I was just cycling home a few minutes ago, my mind racing as I pedalled, not so much in tune with the motion but rather with the fact that I'll be leaving in a few days for my yearly retreat and, as always, there's a lot of stuff that I want to do before I go.
Actually, one of the big advantages of doing a yearly retreat is that, at least once a year, you have to get your life in order. From living space to head space.
And this, in conjunction with the film I saw last night, Elegy, the Manga I want to read for Mondays discussion and considerations about people I know, prompted this wonder musing in my mind.
And this is why we're here, right?
As I found myself thinking about all the different Manga series I was carrying I started wondering if I'd actually enjoy any of them (in the sense, would I like to read more of the series or not?), if I could actually relate to the stories and themes revolving around pre-teens, most likely set in contemporary Japan... it seemed a bit far fetched as I cycled but, I thought, even if I don't relate, it's definitely something I'm curious on doing, something I think I will benefit, be more in touch with the cultural here and now so to speak.
And, if I was lucky, perhaps I would feel that sense of wonder that I experienced so many times as kid. That's what it means to me to be a kid. To be imbued of that sense of all pervasive wonder which we tend to equate with intense happiness.
In doing some research today for covers for the Jack Of Tales comics series, I ended up bumping into an Alan Moore interview on a comics website and there he talked about League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen and how Philip José Farmer had had such a massive influence on the title. He mentioned one of Philip's books: Tarzan Lives! to exemplify the mutability of his writing. Alan said something like "as if it had been written by two Burroughs". Meaning Edgar Rice Burroughs (the creator of Tarzan) and William S. Burroughs (a writer that explore writing through drug induced states and whose life was one big, dangerous experiment).
I've read them both and, for different and similar reasons, I've enjoyed them both immensely. Tarzan was obviously a childhood hero, with plenty of righteous fights and nature and damsels in distress. William Burroughs was the first person to safely take me into the realms of the deeply altered human mind. He was using his own hallucinations and surrealism to bring us one step closer to reality. A bit like observing a madman will give you insight into the true nature of madness and thus broaden your perception of yourself and the humanity at the same time.
All this to say that I could feel through Alan's words his own sense of teen wonder when he too read those authors.
And this took me to muse on how that sense of wonder had developed in me? Why does it surface at all?
"We think in absolutes"
I believe this was the sentence that simply popped into my mind. Meaning, we experience in absolutes, rather than thinking. I knew what I meant even though my mind tends towards words I use only too often...
The idea here is that when we experience something, at the root of our senses, there is no comparing of that experience with anything else. Things just are. Each and every single experience is complete. And every single one feels like the first time. Each is unique. Each is complete.
To me, this is the physiological root of wonder.
We have it all the time. At each passing moment. But, because our degree of integration with ourselves, with our body and senses is frail, we rarely perceive this completeness.
We only experience what comes after.
Which is the comparison between this experience and many others that have happened before.
I felt very happy and alive (as I always do) when this happened.
My mind was racing now in order to observe more of this perception. I found myself traveling back in time in my own memories trying to see where the perception of that feeling had started and had grown into a more conceptual form.
The thing I came up with were some very old animation series from the late seventies, early eighties. Namely Future Boy Conan and The Mysterious Cities Of Gold.
This was where fantasy, wonder and spirituality started to become connected the way they have been since.
For years I had an image in my head: there's a young kid staring at the horizon, perhaps on top of a hill and, suddenly, the ground beneath his feet starts to shake, everything begins to collapse and a huge ship, as big as a city but in the shape of a manta ray, lifts from under the ground and hovers high above him, amidst all the destruction.
That image was so powerful that it stayed with me for years and years. It's still here. I had forgotten the name of the series to such an extent that in my early teens I had started to doubt the actual existence of such a series. I'd asked around but no one seemed to remember.
It was only in my mid twenties that I found out that it belonged to the animation series called Future Boy Conan. As soon as I saw some images I realized it was that boy on the screen that I had seen in that image many many years ago.
I still haven't seen the series again but one day I will and, when I do, I'm sure that image, or something close to it (after all memory does change with time) will be there waiting for me.
The other thing that I realised was that even though these series had such an incredible sense of fantasy and wonder in them because they were being shown on television, because schedules kept changing (television was quite irregular when I was a little kid, shows would be announced simply on the day, not be aired at all, delayed for an hour, anything was possible in those, still early, days) I'd often miss good chunks of series altogether.
I remember watching a re-run of The Mysterious Cities Of Gold when I was about sixteen or seventeen. And even with a regular schedule, I'd often miss an episode here or there.
And, because of this haphazard nature of television, we were not presented with a continuous, smooth flow of plot and story development. No. We were presented with parts of the story. Some episodes you'd see many times. Some you never did watch.
I think this had a curious effect on my mind.
I had to fill in the gaps.
So even though watching television is a pretty passive activity, the way you watch it can also truly engage with your imagination.
Besides the obvious daydreaming about your favourite series...
This somehow took me to think about the main theme of the film I saw yesterday (Elegy): ageing and the realisation of life.
Why does something so obvious and omni-present as growing old surprise us so much? This in the sense of the film, more clearly expressed in Tolstoy's immortal words:
"A man's greatest surprise is age."
Why is it such a life changing realisation? Why is it so painful? Shouldn't we slowly grow accustomed to it?
I'm not talking about rational, logical explanations here. I'm talking about the emotional side of it, so seemingly uncontrollable.
Here's perhaps the glimpse of an answer.
I think the basis for this confusion stems from our good old, root perception versus conceptual perception.
At a sensory level perception is always complete and immutable. One's perception of heat surely depends on the amount of heat sensors one has in the skin but, however many, however accurate, the information they provide is always complete. Remember, there is no comparison at this level. That touch consciousness is always perfect from an internal perspective.
This means that, at every moment of awareness, on a root level we are always complete, full and fully present.
But then the mind starts to decipher all this information.
It starts separating it, trying to make "sense" out of it. Fitting it in boxes so it can create based on it, so it can more easily create a bridge between this moment of awareness and the next.
This is when the "problems" start...
That splitting up of information in many different possibilities (and/or meanings) creates waves of neuronal comparison. The sensory stimulus interacts with the brain, expanding the original inflow of information with the one that the brain is creating through its interaction with it.
Memory is naturally engaged with this. And by memory I don't mean necessarily experiences we remember. Actually, I believe that most of this mnemonic engagement is with forms (I have no better word to try and define these structures) we don't even know we have as part of our mind space.
So, this second stage is all about creating a different state. Of, apparently, noticing the differences. Therefore, and because this is usually the state we begin to pay attention to (the sole state where we are "awakened") this means we only consider this one side of the equation. We see the distance rather than what's there.
This is the origin between the still "being young inside" (the raw sensory information reaching us spontaneously at every moment) and the "feeling old" when one looks at the mirror or observes how much more difficult it is now to move or have energy or whatever (but this is the comparative state given by the mind, observing the differences).
Obviously, because we haven't integrated these two seemingly opposing perceptions into a single experience (non-dual, constant, continuous, etc), we tend only to focus (somewhat unconsciously) on the difference between what was and what is.
And this causes us pain.
But, as always, this pain is mainly present because of our ignorance about our own conditions. Because we aren't truly awake. Ie, we cannot contemplate and be aware of the simultaneity of both perceptions. One non-dual in nature (raw sensory data) and the other wholly dualistic (our mind comparison mechanisms based on sensory and brain data).
In sum, we feel the pain of being old because we aren't truly in touch with ourselves within the moment.
When we are our age has no pain, regret, loss or whatever negative feeling attached to it. Because we are in touch with the raw sensory data streaming in. We are in touch with the feeling of completeness it entails. With its timeless quality (time only exists by comparison, ie, this moment is different from that one. Within the moment, there is only the moment, there is nothing else).
We are neither young or old.
We are timeless.
We are closer to our truth and to its all pervasive qualities.
We are fully awake in being.
Peace.
Thursday 31 December 2009
Tuesday 29 December 2009
Nietzsche and Buddha continued II
Even just reading the intro to this book there's already so much richness.
Let us examine the following paragraph:
"It does seem to be true, for example, that most people, when they find something has gone wrong, do look for someone to blame quite as soon as they look for a way of putting it right. Equally, people who lack the advantages that others have form intense resentments against the 'privileged', claiming that they (the non-privileged) are being denied their 'rights'. Such movements of the soul are, it would seem, 'natural'; Nietzsche is not in the least disposed to deny that. What he loathes is the way in which such attitudes of vengefulness and ressentiment are used as the linchpins of moral systems."
The main idea contained in these words may be well known to us but the fact remains that Nietzsche was one of the first to put it out there and, by doing this, to go against what was deemed established in his day. It's this kind of philosophical sabotage (of the best kind because it reveals deeper layers of awareness) that bought Nietzsche his ticket into oblivion.
Many things crossed my mind while I was reading the two or three pages surrounding this affirmation.
One of the things is this feeling of fearlessness that Nietzsche exudes so intensely from his work. But I do not think that Nietzsche was fearless by nature. He was much too careful, much to adamant to prove his point time and time again. He was much too insistent of facing the terrible for this thing to have been easy for him. I think he was in fact the opposite. I think he believed himself to have a lot of weakness inside of him and this is another of the reasons why he felt he had to struggle so much against the world, which is another way of saying, against himself.
Even though he has died more than one hundred years ago, Nietzsche is still incredibly contemporary. And the reason for this is that he touched something very deep in our humanity. And he was able to communicate this with words for all of those willing to listen.
Also, things seem not to have changed that much in the intervening one hundred years. Perhaps because these things are difficult to change. Which should mean we should be even more aware of them. Which in turn makes Nietzsche even more relevant.
I love this idea that a reactive social system is not good enough.
It sure seems to be the case still today. Things are ignored until they go wrong. And it ranges from the leaving a dirty tea cup in the sink (until someone complains about it) to not bothering to check a bridge's structure (until it collapses).
Clearly Nietzsche did not approve of this type of behaviour. He would probably call it moral irresponsibility or something like it.
I think in this way he is quite close to Buddhism and the noble eightfold path.
For in Buddhism the noble eightfold path (a title that may seem pompous to some but that, in my opinion, is far, very far from such misconceptions) does not come as a moral reaction to what we see around us. That plays a part, sure enough, but the realisation of the path (ie, we only achieve its deepest, most subtle and most perfect reality) only occurs when we are able to transcend the reactive, survivalist instinct in us. Perhaps more plainly, the noble eightfold path only becomes completely true in connection with the experience of enlightenment.
In fact, the lord Buddha, gave this noble path to us only after he had reached his full enlightenment. Which means that he was no longer bound by all these innate survival reaction games we play.
The difference between the Buddha (one of the many) and Nietzsche is that whilst one was completely released from these human games, the other was still incredibly bound by them and, even with all his clarity, understanding and insight, he could not help but continue to play the "opposition" game.
The image that came to me was that of two men pushing one another. As they battle continues their points of contact with the soil become strengthened. As if pillars grew around their legs, allowing them to push even harder against one another, more and more solidified in their place. This gives them an incredible sense of security. This gives them a feeling of power. This gives them a sense of direction, of righteousness.
But it also traps them.
Even if they've forgotten all about where they stand for such is the focus on the ensuing battle (and they cannot afford to lose a moment of concentration, in fear the other might win).
With the enlightened being the game is a completely different one.
There are no roots to the ground. There is no support apart from freedom itself.
The enlightened being does not have the binding strength of delusion. He or she will see the game for what it is and every effort put into it will be in full knowledge of the conditions. There is no righteous anger to use. There is no drama. There is simply a situation and a personal set of tools that may or may not be suitable for the task at hand.
In any case this was what the Buddha proposed to do and did. To establish a set of guidelines to help humanity reach its fullest potential. Even though one could see this as a set of dogmas (religious, philosophical, psychological, etc), in fact these come into being through the transcendence of dogma itself. More, these are offered to us, never imposed. In this way the Buddha also avoided the dangers of a dominant set of values. Perhaps because he had realised so well that, despite our fundamental common nature, there would always be conceptual divergence among humans.
The problem with Nietzsche is simply that he never did arrive at such a full realisation of our shared being. He certainly came to know it conceptually but he never did reach those same conclusions in a non-conceptual, non-dualistic way. That is the crux. That's where the real transformation occurs. That's where, to use the wise words of a noble buddhist master, "one tastes the chocolate".
Obviously, because Nietzsche never experienced this awakening, he could easily dismiss it. Funnily enough, in doing this, he was having precisely the same attitude that he criticized in his detractors...
But, in this, he is not alone. It's always easier to dismiss (or to fear) what we do not know. Especially, when these things don't seem as easy to obtain as words on paper, or catching a train or watch a film or whatever.
I think most of us, in the west at least (where such concepts of "awakening" are still somewhat alien - and alienating), are somewhat dismissive of these states of being still. Especially because they're so hard to understand and seem to contradict themselves so much.
But, the fact that we still see contradiction where in fact what exists is unity, simply reinstates our ignorance.
And this is something that we should all do well in understand.
Peace
Let us examine the following paragraph:
"It does seem to be true, for example, that most people, when they find something has gone wrong, do look for someone to blame quite as soon as they look for a way of putting it right. Equally, people who lack the advantages that others have form intense resentments against the 'privileged', claiming that they (the non-privileged) are being denied their 'rights'. Such movements of the soul are, it would seem, 'natural'; Nietzsche is not in the least disposed to deny that. What he loathes is the way in which such attitudes of vengefulness and ressentiment are used as the linchpins of moral systems."
The main idea contained in these words may be well known to us but the fact remains that Nietzsche was one of the first to put it out there and, by doing this, to go against what was deemed established in his day. It's this kind of philosophical sabotage (of the best kind because it reveals deeper layers of awareness) that bought Nietzsche his ticket into oblivion.
Many things crossed my mind while I was reading the two or three pages surrounding this affirmation.
One of the things is this feeling of fearlessness that Nietzsche exudes so intensely from his work. But I do not think that Nietzsche was fearless by nature. He was much too careful, much to adamant to prove his point time and time again. He was much too insistent of facing the terrible for this thing to have been easy for him. I think he was in fact the opposite. I think he believed himself to have a lot of weakness inside of him and this is another of the reasons why he felt he had to struggle so much against the world, which is another way of saying, against himself.
Even though he has died more than one hundred years ago, Nietzsche is still incredibly contemporary. And the reason for this is that he touched something very deep in our humanity. And he was able to communicate this with words for all of those willing to listen.
Also, things seem not to have changed that much in the intervening one hundred years. Perhaps because these things are difficult to change. Which should mean we should be even more aware of them. Which in turn makes Nietzsche even more relevant.
I love this idea that a reactive social system is not good enough.
It sure seems to be the case still today. Things are ignored until they go wrong. And it ranges from the leaving a dirty tea cup in the sink (until someone complains about it) to not bothering to check a bridge's structure (until it collapses).
Clearly Nietzsche did not approve of this type of behaviour. He would probably call it moral irresponsibility or something like it.
I think in this way he is quite close to Buddhism and the noble eightfold path.
For in Buddhism the noble eightfold path (a title that may seem pompous to some but that, in my opinion, is far, very far from such misconceptions) does not come as a moral reaction to what we see around us. That plays a part, sure enough, but the realisation of the path (ie, we only achieve its deepest, most subtle and most perfect reality) only occurs when we are able to transcend the reactive, survivalist instinct in us. Perhaps more plainly, the noble eightfold path only becomes completely true in connection with the experience of enlightenment.
In fact, the lord Buddha, gave this noble path to us only after he had reached his full enlightenment. Which means that he was no longer bound by all these innate survival reaction games we play.
The difference between the Buddha (one of the many) and Nietzsche is that whilst one was completely released from these human games, the other was still incredibly bound by them and, even with all his clarity, understanding and insight, he could not help but continue to play the "opposition" game.
The image that came to me was that of two men pushing one another. As they battle continues their points of contact with the soil become strengthened. As if pillars grew around their legs, allowing them to push even harder against one another, more and more solidified in their place. This gives them an incredible sense of security. This gives them a feeling of power. This gives them a sense of direction, of righteousness.
But it also traps them.
Even if they've forgotten all about where they stand for such is the focus on the ensuing battle (and they cannot afford to lose a moment of concentration, in fear the other might win).
With the enlightened being the game is a completely different one.
There are no roots to the ground. There is no support apart from freedom itself.
The enlightened being does not have the binding strength of delusion. He or she will see the game for what it is and every effort put into it will be in full knowledge of the conditions. There is no righteous anger to use. There is no drama. There is simply a situation and a personal set of tools that may or may not be suitable for the task at hand.
In any case this was what the Buddha proposed to do and did. To establish a set of guidelines to help humanity reach its fullest potential. Even though one could see this as a set of dogmas (religious, philosophical, psychological, etc), in fact these come into being through the transcendence of dogma itself. More, these are offered to us, never imposed. In this way the Buddha also avoided the dangers of a dominant set of values. Perhaps because he had realised so well that, despite our fundamental common nature, there would always be conceptual divergence among humans.
The problem with Nietzsche is simply that he never did arrive at such a full realisation of our shared being. He certainly came to know it conceptually but he never did reach those same conclusions in a non-conceptual, non-dualistic way. That is the crux. That's where the real transformation occurs. That's where, to use the wise words of a noble buddhist master, "one tastes the chocolate".
Obviously, because Nietzsche never experienced this awakening, he could easily dismiss it. Funnily enough, in doing this, he was having precisely the same attitude that he criticized in his detractors...
But, in this, he is not alone. It's always easier to dismiss (or to fear) what we do not know. Especially, when these things don't seem as easy to obtain as words on paper, or catching a train or watch a film or whatever.
I think most of us, in the west at least (where such concepts of "awakening" are still somewhat alien - and alienating), are somewhat dismissive of these states of being still. Especially because they're so hard to understand and seem to contradict themselves so much.
But, the fact that we still see contradiction where in fact what exists is unity, simply reinstates our ignorance.
And this is something that we should all do well in understand.
Peace
Monday 28 December 2009
Nietzsche and Buddha continued I
I was just reading a bit more of the introduction to Twilight Of The Idols and The Anti-Christ.
This was the sentence that attracted my attention:
"Never scrupulous, let alone 'scholarly', in his portrayal of individuals, he reaches new heights of recklessness in these works, with the exception of his treatment of Christ, as we shall see."
To me this means what I was delving upon in the previous post.
Nietzsche's intensity must be acknowledged from the onset as being one of the dominant traits of his whole philosophy.
Nietzsche was more interested in getting his ideas pinned down than in the specifics of others philosophies. He was using his intensity to get to his inner most core of ideas and perception. Other philosophers, in fact, everything around him (including himself to a great extent) were merely tools, vehicles that would allow him to do this, points where he could fine tune and exert his concentration. The outer world helped him define more clearly the obstacles he felt within, each philosopher or idea bringing him closer to his own barriers, using then his angry intolerance to reach unto them, destroy those boundaries and reach a more human philosophy.
To me this type of attitude combined with its almost more than human resilience can only be the signal of a very particular brain chemistry. One that had probably had always been there, at least since puberty or since he started devoting himself to philosophy.
This imbalance can help explain the birth of his philosophy. As a means to regain that balance he had lost. As an unconscious means of extracting something positive from his condition (much like Dostoievsky also did).
If philosophy was an unconscious means of coping with his condition, at the same time it became a release valve, it began creating the need to the imbalance as soon as so much release could be achieved. It became an addiction.
Having his childhood so fully immersed in Christianity and, later on in life realising that so much of it was false, Nietzsche could not but make of it an eternal enemy.
But, obviously, this only brought him closer to what he wanted to avoid. His hate kept Christianity so close at bay. He needed to destroy it. He needed to destroy it as thoroughly, as deeply as possible. and, for that, he needed to immerse himself in it.
And find a way out.
Over and over again.
Nietzsche needed to come to terms with his past, with the acceptance that he was not Christ, that he could never have the christian characteristics.
Thus he needed to find an alternative. An alternative even greater, even more profound than the one that had been imbued in him.
Most people would desist of such pursuits very early on - the few that would be so inclined.
But not Nietzsche, and this must've been surely because of his own special inner chemistry. Displayed to the world as an overwhelming intensity.
To my mind this was his greatest triumph and failure.
To the best of his ability he used it to get as deep, as far and wide as he could (and all the while dooming himself...) but, at the same time, it was this searing hot quality of his discourse that we now appreciate so much in its brilliant clarity that drove him away from his contemporaries.
It's sad to think that the characteristics that we now appreciate him for so much were the very things that prevented him to gain some recognition. I think that more than afraid of this ideas, his contemporaries were afraid of his tone. It was something they could not cope with. His tone was of a madman.
Worse, that of a man that believed to the utmost limits of his being, of his soul, what he affirmed.
and he was willing to fight for it.
That much was clear.
This was the problem.
There was no road map on how to deal with Nietzsche. So, the best strategy was simply to ignore him.
I'm sure that Nietzsche must've known this. And, even so, he still remained.
In fact he had only two choices. Either deny his life work and become accepted. To betray himself in the hope of acceptance or... remain as he was.
Peace
This was the sentence that attracted my attention:
"Never scrupulous, let alone 'scholarly', in his portrayal of individuals, he reaches new heights of recklessness in these works, with the exception of his treatment of Christ, as we shall see."
To me this means what I was delving upon in the previous post.
Nietzsche's intensity must be acknowledged from the onset as being one of the dominant traits of his whole philosophy.
Nietzsche was more interested in getting his ideas pinned down than in the specifics of others philosophies. He was using his intensity to get to his inner most core of ideas and perception. Other philosophers, in fact, everything around him (including himself to a great extent) were merely tools, vehicles that would allow him to do this, points where he could fine tune and exert his concentration. The outer world helped him define more clearly the obstacles he felt within, each philosopher or idea bringing him closer to his own barriers, using then his angry intolerance to reach unto them, destroy those boundaries and reach a more human philosophy.
To me this type of attitude combined with its almost more than human resilience can only be the signal of a very particular brain chemistry. One that had probably had always been there, at least since puberty or since he started devoting himself to philosophy.
This imbalance can help explain the birth of his philosophy. As a means to regain that balance he had lost. As an unconscious means of extracting something positive from his condition (much like Dostoievsky also did).
If philosophy was an unconscious means of coping with his condition, at the same time it became a release valve, it began creating the need to the imbalance as soon as so much release could be achieved. It became an addiction.
Having his childhood so fully immersed in Christianity and, later on in life realising that so much of it was false, Nietzsche could not but make of it an eternal enemy.
But, obviously, this only brought him closer to what he wanted to avoid. His hate kept Christianity so close at bay. He needed to destroy it. He needed to destroy it as thoroughly, as deeply as possible. and, for that, he needed to immerse himself in it.
And find a way out.
Over and over again.
Nietzsche needed to come to terms with his past, with the acceptance that he was not Christ, that he could never have the christian characteristics.
Thus he needed to find an alternative. An alternative even greater, even more profound than the one that had been imbued in him.
Most people would desist of such pursuits very early on - the few that would be so inclined.
But not Nietzsche, and this must've been surely because of his own special inner chemistry. Displayed to the world as an overwhelming intensity.
To my mind this was his greatest triumph and failure.
To the best of his ability he used it to get as deep, as far and wide as he could (and all the while dooming himself...) but, at the same time, it was this searing hot quality of his discourse that we now appreciate so much in its brilliant clarity that drove him away from his contemporaries.
It's sad to think that the characteristics that we now appreciate him for so much were the very things that prevented him to gain some recognition. I think that more than afraid of this ideas, his contemporaries were afraid of his tone. It was something they could not cope with. His tone was of a madman.
Worse, that of a man that believed to the utmost limits of his being, of his soul, what he affirmed.
and he was willing to fight for it.
That much was clear.
This was the problem.
There was no road map on how to deal with Nietzsche. So, the best strategy was simply to ignore him.
I'm sure that Nietzsche must've known this. And, even so, he still remained.
In fact he had only two choices. Either deny his life work and become accepted. To betray himself in the hope of acceptance or... remain as he was.
Peace
Friday 25 December 2009
Nietzsche and Buddha
As always, whenever I start another project things quickly begin to overlap. In fact, if there's anything that I've observed more and more is the natural relationship between things.
Undoubtedly this has to do with the nature of observation itself - and to the mind that supports it so much.
During November I spent a good deal of my time contemplating on two different writing projects. One of them (The Lost Years - more info on my sequential scripts blog) focused on the 17 missing years of Jesus' life.
This was an idea that I had had on my first retreat at Panditarama Forest Monastery in Myanmar. The idea surfaced after a few "inner wanderings" about the social role of the Buddha in his day and age and, the spontaneous realisation that Jesus had had a quite similar role even if, in my opinion, a somewhat different scope. Not only because times were different (the Buddha's legacy had lived on for over 5 centuries by then) but also because, despite the many similarities, Jesus was a different man from the Buddha. He had been born in different times and in a different culture. And that, surely, must've influenced his journey.
This was what I was trying to clarify for myself as well as others throughout the writing of this book. The similarities and the differences between Buddhism and Jesus' teachings framed within that time and place.
It wasn't meant to be a study but rather more of a semi-intuitive fictionalised story, very much in the spirit of how the whole thing began to happen in my mind. The known pieces of the puzzle falling together in a configuration I had yet not seen.
Throughout that month things evolved rapidly and in unexpected directions.
As to be expected.
In searching and listening for connections, I started to remember the roots of this insight. In doing some research the name of Friederich Nietzsche came up once and once again, more out of a personal flavour than by the demands of the work itself.
I remembered the Anti-Christ of course. I read it many years ago. Barely out of my teens (quite possibly, i forget such things...) it made an incredible impression on me because it felt more true and honest than all that I had come across about Christianity before.
Christianity after all, had always been for me my father's lifelong hatred and my mother's superficial beliefs (share by most of my family, in fact, by most of the culture where I grew for the first 18 years of my life). A curiosity with too many holes for me to even bother to scrutinise it.
But life has it's ways and I've always been a sucker for curiosity.
So, here I was, aged 33 and looking left, right and centre, imbued with this firlm belief that Jesus was in fact a noble figure that should be set to rights.
Naive. Sure. And why not?
In the sense of child like innocence that is much of the Anti-Christ (that, from the German can also be translated as the Anti-Christian), I agree with both Nietzsche, Jesus and Buddha. It is something worthwhile pursuing and preserving.
In any case, i began to feel myself obsessed by Nietzsche once more and wanting to read his books more than knowing them relevant to this book of mine.
One of the chapters that was most difficult to write was the one about Zoroaster and his spiritual theory of opposites. And it was when I did some research that I found that Zoroaster could also be spelled as Zarathustra.
And thus came Nietzsche into my mind once again.
Eventually i decided to stop thinking about the relevance or irrelevance of Nietzsche to a book about Jesus, did some research on the various editions of his books and bought a copy of Zarathustra and The Anti-Christ (along with Twilight of the Idols, two in one edition).
Today I decided to read the intro to this double book.
As always I find the introductions more difficult than the actual books. Even though this one was an easier one, I still find that the second guessing of someone's words by people that have spent a great part of their lives over and over the same things to be hard to follow. There are too many connections and not always it is easier to communicate from within that huge mass of knowledge.
(and yes, you can say that I'm doing the same... and perhaps I am, I'm just hoping that I will be clear - because that is my intention, in parallel with the rest, rather than subject to it)
Anyway, amidst my meanderings through the introduction to the double book I not only became imbued of that love I had felt for Nietzsche but it also became apparent his own misunderstandings, as a reflection of his time.
The same way Jesus would easily oppose what has been done with his teachings, so Nietzsche would oppose much of what he said if he had been born in our day an age.
It is clear to see that at least part of all his intensity stems from a great rage at the world (the society) he saw around him. It is clear that writing and soul searching was his way to try and come to terms with it in a rational way. But it is also clear that the more he searched, the more he knew and saw, the more irrational it all seemed. The clearer the solution, the clearer the answers presented themselves, less hope there was to him.
I think Nietzsche was trying to change the world on a very fundamental level. And he genuinely believed that, through sheer clarity, that if the truth was told then people would be forced to listen and to recognise it. If it was crystal clear then how could anyone miss it?
But I think that seeing through transparencies is what we do the most. We spend all of our lives escaping the truth - because we believe we cannot deal with it - that ignoring Nietzsche's words was not only easy but also natural.
From where I sit, it feels as if Nietzsche's madness was much of a curse as a blessing. He wanted a way out. And he more or less exhausted every possibility (as framed by his indomitable, all or nothing spirit) before madness overtook him.
The author of the intro mentions repeatedly that Nietzsche often contradicts himself throughout the text and that this might be already a symptom of his "impending doom" But, credit be given to him, he also says that this was also something that Nietzsche always had for trying to explore in every direction so intensely.
I agree with these two things but I would venture something more which I believe is as much what Nieztsche was looking for and failed to recognise as well as the reason why often introductions bore me rather than enlighten me.
If one reads a handful of spiritual texts from enlightened masters it becomes very clear that contradiction is a sign and a symptom of a mind that has managed to transcend itself.
Perhaps Nietzsche was trying to become child like. The same way he saw Jesus, with such clarity and intensity, this was perhaps something he wished for himself. So much so because he knew how different he was, and how utterly impossible it would be for him to reach that state of being.
Perhaps Nietzsche's mind was indeed collapsing. But I think it is no coincidence that he also wrote such powerful books and had planned the summation of his thought. He could see the goal. But, undoubtedly by then he had also realised how little it had changed things in his day and age. And, surely, this consumed him. This had been one of his major objectives after all.
In any case, that failure to reach non-duality (or at least, reaching it with a sane mind as a backup or with a mind that still cared to communicate it to the world in an intelligible way...) is from my perspective, one of the missing core ideas from his ideas. And something I would like to put to rights.
While reading this short intro and undoubtedly inspired by the Nietzsche's searing capabilities I had within me the grand wish to read all of his books and write a long letter to him telling him how that simple idea tied together many of the things that said.
Thus the title.
Nietzsche and Buddha.
Perhaps, when I read Twilight of The Idols, The Anti-Christ and Thus Spoke Zarathustra I will comment on them as well. It might prove a ongoing useful tool for The Lost Years.
Besides the objective of so many blogs is to make available much of the writing and thinking that will otherwise be kept private. Perhaps a greater sense of immediacy will be best.
For this reason, and for the sake of a better framing of the moment, I've been doing all of this thinking and writing while listening to Blonde Redhead, Sun Kil Moon and now The Cure (the early stuff). And there's something I like about this. Discussing Nietzsche to the sound of The Cure has something utterly romantic but also incredibly appropriate to it...
I shall now re-read that intro and make some further comments.
On Contradiction
How can "a relaxation, a sunspot, an escapade into the idle hours of a psychologist" be a "grand declaration of war"?
I think it's fair to affirm that the clarity of insight that Nietzsche must have experienced not only blurred but also defined the boundaries of language and the self. Like all philosophers, Nietzsche is very aware of the meaning of words. But, contrary to many philosophers, he uses them equally in their meaning and as effect. He is rational but also poetic, romantic.
By saying these two apparently opposing affirmations, Nietzsche is quite consciously bringing us closer to the nature of his being. Where the utmost repulse against the world we humans have built around us, stems from states of great inner peace and contemplation.
(not always surely, but it must've happened often and, perhaps, increasingly so in those days where the Anti-Christ was already forming in his heart and mind)
Also, from the vantage point of non-duality, both peaceful states and intensity are not necessarily opposed but merely expressions. Human complexity is such that one can feel opposing forces working simultaneously inside oneself. I believe that Nietzsche must have felt this many times. It is actually easy to experience. All one has to do is to pay attention. To pay an attention with such care and dedication that there is enough room inside ourselves to all the possibilities to manifest themselves and not just one or two.
The problem is that getting into these states without some sort of background (which was what Nietzsche did) can be conducive to insanity. This is why Buddhism is practiced for the most part with the support of a community around us. It helps stabilize what is known to be a difficult process.
To a certain extent one can say that it was Nietzsche's bigger than life desire to give to others what he felt the world needed the most that doomed him.
In my experience there has to be a point where one realises that, in order to take another step and to realise and recognise what one has felt, intuit and somehow known, one has to be able to let go of the words, of the thoughts, of every form in relation to that.
It's not an act of sacrifice (even though it is). It is simply the recognition that in order to experience reality in a different way one has to let go of the tools that have taken us to that threshold. There is no other way. That is our nature. And that is why it is difficult but also crucial to do so.
Now Nietzsche had been on this mindful threshold for many years. Growing closer with the passing of time, getting more desperate and more intense but perhaps unwilling or unknowing of how to take that final step. Perhaps he was afraid he would never come back. Perhaps he was afraid that even if he found it he could never communicate it.
Perhaps he couldn't let go of his desire to communicate. And was trying to strike an impossible balance between two very different states of being.
This is all speculation of course but, when one looks at various influential figures throughout human history we see that they all struggled with similar ideas and aspirations.
I'm far from being an accomplished buddhist, but even the little that I have seen has shown me so much, clarified so many of the doubts and questions I had had. But this only happened when I was able - even if for only a few seconds at a time - to let go of that burning desire to know.
It is no surprise that the masters keep mentioning this "desire" over and over again. It is not a negative thing per se. What is sad is that, even without our knowledge, we always fall prey to it.
Nietzsche and Music
This was something that really caught my eye when I was reading the introduction. I had already forgotten all about Nietzsche's passion for music.
It took me to that natural exploration of the senses that one does whilst doing Vipassana meditation and their connection to our mind and to our world interpretative skills.
What follows is pure speculation but I'll say it anyway for it has surfaced many times before for me to dismiss it as pointless. Perhaps because I too have a passion for music. Because it is easy to recognise how important the role of music and sound plays in all of our lives. The Ipod being the most current summit.
Just consider how easy it was adopted on the market. How the image of people in the tube carrying thin white wires into their ears became. How powerful a symbol it is to the idea that you can be amidst everybody else and still be in your own world?
To me this is no coincidence.
I think this is why it is so important to observe this kind of details, they hint on things much much deeper.
As soon as I read those lines about Nietzsche and music the thoughts that entered my mind were about music as an expression of intensity, the most physical thing we can have with minimal body operation. In the sense that so little of the body is used for such an impact that it can have in us.
Then the age old idea of vibration and mantra.
Then the idea that perhaps hearing is naturally (and more directly? with less filters?) rigged to a more primitive area of our brain. perhaps an area not easily accessible in other ways but that through sound we can find some access to.
It is known that smell (and taste) are the older senses.
But we can also consider the following situation.
We are sleeping. A noise is heard. He wake up, instantly alert.
This tells me that, even though smell and taste are interfaced deeper with our brain, the sense of sound as long been recognised as being much more useful in survival terms. Therefore is it intimately connected to awareness. As such is becomes an vehicle and an expression of such. And, coming back to what was said in the previous paragraph, in rational and in more romantic and poetic ways.
Many people argue that sounds can be used to prompt certain brain states, or at the very least, to help us reach them. This is the key idea behind mantra. every sense is a doorway. and, as such, they can be used to allow us to reach deeper and more inside ourselves.
Undoubtedly music was also one of Nietzsche's few means of escape from the internal pressures of his own mind. I think it was a vehicle that he recognised and that he used, though probably one that disintegrated as well as soon as he realised his own addiction to it and the failures of wagner and such like. By realising the inadequacy of humanity, Nietzsche deprived and destroyed to him the things that he prized the most.
And it was clear that something like this would be the case. Everything must be destroyed in order for one to emerge with a new mind.
The problem was that Nietzsche perhaps intuited this rather literally.
yes, everything must be abandoned in order for us to reach that ultimate experience.
But we always return. The mind disappears. The mind dies.
But that's just how it feels from within the heart of that experience (though, in fact, the core of that experience is the absence of experience).
It's just like sleep. Our consciousness simply switches off, let's go, releases the unconscious.
And yet we go to sleep every night and we don't worry about our consciousness returning the next day.
We simply know that this is what will happen.
The same thing is with the experience of enlightenment. We plunge into non-duality whole-heartedly without worrying of consequences because, for better or for worse, our sense of self will return in due time.
The problem with Nietzsche was that he prized and valued his mind, his ideas too much. But I think he knew that even that had to be destroyed. With the building pressures and tensions generated by a life of intense searching, his mind collapsed under its own fires. An event of such magnitude and sheer exhaustion must've been impossible to recover from. So much so that the paralysis was both physical and mental.
(I'm assuming that the mental paralysis means that he stopped communicating, responding or reacting to external stimuli in a conscious and coherent way)
Anyway, I shall stop here for now. Nietzsche is a vast and incredibly interesting philosopher but my stomach presently commands other aspirations.
Peace
Undoubtedly this has to do with the nature of observation itself - and to the mind that supports it so much.
During November I spent a good deal of my time contemplating on two different writing projects. One of them (The Lost Years - more info on my sequential scripts blog) focused on the 17 missing years of Jesus' life.
This was an idea that I had had on my first retreat at Panditarama Forest Monastery in Myanmar. The idea surfaced after a few "inner wanderings" about the social role of the Buddha in his day and age and, the spontaneous realisation that Jesus had had a quite similar role even if, in my opinion, a somewhat different scope. Not only because times were different (the Buddha's legacy had lived on for over 5 centuries by then) but also because, despite the many similarities, Jesus was a different man from the Buddha. He had been born in different times and in a different culture. And that, surely, must've influenced his journey.
This was what I was trying to clarify for myself as well as others throughout the writing of this book. The similarities and the differences between Buddhism and Jesus' teachings framed within that time and place.
It wasn't meant to be a study but rather more of a semi-intuitive fictionalised story, very much in the spirit of how the whole thing began to happen in my mind. The known pieces of the puzzle falling together in a configuration I had yet not seen.
Throughout that month things evolved rapidly and in unexpected directions.
As to be expected.
In searching and listening for connections, I started to remember the roots of this insight. In doing some research the name of Friederich Nietzsche came up once and once again, more out of a personal flavour than by the demands of the work itself.
I remembered the Anti-Christ of course. I read it many years ago. Barely out of my teens (quite possibly, i forget such things...) it made an incredible impression on me because it felt more true and honest than all that I had come across about Christianity before.
Christianity after all, had always been for me my father's lifelong hatred and my mother's superficial beliefs (share by most of my family, in fact, by most of the culture where I grew for the first 18 years of my life). A curiosity with too many holes for me to even bother to scrutinise it.
But life has it's ways and I've always been a sucker for curiosity.
So, here I was, aged 33 and looking left, right and centre, imbued with this firlm belief that Jesus was in fact a noble figure that should be set to rights.
Naive. Sure. And why not?
In the sense of child like innocence that is much of the Anti-Christ (that, from the German can also be translated as the Anti-Christian), I agree with both Nietzsche, Jesus and Buddha. It is something worthwhile pursuing and preserving.
In any case, i began to feel myself obsessed by Nietzsche once more and wanting to read his books more than knowing them relevant to this book of mine.
One of the chapters that was most difficult to write was the one about Zoroaster and his spiritual theory of opposites. And it was when I did some research that I found that Zoroaster could also be spelled as Zarathustra.
And thus came Nietzsche into my mind once again.
Eventually i decided to stop thinking about the relevance or irrelevance of Nietzsche to a book about Jesus, did some research on the various editions of his books and bought a copy of Zarathustra and The Anti-Christ (along with Twilight of the Idols, two in one edition).
Today I decided to read the intro to this double book.
As always I find the introductions more difficult than the actual books. Even though this one was an easier one, I still find that the second guessing of someone's words by people that have spent a great part of their lives over and over the same things to be hard to follow. There are too many connections and not always it is easier to communicate from within that huge mass of knowledge.
(and yes, you can say that I'm doing the same... and perhaps I am, I'm just hoping that I will be clear - because that is my intention, in parallel with the rest, rather than subject to it)
Anyway, amidst my meanderings through the introduction to the double book I not only became imbued of that love I had felt for Nietzsche but it also became apparent his own misunderstandings, as a reflection of his time.
The same way Jesus would easily oppose what has been done with his teachings, so Nietzsche would oppose much of what he said if he had been born in our day an age.
It is clear to see that at least part of all his intensity stems from a great rage at the world (the society) he saw around him. It is clear that writing and soul searching was his way to try and come to terms with it in a rational way. But it is also clear that the more he searched, the more he knew and saw, the more irrational it all seemed. The clearer the solution, the clearer the answers presented themselves, less hope there was to him.
I think Nietzsche was trying to change the world on a very fundamental level. And he genuinely believed that, through sheer clarity, that if the truth was told then people would be forced to listen and to recognise it. If it was crystal clear then how could anyone miss it?
But I think that seeing through transparencies is what we do the most. We spend all of our lives escaping the truth - because we believe we cannot deal with it - that ignoring Nietzsche's words was not only easy but also natural.
From where I sit, it feels as if Nietzsche's madness was much of a curse as a blessing. He wanted a way out. And he more or less exhausted every possibility (as framed by his indomitable, all or nothing spirit) before madness overtook him.
The author of the intro mentions repeatedly that Nietzsche often contradicts himself throughout the text and that this might be already a symptom of his "impending doom" But, credit be given to him, he also says that this was also something that Nietzsche always had for trying to explore in every direction so intensely.
I agree with these two things but I would venture something more which I believe is as much what Nieztsche was looking for and failed to recognise as well as the reason why often introductions bore me rather than enlighten me.
If one reads a handful of spiritual texts from enlightened masters it becomes very clear that contradiction is a sign and a symptom of a mind that has managed to transcend itself.
Perhaps Nietzsche was trying to become child like. The same way he saw Jesus, with such clarity and intensity, this was perhaps something he wished for himself. So much so because he knew how different he was, and how utterly impossible it would be for him to reach that state of being.
Perhaps Nietzsche's mind was indeed collapsing. But I think it is no coincidence that he also wrote such powerful books and had planned the summation of his thought. He could see the goal. But, undoubtedly by then he had also realised how little it had changed things in his day and age. And, surely, this consumed him. This had been one of his major objectives after all.
In any case, that failure to reach non-duality (or at least, reaching it with a sane mind as a backup or with a mind that still cared to communicate it to the world in an intelligible way...) is from my perspective, one of the missing core ideas from his ideas. And something I would like to put to rights.
While reading this short intro and undoubtedly inspired by the Nietzsche's searing capabilities I had within me the grand wish to read all of his books and write a long letter to him telling him how that simple idea tied together many of the things that said.
Thus the title.
Nietzsche and Buddha.
Perhaps, when I read Twilight of The Idols, The Anti-Christ and Thus Spoke Zarathustra I will comment on them as well. It might prove a ongoing useful tool for The Lost Years.
Besides the objective of so many blogs is to make available much of the writing and thinking that will otherwise be kept private. Perhaps a greater sense of immediacy will be best.
For this reason, and for the sake of a better framing of the moment, I've been doing all of this thinking and writing while listening to Blonde Redhead, Sun Kil Moon and now The Cure (the early stuff). And there's something I like about this. Discussing Nietzsche to the sound of The Cure has something utterly romantic but also incredibly appropriate to it...
I shall now re-read that intro and make some further comments.
On Contradiction
How can "a relaxation, a sunspot, an escapade into the idle hours of a psychologist" be a "grand declaration of war"?
I think it's fair to affirm that the clarity of insight that Nietzsche must have experienced not only blurred but also defined the boundaries of language and the self. Like all philosophers, Nietzsche is very aware of the meaning of words. But, contrary to many philosophers, he uses them equally in their meaning and as effect. He is rational but also poetic, romantic.
By saying these two apparently opposing affirmations, Nietzsche is quite consciously bringing us closer to the nature of his being. Where the utmost repulse against the world we humans have built around us, stems from states of great inner peace and contemplation.
(not always surely, but it must've happened often and, perhaps, increasingly so in those days where the Anti-Christ was already forming in his heart and mind)
Also, from the vantage point of non-duality, both peaceful states and intensity are not necessarily opposed but merely expressions. Human complexity is such that one can feel opposing forces working simultaneously inside oneself. I believe that Nietzsche must have felt this many times. It is actually easy to experience. All one has to do is to pay attention. To pay an attention with such care and dedication that there is enough room inside ourselves to all the possibilities to manifest themselves and not just one or two.
The problem is that getting into these states without some sort of background (which was what Nietzsche did) can be conducive to insanity. This is why Buddhism is practiced for the most part with the support of a community around us. It helps stabilize what is known to be a difficult process.
To a certain extent one can say that it was Nietzsche's bigger than life desire to give to others what he felt the world needed the most that doomed him.
In my experience there has to be a point where one realises that, in order to take another step and to realise and recognise what one has felt, intuit and somehow known, one has to be able to let go of the words, of the thoughts, of every form in relation to that.
It's not an act of sacrifice (even though it is). It is simply the recognition that in order to experience reality in a different way one has to let go of the tools that have taken us to that threshold. There is no other way. That is our nature. And that is why it is difficult but also crucial to do so.
Now Nietzsche had been on this mindful threshold for many years. Growing closer with the passing of time, getting more desperate and more intense but perhaps unwilling or unknowing of how to take that final step. Perhaps he was afraid he would never come back. Perhaps he was afraid that even if he found it he could never communicate it.
Perhaps he couldn't let go of his desire to communicate. And was trying to strike an impossible balance between two very different states of being.
This is all speculation of course but, when one looks at various influential figures throughout human history we see that they all struggled with similar ideas and aspirations.
I'm far from being an accomplished buddhist, but even the little that I have seen has shown me so much, clarified so many of the doubts and questions I had had. But this only happened when I was able - even if for only a few seconds at a time - to let go of that burning desire to know.
It is no surprise that the masters keep mentioning this "desire" over and over again. It is not a negative thing per se. What is sad is that, even without our knowledge, we always fall prey to it.
Nietzsche and Music
This was something that really caught my eye when I was reading the introduction. I had already forgotten all about Nietzsche's passion for music.
It took me to that natural exploration of the senses that one does whilst doing Vipassana meditation and their connection to our mind and to our world interpretative skills.
What follows is pure speculation but I'll say it anyway for it has surfaced many times before for me to dismiss it as pointless. Perhaps because I too have a passion for music. Because it is easy to recognise how important the role of music and sound plays in all of our lives. The Ipod being the most current summit.
Just consider how easy it was adopted on the market. How the image of people in the tube carrying thin white wires into their ears became. How powerful a symbol it is to the idea that you can be amidst everybody else and still be in your own world?
To me this is no coincidence.
I think this is why it is so important to observe this kind of details, they hint on things much much deeper.
As soon as I read those lines about Nietzsche and music the thoughts that entered my mind were about music as an expression of intensity, the most physical thing we can have with minimal body operation. In the sense that so little of the body is used for such an impact that it can have in us.
Then the age old idea of vibration and mantra.
Then the idea that perhaps hearing is naturally (and more directly? with less filters?) rigged to a more primitive area of our brain. perhaps an area not easily accessible in other ways but that through sound we can find some access to.
It is known that smell (and taste) are the older senses.
But we can also consider the following situation.
We are sleeping. A noise is heard. He wake up, instantly alert.
This tells me that, even though smell and taste are interfaced deeper with our brain, the sense of sound as long been recognised as being much more useful in survival terms. Therefore is it intimately connected to awareness. As such is becomes an vehicle and an expression of such. And, coming back to what was said in the previous paragraph, in rational and in more romantic and poetic ways.
Many people argue that sounds can be used to prompt certain brain states, or at the very least, to help us reach them. This is the key idea behind mantra. every sense is a doorway. and, as such, they can be used to allow us to reach deeper and more inside ourselves.
Undoubtedly music was also one of Nietzsche's few means of escape from the internal pressures of his own mind. I think it was a vehicle that he recognised and that he used, though probably one that disintegrated as well as soon as he realised his own addiction to it and the failures of wagner and such like. By realising the inadequacy of humanity, Nietzsche deprived and destroyed to him the things that he prized the most.
And it was clear that something like this would be the case. Everything must be destroyed in order for one to emerge with a new mind.
The problem was that Nietzsche perhaps intuited this rather literally.
yes, everything must be abandoned in order for us to reach that ultimate experience.
But we always return. The mind disappears. The mind dies.
But that's just how it feels from within the heart of that experience (though, in fact, the core of that experience is the absence of experience).
It's just like sleep. Our consciousness simply switches off, let's go, releases the unconscious.
And yet we go to sleep every night and we don't worry about our consciousness returning the next day.
We simply know that this is what will happen.
The same thing is with the experience of enlightenment. We plunge into non-duality whole-heartedly without worrying of consequences because, for better or for worse, our sense of self will return in due time.
The problem with Nietzsche was that he prized and valued his mind, his ideas too much. But I think he knew that even that had to be destroyed. With the building pressures and tensions generated by a life of intense searching, his mind collapsed under its own fires. An event of such magnitude and sheer exhaustion must've been impossible to recover from. So much so that the paralysis was both physical and mental.
(I'm assuming that the mental paralysis means that he stopped communicating, responding or reacting to external stimuli in a conscious and coherent way)
Anyway, I shall stop here for now. Nietzsche is a vast and incredibly interesting philosopher but my stomach presently commands other aspirations.
Peace
Saturday 21 November 2009
The Doing For Being
I've just finished reading an article on today's Guardian about the "nausea of writing novels"- It was written by Zadie Smith and, it seemed to me, her response to a book she had read about precisely the same theme.
Her conclusion is one that I agree with completely. Simply put, the problem is not in the genre but rather in the one who dwells on it. Conventions are what they are. Tools. We'd be fools to think them otherwise. That is my opinion at least.
But why am I telling you all this?
Well, i was initially attracted to the article because I am writing not one but two novels at the moment. And I was attracted because Zadie had suffered from writer's block and it seemed she was going to talk a bit about it in the article (which she did).
I myself have suffered from this. I think it's inevitable. Sometimes the brain just doesn't want to go to that place anymore and yet, here we are forcing our mind's to stay in a place where they don't want to be anymore...
That's when the writer's block happens for me.
It has solely to do with an unhappy mind. A mind that doesn't want to linger on (believe it or not) what's it's forcing itself to be!
We are truly crazy creatures...
But we also do know that, if we don't stick around some of the things we don't like doing, then nothing will ever get done.
It's called compromise.
And I think writing has as much of that as it has of creativity.
In fact to me, freedom only makes sense when we consider boundaries.
If there are no boundaries at all, then we don't have freedom.
We have something else.
And THAT'S much more important...
(and those who know meditation well will recognise where these words want to lead to)
In any case, this article got me to think about my own writings (it's always about us, isn't it?!) and the ups and downs i've been feeling lately.
And yes, sometimes, i think I should just better quit and do something more useful with my life.
Relax and meditate, for example.
But I don't. Because those things I know I CAN do.
Writing books is a different matter. Books that I can feel genuinely happy about.
That I still haven't done.
I've written a few. But they've never got to the state where I'm happy with them.
I'm close, just not there yet.
And I know I can.
So, there I was thinking about these things and this got me to think about my latest standstill. I want to create a situation where the reality of the ancient world life comes alive on the page and takes the reader deeper into the emotional, rather than just the (quite interesting though) ramblings I had a few days ago about the philosophies and religious views at the time.
I also got thinking that I'm going to have my appraisal next monday and that I should be working on that rather than thinking about my book.
And I said to myself
At least write a draft of it today because then, on monday, it will be much easier to correct and come up with something interesting.
That's when it hit me.
i've known this for ages.
That writting something even vaguely today will make it clearer tomorrow or the next day.
Here's an example.
Day One
Jesus needs to get into some sort of religious trouble with his companions.
Day Two
A man cries out for his missing daughter.
Day Three
Jesus and his companions are bathing on one of the effluents of the Nile when they hear the man crying in despair over his missing daughter. What they do not kow is that things aren't as clear cut and they're getting into a mess themselves by trying to help the poor man. He's lying to them. But they don't know it. And they're gonna get in trouble by trying to interfere with Egyptian and Roman law.
Day Four
There's no day four. You just need to write it now!
At every step we add something. We might not know how it's going to lead us, but something will happen.
Alright, all of this was known. So what is new?
What is new is this.
When I started doing this, the taking of notes really helped release that mental space for something new to come in.
But there is more. And this was what I realised when I thought about all these things.
When the idea first comes you create a memory for it. If it comes again, even if it is the reawakening of that memory, you'll have another memory for it, possibly filled on top of the other. But it's still the same type of memory. It has the same things associated with it. It's still fully internalised.
Now when you write...
it's a whole different matter.
You're associating motion to the flow of thought.
And you're creating a much more powerful and deeper memory to it. Simply because it has a lot more data associated with it.
Just think, how many times you thought of doing that particular thing and then life happened and it slipped away.
But when you actually do it there's something insubstantial but extremely precious that stays with you. Even if the next challenge is bigger, tougher, higher than that one, you still know that you've at least done it once.
What I'm saying is, we don't really measure ourselves by our thoughts. We mainly measure ourselves by our actions.
It's an old motto, I know, but perhaps there are some good reasons behind it.
And I think it's this knowing that, if we make different mirror images of the same idea, we will be able to work on this idea much more easily.
This is why I sometimes also read out aloud the idea. Or pick up the guitar and try to play something that conveys some musical feel of what I cannot say with the words.
when we do this, when we create different backgrounds for the same idea, we are giving it perspective.
They can be completely insane perspectives, but sometimes you need to run away from the hill to notice you'd been on it the whole time.
So, what I'm trying to say is that, even if you feel that you have no perspective over your story (ie, you have writers block), you can give yourself one.
The only thing you need to do is provide it with different settings.
And create these settings on a physical, bodily way, so that this idea becomes registered in different areas of the brain.
So that then it's easier to relate things. To make those inspirational jumps of the imagination.
In order to give our readers and ourselves what we enjoy so mcuh: that unexpected sense of beauty. Always fresh. Always appealing. Always insightful.
Always present.
Peace.
Her conclusion is one that I agree with completely. Simply put, the problem is not in the genre but rather in the one who dwells on it. Conventions are what they are. Tools. We'd be fools to think them otherwise. That is my opinion at least.
But why am I telling you all this?
Well, i was initially attracted to the article because I am writing not one but two novels at the moment. And I was attracted because Zadie had suffered from writer's block and it seemed she was going to talk a bit about it in the article (which she did).
I myself have suffered from this. I think it's inevitable. Sometimes the brain just doesn't want to go to that place anymore and yet, here we are forcing our mind's to stay in a place where they don't want to be anymore...
That's when the writer's block happens for me.
It has solely to do with an unhappy mind. A mind that doesn't want to linger on (believe it or not) what's it's forcing itself to be!
We are truly crazy creatures...
But we also do know that, if we don't stick around some of the things we don't like doing, then nothing will ever get done.
It's called compromise.
And I think writing has as much of that as it has of creativity.
In fact to me, freedom only makes sense when we consider boundaries.
If there are no boundaries at all, then we don't have freedom.
We have something else.
And THAT'S much more important...
(and those who know meditation well will recognise where these words want to lead to)
In any case, this article got me to think about my own writings (it's always about us, isn't it?!) and the ups and downs i've been feeling lately.
And yes, sometimes, i think I should just better quit and do something more useful with my life.
Relax and meditate, for example.
But I don't. Because those things I know I CAN do.
Writing books is a different matter. Books that I can feel genuinely happy about.
That I still haven't done.
I've written a few. But they've never got to the state where I'm happy with them.
I'm close, just not there yet.
And I know I can.
So, there I was thinking about these things and this got me to think about my latest standstill. I want to create a situation where the reality of the ancient world life comes alive on the page and takes the reader deeper into the emotional, rather than just the (quite interesting though) ramblings I had a few days ago about the philosophies and religious views at the time.
I also got thinking that I'm going to have my appraisal next monday and that I should be working on that rather than thinking about my book.
And I said to myself
At least write a draft of it today because then, on monday, it will be much easier to correct and come up with something interesting.
That's when it hit me.
i've known this for ages.
That writting something even vaguely today will make it clearer tomorrow or the next day.
Here's an example.
Day One
Jesus needs to get into some sort of religious trouble with his companions.
Day Two
A man cries out for his missing daughter.
Day Three
Jesus and his companions are bathing on one of the effluents of the Nile when they hear the man crying in despair over his missing daughter. What they do not kow is that things aren't as clear cut and they're getting into a mess themselves by trying to help the poor man. He's lying to them. But they don't know it. And they're gonna get in trouble by trying to interfere with Egyptian and Roman law.
Day Four
There's no day four. You just need to write it now!
At every step we add something. We might not know how it's going to lead us, but something will happen.
Alright, all of this was known. So what is new?
What is new is this.
When I started doing this, the taking of notes really helped release that mental space for something new to come in.
But there is more. And this was what I realised when I thought about all these things.
When the idea first comes you create a memory for it. If it comes again, even if it is the reawakening of that memory, you'll have another memory for it, possibly filled on top of the other. But it's still the same type of memory. It has the same things associated with it. It's still fully internalised.
Now when you write...
it's a whole different matter.
You're associating motion to the flow of thought.
And you're creating a much more powerful and deeper memory to it. Simply because it has a lot more data associated with it.
Just think, how many times you thought of doing that particular thing and then life happened and it slipped away.
But when you actually do it there's something insubstantial but extremely precious that stays with you. Even if the next challenge is bigger, tougher, higher than that one, you still know that you've at least done it once.
What I'm saying is, we don't really measure ourselves by our thoughts. We mainly measure ourselves by our actions.
It's an old motto, I know, but perhaps there are some good reasons behind it.
And I think it's this knowing that, if we make different mirror images of the same idea, we will be able to work on this idea much more easily.
This is why I sometimes also read out aloud the idea. Or pick up the guitar and try to play something that conveys some musical feel of what I cannot say with the words.
when we do this, when we create different backgrounds for the same idea, we are giving it perspective.
They can be completely insane perspectives, but sometimes you need to run away from the hill to notice you'd been on it the whole time.
So, what I'm trying to say is that, even if you feel that you have no perspective over your story (ie, you have writers block), you can give yourself one.
The only thing you need to do is provide it with different settings.
And create these settings on a physical, bodily way, so that this idea becomes registered in different areas of the brain.
So that then it's easier to relate things. To make those inspirational jumps of the imagination.
In order to give our readers and ourselves what we enjoy so mcuh: that unexpected sense of beauty. Always fresh. Always appealing. Always insightful.
Always present.
Peace.
Thursday 29 October 2009
The Search
I'm listening to The National's Alligator and The Boxer as I write this.
These have been albums that have been playing a lot in this room of mine for the last few months.
(as my flatmates will surely tell you, bless 'em...)
I have tried to pinpoint exactly why I can't seem to stop listening to them. Why every time these tracks just take me to a very special place. How more than the words, the music or the voice, there's something in there that just clicks.
Just now I went to the bathroom and I was thinking about this. And I was thinking that perhaps throughout our lives we spend a lot of time searching for something out there that matches exactly who we are. We find moments, fragments, glimpses of lives, people, music, words, scents, flavours, impressions, memories, etc.
Obviously, whenever we find these things, we try to cling on to them. They are so rare, so precious!
Perhaps this is what has happened with this band.
I have loved music deeply for a long time. I'm one of those people that will sometimes hear a beautiful song inside my head, dolby stereo and all, better than a live concert. These moments are rare, but when they happen they just take me away. They are more powerful than what is around me.
I think that with this band and these two albums perhaps I have simply reached closer to what I would love to have reached myself with music but never managed to. They somehow mirror a deeper me. As much as sounds and words and shapes can describe it.
This is why I love the lyrics because they tell more than what they say. They're like this Gene Wolfe book in music. The story been read through the lines and in between them. And more stories hinted at. And life, all the while, shining gloriously above it all. An overwhelming sense of purity through whatever is being shared.
"My bodyguard shows her revolver
To anyone who asks"
I can't explain why but lines like these just enter to the core of me and I feel that I am in touch with an incredible distillation of everything that surrounds me.
"I wish I believed in fate
I wish I didn't sleep so late"
At each moment more and more of these reach me. And, I guess these sate me but also open me up to find out and figure out more of this whole makeup that makes the "I" which is so engrossing.
As I was thinking about this I was also thinking about a couple of emails friends sent just today and that affected me deeply albeit in very different ways.
I don't know if you feel this but, quite often lately, I can feel the electrical rewiring of the brain when something affects me deeply. It's the only way I can explain it. It's a feeling quite different from a headache or something because it's much quicker, it's like a flash in your brain, a quick surge that seems to burn momentarily and then vanish as soon as attention is directed towards it. As soon as observation absorbs it perhaps.
But, most of all, I was trying to observe my own feelings and expectations in relation to both those emails, the stuff that they were lifting within me.
I was observing how easily the world takes us in its stride when it touches things we deem important. Be it our "realities" or our "fantasies". We are simply taken in the story happening and that, obviously, we are creating also.
This is why, in all this searching for perfection (or whatever we may want to call it) we always end up meeting ourselves. That external search is nothing but the internal struggle to find what we know is the deepest of our nature. A well of uncontaminated true nature.
We reach into the profound all around us, trying to find a way in.
And sometimes the universe replies. And points right back at us. giving us the flavour of the moment.
Peace.
These have been albums that have been playing a lot in this room of mine for the last few months.
(as my flatmates will surely tell you, bless 'em...)
I have tried to pinpoint exactly why I can't seem to stop listening to them. Why every time these tracks just take me to a very special place. How more than the words, the music or the voice, there's something in there that just clicks.
Just now I went to the bathroom and I was thinking about this. And I was thinking that perhaps throughout our lives we spend a lot of time searching for something out there that matches exactly who we are. We find moments, fragments, glimpses of lives, people, music, words, scents, flavours, impressions, memories, etc.
Obviously, whenever we find these things, we try to cling on to them. They are so rare, so precious!
Perhaps this is what has happened with this band.
I have loved music deeply for a long time. I'm one of those people that will sometimes hear a beautiful song inside my head, dolby stereo and all, better than a live concert. These moments are rare, but when they happen they just take me away. They are more powerful than what is around me.
I think that with this band and these two albums perhaps I have simply reached closer to what I would love to have reached myself with music but never managed to. They somehow mirror a deeper me. As much as sounds and words and shapes can describe it.
This is why I love the lyrics because they tell more than what they say. They're like this Gene Wolfe book in music. The story been read through the lines and in between them. And more stories hinted at. And life, all the while, shining gloriously above it all. An overwhelming sense of purity through whatever is being shared.
"My bodyguard shows her revolver
To anyone who asks"
I can't explain why but lines like these just enter to the core of me and I feel that I am in touch with an incredible distillation of everything that surrounds me.
"I wish I believed in fate
I wish I didn't sleep so late"
At each moment more and more of these reach me. And, I guess these sate me but also open me up to find out and figure out more of this whole makeup that makes the "I" which is so engrossing.
As I was thinking about this I was also thinking about a couple of emails friends sent just today and that affected me deeply albeit in very different ways.
I don't know if you feel this but, quite often lately, I can feel the electrical rewiring of the brain when something affects me deeply. It's the only way I can explain it. It's a feeling quite different from a headache or something because it's much quicker, it's like a flash in your brain, a quick surge that seems to burn momentarily and then vanish as soon as attention is directed towards it. As soon as observation absorbs it perhaps.
But, most of all, I was trying to observe my own feelings and expectations in relation to both those emails, the stuff that they were lifting within me.
I was observing how easily the world takes us in its stride when it touches things we deem important. Be it our "realities" or our "fantasies". We are simply taken in the story happening and that, obviously, we are creating also.
This is why, in all this searching for perfection (or whatever we may want to call it) we always end up meeting ourselves. That external search is nothing but the internal struggle to find what we know is the deepest of our nature. A well of uncontaminated true nature.
We reach into the profound all around us, trying to find a way in.
And sometimes the universe replies. And points right back at us. giving us the flavour of the moment.
Peace.
Wednesday 28 October 2009
Strange Encounters
Last sunday I was returning home, on a train headed to London Liverpool. I had spent the last two or three days having a few ideas for a project of mine and I had been reading a book on the life of Jesus (the part of his life that isn't mentioned in the bible).
So I was entertaining all these historical and philosophical viewpoints on existence, saviour complex, religion and meditative experience when life decided to knock down the door.
The train doors opened and this drunken guy in his mid fifties or something came in and sat opposite to me, on the other side of the train.
I tried to keep to myself but he started talking. And, as it usually happens, even though I did not want to hear what he was saying I couldn't help but hear.
He kept complaining about his life and how it was worthless now that his mom and sister had both died, within a short time of one another. He cried a bit here and there. I felt I should comfort him in some way only I didn't know how.
These situations are awkward. You want to do something but, I at least, just don't know what. I mean, it was obvious that he wanted attention and someone to listen to him. Especially after he noticed me actually paying attention to what he was saying.
I thought, here I am, reading all this stuff about Jesus and yet I'm utterly unable to interact in a positive way. I mean, the guy was saying that he was going to commit suicide and everything. Now I know that, if this happens, it's probably because they're never going to do it. But, just how much should we chance with our silence?
I don't know how we engaged but the fact remains that we did. We started talking.
And his story started to unwind.
If I am to believe what he told me (and I have no reason to doubt - his emotions were far too real for him to be faking it) then this man was an ex-colonel from the army and he was, at some point, stationed in Afghanistan.
And he saw some of his buddies being blown to bits.
One moment they were there.
The next they were fragments and red blood all over the place.
And the question he kept asking was why?
Why to kill someone?
Why make war on someone we don't even know or see?
Why them instead of me?
Last week I read Waltz With Bashir. An amazing graphic novel that I urge everybody to read if they want to know a bit more about what war experience really is about.
Some people will block out things so much they won't even remember them anymore.
But some will always remember.
And, in one way or another, all will have to live with the weight of those memories. Either by recognising something they can never remove from them, or by feeling that a part of them has been lost.
So, to a certain extent, I was more ready to empathise with him.
I told him that it is ok to cry. That he should live to honour the memory of those that he knew that died. That life is worthwhile living. That he should give himself another chance. That he should see a doctor and do a checkup. If he had someone, a professional ideally, that he could talk about these things. That the past is the past. That the past is there, not here. That he can still make a positive contribution and help others.
We both exited at Liverpool. We was supposed to have left in Stratford but he decided to stay a bit longer so that we could talk a bit more.
Throughout all this I was well aware that people sitting around in the train might be overhearing our conversation. But I tried to pay more attention to the man in front of me than to my thoughts of shame and of feeling exposed.
After leaving the train he told me about this love he has in the US and he asked me to pray for them both. He talked about Jesus and how there is a child in my life that is going (or will be) in a lot of problems but that everything will be alright after this is over. That i just need to have hope because all will be fine.
I didn't know really what to reply to that. I had felt that the initial purpose of the conversation had gone and that now it was time to depart.
He saw this of course. He saw my doubt of some of his words and sent it back at me. At least these days I'm a bit more comfortable with my own doubts and so more or less stayed my ground.
He also told me that, whenever I needed him, he would be there. Maybe we both would not know how, but he would.
I wished him well, for him to take care of himself, and I left.
I made my way back home thinking about all of this. About this story and the others floating around in my head. How everything sometimes seems to connect in these most unexpected ways.
This made think of that well known idea of how we create the reality around us. How there are no coincidences but only a convergence of factors, what is perhaps best known as the law of attraction, that there is an active, direct, continuous relationship between what happens inside of you and what's around you. And, existential concerns aside (ie, whatever is the nature of things), I believe that this is true to a great extent.
In any case, the purpose of this is not to drive any of you into my own existential dillemmas but simply to share with you an experience that affected me in some way. And that helped me escape some of my patterns.
I don't know if there's any lesson here to be extracted. I just feel that I am happy that I had the opportunity and seized it in this way.
More often than not I feel that if we ever are going to contribute to this world in a positive way, it's in simple things like this. Not by writing the book that will make everyone gasp but by being there when someone needs you. Especially if you don't even know that person and you have to cross that big boundary of the unknown (and the all too natural fear that comes with it) to reach him or her.
But also that, despite everything, books and words are a bit like the plough tending the field. It doesn't change the quality of the soil. But it helps making it ready for the planting.
Through the word we act.
Peace.
So I was entertaining all these historical and philosophical viewpoints on existence, saviour complex, religion and meditative experience when life decided to knock down the door.
The train doors opened and this drunken guy in his mid fifties or something came in and sat opposite to me, on the other side of the train.
I tried to keep to myself but he started talking. And, as it usually happens, even though I did not want to hear what he was saying I couldn't help but hear.
He kept complaining about his life and how it was worthless now that his mom and sister had both died, within a short time of one another. He cried a bit here and there. I felt I should comfort him in some way only I didn't know how.
These situations are awkward. You want to do something but, I at least, just don't know what. I mean, it was obvious that he wanted attention and someone to listen to him. Especially after he noticed me actually paying attention to what he was saying.
I thought, here I am, reading all this stuff about Jesus and yet I'm utterly unable to interact in a positive way. I mean, the guy was saying that he was going to commit suicide and everything. Now I know that, if this happens, it's probably because they're never going to do it. But, just how much should we chance with our silence?
I don't know how we engaged but the fact remains that we did. We started talking.
And his story started to unwind.
If I am to believe what he told me (and I have no reason to doubt - his emotions were far too real for him to be faking it) then this man was an ex-colonel from the army and he was, at some point, stationed in Afghanistan.
And he saw some of his buddies being blown to bits.
One moment they were there.
The next they were fragments and red blood all over the place.
And the question he kept asking was why?
Why to kill someone?
Why make war on someone we don't even know or see?
Why them instead of me?
Last week I read Waltz With Bashir. An amazing graphic novel that I urge everybody to read if they want to know a bit more about what war experience really is about.
Some people will block out things so much they won't even remember them anymore.
But some will always remember.
And, in one way or another, all will have to live with the weight of those memories. Either by recognising something they can never remove from them, or by feeling that a part of them has been lost.
So, to a certain extent, I was more ready to empathise with him.
I told him that it is ok to cry. That he should live to honour the memory of those that he knew that died. That life is worthwhile living. That he should give himself another chance. That he should see a doctor and do a checkup. If he had someone, a professional ideally, that he could talk about these things. That the past is the past. That the past is there, not here. That he can still make a positive contribution and help others.
We both exited at Liverpool. We was supposed to have left in Stratford but he decided to stay a bit longer so that we could talk a bit more.
Throughout all this I was well aware that people sitting around in the train might be overhearing our conversation. But I tried to pay more attention to the man in front of me than to my thoughts of shame and of feeling exposed.
After leaving the train he told me about this love he has in the US and he asked me to pray for them both. He talked about Jesus and how there is a child in my life that is going (or will be) in a lot of problems but that everything will be alright after this is over. That i just need to have hope because all will be fine.
I didn't know really what to reply to that. I had felt that the initial purpose of the conversation had gone and that now it was time to depart.
He saw this of course. He saw my doubt of some of his words and sent it back at me. At least these days I'm a bit more comfortable with my own doubts and so more or less stayed my ground.
He also told me that, whenever I needed him, he would be there. Maybe we both would not know how, but he would.
I wished him well, for him to take care of himself, and I left.
I made my way back home thinking about all of this. About this story and the others floating around in my head. How everything sometimes seems to connect in these most unexpected ways.
This made think of that well known idea of how we create the reality around us. How there are no coincidences but only a convergence of factors, what is perhaps best known as the law of attraction, that there is an active, direct, continuous relationship between what happens inside of you and what's around you. And, existential concerns aside (ie, whatever is the nature of things), I believe that this is true to a great extent.
In any case, the purpose of this is not to drive any of you into my own existential dillemmas but simply to share with you an experience that affected me in some way. And that helped me escape some of my patterns.
I don't know if there's any lesson here to be extracted. I just feel that I am happy that I had the opportunity and seized it in this way.
More often than not I feel that if we ever are going to contribute to this world in a positive way, it's in simple things like this. Not by writing the book that will make everyone gasp but by being there when someone needs you. Especially if you don't even know that person and you have to cross that big boundary of the unknown (and the all too natural fear that comes with it) to reach him or her.
But also that, despite everything, books and words are a bit like the plough tending the field. It doesn't change the quality of the soil. But it helps making it ready for the planting.
Through the word we act.
Peace.
Monday 5 October 2009
All I Cannot Tell You
I wish I could tell you how I feel.
But I can't.
Isn't that how feelings are supposed to be?
Without words?
Feelings are like circles. The circumference suggesting that which cannot truly be seen.
This is how I am, how I have been. Unseen.
Feelings are quicksand
and the struggle inside our minds
only makes us sink deeper
and lose ourselves within what we fear
and wish to avoid.
I wish I could tell you how it feels to grow up, have choices to make, making decisions, watching outcomes turn inside out, becoming us and changing again.
But I can't.
Each and everyone is trapped inside their own lives
That is our liberation
Our commonality.
I wish I could say all the things I think and dream that do not hurt but build beauty.
All the things that are precious to me and that I am unafraid to share.
I wish I could tell you how time brings so much and seems to take more than we can handle.
Sometimes.
But not always.
It's hard for me to say the things I want because everything escapes language.
Sometimes this is the only truth I know.
Sometimes I lose myself in awareness.
When that happens, what remains?
I try not be scared of my fear
and I try to trust my body to guide me
I loved to dream
and I dreamt of love
Now in dreaming or in loving I am unfulfilled.
I am an horizon without a landscape to support it
I am light that never reaches the eye
A sound taken by the wind
A shape never truly formed
I am the dream of something impossible waiting to happen
But I can't.
Isn't that how feelings are supposed to be?
Without words?
Feelings are like circles. The circumference suggesting that which cannot truly be seen.
This is how I am, how I have been. Unseen.
Feelings are quicksand
and the struggle inside our minds
only makes us sink deeper
and lose ourselves within what we fear
and wish to avoid.
I wish I could tell you how it feels to grow up, have choices to make, making decisions, watching outcomes turn inside out, becoming us and changing again.
But I can't.
Each and everyone is trapped inside their own lives
That is our liberation
Our commonality.
I wish I could say all the things I think and dream that do not hurt but build beauty.
All the things that are precious to me and that I am unafraid to share.
I wish I could tell you how time brings so much and seems to take more than we can handle.
Sometimes.
But not always.
It's hard for me to say the things I want because everything escapes language.
Sometimes this is the only truth I know.
Sometimes I lose myself in awareness.
When that happens, what remains?
I try not be scared of my fear
and I try to trust my body to guide me
I loved to dream
and I dreamt of love
Now in dreaming or in loving I am unfulfilled.
I am an horizon without a landscape to support it
I am light that never reaches the eye
A sound taken by the wind
A shape never truly formed
I am the dream of something impossible waiting to happen
Wednesday 30 September 2009
Inside The Wonder
Dear ones,
I hope this will be a long journey. I hope that through the next few weeks, months and years, I will be able (or we, if more come along, wishing to join and to share) to bring together into clarity that which has kept my mind ticking for so many countless instants.
Ever since i was a child that I've been interested in being here. There seems to be so much around and inside us. Wherever the mind turns it finds, it creates. Infinity is perhaps one of its domains.
The problem, for me, has always been the "real world". Inside is more or less easy. The boundaries are acknowledged. And I know it takes time to get where we want to be.
A retreat happened a few years ago.
And I found a lot of strangely old and new things.
I felt a lot inside of me be broken up, healed and transformed.
Yet, at the same time, it felt as if i hadn't lost anything. Just added more by removing redundancies, gaps between perceptions.
Basically, I grew up.
Though not in a linear, predicatable, logical way.
Things changed as I tried to get back in touch with the very basics of being alive.
Instead of looking from the height of consciousness into myself as a body, it was the reverse. It the plunging inside the core of being alive that made me expand and grow.
Hopefully, I will be able to explain all these things a bit better in subsequent posts.
But, before i do that, I want to let you know what I would like to do with this space.
I would like to use it to bridge Buddhism and Science.
(I know it's a lot but, hey, it's well worth trying)
The more I learn about one and experience the other, the more i see the obvious connections. Because I think most people - even those dedicating themselves to spiritual practices - are not aware of this, I would like to share my own perceptions of the interconnectivity of these two domains of human experience. I think both (and all of us) can greatly benefit from them.
The other thing is the growing feeling of underlying unity between all spiritual practices. In particular all those that seem to offer a very clear path towards enlightenment.
It is now my perception that one does not need to lose oneself in various practices in order to reach that core goal.
What is necessary, in my opinion, is to find a practice that is the most suitable to us and give it and ourselves time to fully mature within it.
My perspective stems from my own experiences and that which I have perceived along the way.
Please do not take my words as being the absolute truth. Everything is relative. Even when one is trying his or her hardest not to veil one's perceptions.
Only the experience of non-duality can actually give rise to the true understanding of what truth is and means.
Until then... we travel the limbo of reality.
If anything I hope that, one day, looking back, we can look back on what will be written here and feel continuity and evolution.
I hope that these words will bring all of closer to our individual truths and that we will be able to share a good measure of a common ground of experience.
To all beings
With Love and Kindness
I hope this will be a long journey. I hope that through the next few weeks, months and years, I will be able (or we, if more come along, wishing to join and to share) to bring together into clarity that which has kept my mind ticking for so many countless instants.
Ever since i was a child that I've been interested in being here. There seems to be so much around and inside us. Wherever the mind turns it finds, it creates. Infinity is perhaps one of its domains.
The problem, for me, has always been the "real world". Inside is more or less easy. The boundaries are acknowledged. And I know it takes time to get where we want to be.
A retreat happened a few years ago.
And I found a lot of strangely old and new things.
I felt a lot inside of me be broken up, healed and transformed.
Yet, at the same time, it felt as if i hadn't lost anything. Just added more by removing redundancies, gaps between perceptions.
Basically, I grew up.
Though not in a linear, predicatable, logical way.
Things changed as I tried to get back in touch with the very basics of being alive.
Instead of looking from the height of consciousness into myself as a body, it was the reverse. It the plunging inside the core of being alive that made me expand and grow.
Hopefully, I will be able to explain all these things a bit better in subsequent posts.
But, before i do that, I want to let you know what I would like to do with this space.
I would like to use it to bridge Buddhism and Science.
(I know it's a lot but, hey, it's well worth trying)
The more I learn about one and experience the other, the more i see the obvious connections. Because I think most people - even those dedicating themselves to spiritual practices - are not aware of this, I would like to share my own perceptions of the interconnectivity of these two domains of human experience. I think both (and all of us) can greatly benefit from them.
The other thing is the growing feeling of underlying unity between all spiritual practices. In particular all those that seem to offer a very clear path towards enlightenment.
It is now my perception that one does not need to lose oneself in various practices in order to reach that core goal.
What is necessary, in my opinion, is to find a practice that is the most suitable to us and give it and ourselves time to fully mature within it.
My perspective stems from my own experiences and that which I have perceived along the way.
Please do not take my words as being the absolute truth. Everything is relative. Even when one is trying his or her hardest not to veil one's perceptions.
Only the experience of non-duality can actually give rise to the true understanding of what truth is and means.
Until then... we travel the limbo of reality.
If anything I hope that, one day, looking back, we can look back on what will be written here and feel continuity and evolution.
I hope that these words will bring all of closer to our individual truths and that we will be able to share a good measure of a common ground of experience.
To all beings
With Love and Kindness
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