Leftovers
Why wait for the Fates to decide your end by some other foul hand?
Whose hand is better suited for your own departure than your own?
* * * *
Time is a creation of the human mind.
The timeless moment is all there is.
All meaning and purpose is illusion.
Only the mind moves the clock’s hands.
Only the mind travels the calendar’s pages.
Only the mind measures all things imaginable.
Only the mind imagines its world, its universe, real.
* * * *
All religion, all spirituality, is nothing more than the drivel,
That individuals and groups incessantly drone on and on about,
To give their tawdry lives meaning and purpose where there is none.
Massive piles of hooey-balooey inanity to occupy otherwise empty minds.
* * * *
Imagination is the creator of everything.
The cosmic universe, the world,
All things sentient, all things inanimate,
All cultures, all languages, all deities, all dogmas,
All histories, all sciences, all mathematics, all music, all art,
All industries, all technologies, all measurements, all space, all time.
Every illusion, every vanity, every everything, under any and every given sun.
All nothing more than imagination.
* * * *
In the ever-evolving human paradigm,
With its thus-far ever-snowballing population,
And seemingly interminable propensity for tool-making,
There has been a steady shift from generalization to specialization,
From individuals being competent in several different fields or activities,
With a broad array of knowledge and ability on a variety of subjects, useful or not,
To one where industry and expertise are ever divvied up for efficiency’s exalted objectives.
The specialist narrows down his worldview to fulfill his work, his calling, his genius.
The generalist, the jack-of-all-trades, sails many oceans, wanders many ports,
Witnessing and appreciating the talents of those tied to one anchorage.
* * * *
Why pretend, why make-believe, why fantasize, why feign, you know,
Who-what-where-when-why-how all this is happening,
When you do not, when you cannot.
It is a mystery.
Leave it, weave it, at that.
* * * *
Every culture has a history, every culture has a narrative.
Every culture makes every conceivable-feasible effort,
To manipulate the future into its enduring likeness.
* * * *
The endpoint of the philosophical quest,
Is the realization that there is no meaning and purpose,
Other than what the moment offers, other than what the moment calls for.
It is the vain therapy of fools seeking a greater that is not.
* * * *
Never hesitate to change the way you habitually do something.
Amazing how often a different approach, a different strategy, a different tactic,
Can be for the better, or at least confirm the one in play.
* * * *
Every culture that has ever existed has had its deities and demons,
All nothing more than the fabrications of imagination,
None more or less real than any other.
* * * *
The identity you pretend is only as capable of functioning,
As the given mind-body the awareness you truly are inhabits.
* * * *
The ephemeral dream of consciousness is without tangibility,
Without meaning or purpose, without beginning or conclusion.
Any given existence is nothing more than a fiction of imagination.
* * * *
Rest easy in the forebrain, where all dreaming appears and disappears each and every moment.
The space, where from nothing, imagination weaves its reverie of space and time
In the thunder and lightning of the conditioned mind.
* * * *
What is sanity, what is insanity,
But all the standards of any given culture
Asserting this or that is or is not acceptable behavior.
Standing alone, standing sovereign, is not for the meek of spirit.
* * * *
Ethics in warfare is rooted in complete and utter absurdity.
If you are steadfastly resolved on annihilating an individual or group,
Why should-could-would it possibly matter how you do it?
Dead is dead, no matter the ways and means.
* * * *
Knowledge is perception recalling.
All futures are but empty speculation.
Speculation does not count as knowledge.
It utilizes knowledge to predict possibilities,
But can never transcend its veiled nature.
* * * *
How many women are only interested in a man’s youthful pastimes,
For as long as it takes to reign him in for their own domestic purpose?
* * * *
The drive of life to sustain itself is the only real meaning and purpose.
Without it, nothing: zero, nil, zilch, void, extinction, annihilation, oblivion.
* * * *
Each and every moment is a new beginning, a new ending.
Why believe, why imagine, you can ever hold on to anything?
* * * *
Did something happen for a reason? Or did something just happen to happen?
Fallacies are mistaken beliefs, especially ones based on unsound argument.
Piecing together things to give meaning and purpose where none exist.
Mind is good at connecting dots, but often into great absurdities;
* * * *
You are indelible awareness.
Try not to believe what you see.
Try not to believe what you hear.
Try not to believe what you taste.
Try not to believe what you smell.
Try not to believe what you feel.
And most of all …
Try not to believe what you think.
* * * *
From small tribal bands to the greatest civilizations,
What has any cultural grouping ever been,
But ideas born of vanity.
* * * *
All values, all standards, all morals, all ethics, all ideals, all principles, all tenets, all beliefs,
Are subjective, arbitrary, fallacious, sentimental, distorted, idiosyncratic,
Skewed, prejudiced, colored, slanted, biased, personal.
Meaningful only to minds conditioned, habituated to believe them.
* * * *
Existence becomes a preoccupation, an obligation, a predictable routine,
A commitment to enduring endless rounds of monotony and suffering
Between relatively brief respites of what is considered exiting or pleasurable,
To what end only death (perhaps) knows, if knowledge is at all important in oblivion.
* * * *
It is imagination that clings to all its imaginary notions,
Founded upon the sensory-mind quantum matrix.
Reality is ever-changing in its ever-same way.
* * * *
Glance over at the weary old woman sitting very alone at the thieving slot machine three stools away;
Chain-smoking cigarette after cigarette, downing as many gin and tonics as the waitress will allow.
Though she does not even begin to fathom it, she is just as much the indivisible mystery as you.
So do not get all pride-filled and judgmental believing you are special for discerning the obvious.
* * * *
Become a stranger to the mind-body that the timeless awareness you truly are inhabits.
Be as aloof toward your passing dream of consciousness as you would be to any other’s.
* * * *
Cultures across every time and geography have always added imagery and idolatry
– gratuitous, frivolous, meaningless usurpations ever born of imagination –
To their ceaseless speculations regarding this unsolvable mystery,
All of which are utterly pointless when it comes to the quest for truth.
* * * *
No, not that.
And not that, either.
And throw out that one, too.
Such is the destiny of all speculation.
* * * *
How can you be sure it was not your nature-nurture conditioning,
The patterned interplay of your genetic inheritance and other biological factors,
And the countless influences of external factors after conception,
That tacked you left, not right, or right, not left?
Free will is a dubious assumption.
* * * *
The human paradigm is an outcome of memory cells created through evolutionary happenstance,
Through natural selection in such a way as to conjure up an imaginary self,
And the rest is the make-believe we call history.
* * * *
The entire human paradigm has never been about free will.
It was ordained, predetermined, destined, fated,
Genetically sequenced from the get-go.
* * * *
Someone creates a story.
Someone else believes it true.
Someone else builds a toll booth.
* * * *
So hypnotized by our genomic patterning and cultural conditioning
That we cannot easily discern, easily transcend, anything but differences.
* * * *
Alive or dead, what does the mystery care?
Here or there, what does the mystery care?
Light or dark, what does the mystery care?
Happy or sad, what does the mystery care?
Kind or cruel, what does the mystery care?
Black or white, what does the mystery care?
Sane or insane, what does the mystery care?
Witty or obtuse, what does the mystery care?
Infinite or finite, what does the mystery care?
Creation or destruction, what does the mystery care?
Atheist or believer, what does the mystery care?
Subtle or blatant, what does the mystery care?
Wealthy or poor, what does the mystery care?
Smart or stupid, what does the mystery care?
Right or wrong, what does the mystery care?
Male or female, what does the mystery care?
Straight or gay, what does the mystery care?
Love or hate, what does the mystery care?
Good or evil, what does the mystery care?
Sage or fool, what does the mystery care?
This or that, what does the mystery care?
* * * *
Be exceedingly wary of those who believe their own propaganda.
Regarding your own self-deceptions, your own fallacies,
Do your best to keep them to a minimum.
* * * *
We are all actors upon the stage.
Most believing their parts real and true.
Some more believable than others,
But all dreams, nonetheless.
* * * *
Amazing how much pain and suffering we all put up with in this sensory-mind inspired,
Three-dimensional, touchy-feely, extremely finite, extremely illusory, ever-kaleidoscoping,
Tangibly intangible, ethereal, electromagnetic spectrum quantum matrix of a dreamtime.
* * * *
Awareness is awareness.
What is to intellectualize?
What is to mythologize?
What is to dogmatize?
What is to illuminate?
What is to symbolize?
What is to systemize?
What is to idolatrize?
What is to translate?
What is to elucidate?
What is to canonize?
What is to ritualize?
What is to worship?
What is to convert?
What is to believe?
What is to imagine?
What is to venerate?
What is to persuade?
What is to interpret?
What is to formalize?
What is to evangelize?
What is to proselytize?
What is to propagandize?
What is to institutionalize?
What is to traditionalize?
What is to anything?
* * * *
There must be a purpose … It was meant to be …
What do those stale fallacies mean anyway?
Here you are, right here, right now.
What need for it to be more than that?
Soundbites
How is it so many relatively intelligent, rational people still believe in magical thinking?
* * * *
The first and last delusion is believing you exist.
* * * *
Purpose and meaning are nothing more than concoctions of imagination.
* * * *
All the memories, all the habits, all the stuff, are the albatross of time.
* * * *
The conditioned mind cannot hear outside its monotonous drone.
* * * *
As easy as it is, the habit of thinking is not easily undone.
* * * *
So vain as to believe we are the only ones; so vain as to believe we are not the only ones.
* * * *
And why would most if not all of what you believe matters, matter to anyone but you?
* * * *
All beliefs are declarations of delusion, even the belief in nothing.
* * * *
What meaning and purpose can be attached to that which is timeless?
* * * *
All principles are subject to the whims of vanity.
* * * *
To believe one fable is to believe them all; believe none, and peace is the bargain.
* * * *
Greed sows many outcomes, many if not most not pretty.
* * * *
Regarding truth, what you want it to be, hope it to be, believe it to be, means diddly-squat.
* * * *
Trying to alter a true believer’s catechism, why bother?
* * * *
Thinking is an addictive habit to the juggernaut of imagination.
* * * *
If you must believe in something, believe in nothing.
* * * *
You are lost as long as you believe any story real, especially your own.
* * * *
The force of habit guides the everyday for all.
* * * *
Such is the fate drawn.
* * * *
Rest assured, Mother Nature does not give one iota of a hoot what you believe.
* * * *
Which is more arrogant, to realize you are that which is god, or believing you are not?
* * * *
What is anyone’s fate but the result of the character the mystery has played.
* * * *
You cannot save someone from themselves; you cannot save someone from their fate.
* * * *
You are the quantum matrix; the quantum matrix is you.
* * * *
And what great difference do you believe you have really made in this cosmic swirl?
* * * *
You are an eye of the mystery; what need to believe?
* * * *
Being in the moment requires no belief; being in the moment is not capable of belief.
* * * *
What’s you addiction?
* * * *
Meaning and purpose are the spice of imagination.
* * * *
What’s your obsession?
* * * *
Be cautious about believing you know things you cannot.
* * * *
Fate throws many curves.
* * * *
Whether a mind reared in civilization can ever let it go completely is a “Needs Research” question.
* * * *
And what do you believe you have accomplished that will matter at all to eternity?
* * * *
If you truly believed in God and Heaven, would you not be seeking to get there quickly?
* * * *
Meaning and purpose are lies; embrace the futility.
* * * *
Seems like a lot of people still believe that world exists.
* * * *
Change your nature-nurture conditioned programming? Good luck with that.
* * * *
So, this is where Manifest Destiny gets you.
* * * *
The unconditioned mind is as free as it gets.
* * * *
Fair or foul, the Fates have you in their grip.
* * * *
Same pattern, different day.
* * * *
Anybody who believes they are not crazy is crazy.
* * * *
The human condition is founded entirely on imagination.
* * * *
Yet another talking head believing their yabber really matters.
* * * *
Whatever you believe will tinge whatever you see.
* * * *
Gravity deceives you into believing you are not floating in space.
* * * *
To believe the jungle owes you anything is a first and last error.
* * * *
Behavior may be modified, but the essential underlying perceptions ever remain the same.
* * * *
How ludicrous to believe any label, any meme, even begins to encapsulate anyone.
* * * *
How free of your conditioning can you ever really be?
* * * *
No belief is real belief; no faith is real faith.
* * * *
True belief requires no belief; true faith requires no faith.
* * * *
When it comes to assumptions of free will, the Fates just laugh.
Breadcrumbs
Alas that I have been such a disillusionment to so many people
Along the long and winding road that has woven this mind’s tapestry.
Such is the destiny of those for whom their cosmos is the first and last pearl.
* * * *
An articulate destiny.
* * * *
How monotonous to be surrounded by true believers,
Followers, minions, sycophants, groupies, toadies, gofers, hangers-on,
Devotees, disciples, flatterers, adherents, supporters, admirers, enthusiasts, underlings,
Cronies, yes men, fans, acolytes, favorites, optimists, subordinates, slaves,
Fawners, bootlickers, brownnosers, and ass-kissers.
Give me a nitpicking skeptic and a grousing cynic any day.
* * * *
Spent life looking for meaning and purpose until I finally realized there is none.
That the entire human drama and the dreamtime in which it is set,
Is but an illusion, a game rigged for delusion.
Sketches of the Once Upon a Time
A few epiphanies and other hallmark moments
The First Koan
Sometime in the very way hazy long ago, cousin Debbie Hunt
had a boyfriend named Teryl, who was my intro to the Buddhist slant.
At some point, the three of us were hiking Mount Tamalpais in the Bay Area,
and I uttered some comment about how astounding San Francisco Bay must have been
before Manifest Destiny took root, and things begin their descent into the world I so decry today.
Teryl’s Zen-ish response was that it was really the same as it had always been.
It was likely my first koan; one I am still trying to crack.
The Nightmare
Dreams have never been a high priority in this existence,
But there was a recurring one that began back in the years before adolescence.
One in which I felt helplessly, hopelessly, powerlessly trapped beneath a suffocating, bean-like torrent,
Which only ended when I finally realized it was my spirit being conditioned by the world.
It may well have been the first intuition of all that has since transpired.
These Many Thoughts
These many thoughts are left for humankind’s unfolding reverie,
written by a witness, a seer, who was born in 1953 A.D.
to what duration he cannot at this writing say.
Geographically, it was called Northern California
during the agricultural-industrial-technological epoch
of the United States of America, a nation-state
in what seemed the zenith and early decline
of civilization as he elected to perceive it.
But history knows many such epochs,
so the accuracy of all predictions in time
is for future scholars to ponder and pontificate,
as they always have, and undoubtedly, always will.
The True Cathedral
To all Christians and other faithful true believers:
While you have paid out ten percent of your hard-earned treasury
to sit in hard wooden pews, listen to mind-numbing sermons, and sing tedious hymns,
pretending to love people you loathe, fearing a deity who is but an invention of irrational imagination,
idolizing a martyr long dead that you might well detest if he were to actually show up,
I have spent many a Sunday sunrise enjoying long, contemplative wanders,
breathing in and breathing out the one and only true cathedral.
The Miscalculated Wave
These many thoughts began bubbling out in 1989
After a head and neck injury invoked by a miscalculated wave
While boogie boarding with my fifth-sixth grade class in Southern Kaliforny.
It was the finale of a short teaching phase, and the entrée to an assortment of switchbacks,
In the ever-kaleiscoping wanderfest of imagination, in work and recreation and every other whatever,
That has materialized all this whimsical chitter-chatter into this quantum playground.
It has been my way to allow spontaneity to fashion this destiny.
Random Babble
All this random babble has been scribed since leaving a teaching job in Ojai in 1989.
Apologies for all the repetition, but it has been more a journal of whatever sprang into mind,
than any kind of cohesive narrative, or cohesive anything, for that or any other matter.
Basically, it all boils down to this fact: You are the indivisible, timeless mystery,
and for all practical and impractical purposes, you are on you own.
Rotsa ruck, best wishes, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
My (Not Quite) Haiku
Sugar … sugar … sugar … in every form and fancy.
A daily routine for addicts who waddle
From binge to binge.
When it comes to this Grand Mystery,
Why would anybody believe, trust, imagine, accept,
Anyone else truly knows any more than they?
I putter, therefore I think I am.
But what am I, but awareness locked in a vat of flesh and bones,
Witnessing a figment of imagination wandering an illusory matrix of space and time.
An illusory matrix, chock-full of vain dreams of becoming.
But what more can any truly be,
But the way it is, right here, right now.