letter

Winter continues unabatedly beautiful weather-wise
in Mexico. The murders have slowed down for the holiday
season. The market abounds with toys from China. The
indigenous don't have much out on display so far in the
Zocalo, the center of town. Two blocks of the main drag,
Calle Cinco de Mayo, are torn up by large machines to put
big pipes in them. As a former plumber, I observe what they're
doing, and I'm left with a surrealistic impression....the pipes
are necessary as an image is necessary in a dream. Their work
does not follow formal logic or utilitarianism, from a
gringo plumbers p.o.v.. I was walking to my friend's house yesterday
for dinner, about a mile and a half away, down a main street that
leads to Amatlan, a bedroom-of-this-bedroom-community,
Tepoztlan. As I was walking I saw, and smelled my life's-blood,
sewage, a river flowing from some residence or posada, for at least
a half a mile, in the direction I was walking. It eventually found it's
way into a gully and hence to a riverbed. So, yes, surreal
infrastructure...what more could a plumber-poet ask for?

Holidays and New Year...and what a new year! 2012, when, for once,
all the flakey prophets might be right. I've had too many personal visions
and waking dreams in my life to ignore the larger signs....which are, actually,
prophesies from all major religions coming true when they said they
would....like, now. 2500 years of prophesy from Buddha....look it up.
You want to go on reading Harpers, the Atlantic, NYTImes, ect. and
roil in the culmination of intellectual prosperity inherited from the
"Awakening", Renaissance, Whatnot, go ahead. Rational
Mind, like the dinosaur has had it's time of dominance. What did it
accomplish? The imminent destruction of the world....hey, so long,
and thanks for all the thesi!

Occam's razor...the simplest explanation is usually the closest
to the truth. The Jacarandas will bloom in January, trees full of lavender
blossom. My survival paradigm will work as long as the current world paradigm
continues. That's why I drink everyday. Why look for a future when
you can't see one? Yes, a slightly negatory
p.o.v., however, it's just one life...it's just one world.

Doing Time

Wasting time
making time
schtupified

waiting for any shoe to fall.

It was nice earlier, when I was busy
in seemingly meaningful made up realities.

Now it's just me and the landscape,
pen and paper as an excuse
that something is actually happening.

When Trungpa, Rinpoche was alive
and we were young, crazy eyed,
overflowing with hormonal glee...

It was magnificent and terrifying
and everything else all at once.

Now it's just a still life in nature
punctuated by belch and butterfly,
humming bird and fart.

Smokey, The Bare Wood

Cement truck coming at ya fast
now what…
maybe not even that much time.

Shedding Confusion

The world humans are born into is a
confused world…it’s nature is confusion.
Humans are born with a blank slate, onto
which is written their experience.
But what’s doing the writing is not unbiased…
we learn from our parents,
teachers, environment. Those aspects are
biased towards confusion. As
a result, we grow up as confused beings.

The mechanism that creates our confused
world has three aspects: passion,
aggression, and ignorance. We build our
world by grasping what we want,
rejecting what we don’t want, and ignoring
everything else. This mechanism,
while somewhat efficient at survival, is not
interested in anything else. Because
our minds are not trained in anything but this
instinctive reactiveness, our lives
are lived at it’s mercy.

But there is something more. There is the
“I don’t know” component to our
experience. This “I don’t know” is experienced
when we try to learn anything,
but it is deeper than that. There is a fundamental
“I don’t know” that haunts us
our whole lives.

As we build the edifice of our lives,
the fundamental “I don’t know”,
sometimes expressed as “what is reality?”
is put in a closet of that edifice
and the edifice is built around it. Because
the edifice seems so real, the
fundamental “I don’t know” is hidden.
The world that is built around “I don’t
know” overwhelms it, but it never disappears.

The more solid the edifice seems, the less
concern there is about the “I don’t
know.” in the closet. If “I don’t know” rears
it’s head in experience, we either
quickly throw it into the closet, or, we try to
paint it with belief, concept, and
hang it on the wall of the edifice as an enhancement.
When our life reaches it’s
conclusion and the edifice we’ve built inevitably
crumbles, what we’re left
with is “I don’t know.”

This “I don’t know” is the key that unlocks real
reality, the unconfused world.
To use that key, we have to look into the “I don’t
know” itself. The means to do that is the practice of
meditation. Through the practice of mediation and the
cultivation of awareness, the fundamental “I don’t know’,
the question “What is reality?” answers itself. At that point,
confusion disappears.

A Flurry Of Mirrors

Mirror of my mind
So called reality
Space with a tinge of
Something called
Experience.

No more substantial
Than a rainbow, yet,
Seeming so.

So very….very, yet,
Always constantly changing,
Like a cloud of smoke.

Even a mountain
Is very slow smoke.

Our thoughts are
Nothing more than smoke….
That’s why we smell
Rubber burning….
A pipe dream…
(dream on)

Nothing more than
Light reflected in
A teardrop
Dewdrop
Drop of blood
Ruby
Diamond
Emerald
Lake
Ocean
Mirror.

Holiday Cheer

It’s beginning to look like Armageddon…
Everywhere you go…..
The bombs are going off,
Global warming makes us cough,
And all the chemicals in the air….

Radioactive white snowflakes are falling….
Everywhere you go…
Chernobyl wasn’t enough,
Fukushima was hanging tough,
Till’ an earthquake was right there….

It’s beginning to seem the Mayans were right
Everywhere you go…..
Time is speeding up,
Information is catching us,
And World Economy in the air.

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth,
and gums that do not bleed….

(Hey, Kids! Add your own verses!!
Make this an "Occupy Poem"!!!
((nudge, nudge, pass it around!)) )

http://youranonnews.tumblr.com/post/13784338017/its-beginning-to-look-a-lot-like-nazi-germany