Solving a “Problem” or Digging a Karmic Abyss?

There is no way that you can convince the cunning and the clever of the existence of karma nor of its consequences perhaps spanning lifetimes. The cunning imagine that they can always get out of gaol free.

The only way they can learn is by experiencing the karmic consequence of karma themselves. Karma cannot be taught it must be experienced and hopefully understood.

——————-

It is up to you if you think the above is some hippie-trippy shit or not.

At the moment deep malevolence is being visited upon two countries, Iran and Ukraine. The justification for Iran is that the Israelis in particular do not want them to have nuclear weapons. The Americans have gone along with this reasoning.

What they are in fact teaching is the need for nuclear weapons.

“If we had nuclear weapons they would not bomb the fuck out of us…”

The message is crystal clear. Negotiations with the fickle do not work. A nuclear deterrent might.

I’ll postulate that neither the Israelis nor the Americans are winning friends. They do not care overmuch, they have the big arsenals.

It is just possible that in solving the “problem” of Iranian nuclear weapons they are digging a karmic abyss. A sore which will fester for generations to come. A short term “win” may lead to a never ending grievance and problem.

The cunning may think that decapitation works but it may give rise to a hydra.

There is no way that you can ever convince the cunning and the clever of the error of their ways. It is by definition impossible.


So many people seek a reactionary short cut, an ersatz, a convenient band aid solution which buys apparent time. All they are doing is giving time for the so-called problem to evolve and  grow. To use the Boris idea of Whack-a-Mole does not eradicate the cause. It merely deals with visible “symptoms”. If you are cunning you would back yourself to be able to keep whacking moles for ever. Eventually you may have way too many plates spinning in the air. The moles may breed.

Often avoidance digs the karmic abyss ever deeper. In the profound darkness of a karmic abyss you can easily lose sight of what caused the problem in the first place. The tendency when in a hole is foolishly to keep on digging. You are committed to the hole, the “solution”.

If you are on a spiritual journey the normal faulty reasoning of society no longer works. A supposed tempting shortcut is not wise, more often than not it is a temptation. A way of looking better and coming up smelling of roses abnegates responsibility something which is karmically poor. Karma does not care about your apparent kudos, importance or reputation.

Karma is about learning the authenticity of your Soul and aiming to live life thereby.

Quite often problems are made up in the mind and can be delusional. Self-importance and arrogance are core ingredients in many so-called “problems”.


Whenever faced with a quandary or a problem a useful question  is:

Am I solving an apparent “problem” or am I digging a karmic abyss?


Do I Have an Occult Readership?

—————

From Merriam Webster

occult

1: not revealed : secret

… deep subterranean occult jealousy …— J. C. Powys

2: not easily apprehended or understood : abstruse, mysterious

… occult matters like nuclear physics, radiation effects and the designing of rockets …— Robert Bendiner

3: hidden from view : concealed

occult underground passages

4: of or relating to supernatural or supernormal powers or practices or the knowledge of them

… the occult arts—astrology, palmistry, card reading …— Amy Fine Collins

occult practices

5: not manifest or detectable by clinical methods alone

occult carcinoma

also : not present in macroscopic amounts

occult blood in a stool

————————-

WordPress provides limited statistics on the overt readership of this blog. These suggest that readership is low. I have not gone viral. I have some readers in the USA, Hong Kong, Singapore, China and Vietnam. There are a couple of visitors from blighty.

This is the only data I have about the readership of the blog. Given all the shit you see on TV and in the movies there has to be an outside chance that others read the blog, my occult audience. This is impossible to scale. In the limit Elon the barking mad might be reading…

In the realms of movies and sci-fi something may come out of this occult audience. I could be in a bar in Casablanca and get approached. Only I don’t go to bars. I don’t see many people with homeland security earpieces at Intermarché. There is the special needs woman whose medication varies and occasionally goes in for inpatient care. There is speedy Gonzales the fastest checkout in the West and there is the tiny Breton woman with her push cart who is there every Monday morning. I am on “bonjour” terms with a number of staff either in the supermarket or outside.

Last night I had more “subjective” evidence of a London based occult readership. Why they were in my consciousness I cannot say. Perhaps I need to join the checkout girl on one of her stays. The thing about occult readership is that they cannot be taken into consideration when it comes to decision making because in reality I do not know that they are there. They are occult to me.

It is only a complete idiot who makes any decisions based on anything occult…

Vajrapāṇi Avalokiteśvara Manjushri – Power Compassion Wisdom

The three perhaps best know Bodhisattvas are Vajrapāṇi Avalokiteśvara and Manjushri. They are thought of as the embodiment, in the Buddha field, of power compassion and wisdom. They can be thought of as the three principle esoteric monadic energies, will to power, love-wisdom and active intelligence. Ray one, ray two and ray three. After all compassion is detached brotherly love advised by wisdom and “wisdom” can be thought of as the active application of intelligence and knowledge.

These three are reflected in the Buddhas of activity.

Avalokiteśvara is the second ray Bodhisattva and an archetype of love-wisdom. He emanates compassion for all sentient beings irrespective of their own personal values and actions. He is om mane padme hum or the jewel in the centre of the lotus. He emanates through the palm chakras the essence of enlightened heart. Avalokiteśvara is the Bodhisattva of the Elephant dreaming class.

These three Bodhisattvas can be seen as the benevolent aspect of what might be otherwise termed deity. These are a kind of Buddhist and energetic trinity.

As an antidote to the spread of division, xenophobia and hatred, the quality of compassion is much needed to offset the nastiness now spreading.

This second ray love-wisdom is the ray par excellence of inclusive compassion. Compassion is not to be confused with gullibility for sometimes the needed medicine lacks sugar.

Right now when the axe of cleavage and brutal coercion is being wielded humanity is in dire need of wisdom and of love. There is a bit of a drought…

—-

om mane padme hum

om mane padme hum

om mane padme hum

—-

The Nature of Consciousness – Roger Penrose Dream 24-02-2026

Here is this morning’s dream had between 4 and 7 AM.

The dream opens with me conversing mind-to-mind or telepathically with another being. We are looking down at a gathering of Tibetan Buddhists, lamas. They are dressed in robes and at the edge of the gathering, very much at arm’s length is Charlie, a nagal’s courier.

I say-think, “unfortunately Charlie is not very bright, not very intelligent. He is not intelligent enough to realise that he lacks intelligence and therefore assumes that he knows correctly a lot more than he does. It is a common problem that people are not sufficiently intelligent to understand their own lack of a well-honed intellect. As a consequence there is adamant assertion without open critical thinking.”

“Yes this is true people assume they know and understand more than they do and can be dogmatic.” Is the reply.

I then look again at the gang or committee of lamas.

“The difficulty with the Tibetans is that they have a vested interest in being the world experts in meditation and consciousness. It is a part of their brand. They may indeed have studied Buddhist texts and the Tibetan canon and may be expert thereupon but their thinking is developed only in one area. They have not a diverse nor modern intellect. They are arrogant and not open to external thinking, they want to incorporate things into their perspective solely. It is not a two way street. They may be intelligent but they do not have a far reaching wide knowledge based intellect incorporating science. In short they are a closed shop and stuck in their ways. They are not approachable in any meaningful way because they must be, in their eyes, the experts. They do not understand that they are insular.”

I go on.

“There is a limit to so-called pure consciousness. It needs grounded and generalised via an expansive and inclusive intellect. The latter word inclusive being of great importance. There is nothing you can do when people do not have the intelligence to understand that their intelligence is limited and closed off. You cannot explain to someone something about which they lack the intelligence to understand or encompass. It is by definition almost, an impossible thing.”

“Yes. Sometimes you can only go so far.”

“There are jhanas, states of consciousness and expansive awareness, past what most of these have ever perceived. There is no way that you can convince an expert.”

The scene changes and I am in a medical / dental consultation in Edinburgh. I am with a man who is slightly older than me, his post doc researcher and a couple of younger graduate students. He is a psychologist – neuroscientist and wearing a white lab coat. He has grey wispy hair and spectacles. His postdoc is Hispanic. She has long very dark hair and is wearing blue jeans and a hoody, hood down. They are making some measurements on my brain using electrodes. I am sat in what looks like a dentist chair.

I am explaining to him that the problem with neuroscientists trying to understand consciousness is that they lack the training in meditative technique. They have no understanding personally of the states  they are trying to measure. They are measuring like blind men who have never been there. It is like making a map of a land which they have never set foot upon. The intellectual understanding of consciousness is limited therefore to rational supposition. Only a truly great intellect could “hold” and understand these states without direct personal experience of being “there”. A mind would have to be very versatile and expansive yet well controlled and quiet.

I say that maybe I should talk with Roger Penrose about the nature of consciousness.  He perhaps might understand and get the gist. If one verbalizes a state of consciousness well one can “take” another mind “there” at least partially. One can build a “picture” which might be partially shared and imagined.

The guy is initially interested.

I ask him that given he is a psych-neuro would he like to collaborate with me and Roger Penrose on a book? He no longer has to worry about his career as he is essentially emeritus.

He  thanks me for the invitation but he does not believe that I can add anything beyond what “they” the neuroscientists already know. He declines. He thinks that I am waffling.

I think that he does not know that he does not know. His intellect will not understand how limited his understanding is nor where his knowledge ends...

I awake; the dream ends.

Regional Nepotism in Buddhist Narratives ?

Although my mother, when  sun tanned could negotiate discounts from the Indian traders in the market in Gravesend, I am not of Indian nor Asian genetics. If she wore a sari and a bindi she could pass as Sikh. Yes one could say the Celtic migration had a terminus in a valley to the South East of Snowdown. I was however born a ginge…

As an outsider I note how many so-called previous lives of Buddha are in the general geo-location of Northern India – Himalayas- Afghanistan. He is often a prince and sometimes Brahmin. I note that the vast majority of Tulku rebirths are in Tibet – Nepal – North India – Bhutan area. If not there then there must be some familial nepotism.  Tulku begets tulku out of some follower or nun. I have never heard of a Viking incarnation. Once Buddhism spread East we did not get a sudden burst of Icelandic Bodhisattvas. The streets of Rio were not awash with them dancing at carnival.

My scientific mind notes this discrepancy. It seems unbalanced.

Surely a Bodhisattva reincarnating for the benefit of all sentient beings would not restrict themselves geographically or demographically?  Global impact in isolated countries high up in the mountains is not likely to be high. Skilful means suggests ploughing other wider fields.

There is a kind of perhaps spiritual snobbery. After all the Vedas and Buddhism predate Christianity and Islam. Only the pilgrim skilled in meditation, asceticism and vegetarianism can get enlightened. Beer and twice cooked chips are verboten, interdit. Turmeric is a must.

It is illogical that someone should only be born in the same geolocation if they are to garner a wider experience. If you have not tried rollmop and aquavit…you have missed something.

This for me seems slightly problematic in the around the camp fire tales of Buddha. The other problem I have is with the notion of many Buddhas stretching back millennia. The human vehicle was according to archaeology not as intellectually advanced and capable. All those millennia ago it did not look human.

How could a Buddha be Neanderthal?

There is an evidenced based narrative chronology which errs from the verbatim understanding of canon and Mahayana canon more so. If these are meant to be metaphor and parable, there is less problem.

Nevertheless is seems strange that Buddha only hung out there or thereabouts…

How Things Pan Out…

I think it fair to say we never really know how things are going to pan out. Sometimes hindsight and retrospect enable us to re-frame our narratives concerning how we got here, wherever here might be.

I can say that my “future” at the turn of the century looked markedly different to how it turned out and actually is now. I doubt even the greatest “seer” could have pictured what happened and how we live our lives now. The divergence of imagined future and subsequent actuality was large.

Aside from what goes on in the dreams, it is more straightforward to suggest an on-going likely trajectory now than it was back then. For a start the number of variables in life are reduced as is the dramatis personae.

Of course there could be an influx of new and new people but given the circles we move in, the likelihood is low.

We will have provisional answers on the major events of 2026 in a few months. One of these question marks we have a good indication on already.

I have been toying with an idea and that is about leaving the wheel of rebirth. In the hagiographies this is often represented as quasi-miraculous perhaps to generate aspiration. Maybe it is a whole lot simpler than that. Perhaps all one needs is to have seen a lot, experienced a lot and to be essentially {in its core meaning} used up. If one is used up and has zero residual ambition there is no driver to take on another body, another slab of meat. One becomes quiescent and has not the impulse to energise another biological form. This idea is perhaps more logical that others. The urge to be reborn ceases and it is no more complicated than that. No desire – no rebirth. No want – no rebirth. No greed – no rebirth.  The list goes on.

Maybe it is a kind of boredom that allows one to escape the wheel. I have been there, seen that, done that and now at last, I have the t-shirt. I have learned along the way.

What hindsight may also suggest is the role others have had in our lives. How we perceive that role may differ from how they do. We may learn a little about for what purpose we called them forth into our lives. We may have missed the point entirely. Too often we berate and blame instead of considering. The way modern life is lived, lacks patience. In our haste we miss so very much.

Maybe that is it, no more drama…

Siddartha said, “stop being such a drama queen and like a cart follows an ox you will find satisfaction, serenity and peace. In time, after you have discarded your pink feather boa and ludicrous overreactions, you will be free.”

I have an inkling that many obsessed with complexity and intellectual masturbation fail to see the buddha-field of simplicity…

You never know what life has in store for you, nor how things will pan out.

All you every really have is now…

—————————————

Chapter VII: The Venerable (Arhat)

90 There is no suffering for him who has finished his journey, and abandoned grief, who has freed himself on all sides, and thrown off all fetters.

91 They depart with their thoughts well-collected, they are not happy in their abode; like swans who have left their lake, they leave their house and home.

92 Men who have no riches, who live on recognised food, who have perceived void and unconditioned freedom (Nirvana), their path is difficult to understand, like that of birds in the air.

93 He whose appetites are stilled, who is not absorbed in enjoyment, who has perceived void and unconditioned freedom (Nirvana), his path is difficult to understand, like that of birds in the air.

94 The gods even envy him whose senses, like horses well broken in by the driver, have been subdued, who is free from pride, and free from appetites.

95 Such a one who does his duty is tolerant like the earth, like Indra’s bolt; he is like a lake without mud; no new births are in store for him.

96 His thought is quiet, quiet are his word and deed, when he has obtained freedom by true knowledge, when he has thus become a quiet man.

97 The man who is free from credulity, but knows the uncreated, who has cut all ties, removed all temptations, renounced all desires, he is the greatest of men.

98 In a hamlet or in a forest, in the deep water or on the dry land, wherever venerable persons (Arhanta) dwell, that place is delightful.

99 Forests are delightful; where the world finds no delight, there the passionless will find delight, for they look not for pleasures.

Dhammapada (Max Muller)