God

A fast moving comet streaks across the vast stretch of space. No one on earth has noticed its journey, for it moves faster than any technology can detect.
It passes other colliding stars and collapsing solar systems.
It simply moves.
Acceleration for its own purpose.
There are no thoughts or reasons on this journey.
There is no mind.
Just force….cause…movement….effect…movement…movement. In time, standing still…and moving… simultaneously… its force gathers.

The shattering fireball grows large, larger than the imaginable and begins to fragment, spewing pieces of electric fury are cast in all directions. Beyond the realm of colorful description, far from the linguistic limitations of size, the smaller pieces continue to speed.
One breaks though the physical barrier, a new force pushing itself into multiple dimensions.

Perception

If I couldn’t touch or feel this keyboard with my fingertips, would this computer still exist?
If you were blind and could not read this text, would the sentences still be a reality?

For the human machine, reality revolves completely around us, we are at the center of this labyrinth, therefore, anything unknown to us…music we’ve never heard of, people we’ve not met, dimensions beyond the third…all these things don’t exist, at least not in our world, not until we perceive them with our senses.
But the limited human, with its life span and prejudices, cannot begin to perceive everything. Therefore, there must be realities beyond our comprehension, far beyond the worlds I have experienced through the senses.
In India, where a young girl braids her hair before going to the market, I do not exist. She doesn’t perceive me, therefore I’m null in her labyrinth…but do I still exist? Is nonexistence the same as non perception?
Perception brings what already exists into reality. Everything is constant- what is always happening and what is always not happening- this maintains eternally. It is our mental and sensual perception that interprets and shifts.

Imagine Sonia, her workday began smoothly, breakfast was tasty ( a perception) and she felt rested (a perception), the weather was clear ( a perception) and a passersby on the street smiled at her ( a perception); then, she took a phone call from a loved one that ended in an argument. She continues to walk on the same street, but she notices the men staring at her ( a perception), the weather seems too hot (a perception) and all of a sudden, she feels claustrophobic.

Has anything really happened? Has anything in the immediate existence changed? Or is it her mind and its interpretations that have been altered?Are they what is causing her to sense that something has happened?
It is only our perceptions that lead us to believe that we, they, or the environment are shifting. Nothing ever has happened and nothing ever will happen.

Arguing

Her machine likes to argue, especially the small points.
The smaller the issue, the bigger her opposition. Be it the main course for dinner, the shortest driving route, or the best way to label a folder, she will argue whoever is in front of her. Arguing is such an entrenched habit that she argues inside herself- creating constant indecision and lack of clarity.
Up until a couple months ago, she never even knew she had this habit. Completely blind to her plague, she thought of herself as independent and easy going.
Blind to her personal demons, she was often offended by argumentative and controlling people. Using rationality as an excuse, she constantly defends her ideas and arguments, her tricky machine justifies itself, "I know better, this way just makes more sense."
Now, having been alerted to her habits by a compassionate teacher, she often catches herself in an argumentative discussion. Sometimes she realizes her manifested habit minutes after being spoken, but most often, her habit slips by her consciousness, her attention never grasping what has transpired.

Bringing the Attention Back

Attention moves like an accelerated moon, waxing and waning by the second.
With a lot of time and practice, it can be controlled and held for long periods of time.
This developed controlled attention can be placed on a person, activity, or experiment without the machine slipping into other thoughts, worries, or ideas.
But attention is never a constant- it is a flow that shifts and moves.
Just as all of the cosmos are ever changing, wakefulness and attention are never achieved and maintained continuously- nothing in this infinite grandness is stagnant or final.
States of consciousness move like storms or sweet kisses that come to a close.
This is simply the way of nature, attention and focus will drift, and it is our work to bring it back to the moment.
It’s here… it’s gone, thinking about blueberry pancakes…bring it back to the moment, put attention on each bodily movement, yes, yes….
And it’s off somewhere else…when you realize it, bring it back.
Repeat this process until your last breath.

Night Time Garden

With reluctance the wooden door opened, swollen from days of rain, it releases, moaning like a woman. From the safety of the garage she looked into the deep black of evening, not daring to step past the doorway.
The night was more than black, it was thick as ink and high fog passed through the bare tree tops like spirits on a mission. Calm and secluded, hidden under silky wings of darkness was the sacred space of the garden.
Silent to her ears, but not at all empty. There were worlds within worlds in the rectangular enclosure.
Times that both began and ended, that moved up like a whirling dervish into the atmosphere and destinies that spun though five thousand dimensions simultaneously.
Rationally, she recognized it as the space she was used to working in, but her heart felt the reconfiguration.
There was a new form and entity at work. It was in use.
Although the shrubs of sage and tall trees were barely recognizable silhouettes in the dark, she could feel the fullness of the garden.
There were dancers and chants.
Drums and daggers.
Worlds, universes, beings eternity.
It was all there, held beautifully within the sacred chamber. Swirling fire gods and people of stone. Maidens and magicians, people and forms with no name that travel among time like hidden black birds of evening.
Assembled, each working separately and as one.
It was no longer a realm for the human, and she knew.
She smiled. "Beautiful", she thought.
There was singing she could not hear and low rhythms she didn’t dance to…but it all came in, like a well pointed laser to the heart.
She turned around in awe and caught his smiling eyes, "yes" he said.

Workspace

She closes her eyes and sets herself up to meditate.
The short term goal is to remain motionless for twenty four minutes, so she pushes her frizzy hair away from her face, she layers the pillows just right, she fluffs the blankets so they don’t press on her toes.
Despite the preparations, there is always an uncomfortable sensation and instead of focusing on the mantra, her mind becomes occupied with her numb limbs or the persistent whistling of her nose. Hard as she tries, something comes up each day.
One day she realizes- she is wasting time. Avoiding the uncomfortable is not the Work.
In fact, she’s messing up. She’s trying to avoid an opportunity she could USE.
Once she gets that, she stops making such a fuss.
She arranges herself quickly, and begins. Her arms quickly go numb, but she notices it like an observer, not someone who’s invested in the comfort of the body.
When a sensation arrives, she takes it as an opportunity, a beautiful opportunity to practice containment and remaining calm.
The "problems" –the sensations- will always keep coming, no matter what she does to prevent them …the nose will itch, the bills will come, friends will die, the earth will crumble…there is nothing to prevent this, there is only the Work.
The ingenious machine will always find something to struggle against, but when we can see it coming, when we can recognize the habit and use it to practice and work, then we are in the Workspace.

Demon Keeper

I am the demon keeper.
Housed in this pretty body are legions of monsters, each one a new configuration of savagery and wretched ugliness
Colored like chameleons, they blend into every landscape and season; showing themselves only after it’s too late and the broken space is left littered with the colored fragments of a kaleidoscope.
They laugh with pleasure, always getting what they want.
Swimming in the bloodstream like drifters on a river, they make their mark, leaving no occasion untainted with their poison.
In the moments after lovemaking, the demons rise in folly, bringing worry and distress to a tingling body.
They are disguised as self interest, boundaries, morals- a handful of names cloak them, but they only serve the machine. They are playmates and lovers, partners in the game of sleep.
They feed on my fear.
They lick the tears of my jealousy.
They dance to the rhythm of my anxious heart.
It is all they know.

I am the demon keeper,
Young and wide-eyed, I train to crack the whip of master. It is the art of subtlety and stillness, for they are crafty and ingenious, insidious and sly. To contain them will take absolute patience, observation, and obedience to my own master, for now, it is a battle of will versus habit, and they are strong.