"It seems the more detailed and rich the analysis,
the more impossible a true comparison becomes."

-- Thomas Kasulis, Intimacy or Integrity

"You cannot get it
by doing something about it
;
you cannot get it
by doing nothing about it.
...
Wherever you look for it,
it runs away
;
and if you try to deceive the devil
by pretending to yourself that
you are not looking for it,
you certainly
won't deceive
the Tao."

-- Alan Watts, Talking Zen

"Those who claim
to lead the masses
must resolutely refuse
to be led
by
them,
if we want to avoid
mob law
and desire ordered progress
for the country.
I believe
that mere protestation
of one's opinion
is
not only not enough,
but
in matters of vital importance,
leaders
must
act
contrary to the mass of opinion
if it does not commend itself
to their reason."

-- Gandhi, Young Indian 2.23.22

There is no benefit
to avoiding mistakes.
On the contrary,
there is
an art
to making them,
as the only real form
of honest
learning.
The discipline of it
is in
listening closely to one's heart
and reason,
one's
bodymind,
to avoid making
the wrong mistakes.

"What is the value of completeness
if the possibilities generated
during the classification process
have absolutely nothing to do
with the subject area?"

-- Klaus Glashoff, "Problems of
Transcribing Avinabhava
into Predicate Logic"

Indeed,
there is the case in which disbelief is only support for the construction of the object or substance, the ontology, disbelieved --

atheism is the validation of something divine to disbelieve.

The game of God is still played by those who deny God;

the Universal Conspiracy is potentialized (and thus given possibility and room for actuality) --

for this is the very nature of construction,

constructivism,

of nominalist becoming.

It's therefore also the very nature of disbelief, of denial.
In this scheme, of course we only continue to affirm the domain of choices

even by the choice not to choose.

But the problem with games is that we are capable, and often do, forget the rules. I have no contention with God if I have no memory of what God is,

or at least what God's about.
What you have proposed counter to this, my friend,

is the issue,

the superordinate problematic,

of power:

"But what if I kill you
[if you don't play the game]
?"

We are playing life-or-death --

literally, another game with overlaying rules to the above.
Religions,
at least those parts that contend with power --

the dominant and the oppressed,
death and fear of it --

hold the card for challenging this game,

for they are their strongest in spiritual quality

(the origin of purpose for religions)

under the weakest conditions,
at the very brink of their supposed

losing.

(Thus, it is true that you really do sometimes win when you lose.)

Of course the idea is that power belongs to the winner, and that is how the domain of what we call the spiritual

transforms the game of power:

it wins by its loss,

by its surrender to death,

by its crucifixion,

by its Forgetting of death

and thereby of the rules

of the game of power.

As such, the superordination of power over the games of choice and belief and the like, is only so by its affiliation and not by some
intrinsic significance.

But isn't belief the very source
(or at least the vehicle)
to even Religion?

Let's say this:

you must be engaged in
something,
even if in nothing

(which validates there
being something)

We call this belief, passion, whatever you like.
But let's not forget the difference between religion and Religion,

the spirit and the institution.
One only exists by the game of power;

the other can't be contained.

in a dream, there were two of me. one is the recognizable version, the philosopher and dreamer, the one i know best. the other seemed exactly that: other; the symbol of the vision, the master of silence and intensity, the christ.

both are hunted by the tyrannosaur, a constant monster-figure of my childhood. its footsteps thunder throughout every location, the sound of death approaching.

one of us fears it more than the other; in fact, the other is completely without fear. he flies over the head of the monster without a thought. the philosopher cowers and hides. he reasons the best strategies for facing it, but must still resign to a life of reaction and retreat. he must fear, for the structure of his world requires the object of his fear. the sound of footsteps is significant of his reasonable worry.

the other does not cower, he does not flee. the tyrannosaur is hardly any more significant than the trees. the only thing that keeps him from flying, from soaring away into the unknown, is his compassion for the dreamer.

"If we are to reach real peace
in this world
and if we are to carry on a real war
against war,
we shall have to begin with children;
and if they will grow up in their natural innocence,
we won't have to struggle;
we won't have to pass fruitless
idle
resolutions,
but we shall go
from love to love
and peace to peace,
until at last all the corners of the world
are covered with that peace and love
for which
consciously
or unconsciously
the whole world is hungering."

-- Gandhi (Young Indian, 11.19.1931)

The problem is not that they fail to know,
but that we fail to challenge them
with the opportunity to find out.

I heard the Voice

say this morning, as I sat

on my bike atop a bridge

overlooking this mountain-range-surrounded valley:

When you try to pinpoint the wave

you find a particle

when you try to analyze your inventory of choices

you will discover you have too few or none at all

when you attempt to comprehend

or express

some ultimate grounding

the Unmoved-mover

a universal foundation

you will find yourself unable to catch up with it

it will fall out

right under your feet.

It is the unique
behavior of humans
to
create
and posit somewhere
a reason for our actions
or our thoughts
or feelings
in order
to find
one
when
we
believe we
need it.

By lack

of a

singular

vessel;

in virtue of

the collapse and

expansion

of

influences,

of conversion;

the air does not

fill my lungs

the words fall

not from my mouth

but

supplement,

transmogrify,

the expanse.

Translation

is migration;

there

are not

as many

words for

snow

as there are

flakes

that fall in

the arctic

sky.

There comes the moment:

you are somewhere you've never been before

or maybe you've been there a hundred times before

you try something you never tried before

or maybe compared to every time you've tried it

you do something

some odd little thing

different

your feet become roots in the ground

your hand quivers

your upper body jolts

or a bizarre taste spreads

throughout the recesses of your mouth

the depth envelopes you

it takes you in and raises you

years of life in just a

moment

you can see within that glimpse

of a glitch

that

one moment

you can see

even with your eyes closed.

女子の涙には

教師の僕が

対等にならせちゃって。

please turn your speakers up for this one

Dear Friend
find me right here
find me
right now
I am
spellbound
gutted removed
without a past
thereby too
with no expla
nation
for my future.

mouths talk
tongues
speak
and
teeth nash
The lips are without
a function.
There are
no faces.

Swallow always
swallow.

And let your hands
do the talking;

one is no-
thing
with out
them.
lost.

The discrepancy between
one
and multiple
lives is one as well
between statehood and
change.
A fascination
with the universal singular
demands a heaven.
Attention to
the impermanence within
heat & movement
characterizes
borderlessness
and
metamorph
osis.
Thriving by the heat and cold
our dead remind us of
our living.

The truth doesn't change
the truth
is change.