THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE

The universe is everything that exists and everything that does not exist.  It includes the Past, Present and Future.  The project refers to everything that exists because no communication is possible in the realm where nothing exists.  Everything that exists is vibrating.  The vibrations accurately express a thing's present time condition.  The vibrations flow out from a thing's location in space and impinge upon other things.  If this impingement vibrates at a frequency within the range of any sense organs other "things" have developed, it can be consciously perceived and interpreted.  This is communication.

The English word "language" emphasises communication with the tongue; "lingua" = "tongue".  However, the vibrations which flow out from beings cover a wide spectrum and are perceived by different sense organs in different ways.  Slower vibrations are perceived as sound; faster ones as light. 

There are many gradations in between and outside of these. Different beings have developed different sense organs in order to perceive these vibrations and interpret them for survival.  It is always a mistake if a human being assumes that, because he cannot perceive something with his five senses, it doesn't exist.

Even human beings do not limit communication to what can be heard or transmuted into symbols and written down.  We have sign language, body language, intuitive perception, body contact (kisses, pats, punches, caresses). Unintentional perception enters through the nose and communicates stinks and aromas.

So this vast network of vibrations from every existing thing is eternally communicating its all and everything.  Is anyone listening?  In a nutshell, what does it all add up to?

Looking with dispassion,
with equanimity,
doesn’t it shine brighter than a thousand suns?
The broken wing
the severed finger
the uncompleted life
‘the smyler with the knife’
the smell of fear
spirochaetes, viruses and germs
and the ever-chewing sepulchral worms?

And don’t we see a thousand times and more
that what we build and try to hold in place
disintegrates, vanishes without trace?
And what we hoard up
and try to store
provides a breeding ground for rats?

And this, which is the Past,is also Evermore?

What we cannot preserve here
when we have felt the betrayal of the breath
we save for heaven,
taking our joys and pains
across the no-man’s land of death
and there, in finer, subtler, intellectual realms
plant our standards.
And still the Eternal, empty wind
blows them down.



LISTENERS

Where there are listeners
there is no silence.
Either the sounds
of the listeners’ minds
rebound
from the boundlessness of space,
or the universe itself pounds
out a multivociferous chatter;
the sound of reaching out,
selecting
rejecting
and pain;
coming together
and falling apart again.

Every plant, every stone, every sun
has its tongue,
its subtle and interminable vibration.
Every whirling planet
and spinning electron
screams (or whispers) its history.
Reaching out
selecting
rejecting
coming together
falling apart again.
Pain.

Where there are listeners
there is no silence.

The universal music thunders discordant tones
the unintended harmony
in its unintended composition;
the sound of creation
and of decomposition.




PUBLIC NOTICE

YOU ARE NOW ENTERING SILOM ROAD
THE POLLUTION LEVEL IS VERY HIGH

The terracotta pavement is lined
with pradhu trees,
the symbol of the Navy,
hung with orchids (wooden bananas).

Outside a shop called “Modern Optical”
with its reflecting rows
of à la mode spectacles
is a line of large Chinese fish bowls
in which live (and will die)
three-foot high pudtan trees.

On these pots, sit five of the very poor,
hunching together as penguins do,
to keep the outside out.
One is grey with age,
two play old wooden instruments discordantly,
a girl sings;
the harmony is in the poverty.
Each has a tin labelled “Donations”.
No eyes are visible in half open sockets.
For they are blind.

They touch to make a living human chain
so that the fragile world they share
does not disintegrate.
A sharp-eyed woman,
with eyes for all five,
assists (or exploits)
their helplessness.

When the owner of Modern Optical
comes out to speak
and wave his hands,
she leads them away
to the market to find a new pitch.
Each holds onto the one in front
like a medieval European dance
of Dies Irae.

“What were they playing?”
The music of human misery.



New Project: "My Body, My Mind"

LISTEN

LISTEN

What is that sound?
Like the trailing of a fan
through a silent anteroom?

It is the murmur of air
ruffling leaves.

It is the herald of the whirlwind
which will strip those leaves from their trees
and wrench the trees from the hillside
and blast the soil from the rocks beneath,
leaving the skeleton of the earth
to bleach and crumble.

And what is that sound?
Like a cascade of pearls
on a silver salver?

It is the rushing of the waterfall
in the Italian garden.
It presages the tempest and the raging ocean
which smashes earth’s boundaries
and drives the rivers back up to their sources,
drowning and destroying everything that lives on air.

And what is that sound?
Like the crackle of dry twigs
under the heavy boots of soldiers?
It is the fire in the hearth,
logs spitting, blue and yellow flame dancing
under the granite lintel.

It is the messenger of the Sun
which will rage and burn the planet
to a cloud of incandescent interstellar dust
for the winds of space to disperse forever.

And what is that sound?
High and plaintive
behind the polished nursery door?

It is the crying of a two-day-old baby.
It tells of the heavy tramp of armies
across the continents of the world
marching to the rhythms
of dark gods
bringing the destruction of cities
and the extinguishing of civilisations.

It is the sound of an empty skull
there in the desert,
abandoned by dog and raven,
dry and bleached and splitting along its seams,
home to gusts of wind
and the occasional locust.

These are the sounds of the end of human
endeavour,
the end pages of books,
the silence which silences the symphony.

When the gums shrivel and decay,
the teeth are cracked and broken
and there is to be found no place where the smile
or its shadow has ever been;
no echo of long ago laughter.

This is the sound of eternity.


 
New Project: THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE

SAME SOIL, DIFFERENT SEEDS

The soil is always the same; made up entirely of the corpses of uncountable bodies. These have lived and fed upon each other and died and rotted down and been digested into soil.

Each body is a life in which the experiences of becoming, the sangsara, are tested and its sweet and bitter fruit digested. All is recorded on a timetrack which has neither beginning nor ending.  Each body is the fruit of its past.  Each fruit spills out its seed (murmuring "please some more!") into the soil (which is always the same).

Same soil.  Different seeds.

The splendour of a hundred kings
fades like the bloom on a butterfly’s wings.
The meanest flower that blows
goes the same way the forest goes.
All is consumed by worm or fire;
nothing needs building any higher.
The rattling of teeth within the jaw
mocks the tongue murmuring:
“Please, some more!”



NEW PROJECT: LISTEN

INSIDE OUT OR OUTSIDE IN?

INSIDE OUT indicates the direction of flow: from the Centre outwards into the Universe of Becoming. Obviously, everything "out there" has come from the Centre, the Point of Origin.  Our Point of Origin is in the centre of our physical bodies but is unnoticed and forgotten by most beings that have physical forms.  If we don't overlook or lose sight of it, then all of our behaviour (thought, word and deed) is grounded in the Centre, flows from it and is in harmony with everything else "out there" which has the same origin as ourselves.  We are therefore able to sustain contact with our Point of Origin.  We do not go astray and, in the end, we return to it.

OUTSIDE IN indicates a flow in the opposite direction: from the Universe of Becoming "out there" into our minds.  Everything "out there" seems separate and competing with everything else for survival and happiness.  Points of views and knowledge arise based upon this separateness, self and other, me and you.  A cloud of thinking founded on multiplicity obscures our ability to see clearly.  We do things which cause suffering to ourselves and others.

INSIDE OUT OR OUTSIDE IN.  We have to chose.  Worldly values (the World) or ethical values (the Centre)?

Ethics shows us that it is wrong to kill (Who cuts off his own hand?).  Worldly wisdom says that we need the protein from meat and explains that if, for example, a country like Denmark gave up exporting meat and dairy products, it would be a very poor country indeed.

Indeed.  But it would also be richer spiritually and happier.  Because the more you tune into the Centre, the happier you are.  And the more you adjust to the wisdom of the world (compromise), the more you cause suffering (and suffer).

Ethics is the highest science,
concerned with surviving,
not merely knowing.

A man without Ethics

is already drowning;

ever sinking

ever lower

in a sea of being.

New Project: SAME SOIL, DIFFERENT SEEDS

The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month

POPPY


What does it mean?

(does it mean anything
 to whom
 when)

What difference did it make?
(did it make any difference
 to those who died
 to those who survived
 did anyone survive)

What difference has it made?
(to me
 to you
 to those)

Where are those now?
(where are the others)

The bullet links shooter and shot?
(if one goes up can the other go down
 if both go up…
 if both go down…)

And you?
(and me
 and those)


11TH HOUR, 11TH DAY, 11TH MONTH

November Rose.
Pink and white and mauve.
Solitary, still,
among the rosemary and late autumnal gorse.


Sea winds have blown.
The first frosts have frozen the short grass.
Spring and summer are memories,
midwinter an echo in reverse.


November Rose for the dying.
November Poppies for the dead,
who cannot sleep
but stream towards new birth;
whose pain outlasts
the bitter Flanders earth.






REQUIEM: ARMISTICE DAY 1995

This year
the dead are blind
and do not seem to hear
our prayers.

Nor do they seem to mind
that we now own
what they once thought was theirs.

Here
they shed no tear
at all the pain
they left behind.

Now,
when they come again,
they only find
echoes of the long-ago,
and landscapes that they hardly know;
deserted buildings, unpeopled streets,
lonely corridors, empty rooms,
where each his own image meets
in every shape it now assumes.




New Project: INSIDE OUT OR OUTSIDE IN ?
Normally, if something is inside out (like a sock for instance) it will be outside in as well. So the conjunction would be "and". In this case the conjunction is "or".

BLONDIN

 Hermit in the forest,

 the mind begins to play.

 Māra’s hosts are grinning.

 Every thought is Judgement Day.

 

NEW PROJECT: The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month

FREEDOM TO OR FREEDOM FROM

Power aims
at Freedom To;
finds itself
on a collision course
with all the other Freedoms To
that inhabit gods and men and beast;
storm and drought and pestilence;
sickness, old age and death.

Wisdom aims
for Freedom From
discovers that all the competing Freedom To's
struggle within the stadium of life
and win and lose and win and lose
and lose at last at the gates
of old age and death.
Discovers that he who enters not
the arena of the breath
suffers no loss and dies no death.


Freedom To can be used to discover how one gets into places and situations that one wishes one could be Free From!


FURTHER COMMENT:  You are free to jump out of the girls' bedroom window but you are not free from the consequences of landing in the slate courtyard thirty feet below.


NEW PROJECT: BLONDIN

Blondin above Niagara,
the rope begins to sway.
The rocks below are grinning.
Every step is Judgement Day.

THINK.

The Labyrinth is made of Think. (Who built it?)  Ariadne's thread enables you to explore it safely.  What is the thread?  (If Ariadne's name was Sophia, what would it mean?)  Who or what is the Minotaur that lurks in the Labyrinth waiting for its annual sacrifice of seven young men and seven young women?  Who were its parents?  Why?

The River carries debris, dead animals, sewage, messages in bottles, courting couples in bath-tubs, other people's treasures, yesterday's memories, tomorrow's plans, everyday's fantasies.  The flow of Think is endless, ever-changing, always the same.  It is different from the flow of the river, though in exactly the same place.

NEW PROJECT: FREEDOM TO OR FREEDOM FROM?

IN-TRAY/OUT-TRAY

Entries into the in-tray should be cleared immediately or as soon as possible. If not, they build up and one's whole life becomes unbalanced and out of the present moment (which is where one actually lives). Even when the company folds, your desk goes with the rest of the furniture to auction and the office is demolished to make room for a motorway, your in-tray accompanies with all its contents, eternally waiting to be cleared.

NEW PROJECT: THINK

Think is interesting

Think is knowing

Think is funny

Think is painful

Think is boring

Think is difficult to control.

Speech is Think.

Think is not thing

Think is not seeing

Think is not hearing

Think is not smelling

Think is not tasting

Think is not feeling

Think is not doing

Think is not understanding.

What (or who) is Think?

Who (or what) controls Think?

SAMMĀ SAMĀDHI (RIGHT CONCENTRATION)

Right Concentration specifically produces Happiness.

Suffering is embedded in every aspect of the Sangsara.  The Sangsara is our world (and all other worlds).  It is life itself.  Everywhere, beings are being born into circumstances they don't want.  They are growing old (which they don't want).  They are sick (which they don't want).  They are dying (which they only want if they think it will be better than being alive).

When a man concentrates the mind successfully on a single wholesome object, he deliberately withdraws his attention from his physical link with our world.  He does not see, hear, smell, taste or touch the world.  It therefore does not cause him physical pain while he is in this state of 100% concentration.  Because he does not see, hear smell, taste or touch, there is no point of contact with external things and therefore no feelings arise.  So feelings cannot cause him pain.  Because his mind is fixed on a single object, he makes no contact with the outside world at the mind sense door.  He does not contact thoughts or memories or mental images with the mind.  So these things cannot trouble him and cause him pain.

He finds himself, consciously, in a state which is absolutely free from pain, discomfort or any kind of suffering, whether mental or physical.  Absence of suffering is the beginning of Eternal Happiness.

Therefore; Right Concentration specifically produces Happiness.

NEW PROJECT: In-tray / Out-tray

SAMMĀ SATI (RIGHT MINDFULNESS)

  Behold,

  You Inheritors of Immortal Bliss!

  Now is Here!

  And This

  Is All there Is!

New Project: RIGHT CONCENTRATION

Samādhi (sam + ā + dhā): "the (mental) state of being firmly fixed". The fixing of the mind on a single object. Concentration is right or wrong in so far as it is associated with wholesome or unwholesome states of consciousness.

SAMMĀ VĀYĀMA (RIGHT EFFORT)

RIGHT EFFORT: Effort is energy deliberately directed in a certain direction.  It can be physical; the effort to push a broken down car: or mental: the effort to learn multiplication tables.  If the effort is successful, the aim of the action is achieved (the car is moved, the tables are learned).  A successful action is not necessarily a right action: “when the bomb exploded it killed everyone in the shop”.  Nor is an effort necessarily a right effort; “an effort was made to beak the Jewellers’ shop window”.

Right Effort is an effort that has a wholesome action as its goal.

A wholesome action is an action that does not cause suffering to other living beings.  Experimentation on animals is unwholesome action irrespective of the motivation.  Wholesome actions arise from wholesome thoughts.

Efforts to empty the mind of unwholesome thoughts and feelings constitute Right Effort.  Negative thoughts and feelings include cruelty, jealousy, envy, hatred, anger, ill will and even laziness.  Positive thoughts and feelings are those that are directed towards the happiness and well-being of others and oneself and also energy, determination and courage.

Mettā shines;

the cancerous growths

which cling to the living cells

of the Children of Light

shrivel into powdery dust.

New Project: MINDFULNESS

JUSTIFY YOUR EXISTENCE

If you have nothing better to do, there is no reason not to do what you are doing. 

If you have got something better to do, then there is no reason not to be doing it.


  The splendour of a hundred kings
  fades like the bloom on a butterfly’s wings.
  The meanest flower that blows
  goes the same way the forest goes.

  All is consumed by worm or fire;
  nothing needs building any higher.
  The rattling of teeth within the jaw
  mocks the tongue murmuring:

  “Please, some more!”


New Project :  SAMMĀ VĀYĀMA (RIGHT EFFORT)

SAMMĀ ĀJIVA (RIGHT LIVELIHOOD)

RIGHT LIVELIHOOD

Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor
Everyman is his own gaoler;
shuts the door and turns the key,
ends up where he wants to be,
looking at what he needs to see
- you for you and me for me.


Right Livelihood supports your Life. 

Working for a living may take up most of your working day. 

Would you do it if you didn't have to?  It involves sacrifice.  Is the life you lead worth that sacrifice?  

What are you working for? 

What is the purpose of the work you do to earn food, clothing and shelter and the other things you consider necessities?

Are you working in order to go to work?  

What is the purpose of your life?

    Walt Disney lies in a deep, deep freeze
    Like a packet of Smedley's frozen peas.


New Project: Justify your Existence

SAMMĀ KAMMANTA (RIGHT ACTION)

RIGHT ACTION

When you throw yourself
down from the top of high mountains,
the Earth does not take you
into her arms
and comfort you.

When you kneel
and kiss the ground,
the Earth does not praise
your humility.

It is for this reason
that she is called
‘The Great Mother’.

Every moment
is a fork in the road.
And every fork
is always the same:
the choice between right and wrong.

The wrong is always
arrogating to oneself
things which do not belong
to oneself.

The right is always
following the Light.


        *  *  *


Time drifts away
as mist fades on mountain.
The world itself is hardly more substantial.
Living water springs
from life’s fountain
yet it runs dry,
leaving powdering bones
bleaching in the sun.

Molecules of arm and leg and brain
are rebels and would all be free again.
The whole pageant of our days and hours
runs only till we lose our feeble powers.

As children we play out our days
with sandcastles and fantasies
until the turning tides erase
what we work so hard to raise,
struggle to protect and call our own –
fragments of things, at very best, on loan.

Upwards our thoughts might usefully aspire;
nothing down here needs building any higher.

Deal justly with your neighbour
and make of him your friend
and in your inner garden, labour
until you reach your end.



New Project: SAMMĀ ĀJIVA (RIGHT LIVELIHOOD)

SAMMĀ VĀCĀ (RIGHT SPEECH)

RIGHT SPEECH

It's the Words one hears
but the Thoughts that are revealed.
And thus the Mind appears
that would be otherwise concealed.

If the Words give this Example
of the flowing mental din,
thus being but a Sample,
what Torrents seethe and boil within!

In the Tangle of the Senses,
the Wandering Mind has lost its Way
and stumbles through its broken fences,
confused, in darkness, Night and Day.

Words upon a page,
ripples upon a mind,
ripples upon a sea.

Wind drops,
sea calms.

Where are the ripples then?
Who thinks
what?



New Project: SAMMĀ-KAMMANTA (RIGHT ACTION)