“It is not about complexity, it is about intimacy” – Timothy Morton

Timothy Morton’s speach at UC DAVIS for the nonviolence conference on meditation. The line of thinking is based on his argument that OOO objects (everything) are fundamentally inconsistent, because of a rift between essence and appearance. This has political implications:

[H]ow does meditation look on the ground, in practice, “where the rubber meets the road” to use the awful bureaucratic phrase? One is allowing one’s thoughts to exist, without trying to delete them. Thus one is allowing oneself to be inconsistent: the mind is making some effort towards mindfulness, yet there are also thoughts occurring that distract the mind. In higher forms of meditation, the practice has less effort. One is simply allowing whatever happens to happen, no matter what the thought is. Some kind of commitment is required, a commitment not to adjust what is happening. This non-adjusting allows beings to resound in all their contradictory plenitude. Since all phenomena radiate from the nature of mind or from Atman (and so forth, depending on which school of thought one is following), all is purified in advance within the larger space of freedom. Purified here means left in its natural state, which is open and vivid. There thus arises what in Mahamudra and Dzogchen is called non-meditation. This non-meditation is different from not meditating, and also different from meditating. It is simply coexisting with what is. Meditation simply is nonviolence, which means allowing the rift between essence and appearance to persist.

In meditation then, one is both p and not-p at the same time. One is a living contradiction, the contradiction that defines living as such. One coexists in the simplest possible way, namely with oneself. Narcissism thus means self-relating, which means other-relating. Since being myself means never directly being myself, my existence is coexistence, even when hypothetically I am totally on my own. Meditation is thus nonviolent, not simply because it means you are trying to make yourself be gentle, but because you are allowing yourself to exist in your inconsistency. In a group of meditators, this nonviolent coexistence becomes vivid. The person on your left might be plotting to take over the Universe. But what on Earth is he going to do about it in that moment? He is meditating!

Meditation means allowing at least one thing to be inconsistent. Allowing the rift between essence and appearance to persist without causing it to close and thus for essence to evaporate. Nonviolence. Humans must get used to the depth of nonviolence in their being. The Greek term for this getting-used-to is mathēsis, which is fully thought not simply as calculation, but as acclimatization, as growing accustomed to the truth of things. The Tibetan for this getting-used-to is gom, which is the term for meditation. In Buddhism there are three stages of learning: hearing, contemplating, and meditating. Hearing is thorough attunement to the dharma. Contemplating is more deeply digesting it into one’s being. Meditating is enacting it, living it, embodying it. This embodiment just is nonviolence, a nonviolence that attunes the layers of a human being—cultural forms, attitudes, psychological states, biological equilibriums, physical being, mind, heart, flesh, bone—to the fundamental inconsistency of reality.

Find more in: Ecology without Nature 

About his lecture at CCA: Enter the Non-Human

I am all you. Resonance by Mohammed

blog.yimmyayo.com

Mohammed, from DMBA recited this poem about our resonance during class. So profoundly moved by each of them. And yes, when he opens his mouth, we all speak. So grateful.

“I learned that Nicolas has a unselfish sense of duty
That Kelly is passionate about deeper connections
Adam, the heart of lion, the wit of an owl
Bryan taught me to forget the content and focus on the process
Keith’s doodles could hang in any art gallery

I learned that Lizzy revels in simplicity
That Tanushri is a powerful force of kindness and depth
and that behind Briana’s bright smile and fiery mane
is a giddy scholar

Sarah seeks truth
Sali, form
Kate, beauty
Rahim, function

Niveen is a higher being
someone you rarely meet
Mekhala is loyal and solid, an earthsong

Louise, I learned your eyes
and what some thought was fear, was fire

Ryan has six-foot arms, the better to hug you with
Tyler walks with mirrors, converses with angles
and knows the secret of life

Amanda stands with trees– grounded
shading those she loves

I learned the way of the warrior from Alex
don’t let the freckles fool you
she will kick your ass

Christina taught me clarity
Jay, economic anarchy
Sarah, dual dynamo
Bryan S– soul
Kishori, fabulousness

Jessica lives between
here and Palo Alto
Julie lives between
here and heart

Jo supports those she loves
and loves with food

Steve taught me magic–
how to fix stuff and still be funny
Annu makes me funny
and apologizes when she is pulling me up

I learned that Maria can heal your tears with a touch
That even Elle doubts
and it’s all part of the plan

I learned that I am all of you
And that when I open my mouth, you all speak.”

Say I am You

I am dust particles in the sunlight.
I am the round sun.

To the bit of dust I say, Stay.
To the sun, keep moving.

I am morning mist,
and the breathing of evening.

I am wind in the top of a grove,
and surf on the cliff.

Mast, rudder, helmsman, and keel,
I am also the coral reef they founder on.

I am a tree with a trained parrot in its branches.
Silence, thought, and voice.

The musical air coming thru a flute,
A spark of stone, a flickering

in metal. Both candle,
and the moth crazy around it.

Rose, and the nightingale
lost in the fragrance.

I am all orders of being, the circling galaxy,
the evolutionary intelligence, the lift,

and the falling away. What is,
and what isn’t. You who know

Jelaluddin, You the one in all,
say who

I am. Say I
am You.

The Essential RUMI – Coleman Barks

pics. Carles Rodrigo

Buoyancy – pour emptiness

I saw you and became empty.
This emptiness, more beautiful than existence,
it obliterates existence, and yet when it comes,
existence thrives and creates more existence.

To praise is to praise
how one surrenders to the emptiness.

To praise the sun is to praise your own eyes.
Praise, the ocean. What we say, a little ship.

So the sea-journey goes on, and who knows where?
Just to be held by the ocean is the best luck
we could have. It is a total waking-up.

Why should we grieve that we have been sleeping?
It does not matter how long we’ve been unconscious.
We are groggy, but let the guilt go.

Feel the motions of tenderness
around you, the bouyancy.

The Essential Rumi
t, by Coleman Barks

Sobre el instante para cambiar el rumbo

Agotada en la ingenuidad, convirtió la condescendencia irónica en una soberana torre de marfil. La entera convicción pudo más que un compromiso ajeno.
Su expresa necesidad de humanidad rompió las ventanas de aquella cordial guarida.
Supo de historias y perfiles y etiquetas. Y recordó por un momento porqué seguía haciendo música. Y por que seguiría haciéndola. Es su turno componer, interpretar y sonar.
Un clan de personajes espontáneos le espejearon futuros cercanos. Mientras danzaba entre ansias y deberes, se marchó como princesa al desierto. A nutrirse de si misma, de sus orígenes y sus leyendas.

Palabras rodadas, complejidad capturada en fragmentos de cortejos taciturnos.
Ahora queda un vacío con un sinfín de caminos por recorrer.
Ese vacío amenaza manías y artimañas y se enfrenta con una debilidad yoica, con una característica constante: la polaridad.
Y ahora se ha dado a la tarea de intentar conciliar los opuestos dentro de si misma. Tarea titánica, injusta e infinita. Porque no es lo mismo ser multicolor que ser un títere mimetizado.
Ahora se enfrenta desnuda ante a un espejo que refleja su mayor debilidad: la incertidumbre.

Y si logra “leerse” dentro del caos , podrá convertirse por fin en una libre ola de mar.

Simplicity of thought

Inspiration arrives. All of a sudden beliefs come alive.
Divinity that surrounds us evolves in freedom as we speak.
Spontaneous angels have landed. They came without notice.
Ubiquitously, transmutation happens not only in the fingertips.

Creative womb that longs for animated expressions, an effortless flow of creation.
I’ve decided to believe. In me. In change. In creation. In assimilation. In evolution. In trust.
Take action as if there was no tomorrow. Simplicity of thought. Conviction of bliss.

Freedom at this age

Is it a real flight?
Not screaming out loud and jumping fences.
Changing skin every day or two.
Waiting for late evening dinners.
Waiting. Not seizing.
A gaze that tastelessly grasps solar dreams.
A sole inhalation says it all.

What if I escaped?
Flutter through sound.
Rush into the current laughness of reality.
Unprompted steps keen on creation.
Fulfillment is not a threat.
It comes with receiving for the pleasure of sharing.
And giving for the pleasure of receiving.

Bona fide

Se reivindica el valor del espacio.
El misticismo de lo inaprehendido.
La ciencia de la causa y el efecto
Circunvalan la pericia de intentar compartir.
Creer en la iluminación, añorar la libertad y complacerse en lo mundano.
Dilemas bajo un huele de noche.
Trayectos urbanos, sonidos lejanos, ímpetu de verdad,
que se reparte entre horas de tedio e intentos de diálogo.
La ilusión hierve, se esponja a punto de turrón.

vaciaRsE para SeR

Supo de lo invisible, de lo que ocultan los felices enamorados, las copas de vinos, las manos delicadas y precisas. Poemas de otros. Una y otra vez se preguntó el porqué de la repentina frialdad, la imperdonable inmadurez infiel. Recordó incontables intenciones de entrega mezcladas con estúpida nostalgia.
Los sucesos no ocurrieron y la despedida no encajaba dentro de un abrazo a media calle.
La fantasía de un proselitismo frustrado y la nostalgia placebo ya no son bienvenidas.
Días colmados de ansias por realidad y de respuestas evidentes, más no etéreas.
Escribió y rompió cada letra en el entendido de vaciarse.
VaciaRSE para SER.

Indispensable soledad creativa

Trascribo a una escritora que no conozco pero admiro… C.J.
“Esta frase la leí hace poco en un libro sobre cómo escribir novelas, justamente, y fue como una revelación con música angelical y juegos pirotécnicos: “A NADIE LE IMPORTA”. Así. Como para tatuárselo en un lugar visible. Si quieres ponerte a escribir (o a componer, o a esculpir, o a lo que sea), tienes que pensar que nadie le importa. Nada que podamos decir es tan importante. Ni para el lector anónimo, ni para la pareja ni para los cuates ni para el patriarca cuyo látigo de exigencia perpetua nos persigue. Y si llega a serlo, ya no es cosa nuestra. Es cosa del otro.

Al final, las historias se narran exclusivamente entre quien las escribe y sus palabras, entre el lienzo y quien sostiene el pincel. Por eso es tan indispensable la soledad para crear. Y es dentro de ese mismo latido silencioso que nos vamos contando nuestra vida. Con mucha gente alrededor, o con poca. Pero siempre con uno. Con todo el tiempo del mundo. Con todo el tiempo del mundo.”