Galaxy Song

Here's another burst of insight from that cagey lot down at Monty Python.

This time they put humanity in context with a song drawn, fittingly enough, from The Meaning of Life. One fated from the outset to become a seminal text in my spiritual training, because I too have long asserted that this whole Great Mind thing is just a largish vaudeville show. And here Eric Idle (aka the Pythons' resident Zen master) confirms my suspicions.

For the rest, kindly note that the figures cited in the work are scientifically demonstrable. (Making this is a rare example of a novelty song that contains, like, verifiable data, and is therefore acceptable to Wikipedia, among others.)

And that Eric's knack for a penetrating conclusion is the most electric since Lennon and McCartney.

Follows the tablature:

GALAXY SONG
by Eric Idle

Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown
And things seem hard or tough
And people are stupid, obnoxious, or daft
And you feel that you've had quite enough

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned
A sun that is the source of all our power

The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour
Of the galaxy we call the Milky Way

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide

We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point
We go 'round every two hundred million years
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, the speed of light, you know
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is

So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth

The Eight Worldly Dharmas

It just struck me that I've never posted on these before. Which is remarkable, since they're central to my practice, and indeed my life.

Also, since August is "Suicide Month" on Rusty Ring – the time when, for arbitrary reasons, I've ended up addressing that phenomenon most years – this is a good time to bring up the subject. Because suicide is the result of alienation, even though, as the Dharmas demonstrate, we're not alien.

Just dumb.

The Eight Worldly Dharmas (also called Preoccupations, Distractions, Desires, Concerns, Conditions, Winds, or Things I Do Instead of Zen) is a catalogue of 8 human constants that obscure the Path. (Or 4, to be precise, and their equally unproductive opposites – which together represent subsidiary principles of the Middle Way.)

I've had no luck determining the origin of this teaching. Today it passes for Buddhist, but feels like insight that predates us. I don't suppose it matters, but if we've jumped someone else's copyright… deep bow.

Anyway, here, for the first time on our stage, are the Eight Worldly Dharmas:

Wanting to get things
Not wanting to lose things

Wanting to be happy
Not wanting to be unhappy

Wanting acknowledgement
Not wanting to be overlooked

Wanting approval
Not wanting blame

That's my personal stock. Ask in a year and some wording may have changed.

There are other inventories on the Enlightenment Superpath:

1).
getting things you want/avoiding things you do not want
wanting happiness/not wanting misery
wanting fame/not wanting to be unknown
wanting praise/not wanting blame

2).
acquiring material things or not acquiring them
interesting or uninteresting sounds
praise or criticism
happiness or unhappiness

3).
benefit and decrease
ill repute and good repute
blame and praise
suffering and happiness

As you can see there is considerable variation in tone and imagery, but the thrust is consistent. (By the way, "interesting or uninteresting sounds" may sound like a weird phobia, but there's a lot of this sort of thing in the basal Buddhist texts. Random draughts, unethically-high beds, off-putting smells… not the stuff of existential angst, but you're supposed to meditate on it until you grasp the root of the problem. In this case, the writer is saying that we obsess over contextual conditions beyond our control – hot or cold, loved or alone, putting up with rude jerks or being left in peace. Your neighbours playing the Beatles on their stereo, or Slim Whitman. Pick your hell.)

And to be perfectly pedantic, when it comes right down to it, there are really only 2 Worldly Dharmas (split in half, as before):

Getting stuff you like
Not getting stuff you like

Avoiding stuff you don't like
Getting stuff you don't like

But I guess the Ancestors figured you couldn't get a self-help book out of that. For starters, it's too easily memorised.

Any road, this practice is explosive for me. The attitudes of others have played an inordinate role in my sense of self and worth, and if you study the Dharmas carefully, you'll see that they're mostly about that: stuff others give or withhold. The remainder – natural phenomena, like cold in your room or the infirmity of age – is similarly not the fundamental problem.

Not that any of these are trivial, mind you. Irrelevant and unimportant are not the same. But being aware of what originates in your skull restores a whopping measure of control.

Because suffering is actually two emergencies: suffering, and fear of suffering. And of the two, the second causes the most pain.

Doesn't mean the first isn't unpleasant, too. Just that it's not what manipulates you.

But you have influence over that second one.

And that's what the Eight Worldly Dharmas encapsulate: that stuff going on outside you, beyond your control, twangs your desires, and that's what plays you. Stop caring, and the monster is defanged.

And you get to that place by looking deeply. Doesn't happen instantly, but keep at it and you'll be amazed how far not striving will take you. And the more you observe the results, the dumber your desires look.

And the dumber they look, the smarter you become.

And there's not a damn thing anything outside you can do about it.

So that's why I meditate – or just reflect – on one or all of the Eight Worldly Dharmas on a regular basis. Maybe change things up from time to time and contemplate a different inventory.

Because it's about time my demons caught a few worldly dharmas of their own.


(Photo of Narcissus var. 'Slim Whitman' [yes, really] courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)

Good video: Yellow Submarine, Zen-style

If you've ever been to a Zen centre or monastery, you will immediately recognise this man's genius. What you're seeing here is a conservative Zen take on a Beatles song. And not even one of the "deep" Beatles songs; rather, one of the fun inane ones. You know, with a Ringo lead.

I don't know what possessed my brother to turn this Western pop hit into a sutra, but I'm glad he did.

The best part is that it seems to be a sincere offering; with allowance made for a subtle playfulness, Kossan's spoofing neither the music nor his religion. Just what you'd expect from a Zen monk and musician. (One with classical bona fides, no less. If you click on his channel, you'll find he's a shamisen devotee.)

In short, he's offering us an opportunity for insight. The meditation at the end drives the point home, and elevates a merely brilliant performance into an awesome one.

Good Song: Christmas Song

I've pointed out before that Christmas is a Buddhist holiday. Now comes a brother (not Buddhist, so far as I know) who's found the same wisdom in this ancient pagan celebration.

The lyrics (below) to Eliot Bronson's Christmas Song mirror orthodox Zen teaching on the self. They also gibe perfectly with the timeless Yule theme of the past ceding to the future.

This year I'm sharing Eliot's brilliant meditation because Christmas is a tough emotional time for many of us. Especially those who find themselves alone, cast out, lost, or remorseful amidst all the love and conviviality. Some even come to hate this season.

But my brother is telling it like it is here. And his Zen-friendly, John Lennon cadences are all the more powerful for their simplicity.

The millstones of time are a gift, brothers and sisters. And you are a great deal more than anything you've ever been or done. It's a central tenet of the Buddha's teaching: you can change your bio anytime.

Merry Christmas.
You can start over.

Again and again and again.

If you've got nothing else to celebrate, celebrate that.


(By the way, this recording is available for sale here. Note that Eliot has donated it to a charitable project that funds pediatric cancer research. At a big 79¢ US for the file, it's a karmic bump we all can use.)


CHRISTMAS SONG
by Eliot Bronson

You're not the place you're from
You're not the things you've done
In a world turning 'round the sun
Isn't that strange?

You're not the name you're called
You're not who you recall
Because after all
We can change

Merry Christmas
You can start over
You can start over
Merry Christmas
You can start over
Whenever you want to

You're not what you can do
You're not what you've been through
And the lines between me and you
Are lies

You're not what you can see
Not even what you believe
And there's a part of us that's always free
Like the sky

And Merry Christmas
You can start over
You can start over
Merry Christmas
You can start over
Whenever you want to

Getting To The Point

Like most Western Zenners, I come to this practice from a life of emotional trauma. More than once, I've stood at that point where you realise, after a long, desperate march, that the cause is lost; there's no going back, or even holding on. You can only let go, and let karma happen.

What comes next, if you practice attentively, is insight and growth, but that instant of acceptance, when you see it's all been delusion, is sacred. (If only in hindsight.)

ELO's Getting To The Point expresses that state perfectly. Founder Jeff Lynne's goal for his appropriately-named Electric Light Orchestra was to bring classical music sensibilities to pop – which is why the execution here is so reminiscent of Beethoven. His song texts, tolerated largely to carry the melody, were correspondingly fatuous for the most part. But this one reads like Japanese poetry, riding a dramatic score to devastating effect. Throw in a masterful flourish of wailing sax, so emblematic of the power balladeers (Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Mark Knopfler, Gerry Rafferty, Don Henley) of the late 70s and 80s, and you've got ELO's most moving song.

Which is either ironic or prescient, given that, in eerie echo of another revolutionary British band, it was also the last single they ever released. Sadly, an untimely distribution glitch prevented most people from hearing it, leaving one of pop music's most seminal groups to slip unmemorialised over the horizon.

Until today. Give it a spin.


GETTING TO THE POINT
by Jeff Lynne

It's out of control
Out of control
And there's nothing I can do now
Out of control
Out of control
Spinning softly through the blue now
And look beyond these walls
As the meaning starts to dawn
It's getting to the point
Getting to the point

It's out of control
Nothing I can do
Like a fire that keeps on burning
And nobody knows
What I'm going through
And the thoughts just keep returning
And all you had to say
Was that you were gonna stay
It's getting to the point
Getting to the point
It's getting to the point

It's getting to the point
Where nobody can stop it now
It's getting to the point
Of no return
And all that I can do
Is stand and watch it now
Watch it burn, burn, burn

It's getting to the point
Where reasons are forgotten
It's getting to the point
Where no one knows
And all that I can do
Is say I'm sorry
But that's the way it goes
Getting to the point

Forever is a long way
Forever takes your breath away
I'd like to talk about it
Try to understand
It's getting to the point
Getting to the point
Getting to the point

It's getting to the point
Where nobody can stop it now
It's getting to the point
Of no return
And all that I can do
Is stand and watch it now
Watch it burn, burn, burn

It's getting to the point
Where reasons are forgotten
It's getting to the point
Where no one knows
And all that I can do
Is say I'm sorry
That's the way it goes

It's getting to the point
Getting to the point

St. Valentine's Kyôsaku 2013

...and in the end
  the love you take
  is equal to the love
  you make.

Lennon-McCartney







(Last line of the last song on the last album the Beatles ever released. Image courtesy of Beatles 4ever Facebook page.)