PHOTONIC MANIFESTO
A work in progress
by Yeshe Dorje
© Copyright, Yeshe Dorje, March 17, 2003
X
If I am submissive to everything
Kent: Keep reading!
it seems that now I am sending these pages to the website of a man named Kent
and of course I have been writing to you all along
so it will seem as though I am addressing Kent of the site
when it is you I speak to all along,
dear reader
good news from the streets of Tucson
where the bum sitting at the table
behind me is railing on to no one in particular
at least it doesn’t seem that way but maybe there is someone that he sees
"they we fighting old school with hands
no knives!
he didn’t get up
knocked out!
knocked out!
I was sayin’
Hey! try not to hit nobody"
a punk girl walks over and bums
rolling tobacco from the bum
"nothing wrong with getting a little rowdy sometimes" she says
"I was way across the park and I heard it it him
pttooommmm!!’ and he continues with the sounds of humans being
as she walks away
another bum comes along
somebody went through his backpack
they talk about their blankets
dumpsters
"everybody’s passed out from drinkin’ whisky all day" he reports
the punks discuss heart conditions
i am online outside the Epic Café where the unemployment
keeps us busy selling our cd collection
so we can afford to buy coffee and
stay online looking for jobs
creating the manifesto
we must keeep our eyes on the skies after all and
soho keeps me connected visually and gives me
reference for the feelings within my body
the unemployment has made me do the unthinkable
I just posted a for sale note here at the Café
to sell this laptop I’m using to
keep connected with my online community and everyone back in Canada
i like to write in my paper roadbooks first
so the manifesto will always be safe with me
but still I have been writing the manifesto with this laptop for three months now
and i am surprised by attachment to this machine
must be my Luddite karma
I googled my name once and came across a
an Englishman with my Christian name who was wanted for
breaking machinery at the shoe factories
he later was a successful Patagonian farmer
my heart recalls coming from a long line of radicals and leftists
and of course this troubles my father
but I know in his heart past all the fear
these words make him proud because his son writes them
and he does try to save me and point out that
I need to calm down about the manifesto
"You need to calm down son!"
a pith instruction from the words of my perfect teacher
the fact that i am out of money is a reflection of my attitude towards it
I know this, and I like that I know it
but the effects of unemployment on all of my brothers and sisters
I see on the streets
and I read in the news each day
about the growing number of emasculated middle class
I saw it happen before with free trade
the bastards use the economic transitions to make cold blooded adjustments to the machine and many lives get lost
the retraction of the economy is felt most on the periphery
this is what you learn from studying colonialism
and life on the streets of America is getting scary
its like the thirties only worse because opulence for so many is just a good job away
will our attachment to conspicuous consumption be the cause of revolution?
the unemployment drains the self and attacks the ego
one feels closer to the street because you spend more time there
so you hear the djembe and feel the breeze
what I do now is create
in case anyone asks
on hikes in the canyons
or drives into the desert and sky watching
long hours of writing
i sell cds of music to do this and buy organic fruits and vegetables
my cd’s average worth is about $2.50
so I eat and have fun if I can get past the weight of waiting
I become light writing
all of these words for my brothers and sisters
attention shoppers! the May Manifesto for Spring
the May Day message becomes ironic for me because
that day all of my references were being checked by the new software company that wants to hire me
now when someone asks what I do
I will most likely say that I am responsible for channel marketing
we’re creating a new form of electronic communication
in sixteen languages all code written in HTML
fully compatible anywhere in the future
small codes will spider out onto the web
they will find my gold and return it to me
so my Ode to the workers got me a job
and while this feels like such a relief
being an expectant father and all
today I have almost finished selling my cd collection
a business of copying the cd onto the hard drive
so I keep the music
then taking the cds and shopping them at four stores
so the clerks know me
and I saved my favorite cds til last
hoping I would be able to keep them
only to learn that no one wants them
running out of money in Tucson
Tony
Kent Stuart kentstuart@vif.com wrote,
Tony: i'll take a crack at it;
i (re)read the email exchange, and found it somewhat old hat...
what we choose to refuse becomes an enemy
brilliant
And this does strike fear into the hearts of those who observe me
That I might be on to something but it looks quite frightening
And all the while alluring
actually, i don't see anything sinister or frightening in it;
i just don't see much of anything in it
the world brims with a new consciousness which we are unpacking from its dusty crates
in our pedestrian, western ways:
scientists inspired by goethe
philosophers inspired by tribal sensibility
and of course the hidden treasure is the moment;
the unforgiveably charlatanistic l ron hubbard told me
(when i 'borrowed' his latest magazine from a fellow tenant,
85-year-old austrian painter of velveteen paintings for sleazy motel chains,
living out his last few years, a queen to the end, his apartment a nest of plastic-coated cockroaches;
the thing was addressed tom him;
i put it under his door that night)
that in order to hide something, all that is required ios for people to have no interest in it
and the poor old moment just can't compete with reality tv;
plato was hyper modern...
i'm not convinced google makes a good verb
it is more obvious that the preeminent wish of mankind
(should i say mancruel?)
involves endless pussy and egokindness
the sun may be speaking to you-
in greek?
We do influence the matter all around us just by our presence
but television doesn't rot your teeth
and in what way, pray tell, have we improved ourselves?
we shall soon have bioengineered athletes, super geniuses, maybe a misguided buddhist frankenstein will bioengineer a creature of superhuman love
hitler would be so jealous that he couldn't be here to control it...
Are we influenced by divine forces and guided by invisible fates determined through the omnipotence of spirit? Or, are we enslaved by the dominant political economic superstructure
in a world running amok, we are free to the degree that we understand necessity
this last chatter is a little hard to follow, running through various fields of sunflowers,
and stepping on manure, but looking to inscrutable skies for unwanted answers...
kent
I’m worried about Tony, he seems to have lost touch with reality through his longing to find other worlds. I’m hoping this is where spiritual discipline comes in but Tony hates rules so much and is such a free spirit into crazy wisdom he appears to embody indiscipline when given the necessary resources. Now he has to choose between two jobs and this is how he described a trip to a renewable energy conference in Reno, a few months before the war.
If I am submissive to everything
If I am submissive to everything, it begins in the mountains with the sound of the highway newly wet with November rain, just outside Laughlin Nevada. I am attempting to be in love with my life as it falls apart, so I’m trunk writing watching a sixteen-wheeler roll up the scenic high desert highway, slipping past the lunar landscape. A long red whale of the road, it moves just beneath a jagged umber skyline torn from the land by pewter clouds sweeping over heather brush and mesquite. That’s the best I can do as you’re not here. And I am. But I want you to be, and so I am stopped beside the road with my notebook on the trunk of my rental, all these months before the end of days. Before us is an amphitheatre of rugged majesty, and there off in the distance a lonely man threads his whale up the mountain, on his way across America.
The rain has just passed up over the mountain rising away to the east, the scent of chaparral washes up against me and into my body, the desert’s essence is in the breeze, pushing up the side of the mountain to escape and become the universe. This is the air that I breathe, moist and much less chaste than a mother’s kiss should be. But somehow we know that this is the gift a mother gives her child, and forget with each breath we take.
These are the notes for the survivors, more than a testament to the Truth.
As I leave Laughlin early and bright with the rising sun I see a nearly naked man walking by the side of the road and I think he’s barefoot. He is barefoot. He shouldn’t be. He is the fool bare, barefoot and carrying two one-gallon jugs that did have water in them but now, well it looks like its urine, but come to think of it, it could be gasoline. As I drive away I imagine him wandering out into the desert, pouring the gas over his naked body, dousing his sadness and setting his last breath alight – I see the monks of Cambodia settling in the sky just outside Laughlin - its 1968 and the monk is setting himself on fire as a last desperate act to end the suffering of all beings – the wars of the world are burning in the deserts of the American frontier.
Anticipating the deluge, I have been reading a New Yorker article by my latest favorite author discussing the bombing of Hamburg in August 1942 and the German intelligentsia coming to terms with the madness – the city cellars full of maggots and rats, the air thick with great green flies no one had ever seen before, a frenzy of microbial feeding on the death left from a fire that burned the entire soul of the land so that its survivors remained soulless for a generation. The generation of lost souls, this is how it happened, lets keep it from happening again.
Though I was born thirteen years after the end of that war, my entire life has been shaped and prodded, pinched and sliced up by the horrors of war… two failed marriages with two eastern European mothers-in-law who survived Hungary and Slovakia but were scarred and passed some of the horror onto their daughters, and then unto me. I know this is what most mothers in law do, but it seemed worse at the time.
I’m certain now the fool was carrying gasoline, of course he was, and he’s still smoking with small blue flames flickering to keep the vultures away. Just outside that hell hole I just rode out of, Laughlin Nevada. A seething den of shit clogged plumbing, teeming with thousands of slack faced sunburned fat people sour with alcohol and fluorescent green with greed. It’s too cheap for neon.
Now, two days later having spent an unexpected night in the city of lost wages, then leaving Las Vegas flying through the sky I am trunk writing by the Lake Tahoe Scenic highway, remembering how still I can be in the face of adversity and cruel visions, while watching my life disassemble into the cold silver surface of the lake. I have been sent here mysteriously during my peregrinations, I am uncertain why, I am not certain of anything; I am open and receptive to all good. I have found the deep still waters. Sitting on granite boulders at the edge of the lake and staring out across to the opposite shore, where a black hill dark with tall Douglas fir trees and striped by snow where the trees won’t grow - here in Sierra Nevada so still and rugged I stare long enough to see the small silver Buddha H.E. Garchen Rinpoche gave to me when I met him. It is there perched upon yonder mountain.
I am quite still now, remembering the aspiration prayers of the Buddhas of the three times when quite unexpectedly I feel the first chakra red spinning and my hand discovers my erection. I am startled by desire here in the calm silence of Remembrance Day, and remember to let go. Still I allow myself to feel pleasure and create sense memories, the pleasure becomes the stillness and ruby center of my roots – the red pulsing veins beneath the Kalachakra forest, it is less than three weeks ago that I survived the initiation like so many seekers for so many years and now I have a new understanding of blood on the walls, this vision and its roots. I am a small mobile unit with a jet age existence awaiting the gifts of the photonic millennium.
This lake is filled with pearls, left by angels who have finished guiding mortals to the Truth.
I gaze up at high spines of mackerel back clouds and then down into the darker places that obscure the sun just enough to make it a brilliant white and amber, with the great white light still unmoving in the silence of the deep water. Sixteen hundred feet deep dark and cold yet the sun is warm here on the surface where a pileated duck is diving becoming a memory until it returns to breathe, marking the slowness of the day. As the sun is setting the lake is becoming more perfectly iridescent silver pearl in patches so that I think there will be a moment when the color is most vivid and thus most perfect – I allow the stillness and the beauty and these words to heal me – I transform all of my afflictive emotions into wisdom and offer pearls to the goddess of this lake, I make offerings to the water nagas and devas…
Oh great nagas and devas on this day of remembering when our minds turn to memories of war and rumors of war, help us all know your stillness as compassion for our suffering. I call upon the most wrathful nagas to tear at my heart until all this evil and negativity have left this body speech and mind. Please help me to know the true nature of mind and never forget the pearls I release into your loving embrace. I offer you necklaces of freshly severed heads and ask one thing in return. The advent of the Photonic Age will mark the end of war and ignorance and the beginning of a golden age of peace and wisdom. I remember my grandfather and his teacher Leon, I remember the sacrifices they made.
Burning Airlines Give You So Much More
Today I visited a Biomass power generation plant in Honey Lake California and I looked into flames burning at one thousand six hundred degrees, the hottest flames I have ever seen. This is a thirty-five megawatt power plant burning wood chips at this perfect temperature, it is a method of renewal for the local forests, green power and good jobs for good lumberjacks, and as I gazed into the light I saw a future without harm to our mother, the mother I seek is the mother free from the wounds of fossil fuel production – so this fire is the mother’s fire to free her babies from flaming suitcases – a secret agent scrubbing the grid clean one watt at a time. When I looked into the intense inferno I couldn’t help but think of the story of the incendiary bombs during the second world war and those babies, I could see limbs jumping in all directions, and I thought of sustainable living and keeping the Biomass babies safe from the suits of greed.
In talking to the men who work at the plant, I learned that once in a crisis the plant fed green energy to a nearby community because the Grid went down. This went on for three days and the operational costs to provide this power were $87,000, which the town was happy to pay to keep warm. At the same time, despite offers from the plant to provide power, another nearby town went dark and cold for five days. This ‘inconvenience’ because Pacific Gas and Electric refused to throw a switch. I imagined that this ‘inconvenience’ would have Honey Lakers lighting up their cold and silent homes with the excitement of natural light at night, the flames of fancy candles in the finer homes and flashlights or darkness in the trailers. As I stared at the fire I thought of the trailer park, and then I saw in the flames the trailer where Brenda lost her cherry to Javier, a migrant seventeen year old with dreams of staying here in the high plains, drifting from one high school to the next and finding at least five or six more virgins just like the lovely nina he was picking up and turning over, pushing his hand into the back of her head so that it had the desired effect of creating a specific angle of her torso, her belly dropping instinctively to create the arch she would continue to think of for at least thirty years to come, always attempting to recreate that first moment when sex felt like little birds rushing through the center of her body. Javier noticed at this same moment the sounds and surrender that would keep him here for the winter, forgetting for a while his plans for other girls. By June, Brenda would be picking out flannel baby clothes for her angel, knowing full well that Javier had little to do with the little nino, save offering his seed. The sun or the moon, one or the other is truly his father – she knows this now that Javier has gone and she sits by the Lake on a bench her face pink and warm from the afternoon walk.
(Months later I would read this and realize I was having a vision of the flames of my future. My thoughts then did not waver far from what I saw as the plague upon the planet, despoiling its environment, I could look around me and see all of the trees dying.)
The newspaper headlines are filled with rumors of war and the stories are long lies spun out to explain and justify a secret greed, for what is the true reason for this war? The voice of a false heart cries out throughout the American frontier, a false heart in a mighty beast beats lies for we all know a false heart cannot be true. This is the fear of the world made manifest each day by the media hydra as darkness creeps. This war has the same aim as all wars, the grasping of the Moloch after souls. All the lies create a mechanism to feed the beast, and small truths are intermingled with the great Lie to make it temptingly palatable which Marx identified as co-optation, the devil in each of us smiles and lowers his eyes as we lay down together each night.
So I am on these old roads of the American frontier remembering wars in the end of days before the Last ‘Great’ War, which the fascists hope to last one thousand years, and I ask the question, for whom does Bush Lie? For those who want war. But who could want the destruction of a country where fifty percent of the beings are under fifteen years old? Those who want war have false hearts, for who can desire a fire that takes the minds of young women as they leave burning cities with the blackened remains of their babies, carrying them in suitcases, so goes the story of Hamburg in the second world war. We were not told until now the secret history of mothers carrying their dead babies in suitcases, and arriving by train days after the fires sobbing and wailing knowing that all they see and feel is a lie, for how can their laughing one be dead? All they see is a lie, for why else pack a dead baby into a suitcase? Do they not expect the return of breath and smiles once they open the suitcase, far away from the horrors of the Lie?
The sunset over Lake Tahoe has that perfect pink now, the one I have been waiting for, the most vivid pink I will ever see, so that the silver which had graced the surface of the lake sinks into the violets and deep purple rising night waters. How can this eternal stillness produce such beauty and such horror? Why do I feel such sadness and longing for babies born into a brief horror over fifty years ago when I am awed by the colors of this day’s end?
The last body of water I stood next to was dancing to a country version of ‘I’m proud to be an American’, in the fountains of Bellagio’s casino, right across the street from the Las Vegas Eiffel tower. The best place to watch that water is from the top of the tower hundreds of feet above the strip. Why was I there at all? My brief stay in Vegas and Laughlin was not planned because my airline went bankrupt. But I always see a divine purpose unfolding, but this mystical mystery tour of grasping and greed, spending precious moments in cities that made me queasy with the Moloch’s disease? All I could see around me was beings dazed by alcohol, every head ringing with the cacophony of electronic bells, hypnotized by profanity. I saw all these beings waiting for a pattern to form from the chaos they engaged with each wager, hoping with all of their being that they will recognize a pattern with a big payoff. So that they remain up all night and I discover them before seven AM drinking free alcohol for breakfast.
How many died so that we could feel patriotism rise up from the fountains of Bellagio’s, a patriotism so clever that one could clearly see the twin towers as mist falling in a tribute to the victims of 9/11? How many died so that monopoly capital and organized crime could create a theme park that recently killed John Entwistle… I began the day on the phone with Rory to wish him a happy birthday and he told me Entwistle died mindless on some lethal cocktail of sex and drugs whilst banging a Vegas showgirl in the Hard Rock Hotel.
The sun has set silently kissing the Buddha of the mountain, so that the color seeps from the sky and it is time to drive back over the pass and down into Reno – more gambling town tonight. There are flames rising all around me as I fly through the night, flames that consumed the babies, babies carried in suitcases by dazed screaming mothers from each of the one thousand degrees and sixty years that separate us. I am seeking the beautiful Hamburg refugee to lay her baby to rest, but all I have is this Reno dream and a seventies chrome hotel room for players, with its giant black Jacuzzi in the middle of it all.
‘Mass Destruction, Death’
These are the flames of Reno sparking and buzzing beneath the dance of the luminaries and today I learned that Mars will be at its closest to the Earth in 2003, closer than at any other time in recorded history, 70,000 years in fact. Perfect for war. Beside this story was another about radiation disabling a NASA spacecraft as it approached Jupiter, and I couple these thoughts with the idea infecting many minds that a rogue planet is approaching us. They call it Planet X, or Nibiru.
There are new asteroids being discovered as ‘moons’ of Jupiter and Saturn, I emailed an astronomer in Hawaii and checked to see it was so. Why new moons now? And the climates of the planets are changing dramatically as the energy of the Sun reaches out to us all in unexpected mysterious reassembling of what we believe is real. There were seventy tornados chewing up the East last night from the Gulf to the Great Lakes. Another reminder to remember we are close to the flames of transformation. There are headlines in USA Today ‘Mass Destruction, Death’ with a picture of Jean Mayfield weeping in front of her devastated home. She is the mother of every moment who screams for the loss of the Truth, their progeny is a river of moments born through the hopes of all mothers – the storm has a ‘one thousand mile wrath’ – this is misunderstood detritus from the opening of the photonic floodgates.
I dream of revolution and evolution in the Sienna Lounge in downtown Reno – how many junkies nod here? How many babies sleep here? Where the lounge lizard sings ‘nice and easy does it’, and I realize my brothers and sisters I have carried you with me into this American highway night with my glass full of petite syrah and portent of war and can you imagine with me nightfall in upscale Reno beside the Truckee River, watching the beautiful hostess who will never put her baby in a suitcase as she confers with Javier, who will be busting Brenda later tonight in a trailer beside Honey Lake – and the piano player plays ‘I can’t take my eyes off of you’ and I think of my soon to be ex-wife and a moment of sadness settles lightly as we segue into ‘I Love You Baby’, followed closely by ‘It Had to Be You’. The greatest journey we will ever know is into now, into each moment effervescent and evanescent the burbling of now, now, now the river flowing black and white through the end of the American frontier.
I notice another headline from the storms - ‘God was watching…’- and I wonder, what was God watching, as over seventy tornados ripped apart places like Mossy Grove and Petros, thunderstorms from Pennsylvania to Louisiana, the markers of the end of time with super cell storm survivors in thankful scenes. Yet thirty-five die in tornados whilst the warnings that saved others become memories told to grandkids relocated safely in the western lands, like hot buns in a basket floated out in the reeds. No we didn’t have no burning babies in suitcases here.
Kerouac modern prose rule #12 – in tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you - it is the blue night river that will continue when the casinos are gone and the Girl From Ipanema isn’t even a memory – I see the river flow over the stones, the stones were here with the six-shooter and the stones were here with Hollywood Squares slot machines.
The stones hold the river against the earth laughing at their luck.
I am strolling in the darkness beside the river, just to remember when Anna used to sing, before we did yoga together we sang a pretty Sikh song of protection, and then a dedication song at the end - which now flows through my mind, each of those morning dedications has become the river that flows through me – I know my mistake has been to grasp after the branches reaching out into the water, desperate to hold onto the past when I know I must release my attachment and flow unimpeded into the unknown – we seek the known suffering, we seek to re-experience it because we are so afraid of the unknown.
Kerouac rule # 19 - Accept loss forever. How did Jack get so wise? Who asked him to suffer for our benefit? Number 5 - Something that you feel will find its own form. Don’t you read these words because they embody something that you feel? Even though they were written long ago and far away? Jack says blow as deep as you want to blow. I say see the deep so that it takes you deeper, deeply long to know the deep so that you have visionary tics. Release your doubts my brothers and strangers, doubt is a gentle reminder to remain humble when faced with unspeakable visions. You are a genius all the time. So said Jack Kerouac.
At the next table unspeakable visions of Samsara are spoken by a couple of Renoites.
"My wife’s in the hospital with sexual problems, but that’s OK because there’s other ways to find sex, to have sex, like you for instance… just kidding!…
" … Now I’m almost embarrassed to see the two of them together you know?"
"… Well excuse me, I’m looking for the best I said, wanna monkey around?"
"Obviously he’s a sleaze ball, the scum of the earth."
"Very nice to be fucked with."
"Yeah well it’s the story of someone who has been successful – the nicest guy – nobody more fun to deal with – hey everybody loves Clint, why can’t you get along with him?"
"Well all along he beat her! Cliff was there with his fists and it turns out he’s a creep, came into the Nugget and hit her and left. She finally started going after him for child support, that’s the only thing he’s been in jail for. For a long while he was able to hold down a job making nothing."
"So the only thing she got was nothing, except for the beating she took when he was drinking – a bully…"
"I went there once with a friend of mine, I’ll never go back there again, 47 TV’s all different channels."
The true words of the street with three glasses of wine flowing with the Truckee River, and inspired by this overheard conversation, I sit knowing it is time to go and ask the hostess about the hot tub back in my players room. Shall I? What could she say but yes? We fear ‘no’ so much, it silences our restless want with sadness. Should I just go over and ask for the sake of drama? I think of approaching her knowing that there is some future vicarious vicissitude you will experience my sisters. I still think you long for me to ask, and persuade her to acquiesce.
What if I was to explain that my motivation is a grand play in delayed gratification for potentially millions of future people, and any orgasm is dedicated to a distant unknown page in an unpublished novel? Will she take this leap with me for all of our sakes, for what is an adventure story without some gratuitous casual sex? What if I were to say that the progress of the narrative depends upon her desire? Or that a sign of her wetness will be all that this boy needs to get a three pack of latex, hoping her thirst will last till Thursday?
I am too cosmopolitan. I will leave without saying another word. I will walk with a vision of H.H. the Dalai Lama wearing a sun visor with a third eye logo emblazoned upon it, as he did a couple of weeks ago over there in Graz. I will leave knowing my desire does not belong in his mandala unless I transform it by not acting upon it.
But she is so beautiful, and the promise is so great… I know you are sitting there wanting me to have the courage to tell her all of this, so we can all learn what she thinks of the ‘70’s chrome Players room with the Jacuzzi. And you do want me to get up from this riverside table and walk purposefully towards her twenty-something womanhood and explore her moist portals like a Spanish castle stormed by Moors.
This is why one of Jack’s rules of modern prose is never to get drunk outside your own house. I stand across from her for ten minutes listening to the accordion player and lovely young lounge woman singing a Cole Porter medley, subtly swinging here in Lexie’s Lounge.
Of course you knew it all along, I lose my courage and leave without saying a word – surprisingly I realize a preference to be alone, as the seduction requires more effort than I think this is worth. Once outside the bar I quickly realize I prefer my lovers Dogskin Mountain and the Great Basin clouds with the sun bursting over the towering granite – I prefer Reno letting the light in. But somehow here in northern Nevada surrounded by the light, we let in the darkness.
Beside the dark Truckee River reflecting upon three months of hard work in the new job, fighting with the confusion and paranoia that is my boss, finding the light, setting the truth free whenever I can. Yet I keep coming up against anger and confusion from my boss, my wife, my life. Since 9/11, the day I got my new career, I have been tossed into the swift currents taking me home, and I have tried to navigate as best I can while making the difficult choices that took me out of my home, my marriage, my Tucson. All of the traveling I have done recently to the UK, Austria, Canada, Laughlin, Las Vegas, and now Reno makes me think of how attending the Chenrezig Drubchen has truly transformed my life, and now the Kalachakra is changing me further as a Dharma volunteer for world peace - and I am working so hard at transforming the suffering within my body speech and mind – altering the way I perceive my world – all this change and effort. My brand new job, which could be wonderful, is instead the source of anxiety and confusion, I cannot escape it, the dead pigeon above my door follows me everywhere – anywhere - now – I pray to the deities within me to assist me in my transformation - please help me to recognize the true nature of my mind, help me to transform my small suffering into wisdom for the benefit of all beings – I am numb to the changes.
As I again recall the strange omen of the dead pigeon, a paint and powder fading beauty pulls up in a wheelchair with a tiny toy terrier sleepy dog in silk ribbons, who settles into its basket behind master’s padded chair – I see so much suffering in the woman and the dog and yet they are here beside this beautiful river for pleasure – But pleasure is fleeting and the paint and powder beauty’s friend joins her and immediately starts discussing her own dog, and the vet, and now its cancer and she is putting her dog down. – I know suffering when I feel it and it is everywhere – suffering is becoming more oppressively omnipresent as the Moloch’s false heart grows and the compassion I feel expands with each breath I take, so that at times I am overwhelmed by how vast is this sense of empathy, and I perceive it as that essence within me that connects me to all living beings – by accessing and cultivating my Bodhicitta I become more than who I think I am. I become the mind that overcomes suffering – I become the mind that recalls the Triple Gem – I become the mind that knows the blessings of the lineage rain down upon me as I declare ‘I am the fortunate one, I request great blessings.’
How have I done all of these deeds that allow me to explore the American frontier in search of love, place me in Reno November Nevada – a wanderer stopped for a moment beside the Truckee River just now remembering the stillness that is in this emptiness – the stillness in which we wander – why do I long for love and happiness? Why do I long to fall in love? Why do I feel so far away from home? When will I release this tension that grips my heart? Why all of this ignorance, when I know all I seek is within this stillness? – I refuse to give in to the Lie as my ancestors the Acadians refused – I refuse to give in to the lie that keeps us in place with anchors of suffering – I release the Lie - I release the lies - I surrender and hold on and surrender and hold on and find new reasons to do both.
I feel so much pain and suffering, the fuel of the Great Lie. I reach out and not one other human being reaches back. I feel the pain of being alone without a home, this is why I am here. Oh my brothers and sisters, I try to be strong for you, and today the strength comes from acknowledging my suffering. But when I started my new job, the very first day, there was a stench of death in my office. By Wednesday I couldn’t sit in my office. After much effort, a dead pigeon was discovered in the drop ceiling, right above the door to my office.
The afflictive emotions arise as the deity – they arise form the same ground as the deity – if we look into their true inherent nature - truly investigate the manifestation - it is a series of moments of awareness - feelings in the body - images seen and unseen –
If our dreams appear as real and substantial, yet we believe them to be unreal projections of our subconscious, how do we know with such certainty that ‘reality’ is so different from our dreams? If we create so much activity with our eyes closed, isn’t this the same activity as that created with our eyes wide open?
I have taken the Bodhisattva vows with H.H. the Dalai Lama, and many other great Tibetan teachers. I have done this to accept a role of transforming the suffering of my dreams and wanderings into wisdom.
We have so much knowledge of this world, but what we need is to be aware of other kinds of knowledge, like the benefits of awakening Bodhicitta. Ordinary beings harm each other because they perceive others as enemies. Cultivating the understanding of the mind and the heart of love, one acts differently when confronted by a hostile person… This is the importance of understanding human relations as practice to cultivate Bodhicitta. We cultivate Bodhicitta in the face of hostility, cultivate the precious mind of awakening with the six paramitas. A Bodhisattva is a hero because they do this rather than give in to the natural tendency to be adversarial. Such a person reacts to enemies with the understanding that this person’s insults cannot harm them, but if they were to give rise to anger in their own mind then harm is caused.
By cultivating the heart of loving kindness, one experiences more and more freedom from the grasp of the Moloch. If a person acts like this, anger does not escalate and reproduce itself, and we rob the Moloch of its fuel. The angry hostile person potentially responds to non-aggression with an improved disposition… this results in more happiness and less strife throughout the world. This is the essence of the Photonic revolution and the responsibility of all revolutionaries.
Among the 84,000 of the Buddha’s teachings, there is no more important or profound than the cultivation of Bodhicitta. Ultimately all the vast teachings come down to how best to alleviate the causes of suffering, and nothing is better than cultivating the mind of awakening. The great master Tilopa taught that if you really give rise to Bodhicitta then you are an enlightened being. In order to become a Buddha we must become a Bodhisattva, and Bodhisattva’s need enemies in order to progress on the path and have opportunities to cultivate love, this is why we have difficulty with other people along the way. Bodhisattvas need enemies to have the opportunity to truly cultivate Bodhicitta. As a Photonic revolutionary one must come to the understanding that you have this precious human life and thus an opportunity to practice Bodhicitta, and then make effort to really develop the precious mind of perfect love.
Sustainable Living
In my immediate sphere of experience right now, I am learning about Biomass energy production where woodchips and waste can be burned at high temperatures - this energy is transformed into electricity – the forests must be restored and conserved, resiliency to fire and insects must be nurtured, and our reliance upon fossil fuels must be reduced – we cause the suffering of our planet through unsustainable consumption of resources – the process of the transformation of suffering is similar – by renaming it diligent and persevering mindfulness of our thoughts, we become ever more self-sustaining humans being – the cultivation of Bodhicitta is the juice, the natural resource that is renewable through the union of compassion and wisdom – transforming our mind is like thinning the forest, helping the mind to be healthier by cutting through the darkness to let more light in, by taking care of the forest we reduce the risk of catastrophic fire and by finding uses for what we thin, we create value and sustainability.
Just as mindfulness transforms the negative thoughts, and creates an enhanced sense of their value; we recognize the opportunity of opening, rather than a sense of loss closing, the doors of our heart.
Spiritual renewal equals sustainable development, this is what I am thinking as I sit in a darkened meeting room of the Sparks Reno convention center listening to an older man haltingly present the technical details of a Biomass gasifier that transforms wood chips into electricity and heat – this technology has been with us for a century but is just now realizing opportunities created by minds struggling to communicate the necessity for renewable energy – like many of the treasures we discover in Buddhist teachings this elder who cares for the planet leaves us with the wisdom: "You’ve got to start somewhere."
Each moment we have the opportunity to start taking care of our mind, observing our thoughts, cleaning up our strands of the web, releasing the attachment contained within the energy of our thoughts. We convert the negative toxins released by the thoughts so that we burn cleanly… This is the potential of our human existence; the truth we seek is to let our light burn more brightly through sustainable use of our greatest resource, the energy that is our essence. As Victor Frankl said: "What is to give light must endure burning."
By learning to access and utilize this renewable resource, we lessen our reliance upon the toxic wasteland of our negative thoughts to create our perception of who we are – we leave the illusion through a systemic application of wisdom and method to transform the negativity into truth – the Truth is that we have all of the qualities of the Buddha within us.
Plants and trees capture solar energy through photosynthesis, we capture planeto-physical energies through our electro-magnetic biophysical unit. Rather than mindlessly wasting this energy and allowing it to be depleted through bad habits, we can become more energy efficient and find new uses for the new surplus of energy we create.
The Photonic Manifesto is intended to promote individual elaboration of light - to create new utilities for human energy – to nurture new forms of expression for wisdom and compassion – to foster mass conversion of human energy into higher frequency realms of existence – to create a new world where no man or woman will ever again lose their dignity in the creation of obscene wealth and the degradation of the environment.
Photonic Utility: All those who seek the truth, perceive the truth with their body when they find it. That’s why we get a feeling in our gut. This comes from the heart not the head, we just feel it is so...
Our body becomes a sophisticated guidance system instead of a systemic cause of suffering.
To Will One Thing
I choose to see these words, the flow of which surprises and humbles me, as not a creation of my mind, but akin to Kierkegaard’s idea that the purity of heart is to will one thing. In this case, my heart’s desire is to free the truth. It is this that has allowed this flow of words and thoughts into these pages. I have no forethought or intention other than to let this message flow as a catalytic converter of your mind, dear reader, as you have made great effort to get this far and your attention creates my sincerest sense of responsibility, that I may somehow convey a message of feasibility and sustainability.
The renewable energy technologies presented in this guide are many thousands of years old, developed over the millennia by many brave human beings who sought the Truth of the capacity to Love. For it is this capacity, boundless and truly the vast forest of potential within each of us to become better people – the Photonic Manifesto is intended to trigger the release of benign light neuropathies within the mind of the reader that are intrinsic to your evolution – this is the true revolution of the mind, the mother of all revolutions where a great number of us accept our divinity in an unprecedented manner – a flash of energy that illuminates the darkness of the earth so that others might find their way – we are the portent of the photonic age – under the mystic dance of the luminaries we embrace our potential – we are the photonic pioneers.
I need to say that some of what fuels my expression, a fairly large part of my preoccupation with opening to these words comes from my anger with the Moloch of capitalism, my frustration with my own suffering, and my resentment towards the degradation of the environment. There is impressive strength within this energy and so today I choose to see it as a source of fuel that brings my mind into yours – an amazingly inefficient process as it makes its way to you - but remarkably sustainable as it enters your consciousness.
So the interesting concept emerging today out of the deep well of my loneliness and grasping after joy is to see a correlation between moving into a new paradigm of sustainable development and having a revolution of consciousness – the growth of renewable energy is a manifestation of the collective mind escaping the grasp of the Lie. I am alerting you to the opportunity, my brothers and sisters, to become the avatars of Truth…
The struggle for many in this room in Reno is the struggle to find applications for existing technologies that will replace the destruction of the planet with its renewal, and I see that they are tired and getting on in years, and they have suffered through the times of few listening, fewer becoming involved and fewer still working each day to transform our energy reality – I overhear one man say to another:
"We’ll just keep at it until we wear them down..."
I am full of hope that we are witnesses to the emergence of the Photonic Age and that we can hasten its benefits through individual effort by converting our suffering into wisdom – I believe this energetic conversion is the evolutionary vanguard of the human race – when each of us have full ownership of the means of our energy production we will realize a democracy of truth. The revolution takes place through spiritual enlightenment.
The predominant source of energy on the planet, is now, and has always been human – only ignorance of our divinity obscures this truth - our alienation comes from our ignorance of the true nature of our energy. To release and realize the full potential of human energy is to cease the endless cycle of suffering. Photonism is belief in the photonic spirit; it is complete humble surrender to the wisdom within all light.
I leave the conference center and drive up into the mountains, on my way to Lake Tahoe again, to practice further surrender. All the while I am fixating on the thoughts which create my suffering, downloading latest versions: angry bitter misanthrope of a boss; new job stress; life on the road; new life in a new town without malice; isolation sadness; loss of partner who assists in self-definition; loss of partner who assists in spiritual progress; doubt; grasping after hope that there is a better job, better partner, better wife, better me.
As I get up over the Sierra Nevada’s great divide, and roll down the other side, I continuously recall the words of my perfect teacher, H.E. Garchen Rinpoche:
‘It is incorrect to fixate on any thought’
… and I am off again set free down the mountainside through the brilliant white light in the fresh snow. I imagine all of this light is setting me free as I recognize the wisdom within; I am free from pain momentarily considering the benefits of mindfulness. Remaining mindful of my thoughts requires so much effort in the face of all this change and transformation, but hey, I’m a photonic patriot Ma’am and its all in the line of duty – and it occurs to me that these past few weeks I face the adversity of discursive thoughts and afflictive emotions in the most beautiful places in the world, and the Guide and Manifesto emerge from my surrender.
I am pausing now on the shore of Lake Tahoe witnessing a sunset that makes me think of Gerhard Richter. The sky is painted with many layers and depths, ghost shapes and phantom colors, none of them still long enough to be real. These are last moments of today’s light in the high haze and soft edges of clouds hovering between me and the deepest blue before darkness falls. There is so much depth to the stratospheric clouds and I see many planes of space separated by miles of clear cold air, which helps me to remember the stillness of this Lake and the same stillness that is in me is in the sky, the water and the sand I walk upon.
Please Tara, please help me to remember this stillness, please help me not to forget this stillness. I am constantly bringing my mind back to this thought, back from where? My mind wanders within the stillness, it wanders forward to the next thought of stillness, each moment so still that even though the eyes see stillness the mind observes the thought of suffering as it arises and I see that it comes from the same place as the stillness I see.
Of course these are thoughts, all thought is suffering, and as H.E. Garchen Rinpoche taught, the truth is beyond conceptual thought, and as this thought arises it leads to thoughts of the difficulties one encounters with the thought that transforms the mind.
Wow. The word wow always makes me think of Allen Ginsburg.
Allen Ginsburg saw the best minds of his generation in his mind as he wrote those words of ‘Howl’, and I see the best minds of my generation as the great Drikung Kagyu lineage within my mind. My teachers whisper to me as the sun bleeds a truly sovereign crimson above Lake Tahoe and in the colors, all of the paintings I have witnessed on this journey emerge in my mind. Especially the big brown nude by Picasso - Dryad – and this thought leads to the Dryad visually portraying the brown nude nub of our essence, the embodiment of true Buddha nature.
It was just a few days ago in Toronto, when I stood in front of this large painting that spent much of its life in Russia, in the Hermitage museum. I was so fortunate to see Picasso’s Dryad. What could be a more perfect symbol for the essence of our Buddha nature, but the deity who takes care of the forests and the trees? I am overwhelmed that my mind can make this connection between my love of the forests, my love of art and my love for you without my knowing it... this is how I experience multidimensional living.
So I promote for your consideration, the symbol of the Dryad as the representation of our Buddha nature. The large brown nude is what I called it at the time, and it dominated the exhibition of my mind, eclipsing all the other familiar examples of expressionism that were part of the exhibit. This painting captures the essence of human spirit, it conveys the strength of the forests with which we are so inextricably interconnected. Seeing this painting launched a thousand thoughts of the nub of who we are, this great geometry as woman rising came to personify the struggle to purify all obscurations and get down to this essence. The idea of the NUB has preoccupied me for some time, for if we dedicate this lifetime to self-improvement and make great effort at purification, there must be some point, some focal point to our efforts – a center to all of the wearing away - which the Buddhas see as our true Buddha nature.
So I present the idea here that this Buddha nature is the nub, the essence of who we are. The human nub is quintessentially the good person, and with the passage of time and suffering and the trials and tribulations our nub gets worn down, it erodes like the badlands, small shifts of particles pulled to earth by relentless gravity, the nub is worn down and our good qualities are betrayed by large and small acts of survival.
So for some reason, here and now moving between the sacred lake and the profane city and the shouts from the wheel of fortune slot machines, I have been able to see Picasso’s Dryad as the nub of each human expression and all those many years ago, was it not the true Buddha nature Pablo Ruiz was able to portray? Was it not his Buddha nature painting itself? And if this is so, isn’t this why it continues to capture our attention in the twenty-first century?
Our glimpse of truth is fleeting and simple, it is a moment in the sky, a crook of the arm, a restlessness for what we perceive to be ‘real’. The truth is we are vapor, we are the dreams of a small planet.
I am on the roads of America during this time of the shifting of magnetic polarity on the earth and the sun, as we witness the fabulous dance of the luminaries in progressions of constellations, planetary alignments, eclipses and the passage of luminous comets. We dreams are discovering the truth of who we are to become. This is the knowing of the 21st century luminaries. Many of us who are seekers wonder, how is this knowing to be accomplished? What is transforming our reality?
As I drive down towards Lake Tahoe I think of a story I read in the UK Guardian online, which describes the findings of a Belgian scientist measuring a ‘disturbingly rapid’ decrease in the earth’s magnetic polarity. My thoughts, and the thoughts of millions of beings have been preoccupied with the changes taking place here on earth and in the solar system. But how can any of us truly understand what is really happening if the truth is beyond conceptual thought?
So I have educated and entertained myself with the myriad of websites that provide all the ideas humans can create with their minds, and with the assistance of beings they channel. My homepage on the computer I am typing these words into is Spaceweather.com. On another site I have read the thoughts of ‘scientists’ calling themselves the Millennium Group who believe the moons of mars Phobos and Deimos disappeared and a landing of hostile entities is imminent. Others believe one of these moons is an intergalactic death star hijacked by the Annunaki on their way to enslave us. There is a couple who believe they are channeling themselves from the future, gaining insights into other dimensions where the truth is a horror of reptilians feeding on our energy. My favorite is cyberspaceorbit.com, I go there every day. Many beautiful minds are being frozen with fear. So much of this wonder leads to thoughts of fear, especially when the mainstream media is full of murder, mayhem, war, disease and destruction of the human spirit.
The best antidote I have found is meditation and freedom from thought. Here on the highway through the Sierra Nevada Pass, amidst all of this beauty, my mind is constantly struggling with the problem of suffering, all of the suffering created by the seeking of beautiful minds.
I am startled from these thoughts as I notice there is a Buck stumbling on the highway in the opposite lane, and I slow down to pull over. He’s faltering and falling onto his chest and struggling to get up on his feet, but his legs buckle under his weight. Automatically I am reciting ‘Om mane Padme Hung’ and wondering what has happened to this poor animal as it stumbles and falls on the road beside my car. Its left antler is lying there, I see it and feel this pain in my head and pray fervently now, I only want relief for this being’s suffering and I wonder if it will have to be put down.
I think I need someone with a gun to help me, which is a rare desire, and I begin to cry and think this is a crazy thought but perhaps it is true, and Tara please help this being and cease its suffering. The Buck cannot get on its feet, its in a daze and falls into the snow in the ditch, its little tongue hanging out of a panting mouth. This causes a surge of compassion within me as I get out of the car and really pray with my heart for the first time in my life, I’m sobbing and just as this emotional release begins a couple I hadn’t noticed walks up to me.
"We just grazed it… nothing could be broken…"
As they say this I point down to the antler at my feet and then pick it up. I look over to the deer, certain it is dying and what will we do to help it and it is up in the woods now, the Dryad has come to its rescue, perhaps hearing prayers, and the Buck is obviously just dazed and it will be OK. Now we’re agreeing the antler will grow back and in the moment of seeing him walk away and my surprise that there is this possibility he’ll be alright when I was certain he would die – in this moment of suspended animation as he moved into the forest I felt the power of prayer – the aspect of the deity within us we create with wisdom and method. Om Tare!
As I get back into my car and allow myself to glide down the side of the mountain, I realize the nymph has spoken to me and I hold the antler that was moments ago attached to this beautiful being and is now in my hand…The thought emerges we all are this deer stumbling and confused as the dance of the luminaries expands and billows in solar winds and we suffer through adversity and obstacles attempting to become better people, help each other and open our hearts to love.
I drive to Granite Basin waterfall and write all of the above words to you in my roadbook. I will place this antler on my altar and remember always the power of prayer. I will pray for the alleviation of suffering of all beings in these difficult times. The Truth is coming up from this granite wall on which I cling, the truth is beyond conceptual thought, it could have been my Guru there stumbling in the road, it could have been my mind… The truth is beyond conceptual thought which is why we cannot really discuss other dimensions with words and further explains why we have always had trouble believing in many magical aspects of our experience which our bodies inherently know are true, yet our mind’s have no empirical evidence.
But I have this antler, and it is a miracle.
Because we doubt the truth of our experience and the truth of our intuition, we fail so often in the event of cacoethes, and our alienation leaves us wandering aimlessly through a life of lies created by the dominant paradigm – fear. The truth is - everything is about to change, the only constant is change, one of the four noble truths is impermanence, and the best any of us can do is to not hang on, even though just the thought of letting go here on the edge of the cliff looking down into the waterfall here in this moment of Granite Basin creates the queasy vertigo as I gaze over these notes down into the gorge with the steady roar of the water crashing down the side of the mountain as it pours out into the lake.
In this moment I remember that the lake means stillness, I have established this thought and stabilized it, and as we fall with everything crashing and dissolving we enter the stillness in the same moment – the stillness is always there once we choose it – this is the means by which we will subvert the dominant paradigm – by choosing to be still in the chaos and rejecting the small rooms of fear for the vast space of love.
I say all of this within my desire to assist you. And I ask you to contemplate this: What if you had to spend the past seven years feeding your head with the Dharma to temper the outlandish ideas you create to explain your experience of the Universe? What if you create these ideas to explain all of the changes you’re living through knowing they cannot possibly touch the truth? What if you realize only intermittently that doubt is your teacher? Have you noticed that most everyone you come into contact with challenges you in unexpectedly strange ways because this is the terrain you chose, and you have no choice but to persevere? Have you noticed that most everyone has no idea whatsoever about the world you live in, or how fabulous is your adventure?
You are witness to new reports in from the outposts of the solar system, watching the sun continue to explode with coronal mass ejections in 2002 and now 2003 when it "should" have ceased in 2001 at the very latest. You learn new discoveries in astronomy, that Jupiter and Saturn have new ‘moons’ and there is an interplanetary newcomer larger than Pluto. You watch as the base frequency of the planet, the Schumann resonance gradually increases from seven to thirteen hertz. You find this strangely mysterious and feel that the truth of what is unfolding is not being told, that many should know but few have the voice, the faculties or the courage to speak.
On September 10, 2001 you have a dream that you are high in a tree house that is about to fall, you cannot see how far it will fall but still you are comforting everyone there, reassuring them that they will be alright. You witness a great sphere in the western sky as large as the setting sun right there beside it, just above the horizon with a Tibetan Lama resting his chin on your shoulder saying "very good". You are periodically taught by the great Drikung Kagyu masters, HH the Dalai Lama and countless humans. You know with great certainty now that the planet is in a state of incredible transformation, geomagnetic conditions being a direct result of what you have come to fondly call: the dance of the luminaries.
If you are to continue in this guide and become a revolutionary, you must have some idea that this is the end of days, even though most of you wouldn’t normally give this thought the time of day. You have a deep understanding now that this realization comes with solitude and some difficult bouts with alienation. Progress comes from transforming the thoughts of suffering into wisdom, we stand still in comfort and complacency. Here at this critical moment where I ask for a further commitment to continue this journey with me, here at Granite Basin above Lake Tahoe I ask you my sisters and brothers to linger a while longer while I find a wedding ring for your finger in the coming pages – shall we wed the stillness together? How many of these small mobile intelligent units, all of us submitting to the stillness, how many will it take to slow all of this down, so some of us survive?
Evolution of the species is all about survival right? Survival of the species, survival of light, and since I stood upon Darwin’s grave a month ago today, I have been preoccupied with how this moment then in Westminster Abbey fits hermeneutically with the past six years of Dharma practice and the next six months of planetary transformation as Mars becomes eighty-five percent brighter and war becomes one hundred percent possible. I wonder about my own evolution as something has called me to a small city in Arizona next to a great meteor crater and a mountain that has my name on it, and the magnificent truth is I live on the hill where a century ago Percival Lowell saw evidence of civilizations on the red planet and caused quite a stir from here to Paris with his tales of canals and now I live just down from the telescope he used as Mars comes closer to our planet, the closest it will be in seventy-thousand years – So fabulous is this adventure
I wonder if you can continue to relate to these fabulations.
OK the truth is the bartender has just come over and said to me "I hope they are paying you per word because I’ve never seen anyone write so fast", and behind me the lounge singer is creating a kind of hush all over the world where everyone is falling in love and those words were written almost thirty years ago but they fit here don’t they? Today I saw a deer, just after it had been hit by a car, and it opened my mind to a completely unexpected world, as I watch it stumble in the open road in a pathetic vortex of complete disorientation, I see us all just before the last horrible war.
We are coming closer to Mars, closer than we have ever been. Isn’t this cause for some collective awe, shouldn’t we not pay obeisance as a universal species and recognize our opportunity to evolve – isn’t this the cue left behind by my standing upon Darwin’s bones?
I choose to see it as such… this is what I learned from Westminster Abbey and why I spent my time in the crypt of St. Paul’s and the hip crypts of London. I found the portents of the near future – William Blake, Charles Darwin and an Austrian drug rep in the Natural History Museum all coming together at the end of 2002 to create a commentary for preparing 2003. London, Graz, Toronto, Tahoe all in a five weeks and I am your faithful reporter… and the final song from the lounge tonight, I swear it’s the truth, is ‘Fly Me To The Moon’, in other words we will know the spring of Jupiter and Mars sooner, much sooner than we think, and in other words please be true, in other words… baby... I love you.