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Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Post-Warburton Yarn

Been to Warburton, close to the source of the Yarra River, with my lover.
Getting to an interfaith ashram, feeling the power of the land,
sharing doctrine with the Yogi and the Priest while having tea
on a Sunday evening
after
a walk (beginning with banana) to and from Lala falls.
On Monday, a slice of Californian Redwoods,
surreally planted in rows
on the Western edges of the Eastern Victorian Yarra Ranges,
an afternoon yarning with a Catholic woman, still searching.

A thought of just settling there
a young retirement, not quite:
more a renewed dedication to spiritual practice and study,
a privileged space for magic.

A Buddhist monastery with by-donation lunch & retreat,
a love of breathing, river and bush.

The Spell of the Sensuous
A memory of some younger dayze.

Other possibilities abound.

I drink red wine to prevent heart attack, and hope for the best.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Baha'i notions of Progressive Revelation

I have recently been interested more in Baha'i thought.

Just read this article,
The Baha'i Principle of Progressive Revelation by Iko Congo

Reflecting on Congo's post, I am noting the similarity between the Baha'i Principle of Progressive Revelation, and the Mahayana Buddhist principle of Upāya, or skillful means in spiritual teaching.

One difference (and actually, this is where I find Baha'i thought quite compelling, regardless of my own tendency to Buddhist-ic atheism), is that Progressive Revelation takes into account (at least, according to this article), developmental differences in learning spirituality (and not only dispositional difference, as the Lotus Sutra, by way of one Buddhist Mahayana textual example, often suggests of the BuddhaDharma being taught to beings of many different backgrounds)...

Note the analogy around "first grade", "second grade" and "third grade" teachers in school, who each set educational foundations for a person to ultimately be able to attain an analogous "revelation" of a university-level education.

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Noble 8fold Path

Right View
Right Intention
Right Speech
Right Action
Right Livelihood
Right Effort
Right Mindfulness
Right Concentration

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

An afternoon blurb

Sitting at my workplace, contemplating peace.
Peace, this morning, meditating upon a passage... That all is change, and that all blessings may become curses, that all curses may become blessings.

Nothing is stable in quality,
this is nothing to celebrate nor lament.

Equanimity is not something to "will" into existence, but can arise from the dropping of ambition, even if for a moment.

The "gathering of bearings".

This moment feels full... yet also
empty of any particular content (any content-in-particular)
...
and therefore full.

What work is there left for me to be done?
In what guise will this work make itself manifest (or will I manifest "my" "self" in it)?

Moving forward, what is there ?
Everything feels as a strange privileged entertainment...
What are the responsibilities that come with such precarious peace?

My death may be caused by the symbols of any of my freedoms.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Why Sense?

Why Sense?
"All is Forgiven"
A fetishistic encounter with the thoughts of Luz
Another white man wins my heart
Martyrs have been created in the wake of terror
Their deaths only make sense, because they had it coming, those
racist imperialist bastards
Why sense? why bother with linearity when
emergence is so much more like a lotus, whose
insipid beauty springs forth from muddy roots, its
calm pond breeds mosquitoes,
blood suckers leeching off of the flesh of serene Buddha, holding
"Je Suis Charlie"
"Je Suis Baga"
"Je Suis Cho"
"Je Suis Mahinda"
"Je Suis Boko Haram"
"Je suis Wikipedia"

Wikipedia est génial
Google Translate helps me lose sight of the essential "otherness" of the Other, that
which keeps them incomprehensible,
and hence, that which
keeps them worth loving,
destroying,
or otherwise ignoring.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Restlessness

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is bombed,
Boko Haram decimates a town of 2000,
Over 141 people are killed in a Pakistani school,
Charlie Hebdo, and hostages at a kosher supermarket in Paris,
Freedom of speech... freedom of speech... freedom of speech...

Freedom from harm
Freedom from fear
Freedom from want
Freedom from hatred
Freedom from oppression
Freedom from violence

The world is getting safer, on aggregate, I hear
The human person is not used to witnessing such a dizzying array of diverse acts of violence
amidst the stunning statistical view of aggregated decrease in violence globally

What are my responsibilities in a precarious peacetime?

"Interfaith dialogue" is a world of possibility
where meaning-making systems seek to find common ground, build bridges

"The best way not to be homophobic is to know a gay person."
... and to regularly interact with the "Other".

Not only the Other as neighbour,
but Other as friend.
To challenge one another, cry one another,
betray one another, and yet to be redeemed by one another,
to forgive one another
to forgive one another
to forgive one another.

A lightbulb bursts in my house and it takes me a full week to buy another, my higher priorities to keep up with the flow of obsessions on social media.

My pillows do not support my breathing at night, and it takes me several months to buy better ones, my higher priorities to keep my eyes opened to digitised flat screens, distracting myself from sleep with games and news and entertainment

Death is inevitable, whether by heart attack, a withering away of the body from age, or from rockets launched into my home from some imperialist cancer.

I find myself afraid of being called
to something more heroic of my abilities.
What blocks me is the 
unfinished violence of my own family legacy
that no amount of good politics will save me from.

I am still a teenager with nightmares of a middle class psychodrama
Hyper-privileged, yet still,
an Everyfamily,
patriarchy does not die even after he is heartbroken.

Revenge is androgynous.
Revenge is multicultural.
Revenge is transnational.
Revenge spans generations, all directions from ancestry to progeny

The stars still twinkle, even though light years closer to their source
we know that they have mostly been
entirely spent of their grandeur.

What if what we see of the universe of one another's potential, may be as the light of stars...?
A glimmer of something already quite, quite gone.?

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Thoughts on Digi-Media

After this long hiatus from Blogger.

A reflection on various forms of digital mass media (especially with high-speed internet), and revisiting some familiar metaphors.

Porn: The "McDonaldisation" of sex.
Facebook: The "McDonaldisation" of my social self.

Just as the former desensitises me to "real" (read: in-person) sex, real partnership, sensuality, etc.
So the latter desensitises me to "real" (read: in-person) social relations, political dialogue, etc.

They also have their "uses".

Facebook can expose me to new ideas, new perspectives, etc.
Porn can expose me to new positions, new bodies, etc.

More likely though, especially if mindlessly perused (which is what various porn/FB media platforms tend to be designed to encourage):
That they entrench me in my existing views and habits, or at the very least, trigger me to exaggerated contempt about others' entrenched views and habits.

Facebook will keep me in loops with an outraged and aggrieved Left-wing sensibility (given who and what shows up on my newsfeed).
Porn will keep me addicted to particular notions of the desireable body, or of exciting sex acts (regardless of whether or not I actually enjoy these in "real life").

Facebook will trigger status anxiety, self-esteem issues, questioning (not in an entirely healthy way) my own "value" in my political views (i.e. whether I'm "radical enough").
Porn will have me negating the value of my own body, the sensations of my own interior world.

So... I leave it all be, for the moment.
"Fasting" again, from all this hypnosis.

Letting myself hunger again, to connect with life as it is.

Friday, January 9, 2015

random thought

Reconnecting with the Political Compass (and remembering that I am rated, according to this metric, as "Left-Libertarian"),
I am reminded that I am likely far more identified (as an endless migrant who has only in recent years found citizenship in my country of residence) with Libertarianism (individual considerations more than statist ones) than with my Left-wing sensibilities.

i.e. I suspect I would get along more with Libertarian types of either side of the Left-Right divide more than I would get along with any authoritarian figures, whether they be Stalinists, Tony Abbott, or lesbian-feminist identity politicians.

Ah, Hello Again

A safe space. Somewhat outside of scrutiny.
A revisiting of writing here, not on Facebook.
Revisiting this space of intellectual freedom, my own vanguard, significantly outside of the politics of social media.

Some heaviness. Charlie Hebdo.

Considering: French colonialism.
Considering: Islam.

Have been reading. And reading. And reading. And reading.

Considering:
The stalemate in a war of ideas, and the atrophied postmodern Left.

Considering: That I am tired, also... very very tired.
Very tired of cycles of violence, and also
very tired of heightened fear, and also
my impatience about the inability of a multiculturalist Left (including that impulse in myself)
to acknowledge our own fear, because:
terrorism works...

Terrorism works to keep terror alive
to remind us of the fragility of our lives

"Je Suis Charlie" becomes the internet refrain, expressing solidarity with the slain,
a sudden synonymy of Charlie Hebdo with freedom of speech and freedom of expression

...and then I witness, from people who claim solidarity with marginalised Muslims in the West, suggestions that "Je Suis Charlie" is solidarity with racism, Islamophobia, etc... Where were we when the endless brown bodies were blitzed by drone strikes? What sorts of indignations were we protesting then? How could we elsewhere be so numb, when we now side with the privileged Western lives who peddled racist/Orientalist caricature, when we allow them their martyrdom? How could authoritarian governments condemn these attacks and claim solidarity with freedoms of speech when public organising on Palestinian sovereignty is banned in France?

and I feel ... tired.  And numb.
Numb to this critique.

Perhaps it is indeed my own racism.
Perhaps it is indeed that I have internalised the European colonial impulse.

Perhaps. How can I deny that I both share this critique as well as find myself completely numb to it?

Perhaps something else has shifted in me too.
That I lean into the stalemate in this war of ideas, war of moralities. That I lean into this stalemate and find myself sobbing, and sobbing and sobbing, and sobbing, yes:

I had woken up to the news on social media, of these attacks, and I remember
laying in my bed, listening to the fragile peace of the birds outside my window by the Merri Creek, my eyes transfixed on the screen of my Android phone, and I remember my body
shaking and shaking, quivering
and I saw a part of me murdered too.

For the first time in my life:
I found myself mourning the deaths of a group of old white men whom I have not met and who I do not know.

Yes, everyone will read into the news (or out of the news) whatever they wish.
Something will be triggered in all of us, all our pre-existing struggles, fears, hopes, dreams, rages
All of our unresolved, yet-to-be-resolved, and unresolvable tensions.

There are many agendas.

I am tired.