The Sound of One Hand Slapping

The Seeker asks the Mastress: “How may this humble supplicant who kneeleth before thee become enlightened? How doth One enjoin with the All, or is it predestinated forevermore to tread the cyclic wheel of existence, hamster-like, until the wrathful deities take pity on the crusading pilgrim's benighted soul?”

The Mastress — a nut-brown, gnarled and ancient guru of indeterminate gender and reproachable demeanour — respondeth imperturbably saying, “Ask the next six people you meet; perhaps you may find the answers you say you seek.”

“What the fricking flaming biscuit!” exclaimeth the Seeker, on hearing these mysterious words.

Loincloth wafting on a stealthy breeze, the Nut-brown maketh the smile of one lip curling. The visage of the guru wears a veil of inscrutability as profound as the deepest depths of inner space.

Dissatisfied and disgruntled, the Seeker taketh his leave of the Gnarly One and sets his footlings on the path that leadeth to the Inn of the Flowering Beetle, formerly The Queen’s Moustache. On the way he encountereth the first of six respondents — an aged washerwoman squatting phlegmatically in the shade of a cinnabar tree.

“How do you do, O Gentle Crone?” enquireth the Seeker courteously.

“Get lost asshole!” quoth the Crone, waxing wrathful, “or I’ll box thy poxy earhole in the blink of a newt’s eyelid!”

Us vs Them

What is a person? It's an important question because the way that a human behaves towards another lifeform is determined by whether the human believes the other lifeform to be a person or not.

In the introductory commentary to the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition (2005) of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Dalai Lama describes the Tibetan Buddhist view of what constitutes a person, as set out below.

"Among the ancient schools of thought, which accepted the notion of continuity of consciousness, there were several non-Buddhist philosophical schools which regarded the entity, the 'I' or 'self', which migrated from existence to existence as being unitary and permanent. They also suggested that this 'self' was autonomous in its relationship to the psycho-physical components that constitute a person. In other words they believed or posited that there is an essence or 'soul' of the person, which exists independently from the body and mind of the person.

How eating dogshit can avert death

The male and female primordial buddhas Samantabhandra and Samantabhadri in union. Thangkas painted by Shawu Tsering and photographed by Jill Morley Smith are in the private collection of Gyurme Dorje.

If we were sitting on a mountaintop with the wind in our hair and the stars in our eyes and a mug of yak-buttered tea in our hands, maybe just maybe we could have a productive conversation about the Book.

I'm talking about The Tibetan Book of the Dead, deluxe edition, with introduction by the Dalai Lama, Penguin Books Ltd, 2005.

Much of the material is outrageously bizarre and peculiar (in my eyes, at the time of reading). For example, here's an excerpt from the Specific Rites for Averting Death:

“When the indication of protruding ankle bones appears, one should face westward towards the sun when it is close to setting and remove one's clothes. Then, placing a dog's tail under oneself, and some dog excrement in a heap in front, one should eat a mouthful and bark like a dog. This should be repeated three times...

“Also in cases where other people are afflicted by illness: if the roots of their teeth grow grimy and black, such a person should wear a goat's skin, face the sunrise, and bleat three times like a goat. Similarly, in cases where the nostrils sag inwards, it will be beneficial if one visualises the syllable A on the tip of the subject's nose, recites the syllable A twenty-one times, and bathes in various rivers...” (Number of rivers not specified.)

The Assembly of Peaceful and Wrathful Deities

The male buddha Vairocana in union with the female buddha Akasadhatvisvari.

This post is about the so-called "peaceful and wrathful deities" in The Tibetan Book of the Dead (deluxe edition, Penguin, 2005).

Here's a crude summary: when you're dead, initially you may encounter things that may seem to be deities but which are really just products of the mind/imagination.

According to the Book (p 387), the deities are symbols that emerge from:

the meditator's own awareness ... and sensory and mental processes.

The 42 symbols of peacefulness:

represent the quiescent natural purity of these fundamental components of our being.

The Dead Live Elsewhen

An example of a light cone, the three-dimensional surface of all possible light rays arriving at and departing from a point in spacetime. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:MissMJ.

Many if not most if not all people have secrets, or think they do. But in fact there are no secrets. Even the secrets people take to the grave are not secret. Everything is known, in at least one way or another. Information is never lost, not even from inside a dissipated black hole that has given its all to the All via Hawking radiation.

So don't be like an ostrich burying its head in the sand. Being unable to see does not mean being unable to be seen.

In private, people let their hair down; they take the opportunity to "be themselves". When no-one else is around, they pick their noses, masturbate, piss in the shower, eat gluttonously, murder their grandfathers, beat their children -- do all the stuff they don't want anyone to see or know about.

But everything is recorded in cosmic memory -- the Akashic Records if you prefer.

Nor are these the febrile imaginings of an aging hippie fumbling around in the peyote-flavoured smog of the Age of Aquarius. Well they are, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a grain of truth in them somewhere. In fact, no less an authority than old smarty pants himself, Einstein, believed that nothing is ever lost.

The Plughole of Nothingness

Mastress, a gnarled and nut-brown guru of indeterminate gender

“Uncanny, Mastress is it not, how the processes of consciousness conspire to emerge unwittingly, unknowingly and unknowably behind the Curtains of Myness on the Stage of Solipsism in the Life Drama now playing at the Theatre of Self,” said the Novice to the Guru, a gnarled and nut-brown mendicant of indeterminate extraction and inherence, naked but for a dubious loincloth in the early years of retirement.

Having spoken informally, in a cringingly nervous and offputting attempt at the easy badinage of one learned colleague with another, the Novice flinched then winced then cowered behind the large laundry basket that doubled as a small laundry basket on top of another.

“If that’s what you’ve derived from the Teachings,” quoth the aged Guru, imperturbably eating a banana,” then you have derived yourself. Ex nihilo nihil fit. As it is written, so shall it be...”

“But Mastress, if I am not for myself, who is?” implored the Novice piteously, “and if not now, then when?”

“Nobody, never. Or everybody always. Now go sweep the stair. Perhaps you’ll meet a man who isn’t there. If only he were you,” grumbled the Nut-brown querulously, dugs flapping mysteriously in a windless breeze.

A sharp jab in the I

Demiurge, painting by SRS, oils on canvas, 50.5 x 40.5 cm. In the context of this post, "Where's Wally" would be a better title for this painting, "Wally" being the lost and/or non-existent Self.

According to Heraclitus you can’t step in the same river twice. Why not? Because no river is ever the same; the water is never the same – there’s always new water flowing downstream. (If the water isn’t flowing, it’s not a river). In fact, not only can’t you step in the same river twice, the same you can’t step twice into a river. Why not? Because there is no “you” that stays the same.

Physically, you’re always changing. Your body is never the same. Your blood is always flowing. Your heart is always pumping. Cells die and new cells are born all the time. And living cells are changing all the time: their biochemical processes only stop when the cell dies.

Nor is your mind ever still. New thoughts, ideas, imaginings are constantly emerging then fading away. And if you think you don’t always think, think again: you’re constantly receiving information about the “outside world” via your senses. Even when you’re asleep you’re monitoring internal processes such as breathing as well as external factors such as temperature. Your brain is a perpetual motion machine – neurons are firing all the time, in sleep and in wakefulness, even in coma.

How big is your god?

One of the 54 so-called "wrathful deities", Karma Heruka, in union with his consort, Karma Krodeshvari, painted by Shawu Tsering and photographed by Jill Morley Smith, in The Tibetan Book of The Dead, Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition (2005)

Humans like to fight. We enjoy a good war, brawl, mêlée, fracas, dispute, argument, disagreement. And one of the things we most like to fight or argue about is the thing we label as "god".

Mainly, we fight about the nature/attributes of god: has a thousand arms, is found in the sea, is found in the air, is found in a burning bush, throws thunderbolts, was crucified, is male, is female, is genderless, carries a large hammer, enjoys drinking blood, has a long white beard, is wrathful and jealous, likes a good flood, etc.

The attributes of deity are many and various, if not infinite. Some people say that all attributes are manifest in deity, and therein lies an opportunity. If everyone agreed that all attributes are the attributes of deity, then we would have no basis for disagreement about the nature of deity. (And by the way, having all attributes is equivalent to having no attributes.)