The moonlight through the window
I thought it was frost on the floor
I looked up at the moon, then lowered my head
remembering my home town
Li Bai
The path to Sichuan was hard
Harder than climbing up to heaven
Li Bai
'Regarding the land of Samarkand and the inhabitants, the Sogdians, the Tang Annals say, "Mothers give their infants sugar to eat and put paste on the palms of their hands in the hope that they grow, they talk sweetly and that precious objects will stick to their hands...'
Ten Thousand Miles Without A Cloud, by Sun Shuyun.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Thoughts - (8th November '08)
A thousand books; a thousand miles... or
read a thousand books; walk a thousand miles.
Like an equation; this Chinese saying.
I'm reading Ten Thousand Miles Without A Cloud by Sun Shuyun. Her walking in the steps of Xuanzang, the monk who is the inspiration for the tale of the Monkey King.
Rare is birth as a human-being
Hard is the life of mortals
Do not let slip this opportunity.
The Buddha
The crescent moon
hung in the void
Is all that can be seen
in this wild desert
Where the dew crystallizes
on the polished steel
Of swords and breastplates
Many a day will pass
before the men will return
Do not sigh young women
For you would have to sigh too long
unknown (a chinese poem)
From attachment springs grief
From attachment springs fear
For him who is totally free
There is no grief, and where is fear?
From the Dhammapada
read a thousand books; walk a thousand miles.
Like an equation; this Chinese saying.
I'm reading Ten Thousand Miles Without A Cloud by Sun Shuyun. Her walking in the steps of Xuanzang, the monk who is the inspiration for the tale of the Monkey King.
Rare is birth as a human-being
Hard is the life of mortals
Do not let slip this opportunity.
The Buddha
The crescent moon
hung in the void
Is all that can be seen
in this wild desert
Where the dew crystallizes
on the polished steel
Of swords and breastplates
Many a day will pass
before the men will return
Do not sigh young women
For you would have to sigh too long
unknown (a chinese poem)
From attachment springs grief
From attachment springs fear
For him who is totally free
There is no grief, and where is fear?
From the Dhammapada
Watching One's Life
Cast your dancing spell my way
I promise to go under it - Dylan
I've tried to resign myself, in the Buddhist way, to life and all that comes in this nigh on - or absolutely on - fated life. Sue Blackmore on Radio 3 gave a lecture about our lack of free will, which I obviously agree with. She said this doesn't have to result in negativity if we allow our choices to play themselves out with our Zen minds of consciousness "watching". Enjoy the beauty.
A Jesuit priest psychologist once said we normally don't burn-out from having too much on but from not allowing ourselves to love ourselves. Guilt may be the cause. Tackle this by removing present causes of that regulatory emotion and allowing self-love and healing. What was chosen in the past can't be changed.
I promise to go under it - Dylan
I've tried to resign myself, in the Buddhist way, to life and all that comes in this nigh on - or absolutely on - fated life. Sue Blackmore on Radio 3 gave a lecture about our lack of free will, which I obviously agree with. She said this doesn't have to result in negativity if we allow our choices to play themselves out with our Zen minds of consciousness "watching". Enjoy the beauty.
A Jesuit priest psychologist once said we normally don't burn-out from having too much on but from not allowing ourselves to love ourselves. Guilt may be the cause. Tackle this by removing present causes of that regulatory emotion and allowing self-love and healing. What was chosen in the past can't be changed.
hysterical naked
'The best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themsleves through negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix'
Ginsberg
In Tibet, Tibet French quotes this line, which comes from to mind when he thinks of the Tibetans living in Dharamsala, in their weak state... and even weaker when the Dalai Lama dies.
Ginsberg
In Tibet, Tibet French quotes this line, which comes from to mind when he thinks of the Tibetans living in Dharamsala, in their weak state... and even weaker when the Dalai Lama dies.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Waxing lyrical - 30th Oct '08
I want the soft skin and sweet breath of a lover.
The reason my happy moments have been in Thailand is because I've had intimacy there. It should be a given in your home country and within your own family. But sometimes I think I lost that around six years old.
Independent lifestyles - not requiring others so much - seems to lesson the value we put on others. I've pretty much surrendered to our psyche being wholly self-centred, self serving, but please don't take away those old good feelings of being valued. Even if, contrary to the moral talkings and delusions of the mind, it's a value of utility.
There I am, being self-centred about wanting to feel those sensations of being valued - that warmth and cushioning. Certain kinds of self-seeking also help the majority and if everything is Self motivated then let the motives that do this prevail.
Now it seems that I am concerned about others, which brings me back to a drunken and stoned conversation I once had with a Russian Canadian girl. I said that my moral framework of Utilitarianism is a tool for personal well-being within my Existentialism. I need to understand these things better.
On Russel Brand's BBC 2 broadcast Oliver Stone, the film director, said that a man normally forms himself in his thirties. That's something I've been feeling.
Two or three nights ago I had a dream in which my brother (Bob) and I were on a hill and then running downwards we came under gun-fire and dived for cover. There were no injuries to us during the scene which continued a little, though I don't remember the details. It seemed to be rural Cornwall with other non-specific people around. It felt like we were in an area occupied by an invading force.
Ah, give me a lover of the mind
Like Ginsberg who wanted to buy things
In the supermarket with his good looks
And send eggs to India
My good buddy who taught me to walk
And shared those days in the mountains
Eating white rice and tomatoes
Drinking white alcohol - Baijiu
We got drunk and danced on the street
I tried to make it with a mountain girl
It didn't work out with her
So we walked the short stumbling walk
Towards the Tibetan farmers house
My buddy fell off the step
Away from the ferocious tied dog
Towards the pig-pen roof... huuuph!
We made our reasons for life
With good people and views we got our highs
Don't let me dwell on the smug
In their machinery... mechanical lives
It's easy real, waywardness, nonchalent zeal
"Cheers!" to the moon and all its happy faces
Upon children playing on the sand
And rum coloured monks of alcoholic breath
The cold air, the glare, the ware and tare
It's alright, we'll get drunk with the clergy
They told me kerouac was a "Mummies boy"
I don't doubt that, I love him for it
Sitting in the porch with the dogs
Mamma's cooking in the brain
POEM
I demand that the human race
ceases multiplying its kind
and bow out
I advise it
And as punishment and reward
for making this plea I know
I'll be reborn
the last human
Everybody else dead and I'm
an old woman roaming the earth
groaning in caves
sleeping on mats
And sometimes I'll cackle, sometimes
pray, sometimes cry, eat and cook
at my little stove
in the corner
"I always knew it anyway"
I'll say
And one morning won't get up from
my mat
Jack Kerouac (1962)
The reason my happy moments have been in Thailand is because I've had intimacy there. It should be a given in your home country and within your own family. But sometimes I think I lost that around six years old.
Independent lifestyles - not requiring others so much - seems to lesson the value we put on others. I've pretty much surrendered to our psyche being wholly self-centred, self serving, but please don't take away those old good feelings of being valued. Even if, contrary to the moral talkings and delusions of the mind, it's a value of utility.
There I am, being self-centred about wanting to feel those sensations of being valued - that warmth and cushioning. Certain kinds of self-seeking also help the majority and if everything is Self motivated then let the motives that do this prevail.
Now it seems that I am concerned about others, which brings me back to a drunken and stoned conversation I once had with a Russian Canadian girl. I said that my moral framework of Utilitarianism is a tool for personal well-being within my Existentialism. I need to understand these things better.
On Russel Brand's BBC 2 broadcast Oliver Stone, the film director, said that a man normally forms himself in his thirties. That's something I've been feeling.
Two or three nights ago I had a dream in which my brother (Bob) and I were on a hill and then running downwards we came under gun-fire and dived for cover. There were no injuries to us during the scene which continued a little, though I don't remember the details. It seemed to be rural Cornwall with other non-specific people around. It felt like we were in an area occupied by an invading force.
Ah, give me a lover of the mind
Like Ginsberg who wanted to buy things
In the supermarket with his good looks
And send eggs to India
My good buddy who taught me to walk
And shared those days in the mountains
Eating white rice and tomatoes
Drinking white alcohol - Baijiu
We got drunk and danced on the street
I tried to make it with a mountain girl
It didn't work out with her
So we walked the short stumbling walk
Towards the Tibetan farmers house
My buddy fell off the step
Away from the ferocious tied dog
Towards the pig-pen roof... huuuph!
We made our reasons for life
With good people and views we got our highs
Don't let me dwell on the smug
In their machinery... mechanical lives
It's easy real, waywardness, nonchalent zeal
"Cheers!" to the moon and all its happy faces
Upon children playing on the sand
And rum coloured monks of alcoholic breath
The cold air, the glare, the ware and tare
It's alright, we'll get drunk with the clergy
They told me kerouac was a "Mummies boy"
I don't doubt that, I love him for it
Sitting in the porch with the dogs
Mamma's cooking in the brain
POEM
I demand that the human race
ceases multiplying its kind
and bow out
I advise it
And as punishment and reward
for making this plea I know
I'll be reborn
the last human
Everybody else dead and I'm
an old woman roaming the earth
groaning in caves
sleeping on mats
And sometimes I'll cackle, sometimes
pray, sometimes cry, eat and cook
at my little stove
in the corner
"I always knew it anyway"
I'll say
And one morning won't get up from
my mat
Jack Kerouac (1962)
few heroes - 26th Oct '08
Been reading Tibet, Tibet, by Patrick French. Interesting tales of his travels and the history of the nation.
Longing for the landlord's daughter
Blossoming in youthful beauty
Is like pining for peaches
Ripening on the tall peach trees
The 6th Dalai Lama
He is revered even though he refused to complete his monkhood vows and was a drinker and womaniser, amongst other things.
Tibet was under the emperor of China from 1720, though in name more than actual governance. China helped fund the restoration of the Potala in that century. The Panchen Rimpoche, in one of his incarnations went to Peking and, refusing to bow in obeisance, knelt before the ruler. Neither pleasing himself or the emperor. That was the thirteenth Panchen, I believe.
The British battled their way to Lhasa in 1904, under Colonel Younghusband, to find the embodiment of the government, the Dalai Lama, had fled. It seems they set up camp for the coming years and established good relations with the officials, Lamas and the Dalai himself.
Britain supplied Tibet with some weapons as defense against Sino aggression but never fully recognized them as a sovereign nation, instead using the region as a buffer zone against the Chinese and Russians potentially coming in through Xinjiang, Kham etc towards colonial India. The Simla treaty between the British and the Tibetans, which drew up the McMahon boarder line between India and Tibet, was not signed by China. Therefore leaving controversy to this day.
America also failed Tibet in seeming to support them and their cause, training fighters, only to forget them and this tool for stirring up strife for political gain, after 1972 when Nixon and Mao met. Support for Taiwan also diminished.
It was about politics, pragmatism... not an ethical cause. When it didn't aid British and US interests then the Tibetans were left to their own devices. That's the nature of politics and humanity in general. There are few heroes, sadly.
Longing for the landlord's daughter
Blossoming in youthful beauty
Is like pining for peaches
Ripening on the tall peach trees
The 6th Dalai Lama
He is revered even though he refused to complete his monkhood vows and was a drinker and womaniser, amongst other things.
Tibet was under the emperor of China from 1720, though in name more than actual governance. China helped fund the restoration of the Potala in that century. The Panchen Rimpoche, in one of his incarnations went to Peking and, refusing to bow in obeisance, knelt before the ruler. Neither pleasing himself or the emperor. That was the thirteenth Panchen, I believe.
The British battled their way to Lhasa in 1904, under Colonel Younghusband, to find the embodiment of the government, the Dalai Lama, had fled. It seems they set up camp for the coming years and established good relations with the officials, Lamas and the Dalai himself.
Britain supplied Tibet with some weapons as defense against Sino aggression but never fully recognized them as a sovereign nation, instead using the region as a buffer zone against the Chinese and Russians potentially coming in through Xinjiang, Kham etc towards colonial India. The Simla treaty between the British and the Tibetans, which drew up the McMahon boarder line between India and Tibet, was not signed by China. Therefore leaving controversy to this day.
America also failed Tibet in seeming to support them and their cause, training fighters, only to forget them and this tool for stirring up strife for political gain, after 1972 when Nixon and Mao met. Support for Taiwan also diminished.
It was about politics, pragmatism... not an ethical cause. When it didn't aid British and US interests then the Tibetans were left to their own devices. That's the nature of politics and humanity in general. There are few heroes, sadly.
Looking Towards a Journey - 22nd Oct '08
Happily I now have a notebook to write in that has aesthetic value. So though this one misses out on a few adventures in this land of rain and misery and stress related illness, where my back aches from working in a well paid job - "Costa will cost ya" - and I feel my low esteem...
...I ache after nature, its serenity, honesty and feel anger at petty society and its drives to some optimum opulence, the facade of integrity... if you will kill me, look in my eyes and do it!
My anger may be partly aimed at myself. I've sensed a degree of healing from self-flagellation. To lose at cards and feel, "Yeah, I deserved that!". To feel the biting wind on my Jinlun 125cc motorbike, even the soggy rain. "I will endure... not like the others!".
Hmmm, so is it punishment or a degree of status seeking in the mind? Possibly more the latter. We all need to find our status somewhere, until, perhaps, we find enlightenment in Zen buddhism. I jest a little but I do have a romantic notion of the practice. It is possible to be removed from status seeking, a view of our place in the world, but isn't that non-existence? I guess that is what Buddhism seeks.
To live in the now... 'presence of mind', 'mindfulness', is a very worthy practice. The non-existence will come to us anyway, it seems to me.
Anyhow, I hope to be positive. To glory in nature and existence and phenomena of interest in the following pages - the ideas of one sentient being.
"My brother said to me... 'If you shut your eyes to a frightening sight, you end up being frightened. If you look at everything straight on, there is nothing to be afraid of.'" - Akira Kurosawa, Something Like an Autobiography.
"White crane!
Lend me you wings,
I will not go far..." - 6th Dalai Lama, in Tibet, Tibet, by Patrick French.
...I ache after nature, its serenity, honesty and feel anger at petty society and its drives to some optimum opulence, the facade of integrity... if you will kill me, look in my eyes and do it!
My anger may be partly aimed at myself. I've sensed a degree of healing from self-flagellation. To lose at cards and feel, "Yeah, I deserved that!". To feel the biting wind on my Jinlun 125cc motorbike, even the soggy rain. "I will endure... not like the others!".
Hmmm, so is it punishment or a degree of status seeking in the mind? Possibly more the latter. We all need to find our status somewhere, until, perhaps, we find enlightenment in Zen buddhism. I jest a little but I do have a romantic notion of the practice. It is possible to be removed from status seeking, a view of our place in the world, but isn't that non-existence? I guess that is what Buddhism seeks.
To live in the now... 'presence of mind', 'mindfulness', is a very worthy practice. The non-existence will come to us anyway, it seems to me.
Anyhow, I hope to be positive. To glory in nature and existence and phenomena of interest in the following pages - the ideas of one sentient being.
"My brother said to me... 'If you shut your eyes to a frightening sight, you end up being frightened. If you look at everything straight on, there is nothing to be afraid of.'" - Akira Kurosawa, Something Like an Autobiography.
"White crane!
Lend me you wings,
I will not go far..." - 6th Dalai Lama, in Tibet, Tibet, by Patrick French.
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