WEEKLY WTF
02-05-24 Edition
Fisherman of the Mind
Guess what? You can go fishing every-f*cking-day!
Mind Mulch
Come take a hike through my wrinkly pink meat. I know, that sounds gross, but you know WTF I mean
Shambala
Shambala, have you heard of it? The fabled hidden kingdom thought to be nestled in the high altitude Himalayan mists somewhere in Eastern China between Tibet and Kashmir. Also called Shangri-La, sort of an Eastern version of Eden. To the ancient Tibetans entry into Shambala was the shit, the ultimate attainment. To the Nazis it represented great spiritual power and those fuckers actually formed a task force called “the Bureau of Ancestral Heritage” and went looking for it. In the 1600’s Jesuit missionaries went searching and failed. Helena Blavatsky, the founder of the mystic Theosophy sect, got in on the action telling people that she had the king of Shambala on telepathic speed dial. The Utopian ideals people assigned to this mythical place gave the Soviets a big ole hard on too and they decided that they wanted a piece of it because they reckoned that communism and Shambala were comfortable bedfellows.
I live in a forested area next to a river and I have to say that I love a mysterious fucking mist. No doubt I’m not alone, not now or in antiquity. Ancient texts from both Buddhism and Hinduism talk about it, this land hidden in the mist. The Sanskrit name means “place of tranquility”. Both religions foretell that Shambala is where either the Tibetan hero called Gesar of Ling will return or the final incarnation of Vishnu will appear to clean shit up and unfuck our fucked up world. I’m sure, if you are in a Western culture, that sounds awfully familiar. The promise of some dude showing up to fix all the shit we’ve broken seems to be a thing. We seem to need to have a figure in mind, a sort of sky daddy who can bale us out of our perceived self induced incarceration.
It is said that only the enlightened or pure of heart and soul can enter Shambala. Pretty much every culture on earth has some sort of heavenly realm, a reward dangled in front of folks so that they stay in line and behave their damn selves. I think we all have our own psychological Shambala as well, a shrouded and sought after place that has many names. We call it “if only”, “I hope”, “it’ll be better when” or “ I wish”. We imagine it like a mountain top shrouded in the temporal mists. Something that we must journey to, facing dangers and tribulations in order to earn or deserve it. Our Shambala is simply our hopeful concept of the future and like so many who have tried and failed we too will always fail to reach this shrouded future because it can never be reached. There will never be a time in which we will ever stand in the future, in the same way that we cannot stand in the past. These are mental concepts, mere electrical events that happen within the mind so we can make sense of the strange immensity of reality. It is a fact that whatever tendencies we have now will become a repeated pattern and if we are constantly pining for a future moment that we regard as being somehow superior to this moment then if we find ourselves in that future sought after moment, even if it is the one we wanted or hoped for, we will quickly revert to our habit of being dissatisfied by our present moment and the attainment of that desire will be hollow and diffused in the marbled mists of expectation.
Ever since I was a kid that was old enough to hold a crayon I’ve been drawing the same picture. In the background is always a mountain whose peak reaches a crescendo and in the foreground is always a forest or hills of some sort. Very much like this picture I took of my backyard view this morning. My eyes are drawn to the peaks even now just like young me also would gaze at my crudely drawn renditions of the peak over the years as representing some place I thought I wanted to go. A goal or an attainment to be reached. Perhaps there is a part of our wrinkly pink meat computer devoted to this inner drive we sometimes feel. This goal oriented behavior that thrives on reward and shrinks from failure.
Well guess what? I found Shambala, no shit, I even took this picture of it. Who knew it was in my fucking backyard all the while!? Oh, and guess what else? It’s in my front yard too, I glimpsed it as the sun briefly turned the sky cotton candy pink and glowed off the dew covered leaves of my potted succulents like strange subtle kaleidoscopes. Oh and how weird is this: I found out that Shambala was at my fucking job too, I felt it quite recently, a sort of release that revealed a calm stillness. Like a mountain rising out of the mist who doesn’t mind what goes on around or upon it. Be it hurricane or snow, whether carpeted with green or naked rock it just “is” while all the forces around it just “do” un effected by accomplishment or failure. And come to think of it last night driving home from work blasting Cypress Hill it showed up as a silence behind, and also, un-effected by the throbbing sound. I see it unveiled even now, sitting here in my living room, the emerging star we call “the Sun” splashing warm light on my old wooden floor, drinking coffee, cat snoring, whilst these thumbs pitter patter upon a rectangular piece of glass as I seem to watch it happen.
Do you know why no one can find Shambala? Well, it’s partly because they aren’t looking in the right place, but mostly because it’s not a place you look for because the act of looking implies it needs finding. People think that Shambala is somewhere other than where they are right here and right fucking now. This sought after kingdom of tranquility hides exactly wherever we are in any given moment, all we have to do is stop looking. Do you even see where you are right now? Or are you lost in a quagmire of thoughts and worries and regrets which flood your veins with various hormones and are zombie shuffling through life waiting for the Shambalic future of your fantasy to show up or that you’ll eventually shuffle into it somehow? It is so rare that we are actually in the present moment. Lamenting about or pining for the electrical phantoms of the past we call memory or constantly leaning out of now into a future that’ll never arrive like a donkey chasing a carrot on a stick. It’s fucked up, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
Shambala, for the purpose of what I’m pointing at, is a place that’s not a location. It is hidden only by the labels that we slap upon every damn thing our senses perceive. It’s right here, behind the labels. Shambala is a state that is hidden within the mists of mundanity. It’s not a place you go or thing you do. It’s the place you are and to see it you just stop doing anything other than what you’re actually doing right fucking now. It could be taking a shit or staring at a wall. It could be driving or working or washing dishes or fucking or any, and every, single action that happens in the moment. Action performed without memory or anticipation and attachment to result.
Here’s how a fruit tree do: a fruit tree fruits, that’s what it does but it doesn’t hold onto the fruit. If a tree’s fruit stays attached to its limbs then that shit will likely crack and break hitting the ground because, gravity, duh. But that’s fine because the fruit will break down and decompose and be transferred by mycelium to the trees roots and back into the fruit tree to resume the process of growth and breaking and absorbing. Much like the normal process of life and suffering and learning and doing it all over again if we don’t figure our shit out the first time. We’re like a fruit tree that doesn’t want to let go of its fruit. Every action we perform is performed with the fruit of said action in mind. I’m talking about everything we do. We perform beneficent actions for others and those “others” benefiting from it or being grateful for it is a fruit. Or if we can manage to give up the fruit of expectation that “they” will be effected in a way that we desire we really just transfer that fruit to ourselves and we do these selfless things to make ourself feel some kinda way. We perform action to help and to punish. To sustain and survive. To grow or stay put and all the various myriad “action branches” that fruit effects. The thing to become aware of is our tendency to be attached to the fruits of our actions because all that fruit gets heavy af when we hold onto it. Just think on it. Or don’t I’m not the fucking boss of you.
Giving up the fruits of action is tricky. It’s not about doing or not doing. It’s not about good action or bad, it transcends both and it’s as simple as just being the doer and allow the doing without getting overly involved. It’s about life becoming a sort of magical joyful happening that can only happen right now. A subtle enjoyment of pleasure and suffering in equal measure. The mists of mundanity part revealing a hidden dimension we’re never not in and we realize with shock and amazement that we are fucking Shambala itself and this reality business exists within us not the other way around. But, we love our mental and egoic reference points. We all love a mystery and we love the chase and we covet our beloved fruit and it’s all good. An apple tree apples. A plum tree plums. A pine tree pinecones. A person acts. The world peoples. The universe fruits stars and planets and all manner of cosmic shit so not to worry, you actually can’t do it wrong. I am just speaking as one who has broken many a branch and has bitten all kinds of fucking fruit and am kind of over it and tend to be more interested in going against the rules and the natural order a bit to see what’s there, back behind the curtain of reality. To part the mists of mundanity to expose what always was and always will be behind the photonic fog of perception. To hopefully find a way to have one foot on the mountain and one in the flatlands and emulsify emptiness and form. To just be ultimately satisfied with whatever the fuck is right now. I hope you find your Shambala or at least get a kick out of looking for it. Toodaloo.
Alrighty, well… have the week you want not the week you’re given. It’s up to you. You’re the one livin’.
Toodaloo
