Some Final Words for 2009

I just have one word for you: stop thinking.

The mind is such a precious thing to waste on one's believing it.

What you are is everything but who you think you are.


Love is the bridge from the nowhere of the Mind to the now here of the Truth.

Ultimately, the mind must surrender; otherwise, better luck next time.

It's logical that the Truth is just a paradox to Mind.


There are many techniques to stop the mind; there's nothing you can or need do to realize the Truth.

As long as you insist on thinking your way to the Truth, the Truth will never be in your way.

Everything I say, I am saying to myself.


Everything is in my mind. But my mind knows nothing. Therefore, everything is nothing. Or so my mind thinks. But my mind knows nothing...

Nature is the best teacher. But remember, we are Nature.

The mind needs to be really sharp in order to kill itself. If not (and you are truly blessed if it's not), then love yourself to death!


Stop, smile, and be aware of being. That's all she wrote.

fuhgeddaboudit!

The mind is an endless maze. The only way out is to be amazed.

On Disturbance

When the [Tantric] technique fits you, you will not fit into the world. You will become unfit. ~Osho

And if silence comes and not disurbance, know well that this is not a technique; this is just getting adjusted to the old pattern.
~Osho

...when he finds, he will be disturbed; and when he is disturbed, he will marvel, and he shall reign over the All.
~The Gospel of Thomas

Sun Smile

Shouldn't the finger be pointing at the sun?

Every living thing on earth is dying sunlight.

The paradox of material life: without water, the fire goes out.

Maybe the sun is our first physical manifestation of sat-chit-ananda.

The sun is the manifestation of being aware of awareness.

Smile and be aware that you are being.

Devi's Mountain Call

Wherever has the most sublime and natural world that I once loved with all my being gone?

This beautiful and glittering world, this voluptuous lover of mine has disappeared into unknown.

I remember ripe green days of hiking in majestic mountains now no longer mountains; now they are only mountains.

I remember frolicing in ocean views with all my granite ridge line lovers. What cairns are they now sleeping with tonight?

God I miss your balsam perfume and your sun-drenched glacial markings with those secret summer birds that sing 'I love you' all day long.

God I miss the pebble in my hiking boot and all the silence you afforded me beneath the birch tree while I loved you on that April afternoon.

I know you're there somewhere but all this mind can know is your apparent disappearance.

Oh wonderful snow dancing in the heart of space, who are you now?

I know my mourning is for something that's undying and my mind is dying for the death of its own doubt.

Oh dissolve my mind the way this snow dissolves into itself!

Coaching My Self

Listen up you Bodhisattvas! If you want to help those stuck in samsara, then you best learn the tricks of samsara. Or get off the field!

I'm sick and tired of this double-secret handshake bullsh!t. If you think you got something to say, then just f^cking say it!

Otherwise you're talking to yourself. And since you already know you're nobody, what's the purpose? Seriously. That's not rhetorical

@<...> I'm talking to you and me and anyone else who has some love in their/our heart for this dream state team.

I know these things aren't easy to say. But using worn-out language to describe the ever-now ain't gonna do. Need to be new on your feet!

There's no reason to talk if you don't wish to be understood; humming will do just as well. Hmmm.

Alright team, let's go get 'em!

Twitter is like talking to the universe in general and being answered by itself in particular. I love it! And you. _/|\_

unknown

the unknown that we fear is only the known we have created in our imagination

it is impossible to fear the actual unknown

when this is truly seen, one knows all is unknown

fear is merely identification with one's thoughts of the (false) known; courage is simply resting in the heart of the (true) unknown

Meaning

It's not that life has no meaning. It's that the concept of meaning itself has no ultimate meaning.

More to the point, meaning has no life.

A rose is a rose is a rose. ~Gertrude Stein

It's not why why why why why, it just is. ~Van Morrison

Hearts and Minds

The mind thinks; the heart believes.

Belief is the condition of the heart's enslavement to the mind's false logic.

Wisdom frees the mind's enslavement to its social conditioning; faith & devotion frees the heart to its enslavement to the mind. Two fronts!

Strangely enough, the mind can be freed through wisdom, while the heart remains enslaved to its old belief.

But the mind can never know the truth; only the heart can 'feel' it.

All roads to Truth lead thru the heart.

The mind creates the dream state, but the heart lives in it. Mind can destroy the dream state thought, but the heart may still live in it.

Liberate the heart and then see there is no liberation.

Soul of the Solstice

Beneath the growing shadow of this earth,
there is a winter solstice always rising.
Name it love. It energizes action—
in a way that sunshine lends its light to life.
We always reach towards it despite the fact
we may not know it. We may be caught within
the cold of some incredible desire
to compensate ourselves for something we think
we’ve lost. But light is always there and pure
and we are never in the need for its
return—for light is always in its light.


~Son Rivers 2009

No Mystery

The mind makes the Mystery and then spends all the time it creates trying to cover it up. But there is no mystery; only This.

In other words, mystery only exists in the mind, and will always exist in the mind.

The idea of God is the mind's way of filling in the hole of mystery. But there's no fixing that hole in the mind. Let it be.

Fall into the mystery and see you are the mystery and that there is no mystery.

Such is the Way of Emptiness.

Three Twoems in Search of Objective

Coca-cola can but a cup of root beer. Basho walking in the woods with Bilbo. The Outer Banks, an inner tube, and an awesome red guitar.

Three pots, two kachinas, and a braid of sweetgrass are sitting in a boat. A panther walks beneath a green umbrella. In the distance, frogs!

The grace of paper napkins hovers above three water lilies. Holy is the presence of an envelope. A waffle iron blesses all the keys. Quartz!

Towards Self-inquiry

Too many fingers point to neon signs pointing to the moon.

Yesterday...I was running a line through the woods. How many days have I spent thus, sighting my way in direct lines through dense woods(..)

through cat-briar..in New Jersey, through shrub oak in New England..looking at these barked stakes from far and near as if I loved them(...)

not knowing where I shall come out; my duty then and there perhaps merely to locate a straight line between two points. ~Thoreau 12/17/1856

In other words, all ye bodhisattvas, consider drawing a straight line to the moon!

It’s so simple that I cry to see such obfuscation (such a perfect word for such beclouding).

Rather than mythologize, just simplify. Rather than specialize, just clarify.

And definitely try to stay away from glorifying dream-states in some lovey-dovey manifesting kind of way.

The dark night of the soul is really not a picnic. You die. Period. End of story.

It’s a happy ending though, because you discover the real you. You’ve always felt it. And now you know it.

And I will repeat this until I find a better way of pointing to it with such clarity: stop and feel your being as it is, right here and now.

In the words of the great Upanishads, you are That.

The more you feel That, the less you’ll think this, until That is this and this is That. One!

Bob Dylan - Tombstone Blues ♫ http://blip.fm/~hytzi

"Now I wish I could write you a melody so plain / That could hold you dear lady from going insane" (...)

That could ease you and cool you and cease the pain / Of your useless and pointless knowledge ~Dylan (of course)

Self-inquiry is the only revolution.

To simplify, you are not who you think you are. You’ve been trained to think who you think you are. Stop & inquire as to what you really are

Anything other than self-inquiry is simply, inexorably, and disappointingly, conformity.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. It is what it is. But you know something is moving you. Follow it (you really have no choice).

_/|\_

Read All About It

Beneath the surface of the senses
lies a land that simply is.
But when you land within its borders
there’s not a surface overhead.

There are no borders; there is no land;
there’s not a ‘you’ to understand.
There are no words; there’s not a poem;
there’s only bliss of this—unread.


~Son Rivers 2009

On Vedanta

The thought of inadequacy stems from self-ignorance.

To eliminate self-ignorance, self-knowledge is required.

The only way to self-knowledge is through self-inquiry.

~paraphrasing Swami Dayananda

Random thought

nothing is random

A Dozen Words (Give or Take 235)

Words get in the way unless you realize words are not the way.

A rolling stone gathers no religion; never use an old word if a new word can do.

So many words for such simplicity; and here, remarkably, I offer more.

Every word should carry its definition (the condition of being distinct [clear] as well as determination of extent [limits]) in parentheses.

That last sentence should have taken hours to write (and then read), but who am I and who really has the time?

If a word is written but no one knows its meaning, is it ever really read?

For example, take these words: stop and feel your being as it is, right here and now.

That’s a dozen words that says it all in my point of view. In fact, there’s even redundancy built in, for the sake of clarity and extent.

But every word means something particular to me, and may not have that same meaning to someone else.

In fact, I may not even be completely aware of the meaning it has for me, unless I stop to feel its meaning.

Stop thoughts. And, not nihilistic. Feel with heart. Your, all. Being, pure existent blissful consciousness.

As, without reference. It, see being. Is, see being. Right, truthfully. Here, in this exact space. And, continuum. Now, in this exact moment.

That’s all he wrote.

Stop and feel your being as it is, right here and now.

It will become a magnificent feedback loop.

my tweet for now

to be aware in the presence of being is being one's bliss

retweet of the week

rt @Bhaktananda: Life recognizes and Loves its Self. What else is there to say really?

Of the Essence

actually, time is not of the essence at all

the novice looks at the clock & knows the time. the monk looks at the clock & knows the clock. the master looks at the clock & knows nothing

The Chambers Brothers - Time Has Come Today ♫ http://blip.fm/~ht76t

actually, time is without essence, without that space of love which allows all to be

time is the essence--of the dream-state

Time isn’t precious at all, b/c its an illusion. wht U perceive as precious is not time but the 1 point that is out of time: the Now. ~Tolle

"The mind exists in time, in fact the mind is time." ~Osho

A sense of anxiety results when the mind, always stuck in the past, thinks it cannot reach some moment it has created in the future.

It’s not that you have all the time in the world; it’s that there’s no such thing as time, it’s a figment of the mind.

The love you feel is an inverse ratio to the time you think.

     Time sits at the loom of mind—

     the past is the warp,

     the future the weft

     —weaving its fabric of fear.

     Love is nakedly now.





revised last line (was: love is simply naked)

The Word

What’s so wrong about peace, love, understanding, and the dream-state?

Sometimes I really find myself getting lost in my role. And later, I find I’ve won an Oscar for Best Supporting Role in a Dream-state.

I’d like to thank my five senses, my social conditioning, my mind and its amazing technicolor thoughts, and most importantly, me.

I couldn’t have done it without you either. Come on! Get up and take a bow within the auditorium that is my mind. (applause!)

Never has no one done nothing for neither.

You say the light of pure awareness, I say tomato.

You say om mani padme hung, I say olly olly oxen free!

You say dominus vobiscum, I say the domino effect.

You say hello, I say hello.

hela heba helloa!

In other words, it's not the words.

Your traditional words are useless here. They’re just so much past trying to catch up with the present. Not gonna happen.

You’ve created a nice alternative dream-state, though. And the Oscar goes to.... om gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha!

On the other hand, the power of now is so then.

"You monks! If one of you can say a word, I will not slay the cat."

in a New York minute, in a moment, on the double that’s a single, au courant, contempo, à la mode, unseasoned, avant-garde, and green, green

neti, and neti, and neti, and neti, and neti, and neti, and neti, and neti, neti, neti

love

purr

The Gibberish of Words

apple engine snowfall walking
silverfish and glycerin
within the holy helicopters
Chief Seattle synchronized
by midnight means I love you!

chocolate ostriches beneath
the mitre saws imbibing redwood
coca colas barricading
garlic bookshelves San Diego
yoga means I love you too.


~Son Rivers 2009

Some Words on the Futility of Words

All religions are absurd by nature.

What could be more preposterous than giving impermanence a permanent structure?

And leave it to the mind to create a bunch of beliefs about no-mind.

Every word that points to Truth, is ultimately a path away from Truth.

Whatever it takes, step out of the mind and head for the heart.

Even if you find yourself crying during episodes of 30 Rock! Do it!

We, in the Western world particularly, and men especially, have been usurped by the ghosts of logic and reason.

The truth is not logical, and it's certainly not reasonable. All the words you have to describe it are so much flotsam and jetsam.

Every word is a pillow.

Every sentence is a bed.

Every sutra is ultimately a noose.

All roads lead to Rome; all truth leads to love. Forget the fundamental byways and take the expressway to your heart.

The Soul Survivors – Expressway to Your Heart ♫ http://blip.fm/~hmacd

coda: you cannot find shelter from the mind in any structure created by the mind. love!

Cheap Spirits

The shadow of the earth is deepening
and here the sunless cold is turning water
into ice. One homeless man beneath
the Salt and Pepper Bridge will die despite
the seven-hundred-fifty milliliters
downed of Californian table wine.
His blood will never feel the resurrection
come this April, but the heart has never
needed such religion as its sign.



~Son Rivers 2009

Love Is All There Is

It was a Monday night
and football was America
when John was shot and gone
outside the thoughtful old Dakota.

“Limitless undying
love which shines around me like
a million suns. It calls
me on and on across the universe.

Jai guru deva om.”


~Son Rivers 2009 / John Lennon 1940-1980

Words to the Heart

I need a doorway to my heart.

I need to let the flood of being in there out.

I need to let the sea of what I am be seen by what I am.

I need to feel the tears within my oceanic being fill the desert of my eyes.

I need to know the waters of existence always have been running in the bloodstream of my own unknown without a why.

In other words, I want to cry!



~Son Rivers 2009

BoT-1: Thinking About Reality

1:1 A little common sense can go a long ways to advance a dream, but a little cosmic sense can wake you up.

1:2 Looking at life on earth from the timeframe of thirteen billion years and a universe in dimension provides manifest perspective.

1:3 Our little drama here is seen to be quite insignificant; in fact, when seen with cosmic eyes, it’s seen to be our own creation.

1:4 The only place this drama exists is within the human collective mind; it’s a figment of our shared imagination, and nothing else.

1:5 This fact is the first article of truth one must realize. The reality we think we know is exactly that: a thought. Think about it.

RT of Week

RT @Deepak_Chopra: Mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it--Nisargadatta // maybe RT of the year!

More Osho: On Direction and Rinzai's Roar

Direction is something alive, in the moment. It knows nothing of the future, it knows nothing of the past, but it throbs, it pulsates, here and now. And out of this pulsating moment, the next moment is created. Not by any decision on your part—but just because you live this moment and you live it totally, and you live this moment so wholly, out of this wholeness the next moment is born. It is going to have a direction. That direction is not given by you, it is not imposed by you, it is spontaneous.

You cannot decide direction, you can only live this moment that is available to you. By living it, direction arises. If you dance, the next moment is going to be of a deeper dance. Not that you decide, but you simply dance this moment. You have created a direction, you are not manipulating it. The next moment will be more full of dancing, and still more will be the following.

(snip)

One Zen master, Rinzai, was dying; he was on the deathbed. Somebody asked, “Master, people will ask after you are gone, what was your essential teaching? You have said many things, you have talked about many things—it will be difficult for us to condense it. Before you leave, please, you yourself condense it into a single sentence, so we will treasure it. And whenever people who have not known you desire, we can give them your essential teaching.”

Dying, Rinzai opened his eyes, gave a great Zen shout, a lion’s roar! They were all shocked! They couldn’t believe that this dying man could have so much energy. They were not expecting it. The man was unpredictable, he had always been so, but even with this unpredictable man they were not in any way expecting that dying, at the last moment, he would give such a lion’s roar. And when they were shocked- and of course, their minds stopped, they were surprised, taken aback—Rinzai said, “This is it!” closed his eyes, and died.

This is it…

This moment, this silent moment, this moment uncorrupted by thought, this silence that was surrounding this surprise, this last lion’s roar over death—this is it.

from 'Intuition: insights for a new way of living'

Waxing on a Waning

Let me first say, there was a moon in the sky. And it was just a day or two past full.

And let me further say, I saw it, brightly yellow and larger than life in that optical illusion larger than life as it rises.

And then, the fact is, the indisputable scientific fact, a cloud passed by, and covered it in darkness...almost.

For there, in the evening sky, in the early evening sky that sometimes seems even darker than darkest midnight, gleamed this:

an absolutely lovely unexplained chaotic brightness emanating from that unconditionally spotless nothing!


~Son Rivers 2009

I Saw in Consciousness an Oak Alive

Call this Consciousness an oak tree—either metaphor will do.

And say this oak tree grew ten thousand leaves—say green—not red, nor blue.


Let’s pretend these leaves—ten thousand leaves—have come to see themselves

as something other than that oak tree—so something other than themselves.


And then at autumn feel the fear they face before they start to fall—

despite the fact they’ve always been that oak—still am, still here, still tall.



~Son Rivers 2009

Osho on Shifting to the Heart

Remember, this shift has to happen: from thinking you have to go to feeling. Feeling is closer, closer to something in you that is called intuition. Thinking is the farthest point from intuition. You have been taught by others-that is tuition. Something that has not been taught to you and blooms in you, that is intuition. Nobody has taught you, no school, no university, no college; nobody has said anything about it to you, it explodes in you-that is intuition. You need not go anywhere, you only need to go inside yourself.

Feeling is closer to intuition. I don't expect the impossible, I don't say, "Just be intuitive"-that you cannot do. Just now if you can do one thing-move from thinking to feeling-it will be enough. Then from feeling to intuition is easy. But to move from thinking to intuition is difficult. They don't meet, they are polarities. Feeling is just in the middle. From feeling, thinking and intuition are at the same distance. If you go this way, you reach thinking; if you go that way, you reach intuition.

In feeling both meet and merge. Something of thinking remains in feeling, and something of intuition too.

~from Intuition; Knowing Beyond Logic