May, 2022 Bardo Buzz (04-05)

THE PEEK-A-BOO EXERCISE

Barbara Haynes

I think most of us, at some time in our lives, have played peek-a-boo / I see you with an infant. We have experienced the wonderful surprise and laughter as the infant sees us appear from our hidden place. If we’re lucky, peals of laughter and giggles will burst from the infant and we get that wonderful feeling of joy and delight.

During the sharing of practices by the participants at the Easter Workshop, I was struck by how much the experience of doing an exercise is like playing peek-a-boo / I see you with the universe. Our practices are designed to bring us into the now, to know our true nature, to “see” what we have hidden from ourselves.

As each of us does our practices or exercises, we are opening ourselves to be here now, if only for just a moment. To experience in that moment the oneness that is. That oneness, or isness that is always present, simply hidden from view. So, when the veil drops, we can say to the universe peek-a-boo / I see you.

I realized I often approach my daily practices with a serious attitude – seeking, hoping to find myself present and in the now. I decided to take a more playful attitude over the next several days after the Easter Workshop. I conducted a peek-a-boo / I see you exercise with the universe. Knowing that that with which I wish to connect is always present, I did my exercises with the idea of being open – waiting for the moment when the veil would be lifted and I could say peek-a-boo / I see you to that oneness. Each time it happened I found myself filled with joy and delight. The universe and I were playing a wonderful game together. In that moment I could feel myself at one with what is present and filled with wonder.

"Bare Bulb" -- E.J. Gold, original linoleum block print, © 2010 Heidelberg Editions International (HEI).

Musings of a Labyrinth Reader

STRATEGIZING MY WORK EFFORTS

Marvette Kort

Building good Bardo Habits encapsulates so many facets of one's work efforts. A few that I have been looking at include the following:

1) What practice I can do and attitudes I can hold that are most effective for me to strengthen my attention and set the conditions that require my presence. In other words, if I'm not focused on being present in the moment of doing them, it's uncomfortably obvious.

2) What builds the skill of compassion for other sentient beings -- including the two-legged bi-peds in my immediate environment? The aim is for compassion to be an exercisable element within the practice.

3) A practice that produces the effect of an openness to possibilities arising in my present or projected future spaces.

4) Synergistic with #3, I'm looking to develop the courage and strength for recognizing options and acknowledging and responding to them in a non-judgemental way.

5) And lastly, I'm considering what builds tolerance for the operating, so to speak, law -- "Oh Holy Void, surprise me one more time." -- E.J. Gold

To me this tolerance encompasses patience and an endurance to allow within my organic machine a build-up of energy. This could look like striving for mental clarity to direct the execution of the project in my focus. Or, in addition, it could be seen as emotional responses such as confusion and fear or a conflict of wishing for definitive organization versus allowing for the spontaneous generation of events. And this tolerance includes the receiving of feedback or new direction.

In other words, how do I circulate the building up of energy inside this human biological machine (HBM) so as not to blow it off, but instead to channel it to fuel creative expression?

All these ideas expressed in words relate to experience personally experienced or the lack of it. For me, putting down ideas and looking at them objectively on paper helps to clarify my strategy for applying efforts. However, I also have experience that if I can maintain a continuity of invoking my presence, real priorities come into focus and my machine conforms to the ruling from the higher.

May these small efforts be used for the benefit of all beings everywhere.

"Man on the Cross" Tom X, (now available in a high resolution print)

A Question of Conscience

Jewel McInroy

The following are the closing paragraphs of Talk of the Month #13, Alchemy and the Automobile. Searching for something meaningful to share, I found the details related to what we normally think of as conscience to have disturbed my equilibrium and is making room for a new perspective which you also may find to be of value.

E.J. begins .....

"The real question is a question of conscience. Most people think conscience refers to other human beings or to the planet or to animals or to good and bad, to behavior and so on. Conscience refers to the Absolute.

"If you could get off the path, would you really? Suppose you could, would you? If you say, 'no, of course not, no matter how much I want to, I wouldn't,' that is conscience. Not being kind to children and dogs and looking out for starving people in Biafra. That is not conscience, that is compulsion.

"Saving the world is not conscience but egotism, vanity, the realm of what is called the white man's burden, to save the world.

"Go plant a tree in Biafra. This is what is meant by the ancient Essene saying, let the dead bury their dead. Let the things of the dead world proceed without you. You be involved with life.

"Only on the cross can we know the actual difference between life and death; then we can see the realms of life and death before us and can see that what we have ordinarily taken all our days as life is really death. We can see before us the walking dead. You be part of life. Concentrate floating your attention on life and let the dead bury their dead."

excerpted from Talk of the Month

Alchemy and the Automobile

The Method To Achieve Unity
Talk of the Month #27 The Pop Corn Talk by E.J. Gold

Michele Marie

"As the intensity of our work increases, it becomes important not to spoil it with little indulgences, vanities and self-pamperings.

"The moving centrum is the strongest force. First, we must harness the moving centrum and force it to become the thinking centrum by taking all moving centrum activity away from it by following the machine's activity with the ordinary attention of the headbrain.

"Now, the headbrain has the force and the organic will necessary for real authority over the whole machine. This is the primitive first groanings of real will. Now we can be the same tomorrow as we are today, and soon we can throw away our cigarettes and really mean it.

THE EXERCISE

"The mutual-reciprocal transference of the functions of the headbrain and tailbrain will be the first active step in our voluntary evolution. Before this intentional transference of upper brain and lower brain functions, we can do exactly nothing -- even the invocation of presence into the present -- because the headbrain is incapable of functions beyond the ordinary linear thought processes which we call 'associative-thinking'. The headbrain is incapable of real psychology and does not function for mentation. Its processes are strictly search-and-follow-a-line, in more or less spasmodic periodic cycles of activation, and more often of passive reaction.

"To develop a brain which is capable of real mentation, attention and will-for-presence, which has all-parts-blended unity, and a clear uninterrupted vision of the nonphenomenal world, man must be turned rightside-up once again. As he is now, he is upside-down. His thinking centrum is in the headbrain and his moving centrum is in the tailbrain; the exact reverse of real man, a true three-brained being.

"The very first exercise in a work community is the observation of the moving activities of the machine with the ordinary attention of the headbrain. This observation should be refined to even the smallest detail, being certain not to alter the manifestations of the machine as a result of these observations. The catalyst-key to this exercise is to remember while observing that man-in-quotation-marks is in quotation marks because his brains are upside-down.

"Real three-centrumed men move with their headbrains and think with their asses."

Ancient Postures
Ishtar Workshop by E.J. Gold April 2014

Excerpt by Tabatha Jones

"The Movements are a moving meditation which brings the body, emotions, mind and spirit into total Harmony. It works instantly. The effects are similar to Tai Chi and Yoga and . . . something more. It transcends them. The Movements harmonize the electrical field and dissolve anomalies in your being. They are related to tribal dances and rituals, ancient temple ceremonies and also include kata components (kata means form, as a form in martial arts).

"Ancient postures, also called the Movements, are a special, Voluntary Moving Center training which requires concentrated attention along with impartial self-observation. We can train ourselves to bring an action, thought or emotion to the voluntary through intentional repetition. Will is necessary to bring activities of a center from the involuntary to the voluntary. No one we know in organic life in general has Will in all centers. Ordinary man has compulsion, not Will. When man is able to make his involuntary voluntary, this is a technical definition of Will.

"In ancient civilizations, life was symbolized by the gymnasium. Earth existed as a series of exercises for the strengthening and purification of man. All experiences were understood in the same way. This view of life can bring even ordinary man to a more voluntary participation.

"Working on the Movements as a group is a way to 'make necessity' for becoming intimate in a work way. By preparing for a public performance, we develop qualities which might not develop otherwise -- a working group intimacy."

"To be human is a sanctification not possible in any other form. Human beings have the unique property of being potentially able to make the special conscious efforts necessary to help God." -- E.J. Gold

The Potent Four Lines...

Nishiet Gajjar

All Phenomena Is Illusion
Neither Attracted Nor Repelled
Not Making Any Sudden Moves
My Habits Will Carry Me Through

The magical intertwining of words and memory sometimes amazes and surprises the machine too. Be it humming subtly a famous old song, or blurting out a quote, or whispering something as powerful as the four lines, the mechanism that brings forth these words from the pool of memory and implements the act of pouring those words out from the machine's mouth, is truly an accomplishment in itself!

Especially when one is caught up in a rather difficult external situation or a transit zone which seems hard to decipher and there seems no way to escape! And it seems the only "option" that is available is to let go. But lo and behold, even before the act of letting go arises, the Being whispers, "Nothing is happening, nothing has ever happened or ever will happen."

And after asserting the above line (with invoked presence - albeit on its own) a sense of tranquility follows.

Wait! Out of nowhere, how did this line come up in the consciousness? After mentation on the ins and outs from the super logical mind (that humans are very proud of!) - a spark was ignited! And the answer probably lies in the magical four lines...

My habits will carry me through!

The machine in the company of the Being has invested the precious time and its energy in consciously building the Chamber Readings, which because of the act of co-incidence or conscious action or in an unconventional manner, helps the voyager navigate scenarios that the machine cannot fathom with its limited pool of resources.

Mantra-tations For Self-Esteem

Here is another installment of our writing sessions using the “Mantras as Resonant Thought Forms” or “Gratitude Mantras”: Mantra-tations for Self-Esteem

I Share My Good Fortune

by Agenbite

Sometimes I think when I see a homeless person:
"There but for fortune go you or I"
but more often when I think about
being an itinerant beggar or hobo

it seems to me that I could be
"the profligate one" just sharing
everything good and nourishing about
being alive on this planet right now

"This is the time to count your blessings"
I might say to strangers and passers-by
"Look up and see the blue sky and call
the bluebird of happiness We are alive
We are sentient We are here together"

I would remind them so as to remind myself

My Body and Mind are Unique Expressions of The One

by Myra Ravenwolf

My body and mind are unique expressions of The One, . .
whatever that means and whatever that Is . . .
in any event, it is for me, a working 'koan'

I Share My Good Fortune

by Llara34

I Share My Good Fortune,
living and Being
I share without asking a Return...
which seems to come on its own...
for others and for Myself

I Love What I Am Becoming

by Loralilah

Like the doorway exercise,
My life passes from one space to another
Bringing changes both subtle and emphatic.
One day I am a girl going to school,
Another I am a wife and mother,
Another I am single again,
Learning new ways to express my being.
I love what I am becoming.