SHOHAKU OKAMURA - We Are Part of It

" When we sit, we do not listen to anything, we don't pay any attention. Even though the birds are singing, we are just sitting. If I listen to their singing and think 'there are the birds' then it's not zazen (just sitting) anymore. When I do this there is a separation between the person sitting and the sound.

There is an interesting koan story that Dogen likes;

A teacher asks a student, showing and pointing at a wind bell.
The teacher asks - ' Is the wind making the sound or the bell making the sound?
The student said - 'My mind is making the sound, neither wind nor bell'

That means the wind blows the wind bell, it makes a vibration of the air, it reaches my ear and it becomes sound. Before the vibration reaches my ear, there is no sound. So the sound is inside my mind.

But Dogen said that is not true. Because even if my mind is working, if the wind does not blow, and the wind bell does not shake, the air does not vibrate, then there is no sound. So all of them are making the sound. That means the entire universe is making this sound. There is no subject who listens, and no object or sound that it hears.

This is what Dogen called Total Function.

We are part of it. So there is no such person who is listening, nor sound that comes to me. But this entire world is making that sound - through this person. And this person is only a tiny part of it.

This is based on the basic Mahayana Buddhist teaching of interconnectedness."

Extract transcribed from a film about Okamura's life and teaching, called - A Good for Nothing Life.

LISTENING TO - One by Hercules and Love Affair & ANOHNI

 

'One'  begins with a portent, the compulsive stomp of a dance pulse. Throbbing, pushy and as musically directed at you as the lyrics that now unfold are - 'I've come to know the taste of dirt, The rejection upon my tongue' These words, though eliptical, not about any specific incident, nonetheless elicit a strong emotional response. Clearly defiant in tone, and a declaration of a human presence unbowed and unfolding into a new strength.

An obvious association here is the death of George Floyd. But a broader point is about anyone who for whatever reason - race or gender or sexual orientation is being kept down, kept periferal, kept oppressed - 'Held Down, Head Down'  its compelling listening.

 ANOHNI's vocals have a strength and defiant power not really heard from her before. She really means this, this is her feelings and her experience. Hercules & Love Affair here are a musical force and a gathering rhythm, accessible but edgy, that also breaks new ground for them. 'One' comes from their new album In Amber  which is an altogether different beast to what either of them has produced before. ( review coming soon )

I've come to know the taste of dirt
The rejection upon my tongue
Oh, I know my coat is black
I've been a threat since I was young

Held down, head down
Held down, head down
Held down, head down
Held down, head down

Turning, twisting of words
Tracing my essence towards the Sun
Magic in my infancy
I was perfect, I was one

Held down, head down
Held down, head down
Held down, head down
Held down, head down

I break you with my nature
Mouth and volcano, one
My arms screaming with branches
Womb of ocean and all
Feeding upon my own flesh
Eyes firе with what I've won
Swallow you in tsunami
Wild forces overrun

I kiss thе gift, I kiss the stone
And love the damage that's been done
A child's blood was drawn from me
My river drools communion

Held down, head down
Held down, head down
Held down, head down
Held down, head down

My body crushes yours now
I'm burning with the Sun
Swallow you in tsunami
Wild forces overrun
Rise up girl, rise up
Speak your truth speak your truth
Fear none and walk without shame
Remember, no more dying

No more dying
No more dying
No more dying

TAO TIT BITS - Only Because

"Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty 
only because there is ugliness
All can know good as good
only because there is evil."

Taken from the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu
Translated by Gia-Fu Feng, Publisher Wildwood House, 1974

EVERYDAY RITUALS - Knitting

Most of the time knitting projects arise from meeting a need. Sometimes they also come from being presented with an irresistible impulse. At a recent craft fair I encountered a stall selling absolutely massive hanks of aran style wool for a tenner a hank.  After wandering around for a bit simply to think what on earth I could do with it. I returned and bought a mega amount of mottled charcoal grey wool. My mind roughly set on knitting myself a meditation blanket. Leaving with the wool hank slung over my shoulder like a cowboy's lasso.

Rituals, everyday or otherwise, are invariably born of a mixture of these informal impulses. aspirations, desires, leaps of faith you might call them, and the finding of a recognisable formal structure to hang them upon. Knitting is no different. I had the impulse - bought this hank of wool - then the aspiration - to knit a meditation blanket. There then followed a period of deciding what form that would take, what would be the structure of its pattern, what size would it need to be, and did I have enough wool and patience for this likely long running ritual of knitting a blanket

The essence of any knitting ritual is the turning of a long string of wool into a wearable fabric. But first my large wool hank needed to be in the more manageable form of balls of wool. In my childhood I have memories of sitting by the fire, my Grandma sat in a chair winding wool. Whilst I sat on the floor with a small hank of wool stretched between my tiny hands, doing a gently rocking motion in time with her speed of winding. This time it was on a whole different scale. Hubby and I took turns at being the wool winder or the standing human, rocking in a wobbly side to side motion. Its really a test of how in tune and synchronous you can be, keeping time, and not getting ahead of each other. Maintaining mindfulness of them, as well as oneself. Not getting peeved with one another for 'not doing it right'.

On such a large project, the sheer size and weeks of effort involved in executing it has to be considered. The pattern you chose needs to be relatively simple, appropriate, not too elaborate, or yarn hungry. Had I not bought this huge amount of wool for a tenner, I would not be attempting knitting a meditation blanket in the region of 40 x 60 inches. It would be frighteningly  expensive in this quality of wool. The pattern I chose is called Cashew, I know not why. But it is the definitive simple four row pattern

Row One - Knit across the entire row

Row Two - K 5, P an infinitesimal number of times, finishing with K5

Row Three - Knit across the entire row

Row Four - K5, P1, *K2,P1, an infinitesimal number of times, finishing with K5.

Repeat - again and again and again and again and again and again......

What comes out of the variation in stitch and stitch tension of just the fourth row of this pattern, is to my mind a minor miracle. A lovely waffle like, basket effect.

Repetition is the staple ingredient of many rituals,  whether that be in the form of incantation or mantra, or the structure of a knitting pattern. Keeping engaged, mindful and present with whatever you are doing or saying, is vital.  The moment the minds attention drifts of, you lose track of where you are, you go into automatic, you drop a stitch or do the entire row in the wrong pattern sequence and have to pull the row back. Maintaining presence in the moment is crucial. When its going well, and there is no emotional resistance dragging its feet behind you, knitting can become this one synchronous flow of mind, hands, needles and heart. This moves any ritual beyond something that you are consciously driving. In my experience this happens only on very rare occasions.

Most of the time knitting is a lot of conscious effort. It gets tedious or boring. And it gets so for very obvious reasons. You've become this person, single-mindedly focused on a mission, to complete so many rows or inches of pattern or the whole damn thing, ASAP.  This leads to impatience arising, the repetition becomes perceived as mind numbingly endless, you want the fix of having achieved something, to reward yourself for all this effort. You want it all over and done with and to move on to a newer, fresher more interesting project. So you can get your life back. 

Rituals, whether meditation or knitting, can become just another task we are doing in a very heavily scheduled list of task driven days. And maintaining regular and meaningful connection with what you are doing, your longer term vision for it, cannot be emphasised enough. There is no urgency, only in your mind. You've been living without this hand knitted meditation blanket all your life, so give it, and yourself, space to breath in. Take a step back and do the opposite of being goal driven. Come back to doing knitting in small regular but containable amounts of time and effort. Come back to the quality of what you are doing, not the quantity. Everyday Rituals all too easily become elaborated, with lots of extraneous personal wants and needs hanging off them like limpets.

I understand all too well myself the scurge that is wanting a sense of completion. But think of it more like watching a very long but beautiful film by Tarkovsky, you have to just go with its open ended sense of time and the unfolding journey he's set you out upon. Death will happen all too soon, but one never finds oneself chasing it as a destination. In fact its the opposite. Our activities, tasks and rituals, our sense of achievement, completion and goals reached are driven by an often unconscious impulse to hurry and get them done lest we die before completing them. As if completion was a way of thwarting death.

A completed task list is what we'll leave behind, no one else will care one jot about.  No one will say at your funeral he left no task list uncompleted. Its who you were, not what you did or achieved that will matter. If anything we do matters at all.

Everyday rituals are often better carried out with an emptiness of purpose, utility or meaning. The suchness of this ritual moment, the knittingness of just knitting, this is worth learning to calmly abide with.

TAO TIT BITS - The Gate to All Mystery

Ever desire less, one can see the mystery
Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations
These two spring from the same source but differ in name;
this appears as darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gate to all mystery.

Taken from the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu
Translated by Gia-Fu Feng, Publisher Wildwood House, 1974

TAO TIT BITS - The Named

"The name that can be named is not the eternal name
  The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
  The named is the mother of ten thousand things."

Taken from the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu
Translated by Gia-Fu Feng, Publisher Wildwood House, 1974

FEATURE - Meg Stalter - Hi Gay

I owe my husband for this. Who scrolls through endless amounts of crap on his phone in the early hours searching for anything funny. Think of it as a substitute for having breakfast. Nourishment for the soul, particularly when he comes up with gems like this.

Meg Stalter is an American comedian and actor. This video is deeply impressive. She is some sort of genius. Its all in the awkward reading and misreading of a prompt script off camera. The self conscious fiddling with her pig tail. The gauche, naive to camera stuff you'd expect from an amateur attempting a promotional video. They're just trying to cash in on 'the gays' and sell more butter and candles, after all. No one has done this type of thing quite this well since Brett Domino. - Turn it off Willard.

TAO TIT BITS - Trust

'Those who does not trust enough
 will not be trusted.'

taken from the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu
translated by Gia-Fu Feng, publisher Wildwood House, 1974.

FEATURE - Chloe - Toast

 Ah, yes, one forgets quite how addictively good Drew Droege's arty know it all Chloe can be. Not even remotely based on Chloe Sevingy. The character over the years has developed a whole load of affectations, like the hunched posture, that have almost become her catch phrases, the affected mispronunciation of words - it has recently come to my attention that I love - ToAst - the name dropping of people and brands that only those in the know would know who the hell they are - the bizarre composite lists of things which are now 'IN'. If you think he makes them all up, think again.

Can you devour just one episode? Don't be a fool, gorge on them.

TAO TIT BITS - Wisdom & Intelligence

'When wisdom and intelligence are born
 The great pretense begins.'

Taken from the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu
Translated by Gia-Fu Feng, Publisher Wildwood House, 1974

SCREEN SHOT - Last Night In Soho

Eloise ( Thomasin McKensie) is an aspiring fashion designer obsessed with the sixties and reliving the adventure of her mother's youth. She travels from her rural home to the vibrant city of London. Unused to an urban lifestyle, its cruelty and cynicism, she feels lost and a fish out of water. Leaving her shared dormitory room, she finds herself a private rented attic room in a house in Soho, owned by the elderly and crotchety Miss Collins (Diana Rigg)

Yet when she falls asleep in her new room, Eloise finds herself literally slipping back in time, transported to the world of sixties swinging London. Inhabiting the body and life experience of a would be singer Sandie. ( Anya Taylor-Joy ) Initially these night time adventures feed into her fashion creativity, emerging as reinterpreted versions of Sandie's fabulous cloths. But each night the experience begins turning more and more disturbing as Sandie's life goes seriously, dangerously off the rails. Eloise, begins to fear for Sandie's life, and that Eloise herself will lose her sanity, like her mother did. Meanwhile the attic room becomes increasingly crowded with vengeful male ghosts from the past emerging from its walls.

Edgar Wright's psychological horror story, fizzes with all the creative tension it can muster, between having fun and leaning it in to fearfulness. Evocative music, period details, and inventive set pieces, capture the confident ebullience, the snappy style, the seedy behaviour and mores of this classic, but very different era. Featuring cameos by acting stars from that era such as Diana Rigg's last film appearance, Rita Tushingham and Terence Stamp. It has all of Wright's usual sharply timed edits to music beats, his feel for the zeitgeist of this era's pop culture, with talismanic nods and knowing references. As we effortlessly slip from our own era back to this iconic period in British culture. An absorbing, cleverly executed homage, whilst also being a horror story, and a pointedly moral tale with a human heart. One that finishes with a truly surprising twist to the tale. Loved it.

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

TAO TIT BITS - In Chaos

'When the country is confused
 and in chaos
 Loyal ministers appear'

taken from the Tao Te Cheng by Lao Tsu
translated by Gia- Fu Feng, Published by Wildwood House 1974.

QUOTATION MARKS - The Symbols & The Mystical

Sages set up symbols as a means to point to traces;
Understand outside of symbols, and you get to the mystical.
You must find the intent of adepts outside words;
Originally the absolute has no sphere.
To forget the symbol once you get the idea is still nothing special;
Forgetting even the idea is the ultimate rule.

13th Century Taoist Master

taken from The Book of Balance & Harmony
Translated by Thomas Cleary, Published by Rider, 1989.

ARTICLE - The Conscious & The Real

Spiritual knowledge comes in two forms according to Taoism, the 'conscious' and the 'real'. What is believed to be true and what is actually true. Buddhism would couch this as relative truth and absolute truth. In recently re-reading The Book of Balance & Harmony I came across a paragraph I found intriguing. So here I'm going to lightly rummage around in it looking for golden nuggets.

Sages set up symbols as a means to point to traces

What are these symbols,? In a very broad sense they are any spiritual teachings, whether they be a meditation, an ethical practice, study text, ritual or ritual implements, concepts, beliefs or visualisations.  These are all symbols that point at the traces. These traces being the elementary fragments of what is 'real' in our current 'conscious' experience, or are dormant within that 'conscious' experience, or are a 'skillful means' to take you to a place of receptivity to 'real' perceptions. Symbols and signs are meant to function as intermediaries between our conditioned perspective, riddled as it is with misperceptions, and pure unconditioned reality. They cross the gap between these. They are the raft to take you to the farther shore. After which symbols will no longer be of practical use.

Understand outside of symbols, and you get to the mystical.

When I read through a Taoist text or something by Dogen from The Shobogenzo, I cannot grasp it fully. Because its frequently written with the deliberate intent to misdirect or block you from deriving any intellectual certainty or satisfaction from it. Therefore I find myself oscillating between my conscious understanding and a feeling for something merely being hinted, implied or intuited in the imagery or the teaching. Whatever is being unconsciously communicated bypasses rational or intellectual tendencies.  It speaks from the heart of the matter to the heart of our matter. My response often being an elated, inspired or fizzily intoxicated sense of understanding, that I can never quite put into words. 

Symbols or signs, are what Taoism refers to as 'the mysterious pass' they can take you into the vicinity of a mystical perspective, of an insightful, more enlightened state. After any fleeting moment you are there, the heart races and the sense of knowing or perceiving something better, lingers vaguely. Eluding the clarity the conscious mind wants and grasps for. This is what I take to be 'understanding outside of symbols'. The longer you abide there, steering clear of analysing it, the stronger I imagine that felt impression would become.

You must find the intent of adepts outside words; 

Zen talks about ' a special transmission outside of scripture' that  'does not stand upon words'. This is similar to what 'understanding outside of symbols' is referring to. But 'understanding' is not a given outcome, not contingent upon doing specific practises, rituals or studies. These simply fertilize the soil, making it suitable for seeds of insight to germinate in. Otherwise anyone could mechanically go through the motions of practicing them, and open sesame - Insight. They are not a car manual. The role of our intent as the driver is crucial.

It says ' find the intent of adepts'. So its not about copying in exact detail what past sages have done, but sourcing the spirit of their intent, will and volition within yourself. At some point this has to become 'real' by locating a depth of response in oneself, an intuitive feeling, that follows an undeliberated path. Little can be sourced just through close examination of the grammer and syntax of  words alone. Spiritual paths in the end are experiential and intuitive. As likely to be found in the aesthetics of tone and sound, a gutteral utterance, the silence that echoes and ripples through a valley. Encased in voids and empty spaces. Its in the expression of lichen growing upon stone. Meaning lives in the sheer poetry of it all.

Originally the absolute has no sphere.

The absolute, well its a word with a dictionary definition. Its not really describing an actual experience, but an abstract principle. Absolute doesn't actually exist. It is in the realm of the 'real' beyond our 'conscious' understanding. We may have given it a name and a rough and ready conceptual framework, a sphere. But it isn't knowable through concrete analysis. Originally the 'real', the absolute, didn't have this sphere of understanding within which it is now couched and surrounded. It simply was. Something the Zen term 'suchness' is suggestive of. 'Suchness' expresses the chimeric nature of 'the real'.

To forget the symbol once you get the idea is still nothing special;

There comes a time then to start abandoning words and symbols, all conceptual frameworks, even descriptions of things beyond 'conscious' and 'real' understanding. Abandoning all these 'rafts' prematurely would be foolhardy idealism. You cannot speed date your way through 'the mysterious pass'. Any idea we may hold of special mystical states of attainment, needs to be left behind too. All the conceptual and imaginative things that once motivated our practice need gently to be dropped and forgotten. Its like arriving in a culture that is entirely different from our own. Imagine they don't even speak or understand English! 

Forgetting even the idea is the ultimate rule

Any idea, concept or imaginative metaphor will form some sort of expectation, implied or simply stimulated by its very existence. From here on, none of these things will be of any help. Spiritual progress, so it appears is composed of a series of ever more refined levels of forgetting. Forgetting about things, forgetting about symbols, forgetting about the self, forgetting about notions of the absolute. Nothing will be how we ever imagined it to be. So let it all go, forget everything you might have once been told or believed was true. What you were told works at the beginning, will be useless in the middle, what seemed helpful in the middle is redundant by the end. Here Buddhist ideas of levels of sunyata inform what you perceive - eventually even emptiness forgets itself. As The Book if Balance & Harmony states in its concluding sentence:-

'Turn over the legs of nothingness, smash cosmic space to smithereens, and only then will you be done.'