Reflections on the horror of existence

I wrote this in my journal about four years ago. I wanted to put it here because it’s worth remembering these things, and being aware that my current sense of peace and fortunate privilege is all ultimately a part of the universal awareness trying to hide from the horror of itself.

It’s been a while since my LSD trip. About three months. And I feel like I’m gradually coming back to some kind of sanity and reality. But I feel like things have changed forever, like I’ve woken up to a reality that is more intense and terrifying, but also more vivid and beautiful, than I could have ever imagined.

I think the biggest change has been that I’ve realised that things are the way they are, because they’re the way they are. That sounds pretty stupid… but what I’m getting at is that the meaning of existence is inherent… things exist because they don’t not exist. It’s like why creatures evolve to suit their environments; filling a niche because that’s just what happens. I’m filling a Patrick niche, my own little bit of consciousness, because there is an infinite realm of possible consciousness that I inhabit a tiny part of.

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Good, and crazy, and laughing

Although slavery, oppression, and torture are never going away; are a part of existence that can’t be boxed up and chained in a padded room…

And that while there is no moral objectivity; that goodness and beauty are relative…

Nevertheless the point is to strive to be the most beautiful, joyously compassionate power in the world,

While always being aware of how absurd your own striving for beauty is, and how your compassion and love is just a joke in the face of the universe,

And this feeds into your absurd, insane, dazzling and confounding glory.

So fight slavery and suffering and evil in all its forms,

Knowing that you are exactly as powerless to the utter cosmic meaninglessness of it all as the people who cling to exploitation and cruelty.

But you look good, and crazy, and laughing, as you dance into the same oblivion.

 

koan

The Zen initiate Pat was studying a book of koans, and folding the corners of pages that he found particularly meaningful.

Pat’s Master noticed this behaviour, and she approached Pat and twisted his ear. Pat yelped and his Master returned to her room.

During their next study meeting, Pat asked what the purpose of this was. His Master said: “My most dim-witted students must be marked.”

With this, Pat had great satori.

no content

There is a Buddhist saying: “Statements about the nature of the ultimate truth have no content.”

Polish artist Zdzisław Beksiński was opposed to people analysing his work or even interpreting it. He stated that if he wanted to say something, he would say it. A painting, however, was a unique expression of something beyond language. Interpretation immediately destroys that.

“Meaning is meaningless to me,” he once said. He didn’t even give his paintings titles.

Yet it is immensely tempting to apply meaning to his work – especially considering he grew up surrounded by war, genocide, and suffering. The corpse-like figures that populate his paintings are reminiscent of the starved bodies of holocaust victims. German helmets and Greco-Roman architecture evoke the Third Reich. Vast towering cathedrals of bone and flesh link human endeavour with misery and doom.

And of course, these words ultimately do nothing to convey the depth of his paintings. There will always be something missing.

These words have no content.

beksinski

Is Buddhism Sexist?

The short answer is yes. Buddhism has always been sexist.

But the core principles of Buddhism should prevent sexism or any kind of judgement based on forms and appearances. So are there just a bunch of people doing Buddhism really badly?

In Florence Caplow and Susan Moon’s carefully curated selection of Zen koans, The Hidden Lamp, Rita M Gross concisely outlines the prevalence of sexism and misogyny in traditional and contemporary Buddhism:

Vajrayana Buddhists in Tibet also believe, in common with many Asian Buddhists, that it is impossible to attain full enlightenment in a woman’s body and that being born female is unfortunate. That tells us a lot about what women have had to go through!

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Angry Diaries #2 – Acceptance/Inclusion

Centrists want me to make friends with the stupid fuckers destroying the world.

They say if I don’t forgive ignorance, greed and casual bigotry, those poor innocent twats will have no choice but to become even more wilfully bigoted.

It’s tempting. After all, forgiveness is beautiful. I know we are all part of the universal consciousness. Bigotry is an expression of the shadow side of my own being. It may be a part of mind-at-large that is far removed from my own transient person, but doesn’t every being deserve love?

I’ve now realised the mistake I was making. The centrists were drawing a false equivalency between acceptance and inclusion.

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Army of Absolutes

This is a tongue-in-cheek story roughly based on some choice ayahuasca trip reports.

Please do not take it too seriously.

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Content notice: Racism, misogyny.

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The bile pours out of his mouth into the plastic bucket

“No more!” is this boy’s mantra

But it keeps coming…

And the icaros continue…

Plaguing him with their terrifying Spanish-ness.

The headdress makes the shaman look like the devil.

Their savage superstitions are killing him!

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No hell

They’re

Too senile to understand their hypocrisy

Too long gone to see the destruction behind them

Too blind to know their stupidity

 

The buffoon dies quietly in his home

The despot lies dead in a ditch

The bigot sits in his next throne

 

No hell for them

Nothing would work

To make them see

To make them regret

 

This is the shadow

It is formless and dead

It cannot transform

 

They’re stuck

And we’re stuck with them.

 

Album Review – Chain of Islands EP

Synth music often belongs on a spectrum between hardcore electronic tones and cheesy ’80s pop.

Music at the more electronic end can be brain-meltingly intense (Com Truise is a good example), while music of the pop variety can be lyrically sickly sweet, and it doesn’t take long to get tired of the same drum-machine cowbell sound that should have long ago been deleted from everyone’s samplers (check out Sunglasses Kid if you are, for some reason, curious).

I love music at both ends of the spectrum, for different reasons. The brain-melting tonal stuff can be a fun experience, alone in the dark with good headphones. And the super-cheesy catalogue has some real gems; from lovingly-crafted pastiches of ’80s culture and sounds, to genuinely catchy and well-produced tracks that could be mistaken for a fresh single from Spandau Ballet.

But Synth music that can sit between these two extremes, and offer a balance of synth-y extravagance with the classic sound of ’80s optimism.

This balance has always been the hallmark of Brothertiger, outfit of US artist John Jagos. His recent EP, A Chain of Islands, is a perfect example of how well Brothertiger can merge the sounds of the ’80s with modern synth.

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