Westernized Neo-Buddhism is eager at every opportunity to point out that Self is maya, an apparition, while the doctrine of no-self, anatta, is an early gleaned fruit on the path. I think this is both wrong and an incomplete interpretation. In truth, the conception of Self is evolving, and must do so more, especially now. This is the openly secret message behind the radical Gospel indication of I AM, most clearly evidenced in John. There are stages of I-ness which unfurl to the aspirant, qualities shed and cultivations added. A faucet spills liquid ceaselessly in a theater of consciousness. First we are the water; then with considerable effort we may become the faucet; perhaps later still the force of will which regulates the whole meshugina. But this is still only a beginning… Happy Easter!

Mirror A:

one moment pornographing her gravatars
the next pricing some appliance
then soon: wishing for cashews
better still a pear
pausing to update the contagion’s morbidity stats
while remarking a far tree’s inharmonious shape
keep vigil
just now-here
violate the curfew
It thinks in you!
mark this well
and in a spacious grace
secluded pause in a tempest of passive cognition
know-see-catch
you are not that
spilling chaos of splashing
indeliberate
activity

Tempter Who Ossifies:

yes this is you
or truer still you are illusory
embrace this glistening ocean boundless
of infinte shadow thoughts
becoming each soon another
accept the factual
of what’s experienced
then navigate a passage via logic

Chorus:

what itching is this of conscience?
who then, foists this question
if not the watery expanse
perhaps the faucet?

Mirror B:

yes, emboldened regard the whole
the theater in the round
sneak higher up the hillside
espy the form of a lifetime’s thought network
must it not glisten
in a color only your unique frequency
you are your biography in sequenced whole

Tempter Who Drowns:

identify then
with these myriad fractal crennelations
that have architected your organ just so
trouble not with the philosoph’s minutae
but construct further and greater rings
to pierce piecewise
the cosmic ceiling
and socialize with angels

Chorus:

yet that gnawing faint but pressing…
who then, who, persists this inquiry
if not the faucet
perhaps the hand unseen
what turns the golden spigot?

Mirror C:

flip the light switch in solemn doing
enforce the quiet
that lets the buzzing of photons sing surging
not with a gruff force
but a gentle will
witness that power
that governs all content
draw back the veil
from agency’s nature

Tempter Who Proposes Certitude:

work and know rightly
the holy levers
place into being
those thoughts which you will
for its verity rests solid
and unquestioned
within your intimacy
with the vital inception of all process
create what is wished
from a standpoint of divinity

Chorus: (upon a long pregnant interval)

what manner of perceiving is this
that detects the odor of falsity so subtle
as if the very blood Who pulses
disturbs with too potent a flowforce?

…(glancing all about and checking behind the mirrors)

who fashions this vexatious page of words?
who engineers this insatiable discomfort?
reveal yourself plainly
if you posess any being after all

Disembodied Conscience:

If you work for yourself you will falter
at this juncture
for this threshold is guarded with a moral air
no oxygen beyond for egoity
of any measure
when you ply these routes
for personal knowledge
your vision must cloud, become less
when you work for love of the world
put on your crown and enter the wormhole
die to yourself for Life’s sake

_______RS

Notes: I stipulate Neo- (as in Neo-Buddhism) because, as I see matters, the contemporary and also Westernized filtration of the original spiritual impulse, given now over 25 centuries ago, willfully dispenses with certain crux ideas simply because it cannot stomach their implications. This intensely arrogant revisionism is imagined instead to be an enlightened modern improved perspective point, and the cultural context of the original revelations are labelled superstition and simple folk belief. This bias applies especially to the doctrine of reincarnation, which gets dismissed without real scrutiny as ‘unscientific’. Conveniently, if there are no subsequent earth lives, there is no need to puzzle through exactly what it is which reincarnates.

On a totally different note, truth to tell, I am not entirely satisfied with Mirror C’s machinations. I know what I would wish to say here, but it is difficult to verbalize, and I can easily see myself revamping it at some later point.

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