Thursday 16 January 2014

my retranslation of hongzi zhengjue's death poem

11 comments:

  1. ()()!<> Each fallen petal

    and flame in the inflamed heron
    must be treasured

    like the damaged nerves !()__*__()!

    that once sustained this heart...

    that continues to pound everlastingly...

    >>O<<

    in the horizon

    without indifference!

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  2. Andrew, have you read J. Krishnamurti's Notebook?

    http://www.dasglueck.de/download/krishnamurti/Jiddu_Krishnamurti-Notebook.pdf

    It's pretty good. He seemed to have moments of epiphany while in seclusion in natural scenery, and he writes lyrically of his experience.

    Granted, I don't think his writing is as beautiful as Emily Dickinson's letters to Susan Dickinson. I'm reading Open Me Carefully, and I feel like Emily Dickinson captures the true spirit of Zen.

    If I ever open up my own spiritual center like Toni Packer, I will have people read poetry more, walk in natural scenery in seclusion, make their own artwork (whether poetry, fiction, or painting), and watch artistic films. The emphasis would be more on one's own personal understanding and expression rather than endless Zazen.

    I'm starting to feel the numbing pain in my left knee. I'm considering to sue my Zen center because my dumbass teacher would say to sit through the pain, and he would give advice on how to endure the pain. He would say "distribute the pain".

    I've also seen Brad Warner in real life. He has a kind of "stupid aura" to him: one of strict obedience and lack of creativity. You're wasting time talking to dumbasses like that. If my knee pain really gets worse, I am suing the Soto Zen Center. They're a bunch of dumbasses.

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    1. be careful of your knee, they can recover but it takes time !

      my advice on joints http://mueller_ranges.tripod.com/links/compendium/joints.html

      1000 iu a day of vitamin D3 likely would help !

      if you were successful in suing they would just collapse the organisation so there was no money ! just a waste of time !

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  4. as child, j krishnamurti used to play/roam by himself on the beaches of the adyar river and estuary, this left an eternal mark on him I think, he really only recovered that sense and feeling towards the end of his life !

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  7. Hey, Andrew, what do you think of my friend's experience?:

    "It started in California in 2012. I was driving through the night and had this intense spiritual experience with the open night sky. I have no words to express it, so just take my word for it. I had the same intense experience on the top of a mountain in the mountains near Los Gatos California. I'll try to explain. It was like I was immersed in the total obscurity and bewilderment of things, one with the sky. The moon was like a focal lens drawing me further in. It was blissful and calm, and it was like my mind flew as a bird. My first thought was that this is what ancients must have felt at the idea of the deity Nyx, the Greek deity of Night. It was very nocturnal and open and free. Let me continue.

    Then, I had the same experience back in Florida a few months later, with the night sky, night winds, and the moon. I performed a ritual to Nyx and Hekati, an ad-hoc ritual so nothing orthodox or anything like the ancient Greeks would have been doing I'm sure. It was very calming, but afterwards I felt very free and hesitant to be contriving on myself or adopt any ideas I had not really felt sincerely, like I was opened up. Continuing..

    I started a project called the Scrolls of the Night where I would go out at night every month or so and draw whatever the night was "telling" me. I then went inside and on black vellum with silver ink would draw and write with sigils whatever it seemed like to me, like the night was a muse. I have five such scrolls now. I developed a magical language to make these scrolls, as well as a number of sigils which are now very important to my daily use and practice. One of them is called "Zaa" and the other is "Uub". I won't go into them too much right now because there's more. Continuing.

    Next, I went out frequently during the night to a private little area of the small woods behind Jo and I's house in Florida. I would meditate in the night wind, silently, before rising and gazing into the night sky, feeling the wind, and generally letting my spirit soar. It is very blissful and unfettering, like meditation. I began to feel some sort of presence was looking or observing me. It inspired me to create another Scroll of Night, where I drew this huge beastly creature, like a Llamassu with an owl's wings, a great beard, a snake for a tail, and holding a censer in each hand, while flying through the clouds, the censers billowing mist and birds. I dubbed this spirit "Ur'Nimbu". I went outside with this scroll and would invoke its name into the night, more or less doing the same sorts of things I had done before with the night sky and meditation. Every time I did, the wind would pick up tremendously, sometimes till I couldn't stand. It was some pretty magical stuff. I began to gradually gain some... "understanding" of this spirit. It's a spirit of obscurity and the cryptic, but also a spirit of unfettering and boundlessness. The phrase "soaring will" comes to mind when I think of it. Like an owl that flies about in the night, totally mindless and focused and clear, but immersed in mystery. It can't arise in the Day because that is too sharp and clear and defined for it. It speaks with clouds, which are unformed and changing always, undefined, unburdened.

    It made me stop smoking any cigarettes, drinking alcohol, or smoking pot. I wasn't doing any of those things often, but I stopped entirely. I felt like my lungs were now a holy temple to this spirit of the night wind and that to fill them with toxins was to desecrate it, and that anything that dulled my senses was a fetter."

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    1. "It has taught me a lot, this spirit. Initially, in usual fashion, I tried to figure it out. What is it? What is this thing about? etc. It made me realize that by its very nature I cannot grasp it; it's nature is to be obscure, and I shouldn't be caught up in trying to box it up as a concept, as that only fetters my Will. Then I thought "should I be devout to it"? I realized no, because the greatest devotion to it is to not be devoted."

      -end of his story

      He cannot scan his artwork because it's on vellan:

      "They are on black vellum, so whenever light is shown behind them it actually inverts them and the paper looks amber brown and the ink turns black.
      It's actually a really cool effect and somewhat metaphoric, like if you put these scrolls of night up to an open flame in the dark they look kind of like they are scrolls of day."

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    2. maybe a you tube would give a good idea of the artwork ?

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