music , mind , thought and emotion

Ok, I'll go home now...

Smell of the mitt and mowed grass, dragonflies clicking overhead, the smell of the creek, the worn path around the house from playing tag at dusk, the call of my Mother down the block for supper, mitt over the bat over my shoulder as "i" walk home.

Asa, I apologize but am in the process of moving into a new home and have just enough time to say I'll get with you all tomorrow. I've not even had time to do more than scan the responses (and laugh a bit). No offense or neglect meant -- some great stuff here. "I'll be baack"

Asa, interesting surf questions.

The surf is the heartbeat of the world. It exists regardless of how it is appreciated. Although I hate to categorize or pigeon-hole people too much (far too many complexities really), a Jungian based profiling methodolgy (the Meyers-Briggs tests) splits people into 16 types. These types hold constant proportionally across any human culture so, I believe, reveals fundamental human, rather than cultural, differences and similarities. Why the differences? From a Darwinian perspective, I think we needed different ways to think and act in order to survive as a species. No one way wins alone in all situations. Hence, the fundamental need for cooperation. Hold that thought for a minute.

Getting back to the surf, I would contend that everyone appreciates it in some way. However, I don't believe that it is in the same way. (By the way, ditto for musical appreciation). Is an appreciation of the surf, or rhythm, fundamental to survival? Probably. Pacing our physical labors is rhythmic and the reproductive act itself is rhythmic. And, by the way, survival based or not, our first nine months is nothing but rythmic inside the womb. On a more macro level, we need to cooperate to survive, but we are different from one another which leads to tension. Does rhythm help hold us together as a tribe? I believe so. The pre-tribe stuff doesn't matter as much since you had to reproduce within a tribal setting to keep the genes going.

So how is the surf perceived? Differently by different people, but in a fundamentally comfortable way. For me, surf is best when I disappear into it. Just as music is best when I lose myself in it.

More of my two cents. I hope it makes sense. I'm still in a rush right now due to the move so I apologize if this isn't as coherent as it could be.

Where there is a beginning, there is an end.

Asa, Bodhisattva has Bodhisattva's problem (stuck). let me explain: For examples.

1) A student speak to himself, I need to study hard, in order to get good grades.

2) That poor man is hungry and cold, let's give him some food.

3) The fireman said to himself: "I've got to save that house".

My point is the mind is driving the everything. It's the way it is! Denying that is denying you, yourself. It is always there! Always free! It is you (your mind) who ties you down. in words, promises (that is why marriage called "tie the knot", etc...

Asa, Who do you think Bodhisattva is? He is a human being! with "an opened heart": Firemen, you, etc... Do you think he was borned out of the mountain's hole or something? It's a state of mind and the level that he is in! Once he realized that it is his own state of mind, he then "free". It is everyday people! You and I, and so is everyone else! Example: You graduate from graduate school, you get a degree, people called you doctor, lawyer, technician, etc... But that does not change your name, doensn't it Mark!

Asa, as you've already known, the way I write by now (stink). As I would say: "I am only 5'4" tall" up there, then I would added later "or short", that is why I said word is leading. See how free I am? But if you could do it better, who stop you?! In fact you wrote beautifully, as I've said many times.

Asa, "In the end, he did not say a word" is a state of mind. after this, I will not get into (or get out) the "neurotic thing", Clueless, you like that, huh? ;-). Let just say that I am UN-STUCK, myself for I have said all my pieces. In a few days, everybody do your own things and FORGOT, would that be enough to say "in the end, he did not say a word"?. Or would I be dead or went crazy, afterward? Buddha, don't lie, so is Jesus, so is Lao Tzu. Don't be confused! Also, I did not write/speak to/for you. So I did not say a word, to you... in the end. :-)

Good bye everyone

Ozfly, you've been using it, it is you, you've just proved it. :-)

He has found me, and I has found him: "The teacher of teachers, the healer of healers". I am not lonely no more. Hahahaha... It's his problem, now. Hahahahahaha...

6ch: you always crack me up; you go away for days, then come back with some big explanatory response - to what, I don't know. You imply that you are teaching me, but what statements of mine do you address? You tell me before there are no levels -trying to "teach" me that then - but then here you say that Bodhisattva has a level - you are playing Zen games (with yourself). Besides, where you got the idea that I thought a Bodhisattva was something other than a human (making him/her other-worldly in a "mountain hole", wherever you got that...) is beyond me.

Here's what I think. I think you go off for a couple of days, get a little Zen bliss high, then come back to me as your foil (to be your mirror) so you can see how "enlightened" you are. Do you need to teach me in order to prove to yourself you are "enlightened"?

I disagree with you: all is not mind, that is mind talking. Mind (thinking) arises from Ground (you've seen that haven't you, in minds that you "see"?) of Silence, yet ground is never separate from mind. Jesus could talk (mind) without karma because all instinctual remnants (Tibetan "defilements") had faded from him; he had transcended all prior minds' attachment throughout all evolution (which, yes, is only HERE/NOW). He had moved past amoeba mind by surrendering to it; not surrender as in it "wins" but by accepting it (its an illusion; its "energy" perpetuated by your resistance to it).

I disagree with you that everyone is "Jesus", or rather knows what he knew in his bones, becoming his bones. I know you want to be the Laughing Buddha gadfly, but samsara exists in most people, and so the Buddha told us. Denial of that is samsara itself. Why did Jesus/Buddha talk at all? The Bodhisattva vow says that one will not stay in Nirvana until all sentient beings (not just humans BTW) are saved from suffering, which, of course, means that some/most beings are suffering. Buddhas don't suffer; they have transcended its attachment - that's what makes them "Buddha". You can be there - yes, RIGHT NOW/HERE - but, for all my affection for you, my friend, you are not there, and that needs to be clearly said. Glad you are enjoying the bliss of your peak exprerience, though. As I said, try to cut back on the Zen books a bit...

Ozfly: thank you for your lucid response. And for more surf.

Yes, primordial patterns of sound exist in us, its not just from culture (although that's where Jung saw it). Like Kant's space/time matrix, or Chomsky's language template, a template for pattern recognition exists (bewteen those two BTW). My point, however, was that the evolutionary forces that "created" this patterning lens in the mind's perception was one that strongly selected an active patterning of sound, yet when we listen to music we are not just actively listening to sound (a twig moving) but the opposite: letting that active orientation go. The forces of survival that lead to active patterning would not seem to be the forces that would lead to the "letting go" of an attachment to that patterning.

Loved what you said though.