NO PATH NO SELF

In-progress...

exhaling our thoughts leaves us in the middle of everything...

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spirit/uality: aside
god/less: aside
time, biography, history: aside
what's next: aside
hopes, expectations: grow up

that breath you took and gave back:
singular sacred object and gesture
in an ocean of gravy

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word to the hopeless:
be true to yourself: hopeless

obviously your suffering is incurable
that may not be true for everyone but it’s true for you

equality contains you and your hopeful companions
but this message is only for you

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that’s a thought
thoughts are ‘self-power’
self-power is what we are, what we do
and nothing

thoughts are ‘karmic’
both cause and effect
and nothing

as something, they make poets and liars
as nothing, exbuddhists

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what you call transcendent is transcended by more drollery--
the morning after, the walk of shame...

your next transcendent fixation is a fix
that fixes all prior fixes until fixed

go slow fellow hedonist
let’s not wake the dogs

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the incorrigible refuser finally at death sighs: oh

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the equality found at the moment of death is present now between words

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they mistake emptiness for aloneness but it’s oneness

only the self is alone were it real

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when you criticize the failure called ‘attachment’
your self-loathing registers in the guts of the addicts near you
who then redouble for your sake

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the hopeful praise the successful

in the two-tiered cemetery

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impermanence: can't get it, can't miss it, can't do it, can't not be precisely it

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into what do we expand?
into what implode?

into what we are
into what we were

only one is possible

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the 'no problem' state is not a state at all
it's the realm in which the bodymind burns
and it's that tiny heart-lamp conflagration

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aphorism-as-thesis composed of bright contradictions deletes itself

antithesis-as-aphorism decomposes itself at the speed of light

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the number of events composing a single event is infinite
which is equivalent to zero, as in:
'no problem'

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the biggest chakra is always wide open
and always just outside the alleged bodymind

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'this' is not cured
head-to-tail: the bodymind

except — except! — by awareness
of the effort-to-cure

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the psychotherapeutic journey is a journey into self but self is a myth and psychotherapy is a self-generating myth

the spiritual journey is a journey into self but self is a myth and spirituality is a myth-generating vortex of self

the journey into self is a self-stirring/shit-stirring storm of incoherent myth: the ‘problem’ is a myth, the ‘cure’ is a myth, but ‘myth’ is also a myth…

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sliced up: the mundane/horizontal into vertical strips
time into timelessness
salvation as essence

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beginnings and endings are emotions that begin and end

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whenever emptiness clings to or repels emptiness
a 'me' is born

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desire for something other, something else, runs in a constant stream beneath your feet

you can straddle that stream without getting wet

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repressing fear makes it real
confessing it shows its contextual irrelevance

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the internalized oppressor is caught in the act

with a conscious pronoun shift, 'it' is outed

it will inevitably claim, again, that it is 'me'

it isn’t

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oppressors and exploiters would have us believe
that we must produce our own value through effort

but our inherent value (dynamic emptiness) makes effort and oppressors and exploiters

optional

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panic at exhalation’s tip is instantly replaced by greed

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ego-self (historical self, self-identity) has zero interest in this-here-now

nothing's enhanced by it
not the species, not the wallet, not even the mood

this-here-now is non-success

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you forget, you lose, you fail, you hurt, you return to dilemma, to doubt, to the No

how funny to discover that this failure is gold!

no external permission prompts a surprising belch of laughter

just one’s own digestive processes

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abandon imagination only when it abandons you

until then, the voidness of self and mentation shall remain 'as is'

(on the ghost ship, the thought-hating mutiny fails)

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pulled up out of the mystical muck by the ear

slapped a few times on the deck

can we find plain language for a celebration of anonymous failure?

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a fanatical goal of 'no suffering'
or a violent ideal of 'peace of mind'
would postpone the inherent and universal righteousness of being

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tragically?
happily
this
(impermanence-truth)
will not be reduced
to an artifact of language
or memory

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the alchemy of anxiety-into-peace has no element of continuation
and no patent

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notice a fearful grasping sensation in the gut

it radiates to the limbs

notice how breath stops for it like waiting for a bus

no bus

breathing ... resumes

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happily infected by all sales pitches
return everything

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mindfulness? mindful?
who? of what? when? where?

in this gut-instant
zero-dimension pops everything like a bubble

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'no' = 'yes' = 'crazy wisdom' ...

simply note the internal 'no' (of which the external 'no' is a mere echo)

and note its voidness

and quit kissing ass

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the gaze implies its own periphery
but pinpoint focus is an illusion
so the gaze can only be peripheral

the gaze is autonomous
the visual splash impersonal
until verbalized and then it’s bowdlerized

the gaze is a two-way street
you thought it didn’t look back?
that’s you!

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the coddling industry is for the unweaned and self-coddling in a no-self realm is degenerate

but self is self? persistent fear-greed? a verb really: fearing-grasping-selfing

incurable, never grown out of

but — but! — devoid of quantity

(“pay me” says the coddler, a high-living wet nurse in the geriatric ward)

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the bound person is the free person

the free person is bound

don’t follow

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we are composed of not-us
sustained by not-us
surrounded by not-us
absorbed by not-us
so in conclusion not-us is us and we are not ourselves

which makes us immortal in a comprehensively unhelpful way

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the book is here
the teaching is here
the lesson is here
the truth is here
the destination is here

bondage-liberation, the ordinary-extraordinary--right here

pinpoint location: where feargreed coils and recoils in the head-heart-gut-groin-footsole

exactly where you always land

convenient!

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one barrier: one gate

celebrate

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there’s been a misunderstanding

there will be no correction

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to whom do you owe deference in the present moment?

to what?

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this has nothing to do with your behavior

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the snake swallows its tail until it gags awake

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