Speak softly and carry a big satori stick

I've been on a bit of an ersatz zen koan kick lately (probably from *finally* having seen The Matrix.)

So I want to post this raw snippet of thought before I move onto other themes and it becomes an irrelevant non-sequitur. It's incomplete & likely flawed; but I hope to follow up on it someday when I feel I've got a better grasp on the tools to carve an angel out of this rock.

This snippet was inspired by a proximity of posts: one, a post regarding N.I.; & then the other, a post regarding enlightenment.

And then there was this article I came across while googling for koans.

I'm not sure that I entirely approve of the article itself. Due to its placement next to articles entitled "This is a Just War" and "Fighting Terrorism is Moral", it appears to me to have an unspoken slant towards justifying violence by using the argument, look, even Buddhists approve! ~~ which, I think, is an attempt to bend the principles of non~violence like a spoon. There is no Ahimsa...

But it was the title that had drawn my attention.

"the terror koan"

Because of that title, I had expected the article would discuss how cyclical violence is like a koan ~ not about whether Buddha would have approved of killing under certain circumstances.

Deriving peace from out of cycle of violence, and deriving enlightenment from a koan share the same dilemma of "you can't get there from here". A question of ethics, however, is not a koan ~ at least, not the way most western religions approach questions of ethics (or, at the very least, not the way my religion classes in Catholic school taught questions of ethics ~ very much based on logic, apart from the bits on ineffability).

And, for some reason known only to my Id, I'd also assumed that the article was going to be an exploration on how this related to the situation in N.I. ~ possibly because I've heard claim from several sources (though always tongue~in~cheek) that the joke "If you think you know what's going on, then you don't understand the problem" was coined in N.I. to describe the socio-political situation there. Though technically not fitting the definition of a koan, the joke does share with the koan the notion of paradox, and the inherent premise that one must question one's premises.

It seems ironically appropriate that the conundrum of how to reach a point of non-violence from out of a frame of reference of cyclical violence should be compared to a koan, when certain schools of Buddhism contain the paradox of being a non-violent philosophy that occasionally advocates violence, or the threat thereof, as a technique for reaching enlightenment.

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~ as if This Everything is so infinitely diverse, a paradox is the only way to explain it succinctly ~

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~~ a paradox is infinity in a nutshell ~~

Freudian Slips of Perception

When you seek it, you cannot find it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Zen Proverb

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A Handful of God

... a misread title, seen out of the corner of my eye whilst browsing amongst books.

'Twould be a lovely title for a poem, or a book, if only I wrote poems, or books.

Also misread:

Every Day Is A God.

Perhaps I ought to keep a list entitled Misreadings; it would be interesting to interpret these as Freudian slips of perception.

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{Chapter of Accidents}

{Penetralia mentis} Supposing:
separated from oneself
by nuances of existence is
an inner world unbreachable
by self~willed self~knowledge;

{Glimmers of inklings} Perhaps:
it is glimpsed only obliquely/peripherally
via chance reflections that glance 'round real & ir/rational corners like periscopes,
via unbidden phantom smells,
via an aftertaste of dreams upon waking;

{Worlds of possibility} Maybe:
games of chance
might be construed as
a metaphor for desiring
those metaphysical insights & events that can only
happen by acciden
t;

Which came first, the chicken or the road?

or , We're all here, 'cause we're not all there.

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Q. What does the Zen Master say to the hot dog vendor?

A. Make me one with everything.

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How old am I now? How long did it take me to finally clue in? I finally get the joke -- not like an enlightened monk might get it, but now I have an inkling why this is supposed to be funny:

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Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.

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What is the purpose of Life? Why are we here?

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... to get to The Other Side.

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It's absurd.

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Life's absurd.

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So laugh.

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"Life is the flight of a bird that swoops out of the darkness of night into the great fire-lit hall of a castle, until finally he finds a window, then out into the darkness again.

The first darkness is birth, the second is death, and in between -- only for a few moments, and handful of years -- the warmth, the sound of voices, the shadows cast by the fire."

~~ Frederick Beuchner, The Magnificent Defeat

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Life is a road, crossed by a chicken.

~~ Egdar Mousehat, Koan~Operated Satori, or, Put In Your Two Cents and Watch the Penny Drop

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