underworld?

In Here

Coming soon...

'OM' s for the pour-PRASNA UPANISHAD

'The three sounds not in union lead again to life that dies; but the wise who merge them into a harmony of union outer, inner, and middle actions becomes steady: he trembles no more'

What are the actions of AUM?
the first action - or outer -Ah
the second - or inner -Uh
the last - or middle -M


Now we may consider that there is pervading the whole universe a single homogeneous resonance, sound, or tone, which acts, so to speak, as the awakener, or vivifying power, stirring all the molecules into action. This is what is represented in all languages by the vowel a, which takes precedence of all others. This is the word, the verbum, the Logos of St. John of the Christians, who says: "In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the word was God." This is creation, for without this resonance or motion among the quiescent particles, there would be no visible universe. That is to say, upon sound, or as the Aryans called it, Nada Brahma (divine resonance), depends the evolution of the visible from the invisible.
[source-http://lucifer7.katinkahesselink.net/i/2006/7.html]

Self

Be seated, thou, unfettered, free,
The heart's attention poised as third of three.
Now still the mind, nor claim the unceasing flow;
He holds the boundless heaven in fee
Who learns the uttermost command - Let go.
Now seal with cold resolve the doors of sense.
Be still, my son, and seek thine Immanence.

I am not body. I am never ill,
Nor restless, weary, fretful, nor in pain.
I am not hot emotion, nor the will
Which forfeits progress in the name of gain.
I am not thought, the process of the mind
On caging partial truth intent,
Unknowing, for its eyes are blind,
The wings of life beat ever unconfined.
I am not any instrument. I am.

I am the light that slays the night at dawning.
I am the love that woos its own reward.
I am the slow resolve that wakes at morning,
And sleeps at twilight on a sheathed sword.
I am the fullness in the wealth of giving.
I am the void within the orb of fame.
I am the death that dies within the living.
I am the namelessness that bears the Name.
I am the golden joy of beauty.
I am the stillness underlying sound.
I am the voice of undistinguished duty.
I am the Self in which the self is drowned.
• Christmas Humphreys (Studies in the Middle Way)

for Carlene

I'd dreamt of you the night before 'abandon hope' was posted.
[we're in our (aha!) offices located in my old elementary school of all places! Sycamore School!
though I've followed tibetan buddhism for nearly twenty years...and you've seen my walls..
Pema is/was my first teacher of dharma when I read 'start where you are' fifteen years ago- in a profound period of complete hope-lessness.
"I live in hopelessness."- saying this frees me from the idea that things will or should be different from this very moment. I am a hopeless romantic. I've never been to Hope Arkansas. I held the office known as the 'Sister of Hope' in the Masonic organization, Rainbow for Girls.
I hope I can make my self clear. etc...etc...
Pema asks me to experience hopelessness, and the engendering of the great heart opening bodhi-chitta that arrives when all is lost. Think: moment of 'assassination'? And really death is beyond hope. We hope we won't die and all that we love will remain alive. We hope the tulip bulbs aren't buried too deep in September and that they'll arrive in March or April to remind us to keep hope alive.
My sense is that it's not so much that I may or may not abandon hope, but that it is the very moment when Hope abandons me that Ani Pema seeks to point me to.
the tulips fail, the assassin succeeds --I feel the moment as deeply as I can, and one more thing- I realize that no matter how high my hopes are somewhere someone feels the complete abandonment of all hope. Yet, beside that is the other great lesson from Pema- known in Tibet as that of 'tonglen', or 'sending and receiving'- which could be stated: We are alive to bring hope. We can do this very practically only at the very moment when we take in someone else's complete hopelessness, despair, yes, their suffering. and we only can do this if we are fearlessly committed to feeling our own.
In the church I went to every Sunday with my own grandmother and Auntie Ann, Christ was reported to have said, "suffer the little children to come unto me" I used to think it meant he wanted all the children to die. ( one my first confusions regarding the will-o-God)
Now I know it means: Bring me their suffering and I will open my heart, I will give them hope.

The Sycamore trees outside the elementary school shed their broad leaves every year and I felt alone. Sad. Winter arrived.
You are a remarkably special woman -&- hope springs eternal.

-e
Sat Jan 26, 12:56:00 PM

in the background is this person I was

'zero is what I bend toward when everything I know burns to light'
- Meredith Stricker
from the text for my dance performance
'Triune', Margaret Jenkins Dance Studio San Francisco, 1981

http://www.asu.edu/pipercwcenter/how2journal/archive/print_archive/index.htm#layers

AW- made me cry

•AW- made me cry
tears rolling down my face, dripping off my chin- driving high spped can't take my eyes off the road.
"even a burning plastic plane seat is piece of earth"

• intense dream of W.
—he's dead, I'm crying and crying and crying in my sleep/dream.
Next day call W, tell him the dream-he explains- he's been in a grave on the movie-set, he let them bury him in the death scene, "dirt over my face"…

• dream
weird pusher man unfolds a white hankerchief rough hand made "pills" 3 different kinds- all psycho-tropic drugs…he offers them to me.
I'm at once repelled and intrigued.

AW then on the radio 'when the student is ready…'
how does it happen?
how does it happen raw

reading Alice Walker

when the student is ready the teacher appears-
Let me be a listening hive. Let my efforts bring some comfort, a small pebble of relief for those beings walking the long road, tired and sore and weary.
all born into an imperfect world may we seek out the chance to lift up hold on to and support this world and all her suffering beings. May we lighten the load for others by befriending our own feelings of burden with strength.

Special thanks to Alice Walker this morning for strengthening me.
Earlier-
Another friend, novelist, had left me a copy of an excerpt of advice from one writer to another: 'the reader simply wants to know the writer better…'

I'd started this (my first) blog Sudden Prairies on Monday, but in a moment of self recrimination and fear I deleted it. A blog? What for? Seems I still struggle with the notion a bit- Relaxing into concept of self expression rather than worrying is it 'self indulgent' to write to the invisible - the unknown reader? And…who cares? What will it help? One can't know - maybe one shouldn't, that isn't the point, still----

So.

This morning I was dreaming that I was driving fast up a wet dirt road in my 4-wheel drive Blazer. A large backhoe was in the middle of the narrow trail. As I sped up to and passed by, an archetypically grizzled backhoe driver cautioned me with, "Careful. Careful."
The peculiar thing was the tone of his voice, completely gentle and full of tenderness, concern, even love.

Just then, the mud road ended and became a trail of large boulders and scraggly pine trees. I drove over these with the truck for a little distance. I was near the top.
I continued on foot accompanied now by a large thick-furred, mud colored dog.

The road followed along a deep, swift creek. The dog and I cris-crossing here and there as we quickly continued our climb up the mountain-side. Now I began to notice other people, more and more 'pilgrims' also walking along the creek up the trail.
The dog and I rounded a slight rise or outcropping of granite and came into a natural ampitheater of smooth granite boulders and bowls worn into the stone. Gathered here and there others sat and talked quietly or meditated. I chose a spot before a raised alter or stupa-like structure to sit down and the big brown dog curled up behind me making a soft warm back rest. The dog seemed to dose off.

Now I realized that I'd come to listen to a dharma talk, but teacher was unknown to me and not from any Tibetan school. He was a Zen teacher.
He began the talk by example. With out words, he held a small empty box about the size and strength of a shoe box, carefully he used some colored tissue paper that seemed to just appear from nowhere to wrap the box up like a festive birthday present.
Then just as carefully, he began to fold himself up just like the tissue paper into an ever smaller and smaller oblong shape until at last he folded his own head and shoulders into the "box" of himself, and he was gone. The nature of 'emptiness' illustrated, albeit quite literally.
With deep respect for the lesson given I stood up and wandered over to the area where some 'vendors' had put out some crafts for sale. It was something like a very small scale Grateful Dead post-concert parking lot, where hippies or rather grandchildren of hippies sell burritos and t-shirts.

The items in this 'venue' though were metal bowls, kachinas, and Navajo sand-painting and luminarios. I was attracted to a small doll with black hair and eyes and brightly colored dress. When I picked her up, she made an amazing tinkling bell sound like crystal rain falling. The sound the doll made was alive, not mechanical. I turned her upside down and under the frilly white skirts of her little dress I could see what she was 'made out of'. Her body was a shiny brass wind-horse, layers of prayer flags and diamonds. I felt delighted.
I then woke up very softly and with a sense of an ancient passage of time, I could still picture the dream scene as if I were in both worlds at once. My present bedroom and high on the mountain stupa with the little doll and the big brown dog.

Alice Walker has written, as I read this morning, in Shambhala Sun, that she felt at one moment like the Buddha had reached out to her through 2500 years of existence to teach her a remedy: tonglen and lojong practice. If the Buddha can reach across 2500 years to her, then surely she has reached out a few 1000 miles and in near perfect here & now to reach me and teach me a similar remedy: 'Now' is perfect- as in she who hesitates is lost. Never hesitate to give evidence of self awareness, to be a helper, to send your signal fire into the invisible…to let others know and know you better…