Kōan Fragments of a Distorted World #17

essay

"Got to look out for the greedy hand, greedy hand"
~ Neil Young, from "Razor Love"

1)
In the 1990s, myself and some friends had the good fortune to meet a Hungarian filmmaker, Bollók Csaba, traveling in the US. What would later become one of his successful films, Iska’s Journey, is worth a watch: “The film was chosen as Hungary's official submission to the 81st Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.”

His impression of the country has stayed with me; he described America as "Big and light" . . . in other words, like an inflatable pool raft from a big-box store or an extremely large cheese puff. Prophetic, considering the current showdown between the Orange Man and the Gaffer-in-Chief.

2)
In real time I read the CNN headline, "At least 90 Palestinians reported killed in Israeli strike targeting Hamas military chief" . . . yet after the assassination attempt, Trump lives and garners all the current attention.

Wait, after the debate wasn't all the news suddenly about Biden's lack of cognitive abilities when in actuality he had been like that for months, if not longer. And then, as suddenly, the attention shifted to the Don, shifted like sand in a desert windstorm . . . but it's all sand in the eyes and hot air. And a major oddity is how the assassination attempt went down. For example:
“The fact that [the Secret Service] allowed a rifle armed shooter within 150 yds to a preplanned event is either malice or massive incompetence.”
-Security expert Erik Prince, Navy Seal and founder of Blackwater.

But what would be the motive? To eliminate him? Or botch the attempt so as to bolster his chances?…because that’s what’s happened.

CNN headline about the Republican convention: "The crowd chanted 'fight' as a bandaged Trump entered the arena.”

Cue the "Rocky" theme music and crack open a brew, it doesn't get any blah-blah-blaher than this. Basically it’s a super bowl of two sides of the same violent ideology coin banging heartless helmets.

To understand how the media-plex works, how it tries to jerk your consciousness like playing pinball while riding a roller coaster, I refer to a quote from, presumably, the Karl Rove greedy handbook:
"We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

But there's a point when one gets tired of too much studying. One of those points for me was when learning the root of the word "distract: away from tracts of land and water." So every time i get dis-tracted means that i am thinking less about, not caring enough for land and water.

3)
Speaking of distractions and creating their own reality, that's what the colonizers did 500+ years ago. I’m reading a fascinating book, Ceremonies of Possession in Europe's Conquest of the New World, 1492–1640 by Patricia Seed. One chapter is about the Spanish "Requirement" which was read to the Natives/Indigenous Peoples, a key feature of which was "rewards for submission.” In other words, submit to the religious and political/military authority of the church and crown and you will be spared from war and slavery, and we’ll give you some “honors and advantages.” This was some of the blueprint for the red, white and blue’s mode of assimilation and domination.

4)
Kaballah, which translates as "personally-received teaching," is the core of my path. Kaballah is a Hebrew mystical way yet anyone can learn and live it. Therefore, i notice the huge difference between forcing ways of behaving upon others, e.g. “rewards of submission,” and having the ability to receive guidance for one's self, of which there are myriad cultural and personal ways to do that.

Because of my path-lifestyle, i allow for as much time as i can for 'doing nothing,' well, not exactly that, rather being in a place of receptivity, vigilant and ready for the next "personally-received teaching"... which could come in a second or a day or whenever, i don’t know because i'm not in charge, i just work (and play) here—”here” being this human embodied existence of Earth-time.

So i think that most of the troubles today are a result of what has been and is being forced upon others without their consent; also, what contradicts the natural Earth cycles. Various methods of this amount to the same basic ends, whether through religious proselytizing, wars, sweatshop labor and “bullshit jobs” (title of a book by David Graeber, which i haven’t read), or the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and Domination. All those forcings disrespect the natural world and dehumanize, they take people away from the "being" part of "human being," as John Trudell explained it though in more detail. And in my experience, the “being” links to the receptive ‘doing nothing’ aspect of self. When i’m busy-busy, it’s more challenging but i try to stay in touch with my being-ness, stay in touch with the receptivity to what the energies happening are truly about.

5)
Many years ago, one time when i was at my desk i literally heard a little voice . . . when no one else was around. So i wrote down what i heard and put it into haiku/senryu form:

"Big place this world" he said,
”but look closely,
thin skein through all."

I probably had to look it up, so perhaps helpful to readers . . . "skein: a loosely coiled length of yarn or thread wound on a reel; something suggesting the twists or coils of a skein : tangle; a flock of wildfowl (such as geese or ducks) in flight.”

The subtleties of intuition or the little promptings one can feel typically arrive via what is referred to in the Tao as a gossamer thread. Such a thin skein could be an invisible impulse from the spirits, an innate knowing, a vibration of the Earth, a change in the so-called weather. Whatever the case, a certain level of calm, receptivity, gentleness and lack of ambition is conducive to receiving or tuning-in to such a wisp of a vibe. As commentary on verse 9 of the Tao Te Ching (Thou Dei Jinn) advises:

“…shine JUST ENOUGH, and you will succeed. Shine too much, and you will burn-away the gossamer-like possibility in things.”

When i go outside into the blazing heat and humidity, sometimes i have to pause, catch my breath. How can i not be humbled by that.

This is a rugged and delicate world, a world in which too much shine, too many shiny new cars, gadgets and appliances, too much fixation on superstar performers and the glitter/bling of material gold, too much blind faith in a savior of greenbacks energy such as solar panels are all currently burning away the possibilities for survival and for living harmoniously as a flock of wildfowl.