Madzubial Mutterings

Bernie Sanders and Bill Moyers

2012-09-12T04:21:00.001-07:00

Newsroom - Video/Audio: Bernie Sanders - U.S. Senator for Vermont

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Who Da' Thunk 2 Who needs to know, really?

2012-08-24T16:34:00.001-07:00

Who is it really that needs to know — the personality that has been conjured out of environmental and biological stimuli?

Who is that really knows?

Are we really just the culmination of our stories and myths that we have created to explain, promote and propagate our ephemeral existence?

Are we really just our triumphs and tragedies; our abuses, abusers, and abuse; our hell and heaven; good and evil…?

Are we our experiences, our experience …or our experiencing?

Are we just the sum total of the bullshit that runs through our heads that we accumulate over time?

Life is not just a string of experiences, but that which knows that a string of experiences unfolds before us – sometimes like cinematic events.

Our life is not what we think it to be. Life is whether we think or not – perhaps more interesting not – (who knows?).

We experience life largely though the filters that we have superimposed on life.

We are the result of the conditioning that has conditioned us to perceive our experience.

However, my inclination is that we are not our egos, personalities, identities, jobs, roles, genders, and all the other machinations that we use to create ourselves.

We are not our bullshit, but generally are mired in it and have taken on its odor out of ignorance.

Rather, we are that which notices the bullshit and uses the bullshit to fertilize our garden that we that we call our life. Life as it is.

Life as it is, is wondrous when we are not enmeshed or identified with or in the events to which we are paying attention.

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

That which Knows is not the thing or things that it knows. Knowledge then is not what you know or who you know but the faculty of Knowing – that which knows — which is not a this or a that. Knowledge in this context is not data or the accumulation of data. No bits, or bytes, to bite you in the ass.

No subject or object.

Knowing has nothing to relate to or with. Mind is not relative to anything. (…Maybe only relative to Mind?) Mind is all and no-thing simultaneously.

Perhaps getting out of our minds and returning to Mind, is what Mind has in mind for us all, if we mind, if we don’t mind.

We can be out of our minds, but we can never be out of Mind, or out of sight….

But, since we do see the movie in the theater of life before us, we might as well get the popcorn and pay attention and enjoy the show, if you don’t mind minding Mind.

Yikes!

Who'da thunk? Part 1 Knowing and Thinking

2012-08-19T09:21:00.000-07:00

This muttering is a first in a series reflecting on thoughts and thinking.

Knowing and Thinking

Knowing is knowing. Thinking is thinking.
Knowing with attachment to what is known is thinking.
Knowing that you know without attachment to what you think is knowing.

Thinking that you know is thinking. Knowing that you think is knowing.

Thinking is not knowing, and cannot know.
Knowing does not need to think.

Knowing is thought. Thinking is thoughts.

We are essentially thought, not our thinking. However we have become our thoughts, at least in our thinking.

Thinking is a biological function of the brain in response to its environment — a necessary contrivance for a physical existence that has arisen largely out of thinking. Hormones, neural synaptic responses, biochemical, sociobiological, cultural conditioning and programming all affect our thinking — how, what, where, why, and who we think about.

Internal and external stimuli all comprise our thinking and thoughts. Our thinking is by and large a response to our environment that we have isolated between our ears. As long as we have a brain we will think. When we no longer have use for our brain we will return to Thought. Thought has never left us. We have strayed from Thought in our thinking.

Knowing sees your thoughts. Thinking is blind and needs to be guided to be useful.

Know what you know and think what you think. Know that you think; but thinking that you know interferes with your connection with Thought.

Who is it that thinks — really?

Us and Them

2012-07-31T04:33:00.001-07:00

As long as an us and a them exist, we don't stand much of a chance.

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2012-07-31T04:32:00.001-07:00

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Beliefs

2012-05-31T07:06:00.001-07:00

“Beliefs of any kind are false. There [are] no true beliefs and false beliefs. Any belief, by definition, is false. It’s only a story”. Dogo Barry Graham http://madzubialmutterings.blogspot.com/2009/09/every-belief-is-wrong-by-dogo-barry.html

I, believe that, he, she, it, we, you, they believe this or don’t believe that. No end exist to the stories that we have created for ourselves. Believers, non-believers, un-believers…we have defined ourselves by what we believe or not. I believe in God, Jesus, the Devil, Buddha, reincarnation, heaven, hell, love, world peace, the Bible, the Koran, the Constitution, America, democracy, freedom, big or small government, fundamentalism, liberalism, conservatism, libertarianism, atheism, organic food-ism, traditional and non-traditional-isms; this ism and that ism; bunnies, ice cream, chocolate (I really like chocolate —the Church of Chocolate — is god a chocolate bunny????), veganism, vegetarianism... beliefs ad infinitum — up and out the wazoo. Or, I don’t believe. Not believing is just another belief, labeled as a non-belief.

All beliefs are stories to conflate, castrate, debate, debilitate, define, eliminate, empower, forbid, intimidate, incinerate, instigate, imitate, and separate; make you better, stronger, faster, sexier, richer, thinner, more attractive; more spiritual, smarter, transcendent, enlightened, Buddha-like, Christ-like, saintly, sage, calm, peaceful… yadda, yadda, yadda.

We kill, preach, destroy, protest, molest, immolate, obfuscate, contaminate, congregate, constipate, inflate and deflate to protect our beliefs and ideas about how things should be created in our image and after our likeness. Who or what the fuck do we think we are anyway? What are we really thinking here — or not?

I don’t believe in this or that— just more beliefs. Not believing in God is a belief system (BS) — and fits any definition of a religion. When the object or “god” of the belief is no belief in a god or religion —the ‘god’ has become no god — and no god, God. This is a ‘no god’ religion. Hmmmmm… A religion that does not believe in religion… cognitive dissonance! Actually all beliefs are cognitively dissonant.

None of what we hold to believe is true. We believe in justice, world peace, and what do we observe — not just in the world but in ourselves — Jesus or just-us? Does our belief make us just, loving, caring, merciful, or free? Or just reveal that we are a dissonant, muddle of inconsistencies, contradictions, half-truths and paradoxes? We want to save the planet, but our very existence is destroying the planet and our very existence is inextricably connected to the planet. There is nowhere to run and hide and no one to run to or from — which includes our-selves. We are here now — believe it or not, like it or not — in fact don’t believe it, live it.

Our beliefs obscure and keep us from the very hopes, ideals, and “Truth” to which we aspire. Our beliefs are just ideas — empty idols, sacraments, sacerdotal self-impositions, that clutter the sanctuaries of our own delusion and distract us from what we truly are and cloister us in what we believe we are.

What have beliefs got us so far — world peace, salvation, enlightenment, democracy, liberty and justice for all? We do get global warming/climate change, pollution, religious wars, despotism, places of worship — churches, temples, mosques on every corner; chocolate, ice cream, chocolate ice cream, burgers and fries, shakes and smoothies and bars on every corner; convenience, contrivance, and river dance, sports and movies and endless pursuits of knowledge and speculations.

Heart and mind diseases, cancers, disorders of every imaginable biological and psychological system plague us and our world. Our beliefs harden our minds and arteries and inflict pain and suffering on ourselves and our world. Pharmaceuticals, herbs, exercise, mediation, yoga, prayer, worship and devotion (don’t forget chocolate, bunnies and ice cream) do not protect us from our delusions, because all these beliefs are a part of our delusion, and our delusion a result of our beliefs. We have become the sum of our beliefs and ideas which have disconnected from our true selves — whatever or whoever we truly are.

We suffer, not for a lack of beliefs, but as a result of our beliefs, and our belief in beliefs. Our ideas and ideals keep us from our ideas and ideals. Our belief in God keeps us from God. If you really want to be "one with God", don't believe in God, but live God.

At best, a belief is a momentary snapshot of something that never existed except in our self-written story — self-centered dream (Joko Beck) — a transient sensory ghost in our mind machine to which we cling to for meaning and purpose.

Plato quoted Heraclitus in Cratylus (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Heraclitus ):

You cannot step twice into the same river; for other waters are continually flowing in.
You cannot step twice into the same stream. For as you are stepping in, other waters are ever flowing on to you.
You cannot step twice into the same river.
You cannot step into the same river twice.
It is impossible to step into the same river twice.
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.

Our insecurity and fear has driven us to define the universe, which has closed our hearts and minds to the infinite possibilities and wonders available to behold. “We see through a glass darkly”, as the Christian scriptures say. We as humans only experience a minute spectrum — less that 1% — of what we call the physical universe. Our hubris and arrogance blinds us from 99.9% of the 1% which we do perceive. We really have created an unreal reality and call it the “real world”.

The Zen teacher Wei Wu Wei was once asked “Why do we suffer?” "Because 99.9% of everything you think and everything you do is about yourself and there isn’t one.”

We are living our own stories, fictions and convictions alike — no matter how lofty, powerful, insecure, terrible, abused, misused, rich or poor, good or evil. A belief based on a belief is just a belief and a delusion. Don’t believe me, anyone or anything else.

Listen to sounds and see the sights of from which you have no comprehension, ideologies or definitions that exist around you, in you, as you — “put your lights on, you gotta put your lights on” (“Put Your Lights On" Erik Schrody, Everlast and Santana).

Allow the specters of beliefs, dogmas, ideals and ideas to pass over and through you as they slowly fade into the mist of delusion from whence they came — like water flowing under the bridge.

The Shakyamuni Buddha is quoted as saying:

Don't blindly believe what I say. Don't believe me because others convince you of my words. Don't believe anything you see, read, or hear from others, whether of authority, religious teachers or texts. Don't rely on logic alone, nor speculation. Don't infer or be deceived by appearances.

Do not give up your authority and follow blindly the will of others. This way will lead to only delusion.

Find out for yourself what is truth, what is real. Discover that there are virtuous things and there are non-virtuous things. Once you have discovered for yourself give up the bad and embrace the good. Shakyamuni Buddha Quotes http://www.noble-buddhism-beliefs.com/buddha-quotes.html

You are not what you think, you are thought. It might be scary, but observe the scary and the reassuring alike. Perhaps you will find yourself in the middle where you always are. Observe. Allow the wonders of the Universe to unfold and speak to you, open your perception — “this too is wonder” (Joko Beck). And sometimes…"sometimes a pipe is just a pipe" (Freud), smoke one yourself.

Predator Drones

2012-05-15T08:59:00.002-07:00

Predator drones

Invading our homes

Men in suits

In dark pursuits

Metal mindless shells

Raining fire from hell

Fear is the message

Apocalyptic riders of destructive dressage

Secret alliances

Manipulative contrivances

Tricks of the mind

From power that is blind.

Where is the morality?

Or is it just mortality?

Greed till we bleed?

Lust instead of need?

Who is the target?

Tag you’re it!

Lost in our delusion

Mired in confusion

Self-centered dream

Psychopathic scheme

Predator drones
ETs go home!

Namaste

2011-11-05T07:27:00.001-07:00

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Moving speech by Charlie Chaplin. when silent actors speak.

2011-10-16T06:35:00.001-07:00

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Shadow. Play

2011-10-01T08:41:00.001-07:00

Shadow. Play, a photo by mutteringmadzub on Flickr.

ShadowPlay

Flower perspective

2011-10-01T08:30:00.001-07:00

Flower perspective, a photo by mutteringmadzub on Flickr.

Flower perspective

Why Israel can't be a 'Jewish State' - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

2011-10-01T08:06:00.000-07:00

Why Israel can't be a 'Jewish State' - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Occupy Wall Street: Its Objects, Issues, and Political Meaning

2011-09-27T05:26:00.000-07:00

Occupy Wall Street: Its Objects, Issues, and Political Meaning

Class Warfare My Ass | Truthout

2011-09-24T15:39:00.000-07:00

Class Warfare My Ass | Truthout

Water Veil

2011-09-23T07:37:00.001-07:00

See what a cool photo effect I made!

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We are the Zube second transmission

2011-03-06T18:51:00.000-07:00

We are the Zube

2011-02-06T16:32:00.000-07:00

Global Information Network

2011-01-07T19:13:00.000-07:00

Global Information Network

Allah Rocks

2010-12-22T22:46:00.000-07:00

A short Story

2010-12-07T19:52:00.003-07:00

Once upon a time, subject looked in the mirror and saw object.
The mirror, subject and object all laughed together as one.
Then, in the twinkle of an eye, they all suddenly vanished without a trace happily ever after.

The end.

The moral of the story:
Laugh with yourself and the world vanishes with you.

Sri Ram Andante

2010-10-29T21:29:00.000-07:00

Cross of Iron, by Muttering Madzub

2010-08-18T11:21:00.000-07:00

“This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed”.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Cross of Iron

Humanity suspended in perpetual war

as the cross of iron stands

blood and treasure spilt for profit

our children’s blood on our hands

Scarified hearts and twisted minds

hurl obscenities of hate

the world dies hungry all around us

we are the enemy in the gate

Hanging on the cross of iron

humanity agonizes in pain

wounded souls littered lives

from pogroms of the insane

Tortured on the cross of iron

our souls hang naked in the balance

human lives just cheap commodities

the war drums beat their cold cadence

The cross of iron is the gun sight used

to find targets of opportunity says the adage

humanity that hangs bleeding thereupon

is nothing more than collateral damage

Weapons are aimed and warships launched

the cross of iron fulfills its purpose

red rockets’ glare, the bombs burst midair

humans lost in war, without moral compass

The cross of iron erected for all to see

humanity fixed in its own crosshairs

engines of war conjured from darkened visions

hollowed eyes, yielding hollow stares

The hidden message from the cross of iron whispers

if we listen we will hear

that human darkness can be healed

loving-kindness conquers hate and fear

Other Words

2010-08-09T11:27:00.001-07:00

I was moved by an article from Truth-Digg: The Tears of Gaza Must Be Our Tears: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_tears_of_gaza_must_be_our_tears_20100809/ by Chris Hedges.

Chris Hedges said" Let me call things by their proper names. Let me cut through the jargon, the euphemisms we use to mask human suffering and war crimes" Thought provoking article.

Chris Hedges also quoted a poem by the Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali “Revenge”:
"At times ... I wish
I could meet in a duel
the man who killed my father
and razed our home,
expelling me
into
a narrow country.
And if he killed me,
I’d rest at last,
and if I were ready—
I would take my revenge!
*
But if it came to light,
when my rival appeared,
that he had a mother
waiting for him,
or a father who’d put
his right hand over
the heart’s place in his chest
whenever his son was late
even by just a quarter-hour
for a meeting they’d set—
then I would not kill him,
even if I could.
*
Likewise ... I
would not murder him
if it were soon made clear
that he had a brother or sisters
who loved him and constantly longed to see him.
Or if he had a wife to greet him
and children who
couldn’t bear his absence
and whom his gifts would thrill.
Or if he had
friends or companions,
neighbors he knew
or allies from prison
or a hospital room,
or classmates from his school …
asking about him
and sending him regards.
*
But if he turned
out to be on his own—
cut off like a branch from a tree—
without a mother or father,
with neither a brother nor sister,
wifeless, without a child,
and without kin or neighbors or friends,
colleagues or companions,
then I’d add not a thing to his pain
within that aloneness—
not the torment of death,
and not the sorrow of passing away.
Instead I’d be content
to ignore him when I passed him by
on the street—as I
convinced myself
that paying him no attention
in itself was a kind of revenge."

The Jewish/Palestinian “middle east” problem, the racist immigration battles currently raging in Arizona and the US, are all indicative of an endemic human problem. Not an illegal problem, a terrorist problem, or an alien problem, a human problem.
We dehumanize our enemies du jour, so that we can create fear to control and perpetuate our own malignant narcissistic agendas – whether as individuals, religions, or nations. Until we put a human face on all our fears, fear will always be our portion.

Here is my poem:

Other Words

Other words we use to excuse
to justify horrific views
to dehumanize and immorally abuse
from aggressive oppressors to the morning news

collateral damage, or a war on terror
not murder or genocide from predatory standard-bearers
shock and awe the cluster-bomb scare-ers
disguised as moral compass bearers

anti-Semitism an oft turned phrase
to hide the genocidal oppression from those that raze
bloodlust justified from the psychopathic crazed
fomenting mindless fury to hasten the end of days

legals, illegals, aliens, wetbacks, terrorists, dropped babies a few
humans treated as dogs foaming with rabies vile rhetoric spews
no longer human not even maybes human refuse
racism disguised by contorted, malignant views

concrete fences that multiply fears
Berlin-istic paranoid oppressive smears
the humans walled out suffer bloodstained tears
humans walled within with hate their conscience sears

pyres of lies stoked with human remains
spin is spun tightly, truth in chains
no mercy, no compassion, just holocaustic flames
oppressed given no quarter, just suffering and pain

clashes that rain ashes we all fall down
ringed state fortresses with boots on the ground
constant aggression make hate propaganda abound
malignant militaristic narcissism enthroned and crowned

euphemisms, cynical syllogisms – words of mass destruction
peace process, closures, walled settlements, border (of)fences – concrete construction
forgotten are the voiceless entombed in silenced obstruction
hate, fear and death a human seduction

peace is not a word, nor truth nor love
they are qualities of being that fear knows not of
hate, greed, genocide, oppression – words humans conceive of
love expects nothing, there is nothing without love

Causal Illusion

2010-07-25T13:05:00.000-07:00

The causal illusion has led us to believe instead of live. Contrary to popular opinion, beliefs are the main causes of blindness and death. We all tell ourselves that we are lacking, incomplete, and flawed. We have conjured up thousands of years of traditions of gods, goddesses, prophets, rabbis, mullahs, martyrs, gurus, sages, mages and mystics to hammer the point that we are separate and if we follow this or that path, pray this prayer, move this move and chant these words, that God will then accept us, make us whole, save us from hell and take us to heaven. Because we are convinced that God is separate from us.

We believe that we have soiled God’s plan and have separated ourselves from the great and powerful OZ that scares children and smokes and thunders behind the curtain. This angry, vengeful deity is a projection of our own accepted guilt. This is representational of the folly that we follow without question, because we have not questioned the questions. We are blind, not because we do not have eyes, but because we have covered our eyes with our own lies that we believe to be true. We have bought into the causal world and have been fatally affected by our own hubris.

We do not have to do anything special — pray, meditate, contort our bodies and deceive our deception through affirmations and proclamations. Doing just leads to more doing.

However, sing, chant, meditate, pose and retreat. But knowing that the outcome of all these activities will not be for what you are searching. For example, as a dear friend once said, “silent retreats do not involve silence and they do not involve retreat”. The object of your search is the first clue that searching for objects is truly objectionable and a waste of time.

The Holy Grail — the object of our highest aspirations and noble search for truth, justice, freedom, love, compassion — whatever, are merely phantom images that cannot incorporate or resolve. The idea or form of the Divine is idolatry at its very core. The idols that dull our eyes and obscure our perception are what we have formed as barriers that are intricately designed to distract us from “tat tvam asi” thou art that. What we truly are cannot change. Everything else is not worth mentioning.

So why write, blog, or slog about such matters if they do not matter? Sometimes the most absurd and obscure reflections in life’s mirror, remind us of our true Self, the Mind-less-mind, the Me-less-me. We are all reminders of What that has never forgotten about us. All of us are one of us and none of us exist. So, I mutter and pray that we remember.

Life as it is now…

2010-07-13T13:03:00.001-07:00

Lost in the self centered dream...
I have been looking at all the human contrived disasters, corporate and governmental crimes that plague humanity, foul our environment, not to mention the religious hypocrisy of militant dominionist right-winged fanatics – just to name a few.

Only suffering.
I come to a realization that this suffering is not about Me and it is all just another egoic intrusion to waylay and subvert Me from the Center, the Void – whatever I want to call it.

Holding to self centered thoughts...
my suffering psyche or self – that does not exist, should be in enough pain to reMind Me to pay attention and just watch this illusive delusion without getting drawn into the malaise and malignant, narcissistic mind fuck .

Exactly the dream.
Wow, i am amazed at how much effluent i am willing to endure to keep the egoic life support tubes, wires and machines cranking out the artificial respiration and intravenous poisons inserted into every orifice of my self-centered dream.

Life as it is...
The ego self wants to feel guilty about all this shit, yet that is what the ego always wants. The ultimate deception is self deception, and how the hell does one do that when the self by its very nature is deception? Deceive the deceiver?

The only teacher.
Well, i can’t mind fuck my way out of this one so I guess I will allow the smoke to clear and the mirrors to turn into windows.

Being just this moment...
I only know that anger, self-righteousness, pointing the finger and blaming everyone and myself for the suffering of humanity is just more suffering and perpetuates samsara.

Compassion’s way.
The cycle of endless suffering, birth and death only disappears when compassionate being becomes My dynamic guiding force in momentary lapses of surrender.

--------

The following verse is written by Charlotte Joko Beck, a Zen Roshi.
Lost in the self-centered dream, only suffering.
Holding to self centered thoughts, exactly the dream.
Life as it is, the only teacher.
Being just this moment, compassion’s way.