haiku 8 Aug 2018

One small, kind gesture

Can be enough to alter
The fabric of time

[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

while sitting alone

Someone who has spent the majority of his life - twenty-five years in fact - hiding from his emotions by a variety of means will of course face some difficulty when he decides to sober up and face the realities of human existence. As he delves ever more deeply into the shadowed inner realms, his dreams will likely intensify. As he puts aside the childish pursuits of purely physical pleasure, it will soon become clear to him that his duty is to take up more virtuous and worthwhile endeavors.

The temptation will be large to keep hiding, to return to the well-worn and welcoming patterns, to indulge in wantonly indulgent behavior or fleeting sexual gratification. He knows those pathways and patterns, however, and knows to where they lead, and would rather sit quietly by himself in a room, with incense burning.

Great wonders, much joy, and fathomless treasures can be found while sitting alone in a room. With incense burning.

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

a meditative method

The Buddhist meditative practice known as tonglen involves inhaling the fears and suffering of other people and then exhaling calm, happiness, lightness, and love. It can be done to family members or friends who are in the same room as well as to strangers living on the other side of the globe. There is no conclusive proof that tonglen actually does anything, just as there is no conclusive proof that other types of prayer or meditation have any kind of real-world effect. Tonglen however is in this author’s opinion more useful than worrying; with tonglen, at least, the negative condition or deplorable state which someone finds concerning is recognized and tasted of before it is bathed in the healing energies of unbridled affection; with tonglen, the bad is taken in and the good is given out, whereas worrying only focuses on the negative without concern for the beneficial. Worrying is a one-way street that deals primarily with sadness and discontentment; tonglen is a circular path that honors the existence of suffering whilst actively working to heal it using the power of loving concern. To worry is to expend mental and emotional energy on analyzing and dissecting the things one thinks should change without any attempt made to rectify those things or make them better. Few good things come from worrying, but many good things come from tonglen. For more information, please look online or visit:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwqlurCvXuM
Mahalo.

© JPR / whorphan / americanifesto / 場黑麥

logic & meditation

Certain old teachings encourage their reader to be still inside, to seek a silence in the mind. One benefit of a quiet mind is that it tells itself fewer stories than a mind consumed with labeling and categorizing what it sees and senses around it. This is important because the human often tells herself stories in situations unusual or potentially dangerous, then tends to keep living according the rules of these stories long after the spectre of harm has passed. By repeating to herself such stories, such logic parameters, she shapes her perception of the world, which in turn shapes the world around her. Into a still mind engaged in meditation frequently blossom old and unwanted logic parameters, at which point they can be tasted of and measured before being gradually broken down and replaced with logic parameters that serve to improve the life and surroundings of the person thinking them. A person who sits quietly in the dark and the depressing thoughts is a person basking in happiness, surrendered unto a core of loving indifference. Confronting long-standing and stagnant logic parameters is a tricky business, one that requires constant vigilance and true grit, but it rarely results in outright death, wherefore I shall continue.

© JPR / whorphan / americanifesto / 場黑麥

on bucking wheat

Just now, following my intuition, I took the loaf my whole-wheat bread out of the cupboard, walked it outside, and threw it onto the compost pile. There it now sits with the bagels someone had given me earlier in the week. During a brief Wiser Self meditation last night, while working on my Forrest Yoga teacher training homework, I asked Spirit what I could do to hew the Path and realize the Tao within myself. A soft, quiet, patient voice inside me responded, telling me to get serious about this New Way and stop eating refined sugars and wheat. Perhaps if I stop toxifying my innards with lumps of gas-producing and highly processed materials, I can get my psoas muscles to loosen up and my dura to unwind. Pray it be so, aho.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

on new name

Two days ago, this author sang his death song and perished during death meditation. He died as would a hero going home, as Chief Tecumseh likely urged those facing death to do. From Great Spirit, this author received new name, which he guards closely and cannot share with just any average bloke, so don't ask. Some things he lost, others he gained, including a piece of soul lost during a previous, unassisted and unguided Voyage Across the Terrible Threshold, that place where this life stops and the next begins. The old life is now behind him, and the first steps on his new journey are begun. Huzzah, mahalo, and aho.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥