient beings, narcissism, opportunity, over-reaching, phantom, practice, rebirth, resolve, smoke, staying, suffering, superhero, surprise, talking to myself, torture, translation, war, Warrior

                but there are plenty of opportunities
                to shave off indolence

                there are too many surprises
                to meet-off heedlessness, and stay;

                no use wailing and whimpering
                enfeebled by narcissism,

                when being unremittingly tortured
                of body and mind

                it’ll be way too late,
                I shall have nothing left but bad fate;

                the thing is, they don’t plot, they don’t
                manoeuvre and they

                hardly ever show
                themselves, so how is it I walk eyes-

                wide-open into each of their snare and
                realm; there, monsters

                slavering astride horizon cower me to
                craven identity, fires

                hot to match all my defences, afflicting
                me without notice

                or even much effort
                fires of the sun, fires of the atom, I’ll be

                engulfed but not
                consumed to blessed oblivion … oh, give me

                a break! – I’m
                ongoingly consumed even now, as long as I

                continue endlessly playing
                this solitaire, hitting the ‘new game’ button

                again and again
                until I … stop; but the cleverer I get

                with them the cleverer they already are,
                like shadow-boxing –

                these ancient enemies
                of mine; … to arms, then; not super-

                heroically, trying all the more better
                than I only am and

                then finding myself (on acrid fields –
                the smoke of fallen

                ideals and bombed aims) wanting, but
                inwardly, with

                attention and focus, the Way of the
                Steely Warrior; I shall

                be `ard with suffering, I can take it,
                I shall wear my

                oozed bowels and fallen head like medals
                in this, the War

                to End All Wars, not Mr Redfordman
                who is or isn’t

                good enough, but the wish and drive to fight,
                as long-suffering as mothers …

                … nothing to do with Mark Redford;
                ‘Je ne garde qu’une

                passion: celle de détruire les passions!’,
                these phantoms

                that stir the entire world; ‘dépouille-toi donc’
                the best translation prescribed

 

Bodhisattvacaryavatara IV, 43, French translation by Louis de la Vallee Poussin, Introduction à la Pratique des Futurs Bouddhas, 1907

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

attention wormhole: travelling // arrival
eyes wormhole: animus rises – powieview #37
identity wormhole: stuck in lower realm
mind wormhole: circuitry
practice & talking to myself wormhole: the turtle and the yoke
superhero wormhole: the quiet whale
war wormhole: looking ahead

 

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the turtle and the yoke

Tags

2017, 8*, arrogance, benefit, blindness, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, breathing, facade, faith, glamour, honesty, kleshas, laziness, meditation, ocean, potential, practice, rebirth, self-indulgent, spontaneity, talking to myself, turtle, voices, windows

                the turtle and the yoke

                here is something cold-sweaty
                and uncomfortable to face –
                so much potential, so little use –

                seduced by the whispers of maybe
                I am arrogant, I am lazy, I am
                self-indulgent; they advance

                tempting as bright sweeties
                unchecked by doesn’t-really-
                matter and giddy spontaneity

                facing them will not be entertaining
                or glamourous or noble, it
                won’t even feel good

                but that it would magnify
                longer term benefits if I simply persisted;
                but I have such weak and

                feckless faith: the befuddled
                turtle disturbs the sea-bed slow-motion
                it is time to rise to take the breath

                when civic façade fades to window,
                but there is so much ocean,
                I cannot see which way is up

                but trust to hope and buoyancy
                that it could be
                that this time will place my neck

                in the life-yoke brightly adrift
                about the shoreless sea, to realise
                I could be a radiant being

 

Bodhisattvacharyavatara IV, 20

 

from … Human Life is Extremely Hard to Find, by Geshe Sonam Rinchen; full article found: HERE

A blind turtle lives on the ocean bed and surfaces just once every hundred years. A golden yoke floats on the vast ocean, blown here and there by the wind. What are the chances of the turtle surfacing at just the right time and in just the right place to be able to put its head through the yoke? Our chances of gaining a life of freedom and fortune are just as improbable. You may think it couldn’t possibly be so difficult, but cyclic existence is like a vast and stormy ocean and we are like the turtle that spends most of its time in the depths and only surfaces very occasionally. For most of our lives we have been in bad rebirths and it happens only very rarely that we emerge from these into a good rebirth.

The yoke is made of gold and is therefore heavy, so it often sinks and is invisible. The yoke symbolizes the teachings of an enlightened one. An age of illumination is a period dur­ing which an enlightened one has taught in the world and those teachings are still extant, but there are much longer dark periods of time when the world is without such teachings.

Sea off SicilyThe yoke does not remain in one place but is blown here and there by the wind. Similarly the teachings first flourish in one country and then in another. They thrive where people take an interest in practicing them and die out when they cease to be alive in people’s hearts. Sometimes the turtle comes up to the surface but in a place where there is no golden yoke. This is like taking a good rebirth but having no access to the teachings.

The turtle must actually put its head into the yoke, which signifies that the only way into the teachings is by taking refuge in the Three Jewels. Our lack of interest in the teachings and our reluctance to engage with them is due to our lack of intelligence, which is like the turtle’s blindness. No matter what good circumstances we enjoy, our life is not truly fortunate and free from obstacles if we have no interest in the Buddha’s teachings.

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

breathing wormhole: where did the silence go
meditation wormhole: may the supreme and precious jewel bodhichitta … // … take birth where it has not yet done so … // … where it has taken birth may it not decrease … // … but may it increase infinitely
practice wormhole: ‘still …’
talking to myself wormhole: next unexpected step
voices wormhole: Sheffield Park Gardens
windows wormhole: quiet river

 

‘still …’

Tags

2016, 3*, awareness, balance, being, doing, living, practice

                still
                   the balance is not
                       right,    but

                I mustn’t be
                   unbalanced
                       in recognising it

                and trying
                   to        practise
                       balance

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

awareness wormhole: for / the first time
balance wormhole: in the Java ‘n’ Jazz
being wormhole: before any writing
doing wormhole: looking back over the tack / and jibe of my life I / notice there is / a fetch // after all … / but certainly not / where I had planned / or where I thought / I’d been
living wormhole: Christmas 2015
practice wormhole: amid

 

amid

Tags

2014, 5*, being, breathing, circular poem, coffee shop, evening, life, practice, realisation, settling, sitting, sound, time, windows, zafu

                                                      my practice
                            anyway                      my being
                 all the time                               off the cushion
I breathe it all amid                                   starts here in the
                   to come                                      coffee shop in the
  wait for settlement                                   evening by the
           I don’t need to                               window and the fug
                 to realise that                       and the foot scuffs and the
                             spoon slinks

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

being & evening & time wormhole: good going into / that gentle night
breathing wormhole: cape and cowl
circular poem wormhole: circuitry
coffee shop & sitting wormhole: found
life wormhole: leaves
practice wormhole: tragic and archival
realisation wormhole: such such potential
settling wormhole: jump start
sound wormhole: humm
windows wormhole: glide

 

tragic and archival

Tags

'scape, 2013, 4*, driving, history, months, moving, practice, progress, sitting, time, tragedy, travelling, years

                      so

                      after months,
                      even years

                      of sitting
                      and feeling

                      I have achieved
                      some coagulation

                      set and
                      solid-enough

                      to make along
                      a country road

                      I can still
                      get caught

                      by the ‘tut’
                      to a wrong turn

                      tragic and archival
                      which takes

                      the best part
                      of fifty miles

                      and a change
                      of scene to

                      stand down
                      and move on

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

history wormhole: wakeoutofadream
sitting wormhole: I keep / waiting to be discovered and get lost in anticipation
time wormhole: time
travelling wormhole: written relief to / creeping anaesthesia / through palimpsest / and crankled page
years wormhole: 1968

 

where it has taken birth / may it not decrease …

Tags

2017, 7*, austerity, being, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, conscience, conscientiousness, death, doing, effort, fall, gravity, illusion, inspiration, karma, Lucifer, mind, now, practice, self-cherishing, Shantideva, superhero, talking to myself, time, virtue

                where it has taken birth
                may it not decrease … there are

                tiny filaments here and there
                from time to time
                connecting the flexing muscle
                further corridors within the firing mind

                it’s not a whole package
                nicely taped up in cardboard
                and delivered with a smile, a signature
                and a how-might-I-do-better survey

                it … won’t happen like that;
                here’s where if anywhere
                the austerity takes place
                here’s where if anywhere I develop

                gaunt lines of virtue
                in my cheek, after the inspiration
                has gone:
                just keep on keeping on; if I try super-heroically –

                ag-grandiosely – there is nothing
                to let ‘not decrease’,
                if it does not burn it is not fire;
                I am either serious or not

                and if not, I should;
                go back
                calm down and create new filaments
                quietly and accordingly

                anything ethical
                should be conducted … only,
                not become an eater of conscience
                like Lucifer’s hapless fool

                simply bargaining
                with illusion is the loss of its finding … out,
                the gravity of the flailing fall
                exponential

                to each and every action
                where it will take a long time to gain ground; death
                affords time to practise
                now, all the time now, not

                later, not I-did-have-it-but-
                now-I’ve-lost-it … NOW

 

right-angled out of chapter IV of Shantideva’s Bodhisattvacharyavatara … or in

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

being & doing & talking to myself wormhole: six paramitas
death wormhole: ‘never look up’?
mind wormhole: moment
practice wormhole: just saying, is all VI: // accountable / for my own outbreath / …
superhero wormhole: passersby
time wormhole: the bench

 

just saying, is all VI: // accountable / for my own outbreath / …

Tags

2013, 2016, 6*, accountability, air, breathing, broken, career, dialectic, encounter, experience, fantasy, oxymoronic, pavement, practice, Principal, recognition, results-led education, sidelined, skill, slogans, staring, talking, teaching, time, voices, words

                just saying, is all VI

                agh; the Principal
                walking this way
                can’t avoid it have
                to talk to him; ‘how

                ARE you?’; and to
                my reclacitrant ‘OK’
                he tells me my
                experience and skill

                count for a lot and
                I walk away staring
                at the edge of the
                pavement trying to

                fit the words to
                decades of sideline;
                why didn’t I just
                scream in his face

                that his word and
                his breathing are
                oxymoronic to each
                other as I so often

                fantasise doing; but
                I am broken by this
                place in which these
                OK-spores are air,

                I have no leverage
                of dialectic from
                which to speak, so
                easy to evade my lob

                and practice by
                referring the Briefings:
                ‘a little precious’, ‘not
                a team player’, ‘ask him

                about his children’,
                ‘doesn’t affect results’,
                ‘doesn’t make sense’;
                smile and shift-agenda,

                endear by using his
                own name, slip in a
                Slogan and, there,
                a free and frank

                exchange which
                has left me accountable
                for my own outbreath
                …

 

as of September 2016 I am retired early from teaching – without prejudice – because I could no longer find any more inbreaths to keep practising; the encounter happened about three years previously, the humanomanagerialasphyxia virus took hold about 2001 beginning an odyssey with no resolve; now I teach myself to breathe again by embracing … no resolve; the next ‘just saying, is all’ will be about life inside the plastic bag over my head, I know it, I’ve written in, I’ve breathed it

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

air & teaching wormhole: this aching // and spacious dichotomy
breathing wormhole: sleep now
career wormhole: travel
practice & time wormhole: interim
recognition wormhole: happen//ing
results-led education wormhole: teached / in the ass
talking wormhole: familiasyncopation
voices wormhole: did I get old?
words wormhole: Prajnaparamita // Maitreya

 

interim

Tags

2015, 4*, attention, haiku, living, practice, renewal, time

                                                interim

                                                        there is always time
                                                after the meander is noticed
                                        to renew

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

attention wormhole: returning home handsome
haiku[esque] wormhole: ‘field of corn …’
living wormhole: matter
practice wormhole: let it all go
time wormhole: still

 

let it all go

Tags

2011, 5*, abstract, centrifugal, centripetal, habit, identity, illusion, interdependent origination, letting go, looking, pointlessness, practice, talking to myself, world

                                              strong habit
                                abstracting
                from a pointless world

                                              me versus the world
                                whenever it solidifies
                centripetal to my centrifugal

                                I should let it all go

                                              by looking
                                where I am
                geographically

                                              emotionally
                                completely
                cleanly

                                              once again
                                hundreds of times
                all the time, and

                                              emerge
                                from it and
                watch myself

                                              and the world
                                spring up
                like illusion

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

identity & looking wormhole: AT-tennnnnnnn – waitfrit waitfrit – SHUN!
letting go wormhole: trying to focus / on walking
pointlessness wormhole: hello, luvvey, do you want a cup of tea?
practice wormhole: substance
talking to myself wormhole: happen//ing
world wormhole: travel

 

substance

Tags

2015, 4*, being, creativity, fiction, format, looking, meaning, practice, searching, sitting, substance, words, writing

 

 

 

                found a source to
                practise a format
                and didn’t write
                for months

                lost the need to
                find the words
                to enquire where
                I could not see

                and found there
                was little to say;
                I’ve nothing to
                write once I realise

                there is nothing
                to say that wasn’t
                fictional looking
                for substance and

                there is no sub
                stance other than
                what I say in search
                of substance

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

being & words wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Precious Moment
creativity wormhole: listen willya
looking wormhole: the policies came to nothing
meaning wormhole: the both passive and transitive / non-presumptive pre-conceptualist attenuation of being
practice wormhole: zero
searching wormhole: constant hummm
sitting wormhole: The Boats of Vallesneria by Michael J. Redford – Autumn Thoughts
writing wormhole: inbreath