the habit of being

Categorize these things, I wrote to myself in my little book, the ones important enough to explore. Listing is a talent all good analysts and bad procrastinators share. Alright, well - Foremost is beauty, always, as it encompasses all the lovely vaguest of notions, the ones we fixate on, as part of the Condition (yes, the condition, very austere).

1. Potential hypothesis of the day (yes, redundant) :

In our slight wave pool, masking us from solid air, joining us one to the other is that slice of current we call Beauty.
From me to you to someone to noone, just as a spark of electricity from one metal plugged-in static-ball will even make the arm fuzz of noone-on-the-end stretch out, if all are tuned to it, clasping on, holding hands in a line, in a circuit. (Who is the person whose hand is actually touching the ball, the first to grab on? And what exactly IS the ball? Here is philosophy in a nutshell, though I’m heading toward the deer-breathing-inside-a-bubble level of analogy hell). So in the impossible utopian (redundant again) society, we are all connected, being electrocuted together into a state of bliss or somesuch thing, and we’ll call that the ideal happiness. BUT, being that as it is, impossible, we must figure out how the chain came to be broken, and why this bliss is now only shared between a small number of people, usually two, at a time -these two being the Happy Couple, soulmates, or even best friends. What we perceive as true love could very well be the remnant of some universal bond we either no longer have or are, as a society in whole, are too distracted or underaware to notice. Assuming it is possible for the individual to tap into the original source of analogy number one - the ball (a sort of nirvana, I suppose, though don’t quote me on that), how is it related to the ecstasy of love shared between only two people? Should we work toward that enlightenment, or return to unity, as segmented groups or pairs, because the circuit between only two has a very short circumference, and will somehow generate great power in its speed backandforth metoyou someonetonoone? Yes, I believe, I will flatly say that is my point - believe it or not I had one. Yes, the hypothesis is (and mind how I am defining these words so you will be sure to confuse mine with your own definitions): Love is a means of discovering Beauty (my love for you (or someone’s love for noone) will help us both to feel those currents mentioned in the very beginning - a heightened state of awareness brought about by each petal’s removal -unclosure, the senses are primed, the eyes open, the heart races), awareness of Beauty heightens Love (this is where that ball comes into play, but the deer in the bubble is suffocating - the idea, somewhat, is that finding the links between us - remember we are calling Beauty universal, a state among us all we can all tap into - will bring us all back together in love - seeing beauty shows us the love in others, reduces isolation). Tangled words, but a flow chart, you see: cyclic flow. And that could be, I suppose, how it is.

“or if your wish be to close me, i and my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly” (eec)

(I suspect this is really quite simple.)

Sixth Practice: To rely on a spiritual friend who has eliminated all illusions, whose competence in the teachings and practice is complete, and whose qualities increase like the crescent moon; to cherish this perfect guru more than one’s own body is a practice of the bodhisattva.
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Twenty-second Practice: All that appears comes from an illusion of the mind and the mind itself is from beginningless time without inherent existence, free from the two extremes of manifestation (eternalism and nihilism) and beyond all elaboration. To understand this nature (Tathata) and not to conceive of subjects and objects as really existing is a practice of the bodhisattva.

2. Subjects and Objects

Whether this or that amounts to much more than a vitamin C drop (they really take like grapefruit!) I haven�t a clue.

“Tolstoy, in general” is included on the list. (I should be working on that research paper, I stopped on page nine, trying to figure out how to incorporate something I read about Anna and eudaimonia.) I would have followed him around like a disciple, I�m realizing more and more. Maybe it�s the beard, or the truth that that essay “What is Art?” has scared me to the point of tears twice now, primary and secondary sources. I’m afraid it’s because I agree, yet I can not create based on the principle that my desired message must be conveyed or failure shall result. I am not that strong, I gloss things over with abstraction and the whole dogma that a work of art must have a different meaning for everyone really, as we all bring out own emotional baggage to the viewing window. For someone like me, an mediocre painter and wordsmith alike, it seems as if it should be enough that the work in question inspires any response whatsoever. “Does it speak to you?” as silly as it is, is enough for the amateur artist. “Does it make you think?”

WHAT does it make you think? That should be the primary question. I shamefully admit to desiring first to make something pretty or something pretentious, something the audience will at least not ridicule.

To inspire a specific emotional response, through art, to be able to set out with that purpose, to make them see something I saw, or feel something I felt, and to attain it - person by person, they come away with the same vision, or slightly.. it is simply too much. I do not know that I could attain such a feat and still keep my eyes on the ground long enough to keep myself from tripping over a garden hose, honestly.

(But yes, Mr. Tolstoi, Tolstoj, he had a peasant mistress later in life. And did you know about the school at Yasnaya Polyana? Over the door: “Enter and Leave Freely.” He had a school for peasant children so that they -wouldn’t- progress from the muddy state of things in Russia following the emancipation of the serfs. He didn’t want his country turning into western Europe, he didn’t want to kill the soul, and he had this funny school, where he tried to preserve the old ways. Revolutionary without meaning to be, really, or so it seems. But those were the younger years, before he got religion and all the rest. In any case, it’s fascinating. )

3. Surrender

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(From “The Thirty Seven Practices of The Path of the Bodhisattva.” Essential Teachings: His Holiness the Dalai Lama