Livin Your Best Life

First topic message reminder :

“Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.”

—Robert Frost - “Nothing Gold Can Stay”

hobbit wrote:The swastika is at the core of creation into 3D physical.
It is a view from above or below the pole of creation with the circulations about the northern and southern hemisphere of consciousness circulating the pole  and then entering along the pole in spiral fashion.

hobbit

Whirling Log symbol of Native American tribe Navajo is Vedic Swastika, 卐. Used in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Tibet, China, Japan, Greece, Aztec, Ceylon, Hopi, Celt, Bali, Malta, Lapland etc.

Swastika is known to be in use atleast since 12000 years, when it was found on a late paleolithic figurine of a bird, carved from mammoth ivory, which was found in Mezine, Ukraine (11000 – 13000 years old).
In sanskrit, su- meaning “good, well” and asti “it is“, which form the word swasti, meaning good health or good fortune; the added suffix ka forms an abstract noun, and swastika might thus be translated literally as “that which is associated with well-being“, corresponding to “lucky charm” or “thing that is auspicious“.

XV

I’m on the trail to Cold Mountain.
Cold Mountain trail never ends.
Long clefts thick with rock and stones,
Wide streams buried in dense grass.
Slippery moss, but there’s been no rain,
Pine trees sigh, but there’s no wind.
Who can leap the world’s net,
Sit here in the white clouds with me?

—Han Shan

Always liked this clip.

U wrote:Always liked this clip.

Humans are disgusting creatures.

When George beats his wife and dog it’s between the three of them, but when George beats Hunter three other Hell’s Angels jump in?

Moronic logic.

I’d like to hear the dog’s side of the story.

Dualism explained?

“Master Baiyun Duan said to an assembly,In ancient times, in the assembly on Spiritual Mountain the World Honored One held up a flower and Kasyapa smiled. The World Honored One said, "I have the treasury of the eye of truth; I impart it to Kasyapa the elder. Transmit it successively; don't let it die out." It has come down to the present day. Everyone, if it is the treasury of the eye of truth, old Shakyamuni had no part himself - what did he impart, what did he transmit? What does this mean? Each one of you on your own part has the treasury of the eye of truth yourself. Everyday getting up is it; affirming what is so and negating what is not, distinguishing south and distinguishing north, all sorts of activities, are all reflections of the treasury of the eye of truth. When this eye opens, the universe, the whole earth, sun, moon, stars, and planets, myriad forms, are right before you, but you do not see that there is the slightest definition. When the eye is not yet open, it's all in the pupils of your eyes. Those whose eye is already open are not within these limitations; for those whose eye is not yet open, I will spare no effort to open the treasury of the eye of true teaching for you: look! (he then raised his hand, putting up two fingers) Look, look! If you can see, everything is one. If not, I cannot but reiterate in verse:

>>*Everyone's treasury of the eye of truth -    
A thousand sages cannot match it.      
Communicating a line for you,          
Its light fills the country.            
The polar mountain runs into the sea,          
Severe frost comes down in the sixth month.          
Though the flower of truth speaks this way,            
There is no statement to discuss.*

>Everyone, after having spoken fully, why is there no statement that can be discussed? (he shouted) Divide your body into two places and see.

—

“This guy, Buddha, is, like, really afraid of all the kinds of suffering in life and realizes money won't save him, he's gonna suffer some @#$#.

So he like goes around to all these religious people who say they can help him be free of suffering.  They are all like, "lie in the mud and let the bugs feed on you" and prayer and stuff like that.

None of that !@## worked.

So finally exhausted and hopeless, he decided to sit down underneath a three because it was a like a hot day and he wasn't like stupid and it wasn't too bad an he thought, I'll sit here until either I die or I figure @#$# out about how to live without suffering, fear of suffering, and so on.

Then after awhile, he turned the light around and shined it backward and stuff and Realized his Nature.  Then he was like, oh, snap, @#$# happens, but mind is the essence of the whole thing, the whole guacamole.

Then he went around saying to people, just like, calm down and stuff, okay?  Mind is the whole thing.  A people thought, this dude says he has it together and talks a great game, but WTF does that have to do with suffering?

And then like one day Buddha was going to give a lecture, and everybody was like, "I bet he says 'mind' like a dozen times or something" and some lady was like, "counting how many times he says mind is lame" and that kind of thing but at this lecture Buddha didn't say anything and he was a big talker and stuff so this started to freak people out.

Then Buddha like held up a flower he picked because it was a nice flower and he was showing it to everybody and people were like, "this is even lamer @#$@ than him saying mind all the time" and other people were like "I shouldn't have bet all that money", but then like this one guy he smiled at Buddha, and Buddha smiled back and says, "That dude that smiled HE GETS IT, SO I TRANSMIT TO HIM THE EYE THAT SEES THE TRUE LAW and stuff".

Zen was born.“

—

252

The place I used to walk,
I see again after seventy years.
Those I used to know do not come and go,
but remain buried in their tombs.
Now, with my hair turned white,
I still keep watch over clouds and mountains.
Let me say to those in the future:
Why not study the words of the ancients?

昔日經行處　今復七十年　故人無來往　埋在古塚間　
餘今頭已白　猶守片雲山　為報後來子　何不讀古言

146

You who read my poems,
protect the purity of your heart—
be more modest with your grasping and greed.
Then, what is crooked will straighten out,
driving away unwholesome deeds.
Just take refuge in your true nature
and you’ll attain a buddha body today
like a fast-running demon!

凡讀我詩者　心中須護淨　慳貪繼日廉　諂曲登時正
驅遣除惡業　歸依受眞性　今日得佛身　急急如律令

* a fast-running demon: The demon serving the god of lightning and thunder. His name means “Law” or “Order.”

I suppose I have enjoyed taking the role of disclosure cynic.

The cynic is the overseer and spy of humanity.

They watch from above.

Like Charon spying on man.

What is it to take the perspective of death?

It is a humbling merciless view.

It is a powerful way to see things nakedly.

The Cynics denounce that form of human madness which attaches itself so passionately to things, such as luxury and power, which people will inevitably have to abandon. This is why they urge them to reject superfluous desires, social conventions, and artificial civilization—all of which are the source of their worries, cares, and sufferings and encourage them to return to a simple, purely natural style of life.

“Soon, you will have forgotten everything; soon, everyone will have forgotten you...

In a short time, you will no longer be anything or anywhere...”

Your imagined conspiracies and personal goals are really nonsense.

I have taken up the natural way of living.

And I have seen what fools we are.

I have gone into the depths of hell and the into the heights of the heavens myself, as one must.

To see us from eternity.

We seem pathetic, with flashes of quality.

How stupid we seem.

How dull we are.

If you live a life, you know eternity Marcus meditates.

Still, one enjoys lingering in the garden.

THE THUNDER, PERFECT MIND

Translated by George W. MacRae

I was sent forth from the power,
and I have come to those who reflect upon me,
and I have been found among those who seek after me.
Look upon me, you who reflect upon me,
and you hearers, hear me.
You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves.
And do not banish me from your sight.
And do not make your voice hate me, nor your hearing.
Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard!
Do not be ignorant of me.
For I am the first and the last.
I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin.
I am and the daughter.
I am the members of my mother.
I am the barren one
and many are her sons.
I am she whose wedding is great,
and I have not taken a husband.
I am the midwife and she who does not bear.
I am the solace of my labor pains.
I am the bride and the bridegroom,
and it is my husband who begot me.
I am the mother of my father
and the sister of my husband
and he is my offspring.
I am the slave of him who prepared me.
I am the ruler of my offspring.
But he is the one who begot me before the time on a birthday.
And he is my offspring in (due) time,
and my power is from him.
I am the staff of his power in his youth,
and he is the rod of my old age.
And whatever he wills happens to me.
I am the silence that is incomprehensible
and the idea whose remembrance is frequent.
I am the voice whose sound is manifold
and the word whose appearance is multiple.
I am the utterance of my name.

Why, you who hate me, do you love me,
and hate those who love me?
You who deny me, confess me,
and you who confess me, deny me.
You who tell the truth about me, lie about me,
and you who have lied about me, tell the truth about me.
You who know me, be ignorant of me,
and those who have not known me, let them know me.
For I am knowledge and ignorance.
I am shame and boldness.
I am shameless; I am ashamed.
I am strength and I am fear.
I am war and peace.
Give heed to me.
I am the one who is disgraced and the great one.
Give heed to my poverty and my wealth.
Do not be arrogant to me when I am cast out upon the earth,
and you will find me in those that are to come.
And do not look upon me on the dung-heap
nor go and leave me cast out,
and you will find me in the kingdoms.
And do not look upon me when I am cast out among those who
are disgraced and in the least places,
nor laugh at me.
And do not cast me out among those who are slain in violence.
But I, I am compassionate and I am cruel.
Be on your guard!
Do not hate my obedience
and do not love my self-control.
In my weakness, do not forsake me,
and do not be afraid of my power.
For why do you despise my fear
and curse my pride?
But I am she who exists in all fears
and strength in trembling.
I am she who is weak,
and I am well in a pleasant place.
I am senseless and I am wise.
Why have you hated me in your counsels?
For I shall be silent among those who are silent,
and I shall appear and speak,
Why then have you hated me, you Greeks?
Because I am a barbarian among the barbarians?
For I am the wisdom of the Greeks
and the knowledge of the barbarians.
I am the judgement of the Greeks and of the barbarians.
I am the one whose image is great in Egypt
and the one who has no image among the barbarians.
I am the one who has been hated everywhere
and who has been loved everywhere.
I am the one whom they call Life,
and you have called Death.
I am the one whom they call Law,
and you have called Lawlessness.
I am the one whom you have pursued,
and I am the one whom you have seized.
I am the one whom you have scattered,
and you have gathered me together.
I am the one before whom you have been ashamed,
and you have been shameless to me.
I am she who does not keep festival,
and I am she whose festivals are many.
I, I am godless,
and I am the one whose God is great.
I am the one whom you have reflected upon,
and you have scorned me.
I am unlearned,
and they learn from me.
I am the one that you have despised,
and you reflect upon me.
I am the one whom you have hidden from,
and you appear to me.
But whenever you hide yourselves,
I myself will appear.
For whenever you appear,
I myself will hide from you.
Those who have [...] to it [...] senselessly [...].
Take me [... understanding] from grief.
and take me to yourselves from understanding and grief.
And take me to yourselves from places that are ugly and in ruin,
and rob from those which are good even though in ugliness.
Out of shame, take me to yourselves shamelessly;
and out of shamelessness and shame,
upbraid my members in yourselves.
And come forward to me, you who know me
and you who know my members,
and establish the great ones among the small first creatures.
Come forward to childhood,
and do not despise it because it is small and it is little.
And do not turn away greatnesses in some parts from the smallnesses,
for the smallnesses are known from the greatnesses.
Why do you curse me and honor me?
You have wounded and you have had mercy.
Do not separate me from the first ones whom you have known.
And do not cast anyone out nor turn anyone away
[...] turn you away and [... know] him not.
[...].
What is mine [...].
I know the first ones and those after them know me.
But I am the mind of [...] and the rest of [...].
I am the knowledge of my inquiry,
and the finding of those who seek after me,
and the command of those who ask of me,
and the power of the powers in my knowledge
of the angels, who have been sent at my word,
and of gods in their seasons by my counsel,
and of spirits of every man who exists with me,
and of women who dwell within me.
I am the one who is honored, and who is praised,
and who is despised scornfully.
I am peace,
and war has come because of me.
And I am an alien and a citizen.
I am the substance and the one who has no substance.
Those who are without association with me are ignorant of me,
and those who are in my substance are the ones who know me.
Those who are close to me have been ignorant of me,
and those who are far away from me are the ones who have known me.
On the day when I am close to you, you are far away from me,
and on the day when I am far away from you, I am close to you.
[I am ...] within.
[I am ...] of the natures.
I am [...] of the creation of the spirits.
[...] request of the souls.
I am control and the uncontrollable.
I am the union and the dissolution.
I am the abiding and I am the dissolution.
I am the one below,
and they come up to me.
I am the judgment and the acquittal.
I, I am sinless,
and the root of sin derives from me.
I am lust in (outward) appearance,
and interior self-control exists within me.
I am the hearing which is attainable to everyone
and the speech which cannot be grasped.
I am a mute who does not speak,
and great is my multitude of words.
Hear me in gentleness, and learn of me in roughness.
I am she who cries out,
and I am cast forth upon the face of the earth.
I prepare the bread and my mind within.
I am the knowledge of my name.
I am the one who cries out,
and I listen.
I appear and [...] walk in [...] seal of my [...].
I am [...] the defense [...].
I am the one who is called Truth
and iniquity [...].
You honor me [...] and you whisper against me.
You who are vanquished, judge them (who vanquish you)
before they give judgment against you,
because the judge and partiality exist in you.
If you are condemned by this one, who will acquit you?
Or, if you are acquitted by him, who will be able to detain you?
For what is inside of you is what is outside of you,
and the one who fashions you on the outside
is the one who shaped the inside of you.
And what you see outside of you, you see inside of you;
it is visible and it is your garment.
Hear me, you hearers
and learn of my words, you who know me.
I am the hearing that is attainable to everything;
I am the speech that cannot be grasped.
I am the name of the sound
and the sound of the name.
I am the sign of the letter
and the designation of the division.
And I [...].
(3 lines missing)
[...] light [...].
[...] hearers [...] to you
[...] the great power.
And [...] will not move the name.
[...] to the one who created me.
And I will speak his name.
Look then at his words
and all the writings which have been completed.
Give heed then, you hearers
and you also, the angels and those who have been sent,
and you spirits who have arisen from the dead.
For I am the one who alone exists,
and I have no one who will judge me.
For many are the pleasant forms which exist in numerous sins,
and incontinencies,
and disgraceful passions,
and fleeting pleasures,
which (men) embrace until they become sober
and go up to their resting place.
And they will find me there,
and they will live,
and they will not die again.

James M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library, revised edition. HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1990.

The secret doctrine of Valentinus says that only knowing or touching the ground of being does one come to know themselves and their source.

The named one is a shadow of the true source.

Whoever comes to the gnosis is ready for release from the power of the shadow.

For redemption.

One removes themselves from the authority of the false god.

I am a sun from the father.

I derive being from my true source.

Not bound by the world of the demiurge.

The initiate would invoke the above in their redemption ritual.

Crowley copied this roughly and gave it his own spin.

Gnosis offers nothing less than the ability to deny the established priestly orders.

The demand of the bishops can no longer touch one who knows themselves.

The Gnostic then feel thy can act as they please.

They are invisible to the judge.

Now he knows the clerical realm is false.

The jealous god is the false.

I like these arrogant Gnostics.

The Pentecostals and ecstatics are cousins of the Gnostics.

There is still a veil between them though.

Children of the Father vs. the offspring of the false jealous god.

Sounds like a good rumble.

“Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith.”

“Faith is an act of a finite being who is grasped by, and turned to, the infinite.”

The anxiety of doubt obscures the sky.

Is it I who must turn to the infinite or does not the infinite peer through my mind on being?

What do or could I know of the infinite?

Others have said that your life reflects that.

I cannot speak so knowingly about such things.

I find no simple answers to being.

Just this is a pretty real naked way to see this.

I am not losing my sense or gender out of the anxiety and confusion of my finite being.

I face what is.

I accept it smiling.

I’ve figured out what is important.

The life I have.

From Instant Zen.

Facing It Directly

See how many phony “Zen masters” there are, degenerating daily over a long, long time. They are like human dung carved into sandalwood icons; ultimately there is just the smell of crap.

Wishing to get out of birth and death, wishing to attain release, you try to become unified; but one does not attain unification after becoming homogenized. If you try to make yourself uni­ fied, you will certainly not attain unification.

Once a seeker called on a Wayfarer and asked, as they roamed the mountains, “An ancient teacher said he sought unification for thirty years without being able to attain it; what does this mean?” The Wayfarer replied, “I too am thus.” Then he asked the seeker, “Understand?” He also gave the seeker a poem:

The ancient teacher attains unification
and I too am thus;
before the end of this month,
I will settle it for you again.

At the end of the month, the Wayfarer passed away. Tell me about unification; is it good or bad? The ancient teacher attained unification, and I too am thus. I announce to Zen seekers: fac­ing it directly, don’t stumble past. Each of you, go on your way.”

You probably need to catch this one, big guy.






It seems right up your alley!

I saw that one coming.

Ha!

The Green Knight is a favorite.

290

Relaxing below Cold Cliff
the surprises are quite special
taking a basket to gather wild plants
bringing it back loaded with fruit
spreading fresh grass for a simple meal
nibbling on magic mushrooms
rinsing my ladle and bowl in a pool
making a stew from scraps
sitting in sunshine wrapped in a robe
reading the poems of the ancients

No longer seduced by the Demiurge or bound by samsara, the golden child walks the edge of being as one with his/her True Will.

Yes, Crowley was onto this, as FTD mentioned, albeit with his own spin.

“Crowley's ideas on the subject partly originated with the teachings of Eliphas Levi, whose magical books emphasize the magician finding their magical identity – his or her 'true self', which Levi referred to as the "True Will".”

The Magician is a powerful daimon, and the one that guides the initiate to move and flow in right action to realization.

No one can show anyone else the way to realization.

Realization arises of itself from right action.

No smelly goats, no princesses, no portals or priests or prophets can ultimately be right about this.

To say the way is no way, is your way.

It cant be conceptual at all, concepts are born in duality, but the magician breaks through the dual mind with relaxed focus and awareness.

Breaking through to this direct participation is the Great Work.

A dance with death.

All of man’s concepts of this are flawed and grotesque, but we face the grotesque straight on with a heart of gold and a mind with the capacity for right action in and through agape.

Love under will.

In Kabbalah, the arising of this is pointed to with the symbolic form of the Da’at sefirot in the center of the tree of life.

This too, nothing more than an attempt at a conceptual overlay on top of that which can’t be said.

But as Watts says, the whole art of poetry is to say what can’t be said.

To say what can’t be said is my form of meditation.

Bukowski said it with his own beautiful poetic spin.

“if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.“

I love this.

The sun inside burns my gut, so I hold out my candle with a grin and a Chim and a Chim Chim Cher-ee



A sweep is as lucky as lucky can be.

Ha!

Reality is here and in your face.

The only way to see it is to short circuit the mind.

Paranoia is replaced by pronoia.

No one can short circuit their own mind without facing their fears and pain head on.

It hurts.

Death is a painful process for any, but the only way through the gate-less gate is to work out your own shit and fear straight on backwards.

The tears will water the garden and transmute the pain to joy.

The death of the separate is the birth of the inseparable, which is never born and never dies.

Intuition and your inner magician know the way.

Trust the way to the way.

When it hits you you’ll know it.

Nothing can keep you from claiming what is yours.

The dragon of the deep guards the pearl.

You are both the dragon that protects the pearl and the diver who reclaims it.

The golden child both protects the pearl of the deep and plays with the goats on Cold Mountain.

A swimmer and climber.

A rustic.

.........

I hear California is burning.

The skies here in Utah are thick with smoke.

Stay safe and frosty over there old boy smelly.

My heart goes out to those in Greenville.

May the love and magic guide the hurt and weary.




Let’s go fly a kite 🪁.

To cross the abyss one must distill their self.

I’m digging into this distilling work.

The deluded thinker is a slave to the world mind.

Fear of the unknown can drive one to insanity or worse.

A sincere heart and open mind allow the space for the healing work to flow.

The open mind is the beginners mind.

A fine way to face reality.

I start and end here.

Not knowing, I know.

I walk the narrow path between the real and imaginary doing just this.

The best life is lived not choosing sides.

Right action before thought knows what to do.

Only the bravest humans make it here on the wind whipped cliffs of Cold Mountain.

A rock for a pillow and moss for a bed.

The silence echoes in old duder’s head.

I have no illusions.

I open myself to the magick and the rhythm of silence.

I’m here doing the work.

Deepening the quality of my being doing this.

Working out my own redemption here on cold mountain I am free from the idols and snares of the demiurge below.

Not a thing to do but wander the cliffs looking for wild berries and bearded friends.

Marcus joins me for a cup of wild tea.

He reminds me.

I knows what I control and what I don’t.

I control very little.

Maybe only my focus.

Knowing this I can relax and live.

Applying focus only to deepen the quality of my own being.

To distill and reveal the gold within and without.

I don’t bother myself with what I can’t control.

Thats muppet work, what nonsense!

Some muppets with spend their whole life chasing UFOs and other conspiracies.

What a waste.

Life is lived here on earth.

The earth is my inheritance.

No greater gift from Gods or man.

What more is needed here than this, pray tell?

I have everything I could reasonably ask for here on these rocky cliffs.

Just an ordinary human with nothing to lose.

Alone as this, naked and free, the whole universe dances with me.

Wildflowers tell me secrets I can’t repeat.

Their voices like children playing in the streets.

Take the trail to cold mountain.

Merge the outside with the in.

Who else will cross the abyss and sit with me here on rocky cliffs?

No surprise a goat just wandered by.

Let’s go fly a kite 🪁 and send it soaring!



If your going to do it, go all the way!

There is no other feeling like it.

Ride life all the way to perfect laughter!

Bahahahaha!

Joy!

306
All the people I see
struggle over everything
one day they suddenly die
and all they get is some ground
four-feet wide
eight-feet long
if you can stop your struggling
I’ll carve your name in stone

305
The Sage of Cold Mountain
I’m always like this
up here alone
neither dead nor alive

If we all are just life, one consciousness, just coming and going, enjoy your life.

If there is no awareness for any sense of you beyond death, enjoy your life.

If this is a prison world, enjoy your life.

Nietzsche was on about this.

There would be all sorts of wonders for life that falls onto the earth.

And dangers, but real danger?

Life has shown me to love what I have.

To know thyself.

To enjoy life.

I don’t think you could do better than this.

Imagined conversations with other beings should be kept in context of your normal everyday life.

If you are of the one consciousness, then relax, if not, relax.

Saw the Green Knight tonight with my brother.

First time I smoked grass in some time too, bro hooked me up.

Excellent film, a favorite indeed.

Beautiful film on loving one’s life I feel.

An excellent reminder to live one’s best life and aspire to quality in what one does as a participant with this.

These myths may be implanted in our genetics.

The psyche can go deep at times, but then you blink and there is just this.

What we think about this doesn’t matter.

What we do with this does.

Do your best work and leave the rest to the Gods.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

The ceremonial experience of dying before you die in ancient times, was the path to immortality.

Joseph Campbell said he didn’t think we are looking for the meaning of life.

I feel you have to let the search for meaning go to enjoy life.

Joseph thought we sought an experience of life here.

If you can get just a taste of immortality, all can be rebalanced.

I won’t claim any knowledge, but I feel I have tasted immortality.

I have found the good life.

My best life.

What do you do when all others are losing their minds?

Your best living.

We drink the holy wine

“The human mind will not be confined to any limits.” —Goethe

Humans can not live happy with any government or religion or philosophy.

You have to realize it yourself, right in the middle of your own mess.

Die before you die and you will know the sweetest nectar of life.

Those who don’t know, don’t know.

Those who know, enjoy the sweetness of life and appreciate the bitterness of life.

Disclosure is a portal to death.

True religion is a portal to death.

Jesus is a portal to death.

The desire for and searching for meaning and secrets will fade away.

You will become playful.

You will find your quality.

You will be creative.

You will become a god.

You will live your best life in utter enjoyment.

You will see tension in your life has always been you resisting this.

I know I sound like a broken record, but I have found nothing as amazing as full volume living.

Not holding back.

This is the Good News Jesus spoke of.

This is the key to life.

Closing yourself to nothing.

Opening yourself to everything.

Knowing who lies and who stands in truth.

You will know the difference between good and evil and be responsible for your actions.

Is anything of us transcendent?

I don’t know or care.

This moment is like a note that never stops.

There seems to be no time on cold mountain.

Near the monad, time doesn’t really exist.

How small your silly crusades seem then, biases, prejudices.

Reminders of how small we can be.

How small your politics and religion seem.

How silly your agnosticism and atheism and nihilism sound.

No one will find life after death.

You have to find life now and love it here to be with it forever.

Eternity has nothing to do with time.

It is here and now.

This is it.

If you don’t love this now, you never will.

There is a secret religion with no name.

It’s always been Love.

That feeling and experience of pure consciousness.

Dynamic silence.

It leaves you feeling bliss.

The mysteries emanate as vapors of love.

I have been embraced by that ecstatic immediate love.

I did all I could to run from it.

It costs you everything if you tangle with it.

It turns you inside out, outside in.

It doesn’t matter if the cosmos is a quantum computer.

It doesn’t matter how it appears or why.

What is your experience of it?

Dying before dying seems to be the key.

It is ironic that at the depth and height of life is found through intense desire, through focus.

You have to be patient.

How deep can you cast your line into the depths?

I wish you a fine death.

You have to count all as lost compared to the bliss of knowing and loving life.

Have you let it all fall away to grasp this?

Have you seen your treasure fall through your hands like sand?

When you do, you will find cold mountain.

I’ll meet others there maybe.

Some passages from “The Inner Citadel” by Pierre Hadot.

I’ve been experimenting with some imagination exercises that Marcus Aurelius and Stoics used.

I have to say the addition of these practices is more powerful than simple stoic maxims.

This was the spiritual side of the work.

I had many synchronicities with this particular exercise recently.

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When Seneca uses the expression propone, which means “represent to yourself” or “place before your eyes the bottomless chasm of time,” he emphasizes that he is speaking of an exercise of the imagination, which the stoic must practice. We find an exercise of the same kind in those meditations in which Marcus seeks to embrace the dimensions of the universe by his imagination, or to see things from on high, in order to reduce them to their true value.

Translations from Seneca and “Meditations,” which was Marcus’ private journal.

“Remember the totality of substance, of which you participate in only the smallest portion; remember also the whole of eternity, of which you have been assigned but a brief, tiny interval. Finally, remember destiny, of which you are a part: but how tiny!”

“If you suddenly found yourself transported into the air, and contemplated human affairs and their variety from above, you would have contempt for them, as you saw, in the same glance, how vast is the domain of the inhabitants of the air end of the ether.”

“The soul traverses the entire world and the void with surrounds it; it examines the form of the world; extends it self into the infinity of the eternity, and embraces and conceives the periodic rebirth of the universe.”

“Asia and Europe are corners of the world; the entire sea is a drop of the world; Athos is a lump of earth in the world; all the present time is a point in eternity; everything is tiny, fragile, and evanescent.”

“You can cut off many of the superfluous things which present obstacles to you, and which rest entirely on your value judgments. Thus you will clear for yourself a vast open field, by embracing the entire universe in your mind; you will comprehend perpetual eternity, as you consider the rapid transformation of each individual thing. How short is the time from birth to dissolution; how gaping is the infinity before birth, and similarly the infinity after dissolution.”

I find it interesting I wrote about this today.

Then I went to see The Green Knight.

Then I read those passages in the Inner Citadel.

I was contemplating eternity all day, practicing the above exercises.

It fills you with awe to see it all from above.

Why not want greatness in us?

Remember...

Then off with my head.

I keep it on a shelf at home.

Often though I think we rewrite the material if we see room for improvement!

There is always room for improvement.

We are always rewriting.

Things are always changing.

Written on the Lake on my Way Back to the Retreat at Stone Cliff

Between dusk and dawn the weather is constantly changing,

Bathing mountain and lake alike in radiant sunlight. This radiant sunlight filled me with such joy,

That lost in delight I quite forgot to go home. When I left my valley the day had scarcely broken, When I stepped into my boat the light was growing dim.

Forest and gorge were veiled in sombre colours,
The sunset clouds mingled with evening haze. Gay panoply ofwater-chestnut, lotus,

Rushes and cattails growing side by side,
I swept them aside with my hands as I hastened
southwards.

How glad I was to reach my house in the east! Once the mind stops striving the world loses importance,

Once the heart is content it does not swerve from the
truth.

I send these words to those who would nurture their
lives:

Try using this Method if you want the Truth.

Tonight I came across something a little spooky.

It was quite a trip.

A kind of contact with forces far beyond my understanding.

It was total blackness, but the blackness was pixelated undulating black blocks making a barely human face and speckled with red blocks.

Very deep feelings evoked by it.

It felt like naked desire looking into me.

It felt more real than normal.

It was scary and intense.

Then I was moving through incredibly detailed visual geometric puzzles that solved themselves in the air opening the way.

The mind is quite powerful.

I paid for my visit.

My heart was beating every few seconds.

I wasn’t sure I was alive or dead.

What would you call it?

Hi fidelity turned up to a 1000.

What should one do with such glimpses?

It removes all doubt.

Perhaps this is the lesson.

There can be no doubt.

Stand up on your own feet and face it.

These forces could turn me inside out and eat my 🧠 but they are communicating somehow with no speech.

Just force.

Yes, a force that grips you and moves you across the cosmos as it wills.

It was a seething mass of black blocks making incredibly delicate forms, that appeared than dissolved.

Like our appearing here.

Something deep moving.

I don’t mention it for any attention.

I mention it because it’s real.

It feels like the world of the dead I imagine.

What a state of being that must be with no body.

Something in me wanted to leave my body.

I said I’m quite happy here for now.

But I felt a tug.

Felt my heart race.

I felt like a raggedy Anne doll being examined by its maker.

Shit, that’s exactly what it felt like.

My will was greatly weakened allowing the contact perhaps.

One will be engulfed by the darkness eventually.

And perhaps we are birthed into the light from darkest night.

In all that darkness, our hearts burn and resists it.

In our hearts with mind beside, we blaze in the dark cold night.

We burn blue gold.

Straight on.

Keep going.