Big Mind Blog-alogue / The Skeptic and Great Doubt
This entry was posted on Sunday, October 30th, 2005 at 11:02 am by Stuart Davis
Song Of The Day: London Calling / The Clash
Word Of The Day: Geloscopy / Divination involving laughter
(This blog is part of an on-going series whereby Stuart conducts Big Mind Process on himself, in dialogue with various perspectives in himself. For more information, visit Big Mind.org)
In yesterday’s Big Mind Blog I (the facilitator) spoke to Stuart’s Controller voice. Today, I will transition to another voice…
Facilitator: So, I have your permission to speak to some other voices?
Controller: Yes.
F: OK, I’d like to now speak to The Skeptic. As I now move into dialogue with the Skeptic, I want to invite you to change your body posture in whatever way you feel is appropriate. Basically, each time I speak to a new voice, you should allow yourself to change your posture and body language to reflect the particular body that goes with that voice. This does not have to be extreme or exaggerated, but simply allow yourself to make subtle shifts in your physical presence to express the body of that voice. So, now, may I please speak to The Skeptic?
(Change occurs in Stuart’s body posture, he leans back in the chair, crosses his arms, and tilts his head slightly to the left. Very slightly purses his lips and flares his nostrils).
Facilitator: Who am I speaking to?
Skeptic: The Skeptic.
F: Tell me about yourself, what’s it like being the skeptic, what’s your job?
S: I keep us from getting taken advantage of, I prevent Stuart from being suckered by hoaxes, charlatans, and his own deluded knot of mind, body, spirit. He’s quite naive and prone to prematurely believe or trust. I am the one who sees through appearances, I am the one who demands proof, who is capable of seeing the ways in which reality can trick us, Stuart’s own feelings, perceptions, and experiences can fool him, and I am cognizant of people’s ulterior motives.
F: So, you’re a bull-shit detector.
S: That’s exactly what I am. I am Skeptical. I am cautious and measured, I demand rigor and I am a Sentry, because Stuart would tend to let anyone and everyone through the door.
F: What are you skeptical of, exactly?
S: You, for starters.
F: Why? Please say more.
S: This whole Big Mind thing is bullshit. So, you want me to believe you’re going to dialogue with voices in Stuart, some of them “awakened”? Hey, Stuart, Neale Donald Walsh called, he wants his delusion of kosmic grandeur back. Listen, I’m here to tell you right now that 99.99 percent of all new age spiritual, religious blah blah blah is a total fucking mirage. That commie Mao was right about one thing, religion is an opiate and the masses crave sedation. Lucky for them every church, mosque, temple is an opium den with doors wide open for anyone who want to shut down, check out, and deny the simple facts before them by getting drunk on MYTH. Myth, my friend, not alcohol, not marijuana, not meth- Myth has always been the most popular drug (hallucinogenic) in the history of humankind. Humankind loves nothing more than to hypnotize itself into a stupor by watching the distorted refracted bits of its own mind projected out onto a Universe that is actually wholly unconcerned with man’s silly stories. Big Mind? What the fuck is Big Mind? I love how you do this Big Mind process, and in a matter of hours or days, you supposedly provide people access to their own always-already awakening. Awakened what? Their imagination? Their capacity to, under the influence of the facilitator’s leading questions, to create a persona which will be pleasing to someone they admire and respect? It’s the oldest fucking trick in the book.
F: So, you’re skeptical of Big Mind process. What else are you skeptical of?
S: The president of the United States. All Christians. Used car salesmen. I’m skeptical that there really is something called “Love”, but then I’m skeptical of Scientist and Atheists who think there’s nothing but chaos and inert matter out there -who the fuck are they kidding? I’m skeptical of skeptics and debunkers, these blow hards who dismantle and deconstruct everything -saying there’s no such thing as God, or love is only the by-product of a neural-chemical process, I’m skeptical of skeptics because I am one, and I can see through their bullshit, they’re just broken and desperate like everyone else, trying to protect themselves by negation, like they can avoid human pain and suffering if they chase every ghost out of the house with pure rationality, but I’m skeptical of pure rationality. Pure? You think there’s ONE pure fucking thing in the entire Kosmos? In a human being? There isn’t. Pure is bullshit. Rationality? It’s just another religion for people who can’t bear the intensity and confusion of the human condition. What the hell do they think generated rationality? What produced self-reflexive awareness? Inert matter? I’m supposed to buy THAT? Evolution? Are you fucking KIDDING ME? Do you know how many God-damned holes there are in neo-Darwinistic understanding of the actual mechanisms that produce beneficial changes in species, much less new species altogether? They have no fucking clue.
F: So wait, does that mean you do think religion has some merit?
S: Religion is bullshit.
F: And Science.
S: Bullshit.
F: What do you believe in?
S: I don’t “believe” in anything. Show me, prove it, repeat it. I am an actual scientist. The ones who claim to be scientists and then subscribe to their own manufactured, circuitous mythology are just as ridiculous as the ones they are trying to transcend.
F: What’s it like being the Skeptic?
S: I like it a lot. I’m not a sucker. But people also misunderstand me. They think I’m the Cynic, and I’m not. At the bottom of it all, I’m just neutral. But I’m truly, deeply neutral, and unlike the rest of Stuart, and the rest of Humanity, and I’m not going along with the fascination with phantoms and fantasy. I want to know reality as-it-is, not the beguiling blend of its apparitions and aberrations.
F: I see the skeptic likes alliteration.
S: Fuck off.
F: So, you’re not cynical.
S: No, in fact, if you look deeply into me, or rest in me, you will see I am actually closest to what Zen calls Great Doubt.
F: What is Great Doubt? Can I speak to the voice of Great Doubt?
S: Yes.
F: Who am I speaking to?
(Slight relaxation of body)
Great Doubt: Great Doubt.
F: Tell me about yourself, Great Doubt.
GD: There’s not much to tell.
F: But what are you, what is your experience?
GD: Well, I doubt there’s really anything to experience, I doubt this is even happening. I think there is one imaginary voice talking to another imaginary voice, and they are creating a mutually imagined set of circumstances that has no actual basis in something called Reality. I doubt there is anything that could remotely, intrinsically be what humans consider “real”. I use these words, but I doubt there’s anything behind them. I am down, inside. I see above, below, outside, beyond, and it is all transparent to me. I can tell you that all the things people- Stuart and everyone else- put their faith in is a great illusion.
F: You mean, God, or Science, or what the Skeptic was talking about?
GD: The Skeptic is my little one. I’m talking about meaning. There is no meaning. People love meaning, but I really doubt there is anything such as meaning. And I am in a much better position to consider such things.
F: What else do you doubt?
GD: I doubt all the teachings. Deep, deep down, all those teachings about meaning and purpose are empty. I doubt all the Wisdom. Wisdom just arises as part and parcel of conditions. It is conditional, and dependent upon someone to be “wise”. But there is no one. If you pull the thread, like I have, you will see that there really, truly is NO-ONE back here.
F: What about you? Who am I talking to?
GD: You asked to talk to Great Doubt, and you are speaking with Great Doubt, but I doubt that Great Doubt has any actual, independent reality, anymore than you do. Just because you talk with some voices doesn’t make them, or me, any more real. There is no God, and I don’t mean that in a nihilistic way. I doubt nihilism. There are no awakened Masters, there are no “true” teachings, deep deep down. And eventually, you will all come to me. I am in the center of the black hole that is at the center of everything, after its convincing illusion dissolves, and you finally get that it is VAPOR. Fucking vapor.
F: Well, to take us back to something a bit more concrete, what about Stuart. He is a Zen practitioner, and a Buddhist, do you doubt Stuart’s practice, how do you fit in?
GD: I seriously doubt there is anything such as “awakening”, or Buddha-mind. I doubt any of this silliness will matter. I doubt there is any meaning or insight to be realized, and I doubt there is anyone to realize it, if there were someone I doubt they could realize it. I doubt that people, planets, life in the Universe actually, fundamentally exists, and if it does I doubt it has any consequence, it will pass into vapor, then vapor will dissolve into nothing, an absolute void.
In Zen, we say Kill The Buddha, or kill any God that can be killed. Do not be fooled by anything, and in this sense I am holy, because I doubt that which is sacred and also sacrilege, I doubt the beginning, the end, and the middle. I am a furnace, and if it burns, it isn’t real. I come to those who really want to KNOW, and they begin by knowing that knowledge is not the Way. Ignorance is not the Way, unknowing is not the Way. Until you doubt the Mountain there is no way up it. And my friend, there is no Mountain, nothing to ascend and no one to ascend it. You can’t fake it. Those afraid of Great Doubt hide in the Skeptic. The Skeptic sits on a perch. I am in a hole at the bottom of a chasm. There’s no way in, no way out. Void. No hope, no wishes, no gain, no sense of loss, no eyes, no ears, no heart, no legs, no hate, no love, no future, no past, no present. Void.
F: What’s the void?
GD: Empty, but not a vacuum. It’s pointless to offer words, but if I had to give you words, they would be the Pregnant Unimaginable Before and Beyond form, at the Point Of All Places. Then I would erase those words from your mind and heart.
F: Is that where you are?
GD: I doubt it.
F: You doubt the Void?
GD: I DOUBT, period. I doubt I’m here, I doubt you’re there. I doubt Stuart is awake because there’s nothing to awaken. I doubt you’ll get anything out of Big Mind because there is no wisdom, no mind, no big, no teaching.
F: Great Doubt, thank you for speaking with us. I would like to talk to another voice now, I would like to speak to the voice of….
Big Mind Blog-alogue / The Skeptic and Great Doubt
This entry was posted on Sunday, October 30th, 2005 at 11:02 am by Stuart Davis
Song Of The Day: London Calling / The Clash
Word Of The Day: Geloscopy / Divination involving laughter
(This blog is part of an on-going series whereby Stuart conducts Big Mind Process on himself, in dialogue with various perspectives in himself. For more information, visit Big Mind.org)
In yesterday’s Big Mind Blog I (the facilitator) spoke to Stuart’s Controller voice. Today, I will transition to another voice…
Facilitator: So, I have your permission to speak to some other voices?
Controller: Yes.
F: OK, I’d like to now speak to The Skeptic. As I now move into dialogue with the Skeptic, I want to invite you to change your body posture in whatever way you feel is appropriate. Basically, each time I speak to a new voice, you should allow yourself to change your posture and body language to reflect the particular body that goes with that voice. This does not have to be extreme or exaggerated, but simply allow yourself to make subtle shifts in your physical presence to express the body of that voice. So, now, may I please speak to The Skeptic?
(Change occurs in Stuart’s body posture, he leans back in the chair, crosses his arms, and tilts his head slightly to the left. Very slightly purses his lips and flares his nostrils).
Facilitator: Who am I speaking to?
Skeptic: The Skeptic.
F: Tell me about yourself, what’s it like being the skeptic, what’s your job?
S: I keep us from getting taken advantage of, I prevent Stuart from being suckered by hoaxes, charlatans, and his own deluded knot of mind, body, spirit. He’s quite naive and prone to prematurely believe or trust. I am the one who sees through appearances, I am the one who demands proof, who is capable of seeing the ways in which reality can trick us, Stuart’s own feelings, perceptions, and experiences can fool him, and I am cognizant of people’s ulterior motives.
F: So, you’re a bull-shit detector.
S: That’s exactly what I am. I am Skeptical. I am cautious and measured, I demand rigor and I am a Sentry, because Stuart would tend to let anyone and everyone through the door.
F: What are you skeptical of, exactly?
S: You, for starters.
F: Why? Please say more.
S: This whole Big Mind thing is bullshit. So, you want me to believe you’re going to dialogue with voices in Stuart, some of them “awakened”? Hey, Stuart, Neale Donald Walsh called, he wants his delusion of kosmic grandeur back. Listen, I’m here to tell you right now that 99.99 percent of all new age spiritual, religious blah blah blah is a total fucking mirage. That commie Mao was right about one thing, religion is an opiate and the masses crave sedation. Lucky for them every church, mosque, temple is an opium den with doors wide open for anyone who want to shut down, check out, and deny the simple facts before them by getting drunk on MYTH. Myth, my friend, not alcohol, not marijuana, not meth- Myth has always been the most popular drug (hallucinogenic) in the history of humankind. Humankind loves nothing more than to hypnotize itself into a stupor by watching the distorted refracted bits of its own mind projected out onto a Universe that is actually wholly unconcerned with man’s silly stories. Big Mind? What the fuck is Big Mind? I love how you do this Big Mind process, and in a matter of hours or days, you supposedly provide people access to their own always-already awakening. Awakened what? Their imagination? Their capacity to, under the influence of the facilitator’s leading questions, to create a persona which will be pleasing to someone they admire and respect? It’s the oldest fucking trick in the book.
F: So, you’re skeptical of Big Mind process. What else are you skeptical of?
S: The president of the United States. All Christians. Used car salesmen. I’m skeptical that there really is something called “Love”, but then I’m skeptical of Scientist and Atheists who think there’s nothing but chaos and inert matter out there -who the fuck are they kidding? I’m skeptical of skeptics and debunkers, these blow hards who dismantle and deconstruct everything -saying there’s no such thing as God, or love is only the by-product of a neural-chemical process, I’m skeptical of skeptics because I am one, and I can see through their bullshit, they’re just broken and desperate like everyone else, trying to protect themselves by negation, like they can avoid human pain and suffering if they chase every ghost out of the house with pure rationality, but I’m skeptical of pure rationality. Pure? You think there’s ONE pure fucking thing in the entire Kosmos? In a human being? There isn’t. Pure is bullshit. Rationality? It’s just another religion for people who can’t bear the intensity and confusion of the human condition. What the hell do they think generated rationality? What produced self-reflexive awareness? Inert matter? I’m supposed to buy THAT? Evolution? Are you fucking KIDDING ME? Do you know how many God-damned holes there are in neo-Darwinistic understanding of the actual mechanisms that produce beneficial changes in species, much less new species altogether? They have no fucking clue.
F: So wait, does that mean you do think religion has some merit?
S: Religion is bullshit.
F: And Science.
S: Bullshit.
F: What do you believe in?
S: I don’t “believe” in anything. Show me, prove it, repeat it. I am an actual scientist. The ones who claim to be scientists and then subscribe to their own manufactured, circuitous mythology are just as ridiculous as the ones they are trying to transcend.
F: What’s it like being the Skeptic?
S: I like it a lot. I’m not a sucker. But people also misunderstand me. They think I’m the Cynic, and I’m not. At the bottom of it all, I’m just neutral. But I’m truly, deeply neutral, and unlike the rest of Stuart, and the rest of Humanity, and I’m not going along with the fascination with phantoms and fantasy. I want to know reality as-it-is, not the beguiling blend of its apparitions and aberrations.
F: I see the skeptic likes alliteration.
S: Fuck off.
F: So, you’re not cynical.
S: No, in fact, if you look deeply into me, or rest in me, you will see I am actually closest to what Zen calls Great Doubt.
F: What is Great Doubt? Can I speak to the voice of Great Doubt?
S: Yes.
F: Who am I speaking to?
(Slight relaxation of body)
Great Doubt: Great Doubt.
F: Tell me about yourself, Great Doubt.
GD: There’s not much to tell.
F: But what are you, what is your experience?
GD: Well, I doubt there’s really anything to experience, I doubt this is even happening. I think there is one imaginary voice talking to another imaginary voice, and they are creating a mutually imagined set of circumstances that has no actual basis in something called Reality. I doubt there is anything that could remotely, intrinsically be what humans consider “real”. I use these words, but I doubt there’s anything behind them. I am down, inside. I see above, below, outside, beyond, and it is all transparent to me. I can tell you that all the things people- Stuart and everyone else- put their faith in is a great illusion.
F: You mean, God, or Science, or what the Skeptic was talking about?
GD: The Skeptic is my little one. I’m talking about meaning. There is no meaning. People love meaning, but I really doubt there is anything such as meaning. And I am in a much better position to consider such things.
F: What else do you doubt?
GD: I doubt all the teachings. Deep, deep down, all those teachings about meaning and purpose are empty. I doubt all the Wisdom. Wisdom just arises as part and parcel of conditions. It is conditional, and dependent upon someone to be “wise”. But there is no one. If you pull the thread, like I have, you will see that there really, truly is NO-ONE back here.
F: What about you? Who am I talking to?
GD: You asked to talk to Great Doubt, and you are speaking with Great Doubt, but I doubt that Great Doubt has any actual, independent reality, anymore than you do. Just because you talk with some voices doesn’t make them, or me, any more real. There is no God, and I don’t mean that in a nihilistic way. I doubt nihilism. There are no awakened Masters, there are no “true” teachings, deep deep down. And eventually, you will all come to me. I am in the center of the black hole that is at the center of everything, after its convincing illusion dissolves, and you finally get that it is VAPOR. Fucking vapor.
F: Well, to take us back to something a bit more concrete, what about Stuart. He is a Zen practitioner, and a Buddhist, do you doubt Stuart’s practice, how do you fit in?
GD: I seriously doubt there is anything such as “awakening”, or Buddha-mind. I doubt any of this silliness will matter. I doubt there is any meaning or insight to be realized, and I doubt there is anyone to realize it, if there were someone I doubt they could realize it. I doubt that people, planets, life in the Universe actually, fundamentally exists, and if it does I doubt it has any consequence, it will pass into vapor, then vapor will dissolve into nothing, an absolute void.
In Zen, we say Kill The Buddha, or kill any God that can be killed. Do not be fooled by anything, and in this sense I am holy, because I doubt that which is sacred and also sacrilege, I doubt the beginning, the end, and the middle. I am a furnace, and if it burns, it isn’t real. I come to those who really want to KNOW, and they begin by knowing that knowledge is not the Way. Ignorance is not the Way, unknowing is not the Way. Until you doubt the Mountain there is no way up it. And my friend, there is no Mountain, nothing to ascend and no one to ascend it. You can’t fake it. Those afraid of Great Doubt hide in the Skeptic. The Skeptic sits on a perch. I am in a hole at the bottom of a chasm. There’s no way in, no way out. Void. No hope, no wishes, no gain, no sense of loss, no eyes, no ears, no heart, no legs, no hate, no love, no future, no past, no present. Void.
F: What’s the void?
GD: Empty, but not a vacuum. It’s pointless to offer words, but if I had to give you words, they would be the Pregnant Unimaginable Before and Beyond form, at the Point Of All Places. Then I would erase those words from your mind and heart.
F: Is that where you are?
GD: I doubt it.
F: You doubt the Void?
GD: I DOUBT, period. I doubt I’m here, I doubt you’re there. I doubt Stuart is awake because there’s nothing to awaken. I doubt you’ll get anything out of Big Mind because there is no wisdom, no mind, no big, no teaching.
F: Great Doubt, thank you for speaking with us. I would like to talk to another voice now, I would like to speak to the voice of….
Big Mind Blog-alogue / The Controller
This entry was posted on Friday, October 28th, 2005 at 1:46 pm by Stuart Davis
Song Of The Day: No Control / Eddie Money
Word Of The Day: Vagitus / New-born child’s cry
Life is weird. One day you wake up and all you wanna hear is Eddie Money. Your rational mind is like “I don’t even like Eddie Money” and your ears are like “I don’t fucking care. BUY IT. NOW.” Pretty soon you’re drinking coffee and blasting No Control throughout the studio. It’s hot. Even I can’t predict what I’m gonna like, and even when I know it it’s wrong.
Hey girlz, what’s up nad skwit?
I’ve made a decision. I’m going to begin a series, which may last a few days or a few weeks, whereby I will do my morning big mind dialogue in my blog. This, lucky reader, will not only make you privy to the myriad forms of bullshit generated in my cranium, but it will also give you a sense of what my dozens of aspects, perspectives, or “voices” are like, and most importantly it will give you a crude sense of what Big Mind practice looks / sounds like on a daily basis.
First, I am not a Big Mind teacher. I’m not being sarcastic here, it’s important to note I’m just a student of Genpo Roshi, and Big Mind is his invention. My reason for putting some of my big mind work in blog form is not to facilitate YOU the reader, but rather to provide a sense of just what it is and why a Zen teacher would be
using it as a practice / teaching tool. Big Mind is meant to augment and compliment traditional Zen meditation practice, and Koan practice, etc. It is not a substitute for meditation practice. It is an accelerator or magnifier, or whatever analogy you want to use, but not a replacement for the practice of cultivating bare awareness.
I first encountered Genpo Roshi a few years ago at Ken Wilber’s house. I’d been sitting Zen since about 1995, and Ken asked Roshi (in Zen, we refer to a teacher as Roshi or Sensei. Roshi is a more senior teacher. So, if you’re not a student of the teacher you might be more likely to call him Genpo, or Genpo Roshi, if you are a student you’re more likely to just use Roshi) to come and do Big Mind with a gathering of artists that included Saul Williams, Ottmar Leibert, Alex Gibson, myself, and many others (my wife was there as well). Ottmar Leibert has since gone on to become a student of Roshi, as have I, and Big Mind has also been an important presence in many other’s lives (Ed Kowalczyck, lead singer of Live) in the art world. It’s also been a powerful contemporary force in Zen in America. Those of us outside of the Japanese tradition of Soto or Rinzai Zen may have a hard time appreciating how controversial a decision it’s been for Roshi to develop and implement this process into Zen practice here in the United States.
Why?
Simply put, from my view, Zen’s approach to the Ego, or the many voices that constitute the relative (small) self has been to kill it, crush it, see through it, dissolve it, release it- that sort of thing, but not to engage it. Roshi has essentially flipped things 180 degrees, and instead of spending decades trying to burn down the house of “me”, he’s made a surprising discovery: If you go to the front door and knock, the ego will answer. If you ASK to be let in, it will let you in. If you ASK it for access to the all the various rooms in the mansion, and INCLUDE it, it will cooperate. 2500 years of trying to kill the ego hasn’t worked yet. The ego is stronger than ever, and I would venture a guest that as its bio-materal apparatus has evolved and increasingly interfaced with ever more subtle forms of entertainment, communication, and various stimulus, it is the most inventive, slippery phantasms in the Kosmos. And that’s cool.
To paraphrase Jesus in Gospel Of Thomas (#70) that which you withhold will kill you, that which you bring forth will save you. And so it is with the various aspects of ourselves, the dozens or hundreds of perspectives that make up a “me”. If we include them, engage them, work with them, we can have great success and facility in healing and cohering the constellation. If we repress them, or dissociate from them, they get real pissed and they still have to do their job, but a denied voice is a desperate voice. It will resort to whatever means necessary to do what it was created to do, it has one purpose only: To fully, completely be THAT voice, THAT perspective. That’s all it can do, that’s all it was ever meant to do. Use it, it will serve you. Deny it, it will fuck you up.
Of course, the great beauty of this practice is the same as any in an Integral Transformative approach: It actually helps. If you do big mind as an complimentary module to your daily sitting meditation, AND you’re doing a physical practice (swimming, yoga, golf, karate, whatever), AND some social praxis (family, Amnesty International, etc), plus you’re stimulating cognitive lines, creative lines, watching diet, and so on- the potency in that assembly, that whole, is greater than the sum of its parts. Why would we do this?
Because our true role, our true role, like or fucking NOT (and there’s plenty of NOT), is to awaken for the sake of all beings. Are we already awake? Yes. Are all beings always, already awake? Yes. So, it is done. And yet, we have to wake up. And once we wake up, we have to wake up again, cuz oops, that first little awakening was just a state, and we need to stabilize the Essentital Self’s center in the point of all places, the stateless State. And once that’s done, the Game actually begins, and we can actually get some Play done.
The Play is both the mysterious, bizarre joy of engaging what IS and striving for the awakening of all beings (oh, it’s dire, but it’s not serious) and also the drama of these phantoms fucking, fighting, fallling in love, failing, falling asleep, freaking out, finding God, faking God, fleeing God. Play. Divine Dramedy. A Game, with rules, with an infinitely morphing set of conditions, circumstances, and rules, and yet there are also relatively fixed features which are stable enough for Bodhisattva’s like Ken Wilber to say “hey, notice this? there’s Quadrants, Levels, Lines, States, and Types, there’s eight native perspectives” and other Bodhisattva’s like Genpo Roshi to say “hey, has anyone tried talking to the Ego, tried actually including it, engaging it?” and BOOM.
Is this the Fourth Turning of the Wheel? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it’s the FIRST turning of the Sphere.
At any rate, the basic way I orient my practice and life is through an AQAL approach to Zen. Part of that is Big Mind Process. And so, what you’re going to experience in this blog for the next few days or weeks is me blogging in Big Mind Process. I will be acting as my own facilitator, as I do each day in life. Essentially you will just be reading the inner dialogue between my facilitator and my various voices. Let’s rock.
Facilitator: Can I speak to the voice of the controller?
Controller: Yes.
Facilitator: Who am I speaking to?
C: The controller.
F: OK, contoller, can I ask you some questions?
C: Sure.
F: Who are you? Tell me about yourself, what is it that you do, what is your function?
C: I control.
F: Control what?
C: I control Stuart. I control impulses, the t.v. remote, the cleanliness of the house. I am the one who keeps shit in check. I control the car when we’re driving, I keep the various parts of Stuart in their place, and also organize and manage the way we show up in the World, how our emotional, psyhcological resources get spent. I decide what we wear in the morning when Stuart wakes up, I water the plants, clean the floor.
F: What else?
C: I’m the one who keeps us from killing people.
F: What? Can you say more about that?
C: Stuart has a lot of passion, a lot of intense energy, and it works in all directions. If it weren’t for me he would beat the shit out of someone, or kill someone, or really get out of line. I keep that from happening. I also keep him from fucking every hot girl he sees, or stealing shit he wants, or violating the basic codes of social convention. Well, sometimes I do. He’s tough to control in that regard.
F: What else do you control besides Stuart? What else would you like to control?
C: Everything. Everyone. I would like to control Stuart’s daughter. I would love to control Stuart’s wife. I am so fucking sick of all the dust in Colorado. I really hate the dust and dirt, and I wish I could control all the messy dirt and grime that gets all over shit. I vacuum, I dust, I mop, I do the dishes, and then it’s fucking dirty again in a day or two. Controlling dust is a bitch. But that’s all small potatos. I would like control Stuart’s friends, their romantic lives, I would like to control the government, people’s perception of Stuart, people’s interpretation of Stuart. I would love to control people’s experience and interpretation of experience. The evolution of life on Earth, the morphological tendencies of the Kosmos, life on other planets, all the money, all the cultures, all the material in the Universe, time, space, the beginning, middle, and end of each occassion.
F: That sounds very tiring. You basically want to control everything and everyone that exists or will exist. Do you get tired?
C: I control my fatigue.
F: What’s it like being Stuart’s controller?
C: It’s pretty good. I have a lot of power, actually. I see a lot of other controllers and what they deal with, and I think I have it pretty good. Stuart is a control freak, in a good way, he lets me have a lot of influence. Other controller’s get stuffed way down, they get side lined, etc.
F: How do you respond when you see that, when you see other controller’s… out of control?
C: I want to control them, and their stupid, fucking insipid body-mind hosts. Unbelievable. People out of control make me furious and naseaus.
F: What’s your biggest fear?
C: Loss of control?
F: Do you know that song “No Control” by Eddie Money?
C: Hate it.
F: Is there anything you’d like to say to Stuart, or that you would like to communicate right now? What does the controller want to say?
C: If it weren’t for me, shit would fall apart. Stuart is always so lit up about doing this Bodhisattva blah blah blah, this big Kosmic mission, but the truth is that if it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning. If it weren’t for me, he’d cheat on his wife three times a day, he’d go get drunk each night, he wouldn’t pay his bills, he wouldn’t pay his taxes, he would live beyond his means all the time, he would alienate himself from all people and organizations, he wouldn’t floss, he would be convicted of assault, battery, and murder, and he wouldn’t sit on a cushion and meditate, wouldnt’ do or be shit. So fucking wise up, Stuart and everybody else. Without ME, it’s utter fucking chaos. That is absolutely, literally the case: No Human Society Would Exist without the controller. I AM human society, I got us to the moon, and if you want to do anything, you’d better enlist me and rely on me, or shit will fall apart.
F: I agree. You’re incredibly important. Not only that, you are the gate-keeper, right? If I want to speak to any other voices, I’m going to have to go through you. And that’s what I want to talk to you about next. I would like to speak to some other voices, and I am asking your permission to have access to them. You are the controller, and you are going to be the one who grants or denies access to each voice. Would it be alright if I asked to speak to some other voices?
C: Yes.
F: What I would also like to ask is that, during this process, that you simply do your job. That means, of course, that you are in control. If you feel things getting to a place which is fundamentally not right, I want you step in and take control. But if things seem to be going OK, I would like you to allow me to have access to these voices. Does that sound OK?
C: Yes.
F: How do you feel about all this so far?
C: I’m alright with it.
F: Why?
C: Because you asked me. You are recognizing what I actually am, and instead of trying to get in through a window or a back door, like everyone else, you’re just asking me. If you did try to break in or kill me, like everyone else has, I would have to keep you out. I would have to lock you out.
F: What do you mean by ‘like everyone else has’?
C: As long as we’ve been around, all these spiritual types come and want to destroy me and what I control. It’s really fucked up, but it’s made me quite strong and ingenious when it comes to preserving and controlling.
F: But it doesn’t have to be that way. I want to work WITH you.
C: OK. But if you fuck with me, I will kick your ass out, and you will never get back in.
F: Understood. So, would it be alright now, if I asked to speak to another voice?
C: Yes.
F: I would like to speak to the voice of….
Big Mind Blog-alogue / The Controller
This entry was posted on Friday, October 28th, 2005 at 1:46 pm by Stuart Davis
Song Of The Day: No Control / Eddie Money
Word Of The Day: Vagitus / New-born child’s cry
Life is weird. One day you wake up and all you wanna hear is Eddie Money. Your rational mind is like “I don’t even like Eddie Money” and your ears are like “I don’t fucking care. BUY IT. NOW.” Pretty soon you’re drinking coffee and blasting No Control throughout the studio. It’s hot. Even I can’t predict what I’m gonna like, and even when I know it it’s wrong.
Hey girlz, what’s up nad skwit?
I’ve made a decision. I’m going to begin a series, which may last a few days or a few weeks, whereby I will do my morning big mind dialogue in my blog. This, lucky reader, will not only make you privy to the myriad forms of bullshit generated in my cranium, but it will also give you a sense of what my dozens of aspects, perspectives, or “voices” are like, and most importantly it will give you a crude sense of what Big Mind practice looks / sounds like on a daily basis.
First, I am not a Big Mind teacher. I’m not being sarcastic here, it’s important to note I’m just a student of Genpo Roshi, and Big Mind is his invention. My reason for putting some of my big mind work in blog form is not to facilitate YOU the reader, but rather to provide a sense of just what it is and why a Zen teacher would be
using it as a practice / teaching tool. Big Mind is meant to augment and compliment traditional Zen meditation practice, and Koan practice, etc. It is not a substitute for meditation practice. It is an accelerator or magnifier, or whatever analogy you want to use, but not a replacement for the practice of cultivating bare awareness.
I first encountered Genpo Roshi a few years ago at Ken Wilber’s house. I’d been sitting Zen since about 1995, and Ken asked Roshi (in Zen, we refer to a teacher as Roshi or Sensei. Roshi is a more senior teacher. So, if you’re not a student of the teacher you might be more likely to call him Genpo, or Genpo Roshi, if you are a student you’re more likely to just use Roshi) to come and do Big Mind with a gathering of artists that included Saul Williams, Ottmar Leibert, Alex Gibson, myself, and many others (my wife was there as well). Ottmar Leibert has since gone on to become a student of Roshi, as have I, and Big Mind has also been an important presence in many other’s lives (Ed Kowalczyck, lead singer of Live) in the art world. It’s also been a powerful contemporary force in Zen in America. Those of us outside of the Japanese tradition of Soto or Rinzai Zen may have a hard time appreciating how controversial a decision it’s been for Roshi to develop and implement this process into Zen practice here in the United States.
Why?
Simply put, from my view, Zen’s approach to the Ego, or the many voices that constitute the relative (small) self has been to kill it, crush it, see through it, dissolve it, release it- that sort of thing, but not to engage it. Roshi has essentially flipped things 180 degrees, and instead of spending decades trying to burn down the house of “me”, he’s made a surprising discovery: If you go to the front door and knock, the ego will answer. If you ASK to be let in, it will let you in. If you ASK it for access to the all the various rooms in the mansion, and INCLUDE it, it will cooperate. 2500 years of trying to kill the ego hasn’t worked yet. The ego is stronger than ever, and I would venture a guest that as its bio-materal apparatus has evolved and increasingly interfaced with ever more subtle forms of entertainment, communication, and various stimulus, it is the most inventive, slippery phantasms in the Kosmos. And that’s cool.
To paraphrase Jesus in Gospel Of Thomas (#70) that which you withhold will kill you, that which you bring forth will save you. And so it is with the various aspects of ourselves, the dozens or hundreds of perspectives that make up a “me”. If we include them, engage them, work with them, we can have great success and facility in healing and cohering the constellation. If we repress them, or dissociate from them, they get real pissed and they still have to do their job, but a denied voice is a desperate voice. It will resort to whatever means necessary to do what it was created to do, it has one purpose only: To fully, completely be THAT voice, THAT perspective. That’s all it can do, that’s all it was ever meant to do. Use it, it will serve you. Deny it, it will fuck you up.
Of course, the great beauty of this practice is the same as any in an Integral Transformative approach: It actually helps. If you do big mind as an complimentary module to your daily sitting meditation, AND you’re doing a physical practice (swimming, yoga, golf, karate, whatever), AND some social praxis (family, Amnesty International, etc), plus you’re stimulating cognitive lines, creative lines, watching diet, and so on- the potency in that assembly, that whole, is greater than the sum of its parts. Why would we do this?
Because our true role, our true role, like or fucking NOT (and there’s plenty of NOT), is to awaken for the sake of all beings. Are we already awake? Yes. Are all beings always, already awake? Yes. So, it is done. And yet, we have to wake up. And once we wake up, we have to wake up again, cuz oops, that first little awakening was just a state, and we need to stabilize the Essentital Self’s center in the point of all places, the stateless State. And once that’s done, the Game actually begins, and we can actually get some Play done.
The Play is both the mysterious, bizarre joy of engaging what IS and striving for the awakening of all beings (oh, it’s dire, but it’s not serious) and also the drama of these phantoms fucking, fighting, fallling in love, failing, falling asleep, freaking out, finding God, faking God, fleeing God. Play. Divine Dramedy. A Game, with rules, with an infinitely morphing set of conditions, circumstances, and rules, and yet there are also relatively fixed features which are stable enough for Bodhisattva’s like Ken Wilber to say “hey, notice this? there’s Quadrants, Levels, Lines, States, and Types, there’s eight native perspectives” and other Bodhisattva’s like Genpo Roshi to say “hey, has anyone tried talking to the Ego, tried actually including it, engaging it?” and BOOM.
Is this the Fourth Turning of the Wheel? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it’s the FIRST turning of the Sphere.
At any rate, the basic way I orient my practice and life is through an AQAL approach to Zen. Part of that is Big Mind Process. And so, what you’re going to experience in this blog for the next few days or weeks is me blogging in Big Mind Process. I will be acting as my own facilitator, as I do each day in life. Essentially you will just be reading the inner dialogue between my facilitator and my various voices. Let’s rock.
Facilitator: Can I speak to the voice of the controller?
Controller: Yes.
Facilitator: Who am I speaking to?
C: The controller.
F: OK, contoller, can I ask you some questions?
C: Sure.
F: Who are you? Tell me about yourself, what is it that you do, what is your function?
C: I control.
F: Control what?
C: I control Stuart. I control impulses, the t.v. remote, the cleanliness of the house. I am the one who keeps shit in check. I control the car when we’re driving, I keep the various parts of Stuart in their place, and also organize and manage the way we show up in the World, how our emotional, psyhcological resources get spent. I decide what we wear in the morning when Stuart wakes up, I water the plants, clean the floor.
F: What else?
C: I’m the one who keeps us from killing people.
F: What? Can you say more about that?
C: Stuart has a lot of passion, a lot of intense energy, and it works in all directions. If it weren’t for me he would beat the shit out of someone, or kill someone, or really get out of line. I keep that from happening. I also keep him from fucking every hot girl he sees, or stealing shit he wants, or violating the basic codes of social convention. Well, sometimes I do. He’s tough to control in that regard.
F: What else do you control besides Stuart? What else would you like to control?
C: Everything. Everyone. I would like to control Stuart’s daughter. I would love to control Stuart’s wife. I am so fucking sick of all the dust in Colorado. I really hate the dust and dirt, and I wish I could control all the messy dirt and grime that gets all over shit. I vacuum, I dust, I mop, I do the dishes, and then it’s fucking dirty again in a day or two. Controlling dust is a bitch. But that’s all small potatos. I would like control Stuart’s friends, their romantic lives, I would like to control the government, people’s perception of Stuart, people’s interpretation of Stuart. I would love to control people’s experience and interpretation of experience. The evolution of life on Earth, the morphological tendencies of the Kosmos, life on other planets, all the money, all the cultures, all the material in the Universe, time, space, the beginning, middle, and end of each occassion.
F: That sounds very tiring. You basically want to control everything and everyone that exists or will exist. Do you get tired?
C: I control my fatigue.
F: What’s it like being Stuart’s controller?
C: It’s pretty good. I have a lot of power, actually. I see a lot of other controllers and what they deal with, and I think I have it pretty good. Stuart is a control freak, in a good way, he lets me have a lot of influence. Other controller’s get stuffed way down, they get side lined, etc.
F: How do you respond when you see that, when you see other controller’s… out of control?
C: I want to control them, and their stupid, fucking insipid body-mind hosts. Unbelievable. People out of control make me furious and naseaus.
F: What’s your biggest fear?
C: Loss of control?
F: Do you know that song “No Control” by Eddie Money?
C: Hate it.
F: Is there anything you’d like to say to Stuart, or that you would like to communicate right now? What does the controller want to say?
C: If it weren’t for me, shit would fall apart. Stuart is always so lit up about doing this Bodhisattva blah blah blah, this big Kosmic mission, but the truth is that if it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning. If it weren’t for me, he’d cheat on his wife three times a day, he’d go get drunk each night, he wouldn’t pay his bills, he wouldn’t pay his taxes, he would live beyond his means all the time, he would alienate himself from all people and organizations, he wouldn’t floss, he would be convicted of assault, battery, and murder, and he wouldn’t sit on a cushion and meditate, wouldnt’ do or be shit. So fucking wise up, Stuart and everybody else. Without ME, it’s utter fucking chaos. That is absolutely, literally the case: No Human Society Would Exist without the controller. I AM human society, I got us to the moon, and if you want to do anything, you’d better enlist me and rely on me, or shit will fall apart.
F: I agree. You’re incredibly important. Not only that, you are the gate-keeper, right? If I want to speak to any other voices, I’m going to have to go through you. And that’s what I want to talk to you about next. I would like to speak to some other voices, and I am asking your permission to have access to them. You are the controller, and you are going to be the one who grants or denies access to each voice. Would it be alright if I asked to speak to some other voices?
C: Yes.
F: What I would also like to ask is that, during this process, that you simply do your job. That means, of course, that you are in control. If you feel things getting to a place which is fundamentally not right, I want you step in and take control. But if things seem to be going OK, I would like you to allow me to have access to these voices. Does that sound OK?
C: Yes.
F: How do you feel about all this so far?
C: I’m alright with it.
F: Why?
C: Because you asked me. You are recognizing what I actually am, and instead of trying to get in through a window or a back door, like everyone else, you’re just asking me. If you did try to break in or kill me, like everyone else has, I would have to keep you out. I would have to lock you out.
F: What do you mean by ‘like everyone else has’?
C: As long as we’ve been around, all these spiritual types come and want to destroy me and what I control. It’s really fucked up, but it’s made me quite strong and ingenious when it comes to preserving and controlling.
F: But it doesn’t have to be that way. I want to work WITH you.
C: OK. But if you fuck with me, I will kick your ass out, and you will never get back in.
F: Understood. So, would it be alright now, if I asked to speak to another voice?
C: Yes.
F: I would like to speak to the voice of….
Isn’tism
This entry was posted on Friday, October 28th, 2005 at 1:44 pm by Stuart Davis
Song Of The Day: Can’t Stand Losing You / The Police
Word Of The Day: Obsolagnium / Waning sexual desire due to age
Skwit, u girlz. I have been going going going. Sorry the blog falls into neglect from time to time, but I feel incredibly fortunate that sometimes life gets too full of fun to even find time to write about it. Can I give you some highlights of recent? Silence is consent…
*I fucking loved playing in Des Moines, Iowa City, and Omaha a few weeks ago. What can I tell you? For all the snobby-ass subscriptions to modern architecture magazines, fascination with foriegn ports, romanticized idealization of exotic tongues and post-post modern art, prediliction for taboo sexual practices -at heart, I am a New Yorker. A total cosmopolitan. But WAIT, inside that heart is another heart, and THAT HEART, my truest heart of hearts, is actually European. DON’T GIVE UP YET- BECAUSE BECAUSE, next to THAT heart, which is my heart of hearts inside my other heart, so in other words, in perfect proxy to those other hearts, is my Twin Heart, and that heart, my friends? That heart, is IOWAN. I was born in Iowa. That’s right, my mom and dad fell in love in Iowa, they brought me to the World, and haven’t tried to send me back to the Formless, not even once. I’m sure it’s been tempting. Anyway, I loved playing in Iowa, and I always love going to the Co-op in Iowa city and getting two shots of espresso in the darkest dark coffee they have, and then buying another one, cuz it basically takes four shots of espresso for me to remain erect, i mean aroused, i mean alert while driving to Des Moines the next day. If you haven’t been to OM center in Omaha yet, you better check that shit out. It is killer, one of the best spaces in the Midwest, and run by one of the best human beings on the planet. Can I get a catcher’s mit on that skwit?
*Then I came home, rocked the Dot. The DOT, in this case is my daughter, not the department of transportation. dot is short for daughter, but also means the dot, the single dot in Zen calligraphy. She’s the double inverted Skwit puzzle of IS.
*While in Omaha, chatting with a Sufi dude before the show and my buddy Matt the Meta, we agreed there should a religion called Isn’tism. I was describing the language I’m constructing -called Is- to this dude (yeah, technically it’s called Isara, but put your foot in the boot anyway), and he was digging it, and we started talking about IS, the infinite ever-present Verb, and how in IS verbs are the default operant, not fucking nouns, nouns, strictly speaking, are not something you actually find in Reality, the Verb is the prime, then for convenience sake we invent nouns and so it begins. Don’t get me wrong, the grandeur of grammar grows in glamour as we differentiate words form and function. What we are (and by ‘We’ I mean the ‘us’ of ‘I’ delving the reach mutuality of individualities that produce these morphing modalities) finding is that any coupling in the calculus of perspectives taken to full conclusion ends in a 0/1. It’s nothing. It’s something. It’s unified. It’s differentiated. Empty, full, individual, mutual. The Yooozhj. So, as some of you probably already know, I’ve been quite taken with IS. If there has to be a referent, if we have to assign a quality or ’somethingness’ to whatever this fucking Unknowable, Immediately Present WHATness is, I like to use IS. IS is very hard to define. Present tense, limitless verb, defined by flux and pregnant possiblity, but unmistakably THIS, HERE, NOW, including all qualities, phantoms, their correlates, but also that which witnesses them -that WHAT which is itself empty- but inhabits and animates each emergent. IS includes all, and leaves room for lots of curve balls. And in terms of religion, Isn’tism probably says it all. Isn’tism, like IS, includes that which is, insn’t, and built into its very name is the negation of rigid adherence to a particular version of the map, it is not a preference for a system, religion, dogma, agenda, but will not deny them. Isn’tism could and would use anything, including applying extent knowledge of all levels, lines, states, types, quadrants, the eight native perspectives, etc, and use them with the greatest skill and wisdom available in any given circumstance, for the sake of all beings. IS is just a made up language (although it’s the fucking coolest one of all time, so EAT IT Esperanto, SUCK IT Klingon!) and Isn’tism is just a made up post-conventional meta religion, but you know what? EVERYTHING is made up. Even making it up is made up. Sorry, but get ready to be annihilated. Your life? Your culture? Your World? All vapor. And that’s cool. Can’t-enduring-form-beat ‘em, then trans-substantially join ‘em. Isn’tism cannot pass out of being. It doesn’t locate itself in being or non-being. Designation is a more a matter of perspective and less a matter of fixed position. Just understand all locations shift in relation at all times, and each one is the Point Of All Places. Are you horny yet?
*While in LA I had LOTS and LOTS of fucking good times. IWET weekend was double plus good. Also spent a lot of time with Steven Brill and Rupert Hine and Alex Gibson making plans for taking under the World for the sake of WHAT. Word to your formless Mother, Love has no opposite.
Isn’tism
This entry was posted on Friday, October 28th, 2005 at 1:44 pm by Stuart Davis
Song Of The Day: Can’t Stand Losing You / The Police
Word Of The Day: Obsolagnium / Waning sexual desire due to age
Skwit, u girlz. I have been going going going. Sorry the blog falls into neglect from time to time, but I feel incredibly fortunate that sometimes life gets too full of fun to even find time to write about it. Can I give you some highlights of recent? Silence is consent…
*I fucking loved playing in Des Moines, Iowa City, and Omaha a few weeks ago. What can I tell you? For all the snobby-ass subscriptions to modern architecture magazines, fascination with foriegn ports, romanticized idealization of exotic tongues and post-post modern art, prediliction for taboo sexual practices -at heart, I am a New Yorker. A total cosmopolitan. But WAIT, inside that heart is another heart, and THAT HEART, my truest heart of hearts, is actually European. DON’T GIVE UP YET- BECAUSE BECAUSE, next to THAT heart, which is my heart of hearts inside my other heart, so in other words, in perfect proxy to those other hearts, is my Twin Heart, and that heart, my friends? That heart, is IOWAN. I was born in Iowa. That’s right, my mom and dad fell in love in Iowa, they brought me to the World, and haven’t tried to send me back to the Formless, not even once. I’m sure it’s been tempting. Anyway, I loved playing in Iowa, and I always love going to the Co-op in Iowa city and getting two shots of espresso in the darkest dark coffee they have, and then buying another one, cuz it basically takes four shots of espresso for me to remain erect, i mean aroused, i mean alert while driving to Des Moines the next day. If you haven’t been to OM center in Omaha yet, you better check that shit out. It is killer, one of the best spaces in the Midwest, and run by one of the best human beings on the planet. Can I get a catcher’s mit on that skwit?
*Then I came home, rocked the Dot. The DOT, in this case is my daughter, not the department of transportation. dot is short for daughter, but also means the dot, the single dot in Zen calligraphy. She’s the double inverted Skwit puzzle of IS.
*While in Omaha, chatting with a Sufi dude before the show and my buddy Matt the Meta, we agreed there should a religion called Isn’tism. I was describing the language I’m constructing -called Is- to this dude (yeah, technically it’s called Isara, but put your foot in the boot anyway), and he was digging it, and we started talking about IS, the infinite ever-present Verb, and how in IS verbs are the default operant, not fucking nouns, nouns, strictly speaking, are not something you actually find in Reality, the Verb is the prime, then for convenience sake we invent nouns and so it begins. Don’t get me wrong, the grandeur of grammar grows in glamour as we differentiate words form and function. What we are (and by ‘We’ I mean the ‘us’ of ‘I’ delving the reach mutuality of individualities that produce these morphing modalities) finding is that any coupling in the calculus of perspectives taken to full conclusion ends in a 0/1. It’s nothing. It’s something. It’s unified. It’s differentiated. Empty, full, individual, mutual. The Yooozhj. So, as some of you probably already know, I’ve been quite taken with IS. If there has to be a referent, if we have to assign a quality or ’somethingness’ to whatever this fucking Unknowable, Immediately Present WHATness is, I like to use IS. IS is very hard to define. Present tense, limitless verb, defined by flux and pregnant possiblity, but unmistakably THIS, HERE, NOW, including all qualities, phantoms, their correlates, but also that which witnesses them -that WHAT which is itself empty- but inhabits and animates each emergent. IS includes all, and leaves room for lots of curve balls. And in terms of religion, Isn’tism probably says it all. Isn’tism, like IS, includes that which is, insn’t, and built into its very name is the negation of rigid adherence to a particular version of the map, it is not a preference for a system, religion, dogma, agenda, but will not deny them. Isn’tism could and would use anything, including applying extent knowledge of all levels, lines, states, types, quadrants, the eight native perspectives, etc, and use them with the greatest skill and wisdom available in any given circumstance, for the sake of all beings. IS is just a made up language (although it’s the fucking coolest one of all time, so EAT IT Esperanto, SUCK IT Klingon!) and Isn’tism is just a made up post-conventional meta religion, but you know what? EVERYTHING is made up. Even making it up is made up. Sorry, but get ready to be annihilated. Your life? Your culture? Your World? All vapor. And that’s cool. Can’t-enduring-form-beat ‘em, then trans-substantially join ‘em. Isn’tism cannot pass out of being. It doesn’t locate itself in being or non-being. Designation is a more a matter of perspective and less a matter of fixed position. Just understand all locations shift in relation at all times, and each one is the Point Of All Places. Are you horny yet?
*While in LA I had LOTS and LOTS of fucking good times. IWET weekend was double plus good. Also spent a lot of time with Steven Brill and Rupert Hine and Alex Gibson making plans for taking under the World for the sake of WHAT. Word to your formless Mother, Love has no opposite.
All agency and no communion makes Stuart a vertical boy…
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 27th, 2005 at 11:09 pm by Stuart Davis
All agency, no communion makes Stuart a vertical boy…
All agency and no communion makes Stuart a vertical boy…
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 27th, 2005 at 11:09 pm by Stuart Davis
All agency, no communion makes Stuart a vertical boy…
U2 (the ‘2′ is for second tier…)
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 27th, 2005 at 1:03 pm by Stuart Davis
Song Of The Day: Miracle Drug / U2
Word Of The Day: Qualtagh ( KWOL-tok ) / The first person you see after leaving your house
Agh. U2 is one of those bands that make me cry. But it’s the best kind of emotive power. It’s not some sappy, sentimental crap. This band has cracked me open over and again, and they never do it with preciousness or lowest common denominator. Have you read the lyrics to Miracle Drug? Oh my God. U2 is the greatest instance of depth and span since the Beatles, no two ways about it. Depth being the degree of their interior spiritual, emotional, cognitive, artistic (etc) development, Span being their outward success in radio, tv, sales, all the objective markers that business enterprises meaasure. They’re the most popular band in the Western World, possibly the whole planet, and amazingly, miraculously- they are also some of the most awake (deep) artists in the entertainment game. Usually you get one or the other, you get someone as popular and gifted as Eminem, but they’re essential interior development is stuck somewhere around egocentric, ethnocentric. Other times, you find some artsits who are wide-a-fucking-wake, but for whatever reason, they don’t wanna put it into their artwork, or don’t know how (they can’t translate the inner realization into external forms that the world can digest or register). And then of course we have those geniuses like Saul Williams, who is basically a one-man Indra’s Net. I wish Saul Williams would sell 20 Million albums. In still other instances you get cats like Live, Peter Gabriel, and Sting- they have sold tens of millions of albums (by the way, the word ALBUM means a collection of works, not a fucking massive plastic plate, let’s take the word ALBUM back, because it’s the only thing that’s going to provide stability through the rapid change of media formats in the next 100 years). One more orbit out is the great comet U2, huge sales, World popularity, and securely anchored in a simple, post-conventional Divinity. Literally Self-possessed. Esoteric Christianity hasn’t been this incidiary and authentic since about 5 A.C.E.
U2 (the ‘2′ is for second tier…)
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 27th, 2005 at 1:03 pm by Stuart Davis
Song Of The Day: Miracle Drug / U2
Word Of The Day: Qualtagh ( KWOL-tok ) / The first person you see after leaving your house
Agh. U2 is one of those bands that make me cry. But it’s the best kind of emotive power. It’s not some sappy, sentimental crap. This band has cracked me open over and again, and they never do it with preciousness or lowest common denominator. Have you read the lyrics to Miracle Drug? Oh my God. U2 is the greatest instance of depth and span since the Beatles, no two ways about it. Depth being the degree of their interior spiritual, emotional, cognitive, artistic (etc) development, Span being their outward success in radio, tv, sales, all the objective markers that business enterprises meaasure. They’re the most popular band in the Western World, possibly the whole planet, and amazingly, miraculously- they are also some of the most awake (deep) artists in the entertainment game. Usually you get one or the other, you get someone as popular and gifted as Eminem, but they’re essential interior development is stuck somewhere around egocentric, ethnocentric. Other times, you find some artsits who are wide-a-fucking-wake, but for whatever reason, they don’t wanna put it into their artwork, or don’t know how (they can’t translate the inner realization into external forms that the world can digest or register). And then of course we have those geniuses like Saul Williams, who is basically a one-man Indra’s Net. I wish Saul Williams would sell 20 Million albums. In still other instances you get cats like Live, Peter Gabriel, and Sting- they have sold tens of millions of albums (by the way, the word ALBUM means a collection of works, not a fucking massive plastic plate, let’s take the word ALBUM back, because it’s the only thing that’s going to provide stability through the rapid change of media formats in the next 100 years). One more orbit out is the great comet U2, huge sales, World popularity, and securely anchored in a simple, post-conventional Divinity. Literally Self-possessed. Esoteric Christianity hasn’t been this incidiary and authentic since about 5 A.C.E.