We only live in the moment. This often sounds like an accusation. You shouldn't just live in the moment; think about the future, be aware of your responsibilities. Living in the moment is seen as daydreaming, as unproductive and escapist in many modern societies. For those who have time beyond mere survival in a capitalist, socialist, or any other kind of economy and can spare some time for themselves, the great driving force seems to be to leave something behind:...
I walk the streets of Western thought. They have been well-trodden since Roman times, connecting centers of power and establishing a unique logic of knowledge exchange. They connect points, their nodes are central, the path itself is tedious, arduous. A culture of monuments developed on these streets, leading to accumulations of knowledge and power. Division of labor led to specialization and progress. A society emerges in which the individual is understood as a social being, whose social reality is governed by rules...
Movement Instead of Rootedness I recently asked myself if I really want to be grounded. Am I a tree that sinks its roots into the earth and doesn't move, but grows in the environment where the seed once sprouted? Or do I want to be a rock in the surf, letting the water wash over me, yielding something over millennia and dissolving into the sand? My idea of human existence is actually different, more about movement, exploration, and...
An apple, a strawberry, a melon or a passion fruit, a banana or plum, a tomato or cucumber, a bean or grain, a coconut, and a pomegranate. Fruits want to be eaten, they want to bring pleasure, nourish, and sometimes even intoxicate. They shimmer and ferment, decay and exude scents, they catch the eye, enchant the senses, create desire and enjoyment. They are not entirely accidental. Fruits reflect a desire of those who eat them: humans, horses, monkeys, ants, beetles, birds...
I'm thinking about Deleuze, the movement of becoming. To erase the sound of the stream, I must become the sound; to enter the stream, I become part of it. When I linger in the forest, I participate in the silence and the chirping, the rustling of leaves. I become one with nature. That notion from Romanticism – oneness with nature, with a loved one, with the cosmos, with God – generates bliss, ecstasy, bliss, ananda.
So, a koan. I'd heard of them before, those mysterious Zen riddles meant to lead the mind out of the purely rational and open up new forms of insight. I decided not to read much about them or ask others about them. I wanted to get one from a Zen master. While Doksan was asking me a few things about myself. We closed our eyes, he smiled, and told me to imagine a forest with a small stream flowing through it. When...
Form is emptiness. It has shape, but no substance; it is neither matter nor energy. Form is consciousness – to see something as something gives rise to form. Form is also functional: substance, matter, and energy interact according to laws. As part of consciousness, they interact in form. Form is emptiness. Form is consciousness. Consciousness interacts with consciousness. Matter arises from form – not the other way around. Matter does not give rise to form. The flow of energy and matter – from individual…
This is Tantra. This is divine. The crucial question is whether such a sacred encounter is only possible in romantic love, as tradition and romance suggest – or if it can arise when we fully open our being, beyond mind and reason, beyond ego, desire, or obligation. I believe it can. But it has nothing to do with climax as the goal. It's about intimacy. It can be as simple as a...
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