Arrived.

Travel to Nepal successful. Doha Air is a dream. And from the air  Doha is the most beautiful city I ever saw. The earthworks in the harbor are most impressive. The airport is clean and well-operated. In a way it's the perfect counterpoint to both NYC and Nepal. NY Kennedy is the port of the Tower of Babel. Doha is the poster child for Sharia. If a city can be this beautiful, how bad can Shariah rule be...Anyway it's their people's karma. From the air, the city's architecture is the most stunning I've ever seen. And it's easy to see, at sunset at least, in relief against the sunset, on a flat epanse of desert sand next to the still Ariabian sea. If it sounds poetic, that's because it is. No wonder colonialists loved Arabia so much. There is a some degree of order and elegance in absolute patriarchy, especially when it combines with extreme wealth as it does here.

Kathmandu, I've yet to see it from the air by day. Arrived at 1:00 am last eve. The city is vast and sprawling, but surprisingly dark at night. The streets are improved over the last time I visited, 25 years ago. Boudha, the neighborhood where I'm staying, used to have some open spaces. Now it's just a maze of streets and alleyways, jam-packed with private homes, hotels, and small businesses. But regardless, it feels like home, at least to a Buddhist or Hindu. People here are free to practice and preach their religion, as long as it's "Hindu" (which includes Buddhists, as far as Hindus are concerned). Christians and Muslims are not so lucky, even if they are somewhat tolerated. Pogroms and assassinations are not unheard of, and proselytizing is technically illegal, even if the government can't control it as well as, say, the government of Qatar.

Messed up in Ameriqqa

We're messed up in Ameriqqa
We killed our mother to sing her praises
Wearing her skin as democracy habit
Pumping the sky full of gassy ideas
Catching Buddha in a web of protocols
Trapping pussy cats in heat
Putting Jeannie back in the bottle
Hot damn, it's gotten so hot
Here in the burgeoning freedom colony
Homeland is a place to believe in
Or not believing, to leave in a hurry
Cause and effect clamp down with wall
Closing in the confusion and pain
Blocking the light, protecting the shadows
We bought so much into the old school of darkness
Into the crazy wit of lordship
The absolute monarch of fairy tails sits
Once again in corner of a barren room
There's no more time for fantasy
Even panic freezes one on the spot
It's a long contest of stares, of endurance
A dead-heat tie
Awareness 0, display 0:
All hail the great collective alaya!

I am Malcom X

I am Malcom X
I am Longchen Rabjam
I am a poor sinner
A hellish being, a ghost
I will do whatever is necessary

I am happy and exalted
I am destitute and sad
I am free and untrammeled
I am living on the path

I am trapped by karma
I am tortured by life
Reduced to servitude I
Climb rickety ladders for money
And pay it to my ex-wife

I am a miserable alcoholic
I take drugs huddled in a dark alley
I do puja in the middle of the night
With peanut butter, bread and Southern Comfort

In the dark at 2:00 am by cold waters
In light rain I write supplications
To Guru Rinpoche and then by morning

I walk the street and argue with myself

I see Buddhas on every CVS shelf
Beings transmigrate on the County bus
Like a dog I long for a pretty young bitch
Like a yogi I contemplate impurity and death

I neglect my health and don't eat for days
I eat too much and then throw up
I do asanas and run on cool forest paths
By waterfalls I meditate on love and compassion
For nagas and spirits of mountain and stream

Worn out I sit I streaming videos for days
Watch the confused human beings' big drama
Watching mind I see hope and fear
Birth and death unfolding again and again

John of the Cross, on Meditationless Meditation

Call it Dzogchen, call it Mahamudra, or call it whatever you want. No matter how you slice, John of the Cross got the goods:

" Yet, as I say, when these aridities are the outcome of the purgative way of the sensory appetite, the spirit feels the strength and energy to work, which is obtained from the substance of that interior food, even though in the beginning it may not experience the savor, for the reason just mentioned. This food is the beginning of a contemplation that is dark and dry to the senses. Ordinarily this contemplation, which is secret and hidden from the very one who receives it, imparts to the soul, together with the dryness and emptiness it produces in the senses, an inclination to remain alone and in quietude. And the soul will be unable to dwell on any particular thought, nor will it have the desire to do so. If those in whom this occurs know how to remain quiet, without care or solicitude about any interior or exterior work, they will soon in that unconcern and idleness delicately experience the interior nourishment. This refection is so delicate that usually if the soul desires or tries to experience it, it cannot do so. For, as I say, this contemplation is active while the soul is in idleness and unconcern. It is like air that escapes when one tries to grasp it in one's hand."

Source

Neoconservative hippy chick

I fell in love with a hippy chick
From a commune in West Virginia
She dug my gold and my red Honda stick-shift
Ignored my six-pack liver and rubbed my six-pack abs
We made love and designed advertising
Followed some gurus good bad and ugly
Did Iyengar teacher training and worked on poses
Adopted cats and bought a Siamese
We traveled and worked and fucked then made a baby
I shook my head with a tic as I translated
Procrastinated endlessly and had visions at night
Guarded the baby with my soul and my life
Fought his mom then for my sanity
Got sober but found myself miserable and defeated
Didn't like her games but played along
All the for the child's sake
While this precious human life grew older and lesser
The lap of luxury became a wind-blasted prison
An Elba isle in the Borscht Belt buckle
Stunted and pompous I found myself alone
Surrounded by demons pretending to be Buddhists
I raged and ran long distances at night
Told and retold the story to the air
Found the sprites and nagas of nature
Smiling in rocks, trees and whispering in air
Became a footloose wraith with a dangerous mind
Lost the boy, and the man, but discovered a mine
Winding and wimpering and praying till it hurt
Somewhere the She took pity and sent Her
The Queen of Green, barefoot and free
Holding this boy clueless but lucky
Now he remains singing her praises
Forgotten but not lost to the air.
At the confluence of waters, on ridge spurs
On outcrops, in caves, in high-altitude lakes
In old temples and underground
At the ruins of ancient holy places,
In thin air, in the sky or in space
Somewhere the secrets are hidden

Hidden but not that rare.

Caveat Emptor

some lamas are great but not good
some lamas are good but not great
some lamas do very many bad things
some are blameless but practically impotent
some have big egos and big bank accounts
some have small egos and are almost invisible
some have fame and no attitude
some have attitude but no fame
some are really worth the trouble to know,
but cause almost as much trouble as they're worth
some are as good as gold so they are always in hiding
some are like silver, bronze, or even platinum
they are snatched up by groupies, businessmen and sponsors
used up for the benefit of inner retinues
only a few ever have universal benefit like Shakyamuni
the rest are subject to conflicting PR campaigns
some dabble in dark arts and political extremism
some are racist in private and smiling in public
some hate women, children and animals
some really are bodhisattvas in spite of worldliness
some are bodhisattvas in spite of their terrible addictions
but still, they are addicts
of power sex money fame
prisoners of ego
pawns of sponsoring magnates
pussywhipped unless they whip hard enough back
to be free of samsara who needs to drive
with a driver whose vehicle needs gas every ten miles
who can't bear to do the job without constant entertainment
who only says yes to brown-nosing sycophants
the best lama is the one two valleys away
that way you can't speculate on how much their shit stinks
some are like stately trees with vast trunks
supporting the fruit of a thousand siddhas
you can live in their shade and the shade of their descendants
you don't have to chop the tree or steal fruit
there's enough to go around

Hippy Dippy Arts Villlage Haikus

Hippy dippy arts town
Army shrink asks for your data
Pistol-packing longhair

Tortured St. Louis poet
Writes songs of love and Buddha
Recalls D.U.M.B. details of late

OCD landlord
Always knows what you're saying
Hidden microphones

Raging Jewish shrink
Rented next door room with girlfriend
Works at West Point

Major drunk dealer
Busted with twenty-two pounds
Gets off with time served

Felafel joint on corner
Built on daddy's coke money
Waitress spits on sandwich

The genius locii
Answers your questions unasked
Town jogger madman

Two shouting alkies
Yellow and black dogs on leashes
Village Green garden

Thank god I didn't

Thank god I didn't
Have to celebrate
Thank goodness I don't
Have to be recalibrated
Good luck my liver doesn't
Need to be sanitized
Thank the Lord and Lady
My sanity's uncompromised
Lucky to be alive I am
And somewhat compos mentis
Lucky to breathe and still be moving
With a minimum of necessity
Solitude seems to be
Most of whatever I should need
Though I don't begrudge the rest
Sex and booze and wealth aplenty
The illusory feast on which I fed
In that vast cavalcade of feet
Of unselfconscious walking dead.