Friendship with Shams

Didn't meditate a second time yesterday and I feel it today in my meditation. Sex memories come with rapture memories, so calling up rapture I have memories. I used to get upset, I'm not supposed to think that, but now I just don't encourage it. The boner is impermanent.  With the struggle with basic happiness, I have a negative undertow and you know, feel threatened and aversive to life at times. The breath simplifies, and simplified life has a basic happiness, if you can touch it. One element of restlessness for me is the fear of being tired, too tired, whatever that is. There is no too tired, just sleep if you're tired. But I'm meditating. Movement is distracting. Holding still gives me claustrophobia, but it's a necessary step in deepening my meditation. Relax the body, relax the skandhas, gladden and steady the mind. The breath is a wonderful thing.

I'm concerned about the mice and the pigeons invading my home. I hear a noise, and it might just be a box making noise. I put the box up front and the noise goes away.  Wake up early and watch the late game of NYCFC v LAFC. It's a frustrating game, all set to be a thrilling 0-0, but they bottle it, and lose 1-0. Birk Risa's clearance is a perfect pass to Hollingshead who blasts it home.  It's gotten colder again, and the moon won't rise for a few hours.  Mehdi has been talking about opposing mind states. I think restlessness comes from sloth and torpor. I'm tired, so I wiggle to agitate myself and wake up. Relaxing and resting in awareness is what I'm aiming for. I remember sitting in the shrine room and watching a guy falling asleep, and leaning over, catching himself. I don't like that. Seeing the line of the building and the sky in the dark is like looking at a Rothko painting and seeing different shades of black. 

Mehdi sent me these paradoxes, but I didn't see them as such: The Self and No-Self (Anatta) – Buddhism teaches that there is no permanent, independent self (anatta), yet it also provides teachings on karma and rebirth, which seem to require some form of continuity. Rebirth is like a candle flame to another candle. The flame is still a flame, but it's a different wick. I don't really buy that, but that's the traditional response. The real response is it's different cauese and conditions so it will be a different self. Rebirth is just birth, everything comes from causes and conditions.   Desire and Non-Attachment – The path to enlightenment requires the desire to be free from suffering, yet Buddhism teaches that desire itself is the cause of suffering.   Desire and attachment/clinging are two different things. You don't go from a moment of desire to no desire, you go from a moment of desiring enlightenment to not clinging to the desire.   Effort and Non-Striving –...

Reading Dionysus: Myth and Cult  (1933) by Walter F. Otto . It's a good book because he's saying to our modern sensibilities we would ask for a mythical god to grant us favors because we understand it's mythical, but our modern conception is a barrier to really understanding how the cult works. Not sure I'm buying the rope-a-dope writing of Otto, but it is somewhat interesting. It's rope-a-dope because you suspend your modern mind. I feel like you have some convincing for me to do that, and that this alternate way of thinking actually isn't modern.  Cultic fervor is the thing that helps us more towards ecstacy. Cultus means adoration. I read this book because Dionysus is the god of religious rapture, and I cultivate rapture in my meditation, and I'm curious about all religions, maybe I can get a hint about rapture, and maybe I can learn more about ancient Greece and Rome.  Right Concentration  (2015) by Leigh Brasington talks about understanding and expandin...

Asked ChatGPT for a Buddha unicorn pegasus. I was hoping for all in one, but this is what I got: Could not get it to put the face on the unicorn pegasus. I asked for a Dionysis face on a unicorn pegasus:

After sleeping till 6, today I woke up at 2 AM. Today I start my day reading the poetry of Dai Wangshu  ( poem ). He died at age 35 of an accidental overdose of his asthma medication. I wasn't aware that was a possibility. This is the last poet in Yilin Wang's translation of 5 contemporary poets from China. This little book is quite fun in that it gives a tantalizing taste of 5 different poets. It's been a great way to start my day, after finishing the biography on Rumi that i read. I've evolved to the place where reading poetry is the thing to do.  After 4 days on the brahma-viharas, today I turn to anapanasati. I continue to do the 16 stages as sort of scales, to practice my meditative chops. I follow with a just sitting, which is free and open, and oddly when I have a focus I yearn for freedom, and when I have freedom I yearn for a focus.  I've been watching summaries of the Korean movie Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...Spring. I liked 3 of them on bluesky .  My ba...