I strive for thoughts to come to my head
All fails me, but the boredom I bear
Insignificant pleasures take up my time
And when I finally get down to some work, the clock strikes nine.
Another movie to watch, another episode of Friends
If not these, my mind's got it's own Garden of Eden.
I keep contemplating I'll think about thinking
But when the thought comes, so does the sinking.
I try to stay afloat, but alas, doesn't really happen
So much for attaining some inspiration.
As if lazing around was not tough enough
He laughed and said "Lets make this a lil' more rough!"
My temperature rose, my body grew weak
I longed to be healthy, I wanted relief
Neither happened... but something did change,
What used to be familiar territory is now all strange.
My thoughts now surf my bloodstream's wave
This giant whirlpool it becomes, which I really don't crave
Like an avalanche it piles and gets bigger and bigger
I don't realize yet what it'll finally trigger!
Saturday, December 5
Wednesday, March 18
Extracts that changed me...
The problem of living is that we misconceive the nature of our relationship with the world and with each other. We assume that we are free separate agents but we act, or more usually react, as if we are the products of a conditioned and deterministic universe. For those looking for freedom from physical and mental anguish, life more often than not is experienced as a battle to relieve anxiety and achieve better ends. It is an ongoing search for a Method or Path that will provide us with the tools to free ourselves from suffering and pain.
What most of us find, however, is that this battle is never finally won. We may receive temporary help or relief but the problems return, sometimes the same ones, often in different guises. Why does this happen? What are we doing wrong?
The starting point, and the point of completion is to recognize that there is no linear Path to freedom. There are no esoteric rules or steps, no new psychological or spiritual discoveries that provide the 'key' to release. Basic Goodness spiritual therapy is not a new method of helping people with emotional problems or with unanswered spiritual questions. Rather, it is a means of pointing to 'what is', of helping people awaken to the understanding that by participating in the battle of change, and immersing ourselves in a continuous search of the Answer, we are only reinforcing our flawed view of the world.
This world-view is based upon the notion of a separate, independent self and the expectation that the Answer to our problems lies elsewhere. We think it can be found in books that show us the five steps to emotional freedom, or in the words of the caring therapist or the pharmaceutical talents of the medical doctor. Or we think we can see it in the secret revelations of a spiritual teacher or guru, in the saving graces of organized religion, the next empowerment of a realized Tibetan lama or the healing energy of a Reiki Master.
Of course, all of these methods have their place as well as their successes but they can never, on their own, lead to true freedom from suffering. They are fingers pointing to the moon, rather than the moon itself. Real freedom lies beyond method, beyond the duality of good and evil, love and hate, male and female, or right and wrong. Real freedom is not found in the 'other'; it is rather in the One, in the same Presence that is within all of us. The only way to find lasting relief is to look within and let your basic goodness, your true perfection, unfold of its own volition.
The practice of Basic Goodness spiritual therapy aims to help people re-discover this innate capacity to live fully and mindfully, to be completely awake and able to deal skilfully with whatever comes up in life. Experiencing your basic goodness is to know that, despite feelings of anxiety, fear, anger or even hopelessness, you do not need to reject these emotions or feel guilty about them. These reactions, however strong, are manifestations of the energy of basic goodness. The problem lies in the feelings, emotions and habits we have attached to this energy, not the energy itself.
It is important to recognize that this way of looking at the world is not an attempt to tell you where you are going wrong and then get you to change yourself into someone 'better'. Rather, uncover and embrace the most important truth about oneselfs: that underneath, the feelings of uncertainty, suffering, ugliness or loneliness is the clear light of basic goodness. It is the energy of a gentle and open person who is capable of living a meaningful life, a life of true happiness.
We live our lives constantly defined by problems, by a false view of ourselves. They become what we are, e.g. "I suffer from depression and I have been depressed since childhood due to various horrible things that happened" or "I cannot ever have a relationship because I was raped when I was young". This identification is true of everyone. It is not confined to those who suffer emotional trauma or who are diagnosed as being mentally ill. We ALL have the same problem. We are all reading the books, seeing the psychiatrist, running away, working too hard or not at all, falling in and out of love or becoming alcoholics, because we are not able to see what we really are underneath the conditioned and flawed self we have created. Unfortunately, by battling, talking, fighting, chanting, meditating or studying in order to change ourselves, we are not really solving anything – just providing support for the perception that we are depressed, insane, lonely or sad.
The reason you should stay with the pain is– not necessarily to meditate, but just to sit quietly and not to run away physically or mentally by thinking better thoughts or closing off your mind and body from the pain – was because this is the way of release. Through calm abiding, by fully opening to your pain, you will soon feel a calm Presence unfold inside you. You will get a glimpse, a taste, an experience of what I am telling you, and the depression will fall away as your true perfection comes to the fore. But you have to be brave and let go. You have to recognize that there are no other material aids or people that can really 'fix' you. They may help you temporarily and provide advice or even some comfort from the fact that so many people are willing to listen to your story and seem to care about you, but ultimately you are on your own. Not alone to the extent that you are separate from everyone else (which you are not), or that no one cares about you, but rather that it is your consciousness that must be transformed and no one else can do this for you. It is really a matter of seeing things as they are, rather than changing anything. Only your own recognition of your Divine Perfection can do that. I do believe that this can unfold for you and that one day you will be able to look back and smile when you notice how you have been transformed out of these dark times to a feeling that the past never happened."
I am convinced that when we completely surrender and stay with our feelings and truly experience our helplessness, and the shock of no reference points, that is where our release lies. That is the point where all the attachments, the plans, the ego-driven expectations are seen to be of no real help to us. When this happens, we experience a gap in the pain, a fleeting glimpse of the true unattached perfection that underlies our worldly existence.
What I am again trying to show is that you have to embrace the negative, and stay with it, if you are to move beyond the constant and unwinnable battle of fighting against evil and pain in an attempt to replace them with your notions of goodness and happiness. The significant and even overpowering energy from the apparently negative event that happened here can be used to gain release from suffering if we allow it to be transmuted back into the energy of compassion, which is a manifestation of our basic goodness.
From the perspective of Basic Goodness, real freedom is the ability to face things as they are, and to give up our ego-inspired fight to get something we imagine is better. By our willingness to visit this dark place, this razor's edge, we discover our basic goodness, which is the light that has always been present, but which has remained obscured until now. Basic goodness is true love. It is unattached, expansive, daring and vulnerable. It is the ability to be open to life as it is. It is a willingness to share our heart, expose its tenderness, and to love more fully and unconditionally. It is the experience of knowing that when we are truly in love, we give up hope of getting something in return.
These are extracts from an article by Richard Morrissey. Click here for the entire article.
What most of us find, however, is that this battle is never finally won. We may receive temporary help or relief but the problems return, sometimes the same ones, often in different guises. Why does this happen? What are we doing wrong?
The starting point, and the point of completion is to recognize that there is no linear Path to freedom. There are no esoteric rules or steps, no new psychological or spiritual discoveries that provide the 'key' to release. Basic Goodness spiritual therapy is not a new method of helping people with emotional problems or with unanswered spiritual questions. Rather, it is a means of pointing to 'what is', of helping people awaken to the understanding that by participating in the battle of change, and immersing ourselves in a continuous search of the Answer, we are only reinforcing our flawed view of the world.
This world-view is based upon the notion of a separate, independent self and the expectation that the Answer to our problems lies elsewhere. We think it can be found in books that show us the five steps to emotional freedom, or in the words of the caring therapist or the pharmaceutical talents of the medical doctor. Or we think we can see it in the secret revelations of a spiritual teacher or guru, in the saving graces of organized religion, the next empowerment of a realized Tibetan lama or the healing energy of a Reiki Master.
Of course, all of these methods have their place as well as their successes but they can never, on their own, lead to true freedom from suffering. They are fingers pointing to the moon, rather than the moon itself. Real freedom lies beyond method, beyond the duality of good and evil, love and hate, male and female, or right and wrong. Real freedom is not found in the 'other'; it is rather in the One, in the same Presence that is within all of us. The only way to find lasting relief is to look within and let your basic goodness, your true perfection, unfold of its own volition.
The practice of Basic Goodness spiritual therapy aims to help people re-discover this innate capacity to live fully and mindfully, to be completely awake and able to deal skilfully with whatever comes up in life. Experiencing your basic goodness is to know that, despite feelings of anxiety, fear, anger or even hopelessness, you do not need to reject these emotions or feel guilty about them. These reactions, however strong, are manifestations of the energy of basic goodness. The problem lies in the feelings, emotions and habits we have attached to this energy, not the energy itself.
It is important to recognize that this way of looking at the world is not an attempt to tell you where you are going wrong and then get you to change yourself into someone 'better'. Rather, uncover and embrace the most important truth about oneselfs: that underneath, the feelings of uncertainty, suffering, ugliness or loneliness is the clear light of basic goodness. It is the energy of a gentle and open person who is capable of living a meaningful life, a life of true happiness.
We live our lives constantly defined by problems, by a false view of ourselves. They become what we are, e.g. "I suffer from depression and I have been depressed since childhood due to various horrible things that happened" or "I cannot ever have a relationship because I was raped when I was young". This identification is true of everyone. It is not confined to those who suffer emotional trauma or who are diagnosed as being mentally ill. We ALL have the same problem. We are all reading the books, seeing the psychiatrist, running away, working too hard or not at all, falling in and out of love or becoming alcoholics, because we are not able to see what we really are underneath the conditioned and flawed self we have created. Unfortunately, by battling, talking, fighting, chanting, meditating or studying in order to change ourselves, we are not really solving anything – just providing support for the perception that we are depressed, insane, lonely or sad.
The reason you should stay with the pain is– not necessarily to meditate, but just to sit quietly and not to run away physically or mentally by thinking better thoughts or closing off your mind and body from the pain – was because this is the way of release. Through calm abiding, by fully opening to your pain, you will soon feel a calm Presence unfold inside you. You will get a glimpse, a taste, an experience of what I am telling you, and the depression will fall away as your true perfection comes to the fore. But you have to be brave and let go. You have to recognize that there are no other material aids or people that can really 'fix' you. They may help you temporarily and provide advice or even some comfort from the fact that so many people are willing to listen to your story and seem to care about you, but ultimately you are on your own. Not alone to the extent that you are separate from everyone else (which you are not), or that no one cares about you, but rather that it is your consciousness that must be transformed and no one else can do this for you. It is really a matter of seeing things as they are, rather than changing anything. Only your own recognition of your Divine Perfection can do that. I do believe that this can unfold for you and that one day you will be able to look back and smile when you notice how you have been transformed out of these dark times to a feeling that the past never happened."
I am convinced that when we completely surrender and stay with our feelings and truly experience our helplessness, and the shock of no reference points, that is where our release lies. That is the point where all the attachments, the plans, the ego-driven expectations are seen to be of no real help to us. When this happens, we experience a gap in the pain, a fleeting glimpse of the true unattached perfection that underlies our worldly existence.
What I am again trying to show is that you have to embrace the negative, and stay with it, if you are to move beyond the constant and unwinnable battle of fighting against evil and pain in an attempt to replace them with your notions of goodness and happiness. The significant and even overpowering energy from the apparently negative event that happened here can be used to gain release from suffering if we allow it to be transmuted back into the energy of compassion, which is a manifestation of our basic goodness.
From the perspective of Basic Goodness, real freedom is the ability to face things as they are, and to give up our ego-inspired fight to get something we imagine is better. By our willingness to visit this dark place, this razor's edge, we discover our basic goodness, which is the light that has always been present, but which has remained obscured until now. Basic goodness is true love. It is unattached, expansive, daring and vulnerable. It is the ability to be open to life as it is. It is a willingness to share our heart, expose its tenderness, and to love more fully and unconditionally. It is the experience of knowing that when we are truly in love, we give up hope of getting something in return.
These are extracts from an article by Richard Morrissey. Click here for the entire article.
Monday, February 2
Vincent Van Gogh
Starry starry night
Paint your palette blue and grey
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the
darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills
Sketch the trees and the daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
in colors on the snowy linen land.
And now I understand what you tried to say to me
and how you suffered for your sanity
and how you tried to set them free.
They would not listen; they did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now.
Starry starry night
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds in violet haze reflect in
Vincent's eyes of China blue.
Colors changing hue
Morning fields of amber grain
Weathered faces lined in pain
are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand.
And now I understand, what you tried to say to me
and how you suffered for your sanity
and how you tried to set them free.
They would not listen; they did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now.
For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left in sight
on that starry starry night.
You took your life
as lovers often do;
But I could have told you Vincent
this world was never meant for one
as beautiful as you.
Starry starry night
Portraits hung in empty halls
Frameless heads on nameless walls
with eyes that watch the world and can't forget.
Like the stranger that you've met
The ragged men in ragged clothes
The silver thorn of bloody rose
lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow.
And now I think I know what you tried to say to me
and how you suffered for your sanity
and how you tried to set them free.
They would not listen,
they're not list'ning still
Perhaps they never will.
-Don McLean
Pachka Sigaret
Translated:
But if there was a pack of cigarettes in my pocket
It's not so bad at present
And a ticket on a plane with a silvery wing
that flies up and left to earth only shadow
And nobody wants be guilty without wine
And nobody wants rake up the fire
And without music death isn't beauty
And without music don't want to die out
But if there was a pack of cigarettes in my pocket
It's not so bad at present
And a ticket on a plane with a silvery wing
that flies up and left to earth only shadow
Ahh.. I'm a fan! :)
Tuesday, January 27
Boast Of Quietness
Writing of light assault the darkness,
More prodigious than meteors.
The tall unknowable city takes over the countryside.
Sure of my life and my death, I observe the ambitious and would like to understand them
Their day is greedy as a lariat in the air
Their night is a rest from the rage within steel, quick to attack.
They speak of humanity;
My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of the same poverty.
They speak of homeland;
My homeland is the rhythm of a guitar, a few portraits an old sword,
the willow grove's visible prayer as evening falls.
Time is living me.
More silent than my shadow, I pass through the loftily covetous multitude.
They are indispensable, singular, worthy of tomorrow.
My name is someone and anyone.
I walk slowly; like one who comes from so far away he doesn't expect to arrive.
More prodigious than meteors.
The tall unknowable city takes over the countryside.
Sure of my life and my death, I observe the ambitious and would like to understand them
Their day is greedy as a lariat in the air
Their night is a rest from the rage within steel, quick to attack.
They speak of humanity;
My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of the same poverty.
They speak of homeland;
My homeland is the rhythm of a guitar, a few portraits an old sword,
the willow grove's visible prayer as evening falls.
Time is living me.
More silent than my shadow, I pass through the loftily covetous multitude.
They are indispensable, singular, worthy of tomorrow.
My name is someone and anyone.
I walk slowly; like one who comes from so far away he doesn't expect to arrive.
- Jorge Luis Borges.
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