PHOTONIC MANIFESTO
A work in progress
by Yeshe Dorje
© Copyright, Yeshe Dorje, March 17, 2003
IV
I try to avoid Tony Peru
I’m sitting in the Epic and in walks Tony Peru, so I look back down at my paper and hope he won’t come over here. The stuff about Leon Trotsky was getting interesting but the comets and the sun, the guy’s crazy… shit he’s coming over.
"So what did you think of the dialectic?"
I decide to focus on his love life.
"Well did you ask Gabrielle out or what?"
"Hey, you know what, a couple of weeks after I wrote that, I mean I did have this crush on her for the past few years, just kind of admired her from afar because I was married. Well I was interested in joining this choir, the Old Soul Singers they’re called, and it turns out she’s the Director."
"So you like to sing?" I’m hoping we’ll keep going in this direction.
"Yeah, I love to sing. Listen, did you get a chance to read any of my stuff?"
"Well, you know I’m really busy with Barrio Hollywood…"
"I’m sure you are, how’s that going?"
"Actually its going very well, I think its going to be quite good." The play is going well and I am happy about the rehearsals. "Tucson is really beautiful this time of year, I’m enjoying the sun."
"Well what did you think of the shuttle and the comets, you know wasn’t that incredible that I was thinking of the way the space weather affecting the landing and now it looks like it did!"
I don’t want to talk about this nonsense.
"You know Tony I think you could develop the Trotsky storyline a bit further, you just seemed to leave it for all of the cosmology or whatever."
"Haven’t you looked at your email. I sent you a file, its called Leon Leaps In."
When I get back to my room I open my emails. I’m surprised now because I actually want to read what he sent me. I’m tired but for some strange reason I’m drawn in wondering what Tony Peru is thinking and why.
Leon Leaps In
The cause of suffering is deeply rooted. How can you change your world? You can’t be too careful. You just let go. You must volunteer involuntarily. You enter other worlds and come back to tell about them.
When Leon Trotsky was leaving New York, he noticed that the portrait of Nicholas the Second had been removed from the Russian General Consulate’s office, and he thought if Nicholas is gone anything is possible. He thought for a moment how the reach of these events in mother Russia, are revealed by some of the smaller details. We would think Trotsky would be shot like an arrow from St. Peter’s quiver to join the revolution, but he’s unexpectedly waylaid. The Consul-General had given him leave to return to Russia. He was careful to ensure that the British Consulate was also aware that he had complied with all of the formalities, as he would be encountering British agents. He was trying to follow the rules and conventions of the day, even as he fought to pull it all down.
Leon Trotsky would be held as a terrorist if he tried to leave New York today.
Despite his caution in 1917, and because of the strength of his convictions, the British naval police questioned Leon soon after the ‘Christianiafjord’ reached Halifax harbor and imperial British waters.
One night when they stood outside the cramped barracks to get some air, Leon told Balthazar about how he came to the camp.
"They wanted to know what I was going to do when I got back to Russia, and I declined to discuss what I was going to do upon my return. I rather forcefully told this officer Westwood they had no business asking about such matters, I explained to them that I was ready to give them all necessary information establishing my identity, but that my relations to internal Russian politics were not at present under the control of British naval police."
It turned out the British believed they had apprehended a ‘terrible socialist’, and an opponent of their war.
"Daddy should I hit them?"
When the sailors forcibly carried Leon from the ship, his son was crying and chasing after this commotion racing across the deck of the Christianiafjord, jumping up and down wanting to hit the bullies. In that instant Leon was filled with compassion, looking down at his son as he struggled in the hands of these bluejackets, he thought that his son would be left for the rest of his life with a clear idea of the bullies of ‘democracy’ and see the thugs for who they truly were…
Leon shed a few tears as he spoke to Balthazar of this moment watching his son.
The sadness of Leon’s life of loss is that his son would not live long with his memories of this time, as Stalin’s henchmen would kill the boy in a few short years. Here in these days of tribulation even Halifax’s harbor would die and be reborn. We create karma every moment. The negative karma of the war and its hell realms entered every nook and cranny of the early twentieth century and never let go. Here the entire harbor would soon explode in collateral damage collision of two munitions ships, everyone was in a great danger during the wars and the plagues of the next few years.
They shipped Leon with the other prisoners of war by train from Halifax to Amherst, as likely a place for a prison if ever there was one. As Leon arrived he noticed the snowy marshes dotted here and there with the carcasses of cattle and deer. It’s been a bad winter.
Here in Amherst, Trotsky is under the control of Colonel Morris, a rather reedy pinched sort of Englishman who made his career in the Boer War and suppressing the Hindu rebellions but now found himself sent to this outpost to oversee young boys torn from their mothers and sent to sea. These are young boys whose prayers brought them to Amherst and a month with Leon Trotsky. As it is uncommon to become a prisoner of war when you’re on the sea, and these days Germany is sending so many of its young born from its bountiful soil, sending them to die with fear and cruel suffering in the cold Atlantic ocean. This is the exchange between hope and fear, good and negative karma, and one is left to wonder why in the grand scheme of things Leon was brought to this place to meet Balthazar Babinsky, whose life was being made miserable by Morris. During the war, Colonel Morris was a nasty lout that screamed at men; later Daddy went home to be a good father to three boys.
"If I only had you on the South African coast!"
Colonel Morris was screaming at him again, what could he be thinking by saying such a thing?
Before he met Leon, Balthazar wondered what happened to those other poor souls in Africa, and he thought it was no doubt Morris’ intention to strike fear into the hearts of the 800 men he imprisoned in these miserable conditions by suggesting he had created a place far worse than where they now suffered. Either that or he really wished he had them back at the base of Table Mountain, and he was a mad sadistic Yorkshire farmer who joined the army to pursue such opportunities. But what was going on back then in South Africa? Balthazar thought ‘he could be a good lad but he’s got a job to do doesn’t he and these would be his own small prisons, wouldn’t they. None of your business, is it then?’
Some lives are measured by a few leaps of faith. Initially Balthazar was apprehensive about this crazy Russian as he stirred things up more than anyone who had come into this camp, he didn’t stop talking and this could make life more difficult. Balthazar had left Germany as a child so he didn’t have much in common with the other men, not the sailors rescued from ships sunk by the British, nor the workers born in Germany, caught in Canada as war broke out. He was a solitary young coal miner from Cape Breton, not given to joining the men back at the mine or listening with those who gathered here around this romantic Russian stranger.
Trotsky, the prophet of the 20th century, was here in Amherst Nova Scotia, seemingly so far removed from the unfolding of history. He was here teaching his fellow man about the Revolution, speaking passionately to the men, sharing the ideas of his heroes Leibknecht and Lenin, praising the virtues of a life offered to free the masses from the landowner’s bondage. Leon described the role of the United States in the war, and how the US would take advantage of this war to extend the grasp of capitalism throughout the world. He angrily narrated vituperative visions exposing the global transformation of the means of production. Leon Trotsky’s Scotian prison camp visions sprang from the tragic history of Russia, what he had seen in Europe and most recently his New York visions that foretold the continued exploitation of the earth’s proletariat by Yankee capitalism. He is the vanguard of the photonic proletariat and his job is to change minds.
Most human beings don’t want to stir up trouble but some do. Balthazar would find himself uncomfortably angered by Trotsky, and to exacerbate his discomfort one of the other men kept telling him what a fool the Russian was. The malcontent asked if he would join him because he was going to ‘get some men together and teach him a lesson’, as if it was natural for this is what men do. Perhaps in this moment if we look around the old iron foundry, with its close quarters and five madmen, amidst the stench of wasted lives we can see that Balthazar was getting caught up in all of the energy given off by a human transformer. The circle pulls you in.
One day he was listening to Leon get the men riled up, thinking he had had enough of his nonsense and feeling himself get more and more angry. Then suddenly some of the others pushed him through the circle of men so that he was face to face with this madman. He was so angry that he saw only the reflection of his anger.
Leon looked at him and said:
"What is your name?"
"Balthazar Babinsky"
"What will you do when you get out of this place my comrade?"
Balthazar now felt very nervous and hot, a heat rising in the center of his body and his face flushed.
"I and my wife and children will set our home in a thick forest, and around us I will build traps, and I will never go out without a gun. Let no one dare to come near."
This was indeed this young boy’s idea of paradise, free of any other man in a world where all men are killing each other.
Trotsky smiled warmly at this young face before him because he saw into his eyes and knew he now had his way into Balthazar’s mind, through his heart. Some day the wars will end and it will be because we have chosen to end them.
"Won’t you let me in Babinsky?"
"No, not even you. I don’t trust anybody." This was Balthazar’s truth, and he spoke it.
I say, never refuse the dream and you glide through the night and revelate the days.
Despite what Leon said to Balthazar, in the next few days, Babinsky would not embrace the revolution but he grew to like the Russian, as he was kind in a place bereft of small kindnesses. The story continues in our knowing that Balthazar was a changed man, and later in his life he would reflect on Trotsky and their time together and he felt strongly there was something from this meeting that his grandson should know. And our friend would take this wisdom from his grandfather and believe that the best twentieth century revolutions made art with the truth – the revolution hired Kandinsky after all - it is the wisdom within the light speaking through the artist - the greatest artists create in a state of grace - this is what binds the artist to their art - the ability to never refuse the dream as it asks you to unfold in imaginable ways.
Leon Trotsky was some Russian mystery mystic with heretical views. Isn’t this how Trotsky must have magically appeared to the desperate men of that prison camp in 1917? They were imprisoned in the Tantramar Marsh, the proverbial backwater of the world. He is asking each backwater man, men feebly cramped uncomfortably in this broken down nineteenth century iron foundry, to transform themselves, change your mind and find your way out of these prisons.
He asks that they find the truth of their lives while living as these entropy ruins that prison creates with men. Trotsky is strident in his demand that these accidental brothers refuse the materialist dream, so that they might recognize the interconnected fabric of their lives – socialism is one means of subverting the dominant paradigm – the goal of the best 20th century revolutionaries - the Dada – find the subconscious sources of inspiration - never refuse the dream – and so today as a result of listening to the wisdom of his grandfather, Dada, twentieth century wars and his Tibetan teachers, Balthazar believes this is a revolution of consciousness and he asks that we learn from the radical archetypes to create a more compassionate world and end all wars on planet earth in the twenty-first century.
Mother Mary Mental Bolshevik
The Photonic Manifesto holds this human value above all others: compassion for the suffering of all beings. Through cultivation of compassion and loving kindness, we transform the violent tendencies of our minds. See everyone’s Buddha nature. Wear the armour of perseverance. Observe the nature of Samsara. Looking deeply into the nature of afflictive emotions and the endless stream of negative thoughts, we realize that purification of the mind, freeing the mind of thoughts, creates the basis for enlightenment.
Once we purify our mind we manifest Buddha nature. Wisdom acts as the eye, compassion acts as the heart. This is the path to the end of war.
Trust in your own Buddha nature make effort to understand the nature of your mind, having understood your mind’s nature your realize compassion purifies the mind. We call for an end to the violence of Hammurabi’s code, just as Leon Trotsky taught his fellow prisoners that they should instill in their hearts the desire to free all of those who remain exploited – and if you were to argue the relevance of socialism, we would argue the revealing truth recognizes exploitation and asks our brothers and sisters to rise up to oppose the suffering of any being – Trotsky recognized the future of capitalist America, and now the entire planet is the American frontier of ‘globalization’, and we are naming the Moloch, for the anger of America is the evil that pervades the end of days.
The Photonic Manifesto calls for all of our minds to transform the anger of America. As we purify our minds, our Buddha nature guides us through the vicissitudes of karma in ever-improving ways. Through our collective energetic transformation and choice we restrain the Moloch with mental Bolshevism. Mental Bolshevism is to reject the illusion and embrace the dream, never to refuse the dream of the freedom of all beings. I think of mother Mary, White Tara and my daughter. I call upon my sisters with the enduring archetypes of Rosa Luxembourg who loved the revolution that danced with Emma Goldman, the unrelenting Rosa Parks, Frida Khalo who revealed the beauty of suffering and Dorothea Tanning suffering the beauty of revealing and I ask you to visualize Tara, Vajrayogini and all of our Mother Mary Mental Bolsheviks. Women’s wombs change the world in each moment. They are the true keepers of time Jack. The Photonic Manifesto calls upon all brothers to remember this wisdom of their sisters in humility, remember every being is our mother, seek the lineage of Milarepa and seek the perfection of wisdom in 100,000 lines, consider the experience of Meister Eckhart who taught us ‘when thought is gone God gets in’, read on with the magic of Maimonides, be led by the dream of Martin Luther King, illuminate the darkness with the wisdom of HH the Dalai Lama, be inspired by the sacrifice of Che Guevarra and his fellow revolutionaries the Tibetan Lamas.
We seek the wisdom found amidst the misfortune of the immortals.
As our difficult karma arises recall the misfortunes of the immortals and this wisdom will guide you. As our karma arises we are given choices of action. The better our mindfulness and practice, the choices we make reveal hidden wisdom within us. The reverence for the immortals becomes reverence for that which transforms the mind. Thus this reverence become self-referential, we learn to love ourselves for we identify with our own true Buddha nature.
This is the essence of equanimity, for as we are able to experience our own true Buddha nature; we perceive the same brilliant light in everything and everyone that appears in this display in which we exist.
Our teachers remind us that we live with fear and they ask us to awaken, we suffer because we do not know who we are and this fundamental alienation is the root of all suffering, it is ignorance. We live with unseen evil and it could even be said that it is foolhardy to consider ourselves as the top of the food chain – the worst evil remains unseen and unknown and this should strike terror in your heart because it is this terror that makes you human and calls you to awaken.
The manifesto is a cry to your heart to find the truth, seek the truth and know its luminosity. We seek the truth to fill our hearts with light, for it is this light that is the heart of evolution – we free ourselves with persistent conscious adaptation – the field of light is the interplay of collective consciousness, the karma of old souls, the karma of new souls and the karma of those who travel between worlds.
Trotsky asked Balthazar to confront his fear, to recognize his doubt. And make the great leap.
But Babinsky was just a man, and he loved his woman and argued with his wife, and they had two daughters while he struggled in the damp darkness of Cape Breton mines which is a life as harsh as any, and then he toiled as a farmer in the fields, and then finally he sold insurance because that is what you do when you cannot find anything else that pays a wage, and Nova Scotia never was much good at capitalism after the banks took all the money to Upper and Lower Canada. Most of all Balthazar struggled with his ideals, for he had a meeting with a remarkable man, and ideals create a consciousness that chooses not to refuse the Truth – do we not agree that it is seemingly impossible to work for a wage and choose to refuse the Lie?
We work in a world where we must agree and remain agreeable to the Lie of capital, and if we choose to refuse, where does it get us? It does not take long to refuse the Truth when you get paid cash money, life becomes a sad trail of small and large compromises that take us further and further from the source of our dreams. If the goal is to never refuse the dream, we must find a way to cease selling our souls for small comforts. To survive we must perceive the subtle realms and transcend them, for all of our emotional struggles feed malicious spirits.
The goal is to surrender to the dream without attachment… maintaining mindfulness, breathing in the present… because we can breathe and we forget what a gift this is each breath moment a magical manifestation of Prana. The goal is to observe our thoughts and breathe them but never refuse or grasp after them; this is the essence of non-attachment. If I let go now and allow these words to write themselves, I am conscious many of you will not accept this thought, and many of you will smile in acceptance. The truth is, I want to bring you all along because you are my brothers and sisters within this internment camp – we have the great fortune to freely exchange these ideas and thoughts across time - the time of writing - the time of ink onto page - and the binding of the thoughts into the future - and perhaps into electronic frequencies sent through time and space… If we were to listen to the voices they would say the Photonic Manifesto is a gift of the rare birds, the lineage of freedom.
The lineage shows us it can be done, even by us! Especially by us! It makes us aware that the teachings represent not one but many lifetimes of difficult work. Each teacher made many sacrifices during each lifetime, struggling on behalf of all of us who have the privilege of perceiving the teachings they hand to us. Each teacher went through a great deal of personal hardship and finally attained enlightenment. Belonging to this lineage makes us rich with enlightenment wealth. We are asked not to trust purely in the gadgets of the practices alone, but that there is something happening behind the surface of our perceptions. The incomprehensible is comprehended with just a few glimpses. In addition to our effort and karma and struggles and practice we are transformed by the shifts in energies here in this time space continuum of consciousness.
As for karma, we are none of us too far removed from all the wars of the last centuries. For example, both of my mothers-in-law are from Eastern Europe, born in the fires and rubble, and they help me to understand what war does to the mind – and of course this is the role of every mother-in-law - the great Reminder. These are the words from the front lines within the last of the Bloody Empires – for if you are able to read these words, I know we are overthrowing the Great Lie – Truth prevails in the moment you read this, as you have freed these words from their resting place and you give them life with your mind.
The Photonic Manifesto holds all of its adherents within this web of affirmation; it is the desire to express loving kindness.
This is its great social utility – We choose to live a life in which we focus our will on one great purpose. We choose to create a century that is the end of all war and the birth of perpetual peace.
We are the shining ones we have been waiting for.
We Heal With All the Light That Shines
We emerge from the darkness of the past, dazed and disgusted with the way the Moloch of capital sucked the life from the earth, repulsed by the barons who penetrated our mother with impunity while the majority of beings suffered in impecunity. The rich are not conscious of their crime. The unconscious will choose somnambulism and we will leave them behind as a dream, for they are only other dreamers dreaming. We have lived in a world witnessing the rape of the women, the rape of the land, the rape of the sea and the rape of our minds, and it is time that we understand when one is harmed, it is the continuing depredation of all. This knowing is the root of equanimity.
The planet heals with all the light that shines. There is a background radiation transforming you now. We leave behind these patterns of suffering in this end of days, as our very cells are frequency shifting with solar tides and coronal mass ejections – the virgin realm energies penetrate the planet and enter our souls, as there is no severance in this light consciousness. We are interconnected with the planets, the sun, the moons, and the stars - while all around us the very fabric of time and space is dissolving as we move into new densities and radical realms. With our rapidly evolving awareness we are the container and the contained seeking blissful union with each other. We become consorts and we create love as never before, and as this love radiates from our hearts we recognize the wisdom within all suffering sets the truth free. This is why consorts such as Emelline and Balthazar continue to call to us all, the search for love is humanity’s basic desire to end all suffering. We suffer because we do not know who we are.
Max and Dorothea
We are not Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning. As coincidental Arizona tourists then residents of Sedona’s magic land, Max and Dorothea enter now as the archetypical consort energy, and their paintings explore the nightmare worlds of human experience in the crystal cities of mind. They are the consort artist heroes of the Photonic Revolution, and their unconventional love for each other, whilst creating beauty with truth, is an ideal of this manifesto. Kent, I thought you would be interested, because you love art and you know I have loved Max Ernst for much of my life, discovering Dada in college then later when the road and dreams brought me to Sedona and I learned that Max Ernst had lived here in Sedona during the later Forties after the war, when he actually published a radical manifesto about his visions of Crystal Cities and foretold the photonic transformation in his collages and sculpture. Of course this was long before Sedona became the new age Mecca with all the vortex crystal magic, which makes Max and Dorothea coolly ahead of their time.
So romantically, I respected Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning had this love story as Dada consorts, and together they discovered something secretly timeless about Sedona as a place on the planet that actually enhanced their perception of other planes. One must be struck by the thought that this is the attraction about Sedona now, and much of what is contained in these pages has in fact been influenced by my journeys to other realms in the portals of Arizona, as I surrendered to the voices of my teachers, the Sun and the Moon.
I love Max Ernst because of his tissues of truth, because he was happiest creating faithful fixed images of his hallucinations, so that he believed we see what he dreamed… indeed this is another manifesto meme – I believe that you see what I dream - each thought placed in these pages is a seed of liberation – this manifesto is a series subtle ideas arising from limitless space in this moment and within each moment is the seed of liberation…
At least that’s as close to what he said as I can get while standing alone on a desert dirt mile wide road, outside of town under limitless space, looking east to the Santa Catalina mountains, bloody with the spirits falling from the tangerine sun and sherbet tendrils trailing vapors right above your head. Looking up and seeing this brilliant deep orange misty wisp cloud intimately hanging, right there above your tiny body standing not so far below as the rest of the cloud trailing away to the south. We watch the high and low clouds catch the last light of the day, the sights that remind us life is awesome moments in an upward glance feeling the spaciousness, as well as the sullen head focusing downwards on the thoughts and details of our small prisons.
It is our choice to be conscious and see the prison for what it is. Once we see the prison it is our responsibility to immediately make effort to free our comrades. This is the deal we make with each other, and this is why I love our heroes – beauty is created by compassion. Beauty holds the key to future minds, you can see all of the unlocking in an Art Gallery every day and it makes me want to open all of Dorothea’s doors in 'Eine Kleine Nachtmusic'.
If you are like me at all my brothers and sisters, today the clerk in the Rum Runner told you to buy up all the A. de Fussigny V.S. cognac you can find, you want it because its very tasty but reasonably priced and you’re fussy but he doesn’t have any as they’re not importing it to Arizona anymore. So you drink Bas Armagnac instead and this is one way you are able to have an immediate awareness of another world or worlds. If you are like me you long to see the unseen and be in contact with beings existing on other planes. So you choose to find a way to alter your consciousness. One grows up hearing stories of spirits and so on, and then as you discover drugs and music and art you actually do experience representations of other realms. Max and Dorothea came into my consciousness to guide me on the path. This Manifesto is one of the paths of the Dharma, and the Dharma opens up other planes and realms within us as the student visualizes pure lands and deities and protection mansions and mandalas.
As photonic revolutionaries, we nurture a refinement of sensory perception, trusting the evolution of new frequencies and the feelings accompanying them. We realize our freedom rests within us. We choose to surrender to tides of transformation undulating through beginningless space, radiating from our sun on the solar stream flowing into the planet. When we meditate on this stream of blessing, it flows into us. It’s a mighty hook up. We choose the expansive emptiness, rather than the thud of a small door closing in a tiny room, where fear rules the mind. For reference, think of how small is the room there in your present and my future, the small room in which you think and read. Think of how small it is compared to the vast room all this thought has created since these words were written.
By opening their minds to other realms, Max and Dorothea were able to discover new planes of perception and then represent their perception with images they described as meetings in a new unknown. This is how Max thought of his collages in particular, as he sought the faithful fixed image of his hallucinations. He teaches us to see. If we each decided not to refuse the dream, what hallucinations might we encounter?
Welcoming the dream, what other planes would we be able to see? When we look within ourselves sometimes we discover kinky desire feeding on our souls. Enter the dragon and its hideous agents, taking their meal of all those beings who suffer. There are unseen beings who make a meal of negative energies.
Is this not the visceral fear of the monk as he enters the cave? It is this fear that marauds his mind as a dragon and thief in the same moment.
Our intuitive knowing that there is a basis for this fear has held us back from our truth, until now.
To overcome fear and ignore axioms, the future presents itself unexpectedly and asks us to evolve. In 1920 a new perception confronts the minds of artists Francis Picabia, Andre Breton, Tristan Tzara, Aragon and Soupalt, a group of somewhat remarkable men recovering from the ravages of war. They are sitting in an apartment in Paris on the occasion of Max Ernst’s first exhibit in the City of Light. They are surrounded by Max’s collage hallucinations of invisible planes that he has magically made visible. At this time in his life, after being a soldier using guns to kill, Max Ernst was liberating truth using images from the Great Lie and writing in a journal he called ‘Tissue of Truth, Tissue of Lies’. His art was considered by some of his contemporaries as an Odyssey of creativity and an Iliad of his mind, and this is the best explanation I can think of for the experiential nature of entering the underworld.
I want to tell you about the Dharma and the opening of the mind into new realms, and so I choose unsuspecting beings, those who have gone before and made art with the experience. Picabia, Breton, Tzara, Aragon and Soupalt were all transformed in that afternoon by a new way of seeing because they believed with their hearts that Ernst had opened the doorway into previously invisible realms. Breton came to say these moments "moved us in a way we never experienced again". This is the evolutionary moment, and this is the nub of all yearning - to experience a taste and to continue seeking that taste yet again. So these men changed the way humanity sees through their yearning. This transformation is the juice that ultimately we all crave, the sip of Amrita, and in this way we are the hive, we are the buzz that sips the ambrosia of life and our thoughts pollinate the planet.
Where did the juice of Max Ernst’s hallucinations come from? War. War again my brothers and sisters. We are leaving behind the culture of suffering, that is the choice of this stage in our evolution and so you see this contemplation of art at the turn of the 20th century is to take us back to the root of all suffering and a World War One German gunner, Max Ernst before he painted "Two Children and a Nightingale".
While lying sick in bed as a boy, Max Ernst had visions of a wrathful nightingale as he gazed at some wood grain patterns in the wall beside his bed, and the longer he stared at these patterns the more his mind allowed newer and more fabulous images. As he grew older he was able to develop this practice and deliver himself voluntarily into hallucinations whilst staring into clouds, wallpaper, un-plastered walls, and now here I am gazing at the bohemian Tucson desert youth congregating here in the Epic Café and each person here is in Max Ernst’s dream within your mind. Including the hippy dealer calling his buds connection overflowing with the scent of patchouli, just come in to plug in his cellular phone. Your dream is full of aromas, sweet oils and urgent coffee and the hipsters chilling between the works of art they live here in Sonora.
What I am asking you all is - can you surrender to the dream and listen to the silent angels sing? In 1897 Max Ernst kissed his sister goodbye as she died, just as in 1963 I said goodbye to mine because she is mentally retarded as they said in those days; and our sisters gave Max and me our first contact with nothingness. So I say we all share similar suffering, it is the constant in Samsara, and the sisters are all saying goodbye to their brothers, so sad. Have you never said goodbye? To end our pain we long for love and search for lovers because we are tiring of saying goodbye, we long to be welcome, and this is why we seek our consort, as she is the portal to emptiness.
We become wise with knowing nothingness. We deliver ourselves voluntarily into the desert breezes and tides of the sun.
I choose an elaboration free of conscious choice. My unconscious chooses this expression. This is what my Dada taught me. As I write these words to you so distant from this time and place and yet right here with me now, behind me I overhear a guy ask: "Was that the God, Mind and Matter class?"… This is a University town after all and so a likely bit of overheard dialogue to be interjected at this point, all of us small prison philosophers gathered as the art of the Epic Café and if Max Ernst and Leon Trotsky were here with us now, we would most likely drink coffee and feel a sense of urgency and laugh about how close the comet Neat will come to the sun, later this month and how this will most certainly change everything without anyone noticing. They would also laugh at my insecurity and humility in my being shunned by the female baristas.
To veer from thoughts of humility we would observe how our meditation practice helps us to feel the subtle shifts in the interplanetary magnetic web, and the fact that Arizona, and Tucson in particular, are good places to feel the stirrings and observe the Universe. After all there is more astronomical glass pointing up into the heavens here than anywhere else on the planet, and so the energetic impression this creates upon the minds of the citizens makes this the leading edge of the photonic revolution. This explains why the story is told from this place in time and space. It’s the best place in the planet to live and be one with the sky, for here we are the sky dancing. This explains why there is the gathering of the heroes and the meetings with great Tibetan lamas that you will read about in the words and manifesto memes arising from these pages.
And I want the Epic Café women to love me, but they do not, and I don’t know why.
My head creates these Photonic patriot aphorisms:
Recognize internment when you think. Recognize freedom as free from thought. Surrender to hallelujah nations. Choose to believe you are young. Do not try. You are fresh. Four seconds is enough time to recognize a kindred spirit. A tall man in a trench coat is more desirable than a short man with a bad haircut. When she kisses your neck you will never be the same. You get better looking. A lonely red head always needs a ride home. We learn more in the dark. Her sister will like you at first then wish you were dead. The tall man in the trench coat is insecure; it is why we like him.
Above all, we accept that one will ask us to dance while we cry, and this is our consort….
I recall the words of my perfect teacher:
Examine the thought that has the true capacity to cause harm Release these thoughts so that they do not accumulate to the ripened effect Anger… causing harm… to oneself… The most important secret instruction of the lineage Is to not allow anger to arise in one’s mind See all beings as gods and goddesses And all surroundings as a Buddhafield Do not focus on the negative qualities of others Do not attach to unkind words or deeds The anger of others is the result of their own suffering The conditioning effect, when we cannot see our role In the cause of our own anger Is our inheritance, growing up in the vibration of our parents’ anger How unattractive filthy and defiling is this anger It is the nature of hell Recognizing this we see the importance Of uprooting the anger from our mind In doing so we are filled with loving kindness for other beings Especially our parents We train the mind in uprooting the harmful emotions So that we may love ourselves and others completely By recognizing our afflictive emotions and those of others As our karmic propensities What use is there in attributing blame or fault? Whenever we experience suffering We should generate Bodhicitta immediately This purifies self-clinging and transforms the suffering into wisdom Each time we experience suffering We can be grateful for the opportunity To purify the negative karma of previous lives And cultivate the mind of infinite wisdom The greatest virtue we can practice Is loving kindness for all sentient beings.--H.E. Garchen Rinpoche