live life letter 052 - lapsus buddha laugh
dear friends,
I am leaning into the spirit.
We are entering the last third of this pass of nine I have deemed with the theme of "blankness" of the live life letters. I am blank thought; blank thought?
This is how I "plan" out this newsletter:
i) I write the first three with the intent of entering the spiral, ii) the second three with the intent of being practical with reality, iii.) and last three with going beyond the spiral; a three loop!
Time elapses upon each pass: "The time will pass" my sister says! So lean forward, down the hill. Lean into what moves us; the art of what's within.
If you'd like, listen to our stream of conversational consciousness from our recent past whilst driving in the car: friendlyjakester x s1owdnce
Lean into the spirit, I say!
There are images of the Laughing Buddha 布袋 (the wandering monk) and of Mother Mary crying at the Cross. These alters of joy, these alters of suffering, what do they symbolize to me?
I see them. I notice them. I acknowledge them within me, between my self and shadow. I am in witness of these beings, these images, these signals, these symbols. They creep up on me and linger. Like patient observers, they notice me.
As time elapses, I cannot help but fall into this divine folly. There is no science, nor practical reason of justifying these follies I fall into. It is indefensible by no means by the secular world. I admit this, I concede and forfeit this decree. Yet, by being of witness to these things, this divineness, this madness, it defends me. It defends my spirit and soul. In each word, in each prayer, in each meditation, I take fold the manifold we call life. What is there beyond this life?
I remain and take witness.
your friend(ly)
jakester
P.S. this video is a flow state of words I slip prior to what I’ve written!
TL;GR (too long; go read)
buddha's laugh, mary's cry, until I die?
contrafactus hortus ad lapsus: the 3 second slip!
shadow of time, shadow of self; beyond a shadow of doubt . . .
Aim & Intent : reflect on inner work as it pertains to our perception of time x spirit.
Immersive Music Choice
buddha laugh x mary cry
I hold this image of the laughing Buddha. On the edge of my own sanity, I see the laughing Buddha; there, in my grandfather's foyer, he sat. The golden statue. Reflecting back now, I find the messaging of these images quite ironic and silly. The golden laugh. The golden Buddha. The golden bliss. There sat the laughing Buddha next to Mother Mary of Jesus. In this Catholic household, the laughing Buddha caught my child's eye.
In the Garden of Eden, the laughing Buddha sat under the tree. The wandering monk, Budai 布袋. The symbol for joy, abundance, and contentment. Does this Eden exist?
Who knows; why does it matter?
"I don't need to control everything. Joy itself is a form of wisdom."
Well, it matters, because I need to know what I must believe until the day I die.
"Why?"
"You do not need to walk far to reach endlessness. You arrive at your own mind. What is there to reach to?"
[12:18AM 11.24.25] (orange journal) - meta awake?
I have been writing and writing every (which) week. The Garden calls out to me in every week I write. "Go to the Garden" the inner call beckons, "into the light of tomorrow, with grace."
Who is Grace, I wonder?
"Double down, you wanderer child."
Double down?
"Do you know what was meant by your meta-awakening?"
Sometimes. In other times, I must be blind or asleep. I reckoningly admit. The joy, the abundance, it is not always so easily evident. I am forgetful and I often lose things quite easily. In this endless plight, I often lose my head. I slip and forget!
Yet, just in the same slip, within these endless thoughts, the joy and abundance, it is easily accessible, it must be! The blank landscape provides me a canvas, a playground of ideas waiting to come to life!
The plenty of few. The few of plenty. The many few good things.
"You words confuse me."
My own words confuse me too. But the feelings bleed thru. Don't you see?
"I see because I am you."
Why do these words confuse me?
When you say that the place of the soul is not, then it is not. But if you say that it is, then it is. Notice what the ancients said in images: the word is a creative act. The ancients said: in the beginning was the word.
contrafactus hortus ad lapsus
What a collapse!
"Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter's remark seemed to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English. 'I don't quite understand you,' she said, as politely as she could.'"
"'Have you guessed the riddle yet?' the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.'
'No I give it up,' Alice replied: 'what's the answer?'
'I haven't the slightest idea,' said Socrates.
What a strange time!
Alia sighed wearily. 'I think you might do something better with the time,' she said, 'then waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.'
'If you know Time as well as I do,' Kurteth Gödel interrupted, 'you wouldn't talk about wasting it. It's rotating in eternality.'"
…
Lapsus calami! Lapsus linguae! Lapsus memoriae!
The three second slip, before and after. Three seconds follow, a thought I write. Three seconds prior, a thought I speak. Writing slow, speaking fast!
My mind rotates, how fast! Go slow; what flow? The flow of time, an illusion generated by our own, rotate once more, your fundamentals in flaw. The Order of Time; what do you remember in time of flux?
To liberate from liberation. To be free from freedom. To rebel against the rebellion itself. I finally understand that I don't understand. I'm lying, but only when I say I am telling the truth. "This sentence was accidentally written on purpose" the shadows say, devouring its own cause and effect. Time elapsed.
a slip of the story, the sunken garden of fall
After the first second passed, the Brown Beaver stared at Charlie and the Snake as if they were the bugs. Onto the third second.
"They are not termites," the Beaver annoyingly scoffed, "they are turmites!"
'What's the difference?' asked Charlie with great curiosity, 'are they not the same?'
"No, no, not the same! I quite admire them, actually, they are not bugs. They are imaginents of the Turing kind.' explained the earnest Brown Beaver proudly as if he wore a badge of honor.
Charlie was puzzled, thoroughly puzzled. 'Are they not real?' he confided with his mind. These thoughts made him a bit unruly but he did not want the Beaver to scurry off. This was the first time he ever spoke to a beaver. He wanted answers.
The Latin word for "slip" is lapsus, which comes from the verb labi ("to slip" or "to fall"). While lapsus can mean a physical slip, it is also commonly used in phrases like lapsus calami (slip of the pen) and lapsus linguae (slip of the tongue) to mean a mistake or error.
shadow of time, shadow of self, shadow of the past
Entertain me, we are about to go weirdly deep (I think)!
Beyond the shadow of doubt, what is there?
There is this eccentric view by Kurt Gödel whom attempted to integrate Einstein's Theory of General Relativity to Time itself. The ouroboros of causality?
Mathematically possible, yes. There are certain doubts of which I do not currently have the faculties to explain within this space on time :p but let me toy with these imaginents for a moment.
The universe itself does not provide a preferred direction or flow of time. Any “passage” of time is something our minds impose.
What does my/the spirit say in this moment?
Here, I imagine the prisoner's dilemma except contained in the cages are me and the soul, me and the shadow, me and the self; contained by the passage of time, these fragments of time, these memories of mine?
Trapped in a loop: how could we ever be free if the flow of time is not 'real'?
Are we encased in this weird illusion of our own perception, this creation of time?
I try to listen to the wind between the chimes. I earnestly listen to the Universe, uni-verse: one verse, one song. The universe existing in one moment, between nowism and eternalism; is it jest the same just said differently?
Here, with my shadow of thoughts, I attempt to place these fragments together within the dark. The aim is integration; the folly of disintegration I race with. Shadow work and the ouroboros: the strange loop of consciousness…
In One Instance. . .
Shadow work is recognizing that the parts of yourself you think are “in the past” still occupy the same psychological spacetime as the present — time doesn’t make them disappear; only integration does.
The real grounded bridge:
(A) Gödel → Time is not a line.
There is no objective “earlier” vs “later.”
(B) Psychology → Trauma, shame, fear persist because the mind treats them as present, even when the narrative claims they’re “past.”
(C) Shadow Work → You stop pretending the shadow is something “behind” you.
You acknowledge: It is structurally part of your psyche right now.
You acknowledge:
It is structurally part of your psyche right now.
My mind is rotating, paradigms shifting. The shadow, with light-cones, ever twirling. A poet of wisdom, a song of love. Listen to the wind, of what comes in. Do you feel the chimes, the breathe of God, Nature, the Universe?
"Confront thy shadow!" I ask of you, knowing the dangers of the void, you must be wary; "Befriend it," I continue, "then, you'll integrate it" my prayer for us all.
What a spiral, the spiral within, how infinite we find; thank you for spending your time and attention here with me, this finite space.
0-5-2 ; only you hold the keys to the gate of your own cage, your sense of self shadowed, wholly incomplete. Take the key, ad astra ad lapsus; fall into the stars.
Beyond a shadow of doubt, find yourself in love. The Buddha laughs. Mother Mary cries. The Garden sings. "What's left?" the Snake slips in.
Confront thy shadow's soul!
spiral of light; light cone yellow