Samsara

From the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

Sometimes I think that the greatest achievement of modern culture is its brilliant selling of samsara and its barren distractions. Modern society seems to me a celebration of all the things that lead away from the truth, make truth hard to live for, and discourage people from even believing that it exists. And to think that all this springs from a civilization that claims to adore life, but actually starves it of any real meaning; that endlessly speaks of making people "happy", but in fact blocks their way to the source of real joy. 

This modern samsara feeds of an anxiety and depression that it fosters and trains us all in, and carefully nurtures with a consumer machine that needs to keep us greedy to keep going samsara is highly organised, versatile, and sophisticate; it assaults us from every angle with its propaganda, and creates an almost impregnable environment of addiction around us. The more we try to escape, the more we seem to fall into the traps it is so ingenious at setting for us. As the eighteenth century Tibetan master Jikme Lingpa said: Mesmerized by the sheer variety of perceptions, beings wander endlessly astray in samsara's vicious cycle. 

Obsessed, then, with false hopes, dreams and ambitions, which promise happiness but lead only to misery, we are like people crawling through an endless desert, dying of thirst. And all that this samsara holds out to us to drink is a cup of salt water, designed to make us even thirstier.

Caravan

Caravan by Seri Cig on Mixcloud

Poem of the Atoms

O day, arise!

The atoms are dancing,
overcome with ecstasy.

I'll whisper in your ear where their dance is leading them.

All the atoms in the air and in the desert know well,
 they seem insane.

Every single atom, happy...or miserable,
becomes enamoured of the sun, 

of which nothing can be said. 

Jalal ad-Din Rumi

The Superman vs. Weltschmerz

Nietzsche vs. Schopenhauer

Schopenhauer's concept of cosmic pain (Weltschmerz) and his philosophy of compassion (Mitleid), explore the human experience of empathy, and thus to our interconnectedness as human beings. 

Despite of Nietzsche's admiration for Schopenhauer, Nietzsche was strictly against his philosophy of pity. Even though it is known that Nietzsche aimed at transvaluing all values, one still wonders how one could possibly resent such a beautiful idea. 

Nietzsche however, believed that feelings of compassion only weakened the possibility to become a Superman (Übermensch). For him, the Superman is not someone with super-magical powers, but one who has transcendent the ego completely. In order to reach this state of mind, the individual has to surpass three stages. First, there is "the camel" with it's burden on it's back. Carrying the weight of the world, he eventually reaches the stage of the lion in which no more suffering exists, but total control, will power and strength. The final stage however, has surpassed all these conscious and ego ridden stages and results in the blissful state of "the child". This stage can be compared to the Golden Age, in which we see the wonders of the world with the innocence of childlike eyes.

As Nietzsche believed to carry the pain of the world on his shoulders, he chose to live in solitude in the Swiss Alps for several years. Here, according to his three stages, he found himself to be in the stage of the camel, indulging on his calamity. When he eventually believed to have surpassed this stage, he was ready to become the lion, and thus to re-socialise in order to teach his philosophy, just as the prophets had done before him after their enlightenment in solitude. In the form of Zarathustra, he finally walks down from his ivory tower in the mountains, but only to find that the first villagers he speaks to have no ears to listen! Nietzsche never reached the last stage on the way to transcend and become the Superman. Instead, he escaped from the conscious state of mind that he intended to surpass with his forthcoming insanity. 

Erich Fromm

Interviewed by Mike Wallace in 1958

Pardonner

Et conserver mon humanité,

 du caprice et de la volonté, 

qui sont aussi amers parfois,

 mais ne m'oublient pas jamais encore;

 Dans moments de souffrance,

 des privations aussi,

 ou des fils d'hommes qui m'ont utilisé,

 qui vivent hautain mais sans dignité, 

je voudrais pardonner pourtant à la fin.

***

And preserve my humanity
from whim, will and mercy,
 which may be bitter at times
but still never forgets me;
In times of despair, of deprivation too,
from children of man who exploit to make do,
who are living with pride but without amend,
 I still want to forgive after all in the end.

Tricksters and Fools

Tricksters and fools have always been very intriguing characters in mythology, folklore and literature.  Their tendency to deconstruct the moral values and conventions of the status quo shatters even the most secure constructs, beliefs, or people. Unlike their contemporaries, the masters of deception float between two worlds; the conscious and the subconscious. This ability develops a highly ambiguous personality, which the trickster may use to motivate others for revolutionary change. Their anomaly evades them from any laws of logic or punishment, why they literally "enjoy the privilege of fools". An all time favourite trickster is Mephisto in Goethe's Faust: 

"Part of the Power which would the evil ever do, and ever does the Good."