The amateur poetics continue here at WS central! If I keep this up I’ll alienate the three readers I have…

From the moon to the cosmos
here is my little poem:

Once I was down
but now I flow like water–
into every stream that gives life,
the endless gushing of dreams
and loves for the seamless presence

At the end of our days
there is nothing more pleasant
but the splendour of being found
in all things

The sound of conclusion
and the end of the day
it’s such a powerful colour
whether bright, dark, faded or sharp

The greatest art one knows
gives sentiments of finality
which are naturally cloaked
in the beauty of eternity

–WS

Sometimes the wave you ride
is spiraling deep toward a horizon
you long not to meet

So frozen in your terror
you cling to its appearance
as proof of your existence

And while seizing this proof
you fall into the hell that this world provides
free of charge, for all to gorge upon

Thus the world dreams of the day it disappears
whether by divine justice or sinister ordeal
as such who knows what fortune chaos provides?
whose mouth opens with the tyger’s eye?

I fight the world without falling sick
without a charm around my neck
nor a demon in my step

No matter how much blood flows from the vajra sword
its luster always shines
stainless sword, stainless mind

–WS

Apparently after people work at a treasured goal for years and years and then finally accomplish it, they are prone to incredible bouts of depression. You know, building up something in the mind for a long time, it never happens and has the “juice” a person thought it would have.

Well, no shizzam, right? Anticipation is the best part of life, so some would say. To give a good solid example, Bill Bryson, in A Walk in the Woods – just one of his many fabulous books, talks about how a lot of hikers trying to tackle the whole Appalachian Trail will take 5 or 6 months in the process of completing it. Their whole life for half a year is just hike, hike, hike — from Georgia to Maine. And then they finally finish, only to be set upon by a vivid drought of existential meaning. Hahaha! It’s almost like they were Sisyphus and they just finished pushing the rock up the hill! Now they’re all mopey looking for another rock to push, but they’ve spent so much time away from typical social and civilized life they don’t know where to look next!

So do you think that happens to people after enlightenment? Like, a person gets the most extreme depression hangover of all time? Nah… that would be kind of dark! So I guess that’s what happens when you finally become a demon. You know what I mean? ‘Coz people are always talking so big about how bad people go to hell or whatever. Maybe they just flutter around without a (metaphorical) rock to push for a while.

Being a demon must be the biggest disappointment ever.

So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb. –Dark Helmet, Space Balls

In Kentarou Miura’s Japanese manga, Berserk, one of the best scenes is one he didn’t even include when he initially wrote/illustrated it. It involves a character’s encounter with God and he (Miura) thought it was “too much, too early” for the Berserk audience.

The chapter eventually leaked online and I gobbled it up. In the short chapter, a character encounters God, and it turns out God is the idea of evil. Like a pure manifestation of desires. As this God explains it in the encounter, God didn’t always exist as this source of the universe, but was gradually created and heralded by human suffering. People needed a reason for things to be like they are; they needed something to blame their broken dreams and miseries and pleasures upon. And over time, this belief forged God as central to existence — the idea of all evil, the pure wellspring of desires. Although man made God, God became real and full of potency. By this account, when people pray for things to change or whatever, they are praying to this pure manifestation of desire which reacts by creating more causal chains of existence. In other words, Nietzsche and The Secret — together at last!

Wow-wee! That sure doesn’t fly alongside the typical belief structures of Judeo-Christianity/Islam! At least the pagan belief systems weren’t threatened by this ethically because their morality was not tied up in ideas of good and bad. For pagan beliefs it was often do whatever the gods ask, or channel/emanate the god of one’s own archetype irrespective of judgment. And in Buddhism and Hinduism, don’t we find gods who just think they’re the essence of the universe, but they’re really a temporal identity fluxuation too (albeit on the highest level possible)? Yeah… thus it strikes me that only the monotheists would the ones most threatened by, and most likely subject to, this “crazy” revelation found in Berserk.

Really, don’t you think a lot of misguided people actually end up duped into praying to the “devil”, or to the essence of desire and so forth? Man, I feel that energy when I’m in certain old churches, or encounter power-charged statues, battlegrounds and so forth. It’s not “evil” it’s just a deep manifestation of desires and hope — a lingering sensation of empathy for liars.

Does that make sense? The urge or yearning to believe in something compassionate and father-like which will make things right. You know how it is: you look at a politician or some horrifying FOX news political pundit. Sure, you want to believe they’re good people, but they’re clearly not. That empathy or desire to want to believe them is the equal reaction to them lying and trying to trick you. It’s the weak feeling that allows illusions to take place — the submission of will to another. Basically, you temporarily pity someone who is trying to scam you and they take full emotional advantage of you. That’s why I don’t trust emotions.

Salvation is not so much “salvation” (that easy, perfect, lazy and heavenly life everyone imagines) as it is a complete step off of the boat of life — a shove off of not just this mortal coil, but the coil of all conditioned existence. That’s scary enough as it is, going beyond human life. But even bleaker is if you’re a spiritual nihilist: you think some kind of peace beyond isn’t a possibility, that one has to assume that the meaning of life is made by whomever has the strongest powers of assertion and self-indulgence (and bullshitting). Whomever asserts themselves like a king in the astral or physical planes is correct and wise by virtue of their strength. That’s the occult path in a nutshell, methinks.

So why isn’t there some idea of good as Miura’s God of the cosmos? Well, “good” doesn’t really exist the way “evil” does. Meaning, it exists by it’s non-manifestation or something. Because, (remember Willie B!) desire or “evil is the active spring of energy.” That’s why the politics of restraint and peace are so much harder to stir up in a country versus the politics of war.

Everything in this world may be easily evoked and obtained through evil, which being contagious needs little evoking because everyone is relatable to it by their correlatives. –Austin Spare

“Good” or virtuous actions tend to avoid being noticed. That’s how it works in martial arts, too. The set up for techniques almost never involves starting a conflict, it’s very often receiving the conflict. Most modern “self-defense” martial arts require an outside set up or approach in order to function most effectively. That’s how Aikido, Budo Taijutsu, Taiji, white magick, etc. tend to function. That’s why a martial artist who goes around starting fights eventually gets their ass kicked, even if they’re really good. By attacking you give the other person a chance to react and a space in which to move outside of you. “Good” is made up of the stream of existence that evades or outlies the penetration of desires. This is a big subject, so I’ll talk about it s’more later.

The crux of my message? You might be interested in reading Berserk. Berserk talks about this kind of thing a lot, how people’s faith becomes trapped within worldly objects and so their beliefs become easily manipulated by whomever seizes it (a la the renaissance church and so forth). Muira’s stuff about the pope is so accurate it gives me goosebumps! Plus the whole thing is so violent and gory it’s a perilous journey for your soul. Enter at your own risk, wayfarer!

Romantic love is so crazy. It perplexes me. There’s this idea that people have gotten in their heads that there’s some other half out there (who we need or yearn for emotionally) that will put an end to our suffering or make us happy. I heard a talk by Ajahn Brahmavamso back in the day where he says that romance goes back to to 14th century troubadours or something of that ilk. I’d like to agree and write it off that way, but what about all the Greek myths and plays about tragedy and love? Love, an emotional attachment filled with sexual longing and hyper-real fantasy is an ancient drive. (And before you get all emotionally twisted, just remember — I’m not saying romantic love is purely a fantasy)

I’ve been known to talk about how having kids removes all the time from one’s schedule. Well, you know what? So does having a job, or a lover, or a really cheesy blog. Tonight my friend mentioned how he read a study indicating that wealthier people often have higher levels of stress or anxiety. He jokingly mentioned we can either be poor or unhappy. And romance didn’t even come into the equation! I wonder if romance even has much to do with happiness? Ack! But the drives are so powerful!

I’ve encountered a fair number of people practicing martial arts or various self-defense ideas (guns/weapons, business rhetoric, law, and so forth) and a large number of them are doing it because they want to protect their families. Fair enough — who doesn’t? It’s just… you have to be careful you don’t become a mobster.

For example, I knew a really good martial arts master — one who I otherwise admire for a variety of reasons including his martial skill — who once mentioned to me over dinner, that if someone ever sold any of his kids drugs, he’d slit the person’s throat. That statement has always disturbed me on an ethical level. Because people are in a constant process of change, and I know from experience that not all people do various things (drugs, religion, martial arts) for the same reasons. It’s not like only one person is at fault when distributing drugs.

Killing is not something I condone, and it’s a pretty pathetic action to take when it can be avoided. It would seem that most murders are done in emotional states, often spurned by romance. So many fights are over romantic or lustful interests. I’d like to think males wouldn’t fight so much if there were no women to impress, but then again look at prisons or private schools (but then again, those people are in shackles…).

Romance is complicated because it is never satiated or satisfied. It is in a constantly changing process. Relationship gurus and so forth talk about how loving relationships mature and grow and change, but they’re the same as all other relationships except sex is involved. Sure sure, that makes all the difference I guess.

If you wanna get all metaphysical about it, physical love is the ultimate distraction. And sexual desire is the main fetter tying one to existence. But cosmic love, that’s a different thing entirely. I ain’t raggin’ on that one, ya heard?

And if you is wondering: I’m not celibate. I’m a chump like everyone else.

As you may have seen, I did an amazing post about anonymity recently. I think anonymity is a pretty interesting concept in general. As long as one is anonymous, truly anonymous, one does not have a concrete identity. Wouldn’t you say that’s the case? Even a supposedly anonymous online identity is not completely anonymous so long as you’re interacting with other people to some degree. It just becomes another identity you create, a further manifestation of your ego, your duality.

So, by my reasoning, as soon as you have any identity you cease to be completely anonymous. And to conclude that train of thought, anonymity represents the sea of endless identity-potentiality. It almost does not — or cannot — exist.

When we talk about maintaining anonymity, it can only really refer to blending in with the mass or crowd. We have no independent or unique attributes assigned to us. So… on some level we can have an identity and be anonymous if we cause no attention to our identity. But then what is the point of it all?

I think Hatsumi is always referring to ideas along these lines in his books on ninpo. I think this is what people mean when they talk about being able to become invisible. Serious illusions work on this level — they draw your attention away from minute details so that your perception is dulled. Actually, all illusions work on this level, but to varying degrees of subtlety and manifestation.

A basic example (which might apply exclusively to males?) is when you see a group of girls walking together. The larger the group of girls, the more attractive they seem — as a group. This is because your mind tacks together all of the attractive qualities of these women in your sense field. But upon closer investigation, one realizes that no single individual is particularly attractive. (Sorry if that sounded sexist. I’m still a schoolboy at heart, I guess, hahaha!)

The same example can be used with almost anything. Individuality is more like a unique series of flaws. We see other people in life and society and we think they are happy or productive or functional or healthy, but upon deeper investigation it is revealed that they are all equally “damaged”.

Isn’t that so wickedly strange? Our imperfections are our definitions? I mean, sure we all have our virtues too but virtues seem to evade definition. Perfection doesn’t exist. Or it does, but its existence is non-existence. Or something.

So, when people are forced into having identities, it’s functioning to point out the imperfections of the individual. Individuality is imperfection, and imperfection is easy to criticize. Having internet identification, or mandatory voting cards, or whatever else: these are methods to control people. Isolating them from the fluidity required to have energy.

Simply shine a light on a single person and point out their flaws and the rest will eat him alive. The fundamental methodology of politics and media.

Got no time for a real post today/tonight/whenever-I-am. So, instead I thought I’d just do one of those lazy things blog people do where they post quotes from other people who are better writers. But I’m doing it with someone really obscure: William Blake! I bet you don’t know who he is!

You’ll be able to impress all the ladies (or gentlemen too, I guess, but most guys are animals with strong desires, weak wills, and no ability to gauge character so it doesn’t matter what you say to them at social gatherings, ahaha!) with these quotes!

From The Marriage of Heaven and Hell…

Quote #1: Voice of the Devil (Plate 4)

All Bibles or sacred codes, have been the causes of the following Errors.

1. That Man has two real existing principles Viz: a Body & a Soul.
2. That Energy, call’d Evil, is alone from the Body, & that Reason, call’d Good, is alone from the Soul.
3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies.

But the following Contraries to these are True.

1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that call’d Body is a portion of Soul discern’d by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.
2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.
3. Energy is Eternal Delight.

Quote #2: A Memorable Fancy (6 & 7) — this way this one opens is just too good! Too good I say!

As I was walking among the fires of hell, delighted with the enjoyments of Genius; which to Angels look like torment and insanity, I collected some of their Proverbs; thinking that as the sayings used in a nation, mark its character, so the Proverbs of Hell, shew the nature in Infernal wisdom better than any description of buildings or garments,

When I came home: on the abyss of the five senses, where a flat sided steep frowns over the present world, I saw a mighty Devil folded in black clouds, hovering on the sides of the rock, with corroding fires he wrote the following sentence now percieved by the minds of men, & read by them on earth.

How do you know but ev’ry Bird that cuts the airy way,
Is an immense world of delight, clos’d by your senses five?

Quote #3: A Memorable Fancy (12 & 13)

The Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me, and I asked them how they dared so roundly to assert, that God spoke to them; and whether they did not think at the time, that they would be misunderstood, & so be the cause of imposition.

Isaiah answer’d, I saw no God, nor heard any, in a finite organical perception; but my senses discover’d the infinite in every thing, and as I was then perswaded, & remain confirm’d; that the voice of honest indignation is the voice of God, I cared not for consequences but wrote.

Then I asked: does a firm perswasion that a thing is so, make it so?

He replied, All poets know that it does, & in ages of imagination this firm perswasion removed mountains; but many are not capable of a firm perswasion of any thing.

That’s enough for now. Go get a copy or find it online, kids. Incidentally, you should look up Swedenborg before/after reading this. He was a Swedish theologian mystic (like Blake but minus the crazy wisdom) who was the subject of much of Blake’s criticisms during this work.

What’s all this business about truth? How is truth even an idea? I mean, we have no conception of truth and yet it’s this constantly invasive succubus of the human experience. The apple of our collective eye: objective reality! And then even when it’s experienced, it can’t be communicated without a subjective explanation or presentation (to say nothing of the subjective impressions others would take from it). Pretty weird.

From what I’ve gandered, truth is tied up in belief. Like, truth can’t exist without some sort of substantial belief in its existence. So, truth is some kind of essence, some kind of boiled-down objective definition of things; it’s a definition humanity is obsessed with. This is why everyone humps the leg of science so much, (although actually math is the real objective deal) because we seek to find some sort of objective experience to agree upon.

Of course, science only creates an objectively agreed upon set of measurements, whereas we can never actually agree upon the nature of our experiences. Science isn’t going to tell us which composer is the best, or which person is the most compassionate or evil, or why we exist. Science can’t tell us what love is, where it comes from or how to cure love-sickness. And aren’t those the kinds of things we really really want to know?! Boo, science! Boo-urns!

So truth is an illusion. Unless… our illusions are holding us back from perceiving truth?! What’s funny to me is that none of this is worth writing about and contemplating, unless you’re getting a humorous kick out of it. Seriously, who are we kidding? We’re not getting anywhere close to truth in this post. If anything, we’re getting more confused. Especially with this guy on board.

Basically, you make your own truth. You make your own reality, The Secret, Oprah, blah blah blah. Eh… no, but seriously — you create the effluents of your mind and your abilities. Problem is, most people don’t know that and when they get a glimpse of it or see it prematurely, they just want stupid shallow junk out of it (hence Oprah’s promotional stance). Magic powers are actually for poor people (only ascetics have them, lolz!!!). You could also say they’re for people who possess a filthy rich imagination.

If ya believe in something strongly enough it can become true, right? The problem is people have weak belief. They believe in something desperately. They really want to believe they’ll go to heaven, they want to put their blind faith in someone else. Of course, at the same time if you believe in something long enough it colors everything that surrounds you. So…no matter how stupid and miserable your beliefs, they can still adapt to and manifest within your surroundings by virtue of the limited (or is that unlimited?) perception of your mind. Which makes you wonder why any religion is any better than another, since the individual is just placing the whole damn universe within the context of a limited religious view and then coloring the universe with that filter.

I can hear you now: “Oh Wizard Smoke, your observations are so quaint and obvious.”

Well then here’s a question, smarty-pants: after you realize that everything is just a matter of your own belief — that all actions and abilities are simply self-lulled states of hypnotic belief which are manifestations of cosmic potential — can you still believe in things? Or does that leave one completely empty? I mean, can you follow through with something without thinking there’s some fantastic goal or ending waiting for you after the task is done? Or is that the magical moment of hishiryo, where the notion of beginning and ending all drop away?

Buddha nature is a term thrown around a lot, particularly by Zen people and new-agers. But what does it refer to? Buddha nature is supposed to be the inherently primordial, stainless substance that all things have as their original being. Even the worst people and things, the ugliest humans or fungus, are originally stainless and pure of mind. Or something like that.

This builds up to the concept that Ch’an and Zen people throw around (I don’t recall where it originates from) that “you’re already enlightened, you just don’t realize it yet!” which sounds a lot more like new-age blabber than a useful tool for waking up. Realizing buddha-nature means you realize the primordial root of all things. You understand with your entire body and mind (really your mind, since your body is a portion of your mind) that all beings are built upon a base of a primordial crystalline essence.

See, when we say some crap like “even Hitler has Buddha-nature” it doesn’t mean that secretly Hitler was a nice guy and just didn’t know it. It means that Hitler’s causal chain of existence, the potential of his form and being, was superimposed on top of the primordial empty and stainless essence of all phenomena. He could only exist as a result of, and in contrast to, this source. Even nasty or confusing or complicated people are ultimately just complex and knotted manifestations of the fundamental source. When a person can unravel the entanglements that create these manifestations and see it for what it is, they take major steps toward enlightenment or full realization.

The extreme manifestation of this is a demon. A demon is a large manifestation in the mindstream, in the fabric of pure essence that refuses to acknowledge the fundamental source and return to it. A demon creates a stasis, like an iceberg, in the fabric of the mind. A demon is the ultimate manifestation of personal will, desire and potentiality. The reason a demon requires such fervent desire, is because the fabric of existence is always switching between dualities; the gravity of karma is always pulling us apart. But a demon desires to maintain a consistent existence within an extreme duality. Thus it requires immense desire and self-belief, self-love and a horrific threshold for pain.

In classical Greek numerology, 9 is the number furthest from the source of phenomena (the source is represented by 0). 9 is the strongest manifestation in the world of forms and identity. 9 appears in religious connotations as well, for related reasons. 9 symbolizes potent worldly presence and perhaps infinite exponential potential (since 9 is the result of adding together the digits of any multiplied product of 9). So, 9 symbolizes the ultimate in desire and belief.

I don’t know what the popular consensus on the meaning of the term “Buddha nature” is, and I’d wager that my own explanation would make some of the more fundamentalist, dogmatic Buddhists say that I’m going to hell or some such nonsense. But I rarely see this stuff explained very thoroughly. A buddha is the eye of the cosmic mind, the unclouded understanding of all things. A demon is the “hand” or active spring of energy and desire.

Ah, who am I fooling? This post doesn’t get at these ideas nearly as well as Blake did (unsurprisingly) all those years ago:

I heard an Angel Singing

When the day was springing:

“Mercy, pity, and peace,

Are the world’s release.”

So he sang all day

Over the new-mown hay,

Till the sun went down,

And the haycocks looked brown.

I heard a devil curse

Over the heath and the furse:

“Mercy vould be no more

If there were nobody poor,

And pity no more could be

If all were happy as ye:

And mutual fear brings peace,

Misery’s increase

Are mercy, pity, and peace.”

At his curse the sun went down,

And the heavens gave a frown.

–William Blake, The Two Songs

Religious ordinations often contain precepts and vows. What is the significance of a vow? When one makes a vow or resolute promise — when one decides to live by a code — the results or effects of that code immediately project themselves throughout society and the world. Even without devoting a conscious effort to vows, they influence one’s mind and actions. So, if one promises to abstain from killing absolutely anything in the world, the world rests a little easier, being absent of one more potential killer.

What’s so bad about breaking vows, is that they render the initial vow to be meaningless. Vows are only powerful as long as they are kept, but they gain potency and strength as the duration of their vow is increasingly fulfilled. In breaking a vow, the falling rhythm of karma and causality begins to turn and further vows of the same sort are less sincere or powerful as a result. And on a more mundane level, this explains people who repeatedly take up a practice and quit, or are constantly trying new things but stick with none of them. These are all weak vows which dilapidate with their inconsistency.

It’s strange how, in the beginning of a person’s desire for wisdom or knowledge or whatever, they look all over the place for it. They throw themselves into all sorts of esoteric crap and profound philosophies and practices in order to discover some kind of truth. But then, after all avenues have been exhausted, one does what comes naturally to their person. On a more mundane level, this is how many politicians begin careers: the ambition and enthusiasm to change the corruption inherent to systems of law. And of course they all end up following the path of least resistance.

Okay, so maybe it’s a little different than the ambitions of a politician. But… looking for enlightenment in the wrong place can end up the same way, except one ends up completely at the bottom of desire and chaos. The eye of the tempest! Kinda weird how those who seek to maintain positions of order end up maintaining chaos. That’s what they’re protecting you against in religions when they say you must kill yourself (metaphorically, of course).

What to do…