Thread: Post if you don't feel a damn thing

There, that didn't hurt, did it? Thanks for answering one of my questions.

I'm also an artist/photographer/animator (stop motion... so out of vogue now, but I love the handmade quality of it) and one of the most important lessons I've learned is that shadow reveals form. Light creates shadow of course, but too much light and you can't see a damn thing, or it all gets flat and washed out. Light is like gold... the less there is floating around, the more valuable it becomes.

*** I'm so ashamed of spilling out my soul to the troll that I'm pulling my work down from this travesty of a thread. I'll repost it someplace where it BELONGS. Sorry for my off-topic contributions here.

Hey Darkmatters guy, have you ever read the Tibetan Book of the Dead? You really do seem obsessed by the skeletons - O my gosh, I think I have some stuff you may like about the skeletons. I'll bring it here if I can find it.

Sure Mayflow(er) person! I do dig skeletons, and I like what I've seen thus far of the TBotD, which was just a segment posted online. But I do believe you're trolling neverthelss. I've been laying myself out on the line here, and you've revealed nothing, except the fact that RG has Double D's!!

What the hell. Now I am a troll? Fuck it, I am me and you can call me whatever you want but it does not keep me from being me.

Originally Posted by Mayflow

What the hell. Now I am a troll? Fuck it, I am me and you can call me whatever you want but it does not keep me from being me.

You flying unicorn bladder you!

Originally Posted by Erii

You flying unicorn bladder you!

OK, you got my first "like" I've been called many things both good and bad, but NEVER a flying Unicorn bladder. That was definitely unique. I only like you right now because I'm really drunk though, probably and when I'm drunk I like everything and that can be sometimes dangerous, so that's why I am alone at home on a computer. Its just a safer place to be and I really like it here.

Dammit Erii!!

... But you're right, he is trolling, isn't he? And here I am trying ot make friends and revealing all about myself... I'm so naive!!

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Dammit Erii!!

... But you're right, he is trolling, isn't he? And here I am trying ot make friends and revealing all about myself... I'm so naive!!

XD

Yeah let us not feed the trolls.

So I see...

Like this then (I hope?)


Skeletons



Ikkyu (1394-1481)



These thin lines of India ink reveal all truth.

Students, sit earnestly in zazen, and you will realize that everything born in this world is ultimately empty, including oneself and the original face of existence. All things indeed emerge out of emptiness. This original formlessness is “Buddha,” and all other similar terms-Buddha-nature, Buddhahood, Buddha-mind, Awakened One, Patriarch, God—are merely different expressions for the same emptiness. Misunderstand this and you will end up distracted for eons.

Filled with disgust and longing to liberate myself from the realm of continual birth and death, I abandoned home and set off on a journey. One night, I came to a lonely little temple, looking for a place to rest. I was far off the main road, at the base of a mountain, seemingly lost in a vast Plain of Repose. The temple was in a field of graves, and suddenly a pitiful-looking skeleton appeared speaking these words:


A melancholy autumn wind

Blows through the world:

The pampas grass waves,

As we drift to the moor,

Drift to the sea.

What can be done

With the mind of a man,

That should be clear

But, dressed up in a monk’s robe,

He just lets life pass him by?

All things become naught by returning to their origin. Bodhidharma faced the wall in meditation, but none of the thoughts that arose in this mind had any reality. The same held true for Buddha’s fifty years of proclaiming the Dharma. The Mind is not bound by such conditioned things.

Such deep musings made me uneasy and I could not sleep. Toward dawn I dozed off, and in my dreams I found myself surrounded by a bunch of skeletons, acting as they did in life.

.

One skeleton came over to me and said:



Memories

Flee and

Are no more:

All are empty dreams

Devoid of meaning.



Violate the reality of things

And babble about

“God” and “Buddha”

And you will never find

The true Way.



Still breathing,

You feel animated,

So a corpse in a field

Seems to be something

Apart from you.

I got on well with this skeleton—he had renounced the world to seek the truth and had passed from the shallows to the depths. He saw things clearly, just the way they are. I lay there with the wind in the pines whispering in my ears and the autumnal moonlight dancing across my face.



What is not a dream? Who will not end up as a skeleton? We appear as skeletons covered with skin, male and female, and lust after each other. When the breath expires, though, the skin ruptures, sex disappears, and there is no more high or low. Underneath the skin of the person we fondle and caress right now is nothing more than a bare set of bones. Think about it—high and low, young and old, male and female, all the same. Awaken to this one great matter, and you will immediately comprehend the meaning of “unborn and undying.”

If chunks of rock

Can serve as a memento

To the dead,

A better headstone

Would be a tea mortar.



Humans are indeed frightful beings.



A single moon

Bright and clear

In an unclouded sky:

Yet still we stumble

In the world’s darkness



Have a good look—stop the breath, peel off the skin, and everybody ends up looking the same. No matter how long you live, the result is not altered. Cast off the notion the “I exist.” Entrust yourself to the windblown clouds, and do not wish to live forever.

Ikkyu (1394-1481)



Excerpted from Wild Ways translated by John Stevens 2003

White Pines press



commentary by Elana at Daily Zen *

Death, the great equalizer, has a way of bringing life into a different kind of focus. Ikkyu’s skeletons share teachings from their point of view, which is accessible to those of us who remember we too will be those skeletons, and in fact carry them with us daily. Getting caught up in the world of form, we meditate and put our toes into formlessness, then get enmeshed again in form. To realize the teaching of the Heart Sutra is one of the highest teachings we can “attain.”

"Form is emptiness; emptiness is form; form is not other than emptiness; emptiness is not other than form."

That about sums it all up, but realizing the depths of this teaching can take lifetimes or no time. Just to hear this and contemplate this teaching plants seeds that will awaken when the conditions are right.

Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha

Oh.... hello


ANEKEE VAN DER VELDEN!

Hi Tommo.

I'm gonna go with Phil8659.
Maybe even Jeff.... hmmmm....
Not sure actually.

Bets people?

Wooooowwwww you need to stop mayflow xD

What is this thread anymore?

It needs to be done with

Yeah, even I'm done with it now, I feel so used...

I take it Erii doesn't possess the keys to lock a thread?

I'm going to go to bed now, Nighty night all. It was fun tonight but I probably won't return here anymore so goodbye and all.

Originally Posted by Mayflow

I'm going to go to bed now, Nighty night all. It was fun tonight but I probably won't return here anymore so goodbye and all.

au revoir

Originally Posted by Mayflow

OK, you got my first "like" I've been called many things both good and bad, but NEVER a flying Unicorn bladder. That was definitely unique. I only like you right now because I'm really drunk though, probably and when I'm drunk I like everything and that can be sometimes dangerous, so that's why I am alone at home on a computer. Its just a safer place to be and I really like it here.

I'm glad I have a special place in your heart for a unique nickname

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

I take it Erii doesn't possess the keys to lock a thread?

only in on topic.

Originally Posted by Mayflow

I'm going to go to bed now, Nighty night all. It was fun tonight but I probably won't return here anymore so goodbye and all.

ciao

Scared you off by asking you to reveal something about yourself? Typical troll behavior.

So is RG going, or mayflow? Hopefully both.

What the fuck have I just walked into.

you cannot walk into a thread, you click it and it loads onto a page, then you type the sentence you want to post on to the thread. There is no walking.

lol i dont know im bored :/

Originally Posted by Solarflare

you cannot walk into a thread, you click it and it loads onto a page, then you type the sentence you want to post on to the thread. There is no walking.

lol i dont know im bored :/

this reminds me of antijoke chicken

hahaha

Originally Posted by niteLite

this reminds me of antijoke chicken

hahaha

yea i know