Luminous…

It may be that this race for technological innovation is nothing other than the best efforts of our civilization to ensure that we citizens keep producing and consuming, and remain focused on the future. We are being led to the abattoir of our own planned obsolescence by a marketing wizardry that locks us firmly onto a path of never-ending progress. Could this also explain our disproportionate emphasis on free will and unrestrained choice in America? After all, it provides an unassailable platform from which to produce and market an inexhaustible stream of saleable products and commodities that in turn validates our freedom, again keeping us future-oriented and chasing the ever-receding horizon of our Dream. Who could argue with the shrewdness of such an agenda, or its efficacy in herding us into quiet submission?

Sandy Krolick, Tinkerers on the scaffolding, or the recovery of ecstasy, May 21, 2011

Real Paradise is not an earthly and visible one; it is not in any place but in ourself, and it is quickened and vivified by the powers of the soul and the inpouring of the spirit.

St. Ambrose

[The moment when the idea for a picture turns into something definite] is a give-and-take between an idea, what one might call “text”, and what is recorded using the medium as “subtext”. I have to ask myself what I expect from painting: should it be subservient to my ideas or a queen that I have to serve? The text, which I regard as a private matter, must be able to stand being dragged diagonally across the canvas. If it loses something along the way, so much the better, since it then gains something that it may have urgently needed: sensuality and a truth that is rooted in non-verbal space.

Neo Rausch, as quoted in “You won’t find an ‘Untitled’ among my works,” The Art Newspaper, 19 May 2011

My Mother in a Sphere gave birth to mee,
That I might contemplate Rotunditie;
And be more Pure of kind than other things,
By Right of Dignitie the Peer of Kings. 

In between what you don’t know and what you won’t admit, there’s an endless supply of counterfactual beliefs. What defines you is the nature of those that you choose, or those that choose you. Like attracts like.

OE    tr. Apollonius of Tyre xx. 32   ‘Lareow, ne ofþingð hit ðe gif ic þus wer geceose?’ Apollonius cwæð: ‘Na, ac ic blissige swiðor ðæt þu miht‥þe silf on gewrite gecyðan hwilcne heora þu wille.’

a1400  (1325)    Cursor Mundi (Fairf. 14) 766   ‘Wate þou quar-fore?’ ‘na [a1400 Vesp. nai; a1400 Gött. nay].’

c1480  (1400)    St. Placidus 600 in W. M. Metcalfe Legends Saints Sc. Dial. (1896) II. 86   Þane cane þai at hym hertly spere‥gyf he wist quhare he was‥he sad: ‘na’.

a1522    G. Douglas tr. Virgil Æneid (1959) vii. vi. 32   Hes nocht Troy all infyrit ȝit thame brynt? Na: all sic laboure is for nocht and tynt.

1572  (1500)    Taill of Rauf Coilȝear 79   Na, thank me not ouir airlie, for dreid that we threip.

1596    J. Dalrymple tr. J. Leslie Hist. Scotl. (1895) II. 75   Na; not sa: bot he, quhen pleises him selfe wil cum.

1613    in W. Cramond Church of Aberdour (1896) 9   After‥lawful tryell of his knowledge‥they may say yea or na to his admission.

1634    T. Heywood & R. Brome Late Lancashire Witches iii. sig. F,   Na, if the Witches have but rob’d of your meat, and restor’d your reason, here has beene no hurt done to day.

1725    A. Ramsay Gentle Shepherd i. i. 3   Na Patie, na! I’m na sic churlish Beast.

1786    R. Burns To Louse iv,   Na faith ye yet! ye’ll no be right Till ye’ve got on it.

1816    Scott Old Mortality vii, in Tales of my Landlord 1st Ser. II. 147   Na, my leddy, it’s no that.

1827    J. Wilson Noctes Ambrosianae xxxiii, in Blackwood’s Edinb. Mag. June 897   Na, sir—I canna say that I should.

1894    R. O. Heslop Northumberland Words (at cited word),   ‘Are ye gan win us?’ ‘Na.’

1958    J. Kesson White Bird Passes x. 158   ‘Ye tell her, then, Jeems! Ye ken all the answers!’ ‘Na, hardly.’

1995    I. Banks Whit xxii. 358   Is he jealous? Na; I think he’s proud, and he likes watching, anyway.

β.

a1250  (1200)    Ancrene Riwle (Nero) (1952) 99   ‘Noa [c1230 Corpus Cambr. na],’ he seið, ‘ne mei nout makien þeos to sunegen þuruh ȝiuernesse.’

c1275  (1216)    Owl & Nightingale (Calig.) 997   Ȝut þu aisheist wi ich ne fare In to oþer londe & singe þare. No, wat sholde ich among hom do?

a1375    William of Palerne (King’s Cambr.) (1867) 2701   ‘No, madame,’ seide hire douȝter, ‘marie þat graunt.’

c1384    Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Douce 369(2)) Zech. iv. 5   ‘Wher thou wost not what ben these thingus?’ And Y saide, ‘No, my lord.’

a1425  (1385)    Chaucer Troilus & Criseyde (1987) i. 761   ‘Lat be thyne olde ensaumples.’‥ ‘No,’ quod tho Pandarus.

c1450    tr. Honorius Augustodunensis Elucidarium (1909) 27   ‘Resseyuede not Judas þis sacrament as ferforth as petir?’‥ ‘No, forsoþe.’

1535    Bible (Coverdale) John i. 21   Art thou the Prophet? And he answered: No.

1591    Troublesome Raigne Iohn i. sig. B2v,   Wilt thou vpon a frantick madding vaine Goe loose thy land, and say thy selfe base borne? No, keepe thy land.

a1616    Shakespeare Two Gentlemen of Verona (1623) i. iii. 91   My heart accords thereto; And yet a thousand times it answers no.

1646    R. Crashaw Steps to Temple 90   When heaven bids come, who can say no?

1702    D. Defoe Shortest Way with Dissenters 3   Now they cry out Peace, Union, Forbearance, and Charity.‥ No Gentlemen, the Time of Mercy is past.

1718    G. Sewell Proclam. Cupid 8   The Fools say, Yes; but wiser Chaucer, No.

1766    O. Goldsmith Vicar of Wakefield I. xiii. 126   No, cries the Dwarf‥no, I declare off.

1817    Parl. Deb. 1st Ser. 413   On the question that the bill do pass, being finally put, the cry of ‘No’, from the Opposition side, was very loudly pronounced.

1857    J. Toulmin Smith Parish 62   The whole number present at the meeting must range themselves, aye and no, on the two opposite sides of the room.

1861    G. H. Lewes Let. 20 Aug. in ‘G. Eliot’ Lett. (1954) III. 446   She allows herself to be preyed upon dreadfully by the boys—she can’t say No.

1961    Listener 21 Dec. 1065/2   He was made Minister of Labour in a season when the Government’s economic policy meant saying ‘no’ to wage demands.

1988    Lit. & Theol. 2 164   We may suppose that we read Lacan or Foucault.‥ But no! what we read is French, or French translated into usually American English.

Body is nothing more than emptiness, 
emptiness is nothing more than body. 
The body is exactly empty, 
and emptiness is exactly body.

The other four aspects of human existence —
feeling, thought, will, and consciousness —
are likewise nothing more than emptiness, 
and emptiness nothing more than they.

All things are empty: 
Nothing is born, nothing dies, 
nothing is pure, nothing is stained, 
nothing increases and nothing decreases.

So, in emptiness, there is no body, 
no feeling, no thought, 
no will, no consciousness. 
There are no eyes, no ears, 
no nose, no tongue, 
no body, no mind. 
There is no seeing, no hearing, 
no smelling, no tasting, 
no touching, no imagining. 
There is nothing seen, nor heard, 
nor smelled, nor tasted, 
nor touched, nor imagined.

There is no ignorance, 
and no end to ignorance. 
There is no old age and death, 
and no end to old age and death. 
There is no suffering, no cause of suffering, 
no end to suffering, no path to follow. 
There is no attainment of wisdom, 
and no wisdom to attain.

The Bodhisattvas rely on the Perfection of Wisdom, 
and so with no delusions, 
they feel no fear, 
and have Nirvana here and now.

All the Buddhas, 
past, present, and future, 
rely on the Perfection of Wisdom, 
and live in full enlightenment.

The Perfection of Wisdom is the greatest mantra. 
It is the clearest mantra, 
the highest mantra, 
the mantra that removes all suffering.

This is truth that cannot be doubted. 
Say it so:

Gaté, 
gaté, 
paragaté, 
parasamgaté. 
Bodhi! 
Svaha!

Which means…

Gone, 
gone, 
gone over, 
gone fully over. 
Awakened! 
So be it!

For Buddha Purnima. From http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/heartsutra.html, a nice, no-nonsense translation.

Here’s the reality behind today’s job market, especially for recent graduates. There are no jobs, but you don’t necessarily need them. With a US GDP of $15 trillion, you can create value, outside of the strictures of “getting jobs.” There’s clearly plenty of spending out there, business and consumer. If the market isn’t buying labor, then figure out what it does want, and offer that instead.

About 60% of recent graduates have not been able to find a full-time job in their chosen profession, according to job placement firm Adecco.

“The Great Recession’s lost generation,” CNN Money, 17 May 2011

Basically, if you want a job, and a house with a picket fence, and all the other trappings, you’d be better off building a time machine than pounding the pavement. But until someone figures out how to reverse the clock, it may make better sense to work with the current reality than to act as if it does not exist.

Within the span of a couple generations, we abandoned a durable, finely textured, life-affirming set of living arrangements characterized by self-sufficient family farms intermixed with small towns that provided commerce, services, and culture. Worse yet, we traded that model for a coarse-scaled arrangement wholly dependent on ready access to cheap fossil fuels. Then we ratcheted up the madness to rely on businesses that use, almost exclusively, a warehouse-on-wheels approach to just-in-time delivery of unnecessary devices designed for rapid obsolescence and disposal.

– Guy McPherson, “Scale”

Crossing Plotinus, I find the Good as the text that precedes tongues.