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Entries in lhasa (5)

Sunday
May012022

Saigon

Seek out what magnifies your spirit.

*

"I want to keep smashing myself until I am whole." - Elias Canetti

Die Twice

Before going to Cambodia I discovered a Saigon museum named for Uncle Ho. He’s the patron saint of Diehard Marxist Mania. It is a popular location for virginal couples posing for wedding photographs using expansive interior halls and sweeping stairways. Happy grooms escorted joyful brides in rented sparkling jewelry trailing gowns, frozen on stairs, in corridors, on window ledges. Jump!

In a dusty display case along a forgotten corridor were piles of medals, stamps, currencies and Zippo lighters. A Zippo was ubiquitous among soldiers with engraved inscriptions. One lighter said:

There are two times you face death.

Once when you’re born and once when you face death.

Hala, a Muslim girl I knew in Lhasa said, There are people who are born laughing and people who are born crying, I was born laughing.

 

 

Parked outside the museum was a U.S. Air Force F-16, ambulance, jeep, Huey helicopter and the tank North Vietnamese forces commanded to flatten gates and liberate the South. Rows of antique French cars used to ferry the wounded and ammunition around Saigon during the war collected dust in meticulous gleaming historical automotive fashion.

Hexagram 34 - The Power of the Great

Perseverance furthers. Ask what is right. Be in harmony. Movement. Not stubborn. Yielding quietly preserving work to remove resistance.

Book of Amnesia, V1

Friday
May142021

Memory Spoke

“I’d rather be a tiger for one day than a sheep for 1,000 years,” chanted a Tibetan monk in a small chapel near the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa.

He sat on a platform swathed in burgundy robes holding the Vajra diamond thunderbolt and bell in his left hand. Ringing the bell he chanted sutras in muted tones.

Pilgrims entered the room through a worn door hanging after spinning copper prayer wheels in a narrow alley and climbing slick stone steps.

Three tall ornate, copper-plated Buddha’s faced them. Past, Present and Future Buddhas contemplated rows of flickering yak butter lamps, fruit offerings, khata scarves, coins and paper money.

Two wooden benches were against a wall. On the floor was a pan of round gray clay balls. Devotees rubbed one on faces and hands before joining others waiting to be blessed. Gathered with bowed heads at the chanting monk’s feet were playful, devout jostling travelers.

He cycled through sutras chanting and touching people on their head with the thunderbolt and pouring holy water on them saying Long Life. They eased away as others moved forward.

He was in a trance state.

An old woman with sky blue turquoise stones woven into her long plaited black hair and wearing a long heavy sheepskin coat sat down next to me. Sharing smiles she mumbled, “Namaste. Blessings to you.”

Whispering ‘Om Mani Padme Hum,’ she fingered prayer beads.

Babbling tongues sang. The bell rang.

Nepal

Awake, I returned to Spanish crypts with my camera. I imaged interments of chiseled names and pueblo connection. Invisible stories dreamed in occupied or empty crypts. They illuminated desire, conflict, ambiguities, metaphors, and silence.

Dreams floated to the listening faithful. They were silent stories of the pious as silent breathing revealed stories inside stories.

“The rest is silence,” said Shakespeare.

The widow observed crouched shadows in rocky fields shifting stones and pruning dead growth from olive trees along the Rio.

Wild yellow and purple flowers blanketed cleared land.

Romans built stone homes and designed baths near the river. They made walled fortifications with defensive mountains behind them. Ten-foot wide dolomite roads twisted from the pueblo down through the valley and beyond for future legions expanding their empire. Soldiers marching west branched north to Seville or south to Cadiz.

Grazalema men loaded cork on tired tractors. Using bedsprings for gates they built pens for sheep, chickens, dogs, goats, and children. Twisted rusting bed coils lay scattered. They used everything trying to tame poor rocky land.

Men assembled fences using blackberry brambles with sharp thorns. They reinforced fences with sticks, recycled old tires, tin cans, metal struts, old cars, and discarded cooking stoves. Chipped bathtubs became watering troughs for livestock. Small stone dams diverted Rio streams to small fields.

Everything was done by hand. Labor worked dawn to dusk, day in day out. Labor cleared erosion’s debris by marking land with tools and footprints.

The widow’s husband slept in the Catholic crypt. Dusty light danced through palm leaves.

She was a full silent moon above his bone white memory. Her spirit danced with spirits.

Spirits treasured clear impermanent memories. Finished sacrificial rituals his cloud vapor danced free from the cemetario to manifest with the full moon above stone fields, yellow flowers and flowing river where men worked their trust.

ART - A Memoir

Adventure, Risk, Transformation

 

Vietnam

Thursday
Nov262015

About Face - TLC 62

“Such a querulous quandary laundry list of regrets, what ifs, and maybes,” said a vein-veiled mother sweeping hopes, plans, and dreams down a drain-o with should, would and could tyrannies.

Turkey witnessed a long lilting laborious laughing list littered with the bones of Hunters-Gatherers, phony Phoenicians, Romans give me your ears, Greeks, Hiatus, Coitus Interuptus, Arabs, Turkmen, Templar Knights, Mongols, nomadic pastoral hoards, Sultan-A-Mets from a Botox Bronx, Uighurs and literary rascals.

“The law of fear, uncertainty, healthy doubt, adventure and surprise in real time is implicit,” said Incense feeding dead ancestors their daily diet of guilt, shame, self-loathing and remorse fortified with essential vitamins.

A Turkish slave protected by a silk scarf hiding frontal lobotomy scars after perception was removed for analysis closed her balcony door killing world music. She didn’t hear wind-spirits sing dance and drum on shattered mirrors made of sand.

Bamboo leaves shuddered inside a kaleidoscopic reflection of sky, clouds and Lung-ta prayer flags above Lhasa. They danced with drifting chorten sage smoke.

Chinese boy-soldiers marched into a blind alley next to Rampoche Monastery on March 10th, Year Zero. They were surrounded by burgundy wrapped monks chanting, “Om Mani Padme Hum, Om...The Jewel in the Lotus.”

“Lock and load,” yelled Li Bow Down. “Fire. Ready. Aim.”

They blasted chanting monks.

“About face, save face.”

The Language Company

Thursday
May082014

notes from nepal

 

Tibetan energies. Joy. Laughter.

This joy - new beginning - transformation.

Empty/full.

At this very moment  they look and leave.

Abstract metaphorical language.

Non-attachment.

Ink whispers it's secrets of silent mystery where life is found in a desperate situation.

Balancing precariously.

Young boys stare at a scriptor.

The blind lead the blind.

Everything is Under Construction at the Source.

The vast self.

Existential awareness.

Cessation of sensation and perception.

It's a walking meditation.

Rivers, like people, only know why they were born when they reach the end.

Poverty and illiteracy. I work, I breed, I get slaughtered.

Imagined or invented conversations and episodes.

Fiction is a tool for unveiling, not obscuring the truth.

Literary fiction expounds historical truth.

The necessity of that moral choice.

Bookends of Bhaktapur. In between 90 years/moments. 90 breaths.

Non-attachment.

Sitting.

Awareness of energies.

Fleeting impressions. Images tell visual stories.

Illuminate expand invent.

Passing through.

Light, bell, crow morning. Laughing sparrow. Little wing.

Translations, transitions, transformations.

Zen path. Diamond in mind.

Haiku.

Short, fast and deadly.

Boudhanath, Nepal

Lhasa

Saturday
Jul202013

Lhasa meditation

You slow down.

Each step is a breath.

As before in other planetary places you savor beginning a new day becoming in cold, isolated, strange, mysterious reality. The street blends into the circuit. Go to the main square.

Two large chorten furnaces breathing fire send plumes of gray and black smoke into the sky. Buyers collect offerings from juniper and cedar sellers and throw sweet smelling twigs into a roaring fire, finger prayer beads and resume their pilgrimage. Merit.

You join the flow, shuffling along. Feel the softness in the ageless way of meditation, a walking meditation.

It is a peaceful manifestation of the eternal now. The vast self-vibration of frequencies realizes your restless wandering ghost spirit feeling peace and serenity inside the flow.

Sky fills with clear light. As above - so below. Prayer flags lining roofs sing in the wind as incense smoke curls away. Shuffling pilgrims create a ceaseless wave - the sound of muted consistent steps, clicking of prayer beads, a gentle hum of turning prayer wheels, murmurs of mantras from lips. Everything is clear and focused on offerings, sacrifice, gaining merit in the collective unconscious. Human river flows.

Dawn light blesses eastern snow capped mountains with a pink glow. A black-faced half-naked boy throws himself down and out on hands and knees prostrating the length of his skinny skeleton. He wears slabs of wood on his hands and an old brown apron. He edges forward, pulling himself along, rises, gestures to the sky, hands together, down along his skin out and down to the ground scrapping away flesh inside shuffling pilgrims.

His eyes are on fire.

You complete one circuit after another, circling the stupa. More light and people ascending into the square - handfuls of juniper feed roaring flames, Crack! Hiss! Burn! Back to Dust!

You walk through fire.

Do this practice every day.

This is an auspicious time to be here. You are aware of the energies and practicing discernment when recognizing sensitivities and realities on the ground. This is vital.

Be wise and prudent in your actions and behaviors. You are a guest on Earth with responsibilities, remain open, vulnerable, receptive and authentic.

It is essential for you to refresh, reinforce and renew your calm warrior nature. Keep a diamond in your mind.

Allow creative instincts to guide your journey with clarity, insight and wisdom. Remain open and receptive to all the spiritual forces around you now. Cultivate, nourish and manifest your inner strength and focus accepting and acknowledging lessons and deeper meaning.

Practice dignity and restraint. Conduct yourself in mindfulness realizing your divine essence.

Source: A Century is Nothing