wellspring

The heart will betray you with its fierce desires,
will set the world aflame and kill for peace.

At the center of the circle
is the place of calm repose
from which all action springs.

Release the clutch.

world jam -- stand by me

the meaning of life

a call to arms

The Cry within me is a call to arms. It shouts: “I, the Cry, am the Lord your God! I am not an asylum. I am not hope and a home. I am not the Father nor the Son nor the Holy Ghost. I am your General.
“You are not my slave, nor a plaything in my hands. You are not my friend, you are not my child. You are my comrade-in-arms!
“Hold courageously the passes which I entrusted to you, do not betray them. You are in duty bound, and you may act heroically by remaining at your own battle station.
“Love danger. What is most difficult? That is what I want! Which road should you take? The most craggy ascent! It is the one I also take: follow me!”
-- Kazantzakis, The Saviors of God

We love war. Don’t tell me we don’t.

We are the most aggressive species on earth. Killers. We slaughter at every level to assuage our hunger and desire. Mass murderers all.

We don’t seem to be able to do much about it. We chant “Give peace a chance.” We pray for peace. But we do not seem to want peace (unless it means for others to shut up and fulfill our needs).

Very well then. Let us stop fooling around and become the warriors we truly are but shift our warrior tendencies to a higher realm. (A warning here. You will be required to handle the greatest weapon of all: Love. And Love is not for sissies. It will kick back on you and eat you alive. Nothing romantic about it.)

Warriors of Spirit, of the Life Force. Fierce and loving embodyings of our Source.

Requirements:

• Completely be yourself.
• Forget you.
  
• Know your reason, your aim for embodying on this planet at this time.
• Do it.

fire in the whole!

The blood-red fury of vengeance bounces through the world like a loose grenade, gathering new energy with each explosion, until we all say Enough! and leap atop it, absorbing all impact in graceful acts of love.

Isshinryu Karate, University of Florida, 1968

George Breed (far right) and Pete Haddad (second right) outside University of Florida gym, 1968.

Notes to Myself

‎1. There is no security. Security is a false hope peddled by assurance agents.

2. All political and religious thought is simply that: thought.

3. No one out there is going to save me, nor do I need saving.

4. My three major poisons are hostility, stupor, and greed.

5. The antidotes are lovingkindness, awareness, and generosity.

6. I am both self (little Georgie) and Self, an embodying of the Source.

7. So shut up and get on with it.

9. Verse 17, Chapter 2, Bhagavad Gita

tiger stare

50 years ago when I was a ripsnortin' young dude martial artist, among my other practices I decided to develop "tiger stare" so went to Atlanta zoo and looked into tiger's eyes for long long time. He taught me much.

transparency

When one opens to the cosmos with no "jects" [ob-jects, sub-jects, pro-jects, in-jects, de-jects, re-jects, etc. ("ject" means "thrown")], the cosmos discloses, reveals itself. When we stop standing in our own light, we can see.

warrior note

It is time to reinvent ourselves. The phoenix arises out of ashes, not out of a pre-established structure. I speak of a consciousness change here, one that our dreamers and visionaries have spoken of for centuries.

8. Real Yourself In

7. No Clinging

6. Krishna and the Talking Heads

Madness --

Every nuclear explosion to 1998.
(Click to view video)

5. Krishna Smiles

4. Arjuna States His Case

3. Krishna Speaks To His Friend

2. Arjuna Overwhelmed

The University of George presents a beginning video commentary on the Bhagavad Gita

dual duel

If you have any doubt that we live in and as a dualistic universe, look at your body -- one side a distorted reflection of the other. And yet there is an invisible yet subtly felt line where your two halves meet running right up from crotch to crown. The razor's edge from which all cooperation springs.

the floating toothpick

Invisible before birth are all beings and after death invisible again. They are seen between two unseens. Why in this truth find sorrow? -- Chapter 2, verse 28, The Bhagavad Gita (Tr. Juan Mascaro)

Our physical sense-realm is a little blip in the infinite. If we do not trust the infinite from which we come, we cling to our physicality as we might cling to a floating toothpick, trusting it as a life raft in a vast boundless ocean.

We are the infinite embodying. We like our embodying, become attached to our sweet little selves, identify with our i.d., insist that our i.d. is who we are.

To no avail.

We are "seen between two unseens." Why do we find sorrow in this truth? Because we plant our flag in this world. You know the story. Attachment. To our stuff. To our relationships. To our distorted view of ourselves. But most of all and underlying all, to being seen.

Soon this droplet will return to the ocean, this scene will return to the un-scene. No need to make a scene about it.

Drop the scene-ario and open. The menu is not the food. The plot we have created is not the play.

Why in this truth find sorrow?

the dancing dances

The dancing dances the dancer.
When the dancer dances, dancing stops.
Something else is going on.

The walking walks the walker.
When the walker walks, walking stops.
Walkering begins.

The singing sings the singer.
When the singer sings, singing disappears.
Ears can hear this.

The breathing breathes the breather.
When the breather breathes, all goes to hell.
Panting and arrythmia are ours.

We know this, yet insist
the dancer and the walker and the singer and the breather
rule the world.

11. deathandbirth

For all things born in truth must die, and out of death in truth comes life. Face to face with what must be, cease thou from sorrow. -- Chapter 2, verse 27, The Bhagavad Gita (Tr. Juan Mascaro)

We live in, and as an embodying of, a universe forever coming into existence, forever departing. That is true this moment now and all moments ever (for the "ever" of eternity is now).

The truth is that everything born must die: hopes, dreams, bodies, mountains, bears, societies, civilizations, you, me, us, them, planets, galaxies, chickens, cats, molecules, businesses. Everything born must die.

We sometimes focus on the dying and death part, the eternal going-away, and ignore the next part: out of death in truth comes life.

Think of a wave (which you are). The wave may look stable but is being born and dying, arising from the ocean and falling back into the ocean, at every moment. The ocean is birthing it and dying it simultaneously and continuously. This is us this moment now and all that is visible to our senses.

Everything is a vast arising and falling. Our freeze-frame eyes hold it into solidity. We take a snapshot and insist that the world continue to conform to that photo. It doesn't. The cosmos is ceaselessly on the move, folding and unfolding. And we are that.

Sorrow is natural if one is clinging. In the reality of an everchanging existence, sorrow is somewhat beside the point. Face to face with what must be, cease thou from sorrow.

At some point for each of us wavelets, we will crash upon the shore or dissipate in mid-ocean. We fall into the ocean which we already are and open to the next forming.

A way away from fear and sorrow, anger and despair is to identify with the ocean while waving, to release oneself from the separative illusion.

As we will see later in this continued exposition of the Bhagavad Gita, this does not release one from one's work as a wave. Quite the contrary, it gives one renewed and more powerful and discerning energy for its fulfillment.

10. The Great Invisibility

25. Invisible is he to mortal eyes, beyond thought and beyond change. Know that he is, and cease from sorrow. -- Chapter 2, verse 25, The Bhagavad Gita (Tr. Juan Mascaro)

The "he" referred to in this verse is translated by Mascaro in the previous verses as Spirit, but the Sanskrit is more readily translated as soul. This is the aspect of us we cannot see. The eye cannot see itself. It is the seeing.

In addition to being a particulate, we are that which births us. Our mortal eyes, the eyes of the particle we are, cannot see "him" and is forever running around seeking or shunning any understanding of "her." We are embodyings of this great Invisibility.

Since many of us live in our thinking minds and even think we are our thinking, we look to think our way to Nirvana, to the realm of the great Invisibility. Part or most of our thinking is done in imagery, so we form images of the divine and encapsulate all we comprehend of the divine thus far within those imagic bounds. This works as far as it goes. The Gita is saying it doesn't go far enough.

The hand cannot grasp itself. The eye cannot see itself. The tooth cannot bite itself. The particle, as long as it remains particle-ular, cannot grasp the whole.

The Spirit, the life force which births us, is not only beyond thought but also beyond change, says the Gita. This is similar to the Unmoving Mover of Western theology. That which is beyond change births all change.

In Chinese philosophy (all philosophy is metaphysics, otherwise it is intellectual dust), the Unmoving Mover is represented as an empty circle ("the circle with no circumference whose center is everywhere" in Western terminology). This empty circle (wu chi) gives birth to duality (tai chi) which forever chases itself seeking union. The wu chi, the unchanging, gives birth to the tai chi, the forever changing.

The Gita says to know that this is so and release yourself from sorrow. As particulates, we arise and disappear. As the great Invisibility, we always are.

The Gita also says we are born again as particulates, part of an ongoing recycling plan. We become meat again (re - in - carnate). At some point, we can get off the incarnating wheel, can stop dropping our ball on life's roulette table. Meanwhile, enjoy the ride.

arena

This earth is a testing ground for each soul's powers.
Questions for reflection --
What are your powers and how are you doing?

beatitudes -- armed forces day

Blessed are those whose sanctified butts sit on righteous pews of holiness. For long moments they forget they are urine and shit-filled bags of mucous and puss.

Blessed are those who arise in the morning and go on anyway. For they are the salt of the earth, sprinkled on the bland flat food of corporate America.

Blessed are those who have found a niche of companionship and love. For they refute the arrogant bastards of the supremacy of war.

Blessed am I for refusing to paint my face with decorum. For I wear the undying paint of Crazy Horse, of Jesus, and Vajrapani.

Blessed are the spiritual marines of all religions and of no religion save one. For they shall inherit the wind, the holy wind that sustains the cosmos.

Amen.

warrior note

Zen sword is sharp .
Begging bowl is open.
These old bones laugh.

Cutting right through.
Receiving all that comes.
No clinging.

and we can make money at the same time

Hey! I have a great idea! Why not punch holes in the earth under the oceans? That way we can get the goop we need to fuel our war machines and our personal transportation devices for driving our fat goopy bodies to wherever and hauling our fat goopy food to us. After all, the earth is just one big ball of goop here for us, we mighty masters of the universe, lords of creation.

belt promotion photo

Clarence Ewing, Tatsuo Shimabuku (Founder of Isshinryu Karate), and George Breed, Agena, Okinawa, 1960

9. Beyond All Destruction

19. If any man thinks he slays, and if another thinks he is slain, neither know the ways of truth. The Eternal in man cannot kill: the Eternal in man cannot die.
20.He is never born, and he never dies. He is in Eternity: he is for evermore. Never-born and eternal, beyond times gone or to come, he does not die when the body dies.
21. When a man knows him as never-born, everlasting, never-changing, beyond all destruction, how can that man kill a man, or cause another to kill?
22. As a man leaves an old garment and puts on one that is new, the Spirit leaves his mortal body and then puts on one that is new.
23. Weapons cannot hurt the Spirit and fire can never burn him. Untouched is he by drenching waters, untouched is he by parching winds.
24. Beyond the power of sword and fire, beyond the power of waters and winds, the Spirit is everlasting, omnipresent, never-changing, never-moving, ever One. -- Chapter 2, verses 19-24, The Bhagavad Gita (Tr. Juan Mascaro)

We are embodyings of the lifeforce, of Spirit. We are the Spirit clothed in flesh. We forget this as we sink into the stupor of our subjective personalities. Then we become Spirit clothed in flesh dreaming s/he is a certain person in a certain time -- a person who is simultaneously magnificent and horrifying. We live out our adventures of pain and loss, of joy and suffering, which are real, all too real, unless we awaken to the one who breathes us. We are that one.

Verse 19 is no justification for killing (which has no justification). Only humans caught in the stupor of a dream state kill. The Eternal never kills and never dies. When we identify with the Eternal, when we open to our Source, when we know that we are the Source sourcing, we do not kill and we know we do not die.

Jesus called this "laying up treasures in heaven" where moths and rust do not corrupt nor thieves break through and steal. He also said that where our treasure is, there our heart will be.

When our heart is in our subjective personality, this fictional story we create and cling to, our narrative and resume' of who we are and what we have done and what we are going to do, our demands that others recognize our quirkiness as genius, that is where we have placed our treasure, and that place is mothy and thievish.

This series of Gita verses points to the true bank, a bank that is wide open and needs no guarding. Weapons, fire, water, and wind cannot touch it.

When we are no longer arrogant penitents, protoplasmic blobs shaking our fists at an unheeding sky or falling on our knees in wretched despair, when we open to the lifeforce that energizes us and calls us into being, then we know we are "beyond all destruction."

yippee!

Excellent Zing Tao! gathering last night. We practiced Centering and Opening, Hands Attaching, Flowers Blooming in Footsteps, Weight Underside, Small Bowl of Water, Attention Directs Energy, and talked about our situations.

first-generation students

My buddy Clarence (Hindu) Ewing sent this interview to me (part of an excellent series of interviews with first-generation students of Sensei Tatsuo Shimabuku, founder of Isshinryu Karate. I have always been a rogue, even a rogue to this bunch of rogues, so never merged with the stateside Isshinryu organization. I went off teaching on my own, adding other styles, especially Jujutsu and Ki exercises. Though everyone is now a Grandmaster, back then we were just a bunch of Marines working out with a fierce and good man.

I am the friend Clarence refers to when visiting a local blacksmith and having sai's made.

'sword

Words read either pound the heart, rile the bile, bolster the guts, excite the bite or slide past the eyes with limpid greasy ease.

weasel

Most all of us have developed a self image over the years. Deliberate fabrication, haphazard amalgamation, the self image is a bubble we maintain. The social contract is that I shalt not disturb your self image as you do not disturb mine. True friends (and enemies) will not oblige. Pop goes that weasel!

Arena

8. Real Yourself In

The unreal never is: the Real never is not. This truth indeed has been seen by those who can see the true.
Interwoven in his creation, the Spirit is beyond destruction. No one can bring to an end the Spirit which is everlasting.
For beyond time he dwells in these bodies, though these bodies have an end in their time; but he remains immeasurable, immortal. Therefore, great warrior, carry on thy fight. -- Chapter 2, verses 16-18, The Bhagavad Gita (Tr. Juan Mascaro)

The lifeforce of our Source who calls us into being goes on forever. The formless becomes form, takes shape. The form, like waves in the ocean, arises and disappears as the formless takes new form.

We are the formless forming. We are generally way too busy, too pre-occupied to notice or even care. We are proud of our form and prance around. We weary of our form and fall way down.

We do not avail ourselves of the vast energy of the formless that is forming us. The formless has no room because we are pre-occupied with figments of our imagination.

When we identify with the Spirit (lifeforce) of the Real, we are "laying up our treasures in heaven" as Jesus put it. Now we have the energy to carry on our fight. We may not know it, but the "fight" is already won. When we live in the Real, the fight is over. All that is here is endless transformation.

pluck

Pluck out the Buddha eye
and sit in its hollow! -- Dogen

If thine eye offend thee,
pluck it out! -- Jesus

At some point, the eye of our
spiritual teacher becomes a glass eye.

We know this point in others
when we see them get all glassy-eyed.

It is harder to see in ourselves.

These days many revere themselves as in the know.

Ah Ha! we say -- they need some eye plucking.
Forgetting that the eye we see in others is our eye.

Pluck you.

7. No Clinging

From the world of the senses, Arjuna, comes heat and comes cold, and pleasure and pain. They come and they go: they are transient. Arise above them, strong soul. -- Chapter 2, verse 14, The Bhagavad Gita (Tr. Juan Mascaro)

In this transient existence, this embodying as a human, we live betwixt and between. It is a dualistic world. We compile a list of what we want. We have its shadow list of what we do not want.

We want gain. We do not want loss. We fantasize continuous progress, materially and spiritually. We believe we are on a yellow brick road leading to Nirvana or Heaven. Spiritual greed is no different than material greed.

Yet gain and loss are occurring every moment. We are arising into existence while simultaneously dying to existence. At any given time, about 1/4th of our cells are being born, 1/2 are middle-aged, and 1/4th are dying and vanishing. We are like a wave of an ocean -- looking as if it is the same wave as a moment ago, yet composed now of different water droplets.

We want pleasure. We want no pain. We drug and drink and seek relationships. We stuff ourselves with tasty foods. We don fine clothes. We get a car, a house. We watch TV. We surf facebook. We slurp up pleasure with our pleasure vacuum. And we "don't get no satisfaction." Every pleasurable seeking ends in pain.

We seek praise. We reject blame. And yet the two are the same. Inflation and deflation according to our view of others' view of us. We look at ourselves through others' eyes, not stopping to think that others are doing the same, hardly giving us a thought. We walk around in this mirage, this self-hypnosis of the image-ing of what others think about us.

We cling to gain and spurn loss. This is suffering.

We cling to pleasure and spurn pain. This is suffering.

We cling to praise and spurn blame. This is suffering.

Krishna says to Arjuna that it doesn't work to cling to what is transient. Emotions rise and disappear. Self-images are illusionary magic. Thoughts chatter away like birds on a roof top. Relationships continually transform.

"Arise above them, strong soul."

Surf's up! No clinging!

And how does one accomplish this mighty warrior feat? By swimming in the ocean of love. One becomes the surf itself.

shake the rug outside (to be chanted vigorously)

In the world of blame I
gnaw on my enemy’s skull I
bite off his nose I
spit it in his face I

am a devil from hell I
wake up and say No I

fall into calm I
don’t know what to do I
sit and look at my navel I
notice a little lint I

am a sweet little angel I
spread my wings and sing I

start to clean the house I
put on The Grateful Dead I
shake the rug outside I
listen to the birds I

am a sweet little angel I
spread my wings and sing I

shower my body clean I
put on fresh new clothes I
don’t know who I am I
look for some i.d. I

see my enemy’s face I
feel for my nose I
sigh with relief I
donwannadothatagin I

donwannadothatagin I
donwannadothatagin I

STOP!

change gang

One thing is always changing into another thing.

Do not make the mistake of thinking there is an "out there."
The changling and the changing are you.
Mutual co-arising and down-sinking birthing more arising.

Failing is another name
for the birthing of succeeding
leading to more failing.

To walk, one leg empties (fails) while the other fills (succeeds).
For a successful leg to remain successful, stagnation will occur.

We must continue to die in order to be born.

We do not have a leg to stand on.

This may be called the T'ai Chi of Everyday Living.

You are the changling and the changing is you.

centering and opening

Of the nine principles and practices of the martial and all other relationship arts, centering and opening are the two most important. The other seven come along naturally with the practice of those two. Centering and opening are the embodying of heaven and earth. Centering is grounding (earth) -- sensing and being and becoming the ever-oscillating stillness at one's core. Opening is 360 degree spherical awareness with no bounds, complete vulnerability and transparency (heaven). One without the other is deadening and dangerous. Together they create a being of great spirit.