Monday, April 19, 2021

Uncontainable You


Uncontainable you – liquid flowing through the stages – insubstantial you – a net of flickering lights – immaterial you – a ghost-geist mind in atomic world – particular and waving world – solar blip – saurian world – carboniferous – Permian – a busy street-hustling world where insubstantial you pass – a street-corner world where unseen you radiate – an official world where you are unregistered – a serious world – in which you laugh – a tight-ego world - through which you flutter – a hide-bound head – whose frowned brow you tickle – a solidity-clinging cult – whose fingers you uncurl – a blind cult – a dumb cult – cluttered and manacled – you flow between the houses – between the frowning scurrying citizens – electric you run – water on a blade – unobstructed you shine – light on water dancing – unheeded – unimpeded – limpid you chant – you sing in the moonlight – you lambent glow – gollow you shine – mellifluous you mellow flow – behind the lightning – behind the wind – under the sunlight – beside the waves – the foam – that fleck and froth – the glint – you dancing – buses and tramlines buzzing – human hives huzzing – punters hustling and hassling – pouring through it like light you – light pouring in through it you – like light you pour through it – pouring through you light it – golden honey warm running – amongst brick-alleys you’re darting – unknown in crowds you hum – brick-dust on your   shoulders – untamed and unfettered – leaping into the sky in a moment – unclothed in the flesh-guise of mortals – unsuspected you pour forth octaves and harmonies – crowned with the rays of the morning – aerial whispers of clouding – suffused with larks and the misty – subtle you rush to euphoria – mercury glints in your footsteps – dewdrops that fell in the morning – rising they rapidly drink you – vapours and mists for a body – nobody sees beyond their range – no one hears the rustle of you through the air – doors don’t need to open – candles to burn – hands can grab if they want to – if they think it’ll help – but hands can’t grasp the head of you nor heads get a handle on you – feet neither outrun you – wings not unfurl ya – tickets not buy ya – nor buy the rights to ya – trains can’t outrun you nor ships in water sail you – you flit – you float – you flutter and fly go passing by – you drone in the dusk of evening – and rumble in the noonday heat – circulating through the human realm unguessed – you are the most human of humans – lacking solidity you radiate your shining – between vehicles silently crossing – besides walkers silently strolling – a smile on the face of the light – personified non-persona – going amongst the pillars – walking through ways of the worldly – passing and temporarily going – racing on hands of the sun-clock – and sunshine a memory fading – a photograph left in a cabinet – tea-pot on mantle-piece and tocking of barometer clicking – you glance through these dozing scenes – the dreams of the drowsy – the myriad varieties of human states – destinies fates and free-wills – bustling the human world – buzzing the hive of life – spinning the wheel of matter – dancing the curve of light – flowing between laughing stars – violet radiance in black space expanding – not in a shoe like a foot – not in a glove like hand – a room – a location – juxtaposition – not in these – not found here – not contained or pinned – not recorded – unbeknownst to they – slipping quietly unobserved – emanating glorious heart-strength – a jewel-tower glittering skywards – like the roaring of a thousand lions you slip quietly by – like the murmur of a grasshopper you plunge below the common register of hearing – down any street – rambling through the dew on any field – cross the barbarous tarmac – in ghettos of crumbling concrete – down corridors – up flights of stairs – stairwells – flights of fancy fare thee well – spiralling up – zooming ever across – cutting over the seas – riding light like your fiery steed – unquenchable and unquestionably the essence of everything – you the glint – the spark in the light – the shimmer on the ocean – you being time – you being feel – you being sound  - mind hearing sound as one – fluttering through conceptuality – substantiality – corporeality – all isms – all time in its spool – wool of the lamb of space that fills a thousand worlds – spinner of threads of experience – spinner of spreading life – spilling over into ten thousand manifestations – everywhere and nowhere you glitter – spinning and rotating in the vastness – slipping down streets and into shops – getting on buses and into queues – pulsating sunshine your frockcoat – wind’s tireless struggle your clothing – onward you flow like time’s river – onward and everly changing – rooting out time with a river – hurling your shapes to the shadow – you flow – unseen they guess not your presence – you surge – they go about their business – you loom and shimmer – you glimmer – you pass between radiant day-scapes – a ripple in aether’s eterning – unrushed forever – appearing here there and nowhere – flitting mongst maddening throngings – pitching their rock-solid concepts – radiant you pass among them – you who have known no unknowing – pitched in reality’s rumble – sleeping we wander and stumble – lights shine and time goes back – run time and run right back – wheels roll and spin and engines clack – run time and run right back – images painted on your individual memory – past things from your condition – the light that sparkled through these – the knowing of it was in the light of you – the light of the known was upon you – hand that holds the clouds feels the wind – in scapes of city skies you ride the wind – glittering frost on the ferns – hearing the rustle you pass on into the village – flowing and moving through the country – summer – winter – travelling – aflow – running through light and dark – uncontainable you –

8.1.2017

Saturday, June 6, 2020

PRESIDENT CHIMP by Jeremy Schanche

A large ape has seized control of the world’s most powerful nation. The whole world’s gone crazy. Nothing will ever be the same again. 
PRESIDENT CHIMP might be called ‘surreal’ if it wasn’t for its indisputable realism and historical accuracy. That’s right readers, the events described in this book would challenge your beliefs about everyday reality and what can happen, if it weren’t for the fact that it’s all virtually true and in reality we actually are – at time of publication – held fast within the hairy and barely prehensile grip of a large and belligerent ape.
These facts, painful as they are, must be faced and this new satire by Jeremy Schanche faces them with relish and abandon, joyfully exposing the fetid and dysfunctional zoo that is today’s White House.

In today’s political world, fact and fiction are hard to distinguish and the events in this story are only subtly different from those accepted as historically true. Join Donald Chimp and his crazy cast of co-stars in this hilarious, razor-sharp portrait of the 45th President of the USA.
Meet Jefferson Cess, the possum-like Attorney General who hails from Alabamy.

Meet Mike Pynchpenny, the glacial Vice President whose wife makes the tastiest little old cookies this side of Pittsburgh. And don’t forget to say hi to Beth DeVo, the simpering Detroit Poodle whose enjoys sinking her claws into public education. But you’d better watch out for CIA-boss Mikey Pompey - he’ll have his stiletto in your back before you know what’s happening.
The book contains two other stories:
More of Everything is the tale of someone whose attempt to enrich his life goes horribly wrong. Someone who is forced to ask himself ‘at what point does enough become too much?’ Perhaps you’ve been there yourself? If not, now’s your chance.
Into The Thunderbolt Land follows the journey of an English soldier during the 1904 British Invasion of Tibet. Under official instructions to gather information on Tibetan culture, the Somerset Vicar’s son enters a world of meditation, yoga and a profound philosophy that seems to go to the very heart of the riddle that is life.
How did a large ape take over the world’s most powerful nation? How did international power-politics get reduced to an absurdist melodrama? Why did the people of the USA accept the presidency of a bad-tempered chimpanzee? The answer to these riddles will be found in the brand-new ebook by Jeremy Schanche - President Chimp. The author’s second book, this new collection of surrealism, satire and the spirit goes out of its way to ‘drain the swamp’ of Washington politics and reveal the uncensored reality of today’s White House under President Donald Chimp.






Jeremy Schanche is also the author of The Horned Whale or An Morvil Kornek. Published in 2016, it includes the Gothic novel The Kramvil, plus two short stories, a collection of poetry and two glossaries.
PRESIDENT CHIMP is available from various ebook sites.  Read it now - "goddam your ass!"
A MESSAGE FROM THE LEADER:
Alright now listen up you bunch of goddam liberal lady-boys! I'm only gonna say this once: If I catch any of youse reading that totally unfunny new book about me I'm gonna personally unleash the savage hogs and and deploy the deeply sinister weapons, got me? 
This so-called 'book' about me is totally fake. Written by a pathetic little attention-seeking anarchist! 
Pathetic.
And fake.
Totally.
I expect this so-called 'writer' has been forgetting to inject his bleach and the 'virus' (which is a Chinese FAKE by the way) has gotten into his brain.
Anyway. When the LIBEL starts, the BIBLE starts, so all you FAKE-NEWS media hacks and so-called 'authors' better look out cause we've got a whole heap of rubber bullets waiting for you - ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE. 
And if that doesn't work I'll hold a Bible at you! 
This book is really lame.
Pathetic.
And FAKE. Worst satire ever!
Sincerely,

@realDonaldChimp

Monday, July 29, 2019

Caterpillar Dub Dasson Blabbers On Regardless

If the glint in your mind is the myriad bubble of laughing awareness don’t stop.  If the rise in your heart is the vision of vast all-one-nothingness-consciousness then the blades of grass shall ring true and birds and fish swim rightly through the elements. When the echo of laughing days of golden summer is etched into memory’s tablets of bronze then the myth can live on and reverberate down the hills, halls and hulls of time. If all these things can be, then what other things can be? 
The Carapace fluttered and shimmered, glimpsed and glimmered brief ere erstwhile shroudy fog beclouded the mind of man and hampered the looming-up of dazzling brilliance. Slick scintilla continued to zoom, exuding forth like froth, extruding still in continuum, sliced.
Again I lurked in the phone-box, awaiting the hour.  Again the Carapaced Caterpillar made a showing and beamed his elaborate yet simple and jestful zest into the zeal-befogged and moon-struck spark of a mind as possessed by your intrepid reporter, I the undersigned. 
Consisting of Cuniform and Linear B tablets which he advised me to take regular with meals of many a cultural flavour; wax rolls; cylinder-rolls; piano-rolls; shellac 78s and vinyl 45s; casettes; 8-Track Cartiridges;  lost and supressed manuscripts by various raving lunatics, heretics and lizard-lickers; fragments of tapestry – medieval and musty; texts of rare Persian wisdom and Chinese poetry; papyri; acrylics and lyrics; myths and lyres; music, song and dance;  rolls of micro-film and other anachronistic devices from the colourful world of espionage; secret-autobiographies of previously utterly unknown mystics and sage, far-seeing prophets of the age; archives of cultural flim-flam and film of cults of flame; these and vast clouds of other things were condensed and sent, encrypted in the eclat of the eclipse of the whirling, wise antenna of The very Caterpillar his-self.
Well phenomena arise, continue and then dissolve. Other phenomena change their modes, patterns and ways of being. All is restless change and upheaval.  The Universe is still infinitely young. Consciousness is posited as a continuum; though lacking substance, its basis of existence is a former moment of consciousness.  All of which is by way of saying that The Caterpillar (and its Dub echo,) which date back to 2008, is also undergoing a fundamental change and going from monthly production to occasional production. This is mainly to allow me to concentrate on finishing the books I’ve started writing and trying to bring some of them to publication.  If you haven’t already read my novel, The Kramvil, you really should.  It’s available in my anthology – The Horned Whale – a unique book of surrealist treasures. The Kramvil started out as a serialized story in The Caterpillar in January 2011.
I still aim to publish The Caterpillar and The Caterpillar Dub from time to time, but by releasing myself from the monthly deadline I think it will be a better magazine when it does appear.  And of course with 124 issues of The Caterpillar and 124 issues of The Caterpillar Dub, that’s a back-catalogue of 248 issues to trawl through if, by rare chance, you are partial to the ghetto-collage style of the visionary tabloid that seriously questions its own existence…  Ideally, the best thing to do is start your own magazine to put out your own message into the aether around us.  Well, thanks for reading and I am sure we will meet again.
*
A gleaming bead of dew runs down The Horns of Consecration as dawn rises over Knossos. Reflected in the bead is all the culture of the ancients, all the mystery, romance and dream-idyll-reverie of ancestral echoes from the dream-days of long-gone previous millennia.  Before evaporating, the bead drips onto the drowsing brow of the bard who slumbers’ neath the Horns.  It wakes him groggily and his hand reaches out for his lyre and brown fingers bring the strings to life in soaring trancing tones.



Who are you? said The Caterpillar...

Friday, July 26, 2019

An Gath Vlewek Gortheren ha Gorwir

I lit a new lamp in my garret. The old one had burned too dim. I loved the light from the brand-new lamp that flooded the flat and showed it to shine, but that was as nothing for this same night I’ve seen the almost-full Moon through a glass and it’s a sight to stir the psyche to euphoric rapture and slide into blissful glissando white lunar reveries of infinite peace and silence, courted by bright Venus, so clean the craters and cloud’s rag-shadows racing over flicker the face of the great moon and cast a vast spell of great nature’s power and airless luminous silver mystery, also thrown upon the face of the waters in the glistening shivering merriel meniscus on the wet silver fishwaters of the shores of old Newlyn Green. Flatfish teem and eels in countless thousand myriad shoals and schools I thought, churning and churring, just below the surface, teeming, pulsing and beetling they shiver and rattle the water to glint back the moon’s borrowed glow of the Sun, who’s hiding round the other side of the drowsy night world, yawning and stretching, dreaming under the diamond myriad skies of fishwet night. All asleep and drowsy deep the sea, the light, the flickering scintilla that struck with rapture shiver and gape in sheer naked wonder at the course of the stars through the heavens and the bronze colossal archaic structure of time’s very veering as it looms from nothing to nothing, blazing meanwhile in full effulgence humandivine. Searing sideways the moon’s light slithers gelatinous yet crispy-dry, pulsating and pullulating yet uttering an ever-deathly stillness to the dark night of another transient eternity. 


Friday, July 12, 2019

Eightfold Dub

Never mind the other news - The Caterpillar Dub tells you all you need to know.....   Simply print, cut down the centre line (but not all the way!) and fold into your souvenir Alice book.... 

Eightfold Alice

Can Alice work out how to print, cut and fold the images into a coherent book? Not if The Mad Hatter can help it! And he's not the only baroque character out there trying to impede Alice in their own crazy way.

Awareness Flows Clear

Yes, that fluffiest of bunnies, that most albumenesque of pseudo-rodential, mythic trans-dimensional watch-clockers, the fabled and fantastical so-called and self-styled ‘white rabbit’ has been seen in the area – Beware!
If you are the punctual type, it’s best to keep well away from this curious little critter – he has a way of making people late.  Very late.  I’m talking of days and weeks, not minutes and hours, by the way.  It’s your call, but I’d keep away from the little sucker if I were you…
{I heard that! Quoth the White Rabbit wrathfully.} 

Flow Of Clear Awareness

I love to see the lights come on warm and golden in the evening’s misty damp grey.  These beacons of homely glow and cheer lure the weary home, like the disembodied souls of the universe flying home to roost.  This priceless golow glister that shines from a sea of earthly windows on the houses up on the hill, it speaks of the sanctity of home, of the beauty of warmth and shelter and also of the hint of adventure as your life crosses that of another. 
Lovers play in some of these lighted looming rooms whilst in others, solitary sit the solo, lost in thought and musing the universe through an eye to the sky.  Spangled light orange as barley and glowing from within, seeping and dripping from gambrelled windows and gable-pitched rooves.  Each window a splodge of golden orange paint in my oil-painting, my structure of dark blue brickwork against the city sky when I was youth incarnate. 
Casting away sorrows, the rebetis takes up an ancient lute and breaks into song.  Now let the light shine. 



P.S.  You might have noticed that The Caterpillar frequently comes out late these days.  For that, we can only blame the influence of the white rabbit.

Thursday, May 16, 2019

Spirits That Rise With The Sun In Their Eyes

From out of the mouth of the gyni came forth fables and parabels - this was good - as long as the gyni never offends the sultan he is free to babble - but if the sultan gets too pissed off the gyni will have to hide in a jar until he passes or turn him into a camel...
he doesn't mind doing this.

Friday, May 10, 2019

Rising Spirits

Walking through golden mist knee-deep and swirling thick and glutinous like luminous marmalade, through budding meadows brim with the efflorescence of ages and the mysterious hoof-prints of the miniature deer that run by night.  Over the bridge into yet another realm, this one congealed and composed of conglomerations of sensory experience, like the five skandhas or aggregates of personality as taught at Nalanda in times antique and gone to the Indian sun of past millennia.  Glittering sea-glass and muted orange-barley glow in the harvest-fields, following, following, following;  ever following the super-luminous trail of The Caterpillar as he loops across the land;  now here, now there.  Blessing the Earth, suffusing it with culture and knowledge, parchments scattered like leaves in his tracks, clattering clogs on many a foot going round many a block and skittering down alleys and country cart-tracks and byways where sun shines dappled through leaves that tremble when the breeze comes around stirring and soughing high and lonesome in late afternoon.  Reaching a wondrous isle suspended just above midstream in the dragon-fly river, it glistens in water surrounded and fish spit and gurgle there.  What nature whispers in the waters and the leaves of the trees can not be written in the tongues of man.  The nature-feeling that we write of is just an echo of the real nature-feeling.  Only a lungful of air can say it.  Only an uphill puff can inflate it.  Only the rustle of wind in the corn, the long meadow grass and wheat, only the rustle of cereal crops under dark thunderous blue and purple skies in the summer’s blasting heat can say it.  Only the splash of the surf can say it.  Mordros mutter tramor and back, wondrys, marthys and Glagolitic.  Subsisting on glossolalia is no substitute for nature’s silent roaring laugh.  If the world is old and ill then the spirits of the Earth will rise. 

Monday, April 1, 2019

The Time Of Claws

Conceptuality coming to get ya in its claws - Exoskeletal pincers pinch at calceous crunchy krogens and split them into elemental flakes - The Time of Illusions is running out -

The Claws Of Time


Osseous - brittle - carapacious - exoskeletal - keratinous - telechronological - clattering and clacking or mineralized husks - chattering teeth in secular skull with sunken eyes and the sands of time trickling - running through the jaws of fossilized throwbacks - 

Thursday, February 28, 2019

An Gath Vlewek Dasson 119 Kommolek Tewlwolow Ha Bengalji Brae

Oh Globe - oh world - what are you up to now~  What in the world are you doing you jesting scoundrel sayeth the clown upon the throne of hay - thus it spun and thus forth it crisseth-crosseth the terrestrial territory - An tir - an mor ha ebbren yw -  Tramor gwerinieth ha yn Kernow gwerinieth Lemmyn - Kai styn Elada dimokratia kai manges xorepsetai zeibekiko kai fumaro xasissi pola - and so it was and so it was and spinneth the orb towards midnight -




Hey time - hey dust - hey consciousness - trickling mercury shimmers and glistens in the sun - let the people shine - let the light blaze - let the golden mirror shimmer and burn bright the light - the light -

Cool Orb Of Lustre Cast

Visions from the Ghetto - Mystical Raptures from the Council Estate -  Inspirations encountered in the Street - Just everyday stuff that-s going down right now - as we speak - as we stream forward through time and all that interstellar jazz of exploding universes and proton-storms - The corona of the sun was bottled but when was the last time you felt the bumps on the bottle of fizz huh~ Comic-book past and cartoon heroes - laughs echoing away down the halls of eternity - Rainbow bubbles rising and the pulse of the great life-force of the universe surging through your every cell and nerve - space-dust fizzing away merrily on the teenage tongue - Sunny cycles of time in the afternoon golden glow of universal joy - every girl and every boy - wake up!  The Dream-s End Is Beginning -
What end~ What dream so real - just so real - so very very real - down by the lemonade stand the sun shines on the street-musicians - finger-cymbals - tambourines and a gypsy sings - so real it was - Cool blue orb arc the zenith -  the sparkle of the that seen dancing on the moon-water at night -






Thursday, January 31, 2019

Silvery Shineth Full Forth Slippery Fish Crystaline

As you slip and slide into slumber n ride the liminal line down to drowsy trance and the flow of rich imagery runs then you will know the realms and blissful tracks that the Caterpillar tacks and the meanings of hence where and whence he-s coming from and whitherfore whence he goeth forth hence – thoroughly spending spilled shillings and pence – thoughtfully though full-throated rough roared the guttural guitar throat of the hummingbird-shaggy-yak-thing as it spoke –
Trying to get to the other side of the city – crossing towns familiar imagined and spectral aglow – busing around the city and following symbolic streets through half-familiar thoroughfares and cobbled back-alleys muses and the tinkling guitars of the gypsies again -  Also a chalk hill also a falling leaf also a leaping trout also the falling rain also the rustling windalso the trundling of wheels also the clacking of heels also the fringes of feels also the movements of eelsalso the running of feet – city streets a-throng and the river of time never pauses –
Singing the song of the irrational flow of unconscious gossamer The Invertebrate Press has also published the unique novel “The Kramvil” which is to be found in “The Horned Whale” by Jeremy Schanche -  ISBN:  978-0-9934909-1-0    -  The book contains two other stories plus some poetry and glossaries -    The Invertebrate Press also publishes The Limpet – a monthly journal of world-events -  You can find The Caged Crusader website here -

Tasting the moment – living in visionary bliss -    dragons draw the cloud-curtain back on jade-mountain -  Breathing in and out the hermit is fulfilled -  From the heart of the yogi flows the grace-wave -  Blessing and blessing innumerable beings -  Cultivating the mind of nothing -   Walking in silence through misty bamboo-groves at dawn -  Filling the water-jar -  Pouring the silvery tea -  Painting the rain over the mountain and forest-trees swaying in the wind-s blasting and rain like rice falling -  Keeping the mind of kindness -  Friendly to all – the hermit has a quiet heart -  The heart firm in love has no room for enmity – bliss only and the light of knowing -  The mind is not made of bricks and straw nor wood and sand – this sparkling mind you cannot hold in your hand -  It-s shape and colour defy the most thorough search or analysis – In short it is a butterfly which temporary meat-hands grasp not through rough grabbings-at but only through sagacious contemplations and thus sat the sage and knew not no rage for his heart he had cleansed and the rain washed his thoughts true and few -  Oh whistling wind aloft in the sky so close carry the great grace-wave of the quiet-hearted yogis afar scattered in realms of deep tranquillity quilted in natures originality and glimpsed in sparkling contemplativeness on loving-kindliness and empty-handedness – as in space and the blue wave of time that runs and ripples through it like the spark of feeling that lights the living flesh and life-s flickering fiery candle that burneth up bright – alive – alive – alive – and quiet sat the yogi –


Or even better:

ΣΑΝ ΕΓΥΡΙΖ' ΑΠ' ΤΗΝ ΠΥΛΟ  

ΣΤΡΑΤΟΣ ΠΑΓΙΟΥΜΤΖΗΣ - 1935

Monday, January 28, 2019

Crystaline Fish Slippeth Forth Full Shine Silvery

The Caterpillar is beamed to you from beyond the carapace of eternity in the shell of the infinite sky and the everlasting moment of golden sunlight and silvery moon–merriel on the face of the ocean at night -  
No wind-s whistling wild nor string-quartet-s smile can ripple the Caterpillar-s carapace nor alter his lepidopteral pace one inch nay give him grace for he is not of this world and cometh forth from deep realms of sleep his secrets not to keep but to spill forth sharingly unto ye frothy worlde of day upon which ye sunlight doth sometimes playe – oh yea – oh yea – lack a day ye lackadaisical daisy picker and sleek city-slicker – lack ye never a day I say!  For amongst ye The Caterpillar has come to play – 





Beyond the carapace - - -

Wednesday, December 26, 2018

Into The Thunderbolt Land (Part 2)

"Whatever arises - know and recognize it to be the wisdom-play of your primordial mind -  Do not become involved in it - do not struggle against it -  simply let it play out and a clearer light still shall shine through -
Rest in this light of non-conceptual original awareness -  Whatever then happens - let it wash over or through you - it doesn-t matter - simply rest within the purity of the light -
Whatever manifestations might occur - they are simply illusions woven of light - woven of the same clear light that radiates knowing consciousness - begins nowhere -  has no end - no middle - no physical existence whatsoever and is as insubstantial as a puff of yak-s breath -
This radiant - non-physical - luminous - timeless entity of knowingness is fundamentally good through and through -  it shines powerful rays of loving-kindness into the ten directions and three times and has actually always been thus - pure - good and radiant - since any beginning you care to posit -  This formless -  glowing - knowing - loving entity has a continuity that runs through and beyond conceptual time and measurable space - since ultimately it occupies neither - being not made of physical substance nor compounded of parts or elements it is immune to the power of the world and resides in a primordial "space" of pure luminosity and knowing -  the original stronghold of the Tathaghatagharba - "

When the Red Guards first started showing up in the rural districts and terrorising and interrogating the locals Lobsang was extremely worried lest anyone found out that he had been in possession of "counter-revolutionary propaganda" as religious materials and almost all foreign forms of journalism and literature were strictly banned by the Party and people who were found in possession of such things were reputedly meeting very grisly fates at the hands of these blood-crazed and insanely zealous youths whose average age was 15 -
These young people had been trained to be utterly ruthless - indoctrinated into a cult of violence and let loose -  to torment and distress the simple peasant population who had virtually no grasp of Marxist-Leninist Social Theory and were much more interested in tending their flocks as they had always done -
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"5th September 1904 - Tong Pa Nyi Gompa - North Central Tibet -  During our crossing of the Tsangpo River one of the yak-hide coracles carrying the gear started taking in water and unfortunately one of my note-books was ruined -  Particularly frustrating as it contained the notes I-d taken at Tashi Gompa where I-d studied with the local Lama for several weeks -  He covered a great variety of topics and seemed eager to educate a foreigner like me -  That region of the country is more lush than most of Tibet - with rich forests and canyons in the foothills -  I took many atmospheric walks among the rhododendrons that climbed up into the mist-dripping heights where silver apes could sometimes be glimpsed playing among the trees -
As I recall - Lama Dorje started by stressing the famous Buddhist principle of Impermanence -  the dissolution of all compounded things - objects - personalities - even worlds -
He had a very numerical style of teaching and it is largely down to this that I can recall as much as I can - The Two Truths - (Relative and Absolute)  -  The Three Kayas (Nirmanakaya - Sambhogakaya and Dharmakaya) and the Triple Refuge (Buddha - Dharma and Sangha) -  The Four Noble Truths -  The Five Skhandhas or Aggregates - The Six Realms of Conditioned Existence or Lokas - (Devas - Asuras - Humans - Animals - Pretas - Hell-beings)  -  The Seven Line Prayer (A Tantric Hymn) -  The Ten Bhummis of the Boddhisatva Path -  The Twelve Links of the Causal Chain -
On each of these topics the Lama would give most erudite talks - using the theme as a starting-point from which to dive into an ocean of profound learning - skillfully weaving the various points together so that - even to a foreigner and a beginner like me - the whole elaborate synthesis started to gradually become clear in my mind -  I have to stress how it was not a mere intellectual or academic lecture but rather his whole being was lit with enthusiasm and wisdom as he talked and he seemed to convey meaning beyond mere words -  In fact - as he pointed out to me - in their tradition - they believe it is possible to transmit wisdom from an accomplished yogi to a suitably prepared student rather in the manner of a telegraph transmission (but without the wires!)
The Tibetans are great believers in the psychic life and take it as a given that thoughts can be passed from person to person without the encumbrance of words being necessary -
If I remember rightly he used the analogy of a light that will shine wherever it is unimpeded - Therefore when the monk or practicing yogi has removed enough "clouds of obscuring ideas" from their mind and achieved a tranquil stability through long meditation - the light of wisdom will naturally be seen as there is nothing left to obscure it -
He spoke often of compassion and how that was our inherent nature"


Dukha is a Pali word meaning suffering – as Lama Dorje informed me – not merely the ordinary suffering of everyday life but also the much deeper suffering that comes from being lost in the Samsaric state of unknowing and ignorance that is conditioned-existence -  Because beings fail to recognize their true nature – their original nature – they constantly blunder around piling up more and more wrongful actions which further obscure their minds to the continuous splendour of their own inherent Buddha-nature –
Of all the sufferings within the six realms of unenlightened existence there is no worse form of suffering than being separated from residing in your true nature – the original nature of mind -  

Since the possibility for confusion is almost infinite in scope – when one meets the Buddha-Dharma in this life it is incredibly fortunate and one should not waste such a rare opportunity to progress along the path of liberation as it may not come again for kotis of kalpas or myriad millennia –
For those of us who through great good fortune have entered the path – the constant sight of the teeming multitudes who wander adrift in the fog of confusion becomes a spontaneous and natural starting-point for the generation of universal-compassion –
Without such compassion for all other beings we could not progress a single inch along the path"


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After some hesitation Lobsang Tawa herded up his scattered ideas and realized that if he was going to replace the papers he had found some years ago he had better hurry as the Red Guards could appear at any moment -  This meant interrupting some important tasks on his little farm but he knew it must be done -  Packing a bag of tsampa (parched barley flour) - some yak-cheese and a leather drinking gourd of chang - a weak beer made from fermented barley - he awoke before dawn and headed for the mountain region where he anticipated his rendezvous with a deep-frozen Englishman - "such is life" he mused as his feet crunched the snow under the star-scattered ice-mountains -
To be walking in the Tibetan highlands with a full-moon illuminating the snow-world just before the sun rises is an experience of vast pure and primal space -  a natural capsule to nourish an understanding of the Buddha-Dharma - a place where the raw power of nature dwarfs the human sense of concepts and ideas - where pure nature rules supreme -
Glorious purple cloaks and rags of cloud dappled the immense sky as the earth rolled round to meet the sun again - His family had been in these mountains for millennia and the pastoralist felt an awakening sense of familiarity rising in his breast as he slowly ascended into the moon-like terrain of the plateau -
After a couple of hours he passed a small and ancient-looking gompa or monastery on a ridge and heard the distant chant of sacred mantras and tantric hymns - punctuated with the pounding of drums and bells - and the bizarre and darkly powerful roar and wail of the shawms large and small - sending out their message of transcendental wisdom to the pure skies and snowy peaks that loomed all around 
The seemingly cacophonous shawm and drum music of the Tibetan monasteries is said to be an attempt to imitate the sounds of the nadis during the death-process -  This primal and energetic music prepares the acolyte for the natural sounds encountered during the dissolution-process which is entered into with clear yogic awareness -
Yes - even humble herdsmen and agriculturalist nomads knew of such things in this part of the world -  Many centuries of exposure to the wisdom-culture of the Lamas and Yogis who thronged the country had allowed such ideas to permeate into the culture and scraps of mystical knowledge were common currency here -  The harsh environment had conditioned the people to a tough existence that was never far-removed from the reality of death -  This was also a great source of the compassion and understanding that permeated the philosophy of the people -
Lobsang took inspiration and murmured his own mantras for some time - clearing his mind and focusing on his aspirations as he slowly but constantly gained altitude and the sun rose to greet him in a blaze of golden glory -
After another three hours Lobsang drew close to the area of the cave -  He had prepared himself and told himself that a dead man can-t hurt anyone -  Being forewarned he was not really expecting to be particularly fearful of the corpse he was heading towards -

He vividly remembered the previous time he had seen the frozen body - curled up in a fetal position and partially buried under a drift of fine snow -  The image seemed to become clearer in his mind as he approached the cave - as if it had been suppressed all this time and was now being released -
The final couple of miles were quite hard-going - even for one as acclimatized as he was -  He stopped for a brief break and washed some tsampa down with a few mouthfuls of chang -  Sweeping his gaze around him he took in a wonderful collection of snowy peaks spread before him in all directions -  The sky showed a variety of beautiful colours -  At this altitude there was very little dust in the air and this gives a purity of vision and clarity of view -  At one point he saw a string of geese flying over - heading to one of the mountain-lakes hereabouts - Their lonesome cries in the brittle air resounded and echoed - bouncing off the ice-mountainsides and reverberating through the valleys for miles around -  The only other sound was the occasional rumble of a minor avalanche -  They were fairly constant in the region at that season and Lobsang knew enough about the mountains to usually manage to stay out of their path -  Once in a while he had had to run to one side to get out of their way but as they were fairly small this was easy enough -  He replaced the stopple in his drinking-gourd and got to his feet - ready to finish his business with the past and get back to his village before anyone noticed his absence -  Once more his felt-clad feet crunched virgin snow -
Rounding the last hunched ridge of ground he suddenly glimpsed the cave - high up in the side of a rocky cliff-face -  He started climbing -  At one point an eagle soared overhead - its shadow speeding across the ground - black on white -  wingtips flexed -
Reaching the cave at last Lobsang stepped inside - only to recoil in deep shock -  The body of the dead Englishman that he had last seen ten odd years before - huddled against the wall and looking very corpse-like and rigid - was now sitting upright in the Lotus posture - hands resting on knees -  eyes open and turned upwards as if in deep trance - for all the world looking just like a meditating yogi! 

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Into The Thunderbolt Land

I heard it said that a philosophical and intellectual grasp of Sunyata can not be any substitute for Sunyata but can prepare the mind somewhat and clear away certain obstacles and obscurations -  Theory must not be mistaken for living experience -  The philosophical view must be suffused with the experience of Right-Meditation as it is in meditation that the true nature of mind and phenomena is seen - tasted - and realized -  A sense of kindness helps quicken the melting of the ego - 
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Ha!  What is it~
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The above notes were found scribbled in pencil in a notebook found in the jacket-pocket of Major Arthur Cromarty-Barnes - MC - DSO - when his frozen body was discovered huddled in an ice-cave 19000 feet up a Tibetan mountain where it had seemingly lain since the dark days of 1904 and the ill-fated expedition to conquer Lhasa for the British Crown -  
  The gangly and introspective curate-s son from a Somerset village had managed to convince the commanders of the invasion that it would be useful to the government to have an understanding of the local culture and religion and that he himself was just the man for such a mission -   Consequently he spent several months studying the language and particularly the unique religious and yogic practices of this Asian Antarctica -  Being already versed in the sacred language of Sanskrit he was happy to discover that most of the Lamas and Monks were fluent in it and so it was a common language between the austere followers of Dharma in the ice-mountains and the quiet-natured soldier from far over the mountains and the seas - the land of the red-faced-men -

Γιατί με ξύπνησες πρωί



Ρούκουνας - Κάτω στα λεμονάδικα 

(Οι λαχανάδες)


When the herdsman came across the frozen corpse of the foreigner back in the late 1940-s he had been looking for shelter during a sudden storm - vicious even by Tibetan meteorological standards -  He had been searching for a strayed Drhi - the female of the Yak species -  These beasts didn-t often stray but they were far too valuable to loose so when they did they must be found - even if it meant going way higher into the forbidding mountains of unutterable coldness - hardness - and towering ramparts of glistening ice to seek them -
Lobsang Tawa had never seen a foreigner before so naturally enough took Cromarty-Barnes for a demon and so was very trepidacious about sharing a cave with him - dead or alive -  After an hour or so of huddling near the mouth of the cave and watching the swirling whitesquall outside he slowly gained courage inspired mainly by curiosity and approached the strange looking creature that lay sprawled rigid in death - dressed in extraordinary clothes (like an Indian prince he mused) and carrying strange baggage -  
When Lobsang found the notebook he considered saving it for tinder - he could make nothing of the strange foreign script (English) anymore than he could have read his own language -  It was only when he came across a pencil-sketch of a Buddha-image that he suddenly stopped - touched the book to his head in reverence and tucked it into the folds of his chuba - his heavy Yak-skin coat - where it would be safe for future inspection - 

"27th August 1904 - North-Central Tibetan Plateau -  Arrived at the gompa or monastery at 1300 hours and was treated to a splendid welcome complete with several hundred chanting monks and an orchestra of shawms - cymbals and damaru - a species of hand-drum made from the skull-cups of two deceased monks placed back to back and stretched over with their skin -  After this tremendous racket I was feasted and then straight to work -  studying with the Lama and attempting to transcribe his teachings on the local form of Buddhism -  Though he was speaking the classical Indian Sanskrit tongue we ostensibly had in common - I soon found his rural Tibetan accent seemed to chew and distort many of the words into bizarre forms - no doubt my own linguistic attempts were equally strange to him but he did not seem put out about it -  A very jovial and considerate host who was demonstrating an incredibly subtle grasp of philosophy"
"To begin - simply leave the mind alone and do not try to correct its wanderings -  Try to keep returning to objectless awareness again and again -  Do not be upset if this seems hard at first - persevere - Even Shakyamuni Buddha had to work extremely hard to transform his "everyday mind" and unveil the essence - "
When the storm abated Lobsang Tawa had half a mind to leave the papers with the corpse - but he tightened his resolve and took them with him - along with several items he found on the dead man - 
He balanced his unease about taking from the dead by murmuring a string of mantras and blessing the consciousness of the departed foreigner -  Whoever he was - mused Lobsang - he had drawn that beautiful picture of Lord Buddha so he must obviously be a good man - even if he was such a strange colour - 
"A luminous awareness was born within you at your birth -  It naturally seeks to unite with the Greater Light - the Mother-Light - which is what we sometimes call the mind that has reached the fruition-stage - the naked awareness of Enlightenment that naturally dawns when the fog of confusion is cleared by the right methods - based on the right understanding and motivation -"
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The news had filtered through to the highlands - The Chinese were coming!  Not like before - in 49 - this time it seemed like the whole Red Army was pouring into the country like a flood-time of evil venom and the killings had started - villages burned -  people shot - butchered - crucified - Particularly the priesthood and the monasteries - they seemed to be the particular target of the invader-s wrath as if they were determined to wipe out all trace of the Buddha-Dharma from the land of Tibet!
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Lobsang Tawa was not the only Tibetan hastily hiding away religious objects and writings at that time -  He decided to return to the obvious hiding-place - the cave where he had first acquired the notebook from the deep-frozen cadaver of the gentle English scholar-soldier who had left off soldiering to study the highest truth - only to be killed by the notorious climate of the "Roof of the World" -  
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"Without oceanic compassion for suffering sentient beings - who have all been our mothers and fathers in previous existences - and who now wander in dark and painful confusion -  we can not expect to advance one inch along the path -  Therefore we should reflect deeply again and again on the terrible misfortune of the myriad beings who wander ever deeper into Samsaric ignorance - pain and darkness -  We should dwell on this over and over again until a spontaneous and profound feeling of compassion arises within us and - grasping the interdependability of their Enlightenment with our own - we vow to never abandon sentient beings until Samsara is empty and all beings dwell content and blissful in their constant experience of essence - nature and compassion"
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"2nd September 1904:  "The Abbot or Rimposhe - as everyone calls the Lama - in between our formal study sessions - has been asking me a great many questions about my country and what it is like there -  I tried to paint him a verbal picture of London but I soon realized I had bitten off more than I could chew as his curiosity knew no bounds and each statement by me triggered a further round of questions!  His lively mind was also fascinated by my wrist-watch - they are unknown here - and I explained to him what it was for and offered to give it to him as a gift -  He expressed a humble gratitude but also laughed at the idea of measuring time in such minute portions -  They tend to take a different view of time here and some of the religious ceremonies literally go on for days -  Rimposhe himself told me that the Sanskrit examination he had sat had taken two weeks to complete!  
Our discussion of time and my references to "past - present and future" provoked an interesting reaction from the Lama - He pointed out that within the meditational discipline that he pursued - the practitioners referred to a "fourth time" -  When I asked him to explain how you could have a period of time that lay neither in the past - present or future he explained that the consciousness of time that we ordinarily experience is due to our karmic entanglement in gross states of being -  As one progresses down the path of meditation - eventually time can melt away altogether along with the net of dualistic concepts and obscurations known as "conditioned-existence" -  In this deep state of natural undistracted meditation on the Tathaghatagharba or pure essence of consciousness our "normal" sense of time simply melts away -  This is known as the fourth time - "
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The sun was streaming through the willow trees along the bank of the river - making dancing dapples of light that quivered as the wind shook the boughs and sighed gently overhead -  A splash announced a jumping trout -  The boys quickened their pace -  Arthur and his elder brother George were enjoying the first day of the summer holidays and there was nothing they liked better than going fishing down at the lazy old river that wound through their part of rustic Somerset - deep in the heart of the English countryside -  This early summer season was particularly beautiful - the air shone and the skies buzzed with flies - perfect for fishing!  Mellow clouds of sunlight drifted overhead constantly changing and flickering over the scene -  Songbird-s melodious chirp filled the bright air and contentment drowzed - flickered and flared up again as enthusiasm  -  What could be better than to be gone all day - down to the river -  with all the gear carefully packed and a picnic of jam-sandwiches and coconut macroons with a couple of stoneware jars of ginger-beer~  
The river - like the mid-summer afternoon itself - seemed to flow on forever -  Sometimes it would gurgle and splash - a fish would jump - sending dancing jewels of water up into the bright summer air - The two brothers propped their fishing-rods up on V-shaped sticks and reclined in the drowsy heat - talking of their future ambitions -  They both decided they would be soldiers when they grew up -  
This boyhood dream was partially fulfilled -  George went on to study divinity and eventually became the vicar of Upper Siddlington parish church - taking over the position from his father on his retirement - 
Arthur did stick to his boyish dream of wearing the uniform of an army-officer and serving King and Country in the foreign heat of some far-flung place - Arthur had been posted to various parts of the world after finishing his training - and was considered a well-experienced man who had proven himself in battle -  However - it was his early interest in linguistics and oriental studies that had got him picked out for the Tibet mission - and now - instead of sweltering in the hot dust of Zululand or the plains of India or Persia - he found himself freezing to death in a cave high in the Tibetan mountains -