Nasrudin Returns

[alexander tzara]

On his way back from the K'un-lun Mountains, the Yellow Emperor lost the dark pearl of Tao (The Way). He sent Knowledge to find it, but Knowledge was unable to understand it. He sent Distant Vision, but Distant Vision was unable to see it. He sent Eloquence, but Eloquence was unable to describe it.

Finally, he sent Empty Mind, and Empty Mind came back with the pearl.

~ Chuang Tzu ~

 

[DevilMayCare]

ON NON-DEPENDENCE OF MIND

Coming, going, the waterbirds
don't leave a trace,
don't follow a path.

Dogen (1200-1253)

 

[Dillinger]

I love it! Let's get this "no-mind" on! Are you ready to ZEN!?! *lol* I'll give you some fucking Dharma! Where are you bums at? Huh?

Sol was the son of Danan Isig. He was pursued through the mines of Isig Mountain one day by traders who wanted to steal from him a priceless jewel. He came to the stone door at the bottom of Isig, beyond which lay dread and sorrow older even than Isig. He could not bring himself to open that door, which no other man had ever opened, for fear of what might lie in the darkness beyond it. So his enemies found him in his indecision, and there he died. Stricture: Turn forward into the unknown, rather than backward into death.

 

[DevilMayCare]

We seem to be everywhere and nowhere...isn't that a delight?

ON THE TREASURY
OF THE TRUE DHARMA EYE

Midnight. No waves,
no wind, the empty boat
is flooded with moonlight.

Dogen (1200-1253)


Beats troll hunting, doesn't it?

 

[DevilMayCare]

I just came across this and it seems so apropos I won't wait to post it.

At birth a person is soft and yielding, and at death stiff and hard. All beings, the grass, the trees: alive, soft and yielding; dead, stiff and hard. Therefore the hard and inflexible are friends to death. The soft and yielding are friends of life. An unyielding army is destroyed. An unbending tree breaks. The hard must humble itself or be otherwise humbled. The soft will ultimately ascend.

Lao Tzu
Tao Te Ching #76

http://www.beta.dorsai.org/~walts/yy_3k.gif

[Edited by DevilMayCare on 05-02-2001 at 02:57 PM]

 

[alexander tzara]

In order to contract a thing, one should surely expand it first.

In order to weaken, one will surely strengthen first.

In order to overthrow, one will surely exalt first.

In order to take, one will surely give first.

This is called subtle wisdom.


~ Lao Tzu ~

Dil - merge Dharma Bums with your Song-Name game for: Jack Karaoke's 'King Of (On) The Road'.

Ok, that's terrible but in order to be funny, one should surely be unfunny first.

 

[DevilMayCare]

Dil - merge Dharma Bums with your Song-Name game for: Jack Karaoke's 'King Of (On) The Road'.

Ok, that's terrible but in order to be funny, one should surely be unfunny first.

I think if you made it Dharma Buns it would have a better chance of success at this site.

Nasruddin, ferrying a pedant across a piece of rough water, said something ungrammatical to him.

"Have you never studied grammar?" asked the scholar.

"No."

"Then half your life is wasted."

A few minutes later Nasruddin turned to the passenger.

"Have you ever learned how to swim?"

"No. Why?"

"Then all your life is wasted - we are sinking!"

 

[Dillinger]

ROTFLMAO

Of course you could always just listen to King Crimson's album "Beat" which includes the songs "Neil and Jack and Me" and Sartori in Tangier.

As he listened,
Mindlessly,
The eavesdrops entered him.

-- Dogen

 

[alexander tzara]

I believe you may be a 21st Century Schizoid Man, Dil.

 

[Dillinger]

Hell - I know I am!

Cat's foot iron claw
Neuro-surgeons scream for more
At paranoia's poison door.
Twenty first century schizoid man.

Blood rack barbed wire
Polititians' funeral pyre
Innocents raped with napalm fire
Twenty first century schizoid man.

Death seed blind man's greed
Poets' starving children bleed
Nothing he's got he really needs
Twenty first century schizoid man.

(I've got a great recording, at least in my opinion, of me playing this with a bad a number of years ago)

 

[alexander tzara]

Did you do the Lennon-style distorto vocal and the mad Sax attack?

 

[Dillinger]

Hell yeah! *smile*

I TALK TO THE WIND

Said the straight man to the late man
Where have you been
I've been here and I've been there
And I've been in between.

I talk to the wind
My words are all carried away
I talk to the wind
The wind does not hear
The wind cannot hear.

I'm on the outside looking inside
What do I see
Much confusion, disillusion
All around me.

You don't possess me
Don't impress me
Just upset my mind
Can't instruct me or conduct me
Just use up my time

I talk to the wind
My words are all carried away
I talk to the wind
The wind does not hear
The wind cannot hear.

 

[alexander tzara]

I seem to remember they had a lyricist that wasn't actually in the band - or, at least, he didn't sing or play anything.

 

[alexander tzara]

Another mindless act of Zen!

A monk, asking for instruction, said to Bodhidarma: 'I have no peace of mind. Please pacify my mind.'

'Bring your mind here before me,' replied Bodhidharma, 'and I will pacify it!'

'But when I seek my own mind,' said the monk, 'I cannot find it.'

'There!' snapped Bodhidharma, 'I have pacified your mind!'

 

[DevilMayCare]

When the dharma wheel turns
it always goes in both directions.
The still point is its hub, and from here,
all of our myriad activities emerge.
Rather than give solace to the body,
give solace to the mind.
When both body and mind are at peace,
all things appear as they are:
perfect, complete, lacking nothing.


http://gakyil.dzogchen.art.ru/gakyil.gif

 

[Dillinger]

I seem to remember they had a lyricist that wasn't actually in the band - or, at least, he didn't sing or play anything.

The original band, yes - that was Peter Sinfield who was the lyricist on their first 4 or 5 albums. Sinfield also wrote lyrics for Roxy Music and Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

In the current incarnation of the band I believe Adrian Belew writes all the lyrics.

 

[Dillinger]

The Wheel - Todd Rundgren/Utopia

Some people say life's like a merry-go-round
I think it's more like a ferris wheel
'Cause sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down
Sometimes you just don't know what to feel

And just when you think you've got the game figured out
And you say you've had enough
The mysterious mad man with his hand on the lever
Don't seem to never ever want to let you off

You can't get off this wheel of karma You can't stop the hands of time

Now I have a friend, I might have a few
Sometimes I think they just don't care
But I think sometimes they think the same thing of me, yeah
You might say we've got a problem there

You know we all got this habit We like to talk too much
And that always tends to slow you down
But we never change direction
We just keep going round and round and round and round

And let me off this wheel of karma Let me stop the hands of time

Seems like I've been around so many places
And I must have learned a lot of things
And although I ain't yet come up with a so-called answer
At least I think I finally learned how to sing

And there's just a few things I ain't got sorted out
Sometimes they make my brain get sore
Like if kids were left of all devices
Would they ever come up with a thing like war

Let us off this wheel of karma Let us stop the hands of time

 

[Dillinger]

A man had fallen between the rails in a subway station. People were all crowding around trying to get him out before the train ran him over. They were all shouting. ``Give me our hand!" but the man would not reach up. Mulla Nasrudin elbowed his way through the crowd and leaned over the man. "Friend," he asked, "what is your profession?"

"I am an income tax inspector," gasped the man.

"In that case," said Nasrudin, "take my hand!"

The man immediately grasped the Mulla's hand and was hauled to safety. Nasrudin turned to the amazed by-standers. "Never ask a tax man to give you anything, you fools."

 

[DevilMayCare]

ONLY BREATH

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu,
Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion
or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up
from the ground, not natural or etheral, not
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,
am not an entity in this world or the next,
did not decend from Adam or Eve or any
origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.
I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,
first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being.

by Jelaluddin Rumi (1207 - 1273)
from "The Essential Rumi" translations by Coleman Barks

 

[alexander tzara]

The Tao Of Shit

Tung-kuo Tzu asked Chuang Tzu "Where is the Tao?"

"It is everywhere," replied Chuang Tzu.

Tung-kuo Tzu said "You must be more specific."

"It is in the ant" said Chuang Tzu.

"Why go down so low?"

"It is in the weeds."

"Why even lower?"

"It is in a potsherd."

"Why still lower?"

"It is in the excrement and urine," said Chuang Tzu.


~ Chuang Tzu ~

 

[Dillinger]

Welcome back guys... Chuang Tzu and Rumi! Does it get any better? Rumu Rocks! (Actually it would get a lot better if I could get a decent fucking dialup connection from this hotel room!)

The mystery does not get clearer by repeating the question.
nor is it bought with going to amazing places.

Until you've kept your eyes
and your wanting still for fifty years,
you don't begin to cross over from confusion.

 

[alexander tzara]

Here's a good'un:

He who knows does not speak,
He who speaks does not know.

~ Lao Tzu ~

That's why you never get Taoists banging on your door trying to proselytise ya.

 

[*Lazer*]

Here's one for you. He who wants to get some gets off the fucking board and comes to bed. Comere ScotSquash...

 

[DevilMayCare]

Killing Truth

One day Mara, who is the ancient Buddhist god of ignorance and evil, was travelling through the villages of India with his attendants. Along the way, he noticed a man doing a walking meditation. The man's face was lit up in wonder. Apparently, the man had just discovered something on the ground in front of him.

Mara's attendants, noticing the glow emanating from the man, asked Mara what it was the man had discovered. Mara replied, "He has discovered a piece of truth."

"But evil one!" exclaimed one of his entourage, "Doesn't this bother you when someone finds a piece of the truth?"

"No," said Mara. "I am not troubled in the least."

"But why not?"insisted his attendants.

"Because," replied Mara, chuckling, "Right after they discover some truth, they usually make a belief out of it."

Buddhist Tale

 

[Dillinger]

*smile*

Zen students are with their masters at least ten years before they presume to teach others. Nan-in was visited by Tenno, who, having passed his apprenticeship, had become a teacher. The day happened to be rainy, so Tenno wore wooden clogs and carried an umbrella. After greeting him Nan-in remarked:

'I suppose you left your wooden clogs in the vestibule. I want to know if your umbrella is on the right or left side of the clogs.' Tenno, confused, had no instant answer. He realized that he was unable to carry his Zen every minute. He became Nan-in's pupil, and he studied six more years to
accomplish his every-minute Zen.