Welcome into the vortex........

anarcho-shamanism, mountain spirits; sacred wilderness, sacred sites, sacred everything; psychonautics, entheogens, pushing the envelope of consciousness; dominator culture and undermining its activities; Jung, Hillman, archetypes; Buddhism, multidimensional realities, and the ever-present satori at the centre of the brain; a few cosmic laughs; and much much more....


all delivered from the beautiful Highlands of Scotland!






Friday 22 March 2013

From Buddha to Dakini: Naked Partings and Meetings


       Sherab Chamma.  Pre-Buddhist Bon figure

Part One: Animal Farm or wot?

Buddhism. Buddhist tradition. Buddhist traditions. Buddhist people. I spent over twenty-five years formally ordained into Buddhism, making a final extrication getting on for six years ago.  At least, that's what I thought.

Just recently, various happenings have coalesced to cause a more deeply critical revaluation of certain things Buddhic, at least as I have come to experience them.  I present a summary below.

First up, the Buddha.  Or, should we say, the historical Buddha figure, the one who prowls through the pages of the Pali Canon.  Was he really everything he cracked himself up to be?  Wise and accomplished, little doubt, and with a rare enthusiasm for communication. But the claims of uniqueness and exclusiveness, at least in this era, that he insists on so strongly? The new bright light burst into an otherwise uniformly dark and brutish Kali Yuga? The One and Only? The Really Special One? All seems a bit dodgy to me these days.

Next, Tibetan Buddhist Tantra. From the days of my early acquaintance with Buddhism, this is the stuff that really turned me on, communicated to the 1970s neophyte with zeal by Govinda, David-Neel and the rest.  Blueberry-coloured beings with huge bellies, half-human half-animal, three eyes, lots of flailing arms, out to scare you shitless. Great stuff. But in more recent times, it has come as a surprise to learn that some of this carnival of the bizarre is not Buddhist (or Hindu, whatever that catch-all phrase means) in origin at all.  Some, at least, of the figures have come up through pre-Buddhist Bon, which in turn most likely inherited them from more ancient shamanic peoples.

The Bonpo themselves get a bit of a bad press from the orthodoxy.  Weird magical anarchists with a penchant for hurling rocks and thunderbolts at their neighbours.  Then along came the Buddhists with their proper, organised spirituality, bringing light and peace in place of the dodgy rituals of those unpredictable practitioners of the Dark Arts.

So the story goes.  But maybe the truth is rather different.  Maybe we are looking at a tale of invasion and repression of indigenous shamanic peoples and practices, a tale rendered respectable by modern pro-Buddhist spin.  Could it be that the newly-arrived Buddhists in Tibet cleverly hijacked and absorbed the Bon and pre-Bon elements for their own ends, just as the Control System twists and assimilates to its heart's content nowadays?

History is written by the victorious.

It has been disquieting to consider that Buddhism, which I once embraced so enthusiastically as a radical alternative to the ignorance and blindness of the Judeo-Christian religions, may share, in degree and at times, in the same patriarchal idiocy and hierarchical power sickness.

Simultaneously, realising that the figures of Enlightenment are not the exclusive preserve of any one particular tradition has been personally liberating.  They roam the world wild, pure, unfettered, larger than any system that humans can hope to come up with.

Then there's the teacher.  The bottom line is that I left the Buddhist Order he founded because the practices and techniques weren't working for me any more.  In  retrospect, there's the temptation to  feel hoodwinked.  I signed up for the Great Enlightenment, and I got generalised exoterica - which worked for a while.  Then he showed me nothing else.  The disquieting niggle is that he had nothing else to show. I may be wrong.

Actually, what I have written above is not quite correct.  As well as the exoterica, my former teacher passed on a sadhana of a particular Buddha/Bodhisattva.  This sustained me for years, and for that introduction I am truly grateful. But when it comes to navigating consciousness as it begins to extend beyond the world of everyday third density perception, there was no guidance, no advice; not even any proper recognition of its existence. Maybe that is the mainstream Buddhist way. Look elsewhere, however, and helping hands abound. There are the shamanic traditions scattered across the globe; there are western mystical traditions, if you can get your head around them. There is Jung, fragmentarily; in fictional guise there is Castaneda, even. And there are quite a number of modern folk whose words can be accessed through books and the internet: Neil Kramer and John Lash have proved most helpful to me personally.    

And let's not forget the disciples.  Some remain among my best friends.  But when I formally embraced Buddhism I assumed I was joining a bunch of folk who, to a person, were uniformly busting their gut for realisation of the Unborn, the Uncreate, the Immaculate.  With respect, I would now say that this was a miscalculation on my part.

Part Two: Skinny-Dipping

23rd July 2007: a letter arrives.  It is acceptance of my resignation from the Buddhist Order by my former teacher. He is not surprised, he says, at my leaving.  The letter is courteous, though failing to express any appreciation of the years of blood, sweat, and tears I put into teaching meditation, organising classes, and running centres devoted to spreading his own brand of Buddha Dharma. I suppose this is OK.

Once I had decided to resign, writing the letter and the rest had come easily.  At least I thought it had.  One day, however, just recently, an alarm bell went off very loudly.  There was something I still hadn't dealt with. The kesa....  

A kesa is an item worn around the neck by those formally devoted to following the Buddhist path, in some schools at least.  It's soft-core uniform (I use this word, not as a put-down; I came across it as description on a Zen Buddhist website).  Getting rid of the kesa encountered more resistance than writing the letter. I mean, what do you do with a kesa? I put it off. And put it off.  Then forgot. Or, should I say, 'forgot'.

With time, deeper layers of purpose began to reveal themselves to the act of leaving behind formalised Buddhism. 'The drugs don't work any more' morphed into a spiritual imperative: to go freestyle.  The very act of identification - as a Buddhist in this case - manifested as an obstacle.  So I turned spiritual vagrant. With nothing to tie me down, I became like a beach-comber, wandering through the flotsam and driftwood of the seashore looking for bits and pieces of value.  It was not long before I realised that the great ocean, in its abundant generosity, would throw up all manner of treasure once I learnt to open my eyes.  I became a student of the intuitive art of beach-combing.

Things have changed in the Order to which I once belonged.  Its members can roam wide, free to gain succour from many areas of spiritual nourishment.  I look upon this as a good thing.  Nevertheless, at the end of the day, they will return from their wanderings to a comfy bed with the recurring motif hung above the pillow: Home, Sweet Buddhist Home. A sound night's sleep beckons.

To walk unfettered, free of any fixed identity, revealed itself as necessary for me to develop further.  Much can be learnt from a spiritual tradition, but the time arrives when, with gratitude and respect, the aspirant needs to jettison it, leave it all behind.  The leap into the void, into pure empty space, is just that.  No ties, beliefs, identities. No umbilical cord, however fine and gossamer thin. Not exactly comfortable, I know.  But to dance in the company of the wild, naked dakinis is a two-way affair: you need to go naked yourself.

Part Three: Grey Sky, Blue Sky 

Monday 18th March, 2013.  I open the back door to an east wind that cuts my breath. The perpetual winter sun of late February has long since given way to the unrelenting viciousness of March.  The thermometer reads three degrees, but in the wind it feels far colder.

The sky is painted a uniform grey as I head down the hill, alongside the river, then across mud-tangled grass. Monday: the world seems in quiet mourning.  A thick murk hangs over the landscape; as I climb, I can see thick smudges of snow on the lower hills to the east, then barely perceptible sheets of dirty white covering the higher ground beyond. Mercifully, the murk renders the wind turbines which rake the far skyline invisible. Darkness has its uses.

I am finally beginning to warm up, and stop to remove hat, gloves, and scarf.  At last I leave behind human habitation, and begin to ascend the wide and muddy track up the hillside.  I am nearing my destination. I had reckoned on two hours to get this far, but a glance at my watch shows me that, with the cold, I have accomplished the walk in only ninety minutes.

As I turn up the final narrow path leading to the little stone circle on top of the hill, a few grains of snow fall from the canopy of grey above.  The white Buddha, the Buddha of purity, of the mantra, is conferring his blessing.

The remains of the circle sit at two hundred metres above sea level, perched on the brow of the hill.  To the west lies forest, but eastwards the view is panoramic - on a clear day, that is.  Today, the gorse and thick grass hang damp in the silence.  I open my rucksack and take out a small wooden box, delicately carved for me by an old friend many years ago.  Opening the lid, I take out its contents.  There is a ring of flames and a number of tiny vajras, all made out of card, relics from a ritual in the Spanish mountains over twenty years ago.  Out comes a pouch holding a kesa; then a second older and grubbier specimen of the same.

The ritual is simple and effective, involving a few brief invocations and the burning of the wall of flames, vajras, kesas, and finally the pouch.  At first, it is difficult to get a fire in the wind and damp, but eventually the objects are returned readily to their constituent elements.  All this takes place to the quiet background hum of the mantra of the pure white Buddha.  I have not recited it for years, but it comes effortlessly to mind.  Ironic, indeed, that these Buddhist regalia, and with them any remnants of Buddhist identity, should disappear to the sound of the pure white Buddha.  A Buddha stretching back, beyond Buddhism into a distant authentic shamanic past, before Buddhism as history.  And, more profoundly, back to Universal Mind, beyond time altogether.

Midway through the ritual burning, a flock of wild geese fly directly over the circle. They are disconcertingly low, and in perfect V-formation. The group geometry, the distinctive honk-cry, the great migration to a distant who-knows-where, is something I have found, in these Scottish parts, singularly moving.  Now I begin to understand why.

The little fire begins to exhaust itself; with nearly all reduced to ashes, I pour some water over the remains just in case, before taking silent leave of the scene.  My hands are numb with cold, and I move quickly, eventually catching a bus for the final stretch of my journey. I search out warmth in a corner cafe and, over coffee, begin to write. It wonder if a tear will come: it doesn't.


References: for more on the relationship between Buddhism, Bon, and shamanism, go for the magnificent 'Shamanism and Tantra in the Himalayas' by Claudia Muller-Ebeling, Christian Ratsch, and Surendra Bahadur Shahi.  The equally magnificent John Lash writes in various places on metahistory.org: try 'Open Source Earth Wisdom for Kali Yuga' for starters.




                       

Monday 18 March 2013

The Day of the Anarchist

                   
        Prince Peter Kropotkin

Part One: Sticks and Stones          

One of the vulgar tactics deployed by the wanton and the ignorant is the calling of names.  Find the right name and the unwary will immediately be deflated, a somnolent public deceived.

One such name is 'hippie'.  Nobody has a good word to say for the hippie, from the mainstream conservative to an alternative researcher such as Jan Irvin, who informs us that the 'hippie movement' of the 1960s was largely masterminded by the CIA and related agencies.  Never mind that no serious and self-respecting counterculturalist of the time actually referred to themselves as a hippie, or that the word was a creation of the mainstream media.  No. 'Filthy', 'bloody', and several others I do not wish to include here, are the adjectives invariably linked with that most vile of specimens, the hippie.

'Conspiracy theorist' is another catchphrase used to dismiss somebody you may happen to disagree with.  The term first came into common parlance. I believe, following the assassination of JFK, and was employed to shoot down anybody who suggested that the truth might be anything other than what the official channels told us it was.  It has become a phrase used in the mainstream pejoratively, connoting wackiness, cookiness, and paranoia.  I heard the term 'conspiracy theorist' employed most recently in this manner by Brian Cox. Excuse me, Professor Brian Cox, if you please.  The Great Professor is the current darling of BBC scientific rationalism, most likely a replacement for Richard Dawkins, who is getting on in years and not sexy enough.  Now, I confess to having only watched about twenty minutes of Prof. Cox in total: his cutting-edge scientific presentations seem to have a disturbing effect on my intestinal tract.  Anyhow, I caught him at the end of a programme about the Moon. 'We'll be online to answer your questions about the Moon after the programme' he hissed through the permanent smirk on his face. 'But no conspiracy theorists, who think we didn't land on the Moon' he continued smugly.

Bloody wacko conspiracy theorists.  Not worth bothering with.  Now, personally, I consider it unlikely that the Moon landings were faked.  There are, however, serious rational questions to be answered about some of the evidence presented.  Has Professor Cox, supreme exemplar of scientific objectivity that he is, actually cared to take a look at a few of the inconsistencies surrounding the official story? I doubt it.

The other time I caught the Great Professor on television (this is an unashamed digression, I know), he was in the middle of explaining science and equations and stuff to a hand-picked audience of 'celebrities' and the like (what a message that piece of theatre is sending out.....). 'The new physics is not mystical or woo-woo New Agey' he assured us smugly. 'It's very precise.' Now, look here, mate. These mystics through the ages you're so fond of poo-pooing have had far more knowledge and direct experience of the workings of the universe than will ever get processed through your own equation-and-diagram-addled brain. 'Mystic' turns out to be another knee-jerk term of derision, in the hands of Father Superior Cox at least.

Finally, we arrive at my other insult, the total dismissal: 'anarchist'.  What is an anarchist?  Well, it's a person who doesn't believe in rules, and has a penchant for chaos. Anarchists go round disrupting nice demonstrations organised by nice left-wing type people for nice worthy left-wing type causes.  Don't be surprised, should you have the misfortune to ever encounter an anarchist, if they are wielding a baseball bat or other hard and dangerous weapon.  A sort of western terrorist, really.  In common with the hippie, an anarchist probably hasn't washed for weeks, and frequently earns intelligent descriptive adjectives like 'bloody' and worse.  And it cannot be a coincidence that 'anarchist' sounds a bit like 'antichrist'.  Can it?

Part Two: Liberty Calls

The reality, surprise, surprise, is far from the mudslinging and spin.  One of the main figures in the history of anarchism is Peter Kropotkin. Or, to be precise, Prince Peter Kropotkin.  He is listed in Wikipedia as, among other things, zoologist, philosopher, evolutionary theorist, geographer, economist, and anarcho-communist. In other words, a Renaissance Man of staggering proportions. 'Mutual Aid', published in 1902, is among his more important contributions to human thought.  Following the hijacking and twisting of Darwin's ideas by the social Darwinists, who pushed interpersonal competition and 'nature red in tooth and claw' as justification for the existence of political and social power elites, Kropotkin decided to check things out for himself.  Taking off into the wide open spaces of Russia (there are plenty of them), he observed closely the behaviour of the animals he came across there.  His conclusion: co-operation was every much a requisite for survival and evolution of a species as was competition.  Needless to say, and for reasons that should be obvious, it was the ideas of the social Darwinists that prevailed as the currency of the mainstream.

Kropotkin himself did not deny our competitive urges, but insisted that they were not the inevitable driving force of history as claimed by the social Darwinists. This reflection was a vital ingredient in forming his ideas of political anarchism. Personally, I rather doubt the value of studying animal behaviour to give us clues about human nature.  In the natural world anything and everything happens.  The good, the bad, the ugly. If there is a message, it is this: human behaviour is varied and elastic. Don't try to pin it down too much; many things are possible.

However, in the spirit of political anarchism, we call at the very least work for a huge diminution of central government control, along with radical decentralisation.  There are many who will view such a prospect with trepidation; but is this fear really justified? Is it simply a conditioned reaction?  Just think.  Consider for a moment the people to whom we readily confer control on a daily basis.  The Camerons, Merkels, Milibands; the Salmonds, Obamas and the rest.  Are these beings who demonstrate an unusual and exceptional capacity for love, compassion, and sympathy for other human beings? No. Are they people more honest, honourable, trustworthy and innately responsible than your next-door neighbour? No. Do they embody remarkable qualities of problem-solving and creative thinking? Not at all.   They are where they are purely by dint of working a system, a system of power that they feel at home in.  That is pretty much it.  There is nothing to lose, but much to gain, through their demise.

Part Three: Quitting the Interface 

The notion of modern western democracy has become a grotesque parody of itself.  In Britain, we increasingly hear of LibLabCon, where the three 'major' political parties have been reduced to a children's 'spot the difference' game.  Debate takes place within carefully circumscribed areas, while issues that could make a real difference to people's lives are conveniently left outside the box, not for discussion at all.  In Scotland, whence I write, Big Chief Alex Salmond has an increasingly transparent habit of 'misleading' the Scottish Parliament.  It would be uncharitable of me to suggest that 'misleading' is a euphemism for lying through the teeth, thereby demonstrating an utter absence of respect for ones fellow parliamentarians.

The carnival of dishonour knows no bounds. On the occasions that I dare to dip into the 'news', it invariably shouts out loud in my face.  A couple of weeks ago, local newspaper headlines told of how Fergus Ewing, Scottish Minister for Energy (another euphemism - read 'Minister for destroying beautiful landscapes and plunging people into unnecessary fuel poverty') was accused of 'misleading Scottish Parliament' on how much extra the gas and electricity consumer had to pay as a result of government renewable energy policies. He protested that he was unaware of any problems with his figures: he had got them from the renewables industry, after all. Comrades, this is the same as going to tobacco companies in the 1950s for information on the links between smoking and lung cancer. Exactly the same. Underhand and criminal.  And, what's more, it appears that Ministers in Scotland are under no obligation to apologise for spreading falsehoods anyway. It's up to them to decide.

One simple step we all could take would be not to vote.  This is not just passive abstention, but a positive act.  As Emma Goldman, another prominent figure in the history of anarchism vividly put it, voting provides an illusion of participation while masking the true structures of decision-making.  If nobody voted, the criminals and psychopaths could no longer continue with their dirty tricks.  A system cannot keep going if nobody supports it - its only hope would be to usher in a reign of terror that would make even Josef Stalin wince.

'But we should vote' I hear the bleating protests. 'We live in a democracy. We should be thankful, and exercise our democratic rights.' Well, sorry. We bloody well don't live in a democracy. It's a rigged game, to borrow a term from John Lash.  Every several years we are presented with a number of identikit cut-outs, none of whom has anything to say that represents proper human aspiration. Besides, the catalogue of dark comics we see paraded as our 'democratically-elected representatives' has little say in what really goes on anyway.  This is increasingly determined by groups, organisations, committees way out of reach of democratic accountability.  Climate change summits, United Nations committees; agenda 21, common purpose; shady groupings of European bureaucrats.  This is where the action is. Behind the scenes, out of the public eye. And the action seems to be almost entirely aimed at creating a uniform, homogeneous, docile, planetary population blithely led by a creeping totalitarianism. This is blindingly obvious; anybody who doubts it frankly hasn't done their ten minutes of homework. And there is a two-minute test you can do to check it out. Firstly, ask yourself whether, as a species, we have become much more evil over the past ten years, say, or not. Then, consider the things that governments have done to increase freedoms during that time; and consider the things that have increased control and interference in people's lives over that time.

So don't worry if you don't vote.  Nobody has ever taken notice of your cross in the ballot box anyway.

This is where well-intentioned people who call for greater state control/scrutiny - of the press, for example - have got it so horribly and dangerously wrong.  Faith in the state as an agent for improvement would be touching, were it not so terrifying.  The notion that the state will be any more transparent, any more considerate of the freedom of individuals, has no foundation.  I challenge anyone to show me otherwise; I am open to communication.  In the meantime, our first obligation is to disentangle as far as possible from the state and its machinations.  Reclaim our sovereignty.  Otherwise, there can be no complaints.

To conclude with the eminently quotable Emma Goldman: 'The most violent element in society is ignorance.' And 'Every society has the criminals it deserves.'  Thanks, Emma.



Sunday 3 March 2013

Highland February





A few photos from the February sunshine of the north-west Scottish Highlands.