DSZ

The Sutra On the Unlimited Life of the Threefold Body

2012-02-19T17:53:00.000-08:00

At one time the bodhisattva Manjushri was seated on a jewelled lotus, having a five-knotted crown on his head, his dark blue hair hanging down to his shoulders, his bodily form that of shining gold, his left hand of concentration holding a blue lotus with a five-pronged vajra above it, his right hand of wisdom grasping a sutra-box, and his body shining like an autumn rainbow.

Peacefully dwelling in the state of concentration called the moon-ring, he spoke to the Buddha, saying, World-Honored-One. We all have, from the distant past, listened to the Tathagata's teaching of the Dharma. From which Buddha did the Tathagata hear this Dharma?

The Buddha spoke to Manjushri, saying, I received the teaching of Mahavairocana, the Great Sun Buddha, after passing through the forty-one levels to enter the great inner chamber.

The bodhisattva Manjushri again spoke to the Buddha, saying, Who is within the inner chamber of the forty-one levels?

The World-Honored-One again said, After passing through the ten stages of abodes, the ten stages of practices, the ten stages of merit-transference, ten of the bodhisattva, the stage of becoming comparable to enlightenment, and entering the inner chamber, I received the preaching of the Dharma by Mahavairocana, who is at the stage of wonderful enlightenment.

The bodhisattva Manjushri again spoke to the Buddha, saying, From what Buddha did Mahavairocana on the stage of wonderful enlightenment receive this preaching of the Dharma? The World-Honored-One replied, Mahavairocana on the stage of wonderful enlightenment received the preaching of the Dharma from the beginningless and endless original Buddha who is of one mind and one thought.

The bodhisattva Manjushri again spoke to the Buddha saying, From what Buddha did the beginningless and endless original Buddha who is of one mind and one thought receive the preaching of the Dharma?

The World-Honored-One again said, The beginningless and endless original Buddha who is of one mind and one thought received the preaching of the Dharma from the original Buddha of no mind and no thought.

Manjushri again spoke to the Buddha, saying, From what Buddha did the original Buddha of no mind and no thought receive the preaching of the Dharma?

The World-Honored-One again said, There is no Buddha above and beyond the original Buddha of no mind and no thought. There is no Buddha before and no Buddha after no mind and no thought. The original Buddha is in essence beyond conceptual understanding. From the beginning it does not go nor does it come, it does not have the nature of the threefold body, nor does it have the nature of the ten destinies.

Manjushri again spoke to the Buddha, saying, If above and beyond the original Buddha of no mind and no thought there is no nature of the threefold body and the ten destinies, from what basis do the threefold body and ten destinies arise?

The World-Honored-One again said, The original Buddha of no mind and no thought is by nature beyond conceptual understanding. Both the conceptually understood natures of the threefold body and sentient beings in the ten destinies, and the nature of that which is without a nature, arise from the nature that is beyond conceptual understanding.

Manjushri again spoke to the Buddha, saying, If this is so, then is there no Buddha who teaches at the beginning? The World-Honored-One again said, There is nothing that teaches or receives above and beyond the original Buddha of no mind and no thought. Moreover, this is a single Buddha, and there are not two Buddhas. You all should shut your eyes and contemplate the original Buddha that is without beginning and without end.

Manjushri spoke to the Buddha, saying, That which the World-Honored-One preaches is exceedingly profound. It is true yet beyond our power to comprehend. It is good; it is good. I gladly preach this sutra.

At that time the Tathagata named King of Imposing Sound spoke to Manjushri, the prince of the Dharma, saying, Well done, prince of the Dharma. You have questioned the Tathagata in such a way that it is cause for a great event. Now listen carefully. listen carefully. Reflect well on these things.

The Buddha, after preaching this sutra, sat in the lotus position and entered the samadhi that is wonderful and supreme. At that time Manjushri, prince of the Dharma, and everyone in the assembly of eighty-four thousand monks, all entered this samadhi through the supranormal power of the Buddha.

The following events were seen. The Buddha, from within his state of concentration, emitted a great circle of light from his own face, illuminating with insight Manjushri and the eighty-four thousand monks. A sword of wisdom appeared from the top of Manjushri's head, and from his side emerged a golden-haired lion. The Tathagata's ray of light extended everywhere, and the colour of his body was like that of gold.
Manjushri spoke to the Buddha, saying, World-Honored-One. We have attained unprecedented insight. Our hearts greatly rejoice. The Tathagata again preached in a verse, saying,

The supreme path of all Buddhas
Has the marks of perfect light and eternal abiding.
Those who enter meditative concentration together with the Buddha
In the same way realize the mind of enlightenment.

When the Buddha finished preaching these verses, the great monks in the assembly at once stood up, bowed, and went on their way.

Tantric Aphorisms from the Great Sages of Kashmiri Shaivism

2012-02-19T12:59:00.000-08:00

Awareness IS the Self.

Awareness, Shiva, is the soul of the world.

-The Shiva Sutras of Vasugupta

Thus identifying individual awareness with universal awareness and attaining divine bliss, from where or from whom should one get scared?

-The Shiva Sutras

For the Yogi who has attained the state of Bhairava [simultaneous awareness of their outer and inner experiencing] the entire world [outer as well as inner] is experienced as their body.

-The Shiva Sutras

Meditate on one’s own body as the universe,
and as having the nature of awareness.

-The Vijnanabhairava Tantra

The Yogi is always mindful of that witnessing awareness which alone is the subject of everything, which is always a subject and never an object.

-Vijnanabhairava Tantra

Whether outside or inside SHIVA [pure awareness] is omnipresent.
The yogi should contemplate the entirety of open space (or sky) as the essence of Bhairava [Shiva].
Meditate on space as omnipresent and free of all limitations.
Meditate on the skin as being like an outer wall with nothing within it.
Meditate on the spatial vacuity in one’s body extending [outwardly] in all directions of space simultaneously.
Meditate on vacuous space above and vacuous space below.
Meditate on the body’s matter as pervaded with space.
Meditate on one’s own self as a vast unlimited expanse.

-Vijnanabhairava Tantra

One should, setting aside identification with one’s own body, contemplate that the same awareness is present in other bodies than one’s own.
He whose awareness together with the other senses is merged in the interior space of the heart, who has entered into the two bowls of the heart lotus [diaphragm], who has excluded everything else from consciousness,acquires the highest fortune, oh beautiful one.

Just like the beloved, who after much insistence, stands in the presence of the maid in love, but though he is there before her does not give her any pleasure until she recognises who he is – as he seems just like other men at that moment – so for humanity the Self, who is yet the Lord of the World, cannot manifest its own glory until its qualities have been brought to light.

The wishing tree of Self-Awareness, with its mighty branches, standing full-grown in the region of the Heart, has the loveliness of Experience for its flowers, and the festive splendour of unimpaired Bliss for its fruits.

-Utpaladeva

How wonderful it is that although only one sound, that is, SHIVA’s name, is always on the tips of their tongues, yet [His] devotees can taste the ineffable relish of all the objects of the senses.

-Utpaladeva

Having made itself manifest, awareness
abides as both the inner and the outer.

The visible world is the body.

-Utpaladeva

With one’s intent inside while looking outside, eyes neither opening or closing – this is Bhaivara’s [Shiva’s] Mudra kept secret in all the Tantras.

In the two conditions, the inner and the outer…he whose ultimate intent is internal and whose vision is directed outward attains the highest realisation.

-Kshemaraja

Immersing himself in the supreme reality, clearly aware that awareness is in all things, [the Yogi’s] awareness vibrates. This throbbing pulsation [Spanda] is the Great Pervasion [Mahavyapti].

-Kshemaraja

Every appearance owes its existence
to the light of awareness.
Nothing can have its own being
without the light of awareness.

-Kshemaraja

… the being of all things that are recognised
in awareness in turn depends on awareness.

-Abhinavagupta

… the power of space is inherent in the soul as true subjectivity, which is at once empty of objects and which also provides a place in which objects may be known.

-Abhinavagupta

The Shastras [teachings] and Agamas [scriptures] proclaim with reasoned argument that it [awareness] is free of thought-constructs and precedes all mental representation of any objects.

-Abhinavagupta

Just as a man who has been ill for a long time forgets his past pain completely when he regains his health, absorbed as he is in the ease of his present condition, so too are those who are grounded in pure awareness free of thought-constructs no longer conscious of their previous [fettered] state.

-Abhinavagupta

The [fettered soul] is like a dancing girl who although wishing to leave the dancehall is collared by the doorkeeper of thought and thrown back onto the stage of Maya.

-Abhinavagupta

Just as an object appears directly to one whose eyes are open without the intervention of mental cogitation, so for some, does SHIVA’s nature.

-Abhinavagupta

Not grounded in anything, this [awareness] is not Energy, the Great Goddess; nor is it God, the power-holder, because it is not the foundation of anything. It is not an object of meditation because… there is none who meditates … nothing to meditate on.

-Abhinavagupta

The yogi should abide firmly fixed in his own nature by the power of expanding awareness … relishing the objects of sense that spontaneously appear before him.

-Abhinavagupta

Bhairava [Shiva] is he whose light shines in the minds of those yogis who are intent on assimilating time into the eternal present of awareness.

-Abhinavagupta

The Power that resides in the
Heart of Awareness is Freedom itself.

-Abhinavagupta

A Yogi can enter another person’s body without leaving his own.
The Guru’s consciousness is activated in the disciple’s consciousness … thus initiation that bestows liberation is given.
So gracious is he that, by transferring his own nature to those whose awareness is pure, they become one with him at his gaze.

-Abhinavagupta

There are dull-witted people who are confused themselves and throw the multitude of creatures into confusion. Having thus seen creatures who are simply carriers of the burden of Gurus and their blind followers, I have prepared a trident of wisdom in order to cut asunder their bondage.

-Abhinavagupta

Since this doctrine is a deep secret, I am not delineating it clearly.
He who is interested therein may read the tantras [treatises].

-Abhinavagupta

Some may be able to speak, but if their awareness is obscured, they are unable to rise, unaware as they are, to the level of the experiencing subject who understands what has been said. They only grasp the outer successive [sounds] of what the other person says and thus can only repeat it parrot-fashion … An understanding of meaning presupposes that they have caught hold of their own power of awareness, - by attaining the autonomy of Absolute [Divine] Subjectivity.

-Abhinavagupta

Victory to the ancient Gurus…who are faultless pilots through the turbulence of the waves of the sea of sacred texts.

-Abhinavagupta

In You, the Supreme, who transcends the abyss, You without beginning, the unique one who has penetrated the secret depths, You who rest in everything, You who are found in everything . . . in You, SHAMBU [Shiva], I take refuge.

-Abhinavagupta

Listen: neither accepting nor rejecting anything but just sharing joyfully in everything, being as you are.

-Abhinavagupta

He, whose hands, feet, mind, learning, religious austerity and conduct are well balanced (restrained), enjoys the fruits of pilgrimage (even without going there).

-Abhinavagupta

That person is ‘Abhinavagupta’ who remains aware in the course of everyday activities, who is present in the objective domain as well as in the subjective, and dwells there without limitation. He sings the praises [of divinity] without ceasing to concentrate on the powers of knowledge and activity. He is protected by this praise even though he lives under the pressure of temporal affairs.

-Jayaratha

I bow to Lord Shiva, Vasugupta, Somananda, and Utpalacharaya, Lakshmana (Gupta), Abhinavagupta and Kshemaraja.

A Short Interview with Andrew Wilson, 老虎 (February 15, 2011)

2012-02-14T12:15:00.000-08:00

Q. A weird paranoid blog I've read called "Protecting Nyingma" has made the persistent claim that you're an odd man with a supposed criminal past named Tenpa Rinpoche, aka William Cassidy. Would you care to comment?

A. Yes. I'm not him. That blog is ridiculous. As far as I know, Buddhism isn't about chasing external enemies and creating conspiracy theories. My name is Andrew Wilson. I live in Oregon. I do some Zen and Japanese style Ki and Hara training and I play the shakuhachi flute, no doubt quite badly.

Q. What explains the extreme claims made about you by this Tulku named Alyce Zeoli, aka "Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo" and her students online?

A. This person you're talking about, an American woman who used to be a trailer park psychic and who claims to be the reincarnation of a "wisdom dakini" from ancient Tibet, is on record as having publicly informed her students absolutely and beyond any shadow of a doubt that I, and all my successive Twitter avatars, am actually this man named William Cassidy, aka Tenpa Rinpoche. So much for psychics. So much for wisdom dakinis from ancient Tibet. This may have begun as a misunderstanding, but she made it into doctrinal truth. "Jetsunma's" students claim that she is infallible, a "Living Buddha" endowed with all perfect qualities and infinite wisdom. That's why, no matter how often I changed my Twitter name and blocked members of her group, they pursued me with insane obsessiveness. They even took it so far as to systematically harrass and berate every single person who "retweeted" me or mentioned me favorably. Often, "Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo" herself would personally "reply" to a Twitter user who retweeted one of my tweets to warn that person that I am really a crazed "violent felon" and "con man." At the same time, an untold number of weird and creepy anonymous accounts sprang up to harrass me using the same kinds of words, condemning me for my "defamation" of the Great and Perfect Teacher, and I had to waste my good time blocking them one by one. Keep in mind that these people wear Buddhist robes, enjoy tax exempt status, and raise donations to support a "sangha."

Only after "Jetsunma's" people came after me with endless challenges, attacks and claims connecting me to William Cassidy did I ever throw at the Kunzang Palyul Choling stalkers any harsh words, profanity, satire, mockery, or Zen-style sass. Yet, despite the fact that I'd blocked them all, they continued to find my tweets on the public timeline and comment on them derisively, not to mention posting selected screenshots on their foolish hate blog, "Protecting Nyingma." Sometimes the insulting and mocking and challenging KPC tweets about me rose over one hundred per day. I was being cyberbullied by smiling nuns in Buddhist robes. Most of the time I didn't know whether to laugh or cry about it.

Q. Incredible. Please relate what went down in your house the morning after Valentine's Day -- February 15, 2011.

A. I woke in darkness to the sound of glass in the downstairs kitchen door shattering. A moment later I heard deranged-sounding male voices screaming "Get down here!" "Come out now!" "Show yourselves!" My girlfriend and I thought it was a home invasion. We were sure we were about to die. I stepped into the hall and saw, downstairs, red laser rifle sights darting around in the darkness. Another laser sight drifted onto my face when I glanced out a front window. Whoever it was they were in our kitchen now, screaming like maniacs. Then I heard "FBI." After that I heard: "Police." [Later on, the agents claimed they were shouting "Police" and "FBI" the whole time.] I didn't believe it and my girlfriend didn't either. We thought it was homicidal men shouting anything that came into their heads to get us to come out of hiding. Don't federal agents and police have to show their badges and a warrant before entering one's house? Also, which was it? "Police?" or "FBI?" [As it turns out, a local police officer was accompanying the FBI agents on the raid.] We retreated into the main bedroom, barricaded the door with cat towers and suitcases and whatever else we could find, and my girlfriend put in a call to 911 on her cell phone. We heard footsteps coming slowly up the stairs, two or three men, and again the calls of "Police" and "FBI." More red laser sights were coming in through the windows from outside, eerily criss-crossing the ceiling. After a minute or so -- one of the longest minutes of my life -- the 911 operator told my girlfriend that she was speaking to a police officer on the scene and that it was, in fact, the FBI in our house. She advised us to surrender right away. [We later got hold of the tape of this call. After the 911 operator tells her that it is, in fact, an FBI raid there's a long silence . . . and then my girlfriend asks: "What?!"] I shouted through the door five or six times that we were not armed, and we were coming out. They shouted for us to come out one by one with our hands in front of us. My girlfriend went out first. They turned her around and handcuffed her. Then I went out. Same ritual. There is a long procedure to getting handcuffed. At least one agent had us covered with his rifle the whole time. They were all in dark "tactical gear." One agent kept demanding to know if anyone else was in the house. They stood us facing a wall and asked tense questions about the attic, the basement, the greenhouse. Was anybody hiding in any of those places? No, no, no. After they'd searched the grounds and outbuildings, they relaxed a little, took us downstairs still handcuffed, sat us in chairs in the middle of the room, and the female agent read the 16 page long search warrant. It was a federal warrant to search for evidence related to "crimes of cyberstalking." After that they took off our handcuffs and we were allowed a drink of water. I was asked if I knew "Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo." I said I knew of her. Then I was asked about the writings I'd posted online on this blog and others. Was it really my work? Yes. It was now sunrise. Some agents rounded up all our computer equipment (laptops and cellphones, thumb drives, a computer tower we haven't used in years, even our Internet router, &c.) and put them it into boxes and evidence envelopes. Meantime, other agents asked me questions such as, Are you a Buddhist? (No, I said. I just do Zen.) Any contact with a man named William Cassidy? (None.) They wouldn't say anything substantial about why they'd raided us. While agents questioned me in one room, they were questioning my girlfriend in another, and they brought up the name William Cassidy with her a number of times, too. They asked her if I had joined any groups or gone to any secretive meetings. Meantime, the agents questioning me showed me a sheaf of print outs from my Twitter page, only a few of which mentioned "Jetsunma" or her group, and asked me to comment on certain tweets. I did. (Note that the agents didn't show me any the hundreds of mocking and derisive tweets about me by "Jetsunma's" ugly and humorless second-in-command, David Williams, nor any of the ringing condemnations of me by "Jetsunma" herself, nor any of the tweets by her monks and nuns warning me that I was amassing terrible karma and would suffer unbearably for all eternity in Buddhist Hell.) The agents then asked if I'd ever wished any personal harm to "Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo." I said no. Finally they put a sheet of paper in front of me and asked me to sign it. It was an "agreement" allowing the FBI to take over my blogs and Twitter account. I refused. I asked if I was charged with anything; they said no and wouldn't discuss "any further details." Finally they were satisfied they had all our computer equipment and, after giving me an inventory sheet of the various items they were taking, left. The sun had now been up for about an hour. I got a broom from the closet and swept up the broken glass. This took a long time because they'd tracked it all over the house with their boots. I duct taped cardboard to the missing panes in the kitchen door. Then I put in a call to the American Civil Liberties Union.

See also my "Open Message to Karma Kuchen Rinpoche" and "The Deadly Viper Assassination Buddhists".

No Path

2012-02-07T10:26:00.001-08:00

Abandon all effortful, artificially imposed approaches and wake up to the spontaneous Sahaja activity that is your nature. It's closer to you than your own eyeballs and nostrils -- why do you need a "path" to It?

What is Zen? (Zen for Beginner's Mind)

2012-01-20T10:33:00.000-08:00

"Zen points directly to the human heart. See into your nature and become a Buddha." -Hakuin

Zen is a style and technique of "direct pointing" to the Mind-nature brought to China by the Indian sage Bodhidharma. Zen Masters show their students how to bypass all religious posturing and written crap to see directly into the True Mind.

Buddhism was already in China by the time Bodhidharma appeared, stepping off a boat in Suchow after a hard three year journey. But Zen was unknown there. (Also, curiously, no record at all exists of Zen in India -- although the Chinese Zen literature speaks of twenty-eight Indian Zen Patriarchs, starting with Mahakasyapa)

Bodhidharma was quickly granted an audience with the devout Buddhist Han Emperor, who asked how much "merit" he was going to receive for donating money to temples and building elaborate Buddhist stupas.

"No merit whatsoever," Bodhidharma replied.

The Emperor's mouth fell open.

"What is it then that you call holy?" (If not stupas, temples, copying and chanting sutras, &c.)

Without even blinking his eyes, in true Zen "mondo" style, Bodhidharma answered: "Vast clear blue sky, nothing holy."

"Who is this man standing before me?"

"Don't know!"

That was the end of the interview. Bodhidharma walked north to the Shaolin monastery, where he spent nine years sitting cross legged staring at a wall. (Some claim that the "wall" was actually the steep mountain peak behind the temple.) Bodhidharma's "wall gazing" meditation became the basis for Zazen and Mokuso (sitting and kneeling meditation) as it is still practiced in various schools in China and Japan.

But Zen is not the same as slipping into passive vacuity (although this may be how some contemporary Zen groups do it -- "zafu zombies," I call them).

Bodhidharma bristled with energy. In paintings he is always portrayed with bulging eyes and an angry scowl. He must have survived storms at sea on his way to China. Even to reach the Shaolin monastery he walked thousands of miles. Maybe he met bandits in the mountains. When he saw the weak state of the monks at the Shaolin temple he taught them a series of energetic movements that became the basis for kung fu.

No, Bodhidharma was not doing "zafu zombie" Zen. The First Chinese Zen Patriarch was gazing ferociously through the Matrix (so to speak) into the Unborn. He was so intense in his Zen that his legs withered down to almost nothing. When he started to drowse, he's said to have torn off his own eyelids.

He also held Dharma-talks. Several of these talks, one an informal Q&A session titled "Bloodstream of the True Dharma" in which he responded directly to questions put to him by Shaolin monks and visitors, have survived as scrolls that were excavated from a north China cave in the 20th century.

In these Dharma talks Bodhidharma disparaged all technical "Buddhist" practices such as "sitting for long periods, chanting sutras, shaving the head, prostrating, &c." as means to Awakening. (Note that Bodhidharma himself had already had Satori long before he sat down to face the wall or the mountain peak for nine years. He did not recommend "sitting meditation" as a way to become enlightened, nor did he ever claim that Zen sitting is "Enlightenment itself").

Bodhidharma said that holding onto the idea of a Buddha or the self-consciousness of "practicing" Buddhism would only block the instantaneous realization of the intrinsic Enlightened nature.

Shockingly to the monks, Bodhidharma also claimed that a killer, a precept-breaker, a butcher of animals could become a Buddha as easily as a monk or priest, just by directly seeing the Mind's "basic self-nature."

What kind of teaching is this? It isn't a "teaching" but a pointing. Teachings develop into religions. Zen the direct and vivid here-now realization of the natural state sometimes called Wu Hsin (Mushin), sometimes "the inconceivable state of the Tathagatas," and sometimes merely "Tathata" (It-ness or Be-ing Itself).

Directly realizing for oneself all that there is to be realized free of words and texts is the summit of Zen.

An Open Message to Karma Kuchen Rinpoche, Head of the Palyul Lineage

2012-01-18T17:39:00.000-08:00

Honored Sir,

I write to you in your official capacity simply to ask: to what extent have you empowered a Tulku named "Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo" (also known as Alyce Zeoli and Catharine Burroughs) to act as a wrathful defender of Palyul, and/or to attack those she believes are engaged in "defiling" Vajrayana Buddhism?

Why do I ask you such a question? You may be aware that last year "Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo" involved the FBI (via some extremely ruthless and expensive lawyers) in an online dispute. As a side-result, my home was invaded in the pre-dawn darkness by FBI agents who handcuffed my girlfriend and I at gunpoint and asked us questions about a man named "William Cassidy" aka Tenpa Rinpoche. We were not arrested nor charged with any crime but our computers and cell phones were seized and briefly held for possible evidence of crimes related to the case of US vs. Cassidy. This was all because "Jetsunma" and members of the Kunzang Palyul Choling had decided on their own that I must either be William Cassidy or be someone who knew him closely, and managed to convince a naive and credulous FBI agent that this was the case. I didn't know him.

(Note that US vs. Cassidy has since been thrown out of court by a federal judge who ruled that William Cassidy could not be charged with "cyberstalking" for exercising his Constitutionally protected right to free speech. So, however one feels about Cassidy's background and character, according to Judge Titus the man's civil rights were violated in a dramatic and rather alarming way. As were mine -- and my girlfriend's.)

"Jetsunma" and her group were able to keep from the FBI agent's awareness the fact that she and David Williams and John Buhmeyer (an ordained Kunzang Palyul Choling monk now jailed for molesting a young boy) previously conducted one of the most sustained and intense cyberhate campaigns in the history of the Internet, and the only such hate campaign to my knowledge ever orchestrated by a Buddhist lineage holder. This cyberhate campaign, directed against William Cassidy, an ex-KPC nun named "Nydia Alexander," and anybody else who "Jetsunma" believed might be connected to him or who she just happened not to like, involved over 100 different Twitter accounts and multiple anonymous blogs dedicated to posting slanderous and defamatory material about "Jetsunma's" critics, and it continued unceasingly for almost an entire year. When "Jetsunma" confidently identified my Twitter account to her followers as a "sock puppet" for Tenpa Rinpoche, I was deluged by unending attacks from members of this sangha -- up to 100 attacks every single day -- and my online friends had to contend with constant interrogation, interference and mockery for their support of me.

To some extent the Kunzang Palyul Choling's bizarre and distasteful cyberhate campaign is still going on as David Williams and "Jetsunma" vent their ire not only on their old nemesis William Cassidy (throwing in a few wildly libelous and defamatory remarks about me, as usual, just for good measure) but also on the federal judge who dismissed the government's case against William Cassidy.

There is more about all this on my Web site. I would also be glad to answer any questions you might have in greater detail.

Here, for your information, is the full text of a recent series of Twitter posts by this lama:

"Nothing new is happening here, this disrespect for pure undefiled Dharma was all predicted as was misunderstanding the Lama's words or Disregarding them entirely, making it up as they go along. This time, when Dharma moved west was expected. My commitment is 2 keep Vajrayana Safe and secure by following the instruction of my perfect TEACHER. I will keep the Transmission of Lineage and Terma from #Palyul undefiled. This is what I am expected to do. And when it is safe and I am healed I will come roaring back triumphant and ready to rock! #Palyul needs Me, sentient beings need me and #women need me. I want to fulfil them all. I keep hearing encouragement from my own; and the cries of the Lost and worldly. The Poor and Hungry. How can I fail? How CAN I give in, leaving beings in suffering? I can't. If anyone prefers another Lama or stage of #Buddhism I'm all for it. If it is REAL. But change Vajrayana or defile #Palyul and you will see the wrathful fangs of the #DAKINI for sure. Be warned. And YES, this IS #LOVE. It is #Boddhicitta in wrathful form. But pure. Wholesome -- and vital."

Granted, the writing in these Twitter posts is childish and sentimental, and the imagery is (as usual) unbelievably cliché. But keep in mind that "Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo" has a great deal of money at her disposal, all raised for Palyul tax-free in the name of charity, to pay ruthless lawyers and private investigators. Also, she and her group have not only threatened many people, but have in the past followed up on their threats. You, Honored Sir, might be interested to know that "Jetsunma" has sent out threats to journalists on letterhead bearing your name and crest as head of Palyul.

Also, "Jetsunma's" followers make extravagant claims about her accomplishment, such as "Genpo Yeshe" (David Williams) claiming on the Kunzang Palyul Choling Web site "Protecting Nyingma" that "there is no one higher [than "Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo"] in the world today," and that "her enlightened wisdom is equal to Padmasambhava's." However, based on my online interactions with "Jetsunma" as well as upon what I've seen of her interactions with other people, I've become convinced that she is mentally ill.

Besides claiming that I was actually William Cassidy posing as a Zen poet, "Jetsunma" criticized me many times on Twitter for not being a "real" teacher of Buddhism. She seems to believe that she has the right to attack "unreal" teachers, even those of different traditions, "wrathfully." For example, she once pursued and mercilessly harassed an ordained teacher of the Jodo (Pure Land) tradition of Buddhism -- a woman named Clara Llum Ibanez, who I happen to honor as a great Roshi. "Jetsunma" clearly feels that she is fit to judge who may or may not "teach" the Dharma.

Here is "Jetsunma" posting on a Kunzang Palyul Choling blog about William Cassidy and Nydia Alexander in 2009: "They speak hate, they breathe hate, and the vile pus of their hatred is their nectar. At the time of their death they will see what they have done." Do you, Honored Sir, endorse and support such a frenzied, disturbed and threatening style of public speech by a Palyul lineage holder?

Lord Buddha taught to always reply to hatred with kindness. That's correct, isn't it? Because if it isn't then one of my own revered teachers, a man named Lama Tsering, taught me wrong.

If you do not support such interfering and "wrathful" activity against people "Jetsunma" dislikes on and off the Web, please consider taking some sort of action. I personally know of several people who turned away from studying Vajrayana because they observed what "Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo" was doing on Twitter. This matter should concern you.

Thank you.

Andrew Wilson

P.S. A Kunzang Palyul Choling nun named "Ani Sonams" recently contacted me on Twitter to inform me that you had read this open letter "and laughed at it." Is that really so? (Note that "Ani Sonams" is one of the nuns who in 2010 sadistically LOL'd and ROTFL'd back and forth with other Kunzang Palyul Choling members, up to and including "Jetsunma," when I alluded on Twitter to the deep grief I felt over the death of my beautiful animal companion Bella. See The Miraculous.)

See also "The Deadly Viper Assassination Buddhists" and "A Short Interview with Andrew Wilson (February 15, 2011)"

Yunmen's Mountain

2012-01-15T15:53:00.000-08:00

How steep is Yün-mên's mountain!
How low the white clouds hang!
The mountain stream rushes so swiftly
That fish cannot venture to stay.
One's coming is well-understood
From the moment one steps in the door.
Why should I speak of the dust
On the track that is worn by the wheel?

— Yun-men, from the Jingde Chuandeng Lu
《景德傳燈錄》

Jodo number 69 by Master Dogen-Zenji

2012-01-10T15:03:00.000-08:00

[Dogen] said: Today this mountain monk [Dogen] gives a Dharma discourse for the assembly. What I have just said I offer to all the three treasures in the ten directions, to the twenty-eight Ancestors in India, to the six Ancestors in China, to all the nostrils under heaven, to the eyeballs throughout the past and present, to dried shitsticks, to three pounds of sesame, to Zen boards, and to zafus. Previously we offered incense for the limitless excellent causal conditions, and we dedicate it so that toads may leap up to Brahma's heaven, earthworms may traverse the eastern ocean, and clouds and water monks may become horses and cows. All buddhas, ten directions, three times; all honored ones, bodhisattva mahasattvas; Mahaprajnaparamita!

A Woman's Sex by Ikkyu

2012-01-10T13:33:00.001-08:00

It has the original mouth but remains wordless;
It is surrounded by a magnificent mound of hair.
Sentient beings can get completely lost in it --
But it is also the birthplace of all the Buddhas of the 10,000 worlds.

-Ikkyu Sojun

Truth/Owl-Eyed Athena

2012-01-09T14:24:00.000-08:00

In a dream I was sitting near Athena in a Greek cave.

She revealed to me that it's her lightning-quick "wisdom" that manifests all appearances in this world of life and death.

Zeus was nowhere to be seen. I had the feeling she'd made him up too.

Athena then touched my forehead to show the exact spot where she lives in order to assemble the strange appearances of a "physical world."

She showed me that "my" whole concept of "I" is just another instance of her playing at being not her. Smiling, she was very proud of this.

I asked Athena why she had created the appearance of so much ugliness, pain and horror.

She explained that the goal was a sharper perception of the supreme aspect of all so-called phenomena: mind-boggling beauty.

I asked what meditative or renunciative practices might help people to fully realize the astonishing truth she’d just laid out.

She said none, there’s nothing you can do, you’re an illusion -- only I can realize truth, and I already do realize it.

The Complete Perfection of True Nature

2012-01-06T10:50:00.001-08:00

Reason exhausted, concerns forgotten—
How could this be adequately expressed?
Wherever I go, the icy moonlight’s there,
Falling just as it does on the valley ahead.
The fruit is ripe, trees heavy with monkeys,
Mountains so endless I seem to have lost the way.
When I lift my head, some light still remains—
I see that I’m west of the place I call home.

-Master Fa-yen

10th & Crime

2012-01-05T13:00:00.000-08:00

If you enjoy my Zen writing here you might also enjoy my hard crime noir writing at 10th & Crime.

Every Profound Spirit Needs a Mask, by Master Nietzsche

2012-01-05T12:23:00.000-08:00

(as translated by Walter Kaufmann)

Whatever is profound loves masks; what is most profound even hates image and parable. Might not nothing less than the opposite, be the proper disguise for the shame of a god? A questionable question: it would be odd if some mystic had not risked something to that effect in his mind. There are occurrences of such a delicate nature that one does well to cover them up with some rudeness to conceal them; there are actions of love and extravagant generosity after which nothing is more advisable than to take a stick and give any eyewitness a sound thrashing: that would muddle his memory Some know how to muddle and abuse their own memory in order to have their revenge at least against this only witness: shame is inventive.

It is not the worst things that cause the worst shame: there is not only guile behind a mask -- there is so much graciousness in cunning. I could imagine that a human being who had to guard something precious and vulnerable might roll through life, rude and round as an old green wine cask with heavy hoops: the refinement of his shame would want it that way.

A man whose sense of shame has some profundity encounters his destinies and delicate decisions, too, on paths which few ever reach and of whose mere existence his closest intimates must not know: his mortal danger is concealed from their eyes, and so is his regained sureness of life. Such a concealed man who instinctively needs speech for silence and for burial in silence and who is inexhaustible in his evasion of communication, wants and sees to it that a mask of him roams in his place through the hearts and heads of his friends. And supposing he did not want it, he would still realize some day that in spite of that a mask of him is there -- and that this is well. Every profound spirit needs a mask: even more, around every profound spirit a mask is growing continually, owing to the constantly false, namely shallow, interpretation of every word, every step, every sign of life he gives.

Red Light Satori by Henry Miller-Sensei

2011-12-20T10:27:00.001-08:00

Henry Miller talks about Zen Satori.

Song of the Sadguru

2011-12-19T22:50:00.000-08:00

"Nothing phenomenal is real,
because nothing phenomenal endures.
It doesn't endure even for an instant,
so how can it possess reality?
Look at forms as being of the same nature as sounds.
Everything happens quicker than lightning and is gone.
Its going out of existence IS its very happening.
So how can any appearance be said to exist by itself?
It's all ripples in nothingness,
naked tremors on smooth skin.
"The rhinoceros fan is broken." "What?
Then bring me the rhinoceros."

Neither long nor short,
neither hot nor cold,
neither old nor young,
neither eternal nor temporary --
not being not not being.

Only the Noumenal is real,
because it alone endures all changes.
Yet, there is nothing perceptible in Perceiving.
It's because of time (phenomenal changes)
that one becomes aware of It. That's all.
Pure Awareness does not exist within time;
it is not subject to beings and things.

I am That in and to which all appears,
the pure Experiencing of all experiences.
To whom shall I bow -- or not bow --
when I am the pure nectar of Knowledge,
the silent lightning of absolute Awareness only?"

OM SHANTI SHANTI SHANTI

Nobody Knows Anybody, Not That Well

2011-12-18T18:53:00.000-08:00

(My friend Craig asked me for a comment for his study group Sangha on the Buddhist verse below. What use my commentary will be to anybody I can't imagine, but here it is, following the verse.)

18) Though one may have an impoverished life, always be disparaged by others,
afflicted by dangerous illness and evil spirits, to be without discouragement and
to take upon oneself all the misdeeds and suffering of beings is the bodhisattvas’
practice. -37 verses on the practice of a Bodhisattva by Gyalse Ngulchu Thogme (1295-1369).

Commentary:

In the Hridaya (longer version), Avalokiteshvara is in deep contemplation & suddenly & nonconceptually sees the five skandhas as "empty." This liberates him from all mental anguish, seeking, grasping, &c. Kensho. Satori. Wu. Great bliss. But the midst of his joy at liberation he calls out to Shariputra, who is also present yet who seems to still be confused about what's really going on, "Iha, Shariputra!" Listen, my friend Shariputra. Then he explains the essence of Prajnaparamita. The skandhas are really just nothing, & so are birth, old age & death, the origin & end of suffering, the dharma, &c, Buddhism, Buddhas -- all nothing. But this nothing is incomparably wonderful. It's true awareness. Everything that happens -- suffering, cruelty, demons, misdeeds enlightenment, whatever -- happens in the great space of this pure awareness. Avalokiteshvara, instantly enlightened, doesn't waste a moment before trying to share the joy and wonder of his discovery with the still deluded Shariputra. This is precisely the energetic expression of his enlightenment. It's a lucky thing Buddha happens to be right there to approve the speech: "That's right, Avalokiteshvara. You've hit the nail on the head. That's it exactly." Had Buddha not been there with the Sangha, just imagine -- this all-hearing Bodhisattva might have been thrown out for being a nihilist. "He's denying the Buddhadharma! He's saying all the Buddha's teachings are just trash!" Who knows -- Shariputra might have called the police to get Avalokiteshvara locked up as a dangerous madman.

The Coen Brothers' movie MILLER'S CROSSING is about such a Bodhisattva. Tom, the mysterious main character, is a man who has obviously seen through everything -- he realizes how meaningless the gangster rackets are. His insight is nicely summed up by a statement he makes a few times in the movie to different people: "Nobody knows anybody, not that well." But when Tom sees his boss & best friend Leo starting to get into deep trouble because of his ignorance, he goes far out of his way to help the man. Even after Leo beats him up & quips, "If I never see him again it'll be too soon," Tom goes to work trying to protect Leo via an elaborate scheme that exposes him to all kinds of humiliation, pain, risk & trouble. I find this devotion very moving. Without the devotion (function), the substance (enlightenment) is still incomplete.

But do not think that a Bodhisattva's selfless devotion is something different from enlightenment. Devotion is energetic Enlightenment; Enlightenment is inwardly tasted Devotion.

Hua T'ou by Zen Master Hsu-yun

2011-12-17T08:32:00.000-08:00

1. The Objective of Chan Practice

The objective of Chan practice is to illuminate the mind by eradicating its impurities and seeing into one's true self-nature. The mind's impurities are wrong thoughts and attachments. Self nature is the wisdom and virtue of the Tathagata. The wisdom and virtue of Buddhas and sentient beings are not different from one another. To experience this wisdom and virtue, leave behind duality, discrimination, wrong thinking and attachment. This is Buddhahood. If one cannot do this, then one remains an ordinary sentient being.

The prerequisite for Chan practice is to eradicate wrong thinking. Sakyamuni Buddha taught much on this subject. His simplest and most direct teaching is the word "stop" from the expression "stopping is Bodhi." From the time when Bodhidharma transmitted Chan teachings to today, the winds of Chan have blown far and wide, shaking and illuminating the world. Among the many things that Bodhidharma and the Sixth Patriarch taught to those who came to study with them, none is more valuable than the saying, "Put down all entangling conditions, let not one thought arise."

This expression is truly the prerequisite of Chan. If you cannot fulfil this requirement, then not only will you fail to attain the ultimate goal of Chan practice, but you will not even be able to enter the door of Chan. How can you talk of practicing Chan if you are entangled by worldly phenomena with thought after thought arising and passing away?

2. Put Down All Entangling Conditions

"Put down all entangling conditions, let not one thought arise" is a prerequisite for the practice of Chan. Now that we know this, how do we accomplish it? The best practitioner, one of superior abilities, can stop all thoughts forever, arrive directly at the condition of non-arising, and instantly experience Bodhi. Such a person is not entangled by anything.The next best kind of practitioner uses principle to cut off phenomena and realises that self-nature is originally pure. Vexation and Bodhi, Samsara and Nirvana - all are false names which have nothing to do with one's self-nature. All things are dreams and illusions, like bubbles or reflections.

Within self-nature, my body, made up of the four great elements, as well as the mountains, rivers and great earth itself are like bubbles in the sea, arising and disappearing, yet never obstructing the original surface. Do not be captivated by the arising, abiding, changing and passing away of illusory phenomena, which give rise to pleasure and aversion, grasping and rejecting. Give up your whole body, as if you were dead, and the six sense organs, the six sense objects and six sense conciousnesses will naturally disperse. Greed, hatred, ignorance and love will be destroyed. All the sensations of pain, suffering and pleasure which attend the body - hunger, cold, satiation, warmth, glory, insult, birth and death, calamity, prosperity, good and bad luck, praise, blame, gain and loss, safety and danger - will no longer be your concern. Only this can be considered true renunciation - when you put everything down forever. This is what is meant by renouncing all phenomena.

When all phenomena are renounced, wrong thoughts disappear, discrimination does not arise, and attachment is left behind. When thoughts no longer arise, the brightness of self-nature manifests itself completely. At this time you will have fulfilled the necessary conditions for Chan practice. Then, further hard work and sincere practice will enable you to illuminate the mind and see into your true nature.

3. Everyone Can Instantly Become a Buddha

Many Chan practitioners ask questions about the Dharma. The Dharma that is spoken is not the true Dharma. As soon as you try to explain things, the true meaning is lost. When you realize that "one mind" is the Buddha, from that point on there is nothing more to do. Everything is already complete. All talk about practice or attainment is demonic deception.

Bodhidharma's "Direct pointing at the mind, seeing into one's nature and attaining Buddhahood" clearly states that all sentient beings are Buddhas. Once pure self-nature is recognized, one can harmonize with the environment yet remain undefiled. The mind will remain unified throughout the day, whether walking, standing, sitting or lying down. This is to already be a Buddha. At this point there is no need to put forth effort and be diligent. Any action is superfluous. No need to bother with the slightest thought or word. Therefore, to become a Buddha is the easiest, most unobstructed task. Do it by yourself. Do not seek outside yourself for it.

The vow to deliver all sentient beings, made by all the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and patriarchs, is not a boast nor is it a baseless, empty vow. The Dharma is exactly that. It has been elucidated again and again by the Buddha and the patriarchs. They have exhorted us with the truth. They do not deceive us.

4. Investigating Chan and Contemplating Mind

Our sect focuses on investigating Chan. The purpose of practising Chan is to "Illuminate the mind and see into one's true nature." This investigation is also called "Clearly realizing one's self-mind and completely perceiving one's original nature."

Since the time when Buddha held up a flower and Bodhidharma came from the East, the methods for entry into this Dharma door have continually evolved. Most Chan practitioners, before the T'ang and Sung dynasties, became enlightened after hearing a word or half a sentence of the Dharma. The transmission from master to disciple was the sealing of Mind with Mind. There was no fixed Dharma. Everyday questions and answers untied the bonds. It was nothing more than prescribing the right medicine for the right illness.

After the Sung dynasty, however, people did not have such good karmic roots as their predecessors. They could not carry out what had been said. For example, practitioners were taught to "Put down everything" and "Not think about good or evil," but they could not do it. They could not put down everything, and if they weren't thinking about good, they were thinking about evil. Under these circumstances, the patriarchs had no choice but to use poison to fight poison, so they taught the method of investigating gongans (ie. Koans) and hua-t'ous.

When one begins looking into a hua-t'ou, one must grasp it tightly, never letting go. It is like a mouse trying to chew its way out of a coffin. It concentrates on one point. The mouse doesn't try different places and it doesn't stop until it gets through. Thus, in terms of hua-t'ou, the objective is to use one thought to eradicate innumerable other thoughts. This method is a last resort, just as if someone had been pierced by a poison arrow, drastic measures must be taken to cure the patient.

The ancients used gongans, but later on practitioners started using hua-t'ou. Some hua-t'ous are: "Who is dragging this corpse around?" "Before you were born what was your original face?" and "Who is reciting the Buddha's name?"

In fact, all hua-t'ous are the same. There is nothing uncommon, strange or special about them. If you wanted to, you could say: "Who is reciting the sutras?" "Who is reciting the mantras?" "Who is prostrating to the Buddha?" "Who is eating?" "Who is wearing these clothes?" "Who is walking?" "Who is sleeping?" They are all the same. The answer to the question "who" is derived from one's Mind. Mind is the origin of all words. Thoughts come out of Mind; Mind is the origin of all thoughts. Innumerable Dharmas generate from the Mind; Mind is the origin of all Dharmas. In fact, hua-t'ou is a thought. Before a thought arises, that is Mind. Before a thought arises there is the origin of words. Hence, looking into a hua-t'ou is contemplating Mind. There was Mind before your parents gave birth to you, so looking into your original face before you were born is contemplating Mind.

Self-nature is Mind. When one turns inward to hear one's self-nature, one is turning inward to contemplate Mind. In the phrase, "Perfectly illuminating pure awareness," pure awareness is Mind and illumination is contemplation. Mind is Buddha. When one recites Buddha's name one contemplates Buddha. Contemplating Buddha is contemplating Mind.

Investigating hua-t'ou or "looking into who is reciting Buddha's name " is contemplating Mind. Hence contemplating Mind is contemplating pure awareness. It is also illuminating the Buddha-nature within oneself. Mind is nature, pure awareness, Buddha. Mind has no form, no characters, no directions; it cannot be found in any particular place. It cannot be grasped. Originally, Mind is purity, universally embracing all Dharma realms. No in or out, no coming or going. Originally, Mind is pure Dharmakaya.

When investigating hua-t'ou, the practitioner should first close down all six sense organs and seek where thoughts arise. Practitioners should concentrate on the hua-t'ou until they see the pure original mind which is apart from thoughts. If one does this without interruption, the mind becomes fine, quiet, tranquil, silently illuminating. At that moment the five skandas are empty, body and mind are extinguished, nothing remains. From that point, walking, standing, sitting and lying down are all done motionlessly. In time the practice will deepen, and eventually practitioners will see their self-nature and become Buddhas and suffering will cease.

A past patriarch named Kao-feng (1238-1295) once said: "You must contemplate hua-t'ou like a falling roof tile sinking endlessly down into a pond ten thousand feet deep. If in seven days you are not enlightened, I will give you permission to chop off my head." These are the words of an experienced person. He did not speak lightly. His words are true.

Although many modern day practitioners use hua-t'ou, few get enlightened. This is because compared to practitioners of the past, practitioners today have inferior karmic roots and less merit. Also, practitioners today are not clear about the purpose and path of hua-t'ou. Some practitioners search from east to west and from north to south until they die, but still do not penetrate even one hua-t'ou. They never understand or correctly approach the hua-t'ou. They only grasp the form and the words. They use their intellect and attach only to the tail of the words.

Hua-t'ou is One Mind. This mind is not inside, outside or in the middle. On the other hand, it is inside, outside and in the middle. It is like the stillness of empty space prevailing everywhere.

Hua-t'ou should not be picked up. Neither should it be pressed down. If you pick it up, your mind will waver and become unstable. If you press it down you will become drowsy. These approaches are contrary to the nature of the original mind and are not in accordance with the Middle Path.

Practitioners are distressed by wandering thoughts. They think it is difficult to tame them. Don't be afraid of wandering thoughts. Do not waste your energy trying to repress them. All you have to do is recognize them. Do not attach to any wandering thoughts, do not follow them, and do not try to get rid of them. As long as you don't string thoughts together, wandering thoughts will depart by themselves.

Yamagoe

2011-12-13T14:13:00.000-08:00

Here is a newly redesigned blog for my literary work: A.L.W. Writing. There are links to my e-novels on Amazon/Kindle.

I've now said just about all I have to say on Zen, Haragei and Clear Light Yoga.

Maybe, driven by enthusiasm, in some instances I went too far and said too much. Some aspects should be left empty and mysterious.

All of my writing deals with the essentially empty and mysterious nature of being alive. For example:

At the morgue she was draped in white sheeting. Her bare feet stuck out, like those of Mantegna's Christ. Her forehead chilled my hand. They took her away on a metal trolley. I sat in an office my eardrums resounding with the rattling and bells of typewriters. Once I touched my cheek and found it unshaven. After signing one more statement I was led outside. I walked to a park where mist hung in a double row of trees and sat on a bench. I shivered. I was alive. But life and death are unfathomable. The dead and the living are part of the same amazing and terrible reality. That reality can be experienced but it cannot be described. (ACROSS THE BRIDGE OF STRAW & FOG)

I intend now to work on playing the bamboo flute and writing pieces of fiction. But I will go on posting Zen writings as I find or write them.

A Zen Translation of the Lord's Prayer

2011-12-12T16:51:00.001-08:00

(This was also published in Elephant Journal )

“Our father, who art in heaven” - Our eternal source and Self, timeless, stainless, dwelling always in infinite bliss

“Hallowed be thy name” - May we always remember the sky-like being we really are by the power of this mantra

“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven” - And by remembering the timeless being we are, make this present life blissful and infinite too

“Give us this day our daily bread” - We would be lost, nothing at all, if we didn’t rely every moment on awareness emanating from the unbelievable treasury of clear light

“And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” - By following this pathless Buddha Way we can stop holding grudges and behold the truth of our infinite being free of karmic delusions

“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” - By realizing this boundless giving Self we are, we can avoid turning into demons suffering and hating in the countless hell realms

“For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever” - Because our unstained Nature is the origin of all goodness, all love, and all ability whatsoever, throughout past present and future worlds

“Amen” - Clap-clap. Done! It’s always just like this!

臨兵闘者皆陣列在前

2011-12-12T14:21:00.000-08:00

(I wrote these pieces two years ago, in December of 2009.)

WELCOME TO MY "CAVE OF ILLUMINATIONS"

Old Tiger:
stick your head in its maw to ask the question
what is my 'true self' (honshin)

Making snowmen, lumps of coal for eyes
carrot for a nose:
broomstick to sweep away false deluded mind --
What fun at night, to hear the wind howling in the deep eaves!

Twin owls with wide slow-blinking eyes
sit utterly alert while ice shatters on the tin roof:
Clear Zen, before there was ever a Buddha

My Way is eccentric
neither master nor student:
just a person pretending to be crazy
so he can merge with mountains and clouds.
You won't hear of me anywhere you ask
my name won't appear on the lists of great lamas, tulkus, roshis --
you'll find me along the riverbank
sitting the warm grass, playing my flute.

"Sit down on your mat, shut your eyes, empty your mind, and attain satori." This is the Way. There are no shortcuts.

The Guru is your own clear mind.

The Rainbow Body is just this body when directly perceived and experienced as energy, a resonance in the Infinite.

The simple delight of washing your feet and sitting down on your mat in a beautiful grove with "nothing on your mind" -- this is Buddhism.

Layman Pang had a straw raincoat once
but he gave it to an itinerant monkey:
sufferings arise from a big blue empty sky

This tweet is a Zen tweet asking you to think deeply on "three pounds of flax" and "dry shit on a stick." That Ummon was a real bastard!

My life has been filled to brimming over with what Gurdjieff termed "meetings with remarkable men [and women]."

"Great doubt will produce great enlightenment. Small doubt, small enlightenment. Constant doubt, constant enlightenment. No doubt --"

Move your eyes in a slightly different way and a different world appears. Try it! Awakening tastes like cold rain. The desert smells fresh.

臨兵闘者皆陣列在前
Rin Pyō Tō Sha Kai Jin Retsu Zai Zen

Shugyo is "doing." It shatters talk, and talkative "thoughts," leads to great bliss, supreme insight, and magically awakened clarity.

riding a white tiger on the winds
shooting arrows into Mount Sumeru
Cloud Dharma, Rain Dharma, Thunderbolt Dharma

To be able to remain always in a deeply mysterious, amused state of energetic surprise -- this is what Taoist masters could do easily.

Mind in its original state has the basic nature of being self- liberated from any and all "phenomena," up to Buddha, Zen, enlightenment.

Recall looking down at a river from an airplane. Though water may "take days" to get from one part to the other, you see it all at a glance.

Reaching the state of "non-effort" may require much "effort" to bypass habitual states of being and learn to "be empty, hollow like bamboo."

The Infinite Light of Realization is beaming from a spot between Amida Buddha's brows, and it permeates all "matter," all time and space.

Matter is just congealed qi/it's a slightly coarser form of light/your illumination is all over the sky: look at the full moon, your body

my writing leaves no traces anywhere
clear light shone from the pregnant moon
tonight the trees rain ice

on the Internet we've realized the great dream of writing on and with light

sunk in deep awareness
suddenly realizing the Trackless One
Avalokiteshvara wiped away the last smudges of his footprints in clear space

banging the vast empty sky like a drum it's refreshing to drink clear water

Buddha holds snow in his mudra:
Awake Everywhere, Bodhi Svaha!
No path, no goal, no realization --
crows sitting on blue sky-shoulders

Highest Yoga Siddhi is to become a boring normal person

"Storehouse of lightning in the pattering rain"
Heart shugyo unlocks the Great Potential:
Manjusri's seed syllable makes the sky go BONG

Paper covers rock, rock shatters scissors, scissors cut paper -- but what can you ever do to vast empty space?

"One with the Buddhas, infinite":
a stone water cistern flecked with green moss
in the morning sky, raucous crows chanting "form is empty"

in "deep prajnaparamita" (nonconceptual samadhi) there are no "things" at all, no separateness -- coming out, things appear only as "empty"

"Tasting lightning bolts, riding rainclouds"
I wake up to white frost, mist hiding the mountains

shatter any mind that does coming and going/waves breaking on Big Sur/jewels of foam

My grandmother was a great Bodhisattva, sublime as Kannon!
when she held my hand to lead me down the stone path, I became a Buddha

taking my sword out onto the hoar-frost stiff grass
sparring my own wild shadow:
the fir trees exhale Great Doubt, inhale Pure Mind

keen-eyed sparrow
hops on a stone
- cold mountains dawning brilliant today

Cold wind scouring infinite mountains
from everywhere, "cries of suffering people"
waking up to scent of plum blossoms, the spring breeze

"Gradual Realization" utterly useless both in Sword-Practice and Shugyo
someone attacks intending harm, no time for anything but Empty

No Path, No Realizer, No Realization!
Lightning Quick Kannon had the "first and last word" -- Buddha just sat there like a dunce!

We've both been in this Dhyana from the deepest beginning
never moved even an inch
two great mossy rocks, above the clouds!

Is it full yet? Maybe a hair's breadth away from full?
What the fuck does it matter?
Bright moon, vast Starry Sky

No path, no realizer, no Realization
no enemies, no obstructions, no "walls in the mind"
Enlightenment, just seeing the full moon

Bodhi heart is a sparkling Lotus sprung from endless Affliction
dead karma blossoming like a pear twig in Spring
Birds warbling to Chenzrig

On the way up, ice-waterfalls:
on the way down, blue sky.
Difficult to choose!

Fir trees holding up the fog
Great Void dawning as sunlight
naked clouds:

Cedars are green. My tea-bowl has a black glaze. Some notes on the flute are "darker" than others. Life is just doing "moving calligraphy."

The vast clear sky doesn't have north, south, east, west anywhere in it, and Buddha went beyond all concepts, became what can't be limited.

Everything in motion, no matter how you try to be "still"
body, mind, breathing, posture --
quick as lightning, changing faster than a dream

When you sit silently and all alert
dropping the ki down into your hara,
great like a mountain
-Nothing happens! Wonder! Cedars are green.

Heart Nectar of all the Buddhas!
Cinnabar, gold, and the note "RO" on my bamboo flute
Everybody, taken aback, sits deeply like a mountain

All oneness "is"
Yes! What else could it be?
warbling birds jump around on the bare rocks
far above a white cloud-ocean

Self is partless. It is infinite and extremely subtle. So the sword cannot cut It, fire cannot burn It, wind cannot dry It. ~ Bhagavad Gita

Another way of saying it: If you do not truly feel that you are inhabiting hell, no reason to go "all out," so no result.

"No path, no realizer, no realization!"
Kannon really laid it on the line, didn't he?
Does it move from left to right, or West to East?

Eyelids awake, clouds dissolving in a dream -- the heart of a Bodhisattva is empty like bamboo. "Who" exists to misunderstand?

Nothing to realize, no path" is just what "we" are, deepest mind-substance, clear. Frost melting from the fir-trees. Muga mushin.

Who somebody happens to be a re-incarnation of interests me much less than melting frost crackling as it rains down from a Douglas fir.

Sit silent and alert watching breathing and body-sensations as "ringing of empty space." Blow so loudly on a flute you hurt your eardrums.

self is void, malicious energy is void, wild accusations are void, teachings are void, shiki soku ze ku, ku soku ze shiki

Would you know Bodhidharma as a Master if he glared at you?

"Dharma Teachers who try to project malice
are like fire-demons trying to eat snowflakes -
Doesn't really work!"

"O Sariputra! Form is Void, Voidness is Form! Not a speck of difference!"

"One note on a bamboo flute clears the sky of dark clouds. A golden rooster sings."

"How are you going to cut Voidness? Do you own a sword sharp enough for that? Here, take mine!"

your body is a Dharma treasure
your mind the pure ringing of Voidness:
if somebody rushes to destroy you, slap them down without thinking

training the body, mind appears bright and whole
training the mind, body rests calmly, flexible and at ease

no partial views:
wind playing with clouds like a child with new toys

unobstructed mind can ring or not ring, just as it happens:
wind chimes don't change their nature just because there's no wind

the one who knows the ringing isn't near:
the one who laughs about it isn't far:
sit at your ease, forget about achieving anything!

rest your mind in no-mind,
refresh yourself in the no-self:
seeing night and day with the same eyes
whoever said a word about dark or light?

light rises spontaneously -- the clear brow of Krishna
a tiger prowls through the dark forest ringing with sounds

Sinking into the hara
the Gateway to Vastness creaks wide:
clouds enveloping mountains
mountains embracing clouds

True teacher is anyone who introduces you to your true self
: be patient and kind no matter what and the teacher will find *you*

In a state "before thoughts," *before* you've broken down All That Appears into separate objects for analysis (this is what "mind" does) -"What are you?"

A jade mosquito settles on a wooden man. Bzzt.

"Buddhism" was invented by the very buffoons Guatama failed to Enlighten.

Think back to 2 seconds before the "universe" was born. Be that. If you can, Zen.

Argue with me about where the best green tea comes from/let's leave Mahavairocana out of it

Three pounds of flax/Breaking the mountain barrier/clouds obstruct the valley entrance yet birds wing through

All the Dharma Hall reveals is your own Light:/cold wind clicks the mountain gate/Buddha is ten billion aeons old today

Drop obsessive thinking and your clear nature miraculously appears: the moon soars above mists and clustering fir trees

The so-called phenomenal world of "objects" is the "magical display of mind" -- "magical mentation" -- for there are *no such things* ! The physical world does not "exist" except as a buzz of energetic appearance, and the energy is a pure and lazy manifestation of Mind Nature, like a tiger mother licking her cubs

Clear mind clinging to the same rock for a thousand years/blooming like a sunflower in empty space

"Dead people doing Dharma, Dharma is dead./A branch scratching a windowpane/a dog skeleton howling Mu/Right now, are you alive?"

I wouldn't trust Manjusri with a dung bucket, and as for Ananda, the less "said" about his supposedly great memory, the better!

Sometimes Yunmen confused West and East:/he was blind as a bat and couldn't read the sutras/but he knew all about "dried shit on a stick"

Tiger Mother doesn't have paths or ideas:/doesn't know a thing about Enlightenment/ -- she's content to just lie there licking her cubs

Gurus, roshis, mahasiddhas and all their students turned suddenly into stone:/dry grass frozen by the woodpile

"Your bodies and minds are just appearances within the wonderful, bright and pure Profound Mind."

the moon rising in a dream:/who says it's a dream?

"
the moon's halo loves the night too

The "immovable" mind is the Whole Universe before it has been cut up into "things" or even into past present and future.

Nirvana is where concepts stop. Like a fire going out in the rain.

your reflection -- does it appear in the mirror or in your mind?

where do notions such as negative or positive appear or mean anything at all, outside of mind?

so what is this mind, right? but when you ask "what is" you're looking at mind as object, not as the source of the question "what is it"?

what is the mind that isn't an object of its own question because it isn't and has never been an object (but instant perceiving of objects)

the original state "before-thought" (not without thought) is before all subject and objects and questions, this is the enlightened state

if buddhist sutras sometimes point to this state, wonderful! if not, who cares? "nothing to argue, nothing to prove -- relax"

to put it yet another way, what am I originally but a field of pure awareness (before thinking I, mine, this body, this life, this mind &c)

confusing this field with any of the phenomena that might appear in or to it could be said to be the source of mental anguish (Dukkha)

the field of awareness is not a thing and it is really just open vast and empty, it's clear light mind, it's luminosity as such

it's the inner hearer, seer, and knower -- the Noble Witness, the Deep One

You can't hide being awake or not being awake. It's instantly evident to everybody and even to yourself.

Even in the dark everything is still shining in that subtle clear way. Wide awake. Look at your eyes in a mirror. Are you awake? Eyes tell.

"Like ten thousand lamps shining in a single room."

All the Masters agree that you should go "beyond" thinking. In the bare darkness of meditation there will be a sudden brilliance.

All the Masters agree that it can't be reached, or even intuited, by thinking.

cutting the root of ego-delusion:/subduing all thoughts like a true warrior -- /empty sky shining with mind-brilliance

never having to re-incarnate/just seeing it naked and clear
the temple's so old and dark/the incense has crumbled/the sutras are chewed to strips/and the rats are enlightened
a boat moves in the frozen reeds:/a little girl is clapping her hands while her father sings
let's meet where the starry sky sheds its last drop of light
frost-stiff bamboo leaves clicking together/in between long silences:/last summer feels like another life

Siddhartha cut his hair, left home by night:/came back years later, radiant --/his father didn't recognize him

a full moon gleams in the star-sea --/rats scratching and nibbling on the Buddha's words

the old temple is still falling apart:/rat-droppings punctuate the sutras

it's beautiful not to be enlightened/rowing in the mist

seeing moon and bright stars in a dream:/not worrying about is this a dream or not/ --ah!

after all moonlight isn't moonlight, and even sunlight is just "light" which could come from anywhere

going downstairs to sit in the moonlight:/oh wonder!

trying to sleep through a cold night/-- frost sparkling on the rooftops:/the bright moon and stars keep waking me up

shutting the wicker gate:/too sleepy to look up at the bright moon and stars!

accepting not being enlightened, forgetting praise and blame:/buddha shining as the vast blue sky

seeing the bright moon and stars:/who can question?/not seeing, who can blame?

Experiencing is the startling function of a boundless essence.
Essence of reality cannot be what one experiences as reality.
Essence of mind cannot be what one experiences as mind.

the eye itself is an optical illusion/tigers prowl the forest without thinking about it

buddhas-gone-into-hiding/praising and blaming people/dragging it out through endless hell-aeons -- /water frozen in the pail overnight

the full moon in a dream/looking bigger than usual:/someone explained "it's an optical illusion"/someone else said "everything is like that"

enlightenment is basically yourself

The Zen thing to do, today or any day, is to practice direct non-conceptual meditation -- and "sink into the Empty, the Infinite."

"dreams don't come from the state of awake-ness,/and awake-ness never gets lost in dreams"

possibility doesn't chain up infinity;/infinity doesn't preclude possibility --/going beyond them both, Buddha's face carved in gold

life after life:/just the pure essence of mind/-- melting frost, a bird warbles clearly
seat of all the buddhas:/ before past, after future/ -- the setting sun makes the mountain glow

Master Shiva arrives wearing a tiger-skin/third eye ablaze like a sun/he dissolves it all into mist/then whirls it into bright forms again

beating the universe drum stretched tight over no-thing

a spider's web hardened by night frost:/where did the spider go?

this morning Master Keizan shows up/to explain what Buddha "really meant"/yet doesn't utter a single word/ -- we both gaze out at the mist

neither born nor dying/never having clung to a word in the sutras/a spider's web glitters with night frost

From the intuitive (sometimes called the "spiritual") point of view, there is nothing that needs to be added to the world. It's good as is.

I was a woman in a future life

The spirit medium fell down foaming at the mouth,/then began to speak in the clear voices of the dead./Everybody had tears in their eyes.

Don't let the shaman drink too much chang:/last year's ritual was a big disappointment

Sake! Drums! Flute! Tiger-Spirit will dance tonight.

Tonight Master Keizan brings the firewood,/Ikkyu brings the sake:/If only Master Kunley would keep it buttoned up in his pants!

Grasping mind extinguished,/this physical world is all there is!/Ignorance, Enlightenment -- all one big pathetic delusion.

"bowing deeply my Awareness does not bow: straightening, my Awareness does not straighten!" -- try it 10 minutes a day, this is clear Zen

"frost melts anyhow, no need to strain: night and day are both seen with the same eyes"

Yoginis and yogis realize the Deep One --/the Noble Witness --/but what about just putting on your damp swimsuit and going down to the lake?

Night Zen, scarcely breathing/a window glitters with frost

Any old oracle will do.

The Dharma Body is every body.

Planting flowers on a rock/trying to cause rain in outer space:/ -- Mind Essence sloughs off your "Great Realization," don't even bother

Even in dreams you are awake.

stick your head in the tiger's maw/inhale the roar

Walking up to the temple/every footstep is a sky/the emptiness accumulates like rain in a bucket
Listening the rain: it's unconstructed, just as it is, no foolishness!

Ikkyu got satori hearing the explosive CAW of a crow;/wrote poems about sitting around masturbating /shit, imagine if His Holiness did that!

Every day just try sitting still as your Original Self:/not grasping at anything/ just letting what comes come, what goes go

Master Keizan is right here now --/I greet him with tears in my eyes

the Self Nature isn't apart from sound and form:/still, sounds and forms don't empty it

night Zen/: just sitting stable and serene, mouth contemplating eyes/even when silent, the bell shivers -- hear it?

the sky loves blue

you resound in me

"The bamboo leaf has miraculous powers/rain drops slide off it like pearls!"

If all the Buddhas and sages are in your heart like fresh rain, what do you care how others think about you?
Pick up your begging bowl if you're hungry. Once you've eaten, wash your feet and sit on your mat to meditate. "Don't know" mind.

"Don't know." Sink into an orgy of notknowing. Become like the tiger on a Japanese screen -- wicked, glorious, doesn't know it's painted on.

Grasping at Satori or Realization or Direct Insight might take the form of comparing it to others' similar, or trying to "know" what it was.

Grasping at kensho might also take the form of compulsive attempts to "recreate the moment." But it's gone. Gone totally beyond.

The hardest thing for one who gets an instantaneous realization (kensho, satori, wu) is to stop grasping -- not to grasp at the realization.

If you are reading this, know I have just now said a deep secret mantra for you, and you will receive a bright and clarifying mind energy to enlighten all beings.

A Vi Ra Hum Kha for Clara

2011-12-12T13:37:00.000-08:00

A Vi Ra Hūṃ Kha -- a resounding mantra for great Clara.

What's Zen Meditation by Master Seung Sahn

2011-11-16T14:26:00.001-08:00

Deep in the mountains, the great temple bell is struck. You hear it reverberating in the morning air, and all thoughts disappear from your mind. There is nothing that is you; there is nothing that is not you. There is only the sound of the bell, filling the whole universe. This is Zen mind.

Springtime comes. You see the flowers blossoming, the butterflies flitting about; you hear the birds singing, you breathe in the warm weather. And your mind is only springtime. It is nothing at all.

You visit Niagara and take a boat to the bottom of the falls. The downpouring of the water is in front of you and around you and inside you, and suddenly you are shouting: YAAAAAA!

In all these experiences, outside and inside have become one. This is Zen mind. Your mind is clear like space.

Clear like space means clear like a mirror. When white comes, white. When red comes, red.

But one more step is necessary. How does your mind function in everyday life? When somebody is hungry, just reflecting hunger is not enough. You have to give him food! This is called correct situation, correct relationship and correct function.

This means that you can respond to every situation in a compassionate way.

Bushi Zen: The Noble No-Fold Path

2011-11-04T12:02:00.000-07:00

(thanks to @albigen for showing me this poem I'd forgotten I ever wrote)

Once you've killed everything in you
that might interfere with the Clear Sky (the Dark Expanse)
light and darkness are just the same nothing.

How could anything be different?
It's clearly the same.
How could anything be the same?
It's clearly different.

How could anyone suffer?
Who exists to have a mind
or to become a Buddha?
Cure yourself of sick thinking,
and the un-ease of life is gone.
Gone beyond, utterly beyond,
bo-ji so wa-ka!

Hearing all day long you hear nothing.
Seeing all day long you see nothing.
Laughing you don't laugh.
Crying you don't cry.

You're liberated, and can live as you want
and you don't understand the idea of "bondage"
or getting "caught up in something."

You're always a golden buddha.
You're always a temple in calm starlight.
A demon playing the bamboo flute,
a samurai hiding in the long grass --
whatever! you're always just THAT.

If the darkness comes cut it down.
If the brightness comes cut it away.
If people come don't answer them.
If the Clear Sky comes shatter it completely.
If the Void ever comes, slash it with your sword.

Destroy all thinking, let it go
and both objects and subjects disappear.
What's left can't even be imagined,
so how do you expect me to give it to you?

There isn't any one or any body left anywhere
to experience This,
to pretend or deny IT alone "exists"
or to ever say a single word about anything.

Hell Enlightenment

2011-10-18T15:12:00.000-07:00

Hell Enlightenment is the haunting, mysterious enlightenment of a hell being who one icy night wakes up just from hearing a bamboo flute played by a komuso Zen priest -- it happened once upon a time, and after that always, for all eternity, and after that never again, deep in the dark remote mountains of Nagano, Japan.

Wordless state, imageless, clear, profound, beyond thoughts, all thoughts shattered -- a thoughtless state, just dwelling without any mind at all in the absolute clarity of all Hell Demons, Pretas, animals, humans, gods, and Buddhas. Gone beyond beyond utterly beyond -- wide awake, clear, night frost melting in your hair, Infinite Sky Mind thrilling and squeaking in the hollow length of bamboo, the moon appearing in a dream, but whose dream? When? Where?

Tathata

2011-08-28T09:04:00.000-07:00

Autumn follows summer.
The cicadas sing & die.
Living doesn't stop.
Every day we eat, drink, shit.
Zen is Zen.
Mountains are mountains.
Seen like this it's all clear, simple & great.

Hannya

2011-08-05T11:11:00.000-07:00

Haughty & self cherishing --
horned, unkempt, madly embroiled in jealous & evil thoughts:
It's just like this
penetrating to the heart of Zen.

Passions are supreme bliss;
delusions are perfect enlightenment;
afflictions are Nirvana;
sensory appearances are all the Hannya dance of Void.

The Cuckoo's Song of Total Uncorrected Presence

2011-07-26T16:02:00.000-07:00

sNa tshogs rang bzhin mi gnyis kyang
Cha shas nyid du spros dang bral.
Ji bzhin pa zhes mi rtog kyangr
Nam bar snang mdzad kun tu bzang
Zin bas rtsol ba’i nad spangs te
Lhun gyis gnas pas bzhag pa yin.
OM SWASTI!

The nature of multiplicity is nondual
and things in themselves are pure and simple;
being here and now is thought-free
and it shines out in all forms, always all good;
it is already perfect, so the striving sickness is avoided
and spontaneity is constantly present.

Bamboo Kensho

2011-07-26T16:00:00.001-07:00

The bamboo flute coming alive in your hands, with your breath, in a sudden clear tone, a sudden thrill as if it had been possessed by your specific vibration of Ki, as if this flute had become your true voice, the buddha’s voice, the living voices of the dead, a living serpent, and then with that one note and one breath all sense of separate self vanished and you were no other than everything, moving yet still, all vast and silent and pervasively clear like uncreated fire, thisness, unbroken, not even fused because never having fragmented, so untroubled and complete and clear as total darkness, how eerie --

Just As a Hand Moving In Empty Space

2011-07-26T15:58:00.001-07:00

“Just as a hand moving in empty space touches no object and meets no obstacle, so the Bodhisattvas who practice the equality of emptiness transcend the mundane world. Moreover, Subhuti, because all the elements of the five aggregates merge in the Dharmadhatu, there are no realms. If there are no realms, there are no elements of earth, water, fire, or air; there is no ego, sentient being, or life; no Realm of Desire, Realm of Form or Realm of Formlessness: no realm of the conditioned or realm of the unconditioned; no realm of samsara or realm of nirvana. When Bodhisattvas enter such a domain free of distinctions, they do not abide in anything, though they remain in the midst of worldly beings. If they do not abide in anything, they transcend the mundane world.” -The Demonstration of the Inconceivable State of Buddhahood Sutra

The Deadly Viper Assassination Buddhists

2011-07-13T11:11:00.000-07:00

I've been posting my Zen notes, poems and aphorisms on Twitter since the summer of 2009. In December of that year, two very strange people began cyberstalking and harassing me through multiple Web sites and multiple (mostly anonymous) Twitter accounts. Their names are Alyce Zeoli -- aka "Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo," the controversial "founder and spiritual director" of an organization called the Kunzang Palyul Choling -- and David Williams, a so-called monk in that same purportedly Buddhist organization. (Note that there was also a third major stalker, a "monk" by the name of John Buhmeyer who as it happens is now serving a lengthy prison sentence for molesting a child. More on that below.) Alyce Zeoli (I refuse to call her "Jetsunma," as this is a term of high respect one uses for a real Buddhist teacher) is renowned both on and offline for her tantrums, high handed arrogance and belittling response to the merest criticisms; while David Williams is infamous for rude, persistent, laughably obtuse attacks on all who don't fall in line with his Guru's bizarre pronouncements.

Here is some background, courtesy of Google Search: before she became a "Buddhist," Alyce Zeoli was merely an ordinary spiritual cult leader and psychic who channeled alien voices. At various times, according to the books and articles on her, she's claimed to clearly remember earlier incarnations in which she ruled an entire galaxy, ruled an ancient civilization on earth, ruled &c. &c. You get the idea -- this person has always ruled something. Zeoli was recognized as the Tulku -- an enlightened reincarnated mindstream -- of an obscure sixteenth century cave-meditating Tibetan yogini named Ahkon Lhamo by no lesser lama than H. H. Penor Rinpoche, who later caused much head-shaking disbelief by also recognizing actor Steven Seagal as a Tulku. (Shortly before he died, the disillusioned Penor Rinpoche confided to a journalist he would not be recognizing any more American tulkus -- since Americans have a problem with "pride.") At her spectacular widely televised "enthronement," for which she apparently tried to appear dignified but managed only to look scared, mean and self-centered, Alyce Zeoli's students gave her the honorific title "Jetsunma." Still later, another controversial Tibetan lama identified her as a current emanation of Princess Mandarava, one of Padmasambhava's tantric consorts. ("And what did the Easter Bunny say?" - Sam Kinison.) Alyce Zeoli's students sometimes claim she is actually Princess Mandarava's reincarnation, which is not the same thing, and would be quite unlikely since Princess Mandarava is said to have attained the "Rainbow Body."

There's no such detailed Google background available on cyberbully-monk David Williams. He seems pretty much a non-entity, defined only by his reckless devotion to satisfying the whims of the long con Guru he calls "an emanation of Primordial Wisdom." Why sell someone the Brooklyn Bridge, when you can sell them a Brooklyn Buddha?

At the time Alyce Zeoli and David Williams began cyberstalking me my glorious cat Bella, 18 years old, was dying slowly of kidney failure. See "The Miraculous." I told them about it and begged them, in a way they no doubt found abject and pathetic, to leave me alone. They mocked me for my trouble. After she died, these two ridiculed me again for the anguish I expressed to my friends on Twitter and made sarcastic jokes about it that were gleefully RTd by their whole group, with a generous sprinkling of LOL and ROTFLs. When I objected to this abuse, they piously informed me that everything that happens in the world is the result of karma, so clearly I must done something to earn my grief. In other words, these are not compassionate followers of the Buddha Dharma, but vicious people who behave in low and sadistic ways.

Note that all the official Kunzang Palyul Choling Twitter accounts were "blocked" by me from the very beginning, yet after getting blocked they continued to routinely RT and comment derisively on my postings, and new Twitter accounts with zero followers created solely for the purpose of attack popped up to harangue me just about every day. And for a while there, "Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo" herself contacted anyone who RTd or spoke well of me to inform them that I was actually a con man and a violent felon named "William Cassidy," aka Tenpa Rinpoche. If they told her to go away, she tended to resort to personal insult. Among others, they harassed and insulted an amazing woman named Clara Llum Ibanez, whom I personally consider to be a true Guru -- a great loving teacher of Clear Awareness. This was all due to their ire at me for not folding and going offline. Many people were spooked by such psychotic behavior, and the resulting confusion made it very difficult for me to teach anyone Zen/Haragei. The Tulku and monk seemed to take a sadistic pleasure in depriving me of an audience. Also, though I deleted my Twitter account and restarted it under a different name, or changed my Twitter handle, at least twenty times to elude these saffron-robed psychopaths, they always found me again within a few days via the "replies" or RTs of my friends. Zeoli and Williams also reposted screenshots of hundreds of my "tweets" on their foolishly named anonymous blog, "Protecting Nyingma," surrounded by paranoid aha! commentary, as "hard evidence" that I was actually William Cassidy. They've since quietly deleted those libelous posts -- but without apology or any admission of wrongdoing. This cultish craziness went on for almost a whole year.

The reason for these two weird people cyberstalking me, and relentlessly harassing anybody with whom I interacted on Twitter, is still mysterious. The catalyst may simply have been this: that when they showed up on Twitter in December of 2009 like the new whirlwind Inquisition, demanding to know the real life identities and qualifications of every person who was at that time discussing topics related to Buddhism and spreading fear about this William Cassidy, aka Tenpa Rinpoche, I was one of the few to remain unimpressed by the tulku mythology; I told them in plain language to get lost. I liked Kundun as much as anyone else. I am familiar with the Vajrayana and count a Tibetan lama as one of my informal teachers. Yet I felt these people were frauds, and I wasted no time saying so. Maybe this was my mistake -- I was too outspoken.

Although Zeoli and Williams often claimed that since my Twitter account was anonymous (as it was at the time, though clearly not anymore) I must have something to hide, and therefore was beyond any possible doubt William Cassidy posing insidiously as a Zen teacher, they also spent an inordinate amount of time and energy trying to argue with, contradict and debunk me on matters of Zen. In these mini-debates they displayed a really outrageous ignorance about the most basic teachings of the Buddha.

Unfortunately, I did not take their many threats seriously enough, and failed to contact the police.

But these two mentally disturbed people did not fail to collect any and every annoyed or exasperated counter-tweet of mine, some of them containing what might be considered by drawing room standards moderately rough language, though not so much so for the Internet, and these tweets they forwarded to the FBI via their high powered Washington law firm with a complaint that I was cyberstalking Alyce Zeoli -– a name I'd never even heard until the first of her childish insults appeared on my Twitter stream, and a name I truly wish I’d never had the displeasure of hearing.

Of course, Zeoli and Williams absent-mindedly neglected to inform the FBI about their own incessantly negative and provocative, often quite creepy, online activities against me and many unlucky others. Whoops! But I've since downloaded hundreds of pages from Twitter and Google caches documenting just this. Either I was lucky in downloading these pages faster than they were able to delete them, or these two people simply do not understand how the Internet works. I expect to soon be making all of this puerile, repugnant cult material available for easy perusal by anyone with the patience and the stomach for it.

Here, for example, is just a taste of the cult vitriol I endured: an anonymous, rather immature person commenting on my poem "Hannya" (see above) and several of my Twitter posts under the mistaken assumption that they were written by William Cassidy. Multiply it five hundred to a thousand times and add constant personal assaults by a certain tulku and monk against my friends on Twitter as well as endless threats about the agonizing consequences of disrespecting a Living Buddha and you'll get a fair idea of what my online life was like for almost a whole year. Read further down that cached blog page for some additional crazed and disturbing stuff. Maybe this is just my imagination, but the style of the "poems" posted on this anonymously authored attack blog -- just one such blog of dozens created over that year -- seems quite reminiscent of some of the lama's own poetry.

Here also is a gleefully tasteless Twitter page created by somebody just to harangue William Cassidy in the voice and name of his deceased mother: @Haunted_Spirit. It creeped me out even though I'm not him. Note the ubiquitous and quite unsolicited replies here to my previous Twitter name, "Akebonojishi." Zeoli and Williams had recently announced to their cult group that I was Cassidy. Dozens of anonymous Twitter attack accounts like this one sprang up at about the same time, all of them laboring mightily to cause maximum "emotional distress." So who was really stalking whom? The New York Times seems to have missed out on an intriguing crime story.

Here also is "Jetsunma" herself on Twitter exchanging pithy observations about my character -- based solely on reading my Twitter page -- with now-convicted child molesting Kunzang Palyul Choling monk John Buhmeyer. Note that at the time John Buhmeyer sexually assaulted the young boy he was a respected member of "the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in North America," personally approved and ordained as a monk by "the emanation of Primordial Wisdom" herself (despite the fact that he had a prior conviction for sexual assault on a minor -- a fact which William Cassidy revealed as early as 2009) and represented in his venerable Buddhist robes the thousand year old Nyingmapa school of Vajrayana Buddhism. He was also cyberstalking me with great zest and self-righteousness. (More on this vile and stupid piece of business below.)

After all, it's not as if stalking behavior by the Kunzang Palyul Choling hasn't been documented before. In this Slate article, a Washington Post journalist tells of being "frightened" by the threatening hate mail she got from Alyce Zeoli's nuns after she published a less than reverential book about their lama. And the book itself, or at least what I've read of it, describes some chilling cult-like activity.

The FBI's investigation department must be slacking off, because as a result of Alyce Zeoli's complaint a team of federal agents in dark clothing broke into my Oregon home before dawn on the morning of February 15th, 2011. Hearing the shattered glass and tense, deranged-sounding men's voices screaming, "Get down here, now!" my girlfriend and I barricaded ourselves in an upstairs room to make a 911 call. After being informed by the 911 operator that it was the FBI in our house, we finally surrendered ourselves. And got handcuffed. Tensely, at gunpoint. The agents -- who seemed truly more frightened and shaky than we were -- then read out a search warrant for our computer equipment and cell phones and, after removing the handcuffs, questioned us both on the cheerful joint topic of "Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo" and "William Cassidy." They spent an inordinate amount of time searching the basement and greenhouse, as if they hoped to find explosives or a maybe a cache of Tommy guns. I told them they were raiding the wrong compound; they must have taken a wrong turn at Albequerque, because where they really belonged was the Kunzang Palyul Choling enclave in Maryland. They informed me that the FBI agent who filed the affidavit leading to the armed invasion of my home is based, surprise, in Baltimore.

Note that one of Alyce Zeoli's high-priced "boutique" attorneys formerly served as legal counsel to Attorney General Janet Reno and still undoubtedly maintains friends in high places -- a fact that goes a long way toward explaining how this egregious perversion of justice came about. Although it's still sort of odd, because I thought Janet Reno was against doomsday cults. It also strikes me as bizarre for our government to be taking its orders from a crazy lady in a crown. Paying for this kind of high-octane legal help must take a rather large chunk out of the reported ten thousand dollars a month Alyce Zeoli receives (tax free) for her services as the Kunzang Palyul Choling's "Spiritual Director."

I later learned that on the very same morning William Cassidy was arrested in California and transported to Baltimore. He has apparently been sitting in the federal wing of a maximum security prison ever since on the charge of engaging in "an online course of conduct [e.g. free, Constitutionally protected, published speech]" alleged to have caused "substantial emotional distress" to Alyce Zeoli, ridiculously designated as "Victim 1" in the court documents. If this person is a "victim" I'm Snoopy. Did I ever tell you how I shot down the Red Baron?

According to the criminal complaint, which has to be one of the more stilted and improbable works of fiction I've read recently, Alyce Zeoli was so vexed -- or "emotionally distressed," or whatever -- by the content of William Cassidy's blogs and Twitter feed that she sequestered herself in her house for 18 months under 24/7 armed guard, going out only to meet with her psychiatrist. Sadly, I know from personal experience what she was doing to amuse herself during those long days and nights -- creating, wildly exploiting, and deleting multiple crazy Twitter accounts and blogs to threaten, creep out, abuse, and persecute perceived enemies (or, people she just didn't like that much). "Psycho Tulku, qu'est-ce que c'est?" All with the kind assistance of David Williams, of course. With monks like these, who needs cronies?

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has submitted an Amicus motion on Cassidy's behalf to dismiss the entire case on First Amendment grounds. See U.S. vs. Cassidy, also this interesting article. "In this case, the government has presented the novel and dangerous theory that the use of a public communication service like Twitter to criticize a well-known individual can result in criminal liability based on the personal sensibilities of the person being criticized." (What's more, the untested statute that the government is trying to use to imprison William Cassidy could just as easily be used against Alyce Zeoli and David Williams, insofar as their cyberstalking caused me "substantial emotional distress.")

Note that while the whole Kunzang Palyul Choling Sangha was focused on their Guru's "emotional distress" due to William Cassidy's blogs and Twitter feed, this happened. This felon was not just any Kunzang Palyul Choling monk. According to Sedona, Arizona online arrest records, it was John Buhmeyer -- one of the long time ordained KPC monks who cyberbullied me and William Cassidy both from multiple Twitter accounts at the urging of his Guru.(Case Number J-1302-CR-201104562. One count of sexual contact with a minor, two counts of sexual assault. Jailed right now.) Fascinatingly, in 2010 "violent felon" and "con man" William Cassidy repeatedly and very publicly called for this disturbed man to be removed from any situation where he might be in contact with children. - Ah! Yet another example of the nefariousness of Tenpa Rinpoche! It's a good thing they got him off the streets and deprived him of an Internet connection for 10 months. Feel free to mentally insert a "sarcasm" emoticon here.

I am sure there will be much publicity when this pile of stinking horse-shit finally goes to trial. (Update: No trial. See note below.) Personally, I regard the whole business as a distraction from the clear truth of Zen. But it is an undeniable fact that these two Kunzang Palyul Choling players at one time or another mocked, stalked, harassed, or insulted every single one my friends on Twitter. Their sordid record of cyberbullying will come to light at Cassidy's trial (again, unfortunately not -- but Cassidy's free now, and one can't have everything) and provoke many head-scratching questions. Such as, since when does the federal government arbitrarily take sides in Internet flame wars? And: why wasn't there a warrant to seize the Kunzang Palyul Choling's computer equipment?

If William Cassidy deserves to be sitting in a jail in Maryland awaiting trial, then clearly Alyce Zeoli and David Williams deserve to be sitting in jail in Oregon awaiting trial also. These two insane people tormented me and harassed my friends and online interlocutors night and day for almost a whole year, doing everything in their power to try to force me offline, on the pretense that I was their great enemy William Cassidy. When they couldn't drive me offline, they made false, misleading statements to an FBI agent in order to have my home invaded in the dark by screaming men with guns, wasting precious federal time and resources besides putting lives at risk. Huh. Fraud, racketeering, conspiracy to manipulate law enforcement in order to violate other people's civil rights and to commit an act of domestic terrorism -- what's next for the Brooklyn Buddhists?

Those same two unbelievably sad, bewildered and angry co-conspirators now claim that even though it has been proven beyond any possible doubt that I was not, as they swore up down and sideways to everyone who would listen (including the FBI), William Cassidy himself, still I must somehow be connected to the man, who is sitting in jail right now [or still was, when I wrote this paragraph] -- and they publish their ignorant, libelous opinion about a person unknown to them along with my name on the official blog of their purported Sangha. Psychopath that she is, the tulku in question still often mentions me and sometimes RTs my tweets mockingly on her Twitter page, never mind that she is now and always has been "blocked," and uses the same type of inflammatory language about me she did all last year. For example, here is a recent tweet posted by the Buddha from Brooklyn that was later e-mailed to me by a thoughtful online friend: "Poor Muju. Still lying and crying. Tell it to the Judge, wipe the nose, be a man. Better solution. #GROWup." Note: @MuJuShinkyo is my Twitter name. How wonderfully compassionate![My online friends tell me that soon after I quoted this gratuitously nasty "tweet" here on my blog, the Tulku's Twitter abuse of me suddenly and completely ceased. I imagine that Alyce Zeoli's lawyer finally went beyond "a word to the wise" approach and stepped hard on the brakes. However, the crude and defamatory "Protecting Nyingma" attack blog, written anonymously by cowardly fake "Buddhist" monk David Williams, does continue to link me by name to William Cassidy -- when in fact the only link between us is that we were both targeted, with varying degrees of success, by the same viper's nest of orange-robed, role-playing mock-Vajrayanist psychopaths.] Neither the mentally deranged tulku nor the emotionally and intellectually stunted monk capo have yet acknowledged any error in judgement, nor offered the barest hint of an apology. But at some point they did quietly remove every last scrap of the "hard evidence" supposedly proving that I am William Cassidy they'd posted anywhere online. Weird! I wonder why they would do a thing like that!

AUM SWASTI!

UPDATE: Judge Dismisses Case of Accused Twitter Stalker

**

Note: "Buddhist BS Redux" -- It grieves me to see that a man named Bill Schwartz, who was also briefly stalked and harassed by the same two crazed Savonarolas, the crazed child-molesting "monk" and their entire crazed Sangha (but, for a little while there on Twitter, who wasn't?), and who was (just like William Cassidy) dubbed a "cyberstalker" by the whole deranged cult group, has lately been beating his drum online to the effect that the FBI raid I mentioned here proves I must have been guilty of something. It doesn't. In fact, I was never charged with anything to be guilty or not guilty of, which makes his remarks defamatory as well as stupid. And even if I had been charged with something, as William Cassidy was, the charge would be untrue. It's rather fortunate that under our justice system a police raid is not by itself proof of wrongdoing. The FBI agents in my house seemed to believe I knew William Cassidy personally -- but I didn't, and they couldn't have found any evidence of my knowing him on my cell-phone or laptop or anywhere else because there is and was none. (The agents also seemed confused about who was actually writing my blogs, showing some real astonishment when I told them I was the sole author. One of those blogs contained a single mention of "Jetsunma" as a vicious and rather stupid Guru cyberstalker who'd ordered her students to harass all my friends.)

By the way, this is the same Bill Schwartz whom Elephant Journal editor Waylon Lewis described in a recent online interview as "a bored maniacal bully." He's also a smooth and well-practiced liar. Bardo wouldn't melt in his mouth.(For about a year, Bill Schwartz gained much sympathy on Twitter -- mine also -- by claiming that he was dying of "incurable congestive heart failure." Then one day he announced that he had gone into a miraculous remission. Soon afterward he was describing his daily skateboarding regimen, and boasting of wining and dining in expensive Chicago restaurants. Huh! So far I've heard nothing about the international team of physicians and medical researchers who must now be studying him closely to figure out how to replicate this miracle. But I'll keep my eye on The New England Journal of Medicine.)

Bill Schwartz's actual problems with me go back to when I broke his noisy one man "boycott" of Elephant Journal by giving his habitual Dharma punching-bag Waylon Lewis this piece to publish. It was soon after this that he publicly accused me of "disrespecting [Tibetan] Buddhism," and began to slander me on Twitter with an endlessly repeated baseless illogical harangue to the effect that I must have "threatened" Alyce Zeoli. Why? Because the FBI showed up at my house on the same day that they arrested William Cassidy in California. But not even William Cassidy was charged with making threats -- and what's more, he's since been exonerated by a federal judge of the crime of "cyberstalking"!

Only weak or confused (or perhaps senile) people indulge in defamation, slander, and cyberbullying. In Zen we have a tradition of Mondo, or "Dharma combat," whereby we confront each other and try to push toward greater awareness and realization. But this is not a tiresome matter of boasting about "slapping the snot" out of your interlocutors. (Gross, by the way, Bill.) Bill Schwartz, a Vajrayanist (like Alyce Zeoli, David Williams and John Buhmeyer) who claims to speak for all Buddhists yet refers casually to making people he dislikes as his "bitches" -- he's renowned online for his brutal tirades, and especially for harassing younger and better-looking male Buddhists with crude sexual innuendo -- took offense at some more recent remarks I made to him and has apparently decided to punish me for my boldness in a characteristically mean, low, and calculating way. [When I told Bill Schwartz in one of our Twitter dialogues that he was "behaving like a low human being" he replied, "I'll show you just how low I can go." And I was not disappointed. There seems to be a tendency on the part of American Vajrayanists to confuse "wrathful activity" with low sadism. Such confusion may not be unrelated to "Tantra-Induced Delusional Syndrome."]

Zen, like Dzogchen, is a matter of "directly seeing the true nature [Awareness] in a single instant" and then living every day and night in that natural state. Lacking this, all talk about "Buddha" and "Dharma" amounts to mere hearsay. I once told Bill Schwartz as much. He chose to take this precious Dharma opportunity as an personal affront. As Heraclitus noted, "Donkeys prefer straw to gold." Sad! Once more, religious fanaticism and personal pride trumps both logic and the pursuit of "Sukha" -- ease. And once again I call upon all sincere Tibetan-tradition Buddhists to publicly repudiate this type of evil (and quite boring) behavior, which runs contrary to the Buddhist Law.

See also my "Open Message to Karma Kuchen Rinpoche", "Crimes & Tulkus"

and "A Short Interview with Andrew Wilson (February 15, 2011)"

Crimes & Tulkus: Poisonous Snakes in Buddhist Robes

2011-06-16T17:40:00.000-07:00

Some people have asked me if I’m the “man named Andrew Wilson” that a certain tulku is mentioning on her Web site as having had his house searched by the FBI for evidence relating to the purported crimes of another man named “William Cassidy,” aka "Tenpa Rinpoche." I am that Andrew Wilson. But I don’t know anything about any cyberstalking crimes by a William Cassidy.

I do know something about being criminally cyberstalked, however, because for almost a whole year two saffron-robed psychopaths stalked me (although I’d blocked them and all their ilk) through various both official and anonymous Twitter accounts and through anonymous hate blogs on which they posted many of my Zen “tweets” accompanied by the most outrageously foolish, not to mention slanderous, commentary.

According to these two "Buddhist" stalkers -- a crazy looking lady wearing a crown and too much make-up and a mousy little man in monk's robes -- my Twitter page was actually authored by William Cassidy, and the various different handles and avatars I went through to try to get clear of their relentlessly negative attentions were all William Cassidy’s “sock puppets,” and my insistence on remaining anonymous behind names like “Akebonojishi” and “Mujinkyo” was all by itself absolute and conclusive proof that I must really be Tenpa Rinpoche trying to pull a fast one on the whole world. It seems not to have occurred to these racketeering co-frauds that my insistence on anonymity was precisely a way of trying to keep the emphasis off my "self" and on what I have to say (about Zen). But logic has never been the strong suit of religious fanatics.

So incensed were the two bizarre and unwholesome Bogus-sattvas by my continued presence on Twitter that last spring and summer they resorted to harassing almost every single Twitter user who RTd or even spoke to me. Many of the people they harassed got quite spooked by it, so it became almost impossible at times for me to reach anyone with my notes and comments on Zen/Ki-training. (A pity, since the techniques I show people how to do actually work, and nobody even has to pay to support my lavish Guru lifestyle.) They particularly swarmed, attacked and mocked anyone who dared to call me "Sensei" or thanked me for helping out with a specific problem. Their paranoia rose to an obsessive crescendo of mean-spirited ridicule and tiresome victim-babble that was endlessly echoed and amplified by a beggar's chorus of the organization's so-called nuns, each with her own Twitter page devoted to singing the Guru's praises and savaging the Guru's purported enemies.

I've never experienced any Internet madness quite like it. The threatening rage and vituperation on open display from a rural Maryland rattler's nest of "Vajrayana Buddhists" was surreal, David Lynch-esque even. Many of the tweets were disturbing, threatening messages hinting obscurely at magical attacks, promising the most extreme karmic retribution, and prophesying a long stay in Vajra Hell. But there were also more routine threats of the "we-know-where-you-live" and "we-have-people-on-the-payroll-who-take-care-of-people-like-you" variety. (The "Mafia" style tweets felt especially dissonant coming from smiling nuns.) Naturally, I've already downloaded hundreds of pages of this stupefying horse-shit from Twitter and Google caches, and will be making it available to the right people as and when needed.

Those same two unbelievably sad, bewildered and angry co-conspirators now claim that even though it has been proven beyond any possible doubt that I was not, as they swore up down and sideways to everyone who would listen (including the FBI), William Cassidy himself, still I must somehow be connected to the man, who is sitting in jail right now -- and they publish their ignorant, libelous opinion about a person unknown to them along with my name on the official blog of their purported Sangha. Psychopath that she is, the tulku in question still often mentions me and sometimes RTs my tweets mockingly on her Twitter page, never mind that she is now and always has been "blocked," and uses the same type of inflammatory language about me she did all last year. (For example, here is a recent tweet posted by the Buddha from Brooklyn that was later e-mailed to me by a thoughtful online friend: "Poor Muju. Still lying and crying. Tell it to the Judge, wipe the nose, be a man. Better solution. #GROWup." Note: @MuJuShinkyo is my Twitter name. How wonderfully compassionate!) Neither the mentally deranged tulku nor the emotionally and intellectually stunted monk capo have yet acknowledged any error in judgement, nor offered the barest hint of an apology. But at some point they did quietly remove every last scrap of the "hard evidence" supposedly proving that I am William Cassidy they'd posted on their anonymous "Protecting Nyingma" attack blog. Weird! I wonder why they would do a thing like that!

“Purify your mind! Do no evil, do only good. That is the whole teaching of the Buddha.”

See also: "The Deadly Viper Assassination Buddhists"

-ANDREW WILSON

The Miraculous

2011-05-25T18:44:00.001-07:00

She was in kidney failure. She wasn't producing urine. Too weak to stand for more than a moment by herself. Her heart rate had slowed by half, and her body temperature was dropping by the time we took her into the vet. They hooked her up with an IV for fluids and surrounded her with hot water bottles and put blankets over her in the kennel. Then they started her on various drugs to try to jump start the kidney function. The presumption or theory of this was that her kidneys had failed due to a shock she just went through (constipation, with nausea) the day before, because the day before that she was quite normal and active. I thought the vet's approach was lucid and she explained everything well. I liked her. The doctor also gave Bella an antinausea drug that seemed to help. She was alert when we visited her and even started purring when I put my head on her fur. After a few hours the vet gave us bad news: the kidneys were in total failure. She suggested trying one last attempt with a special drug to get them going. The sign of the drug working would be that her bladder would fill up. After an hour this hadn't happened so the vet gave her the drug again. Another hour, nothing. By that time Bella's heart rate had slowed to about a third of normal. She was very weak. Yet she was alert. She licked my finger. She purred when I kissed her. The vet told us that if we just waited for the fluid to back up and fill her lungs this might not be particularly humane, so her advice was the injection. I talked with Gina and we decided in a few minutes to go ahead. This is where it starts to get strange. We took some time to be alone with Bella in the little room, kissing her and more or less soaking her in tears. But after ten minutes an assistant came in with a clipboard and handed it to me. There were boxes to check. One was "Private Cremation" and another was "Common Cremation." I asked Gina what she thought. Gina said "Private." Bella was looking at us both with her beautiful eyes as I checked the box "Private Cremation." The assistant said, "The way we do things here, is we like for you to pay your bill before the procedure." Gina said she'd already signed a credit slip earlier, and the assistant said, "That was just for a deposit."So Gina handed her a credit card and, like a waitress, she took it and bustled out and came back in a few minutes with the slip, which Gina signed. I am not sure if Gina added a tip. Then we spent more minutes with Bella and she seemed to be drowsing off. I got up and opened the inner door. This was the signal for the vet to came in. She had a syringe. She said, "You should know that her eyes won't close." We both said we knew. I asked if we were going to give Bella a shot to sedate her first, because I thought that's how it was done. I said I wanted to make sure she didn't suffer. The vet said, "This shot is a painkiller." So I said, "Okay," weeping, and she murmured "Godspeed" and stuck it into Bella's IV as I lowered my head and kissed Bella's head, my tears pouring on her. Instantly, Bella snapped awake, her mouth wide open, tongue sticking out, straining with her whole body, and let out the most terrible desperate angry growling yell, grabbing and scrabbling for Gina and I with both paws. Her eyes were bulging, she was foaming at the mouth and making gasping and choking sounds. Gina screamed. The scream would have made my hair stand on end but it was already standing on end. The vet jumped back and said something like "Oh no" or "Oh my God." I was holding Bella and rubbing her with both hands and talking to her with my mouth against her ear as she jerked and moaned and convulsed. "Bella my beauty my love." That kind of thing. The vet said, "I'm so sorry, you two -- I should have remembered that her high potassium levels might interact with this drug to produce muscle spasms." Bella was still grabbing at me. I was still chanting into her ear: "Loving cat, miraculous cat, my beautiful, my love." Gina tried to push Bella's tongue back into her mouth and Bella made a kind of yelp and her jaws snapped and Gina shrieked again. I said, "Stop it" and she said, "I'm sorry." Both of us drenched by tears and Bella still writhing a little. The vet touched Bella's chest and said "Her heart's stopped." Bella gasped very softly a few more times and relaxed. The vet left. After about a quarter of a minute, Bella's head was still -- her jaws weren't moving anymore -- and fluid welled out of her nose. There was a lot of it, brown fluid that poured out all of the sudden. Gina screamed again, jumped up. I said, "Go." She ran out of the room weeping. I grabbed the washcloth I had used to wash her face before the injection and put it under her head to soak up the fluid coming from her nose. After a few seconds it stopped. She was still. I remembered hearing somewhere about how the brain can go on working for a long time even after breathing and heart have stopped, so I pressed my mouth to her ear and murmured, "Bella, Bella, Bella, my monkey, I love you, you beautiful miraculous cat. I am so sorry. I am so sorry, my Bella." I did this for a few minutes. I had the odd sense that she could still hear me. Then I suddenly felt she couldn't hear me anymore. She was really gone. I moaned and I think cried out. I rubbed my face on her head. The fur was already wet from my tears. I watched my tears falling on her. I managed to shut her eyes. Then I picked up and refolded the washcloth and used it to clean her face and head. I pressed my ear to her chest to make sure her heart wasn't beating. For a frightened second I thought it was, then I realized I was hearing my own heartbeat in her body. I stayed like that for a long time just listening. I didn't want to leave her. I couldn't believe how beautiful she was. Even dead she was beautiful. I rearranged her on the table, so her legs weren't splayed out, and made a pillow out of the washcloth and put her head on it, so now she really did look merely asleep. Then, crouching at the level of the table she was on, I kissed her nose and her closed eyes. Totally overwhelmed, overwhelmed by love. "I am sorry," I told her. "I am sorry for doing that to you. I didn't know it would be like that. It's my fault. I am so sorry." I tucked the blanket up to her chin. I took out my cell phone and called Gina. I said, "I've cleaned her up. Please come back and look at her again." Gina came back in and I stood to get out of the way and said, "Kiss her on the head now and let's go." Gina bent down and kissed Bella's head. She stepped back and we looked at her. "Go ahead out," I said, "I'll just take another minute. I'll be out soon." Gina went out. I took off the blanket and looked at Bella's body. I touched her tail and her paws and petted the shining fur. Then I covered her with the blanket, drawing it over her head. As soon as I'd covered her up completely I felt a rush of pure terror at the thought she might still be alive. I pulled down the blanket to look at her again. I wanted to do nothing but look at her for the rest of my life. My heart was beating in my ears. My pulse seemed to fill the whole room. I was aware of breathing and being alive, really hyper-aware. I didn't have a single thought. I covered her again carefully and reached under the blanket, touched her head, then left the room. Glancing back before I shut the door, I saw Bella's shape covered by a blanket on the aluminum table.

That night I played the flute for a long time sitting outside under the eaves with cold rain falling. Finally I started shivering so I went in. I realized I couldn't even feel the cold. The only way I knew I was getting cold at all was that my chest had started to shiver. I sat in front of the fire Gina had made and looked into it. My mind was completely still and clear, no thoughts. At one point I suddenly said to Gina, without even thinking, "Today was undoubtedly the cruelest, most horrible experience in my entire life. If there were a God, I would never forgive him -- or her -- for this." Gina just said, "Yes." I was going to go on and say something like I wished there were a God, so I could kill him, but I stopped at that.

2010-03-31T19:23:00.001-07:00

臨兵闘者皆陣列在前

2010-03-13T11:07:00.000-08:00

कान्तारमन्दिरमिदं हि कथं वदामि
संसिद्धसंशयमिदं हि कथं वदामि ।
एवं निरन्तरसमं हि निराकुलं वै
ज्ञानामृतं समरसं गगनोपमोऽहम् ।। ३०।।

दहनपवनहीनं विद्धि विज्ञानमेक-
मवनिजलविहीनं विद्धि विज्ञानरूपम् ।
समगमनविहीनं विद्धि विज्ञानमेकं
गगनमिव विशालं विद्धि विज्ञानमेकम् ।। ४४।।

Avadhuta Gita, 3.30 & 3.44

2010-03-08T13:00:00.000-08:00

from "Dried Shit Zen: Teachings of a Rishi"

sweeping snow from the steps/when Shakti laughs she shows her tongue/Buddha throws his torn yellow robe into the recycling bin

As one raindrop said to another raindrop: do you think we'll be falling for long?

welcome to my "Incognito" School of Zen

putting on dark glasses and a raincoat to practice the Great Cloudless Dharma of Venerable Master Hua

No thing exists without It. "It" is the ultimate dark mysteriousness. "It" is the no-principle, the pathless way, the Gateless Gate.

When I say that by sinking into the Starry Sky you can attain "it" I do not mean there is a you to attain it, or that it is the Starry Sky.

"I possess the true Dharma eye, the Marvelous Mind of Nirvana, the true Form of the Formless, the Subtle Dharma Gate."

"All-pervasive, yet utterly still/everywhere, yet it doesn't have a front, back, or sides/call it ancient/but look it's moving your tongue."

immobile in cold rain, bamboo samadhi clean and naked as a sky

handful of sand/a dead spider/-- water hissing in the kettle/the mountains look clear today

I use a great demon to kill minor demons. The great demon is "Buddha." Dai-bosatsu. But who will kill this great Buddha demon?

Wonder of existence is permanent; misery of existence is not. Misery is sense of a self; wonder is merely "Ah! Ah!"

Buddha, when he saw the morning star, cried, "Ah! Ah!"

Born, I cry "ah!"; living, I cry "ah!"; dying, I cry "ah!" /"AH! AH! AH!"

"Dull heads in the Dharma Hall trying to rub sparks out of a zafu/Hungry Ghosts grinding up their skeletons to eat for breakfast:/Tasty!"

"before thoughts" is a bare little tea room/the kettle is hissing/the tatamis are so old they don't even stink of straw/-- clouds, vast sky!

finding the letter "A" in your hara/teaching your skeleton to dance/instructing all the corpses in Zen, until hell is empty

what powerful energies will be freed in you/brilliant awarenesses/great visions of buddhahood/just by sinking into "before thoughts"

not able to detach from the wonder, not willing to detach from the misery/born, living, dying, I just shout "ah"!

the great cedar spreading its branches into the sky is sahaja, and when I let go of what thinking calls my "mind" I also am sahaja, no less

sahaja, "spontaneous," "natural," "nobody tells it what to do or how to grow," never leaving the inborn essence, it gladly embraces all

If you're not fooled, Buddha doesn't even want to talk to you. Talk to the Mudra.

"the rats' mind are luminous/the Buddha has been bones and ash for two thousand years/'waking up' is the unsurpassable delusion"

welcome to my "rat sutra" school of zen

in the solid mass of darkness:/a light --/the pine tree appears with its scent

everything's flowering/even the mountains gleam today:/Hail Buddhas!

certain Taoist sages/likened the Deep Mystery to black lacquer/totally dark, yet shining

As a step toward the "Penetrating Insight into Voidness" see that "solid matter" is akin both to ringing (sound), and brightness (flame).

Nothing exists anywhere but this wide open ringing brightness -- Shakti's bracelets are rattling as she walks, Shiva's fox ears perk up.

it shouldn't arise but it does/it never happened but here it is:/fantastic! -- run the white flag of empty space up the Universal Ridgepole!

sweeping up the rat droppings/shutting gold Kanzeon into the altar/the Master died recalling "one evening in spring, sake and plum blossoms"

hold the great doubt in total blackness the question has to smash itself to bits

Nothing's written, nobody has a clue, allelujia! stirring the fire, watch the flames burst forth brilliantly, wake at midnight, cold ashes

smooth and gracious mouth of bamboo/hollow as the Void, giving us your clear water/the sky clangs with light/everybody got up and left

there is a temple in India where they worship rats, and it is overrun by rats: I will go there during monsoon to write my "Rat Shit Sutra"

why even give it a name? "drinking clear water under the blue sky/ ah! it's good to be thirsty"

if you can practice "calm stability plus lightning-quick action" in stressful situations, it's probably better for you than "enlightenment"

the truth is a rat's ass is more enlightened than any of us here are

It's not a matter of changing your objective situation from a demon to a "buddha" - if a demon can go beyond all thoughts he is enlightened.

chewing on a raw radish/looking at the distant mountains/if it gets cold I can always pull my sleeves down over my hands

clearly knowing how to sing is the bird's job/clearly knowing how to kill a bird is the cat's job/ -- what's my job?

"Just seeing and hearing" !/a cat inches through the grass on its forepaws:/that bird will never know what hit it

I don't know what it is that knows sensations.

If there is a "Luminous Mind" it will take care of itself. If there is a "Great Sun Buddha" then his illumination will appear *by* itself.

Avoid all disputes, practice "calm equanimity" -- sitting once or twice a day drop all thoughts completely, don't hold onto anything.

no bird singing, no ear to hear it, no sound, nothing at all to ever think about -- yet magically TEE WHIT TEE WHIT TEE WHIT WHIT WHIT

The clear, subtle state of "before thoughts" or even "not thinking" can't be known except by sinking into it/discussing it is quite futile!

If suffering's gone, why talk about it?/If you cut off the stalk, it can't flower/Gone, totally gone beyond -- /knee deep in cold ratshit

If Consciousness is in your brain, when the barber shows you the back of your head, he is showing you the back of your Consciousness. Right?

Using two mirrors, you can look at the back of your head. But you cannot look at the back of your Consciousness, no matter how many mirrors.

a buddha image made of dried shit would require of monks precisely the same kinds of bows and prostrations as a buddha made of gold

The demon mask, the jealousy mask, the "evil" mask, the suffering mask, the morose despairing mask -- all beautiful, correct, necessary.

seeing the red flowers/I forget birth and death/the bare essence of mind is like a stone buddha/hasn't moved his foot in a thousand years

holy snow/when you whirl I forget my life

The Stone Banner

At night, wind rings in the ancient pines.
The abandoned temple is falling to pieces,
and rats build nests with bits of the Sutras.
No one has ever come forth from this Zen:
the sun and moon are empty like mouths.
Hearing Buddha speak, the demons clapped wildly :
they didn’t know he’d turned them into Starry Sky.
Mountains and valleys share the same mind-mirror.
Up the clear blueness, look, who’s saying “clouds”?
Touch the temple bell with your hand, it’s hot.
Along the riverbank, a swarm of fireflies.
The stone buddha never moved his foot,
or blinked, or even raised an eyebrow.
Yet his great Dharma-seat blazes with wildflowers.
Nobody ever said a word, or heard a sound,
so how can you say none of this shit ever happened?

The great yoga is just emptiness facing all directions at once.

If you could assume the sitting posture of the Buddha, and the mind state of the Buddha, you would be the Buddha. that's Zen

Heaven & Hell/empty castles in the cold air/wildflowers blazing like suns before they wilt/demons in dusty buddha masks, dancing

every inbreath is life/every outbreath is dying/live fully, die fully/mountains shouting to the sky/plum trees flowering in all directions

Physics says that if your consciousness could assume the POV of "light," you would simply perceive yourself as everywhere at once, timeless.

"Grasping at stone, eating wildflowers."

Once you ring a bell, it keeps ringing forever, although you may not hear it. Even after the bell is shattered.

Having entered the center of "clear awareness" there isn't much to do but to become either the "Horse that wins races" or the "Buddha eye"

I say this Horse is here to carry you to the Western mountains, and beyond

great moonlight big as the sky itself/in this clear blueness, how could there ever be anything?

Huang Po turns on the tap,/fills a tin bucket with gushing cold water./Glancing up, he sees mountains and clouds enjoying empty space.

shorn of thoughts/drinking today's sky like clear cold water/the dark wooly ram of the Infinite bleats:/BAH! BAAHA!

this Dharma gate is sublime/like spirits sinking into vast empty space/clear light nectar radiating from the moon, dark sky drinks deep

"this magically appearing world is all there is/every 'now' is just the absolute now/it's futile to look for water beneath the waves"

This tweet is an invitation to be fully awake in what Master Dogen calls "the Absolute Now." "The eyeballs are now, the nostrils are now."

By "empty space" I don't mean something objective. I mean behind your eyes, between your ears, upstream of your nostrils -- the Empty I.

I must admit that the last shot of Kurosawa's Ran still moves my heart in a way I cannot even begin to describe.

If before conception a person is non-existent, which is also what being dead is, congratulations, you are proof of "life after death."

Do you realize that beings from another dimension could quite easily take your life and edit it like a strip of film?

a bird built a nest twig by twig and lived in it for a while, hatched eggs, then all the birds flew off, the nest is still sitting there

the womb of space, the prick of time

this universe is just the flower buddha raised in the assembly, purest expression of nirvana

this timeless time, this spaceless space, doesn't have much to recommend it, except that the Buddha's nostrils are yours, his eyeballs yours

the eternal or absolute "now" Dogen speaks of is infinitely small, infinitely large, or both

falling into the blue sky/drinking up the Yalu river at the break of dawn/dragons & turtles crawling in the mud/quick, where's your head at?

One fine day, for one reason or another, you will suddenly become "the perfect nobody."

failed in every way possible/woke startled one day to "beauty supreme phenomena"/one shrill unending note on the bamboo flute

walking around San Francisco jacked up on caffe lattes/stopped amazed by the Golden Gate Bridge/drifting in and out of white fog

Welcome to my "sahaja" school of Zen, where ease is the Way and Nirvana happens every day.

"There's nothing more foolish than a man chasing his hat." -Miller's Crossing. Except a man chasing his thoughts.

Dirty, interminable, stinking, laughable life. Buddha - the dried shit stick! Manjusri - a not so bright little boy hauling dung in a cart!

In Zen we say "not one, not two, and not many either."

There is no "empty clear light" apart from phenomena. It is phenomena. The only way to realize this is to sink the "I" into infinity.

In the dark void of your head, writing in blood/dead people crying on a train platform/last autumn's clouds, now dust

it's not poetry but cremation smoke going up into the blue night sky a bird made of silver tongues a necklace of shattered daisies.

all night I wandered the stark cremation grounds, at sunrise/Kali Ma licked the tears from my eyes

Sujata was washing her hair in the river/when she noticed a half-dead ascetic/"oh not another one"/but she brought him a bowl of fresh milk

ah, pure unbroken lineage! like this mountain I see with my eyes appearing instantaneously in "my mind" -- a great Root Guru!

still working on my book of made up Chogyam Trungpa quotes

never leaving the Tao/is great and dignified

I once watched a mouse gorging on a single grain of rice. The mouse was aware of me, yet did not stop eating his grain of rice. Then he wiped his paws together, bowed to me, and in dignified fashion, like a great swordsman, withdrew to his hole.

no matter, no spirit, no mind, no path, no teachings, no attainment, no void, no not-void/raising one finger cut it off, quick what 's this?

big temple bell/ if the birds hear it, they don't let on

Lao-Tzu never talked about enlightenment, but he did talk about mindlessness, and this became Chan

the stench of Zen/hangs over the Ganges, this spring morning:/a Tao-fly rubs its hairy legs together"

the energy that comes out of mokuso (empty mind sitting) is lightning quick, thoughtless, devastating --

"Gateless Gate." An iron wall. Can't go forward, can't go back. The only Way is nothing beyond, before thinking.

Master Seung Sahn said: "Buddhas look at everything that appears exactly as if it had never appeared.”

Another fine day in the realm of the senses.
No such thing exists -- just suchness as such.

A wooden block hits a big iron bell. There is a booming sound. The sound dies away as the vibration settles. Everything's just clear now.

Ringing a bell that was never forged/to summon up the Great Dragon Tao/spiral galaxies are its scales/--fiery, fiery breath, watch out!

chopping up Emptiness with Japanese steel/pure white at the roots, these leeks smell heavenly!-/spring breeze shatters the white clouds

a bullfrog hops onto the stone buddha’s head/& sits still:/a fly buzzing past -- /TTHWWK!!!

Hui Neng is right, one shouldn't suppress thoughts. One should use various kinds of meditation to reach the h'ua tou, "before thoughts."

A recent thrill-a-line rereading the Tao Te Ching convinced me that I am actually not a Buddhist but an old school Taoist.

If you've truly attained an infinite, all penetrating state, tell me, what playing card am I holding in mind right now?

2009-10-01T13:18:00.001-07:00

A: Directly realizing original mind nature B: Removing all doubt about this nature C: Resting without grasping in the original state

Master Keizan arrived by leaky boat./Manjusri rides in on a golden lion./Sujata is smiling in the river, wringing out her wet hair.

Unthought cannot be moved.

"I possess the true Dharma eye, the marvelous mind of Nirvana, the true form of the formlessm the subtle Dharma gate that does not rest on words or letters but is a special transmission outside of the scriptures."

"Good sons, all sentient beings' various illusions are born from the perfectly enlightened marvelous mind of the Tathāgata -- just like the sky-flowers come to exist from the sky." -The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment

Tao chu'an says: "You can't trade gold for gold. Fish don't bite on a cold winter evening. Forget the empty boat and bring back the moon."

"Put strength into it and abandon conceit."

That bamboo stalk doesn't remember being hit by a pebble and didn't hear any click.

Hearing is emptiness.
Seeing is light.

一卽一切一切卽一 "One is all and all is one." from the Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms: http://bit.ly/BSgrP

"What's left when Manjusri's flaming sword cuts away all discursive thought?" "Falanghina wine with octopus, oranges, and cannellini beans!"

Many people believe Zen is against words. But in the Chinese Zen literature, there are many cases of people getting Awakened by words.

Buddha, supposedly, called the shining primordial Awareness he realized in an instant "No-Self." Why not?

The forest yogins in the Upanishads called it "Self." Why not?

The yogins and yoginis of the Kashmir area between about 600-1300 AD called this Awareness Shiva, and Energy they called Shakti. Why not?

When you see a movie, it's in 2 flat dimensions. Only your mind gives it the 3rd dimension of depth. Depth is simply not "there."

Similarly, when you live your life, it's in 3 dimensions, and only your mind gives it the 4th dimension of time. Time is just not "there."

Imagine going to a planet that's so cold there's no water, just ice, and telling people there that ice is "really" a flowing stuff, water.

Practice #13 Envision in detail your body returning completely to the Five Great Elements (Water, Earth, Wind, Fire, and Space). What now?

Practice #4: Whenever you experience anything, shift your attention from the experience to the empty backdrop on which it appears.

"The Lotus Sutra says: Try to shovel out the shit from your mind that has been piling up for the last twenty years or so." -Huang Po

Stop thinking in words right now. Can you do it?

In Chan or Zen there is strictly speaking no "content" to teach, nothing to learn, nothing to remember.

Gratitude to women -- not only do they give everything birth, they are really the supreme gurus.

In #Zen we say that Shakyamuni was a slippery old con man and Manjusri made a living scraping up donkey shit.

"Old woman Wang sells melons; she sells and advertises them too."

Spontaneous mind is whole mind.

Go right into the depths of your body and find the clear vibration that makes it live.

Then anytime you like you can shiver with with delight.

Like a bee crawling ecstatically in the pollen soaked pistils of a California orange poppy.

The next time you even think about getting enlightenment, go and fill a pail with cold water and dump it on your head.

This is my "Bucket of Ice Water Zen Teaching Method" which has never failed to awaken the clueless.

I think it's great that so many people are signing up for a religion founded by a rich man who abandoned his wife and infant child to beg.

Most people, if they actually knew someone who did that, wouldn't be able to sleep for the indignation. "What a fucking jerk!"

"He did what? He just left his wife with a young son and wandered off into the woods to meditate? Forget that fucking jerk."

Buddha refused to help his kingdom when it was attacked and destroyed by a rival kingdom. As a result, he got a bad headache for three days.

"Transmigration is imaginary. It's all an illusion, a perverted dream born of attachment to this or that form, which is really nothing at all but a baseless appearance in the naked void.
The pure mind isn't luminous. It isn't anything that can be spoken of and if I speak of it I am putting words and images in place of your realization. Look into yourself and your consciousness every day, achieve kensho, break through Heaven and Earth, empty all the hells, and become a buddha, like a shrill note on the bamboo flute or a bell clanging in the empty sky. Absolutely unborn.
The Clear Witness, the Unstained Observer, is just the magical and wondrous function of the original mind, which is rootless. It is identical to naked space in which all phenomena simply appear. It is not Light, it is Lighting, and the Lighting comes from nowhere, and has nowhere to go. It is supremely still. Nothing can move or trouble it. That's why it is called the Tathagata. It does not take part in the world of delusions where impermanence rules and where every form is ultimately revealed as barren and empty.
As for suffering, it is suffering to be deluded into thinking you are an independent person living in an objective world where there is gain and loss, where there are goals to be achieved and failures to bitterly regret. Luckily, you aren't that, you never were, and you never will be, because past mind can't be grasped, nor can present or future mind.
Nothing has ever been grasped at by anyone, and nobody has ever suffered delusion or attained enlightenment, and no buddha has ever appeared in the world to teach anyone anything. Just realize This and you will be the Only Honored One Under Heaven and Above Earth.
Either the mind is made from bottom up causality emerging from matter, or it is a lightning-like function that has nothing to do with any phenomena except to cognize them. It has no form, no shape, no color, no energy. Thou Art That."

What color is prajna?
How deep is dhyana?

For just one day, observe how often you are caught up in "seeing yourself" in a mental movie of some time in the future, or the past.

For just one day, observe how many times "you" begin an obsessive silent dialogue or monologue with people who are not present.

The natural state of a buddha is joy and delight; the natural state of an ordinary person is sadness, worry and anguish.

Does the greenness of the bamboo originate in the bamboo stalks, in your eyes, in the light, in your brain, or in the air?

It would be quite amazing if the three pounds of matter inside your head could remember your childhood. Sheer magic.

fine bird tracks in the wet sand

form isn't emptiness and emptiness isn't form

Desire is essentially pure.

"No mind, no buddhas, no Dharma."

great brilliant light circle

The Womb of Zen produces many different kinds of buddhas. Some don't even look like buddhas.

Chinese Zen literature doesn't speak of "Enlightenment" as necessarily a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

Instead, people are described as "experiencing something," "having a realization," "breaking through," "experiencing great illumination" --

"experiencing vast silent imageless illumination," and sometimes, usually after many false turns in the dark, "totally awakened."

Try listening intensely to trickling water. See if you can do it without your mind going away at all. If your focus moves, bring it back.

Hear how a splashing stream of water creates endless subtle sonic variations. But don't chase after them. Just listen calmly.

Everytime your mind moves, and a thought starts to pull you away from the sound of the water, insist (gently) on bringing your focus back.

This simple method of meditation is a reliable Dharma Gate, using the subtlest modality of sensing, to Pure Mind Itself.

The piercing, lonely shrill of bamboo flute at night in the deep mountains of Nagano, Japan --

What is IT that's intensely aware of your body and its movements in space, yet mysteriously, when you look for it, is found nowhere at all?

The red peony droops. White clouds soar into the sky. The sound of the night foghorn echoes the utter impermanence of all things.

No power in the whole universe could cause anything -- fire, air, water, earth -- to appear, if Consciousness were lacking.

All the senses are consciousness.