Tag: mindfulness.

• 11111101010.1

  pondering—purpose.

  Maybe purpose means so much to so many is because it is our bulwark against the unconquerable tide of entropy? How strong must the motivation be to engage in an unwinnable war?

  poetry—senescence.

  Memories and opinions

  are merely stations

  along the train journey of being,

  soon to be loose

  in the rear window of the caboose.

  Nothing lasts.

  Loss, at half-mast.

  Yet, this existence—subsistence

  then senescence—

  is as it is.

  prose—flicker.

  He stared intently, drawn in more by instinct than inquisition—the butter lamp flame waved gently back and forth, mimicking the drafts undulating through the small stone hut.

  Cross-legged he sat, deep in acute awareness of his movements as his hand moved from lamp to lamp, hovering over each momentarily in mantra before moving to the next. A thick haze hung in the air, drawn from the many incense stick lit around the room. He was unsure how long he had been sitting, alone in the square shack, as time had a way of acting like a rubber band during retreats—in a way mocking our human expectation, or insistence, that it is linear, continuous, obligatory. The single window barely allowed any light—reflecting the decades of use the hut had seen as a hermitage, generations of saints, seekers, and skeptics having locked themselves away here to journey through awareness and the mind.

  Occasionally his concentration was broken by the caws of crows and voices of vulture—omens and oracles, both. Shadows and shapes shifted on the walls, sparked by the luminal interference and decoherence of the butter lamps. His mind was drawn to reimagine and redefine the shape of the darkness, creating stories and meanings—a hope for definitions amongst the randomness. He smiled weakly at his thoughts chasing the threads of purpose, the need and necessity of our consciousness to construct ceremony from the void, acknowledging the apophenia.

  The nagging of negation flowed through his body, each aching in a different medium—physically, mentally, emotionally, socially. Food, water, sensory inputs, and conversation had all been in very limited supply since he withdrew into retreat. And yet, the greatest gains come from the most acute austerities—contraction into the condesate of consciousness.

  2026.11.01

• cognition.

  Perception a faulty recognition of the past,

  Reality a projection, parsed by what minds cast.

  Hologram of information and entropy so vast,

  the mind manipulates the broadcast,

  insistent on truth ‘til the very last.

  2026.10.28

• citrus.

  You awake to the irregular beat of a bamboo wind chime, blown as it is by the morning breeze picking up over the choppy sea. It’s too hot at this time of the year to keep the windows closed at night—ajar they beckon breeze. Getting up, you make it down the narrow wood staircase, the scent of fresh bread wafting on the salty air.

  Pushing open the creaky old door, you are greeted by the greenery of the tangerine grove, the trees heavily laden with fruit, boughs bending under their burden. Haphazardly planted hundreds of years ago, the orchard has no order, no organisation, no optimisation of outlook. Narrow, heavily trodden dirt paths wind in and around the trees, and with extended hands, your fingertips traverse the tangerines hanging from their trees. The dry loamy landscape is fed by ancient cisterns, small oases sprinkle the surrounding hills. Further downhill—deeper into the verdant grove—a sweetness cuts the air, your nose speculating baklava from the bakery at the water’s edge. The sun seemingly struggles to infiltrate the orchard, the dense leaves of citrus providing respite from the heat. Soon though, the allure of baklava was too much, and you begin to meander further.

  At the old stone wall, the tangerine grove terminated, supplanted by a web of narrow streets. Cramped cobbled paths continued to shield your skin from the sun—the tall houses, some several centuries old, acted like riverbanks to a stream of shadows. Several friends hands waved or welcomed, however sweetness of scent spurred you on, closer to the harbour, closer to the sole bakery in the village.

  A worn oak beam greeted you at the threshold, and upon entering, the sugary smell cemented itself in your psyche—there would be nothing else until on the other side of the oak beam again. Zlatko looked up and smiled—his piercing eyes incongruent with his calm and caring character—and handed you a kite-shaped cut of the layered filo, honey and pistachios pouring out onto the plain plate. Nodding, you stepped back into the cool claustrophobic corridors of cobbles, and made your way towards the water. Sitting and watching the tide lap languidly always made food take better.

  A low stone wall—warmed from a morning under the sun—welcomed you. The headlands and rest of the island looked almost whitewashed in comparison to the vivid lapis lazuli of the ocean stretched out before you. CRŌNCH. The filo snapped in jagged unpredictable formations under your bite, the pistachios added their own texture after breaking apart. The honey came flooding in afterwards with tangy tangerine jam—a local delicacy made right here on the island, it’s stickiness sought to flow between your teeth. The wind was more noticeable here, unimpeded by trees and terraces. Cool on your cheeks, it seemed to also chill your mouthful of pastry.

  This was it—all there was, all there needed to be. Taste. Experience. Presence. Breath. You are free from anything that is not the now.

  2026.10.25

• reflection.

  You think you know—

  that’s just reaping what you sow.

  Perception pulling on experience

  and calling it truth.

  Multi-faceted faces and

  lenses, societal psychosis.

  Moons and memories refract

  in the river’s cataract.

  A crooked finger pointing

  at the reflection, pontificating.

  Experience—that and this—

  outside analysis.

  Kick up your feet

  with your neighbour,

  meet and eat.

  For you and me,

  and us and them,

  —all there is,

  is to be.

  2026.10.21

• everywhere.

  Hanging from the rigging with the nonchalance of somebody who has spent a lifetime at sea, his focus was buried in the bow wake as dolphins played frivolously in the froth. Then, just outside his vision, he noticed flecks of white. Squinting harder to investigate further, it became apparent it was a huge swarm of moon jellyfish, a bloom uncharacteristically large this far from the coast, and at such high latitudes. It amused him to ponder their thoughts—or, given their lack of thoughts, more probably ponder their sensations—as they criss-crossed the oceanic expanse at the whims of wind and wave. The dolphins—and the ship—carved through the jellyfish with ease, every now and then one of the cetaceans catapulting one into the grey skies above, only for it to splat down several moments later; no doubt in a state of bewilderment. Or, at least he speculated so.

  Thirty years later.

  Dangling his feet off the starboard side, he relished the experience of being drenched by the waves, as the catamaran pitched back and forth, criss-crossing the swell. Arms draped over the wire railing, he stared down into the dark depths—as he had done countless times before over decades past—and then he spotted it; the familiar specks of white. A metre or so below the surface they bobbed, hundreds or maybe thousands of moon jellyfish, another bloom; this time equatorial, not polar. Immediately, he was reunited with the train of thought from 30 years ago—what were they thinking, what was it like to float around aimlessly? And then a new one: were these the same individuals he had previously witnessed? He wasn’t sure what the life expectancy of a jellyfish was, though he recognised that as a human concern—surely these beings, more be-ing than think-ing, were deeply involved and invested in the present, only the here-and-now. For all intents and porpoises, they lived forever, never pondering the past nor fretting the future. In their effortless bobbing on the ocean currents, they existed in a moment-to-moment cycle of birth and rebirth.

  2026.10.18

• ger.

  Condors and cinereous vultures circled overhead, surely an auspicious omen he thought to himself. The walk had taken two, trying days, though this valley was where his people had found wisdom since time immemorial—an axis mundi of the world, centre of all. As he stood on a ridge overlooking the glacier-scarred topography, he spied a good campsite, spotlighted by a sunbeam.

  After another two hours of walking, he reached where the sun’s wise rays touched down and began to unload the camel that had been just half-a-step behind since he left. As it began to sink beyond the mountains framing the valley, the sun recalled its light and warmth. Just in time, the ger was up. The circular tent was constructed from warm felt, with an opening in the centre of the roof to let smoke out. This one was much smaller than those usually seen in the area—this was a shamanic ger, utilised for isolation, deprivation, and vision quests; all the reasons he found himself in this particular spot at this particular time.

  He unfurled the flap entrance then sealed it. It would not open again for another week.

  In silence and darkness he sat; solely being, not doing. As the days meandered, merged with the one prior, his stomach sang out for sustenance; the only thing having passed his lips being water from the water buffalo skin bladder lying next to him. Boundaries dissolved as his thoughts slowed and the sensations from within the body—and the deep informational base of awareness—became more prominent; though he recognised it was probably always there, the acknowledgement of it was, apparently, not. His mind’s eye constructed (or revealed?) an immense column that stretched from his forehead to the godhead—constructed of symbols, sigils, and signs which he now recognised as nothing but different sides of the same coin. All that was, was information. I within I, 0 > 1. Time, merely emergent from consciousness, revealed its ruse to him. From his belly, he felt a cool sensation spreading to his limbs, before passing out.

  He awoke—minutes or months later, he was unsure. Though he was sure that this part of the journey was over, and gathered himself and his thoughts. After a quiet morning of meditation, he began packing up the ger—all was deathly still, apart from the occasional squawk of a vulture or bellow of a camel.

  2026.10.11

• bodhisattv-her.

  She knows.

  See the way she ebbs and flows,

  through the now // osmose

  awareness deathblows.

  Circled by crows,

  the corpse of tomorrows.

  And though she chose

  the austerities it bestows,

  it’s the path to dispose

  of the scarecrows in the meadows

  of delusion, which ego does impose.

  2026.10.07

• cumulus.

  A rabbit. A whale. A teapot.

  She lay in the long grass, watching the clouds condense, coalesce, and collapse—to take forms before dissolving again. The verdant lushness enveloped her and time drifted away, like a cloud across a crisp blue sky. She pondered to herself how different were cloud rabbits from actual rabbits, really—both just a mental construct, a collection of concepts tied together by consensus, yet neither free from the constraints of the mind.

  A gentle sea breeze caressed her face, carrying with it the scent of salt. At the smell of the sea, she closed her eyes and found a deep state of presence.

  Inhale. Exhale. Her belly rose, then fell.

  It dawned on her that the fluffy cloud beings floating above—like the herself—weren’t becoming rabbits or whales or teapots, but rather, were always as they had been. Like moon which is always whole; perception is what reshapes her—the waxing and waning just smoke and mirrors. The cloud animals equally existed in perception.

  The summer sun soaring above warmed her, and having given up understanding via division, she slipped into an afternoon nap.

  2026.09.30

• breath.

  Prayer flags fluttered in the breeze, from wooden roof to rock cairn to mountainous ridge. Stretched taut, they sung; carrying their message on the wind. He stood atop the stone walls of the monastery, surveying the valley below—once a path for a glacier, the valley had been hewn from the monotonous motion of the river of ice.

  Despite never having left the confines of the valley’s metamorphic crenellations, he felt he had no need to. With the sharpness of a yanyuedao and the serenity of a reclining moon, he stepped through life one step at a time—his waraji straw sandals anchored in the past, present, and future, all at once. Experience only exists in the now; lamentations of the past and anxieties of the future are mere experiences of the present.

  Inhale—past, present, future.

  Exhale—past, present, future.

  Breath, like the prayer flags, carries its message on the breeze too. Awareness born upon the exhale, sentience sent to the far corners of the horizon.

  Careening down from the mountaintops, the frigid air cut into his exposed skin as daggers. His long hair, unkempt and uncouth, was caught by the breath of the mountains too. Everything seemed to breath, to heave in existence, a universal inhale in acknowledgement of awareness.

  2026.09.27

• inversion.

  The mind upended,

  by real reality wended.

  Experience as intended,

  with awareness extended—only presence to contend with.

  Ought to be nought thought.

  Information creation

  via division of attention.

  Perspective-plagued pelham,

  cerebellum para bellum.

  2026.09.23