Chapter 100 - The Stillness Before Time (Compendium)


C

If you cannot discern a moderate perspective,
If you cannot keep your many passions in check,
Your cravings, your urges, your appetites, your lusts,
Extremes of every sort, can easily destroy you.

* * * *
All you want is illusion.

* * * *
Dreams are the mark of a mind
Entangled in the theater
Of its own creation.

* * * *
It is acceptable not to pretend to know what you cannot.
Agnosticism is perspective of anyone who is authentic.

* * * *
The only real solution to your view of this universe is death.

* * * *
Understanding how things work
Doesn’t mean you must
Participate that way.

* * * *
How insidious identification.

* * * *
So many things yet to pretend.

* * * *
Let us try once again
To make it perfectly clear.

* * * *
Treat your body with a reasonable amount of care.
It is a very vulnerable meat machine, a temporary vehicle
Through which space-time may appear as either heaven or hell.

* * * *
Be moderate in the seven deadly pleasures:
Gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, wrath, lust and pride.

* * * *
The most innocuous spot is the best place to hide.

* * * *
Students of irony mark their own way.

* * * *
Ah, the wonder of an orderly society.

* * * *
Compassion comes
When you know others
As you do your Self.

* * * *
Who begrudges anyone great or small
A breath of air, a bowl of food, or a cup of water,
Or a secure, clean dwelling to live and sleep?
Words don’t count for much without these.

* * * *
Those relatively few across time, across space,
Who have pondered things deeply
Have a quiet kinship.

* * * *
Respect does not require any pretense.

* * * *
One of those days when you may as well
Keep pen dangling over paper.

* * * *
You are not obligated to be interested in anything,
Nor are you denied the right to be interested in everything.

* * * *
What happens when you allow
The other entry into your mind?

* * * *
Your beliefs hinder you seeing it directly.

* * * *
To associate these thoughts
With any particular era of history
Might well miss its pointless nature.

* * * *
What death is ever not timely?

* * * *
He wondered how smoothly the panties
Would slide down her silky thighs.

* * * *
Sometimes busy-busy, sometimes not.
Sometimes times pass so quickly,
Others almost entirely stopped.
Whoever knows the known
Can only briefly fathom
That which will ever
Be unknown.

* * * *
Rarely on time, the clock hands
Spin their endless course
Of round and round.

* * * *
Something new to think about.

* * * *
Who has room for those without boundaries?

* * * *
Is not life reward enough?

* * * *
A compendium,
A chronicle of reflections
A collection of aphoristic musings,
Of the day-to-day streaming of consciousness.

* * * *
You will be something’s feast someday.

* * * *
How easily the corruption of greed seizes a soul.

* * * *
The costume box of your mind.

* * * *
Why do you gauge yourself by the popular line?

* * * *
It’s as empty as it is full.

* * * *
We are all so susceptible to our ignorance.

* * * *
Flowers seek admiration.

* * * *
Bound to form, you ride
The ebb and flow of your passion.

* * * *
But for the inattention of consciousness,
You are always absolutely present
In  the eternal here-now.

* * * *
What a mystery any fate is.

* * * *
What are you looking for in any relationship?

* * * *
Give and take without thoughts of obligation.

* * * *
Sifting through the ashes, Buddha awakens.

* * * *
Pretty hard not to detest
Some parts of your life.

* * * *
What will kill you?
How will you die?

* * * *
Alas, alas, the body does not respond
To your commands as it once did.

* * * *
Concepts are just sounds
Unless you know what they mean.

* * * *
Your life is how you use your energy.

* * * *
How far can pathetic go?

* * * *
Something’s rising somewhere.

* * * *
Imagination makes great leaps of faith.

* * * *
First there was the world,
And then there was naught.

* * * *
As meaningless as it is,
We still give it what we can.

* * * *
You’ve got one chance at every moment.

* * * *
Thoughts are flickering energy.
To what can one be attached
But the vanity that this thunderstorm,
This barrage of the senses, is somehow real.

* * * *
In the company of like minds, there is no other.

* * * *
Do not trust any business
To weigh your best interests
Over its demanding bottom line.
They all vie for your gullibility.

* * * *
Bypass the bullshit.

* * * *
This ground is not for sale.

* * * *
In death you are reborn.

* * * *
The mirage of greener grass
Entices all but the most content.
Move any direction, it is all the same.

* * * *
Contentment is mastery.

* * * *
The existential cruelty of it all.

* * * *
A dancing wit plays to the company of time.

* * * *
The way is the creator or all function,
Yet remains untouched by form.

* * * *
We do love our memorials to vanity.

* * * *
The sun feels very warm
When the gray clouds are not
Making everything seem very cool.
Another good day to die.

* * * *
Sensuality beckons us all taste the tasteless nature.

* * * *
An existence that never was,
Mesmerized by an ethereal imagination
Which could only pretend to be.

* * * *
After awhile experience become like rain filling a bucket.
Patter, patter, patter, one after another, nothing but process.

* * * *
Does it often seem afterwards as if nothing really happened?

* * * *
Who know their world unto death?

* * * *
Innocence is the time of causes.

* * * *
Time is what you make of it.

* * * *
No devil can tempt you without your collusion.

* * * *
Money is not one of the higher indicators of success.

* * * *
Just putting it all in the same perspective as gnat dung.

* * * *
Religions pretend god and the devil
Are playing some huge chess game for our souls.
How gullible and naive the masses.

* * * *
You want so badly for it to be more, always more.
Your vanity makes what is so simple so complex.

* * * *
One of the major benefits of worldly wealth
Is that you get to move a lot of things around.

* * * *
What to do after you’ve realized buddhahood
May be the more pertinent question.

* * * *
We all learn so many different things.

* * * *
Ho hum.

* * * *
Pooh on all this babble.
Naps and honey are meaning enough.

* * * *
Human vanity seeks divine sanction
For all its arbitrary self-absorptions.

* * * *
Is it all you can be, or all you are?

* * * *
Caveat to all who wander into the sun:
Nothing will ever be the same.

* * * *
Can you feel the inside of your skull?
Where does infinity begin?

* * * *
Some embrace technology
And a some reject or ignore it.
But it is with us, like it or not.
There is no going back.

* * * *
So, what are your real intentions.

* * * *
To discern what it is,
You must perceive so much
That it is not, never was, will never be.

* * * *
What is true?  What is false?
And is there any difference?

* * * *
Surprise attacks are dealt best surprise defenses.

* * * *
Limitations have a way of kicking in
When you reach your capacity.

* * * *
No matter how known you seem,
You really can really never be.
Others can truly only discern
Illusory presence, not the infinity.

* * * *
You’ve learned a lot about Maya,
But what have you really learned?

* * * *
Comparison will not take you there.

* * * *
There where?

* * * *
Just try throwing or giving things away.
Chances are you won’t miss most of them.

* * * *
One was killed at the end of a bayonet when he was three.
Another by a gang of five youths while begging for food,
And the third was not recognized by the border guard,
And allowed to pass without writing anything down.

* * * *
Whether you pray or not,
Your fleshy vanity will succumb
To the reality of mortal whim.
God doe not play favorites
Despite all your rosy delusions.

* * * *
How easy to miss the irony and paradox of any given moment.

* * * *
Boring is as boring does.

* * * *
Yes, they are not really that much bigger
Than toothpicks, but they are grand.

* * * *
Your really don’t know where the hell you are.

* * * *
In all things see your Self.

* * * *
It is all the whimsical nature of stardust.

* * * *
How many fellow creatures
We subjugate for pleasure or harvest,
Or destroy if they do not serve us
In way, shape or manner.

* * * *
If you get all legalistic about this,
You’ll probably miss the point.

* * * *
If life was always comfortable,
You might never let go.

* * * *
It is only now which counts.

* * * *
Another soul marred by personality.

* * * *
Despite all voices to the contrary.
You are very much alone,
A mystery
Unto your Self.


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The Stillness Before Time (Compendium)
© Michael J. Holshouser 2009
World Rights Reserved