Anger is an acquired taste, like the taste for blue cheese or witchetty grubs. When you first drink at the Well of Anger, you’re not sure you like it. In fact, you don't like it at all. But you soon learn. And the deeper you drink, the quicker you learn. Many times have I been drunk on Anger. Many times have I chased that oh-so-delectable feeling of being out of control, of being authorised -- even empowered -- to transgress boundaries I wouldn't even dream of transgressing under calmer, gentler circumstances.
Rage is an even headier brew -- the bitter toxicity of it burns your throat as you gulp it down. Rage makes you feel... fine and hot!
Then there are the bittersweet flavours of Resentment, Disappointment and Humiliation. Not to mention the more exotic delights of Despair, Jealousy, and Unrequited Lust. As for the sweeter, more wholesome dishes, I’ve tasted Joy on the odd occasion, Peace every now and then, Fulfilment once or twice.
Some people are hooked on Loneliness, others addicted to Self-abasement. Speaking personally, over the years I’ve slaked my thirst at the Spring of Selfishness. And worshipped at the Shrine of Pain. Acquired tastes, all of them. And how we love ‘em.
But remember this: there are things that hurt a lot more than pain -- the belief that one is alone, for instance, separate from others and from God.
The image is a detail from one of the Thangkas painted by Shawu Tsering and photographed by Jill Morley Smith, in The Tibetan Book of The Dead, Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, first published in Britain 2005, with introductory comments from the Dalai Lama. The painting depicts one of the 54 so-called "wrathful deities", in this case Karma Heruka, in union with his consort, Karma Krodeshvari.
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eBooks by Cosmic Rapture
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NIGHTMERRIES: THE LIGHTER SIDE OF DARKNESS. This so-called "book" will chew you up, spit you out, and leave you twitching and frothing on the carpet. More than 60 dark and feculent fictions (read ‘em and weep) copiously and grotesquely illustrated.
AWAREWOLF & OTHER CRHYMES AGAINST HUMANITY (Vot could be Verse?). We all hate poetry, right? But we might make an exception for this sick and twisted stuff. This devil's banquet of adults-only offal features more than 50 satanic sonnets, vitriolic verses and odious odes. MANIC MEMES & OTHER MINDSPACE INVADERS. A disturbing repository of quirky quotes, sayings, proverbs, maxims, ponderances, adages and aphorisms. This menagerie holds no fewer than 184 memes from eight meme-species perfectly adapted to their respective environments.MASTRESS & OTHER TWISTED TAILS. An unholy corpus of oddities, strangelings, bizarritudes and peculiaritisms, including but not limited to barbaric episodes of herring-flinging and kipper-kissing. A cacklingly bizarre read that may induce fatal hysteria. Not Recommended! FIENDS & FREAKS and serpents, dragons, devils, lobsters, anguished spirits, hungry ghosts, hell-beings, zombies, organ-grinders, anti-gods, gods and other horse-thieves you wouldn't want to meet in a dark cosmos. Immature Content! Adults Maybe.HAGS TO HAGGIS. An obnoxious folio featuring a puke of whiskey-soaked war-nags, witches, maniacs, manticores and escapegoats. Not to mention (please don't!) debottlenecking and desilofication, illustrated. Take your brain for a walk on the wild side. Leave your guts behind.
2 comments
I read of a US ex-soldier suffering from PTSD who used to inflict severe physical challenges on himself for years after demob. After he gave his first talk to impoverished children advising them not to enlist, he felt immediate relief from PTSD. The vast military-industrial complex reaches down to towns and schools, so it was his last such talk, but that is another story.
Hi mgeorge, thanks for your comment. That is a very enlightening anecdote. Perhaps the non-dualists are right, that there's only one thing in the whole of Reality, a single monadic consciousness that tells itself stories for eternity to stave off boredom!
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