I had a dream about ants,
1. The world needs more Buddhists trained in microbiology.
2.I’ve started thinking now, officially, that the fourth dimension is under us and not above us. It’s superimposed or something… supraimposed? I don’t know what words or combination of words will do it justice, but I know that language is supposed to fail when it tries to grasp these things, so I know when to hold ‘em.
3. I think the anthill is ultimately something for me and me alone. It makes sense to me and me alone. It is a way to archive and easily navigate all of the thoughts I’ve had. There is a lot of connective tissue in there that has a tendency toward the egoic. Those are the moments that, as long as I’m putting them into the hill, I prefer to strip away like the bark of a dead tree that I’m trying to turn into a basket or something. You don’t need all the ornamentals on everything, not when there are so many fucking words as it is.
4. I know that there are moments when the connective tissue is the point, or something like that: we need to keep it in because it tells the whole story, or there is a deeper story running in parallel to the main story that can only be witnessed by grasping the connective tissue, but there are times when it’s not necessary.
5. I’m in a moment of enhanced clarity. I can tell because of how restful my sleep is, and how the dreams come with symbols that feel easily interpretable, or, if not easily interpretable, then able to make me feel as if my brain is wiring itself to hold new truth.
6. Like, I had one of those procedural dreams last night where I was editing some text I’d written about buddhism. I felt in the dream that my pen was so mighty and so sharp as to be a sword. I was in the flow state, editing, and grasping the truths as I did so. I felt like Padmasambhava.
I had the ant dream shortly before waking up. It involved ants stepping on pressure plates corresponding to “the left” and “the right,” in rhythm with the markets or something, simulating the American economy and political system in a closed system of ants. Summarizing the entire simulacrum of American politics in one very elegant kind of, uhhhh, one very elegant kind of…
Sorry. [rdct] distracted me with wrong speech.
think about itI’m totally indfifferent at this point as to what the future holds for me, the kind of indifference that brings peace and peace alone. It feels incredible. I’m relearning about indifference to pain through the story of Naropa and Tilopa, the ugly hag who told Naropa to jump off the roof.
She told him to jump off the roof, and he did, and he was in extreme pain, and she said, “Why did you do that. You’re so attached to conceptual thought.”
Honestly, in some moments, I really do feel like Tilopa. Like talking to [rdct] just now. I said, “Let’s go for a walk,” and he was overcome with questions all of a sudden: “Where do we go,” “How long should the walk be,” etc. I’m just like, bro, I don’t give a fuck. You’re spending all this creative energy on figuring it out instead of just doing it.
I have little patience for that kind of questioning these days. I know I should work on patience as a virtue and compassion above all else, and I am working on it, I promise. It’s just difficult sometimes to let the compassion manifest in speech. It’s difficult not to let resentment block the compassion—resentment toward the people around you for not being part of the monastic order, which is obviously unfair and hypocritical.
It can be painful to discern what is suffering and what is just
But I know that, like Naropa, I need to let go of conceptual thought for good. Let go of the concepts of friend, foe, good, evil, pain, ecstasy. Letting go of each of those things, one by one, will allow me to let go of the concept of “differences between things” in general.
Let go of conceptual thought like a balloon. I’m trying, but it’s not something that….
You know how as soon as you use the word “try,” you are in the world of conceptual thought, and you’re already taking steps backward?
What I love about sleeping and dreaming is that feeling of pure, blissful transcendence without the need to document any of it. It’s a flow state you can enter just by being in this relaxed, recovering mode. It’s profound. And it’s something that happens at the beginning and end of every day. If that is what sleep is like, then….. I can only imagine how death will feel…. Sleep and death do feel related to me, but that’s… how could I ever know something like that.
I just have to trust the channels left behind by Padmasambhava. Read them and act accordingly. But for now, it’s time to facetime [rdct] and see what conceptual thoughts she’s having today.
Peace, love. All of that.
fall asleep