Diaristic Notations

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Space is not a box...

Space is not a box we live in, but a material component that flexes and shifts and curves wherever there is matter. (Carlo Rovelli, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics)

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Two red chairs chained together.
Do they want to run away from the other
or hold arms?

Will this prevent theft? Or just suggest
to a thief
that either both be taken, or neither.

They didn't choose this bondage.
Chained, they can't be moved without
being in concert. If they have a fight they could be
positioned back to back.

And
in the middle of a cold night they
might pray that a storm would
sweep them together, letting one
sit warmly on the other's lap.

We don't know the story, really.
Maybe it was a jokester who
chained them together. Or maybe
the owner, fearful that they will run
off and join the circus.

I would not sit in
these chairs, feeling like I was
making this cruelty ok. Id feel
chained myself, sitting on
such a chained chair.

Others might think nothing of it,
chained to a chained chair.
They might not wonder
if the chain would snake
up and chain them too.

Monday, January 13, 2020

No Meditation

He talked today about how we go from life to meditation as if meditation is just another thing we frantically try to solve our problems. He suggested that it nor we will not solve our problems. Sickness, old age, and death aren’t solvable. With every breath, we bathe our bodies with oxygen and then exhale crud, over and over again. Going from life through the temple door with the wish to fix something is just another expression of our suffering. So now we mess up meditation just like we messed up lovemaking when we read the book on being a great lover, or we messed up art by going to art school and learning to “do it.” In the end, he suggested to hell with meditation, why don’t we just sit on the cushion in an upright and noble manner and see what happens? (My apologies for taking many liberties with his teaching.)

Sunday, January 12, 2020

Relative and Absolute

I’ve been sitting for a week, which isn’t quite true as I did a lot of work cooking and thinking. I fell asleep next to a swimming pool, and when I awoke, I looked up and realized that all these branches that appear to intersect are not actually touching. In Buddhism, we talk about the relative and the absolute. The relative is what we see from our unique perspective and conditioning, i.e. intersecting branches. The absolute is the world stripped from these delusions, i.e. non-intersecting branches. Actually “what is” is a blending of these two worlds.