happiness

zen moments of the senior kind

Happy Hermit

 

The continuation of the spiritual journey really depends on how crazy we’re willing to be.
– Reggie Ray

I had no idea I’d end up this crazy. Or this contented. Or this fulfilled. Don’t ask me about happiness – it’s a sub-category these days. Imagine being happy to be unhappy? Imagine being contented to feel like shit? Imagine being at peace with pain and weariness? Imagine being ok with depression, flatness, confusion? If this isn’t your version of liberation I totally understand. (We all start out on this journey imagining ‘waking up’ will magically erase all discomfort from our experience.)

But this absurd liberation lives here, and this is what the crazy cow offers tonight: five three-liners of the slightly nonsensical variety. They like to think they are haiku, but would duck and hide in the presence of ‘real’ haiku. Apologies for my warping of noble zen aphorisms, koans and haiku. I mean no disrespect; after all these years they are deeply embroidered in the fabric of this brain and have a life of their own.

My sanity does too. Where the hell did I put it?

–

old flesh, old bones

on the zafu, aches come and go

just like I used to

–

~

–

weary old mind

data flows in, data drops out

plop!

–

~

–

music to my ears…

the sound of someone else

chopping

–

~

–

puddle on zafu

old cow’s melted-down stories

moo!

–

~

–

relentless koan:

what is the sound of my neighbor’s dog

barking?

 

~

 

About the image.  This delightful brush drawing comes from the cover of an exhibition catalogue: L’Au-delà dans l’art japonaise. Paris 1963. Nowhere in the book does it mention the name of the artist whose work is featured on the cover. My instincts tend towards Sengai… what do you think?

 

dances with bunnies

She-who-scribbles has been in d-e-e-p retreat for some weeks; don’t expect sense anytime soon.
 

Beatrix Potter - Dancing to a Piper, detail

 

Everything is dancing today.

 

Light,

sound,

motion,

all movement.

 

A rabbit pulls a pipe

from his waistcoat pocket,

then winks.

 

Breathes deep and fingers

a scatter of twinkling

starlight.

 

This causes a few planets and I

to go nuts

and start a little jig.

 

Someone sees us,

calls a

shrink,

 

tries to get me

committed

for

being too

happy.

 

 

Listen: this world is a loony-bin.

It’s only real if you’re chronically

sane,

if you haven’t made the

free-fall

into wild foolishness.

 

Even with its firmness

beneath my feet

and the mailman knowing

my street number

 

I hang out somewhere else:

with partying bunnies

and a cosmos spinning

in giddy delight.

 

Reading Hafiz’s poem Then Winks catapulted my brain over to Beatrix Potter and her partying rabbits. Or was it the other way around?
Purists will protest my highjack and mash-up of Hafiz’s words, forgetting that they aren’t even his – rather, they are the Hafiz-inspired outpourings of Daniel Landinsky.
Beatrix – who knew the truth about bunnies and most things – would smile knowingly.
Daniel – well, he knows what it is to be gripped by a verse and taken for a ride.
As for Hafiz – I’ll ask him next time we’re in our cups and jiving…

Beatrix Potter watercolour from bibliodyssey blog.

Then Winks, by Hafiz [Daniel Landinksy]

“I’m free!”


The 'me' who claims to be free is just a caged concept ...

 .

as soon as freedom is claimed

infinite potential has been abandoned

.

as soon as happiness is claimed

the joy that’s causeless has been abandoned

.

as soon as awakening is claimed

natural wideawakeness has been abandoned

.

if you want to be free

{{{ unconditionally }}}

try abandoning the mirage of ‘me’

–

The wonderful cartoon comes from Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo on Facebook

making up with dear wee-me

295

what is, is always a somatic event, whether it be a mental or physical experience, whether it be of the ‘external’ world, or the ‘internal’ one

this body teaches me, guides me; it has its own way of regulating its miraculous system

when it’s happy it lets me know: it sleeps soundly, thinks clearly, stays centered in imperishable knowingness

I write “it lets me know” and instantly need to correct the illusion of two: it lets itself know, and a wee ‘me’ thought claims receipt

dear wee ‘me’ thought – you serve me well

now that you’ve revealed yourself as the ephemeral indispensable servant of the changeless Real, the Beloved, we are friends, we can make up, we can stop pretending this default dualism

at last

~

the best kept secret in creation

173

Vegetarian souls earnestly give up eating meat, ignoring the insistence of the Meat Marketing Board’s advertising;  the health conscious cancel caffeine from their diet yet still use coffee houses as meeting places;  many of us abstain from alcohol in spite of the presence of a pub on every corner, and avoid nicotine while remaining visually bombarded by cigarette advertising.

A handful of humans have awakened from the illusion of being a separate rock-solid entity and happily cohabit with the mainstream mass of dreamers.  But even when suspicious of its hazardous affects on health, society and the planet, most of us struggle to even challenge the solid-self notion.  It’s seldom questioned at all.  Such inquiry is reserved for philosophers and mystics.  All the contextual ‘evidence’ for separate-self’s sustained existence and validity is trotted out, but none of that is up for scrutiny either.

I wonder why we are never taught the difference between concept and Reality at home, or at school.  I guess it would collapse the currency of a materialistic economy if children grew up in disregard of the advertising that would have them believe that happiness had a price and came with conditions, labels and images.

The empty essence of human Beingness is the best kept secret in creation, which is a great shame because the total fulfillment it reveals remains under wraps as well.

~

the delight of a ‘be’ set free

70

what if the little verb ‘to be’
woke up one fine morning
and realized that it was a homeless orphan?
what if its job description had been
modified overnight without consultation?
what if it was now relieved from its
personal applications, redundant,
only useful as a conventional
figure of speech?

no one to be asleep
no one to be wakened
no world to be an illusion
no void to be empty
no emptiness to be filled
no form to be found
no happiness to be chased
no suffering to be escaped
no purpose to be discovered
no meaning to be understood

what a shock that would be for a very busy ‘be’
after a lifetime of endlessly and earnestly
running around doing its determined duties
and always avoiding that inevitable destiny
of coming to a halt and remembering
how to simply be

recovery would take a while
but it too would come to pass as effortlessly
as bloom those flowers
that neither spin nor sew

 

oh the delight of a ‘be’ set free!

~