Saturday, December 3, 2016

December rose

Clutched against the snow a militant rose holds onto sleep, and dreams…
And it’s perfect just like that but you still want to know the ambiguity of its unopened bud
So you cover your eyes and count to ten then turn around
But it’s quiet the way you like it with just the wind scattering its dust among the skinny branches

Still you want to know where it went,
The secret of the tight-lipped rose
And sit beside her in the dark of noiseless speculation,
Waiting and watching for something to happen, catching every snowflake in the beam of your unwavering gaze
As it falls and sizzles on her pink satin lids
Trailing silver one by one
Like the slow and steady breath of snails or the stream of notes left behind
An evening sung

At some point the bud gets buried in the snow’s frozen ash
Immortalizing the poise and delicate beauty of her sleep
And it seems like she may live forever in the gentle palm of winter
And for a time she does
But when the snow melts revealing petals softly withered, tinged with gray,
Fallen open like a hand catching raindrops on a cloudy day,
Sleep has been released in the parting of her eyes
And awoken a galaxy of stars in the month of an undisclosed night.

Saturday, April 16, 2016

punctum caecum


Hiding
is a way of staying alive

~ David Whyte

What is denial?  That invisible impenetrable wall against feeling, unmoved by the urgings of reason, emotion, conscience, love or pain…

A form of willful blindness?  Of ostracism?  Banishment from awareness?

No.  It is much stealthier than that, creeping up like nature’s hand upon the throat, muting responsiveness in the face of sometimes passionate resistance, a denial we mistake for equanimity when it is really the megaphone of our own silent authority drowning out all opposition and whose effect is nothing short of devastating. 

Denial has no choice.

Like a blindspot.  When eyes that are open perceive yet cannot see the light or the spot denied light.  They just see what they see, manifesting as the oil and canvas of our own mis-givings.

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

The four As


What is the difference between anger, aggression, attacks and abuse? 

Anger is an emotion, the feel of an experience, a state of mind. It is neither good nor bad, but usually has negative effects on the person feeling it, and is associated with the colour red (love with pink, jealousy with green).  It can be expressed safely to others using an I-statement: “I am angry that you said that”. 

As long as the separateness of another person is respected, as long as anger is expressed TO and not AT another person, anger can be shared without hurting someone else.

Aggression is anger expressed AT another person.  Aggression hurts others.  Overt aggression is conveyed in ways that are usually obvious, whether verbally or physically, as jabs or punches.  Covertly it is usually expressed by acts of omission, silence or other forms of passive aggression.  Though aggression may hurt others, it is not necessarily aimed at or intended to hurt anyone.

Attacks are aimed at another person with the intention of causing harm.  Attacks consist in words or actions directed at someone, a target, for the express purpose of hurting him or her.  The motivation may be anger, but more often the motivation is revenge, which can and often does occur in the absence of anger; in fact, the fire of emotion is usually absent from premeditated or terrorist attacks, which is why they are cold-blooded, the most insidious attacks of all.

Abuse is a pattern of aggression which harms, frightens or controls another person. It is situation-specific. Context, like power differentials and the effects on the victim, need to be considered in order to determine whether it is abuse.  For example, a woman may hit a man but the man may not feel frightened; whereas a woman almost always feels frightened when a man hits her.  A child may scream at his mother but the mother may not feel controlled; whereas a child almost always feels terrorized by a screaming mother.  A student may sleep with her teacher but the teacher is usually not harmed; whereas the student almost always is.

Abuse, unlike an attack, may not be intended, and it usually isn’t.  Nevertheless, it is still harmful and it is still abuse.


Saturday, April 2, 2016

Beware of Buddhism



Beware of Buddhism. 
Although it may present as a “horizontal” philosophy of compassion, Buddhism, like most religions, disguises a “vertical” masculine superiority complex that views physical and emotional vulnerability as suffering, reduces intellectual complexity to rational confusion, and encourages transcendence of our messy human condition through solitary meditation, yoga, martial arts and other practices divorced from meaningful interaction with others.  Intended to liberate us from the bonds of being human, these practices sometimes even use others to attain higher levels of personal freedom.  

Make no mistake: Buddhism is a self-centered theory of personal empowerment that worships virility, power and domination, leaving little room for real others or real compassion.  It is basically a discipline which aims to obliterate itself by focusing on itself.

Is it any wonder so many “unfettered” Buddhist teachers turn out to be abusive?