August 15, 2008
Riding the surf
We all are surfing this world.
One minute we think we are young,
and that everything is in front of us,
when suddenly things don't work as they used to,
We are old.
Morrison is with Elvis;
ZZTop is old.
Led Zepellin is old.
The Beatles are stone cold.
The Rolling stones are still rolling,
but their stones are full of moss.
But the ghosts of surfers still ride the waves.
Can't you see them in the sea?
Everything is twists and turns,
One day there is hope,
The next there is reality.
One day we are free,
the next we find new forms of slavery.
We are like swimmers in the sea.
Those old guys on the surf boards,
still seem cool because inside they are.
If the outside lols and drools,
it is the insides that shine and tell timeless stories.
The stories echo;
Of hopes and dreams,
failures and successes,
Victories and defeats.
Of waves seemingly too big to ever master,
Ridden to shore by determined masters.
Life is like a surfboard,
And we are surfers of reality.
That moment only lasts a moment.
Regain it moment by moment,
Eventually the wave will fail.
It will lose its energy.
And eventually we say goodbye to freinds.
Still alive in tales and memories.
One wave dies, but the waves live on.
What lasts is the inspiration, the lesson, the energy
not some bloated memory of an ego.
Some surfers were failed human beings;
But on the waves they were splendid!
Do we take guidance from a beach bum?
Do we admire a drunk? No...
But we can admire a master of the waves,
as he rides in so seemingly effortlessly
Someone can build on a master surfers technique.
Gandhi was felled by a bullet,
his spirit reincarnated in Martin Luther King.
Martin Luther was felled by a bullet.
Hopefully his spirit is still marching.
Nobody will ever ride a surfboard again,
the way that some master you have known.
But someone will ride it afresh,
inspired by that master,
in his own way.
Our surfers don't immitate.
They don't turn their teachers into dead Gods.
They honor them by surfing.
They work like olympic gymnasts to ready themselves.
They push their surboard fast enough to catch a wave.
They are masters by doing, not by talking.
And we learn by example, and by cultivating discipline
The way of Master and Disciple in Democracy.
Is many forms of inspirations, examples of discipline,
and a great many heroes.
The way of the Buddha is timeless.
Yet he leaves only footprints in the sand.
He is reincarnated as a dharma surfer in Malibu.
Leaving countless footprints,
Weaving patterns in the waves.
And dancing on the boards.
Chris
(Note I've never surfed with a surfboard except in my dreams)
Posted by cholte at August 15, 2008 03:56 PM
I still find that if I scrape off the superficiality of my circumstances I feel the same as when I was nine. In my twenties I felt like an old man, some of my friends that was as old as they were ever going to get. I've been with a couple of people becoming child like before dying. What is old? Is Mozart old like Zepplin or is he forever young in the hearts of music lovers? He lived to be 45. To some kid who cares only for hip hop I'm sure he's dead and burried, yet I'm sure that long past my lifetime music students will be breathing life from and into his compositions, he may have breathed his last over 200 years ago but he ain't dead yet. Can you really say anything is old?
Generation by Opposites
There is nothing which is not objective: there is nothing which is not subjective. But it is impossible to start from the objective. Only from subjective knowledge is it possible to proceed to objective knowledge. Hence it has been said, The objective emanates from the subjective; the subjective is consequent upon the objective. This is the Theory of Generation by Opposites. Nevertheless, as one is born, the other dies. When one is possible, the other is impossible. When one is affirmative the other is negative. This being the case, a wise man rejects all preconceived distinctions between this and that. He takes his refuge in how things are in nature.
And inasmuch as the subjective is also objective, and the objective also subjective, and as the contraries under each are indistinguishably blended, does it not become impossible for us to say whether subjective and objective really exist at all?
When subjective and objective are both without their opposites, we are at the axis of the unvarying way. And when that axis passes through the center at which all infinities converge, positive and negative alike blend into an infinite unity. Therefore there is nothing like the evidence of nature.
But to wear out one’s intellect in an obstinate adherence to the individuality of things, not recognizing the fact that all things are a unity—this is called Three in the Morning.
What is Three in the Morning? asked Tzu Yu.
Tzu Ch’i replied, A keeper of monkeys said that each monkey was to have three chestnuts in the morning and four at night. But the monkeys were very angry at this; so the keeper said they might have four in the morning and three at night, with which arrangement they were all well pleased. The actual number of the chestnuts remained the same, but there was an adjustment to meet to the likes and dislikes of those concerned. Such is the principle of putting oneself into subjective relation with externals.
Therefore a wise man, while regarding contraries as identical, adapts himself to the laws of nature. This is called following two courses at once.
-Chuang Tzu
ch
One can get lost on philosophical musings about whether existence is "real or not." However, real or not, it is where we are. It is real enough. We can pass through it passively, or we can pass through it awake.
I don't buy the argument that subjective and objective are the same. We are beings that have soft computers that model the Universe, so our internal reality is tied to, but separate from the "real reality" around us. At the same time, there could be "more" than either our physical reality or our software/hardware/wetware reality, but that is only approachable through either dreams, or by thoughts words and actions in the world of humans, animals and material matter.
Forgot my six-string razor - hit the sky
Half way to Memphis 'fore I realised
Well I rang the information - my axe was cold
They said she rides the train to Oreoles
Now its a mighty long way down the dusty trail
And the sun burns hot on the cold steel rails
'N I look like a bum 'n I crawl like a snail
All the way from Memphis
Well I got to Oreoles y'know - it took a month
And there was my guitar, electric junk.
Some spade said "Rock'n'rollers, you're all the same.
Man that's your instrument." I felt so ashamed.
Now its a mighty long way down rock'n'roll
Through the Bradford Cities and the Oreoles
'N you look like a star but you're still on the dole
All the way from Memphis
Yeah it's a mighty long way down rock'n'roll
From the Liverpool docks to the Hollywood Bowl
'N you climb up the mountains 'n you fall down the holes
All the way from Memphis
Yeah its a mighty long way down rock'n'roll
As your name gets hot so your heart grows cold
'N you gotta stay young man, you can never be old
All the way from Memphis
Yeah its a mighty long way down rock'n'roll
Through the Bradford Cities and the Oreoles
'N you look like a star but you're really out on parole!
All the way from Memphis
"One can get lost on philosophical musings about whether existence is "real or not." However, real or not, it is where we are. It is real enough. We can pass through it passively, or we can pass through it awake."
That is through the deluded eyes of Holte, who is deluded, and because of that doesn't think he is deluded. I know I am, so wherever I am, that is where it is at.
BUT.. you then go on, to enter the Burning House of illusions, and neglect to say you have Buddha Nature which would free you from your illusions, yet you cling to your illusions, including birth and death, which are all expedients, and the practice of the Lotus Sutra is discarding ALL expedients! Now, is it all starting to make sense? It is not just mindless chanting. It is becoming free.
Nam Mu (NOT NAM dam'it) Myo Ho Renge Kyo contain the merits of the life time of Buddha to break the illusions of religion. That is how I became such a wonderful person (joke). The merits are the medicine, not mindless mumbling, not the religion, not taking photos of the moon, not marching in parades, not joining a Japanese sect, not worshiping the Emperor.
We have a sick Saha world with everyone's mind in the burning house of illusion, your poem was absolutely fabulous! Domo Arrigato!
Bruce
With your soft brain you interpret that story one way, and I another. The real world may be the "burning house" -- I don't argue with that point. It seems all too clear. Yet the real world is also instantly transformed into a jeweled land. Part of it is our soft squishy brains, part of it is our perspective. Seen from space the earth is a jewel.
Again Namu may contain all sorts of merits in theory, yet my "happy place" was long ago soiled by the spreaders of the reality of how folks misuse even Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.
Somehow having assassins chanting Namu Myoho Renge Kyo just before assassinating a moderate duke destroys the idea that the abstract reality contained in the meaning and promise of the Daimoku always behaves in reality the way Nichiren promised. On the contrary if one chants daimoku while acting contrary to the Sutras intent...
Deluded is as deluded does. The merits have to be acquired by both chanting and by practicing as the Buddha says. In this case we need not practice austerities or keep 500 precepts, but simply chant daimoku, study the sutra, practice its principles and share them with others.
3000 worlds. If I am seeing in a deluded manner I may yet think everyone is deluded but me. If somehow I can place my thoughtful mindful essence outside of my egoistic, rather heedless personality and cultivate better ways of doing things -- I can do better.
We wake up from delusion in stages. Today I'm awake more than yesterday. Tomorrow I may sleepwalk again. Enlightenment isn't an endpoint, it's a beginning point. Once awake we have to act on the principles and things we figured out when we woke up. We do this long enough to guide people to the one vehicle.
When will people get this? When will you read my poem and see what is being said? When you see a million footprints from the Buddha in the sand of a beach how many Buddhas can you count? Are yours included?