The Bar(do) of Last Resort 3.0


Live in the nowhere that you came from, even though you have an address here.
Rumi, in Coleman Barks's rendering
 
 
Welcome to third incarnation of the Bar(do) of Last Resort. It it is located in a bad neighborhood---the Dark Night category of DhO--- on purpose, because so much of my learning curve (just corrected a funny typo here: "my learning curse," lol, was tempted to leave it in (sic)) (did, lol) has come in the dukkha nanas territory, and John of the Cross and Daniel Ingram's MCBT (1 and 2, going back to 2011) have been my best teachers and greatest helps. In that same vein, Rumi said, "Live in the nowhere that you can from, even though you have an address here." I think the practice logs are as close as the sangha of people living in the various linguistic variations on the nowhere we came from have on DhO to a local address, with the implicit invitation to welcome visitors, and, in my case, as a good red herring for cops arriving to serve warrants. So welcome to this thread, and to tell you the truth, Officer, it seems possible to me that some people just don't get my humor.
 
 If you have found your way here by accident, my advice is to run for the exit door, where you will be given a complimentary beverage of your choice for the wisdom of Not Starting. 

If you have unfortunately Started, for whatever misguided reasons, then better by far to finish, and drinks are on the house until all sentient beings are saved, because as the obviously slowest sentient boat afloat, i am doomed to be the last one out of this bar, and will be tending bar at various points, or at least taking the occasional dishwashing and janitorial shifts throughout, and will be available to serve drinks at any time if i can figure out how to pour them into a receptable that doesn't leak too much, and also not poison the person through unskillful means. I personally recommend getting someone else to make your drinks, as any patron of the Bar of Last Resort is cleared to bartend, merely by being in the place, and a number of these people pour with a very slow four-count, if you know what i mean, and i think you do, wink-wink. If you don't know what i mean, i mean that some of the drinks these fuckers pour . . . well, let's just say a little dab will do ya.

Our present primary bartender is Ludwig Wittgenstein, so take your language games directly to him. 

If you have come here from a purely morbid or personally-skin-in-the-game interest in spiritual carnage and meditation-related difficulties, the free drinks are two for one.

If you have been invited here, that was irresponsible on my part, and I apologize. Have a drink. All exit doors remain wide open at all times, by order of the Fire Marshall.

This is also my practice log, lol. Practice logs are the backbone of the DharmaOverground. May our practice benefit all sentient beings, and certain mineral formations, and may all sentient beings be saved by the time this Bar closes down. Amen.
 
If you're here, really, for any reason at all, truly, God help you.

Namaste,
tim
 

Some of you here at DhO may have noticed me going through a teeny weeny major manic episode over a protracted period this year. But I am re-opening the rebuilt-from-the-ground-up Bar of Last Resort here now, on the firm foundation of recently scorched earth, and hanging as always by a thin thread above the fathomless abyss. Drinks are on the house until further notice.

My practice right now is usually three morning sits, interspersed with my morning writing routine and rigidly structured around four cups of coffee. The balance right now is three cups of coffee for meditation, and one for writing, which is a decent balance for me at this point in my life, and keeps me as sane as possible insofar as I can be kept sane. My sits were down to minutes, at the peak of the manic energy phase, and I have been gradually building the times up, in my OCD ritual fashion. The working times at the moment are around 40 minutes for the first two sits, and around 30 for the third. Sometimes there may be a sit or two beyond that, in special circumstances. I have a meditation partner by video chat a lot of mornings lately, which is wonderful, and always seems to deepen and strengthen my practice.

Just wanted to get on the scoreboard here, this first day of the Bar(do) re-opening up to renewed heedless contemplative intoxication in weird, foolish, relentlessly authentic fashion (thank you, Malcolm) for the record. I want to express my gratitude to the entire DhO crew for this gift of sangha among such deeply committed practioners, and for the joy of friendship, camaraderie, and support this forum brings to my life.

Except Papa Che. Fuck you, Papa Che.  And agnostic too, while I'm thinking of it.

love, tim

I'm underage! Not allowed into bars and pubs!  

Hey Tim, I'm not a big drinker but I'd love to keep you company.  Already I was wondering why I could'nt get my ass off the stool and my head off the counter.  That slow four-count pouring really fucks me up. Anyway, I surely like trading war stories and I love my whiskey with coconut water. Salud. 

Ok, fuck it, in that case ... managed to get me a fake ID! Hope Chris Marti doesnt figure me out! Got us a band for tonight instead of that rusty old jukebox of Tim's!
Angel Roberto hit me with that whiskey and you can keep the coconut water mate  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMTwB5iI3uE

Coconut water is one of the few drinks I'm not allergic to, so you can give that one to me, thanks!

I’m here for the language games. Anyone up for wordfeud? Ludwig?

So I get all your whiskey and you get all my cocnut water DEAL! Hear that Angel!

Had to ask my partner what wordfeud is and she say either its a game or if someone fights with words or trolls on forums. Which one is it? If game how to play it?

Greeeeat!  Let's bring our drunkenness to fruition.  Linda is welcome to the coconut water. I can see myself turning that song you posted into a chant.  I really enjoyed chanting, Kan ji zai bo satsu, Gyo jin han-nya ha ra mi ta ji...... in the zendo. The best part was I couldn't understand one fucking word.  So, your song will fit right in. Tim had better have good bartending skills, the group is growing.  I'm counting on Linda to take care of the language games adepts. Not my forte.

If Tim fails we are covered mate! I was a bartender in Dublin for 4 years   I have made so many people drunk, my Karma is ruined for eons to come!  Even if my drunkness tonight gets to fruition there is no hope for me! 

We are set!  I've noticed that Tim's posting is done in the wee hours after midnight.  I think he gets drunk first. Probably brings his computer to the bar, as if it were Starbucks. Be ready!!!  Last chance to fix bad karma while in these ethereal realms.

Deal indeed. 

Oh, it's an app for scrabble. I'm a master in scrabble both in Swedish and in English, although I think Tim may finally beat me after several attempts and thereby have some confidence restored after being ruthlessly crushed over and over again. 

Lol, that's when he gets up to start meditating. Oops, did I challenge his reputation now?

come back when you are 21, kid. This place is for hardcore suffering, and you should enjoy your youth before it is blown to bits by the reality of samsara dukkha. In fact, you might want to stay underage for longer, if possible. Get yourself a fake ID that says you're 19 forever.

love, tim

Buenos dias, amigo. Bienvenidas a la cantina!

Oh shit, you're supposed to stop at a four-count when you're pouring?! This explains a lot.

Angel, actually, I'm up early, lol. I have a nephew who is a stand-up comedian, and a nephew who is a blues guitarist, both working clubs and bars, and we have all our best conversations when they are finishing their work days and I am starting mine.

I do write here in the bar. I get my mail here too. As Rumi says, "Live in the nowhere that you came from, even though you have an address here." 

love, tim

Papaji, "Ruthlessly crushed" does not even begin to cover how badly Linda beat me in our first few games of wordfeud. I used to think i was the world champion of Scrablle, now I know my true position as a turd at the bottom of the mountain of language. She's crushing me in a second language. Shit.

I keep trying to get her to drink something stronger to throw her off her game, but she keeps drinking that fucking coconut water and scoring 90-point words with three letters.

No hope at all! Best bartender in Dublin, and in hell!

A comedian and a musician as early morning therapists, fantastic.  I like the Rumi quote.  It reminds me of " in the world but not of it".  Wayne Teasdale, the monk, said, "The world is the rim, while all that I do in relation to my spiritual life and the various activities I pursue, the experiences I share with all those who also live in this same world, constitute the spokes of the wheel of well-being."  Ah, the sweet nowhere, now-here (word play for Linda) we desire. Let's walk to it's edge and pray to be pushed in.

Wow, I can't believe the authorities allowed this dive to reopen  Can I get one of Brandon's famous Green Grounding Smoothies to go please?

FYI, they are "grounding" because of the flavor (dirt).

Tim's back!

George, Brandon will be happy to make one for you, but I have to warn you that, as he points out, they are grounding because of the dirt element. Also, they are called Brandon's Famous Green Grounding Smoothies partly because when you drink one, you turn green and fall on the ground. It conduces to Equanimity: you just lie there very quietly for a long time. Best drink in the Bar, among all the other best drinks.

But if do you get a BFGGS to go, make sure to pick a good comfortable spot to fall down, as you may be there for eons. I recommend a dry riverbed, so that if stream entry sneaks up on you through a thousand-year rain storm and flash flood, the water can just pick you up right from where you are.

(fine print: no lifeguards on duty in the dry riverbeds. They are all lying on the ground somewhere else. Those Brandon's Famous Green Grounding Smoothies kick everyone's ass. Except Shargrol Of Course. Shargrol makes the rain.)

It's the Bar of Last Resort, amigo. If you're drinking here, you're already over the edge, prayer is useless, and you will frequently wish you could be pushed the fuck OUT!

Papaji, Chris Marti is working from a fake ID too! We look the other way for him, as we do for all old souls in young whippersnapper bodies, here to work out their last pesky skandhas and such before all sentient beings are saved. 

Thanks for the music, man, I was hoping you'would pick up the slack. Playing Leonard Cohen's darkest songs all the time on repeat was drawing a very weird clientele.

CONGRATULATIONS to you and your beloved wife on the young one on the way!!!! Now I know what you were doing on your sabbatical.

Thank you! No funny sabbatical business here it was an artificial insemination same as with our first kid! God acts in mysterious ways! 

Actual Fucking Practice Log, More or Less (aka, “Close Enough for Government Work”) 

When I came back to DhO in late January this time, after several eons in hell and associated bardos that did not bear discussion, i thought i was nursing a very fragile Equanimity, in the lingua franca of the forum. I have long felt that EQ is one of the most fruitful points for cross-tradition cross-mapping in the POI atlas, as it is my sense that all traditions have some equivalent of this plateau of calm and quiet after the storm of the dark nights or dukkha nanas, a dawning of a phase of the suffering and noise going quiet, but without any particular way forward revealing itself. The protocols for how to conduct yourself in EQ also seem to be pretty much the same, however a given tradition phrases it. Daniel’s discussion of EQ in MCTB2 is awesome, and Shargrol Of Course is a master of EQ (see, as often as necessary, the wonderful compilation assembled by Pepe of Shargrol’s greatest hits: https://shargrolpostscompilation.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html#transitiontoeq  ). 

Clearly I was absolutely correct in believing myself to be in bulleproof, undisruptable EQ, as i believe the history of my posts from February on will easily confirm: a serene, placid acceptance state, deeply reconciled with reality as it is and accepting of what arises with, uh, equanimity.

lol. In retrospect, that wasn’t the calm after the storm, it was the eye of the hurricane: a brief quiet interval between catastrophic winds blowing everything to shit, and flooding carrying the debris every which way. I think Pepe is already at work on the compilation of the wisdom of the episode, to be entitled: “Psychotic Pseudo-Equanimity: Almost Always Wrong, Never Ever Uncertain.” 

Anyway, EQ. I recognize three main modalities in my present possibly post-and-pre-psychotic likely-pseudo equanimity: 

1. Sisyphean. Nothing happens, because nothing is ever going to happen. The prayer technique is just a rock to be pushed up the hill.
Whatever hopes and pretty theories I may accumulate about the meaning of the pushing during the labor upward will be promptly rewarded at the peak of my sense of achievement by the rock rolling back down to the bottom. Apply, lather, rinse, repeat. One must imagine Sisyphus happy. 

2. Jesus-like, aka, “Pick up your cross and follow me.”  Similar to the Sisyphean modality in that it is uphill, except that you get mocked,
taunted, despised, and beat to shit before you start, you fall down three times on the slog upward, hauling all that lumber, and at the top they nail your ass to the wood and you die. Accept this, bitch. Thy will be done. 

3. Bliss. By far the modality likeliest to lead to further misery and dark night relapses. Sisyphus is safe, and Jesus is home free, but
bliss will fuck you up bad if you buy in.

The main virtue of bliss is that it gets boring quickly, as far as I can tell. In EQ, nothing on the mat changes any fucking thing, and this is okay. We do nothing, and nothing gets done, and nothing substantial enough to give us any illusion of doing anything comes up. What happens if we don’t get ambitious and create a drama on the mat, for pure dukkha-generating entertainment value,  is . . . nothing, and then more nothing. quiet, and then silence. When shit comes up, it is off the mat, and that’s where the work gets done in EQ, until the work we’re not getting done right off the mat fucks up the EQ, and we use our free round trip ticket lifetime pass for another round of the dukkha nanas, where we burn and fret and dry out and despair and turn to shit and then to dust, until nothing happening looks like the best fucking thing ever.

As Papa Che would say, at this point, "."

love, tim

Lovely stuff. Looking forward to the log.

I hear you. I'm sipping my whiskey through a stirring straw and trying to tell if it's the Jameson I asked for or the bootleg shit they keep under the counter.  I brought my dictionary, MCTB2, I'll try to keep up. Meanwhile, I keep my hand over the glass, I don't want to get spiked.

aloha linda,

   Scrabble, huh!

   I'm pretty good at scrabble. I have a computer game, I set the cpu to ultra stupid and beat it by 400-500 points. I can be a little slow if I feel there is a seven letter word to be had; the computer doesn't mind.
   
   My auntie was ninth in her age group in the usa in scrabble, and very proud of it. She mostly beat me when I was a kid because I had little patience with playing defensively and always wanted to open things up. Elegant placements and exotic words excite me more than winning (which I take for granted). Like cards, it is the insights they reveal rather than winning wagers that encourage me to play.

terry



SHAPE OF MY HEART
(sting)

He deals the cards as a meditation
And those he plays never suspect
He doesn't play for the money he wins
He don't play for respect
He deals the cards to find the answer
The sacred geometry of chance
The hidden law of a probable outcome
The numbers lead a dance
I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier
I know that the clubs are weapons of war
I know that diamonds mean money for this art
But that's not the shape of my heart
He may play the jack of diamonds
He may lay the queen of spades
He may conceal a king in his hand
While the memory of it fades
I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier
I know that the clubs are weapons of war
I know that diamonds mean money for this art
But that's not the shape of my heart
That's not the shape
The shape of my heart
If I told her that I loved you
You'd maybe think there's something wrong
I'm not a man of too many faces
The mask I wear is one
But those who speak know nothing
And find out to their cost
Like those who curse their luck in too many places
And those who fear are lost
I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier
I know that the clubs are weapons of war
I know that diamonds mean money for this art
But that's not the shape of my heart
That's not the shape of my heart
That's not the shape
The shape of my heart

Songwriters: Dominic Miller / Gordon Sumner

Aloha terry!

Yeah, there really should be extra points for elegant words. I like to combine the elegance with strategic placing of the words if possible, though. That's part of the fun for me. I also really enjoy playing it in a second language. Maybe I'll try more languages. I like how there are slightly different patterns to how the game typically unfolds depending on the language and its parameters. 

  I like to do themes. I took a pic of a recent game where in three consecutive turns I laid "bong," "fatties" and "joints" and got the 50 point bonus for "fatties." 


t

   If bliss were boring. bra, it wouldn't be bliss, it would be boring. Bliss is when boring turns into bliss. Boring is when bliss turns into boring. But boring is never bliss and bliss is never boring. Like birth and death.

   As the lady from boring, oregon always says, boring is not boring.

terry






Birth and Death
by Eihei Dogen
Translated by Arnold Kotler and Kazuaki Tanahashi


1

"Because a buddha is in birth and death, there is no birth and death." 

It is also said, "Because a buddha is not in birth and death, a buddha is not deluded by birth and death." 

These statements are the essence of the words of the two Zen masters Jiashan and Dingshan. You should certainly not neglect them, because they are the words of those who attained the way.


2

Those who want to be free from birth and death should understand the meaning of these words. If you search for a buddha outside birth and death, it will be like trying to go to the southern country of Yue with our spear heading towards the north, or like trying to see the Big Dipper while you are facing south; you will cause yourself to remain all the more in birth and death and lose the way of emancipation.

Just understand that birth-and-death is itself nirvana. There is nothing such as birth and death to be avoided; there is nothing such as nirvana to be sought. Only when you realize this are you free from birth and death.


3

It is a mistake to suppose that birth turns into death. Birth is a phase that is an entire period of itself, with its own past and future.

For this reason, in buddha-dharma birth is understood as no-birth.

Death is a phase that is an entire period of itself, with its own past and future. For this reason, death is understood as no-death.

In birth there is nothing but birth and in death there is nothing but death. Accordinly, when birth comes, face and actualize birth, and when death comes, face and actualize death. Do not avoid them or desire them.

Birth and death as the experience of nirvana.


4

This birth and death is the life of buddha. If you try to exclude it you will lose the life of buddha. If you cling to it, trying to remain in it, you will also lose the life of buddha, and what remains will be the mere form of buddha. Only when you don’t dislike birth and death or long for them, do you enter buddha’s mind.

However, do not analyze or speak about it. Just set aside your body and mind, forget about them, and throw them into the house of buddha; then all is done by buddha. When you follow this, you are free from birth and death and become a buddha without effort or calculation. Who then continues to think?


5

There is a simple way to become buddha: When you refrain from unwholesome actions, are not attached to birth and death, and are compassionate toward all sentient beings, respectful to seniors and kind to juniors, not excluding or desiring anything, with no designing thoughts or worries, you will be called a buddha. Do not seek anything else.

 

Yup. Sooner or later I would have started compiling your shit, you know 


Have you tried visualizing Jesus, Mary or your favourite saint during meditation? The image that pops up matches your feeling tone: see how long does it last, what amount of detail you can see, if it's face is smiling, sad, cold, distant, worried, undaunted, radiant, with its  eyes looking straight at you, or looking elsewhere, etc. So, it's an indirect way of watching your emotions, hopes, fears, etc. Then you can watch your physical reaction to the emotions expressed by the image: pleasant, unpleasant or neutral; location of the sensations; how long do they last; what thoughts those reactions trigger.

I haven't explored this fully, though. It's something that grew out of my attempts to practice Metta, watching what impeded me to make it grow. 

 

sri terryanandaji, you're right about bliss, and i stand well corrected. You live in Hawaii, I should have known you were da kine, a fucking bliss expert. Bliss is always in good taste, it's the new black. It does get tedious talking about bliss though, sometimes, lol. It explains certain practice log omissions: nobody wants to get busted for blissing out.

We should both make a pilgrimage to Boring, Oregon, meet up with that wise lady there, and paint that town blissful. Bring your Travel Scrabble.

love, timananda

 Pepe, lol, I knew it you'd be on it! Don't forget to begin the compilation with the fine print warning label: "Professional psychotic on a closed course. Do not try this at home."
I'm a Stations of the Cross fan, for visualized meditations. And more generally, I can find out a lot about where I'm at emotionally by finding the story or Biblical passage that resonates on a particular day: sometimes Elijah being fed by ravens, sometimes Jesus saying, My yoke is easy, sometimes Deborah driving a nail through the bad guy's skull while he sleeps in his tent, lol. I have the Psalms all calibrated by the balance of despair, desperation, and hopelessness with faith, love, and hope. Some days the praise psalms, some days psalm 88, which starts in hell and gets worse all the way through.

Metta, when it comes for me, is rooted mainly in humility. The more I am aware of the myriad ways I fuck up, and how compulsively, for how long, the less judgmental I am about others fucking up, and the kinder and more patient I'm inclined to be toward the fucked up in general. Samsara is fucked-up, the first noble truth. Go easy on the fuck-ups, none of us are liking this shit, part of the eight-fold path. This is before we even get to the fucked up parts of reality that don't seem to be anyone's fault at all, like disease, aging, and death. 

with metta, tim

Of course, the universe provides. It will find some way to give you those well-deserved bonus points. 

I think universe provides here by taking away from there and taking away from here and providing there. Where there is a winner (one that gained) there will be a looser on the opposite side and vice verse. 

Universe is based on inter-feeding. I think Buddha realized this and found Nibbana to be the only way out of this Universal slaughter house. I mean look at those Black Holes swallowing whole Galaxies!!! 
Consume here and fart it out on the opposite side in form of Star dust. 

Sorry I'm in a funny place today  

Gypsy saetas come to my mind, originally composed having the Psalms as a base but later evolved towards the Stations of the Cross and are sang during public processions in Easter. There's a famous Antonio Machado's poem (La Saeta) which Joan Manuel Serrat add music to it, that gives due respect to tradition but at the same time states that he prefer to remember Jesus' shining moments.

...

Cantar del pueblo andaluz,
que todas las primaveras
anda pidiendo escaleras
para subir a la cruz.

Cantar de la tierra mía,
que echa flores
al Jesús de la agonía,
y es la fe de mis mayores.

¡Oh, no eres tú mi cantar!
¡No puedo cantar, ni quiero
a ese Jesús del madero,
sino al que anduvo en el mar!

   (more like bliss addict, and usually in withdrawal...trade you two insights for a hit of bliss?)


    I think they changed the name of "boring" to "toast."

   Mo bettah you come hawaii. If I did travel it would be to fiji, or bali, or tahiti. Too bad there aren't more hawaiis. 

   Aloha!


t



Aloha 'Oe (Hawaiian)
Words and music by Queen Liliuokalani
 
Ha'aheo ka ua i na pali
Ke nihi a'ela i ka nahele
E hahai (uhai) ana paha i ka liko
Pua 'ahihi lehua o uka
 
Hui:
Aloha 'oe, aloha 'oe
E ke onaona noho i ka lipo
One fond embrace,
A ho'i a'e au
Until we meet again
 
'O ka hali'a aloha i hiki mai
Ke hone a'e nei i ku'u manawa
'O 'oe no ka'u ipo aloha
A loko e hana nei
 
Maopopo ku'u 'ike i ka nani
Na pua rose o Maunawili
I laila hia'ai na manu
Miki'ala i ka nani o ka lipo
 
Aloha 'Oe (English)
 
Proudly swept the rain by the cliffs
As it glided through the trees
Still following ever the bud
The ahihi lehua of the vale
 
Chorus:
Farewell to you, farewell to you
The charming one who dwells in the shaded bowers
One fond embrace,
'Ere I depart
Until we meet again
 
Sweet memories come back to me
Bringing fresh remembrances of the past
Dearest one, yes, you are mine own
From you, true love shall never depart
 
I have seen and watched your loveliness
The sweet rose of Maunawili
And 'tis there the birds of love dwell
And sip the honey from your lips

CHIMES OF FREEDOM
(bob dylan)


Far between sundown's finish
An' midnights broken toll
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing
As majestic bells of bolts
Struck shadows in the sound
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
An' for each an' every underdog soldier in the night
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Even though a cloud's white curtain
In a far-off corner flashed
An' the hypnotic splattered mist Was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An' for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Starry-eyed an' laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an' we watched with one last look
Spellbound an' swallowed 'til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an' worse
An' for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Songwriters: Bob Dylan

full lyrics, as song by dylan and not the byrds abridgement...



CHIMES OF FREEDOM
(bob dylan)

Far between sundown’s finish and midnight’s broken toll
We ducked inside the doorways, thunder went crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seemin' to be the chimes of freedom flashing
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
And for each and every underdog soldier in the night
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

[Verse 2]
Through the city’s melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched
With faces hidden as the walls were tightening
As the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin’ rain
Dissolved into the bells of the lightning
Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake
Tolling for the luckless, they abandoned and forsaked
Tolling for the outcast, burning constantly at stake
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

[Verse 3]
Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail
The sky cracked it's poems in naked wonder
That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
Leavin' only bells of lightning and it's thunder
Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind
And the poet and the painter far behind his rightful time
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

[Verse 4]
And the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales
For disrobed faceless forms of no position
Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts
All down in taken-for-granted situations
Tolling for the deaf and blind, tolling for the mute
For the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute
For the misdemeanor outlaw, chained and cheated by pursuit
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

[Verse 5]
Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flared
And the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from driftin'
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
And for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

[Verse 6]
Starry-eyed and laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time and we watched with one last look
Spellbound and swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones and worse
And for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashin'

   

aloha pcd,


   You're on to something with the universal slaughter house idea.

   From the perspective of the individual, birth-and-death is an overwhelming fact, all things arise and pass away and so do we. Every person, every fly and ant, every blade of grass, which is here today and tomorrow is cast into the fire.

   A young woman at the kona pure market was telling me her boyfriend found a litter of feral puppies, and brought it home. They didn't get shots and all got parvo and died, infecting her home with the virus and making her keep her new puppy elsewhere until it had demonstrated immunity. And her ambition is to raise dogs.

   One of my young apprentices, cutie, missed a whole day because on her way down to ocean view, she and her boyfriend found a baby bird fallen from its nest, and they brought it inside, called the wild bird hotline, and began following instructions for bird revival. After considerable drama, the tiny bird expired, and they proceeded to have a burial and say words over the grave. Bye bye birdie.

   A child names her goldfish "charley." It dies, and she grieves for "charley." The fish who ate charley is a monster and she hates it.

   To the greeks, humans were defined as distinct from animals by virtue of rationality and distinct from gods by virtue of mortality. An animal lives because that is what is happening and dies the same way. Animals may grieve but they don't carry on about it, generally.

   Everywhere we look there is life, and everywhere there is death. "The old is discarded and the new introduced, and everywhere things flow into their forms." (confucius, more or less) Even life itself is only a few billion years old (that we know of).

   If you live in the moment, death never actually happens to you. By the time death comes, you are dead, and don't experience anything. Death, to the living, is an abstraction. Because we hate and fear it, it becomes a bogeyman we see everywhere, hiding behind everything we see like a shadow.

   Dogen says, "Because we love them, flowers fall. Because we hate them, weeds thrive." Of course, weeds too flower, and flowers too thrive, but our attachment to desirable outcomes can cause us to see only pain and ugliness, morbidity and mortality.

   As the nameless tao we think of as "nonduality"  transcends the opposition of nonduality vs duality, as (supreme) Being transcends being, so does Life transcend life-and-death. Zen says you are the self which existed before your parents were born. The self is a social construction entirely unrelated to the actual body on which it is imposed, no more significant to the organism than "charley" was to the goldfish. Charley dies, you die, I die, and Life goes on, within you and without you. Being an authentic human is more to the point than being the best Joker in the pack.

   Martyrs never die.


terry




this is a song about jamaican baptist deacon, activist, national hero and martyr paul bogle...



96 DEGREES IN THE SHADE
(third world)


Ninety-six degress in the shade
Real hot, hear me when I say
In the shade
Said it was ninety-six degrees in the shade
Ten thousand soldiers on parade
Taking I and I to meet a big fat boy
Sent from overseas
The queen employ
Now excellency before you I come
With my representation
You know where I'm coming from
They caught me on the loose
Trying to be free
And they show I a noose
On the cotton tree
Entertainment for you
Martyrdom for me
Ninety-six degrees in the shade
Real hot, hear me when I say in the shade
Ninety-six degrees in the shade
Real hot, hear me when I say in the shade
Some may suffer, some may burn
But I know that one day all of my children gonna learn
Sure as the sun shine, way up in the skies
Today I stand here a victim, yes
the truth is I'll never die
Ninety-six degrees in the shade
Real hot, hear me when I say in the shade
Ninety-six degrees in the shade
Real hot, hear me when I say in the shade
Ninety-six degrees in the shade
Real hot, hear me when I say in the shade
Ninety-six degrees in the shade
Real hot, ooh yes, in the shade
Ninety-six degrees in the shade
Real hot, jah jah know, in the shade
Ninety-six degrees in the shade
Real hot, hear me when I say in the shade
Ninety-six degrees in the shade
Real hot, hear me when I say in the shade
Ninety-six degrees in the shade
Real hot, hear me when I say in the shade

Songwriters: William Alexander Clark / Michael Cooper / Stephen Haldane Coore

   


tao te ching trans feng



Five

Heaven and Earth are impartial;
They see the ten thousand things as straw dogs.
The wise are impartial;
They see the people as straw dogs.

The space between heaven and Earth is like a bellows.
The shape changes but not the form;
The more it moves, the more it yields.
More words count less.
Hold fast to the center.

   

bless my pointy little head...

the filipinos say, "hi zeus"...

aaiiiyyee

Gracias, Pepe, mi' amigo.

forgive the google translate heavy hand; still, I love this: let's keep throwing flowers to the one who climbs those steps every spring, and walks on the sea.

Sing of the Andalusian people,
that every spring
he's asking for stairs
to climb the cross.

Sing of my land,
that throws flowers
to the Jesus of agony,
and it is the faith of my elders.

Oh, you are not my song!
I cannot sing, nor do I want to
to that Jesus on the tree,
but the one who walked in the sea!

Coming back from a week holiday to discover the mad-house is rock'n rolling... I would have come back earlier if I had known.
You do write great things but that might be one of the best.
You...hm...nailed it.

Tim, forgive me for not translating the poem before, I thought you knew some Spanish. Below is my translation. Also, here you have a raw rendition of an amateur singer (a good one!), full of gypsy flourishes, singing in the balcony during spanish confinement last Easter.

LA SAETA a mi manera desde el balcón (confinamiento Semana Santa 2020)

A popular saying said:
Who will lend me a ladder
to climb the wood
to remove the nails
from Jesus of Nazareth?
 
Oh, the saeta, the chant
to the Christ of the gypsies,
always with blood on their hands,
for removing the nails from the wood
 
Chant of the Andalusian people
that every spring (Easter)
is asking for ladders
to climb the cross
 
Song of my homeland (said in archaic Spanish)
that tosses flowers (meaning melodic flourishes too)
to the Jesus of agony
and is the faith of my elders
 
Oh, you are not the Jesus that I'm singing too.
I can't sing, nor want to
To this Jesus of the cross,
but to He who walked on the sea...

Pepe, Tengo suficiente español para bromear con los trabajadores de la construcción sobre el clima, pedir un buen burrito, y luchar por la unión con Dios en la oscuridad y segura, a la Juan de la cruz, lol. For everything else, there's MasterCard.

I love the crew of mad gypsies with their flowers and ladders, yanking out those nails. Sign me up, and give me a balcony to sing from!

Ahhhh, the gypsy flourisher on that balcony!!! Love it. It has a touch of a muezzin, yes? singing the call to prayer from a minaret. May we all hear that call, and help poor Jesus down to the gentle earth to heal.

love, tim

"I love the crew of mad gypsies"

Well, in that case I think its in order we hear the Gypsy Queen of Macedonia sing us a song "Eternally on the road (Djelem Djelem)"

Angel mate   , can you start pouring (dictionary; flow rapidly in a steady stream) that Whiskey of yourn! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiIcfH0_Z3g

Let the pouring start! I brought a bottle of Jameson hidden in my coat. Sorry, I tried to slip in a coconut but it was to bulky. That gypsy music really gets me going. I tried to sing along but I made the mistake of doing a shot at the same time.  I almost drowned on the gargle.

Oh I see! Well, the thing is you MUST dance on the table while simultaneously singing and doing the shot! Only this way it is drowning safe! (Paps talking from under the table with two shot glasses stuffed into his nostrils) 

I'm working on new lyrics inspired after last nights party. 

At the bar of last resort 
where Angels pour the drinks 
...
... 

I think I suffer from writers block!  

In the bar of last resort
darken hearts, broken souls
angels pour the drinks for fee
demons glee on hopeless dreams

me likey What would this story be about I wonder? 

May be some exchange between devas, asuras, humans, animals, hungry ghosts and demons?  

Those shot glasses in the nostrils got me singing again! 
I am the egg man
They are the egg men
I am the walrus
Goo goo g'joob, goo goo goo g'joob
Goo goo g'joob, goo goo goo g'joob, goo
Joob, joob, jooba
Jooba, jooba, jooba
Joob, jooba
Joob, jooba

Oh the 6 Realms story! I like it even more! Well this new riff of mine is called Down the Rabbit Hole and in a way it certainly does fit this scenario, as in Alice in Wonderland  

So what we need is maybe another verse, then some funky chorus, and 2 more verse ... should fit all the realms or ?  

I have a half-written song named Down the Rabbit Hole too!  Inspired in Daniel's catchy phrase "either never start or never stop". Guess there are hundreds of songs with the same name? As a second best option (really not an ambicious one), I thought using the "Yellow Submarine" melody.  It flows naturally in the stanza/strophe/verses, so the chorus would need three short sentences. Picture boozy yogis singing the chorus side by side 

"either never start or never stop" This is the part of the chorus unless you claim it  

the picture of boozy youths singing the chorus of yellow submarine side by side is an exact snapshot from my youth...that was the night I dove off the 66 foot high captree bridge during a very spirits in the night campout on a barrier island...we were living in a yellow submarine then, one with screen doors...we had the harmony down pat...

t 

Ah that fearless youth!  

What about something like this for the yellow-submarine like chorus? Some options:

Glide the Realms endlessly, Samsara Wheel
the Samsara Wheel,
the Samsara Wheel.

Never leave, befriend the Samsara Wheel
the Samsara Wheel,
the Samsara Wheel.

Hate, Numb, Greed, wade through the Samsara Wheel,
the Samsara Wheel,
the Samsara Wheel.

Yearn, Pride, Achieve, join-in the Samsara Wheel,
the Samsara Wheel,
the Samsara Wheel.

All of that can be a chorus! That first sentence in each part is sung by one singer and Samsara Wheel is sung by as many voices as possible  

Love how this one is developing  
Angel mate, give our friend Pepe a drink over here and put it on my my tab (I know I haven't payed the last bill but I'm having a job now and I promise at the end of this months I will pay it all) 

This new siddhi of stuffing shot glasses up your nose has caused a shortage of glasswear at the bar, but no problem, a Tibetan tantric has generously donated a bunch of skulls with the Johnny Walker logo burned into them, made by Cistercian monks at Thomas Merton's old monastery in Gethsemane, Kentucky. 

The next round is on the house. I'll have what that guy under the table that everyone is dancing on is having.

Here the lost souls hold the fort
amid the crumbling walls, like fools
whose eyes have learned to see
through what protects the useless realms.

this may actually sound crazy even amid the prevailing insanity here, but i've been working gently on a Bar of Last Resort novel since July, and it actually does involve the six realms. The Bar(do) of Last Resort is a sort of place out of Jorge Luis Borges, like the Library at Babel, serving the Aleph in a myriad liquid forms, each with its specific resonance of excessive insight. The tone of the novel is a deadpan magical realism, with a deep salaam to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, though the narrative voice a lot to Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan, and is saltier. Also, obviously, Kafka. The narrative hook is the search for the reincarnation of a Tibetan lama who died in a Chinese prison, and a crew of anti-heroic contemplative maniacs of a bewildering diversity of traditions and mindsets gathers at the Bar and realize they must follow a trail of music through the six realms into the bardo of rebirth, to save the specific trans-spiritual pan-traditional lineage that will eventually save all souls without argument through universal intoxication rooted in a Ground of Being that will hold footprints, or something. It's sort of a nihilistic political thriller meets apocalyptic visionary blow-out meets Monty Python meets Dirk Gently's holistic detective agency, with a really killer sound track and a lot of multilingual jokes. It will end up being heretical across all existing orthodox lines, if done right; if the author is not burned at the stake in any existing culture for outraging all that is holy, I will consider the whole thing a bad first draft.

sort of what we're doing here, i mean, but with chapter breaks.  

Well, it's not coconut water that's for sure and those shot glasses in my nostrils are already washed and polished, ready to be served to another customer. (if they just knew where those were. Ignorance is bliss). 

Love it! Can we add "realms are like water under the bridge" ? 
Btw, we need this to rhyme a bit as we will record this as the 3rd DhO Band song!  

"crew of anti-heroic contemplative maniacs of a bewildering diversity of traditions and mindsets gathers at the Bar and realize they must follow a trail of music through the six realms into the bardo of rebirth,"

Nothing is crazy. It's inevitable So we have 3 persons writing stuff with the same title and an Angel pouring drinks. How charming  

Wonder were this will lead to ... (follow the music ...  ) This is the tune https://youtu.be/GeMtjJX9Weg

i was trying to base my second verse rhymes on Pepe's first verse! (so pepe plus me=one verse that rhymes, with an admitted liberty on a couple slant rhymes, but i'm a fucking modernist dinosaur. so abcdabcd is the rhyme scheme. but we can tweak it of course.)

In the bar of last resort
darken hearts, broken souls
angels pour the drinks for free
demons glee on hopeless dreams.
Here the lost souls hold the fort
amid the crumbling walls, like fools
whose eyes have learned to see
through what protects the useless realms

like water under a fractured bridge.



abcd
abcd
e

throw in a couple efgh quatrains and a chorus, crank th amp up to 11, and we're on ou way to a soundtrack for the movie version of the novel!

okay, now you're fucking freaking me out. Follow the music!

papaji, who did that painting behind you here? lovechild of picasso and dali, raised by Balkan wolves in a Paul Klee monastery?

Hi Tim, good to know that The Bar(do) of Last Resort is a work in progress! Regarding the verses, what Papa says is this kind of rhyme, so that it matches Yellow Submarine's melody:

(a) In the bar
(b) of last resort
(a) darken hearts,
(b) broken souls,
(c) angels pour
(d) the drinks for fee,
(d) demons glee
(d) on hopeless dreams.

That was me trying to paint again this year. Last time Ive painted was 2008. 

Cool Papa Che! Like it!  

I could certainly open up new sections for the verses and have a new singing melody for them. Once we get the lyrics done that is  

Hey people, I missed all the songwriting. As soon as I heard the tune I ran off to get my timbale and minor latin percussion instruments.  Please, please, let me get a few licks in.  Even if it's just the cowbell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVsQLlk-T0s

Everybody is welcome to join the DhO Band!  

turpentine and dandelion wine...


ah, kentucky, where the grass is blue,

and merton, my favorite catholic, accidentally electrocuted taking a shower in a cheap thai hotel...

t


brings to mind randy newman's inspired parody of the old racist rag...


MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME
(randy newman)

Turpentine and dandelion wine
I've turned the corner and I'm doin' fine
Shootin' at the birds on the telephone line
Pickin' em off with this gun of mine
I got a fire in my belly
And a fire in my head
Goin' higher and higher
Until I'm dead
Sister Sue, she's short and stout
She didn't grow up - she grew out
Mama says she's plain but she's just bein' kind
Papa thinks she's pretty but he's almost blind
Don't let her out much 'cept at night
But I don't care 'cause I'm all right
Oh, the sun shines bright on
My Old Kentucky Home
And the young folks roll on the floor
Oh, the sun shines bright on
My Old Kentucky Home
Keep them hard times away from my door
Brother Gene, he's big and mean
And he don't have much to say
He had a little woman who he whupped each day
But now she's gone away
He got drunk last night
Kicked mama down the stairs
But I'm all right so I don't care

Songwriters: Randy Newman

I hope you dont mind me bringing an entire Gypsy wedding to the Bar of Last Resort! (btw, if you havent seen this movie you are in for a treat)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZf00ad3G6o

Vamonos bartender! Give us the bottle of your finest and bring your self a chair to join us! We have special guests tonight here at The Bar of Last Resort! Switch off all lights and light up a few candles instead! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9iw1gMVoO0

Yes.

And I need a bottle of red vine, to splash some of it to my face, drink most of it, and save a little of it to put my cigarettes in it before lighting them, and listen to this crazy woman's lovely voice.


الا یا ایها الساقی ادر کاسا و ناولها
که عشق آسان نمود اول ولی افتاد مشکل ها

شب تاریک و بیم موج و گردابی چنین هایل
کجا دانند حال ما سبک باران ساحل ها


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo5YGfMeElg

She is good, isn't she Im listening to it on repeat! Im getting goosebumps!  

Yes she is! I like her voice and her craziness ;)

You know that Tim immediately breaks into a dance when he hears this music. Don't tempt him! 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1mKkk-ylcY

I turned off all the lights, but I had not lit the candles yet. When she started singing, all the candles burst into flame.

What a love song! She sings from somewhere so deep in a torn-open heart that all the rivers run with wine.

Yo no me he muerto de pena
porque no supe sentir
y a mi corto entendimiento
le agradezco al vivir
yo no me he muerto de pena
porque no supe sentir

I have not died of grief
because I didn't know how to feel,
and in my meager understanding,
I thank you for this life.
I have not died of grief
because I didn't know how to feel.

I'll take one of those wine-flavored cigarettes, my friend. Shajarian will live forever.

شب تاریک و بیم موج و گردابی چنین هایل 
کجا دانند حال ما سبکباران ساحل‌ها 
همه کارم ز خود کامی به بدنامی کشید آخر

ahh, too late, we're all dancing now, amigo.

I had to join in the songfest! Love these guys pouring their hearts out in a small church kitchen. I think our crew could cover this a capella, after enough drinking to be free of second thoughts but before we all pass out. A small window of lucid fearless joy in song. 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPBRvE2T_DM

Tim, 

Does the bar(do) serve coffee as well as booze? 

Irish Coffee ONLY! 

But I can't drink booze!

That's what everybody say the very first time they enter The Bar of Last Resort!

Sam, Papa Che is a beautiful maniac. If there were any rules here in the Bar(do), he would have been cut off eons ago.

The short answer about coffee is that the bar serves everything; it is the wish-fulfilling tree that allows fools to persist in their folly long enough to be wise. The long answer is that in the bar(do), we work backwards from the vaguest inklings of a spectacularly altered state in the more or less unmanifested realms, by degrees to materiality, and are often surprised by what is in the glass, when we finally take rebirth at that table in the corner. So whatever brought you to this body that drinks coffee is plenteously available here. It took a Buddhist turtle countless surfacings from the bottom of the ocean to get through enough rings for you to have a body that prefers coffee, after all. We don't want that turtle's work wasted.

Whatever you're having, my friend, the next one's on the house. Just make sure Papa Che doesn't spike it with music. It's taken people millennia to get over the hangover induced by a Papa Che music roofie. But they smile and are tapping their toes to the beat during their entire convalescence.

"Papa Che is a beautiful maniac. If there were any rules here in the Bar(do), he would have been cut off eons ago"

Ha! you have no idea but this is the story of my life since early childhood. Being cut off and outsider and changing homes, cities, countries, families almost every year. "Cutting off" was always shouting "Anicca" to me. Just like with the Gypsies , if you look for Papa Che you will find him in Anicca but don't hope it's going to last  
Cherish what we have Right Now! 

". . . always on the outside
of whatever side there was.
When you asked him why
it had to be that way,
well he answered,
'Just because.' "

Bob Dylan, "Joey"

I also think of an old Woody Guthrie song (Bruce Springsteen does a gutsy cover of it), "I Ain't Got No Home":

"Now I'm stranded on this road that goes from sea to sea,
a hundred thousand others are stranded there with me.
A hundred thousand others, and a hundred thousand more,
and I ain't got no home in this world anymore."

add an accordion and a gypsy violin and we'll sing the anicca chorus!

I do cherish what we have right now, my friend. 

I love this! It sounds pretty much like the work we are trying to do in Michael Taft’s ”Reversing the stack” course.

Loving the beuatiful friendly exchanges too, of course.

I've just noticed that the Bar(do) of Last Resort is situated on a tiny speck of dust, hurdling through the Universe without aim. 


(I think it's time to grab my guitar) 

Please welcome, and applause for our new friends who are bringing to us the scorching Sahara Blues! As per usual drinks are on the house! Some folks here believe Buddhism will unite people on this planet! I think it will be Rock'n'Roll which sprouted out of the slavery Blues which again was brought from Africa! And now back to Africa in its Blues Rock form! Full circle! Zen at its finest (love that Stratocaster hanging on a Camel at 1:35) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vACZA9dGvV4

As Bar(do) of the Last Resort is the only place on this planet which can not be touched by COVID we decided to do a 'Non-stop Spinning 6 Realms Festival' 
First to join our Sahara brothers is Otis Taylor! Warm applause!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OG8Fjv42nM

Goodness, this thing is still going?

well, it depends on what you mean by "this thing," of course, lol. The loop goes through the hell bardos and the bardo of rebirth, and the individual drunks who frequent the place will always have their own disappearances, dissolutions, and baffling re-embodiments, but the Bar(do) itself will be serving drinks until all sentient beings are saved, and you can't beat the place for the musical intoxication and general hilarity in the face of immeasurable suffering.

How the hell are you, amigo? Last time I heard from you, you were deep into rebooting the Kasinas, Hypnagogia and Nimittas, and working with the Laplacian of Gaussian, Gabor filters, Gabor wavelets, photoreceptor bleaching, lateral inhibition, variational auto encoder, convolutional encoder/decoder, and the interpretability of convolutional neural networks, as an extension of previous work looking at "the murk" from other methods (mathematics, vipassana using computer vision conceptual models of visual perception under computer  vision CV column on the left, lucid dreaming and drum journeying). I assumed that was keeping your interest. 

love, tim

Which thing? You mean Samsara? Yeah bro, still rock'n'rolling  

BTW, no time for hangovers here in TBOLR so keep those Bleedn' Mery's coming in a fast jerky 3C's mode! 

Festival goes on of course (wait for the 2nd song or go right to it but you ought to hear them both)! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOrfX9H8Jtc

These guys, Tinariwen, really are amazing. Aside from the astonishing guitar work, this video is beautiful in the visual story it tells during the song: a group of kids who had heard Tinariwen play years before, and were inspired to start their own band. We see the older guys sort of ritually wrapping turbans around the young guys' head, an old desert rite of passage/initiation custom: passing the torch on the music and the culture. And then the younger guys playing the song too, wow.

I hadn't encountered this "scorching Sahara Blues" before, so thank you Papaji for the introduction. Tinariwen started in 1979, in a Tuareg refugee camp in what is now northern Maili, and their history is a pocket history of northern Africa (with all due horror). That their music comes from such a human cauldron is a testament to its power, and to the healing and joy that art can offer. There is a whole genre now from their example, called Tishoumaren, a Tamasheq ⵜⵉⵛⵓⵎⴰⵔⴻⵏ (tišumaren) word, which comes from "chômeur," a French word for unemployment with a distinct negative connotation. The kids playing this music were called "ishuma," the jobless idle, the lazy bums, basically, lol, and they embraced the negative identity and called their new genre "tišumaren," literally the unemployed but which you now see translated in a variety of ways, as "desert rock," "desert blues," Tuareg or Tamasheq rock/blues, Sahara rock/blues. I think "blues", as a word and a characterization of music, is in itself untranslatable, but these guys have definitely got the blues spirit, alive and well, and--- as papapji points out--- thriving where the blues were always rooted, back in Africa. It really is sort of goosebumpy and awesome.

Also! Beginning in 1979, that's 40 years in the desert! Following a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of flame by night, maybe. ("Following a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of flame by night" is my meditation technique, in a nutshell.)

this goes to a good sort of intro to the Tishoumaren desert blues genre--- (3) The Best Guitar Music Today Is Coming From The Sahara Desert - YouTube

i'm loving the Six Realms Music Festival! These guys put me in mind of an earlier run at "Mississippi Mali Blues," by Taj Mahal and Toumani Diabate: (3) Mississippi Mali Blues - YouTube

Nice, very soothing jazz. Started using it for work music, seems to work better than some other playlists I tried.

@Tim, I stopped all the model fitting after the last episode and went to more tranquil methods. Now investigating complex analysis, like how sqrt(1 - z^3) is the same as a donut toplogically (from Roger Penrose's Road to Reality). Mathematics makes a nice conceptual investigtation object. Took me a couple months to go back to baseline thinking and the come to terms with having had magical thinking. Now that I've reset I'm seeing what kind of experience a more traditional progression sequence feels like and actually reading MTCB 2 lol.
 

Oh you are in for a surprise if you haven't heard of this band before Ladies and Gents and those in between and both, please welcome our new guest Bokante!!! (Tim! The Guinness keg is empty mate! )    https://youtu.be/ZaRpmVqNl0U

Glad you like the Festival and fair play to you for researching on those Sahara Blues guys and gals (yes, there is a female band kicking ars as well) 

Ok ... I've heard it all now ... I can go and die in peace ... no more drinks for me thanks. Please welcome ...   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icd1c3FpnC4

Ok, Im resurrected again after this one   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVhGtGvQb7s

This crew, Bokante, is wonderful! Just gotta move, such vivid engaging music. The lyrics are in Haitian-Creole, way beyond my paygrade, lol.

I asked our Guinness rep about the keg situation, and she told me that emptiness is Guinness, and Guinness is emptiness. 

papaji, you're killing me here.

Resurrection Blues
Otis Taylor
We all got to die
But some people
Some people
Some people got to suffer before they die

This about a man
He's gonna be crucified
Some people die of cancer
Some people die of AIDS
But this man's gonna be crucified

I woke up this morning
In a deep deep
A deep sleep
I found out
I found out
I found out
I was Jesus

I don't want to be crucified
Don't want
Thorns on my head
I don't want
Walk among the dead
I don't want to be
JesusJesusJesus

I woke up this morning
From a deep deep
A deep sleep
I found out I found out
Found out I was Jesus

I can't break bread
Feed a thousand people
Turn sweet waterInto wine
I've been on this earth
Too long of a time
Don't want to be
JesusJesusJesus

I woke up this morning
From a deep deep
A deep deep
Deep sleep
I found out
I found out
I found out
I was Jesus
JesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesus

wellllllllll, shit. Nobody wants to be Jesus, man, that's sort of the point. Not even Jesus wanted to be Jesus. Great song, though.

Damn, that Avalokitesvara really messed up the distribution chain. I might start drinking again if only I could get a decent pint of Guinness. 'Liquid bread' my old Irish buddy who subsisted on precious little else used to call it.

Siavash's weaving of a flying carpet dropped me into the ocean of Rumi this morning, and I came across this, to put on the program for the Six Realms Music Festival:


Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened.  Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading.  Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.


Of course, this is the result of me waking up empty and frightened and opening the door to the study and beginning to read, lol.

Oh, I am sorry! It wasn't flying, it was just the carpet was a big one and the scaffold (? I don't know the terms in english) that I was standing on, was about 10 feet above the floor. But I am glad you had a positive experience

Amen. I love this.

Look at you all ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrTMc2i6Lzc

And this is the point when our stage goes on fire!!! (Tim I hope that fire exstinguisher is working mate) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb53-sDII0o

Oh my, snakes and flames.

Papa Che, I thought you knew that we have no fire extinguisher here at the Bar(do). Everyone is much more focused when the building is on fire.

Especially the fire kasina folks, all those beautiful flames to decompose

Well, ok, let the whole fucking place burn to the ground!!!  

"Look up here Im in Heaven, I've got scars that can't be seen ..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-JqH1M4Ya8

Love the arabic-spanish feel here. Its beyond words, this one is! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kszLwBaC4Sw

Special guests tonight! These will rock your socks off! I would suggest a good set of headphones (btw, at this stage we are long lost in the hell realm)   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRg_8NNPTD8

The singing part is EPIC in this one (starts a bit late into the video)! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64CACoHNBEI

Just fixed myself an ice cold gin martini. Where y'all at?

What's a sweetheart like you doin' in a dump like this?

(4) Sweetheart Like You - YouTube