Ain't it the truth though?
Wings of feather or wings of fire - imagination transports alright, but you may not get to pick the destination.
What if you could get back all the time your imagination made you serve in hell? The Buddha, or someone writing in his name, said something like, "the mind is a wonderful servant and a terrible master".
"Wrong perceptions" the Buddha says calmly.
"Or maybe more right than you want to understand" it whispers.
You starved it, poisoned it, blunted it; hated, humiliated and disowned it; ran it down and beat it back routinely. You deprived its senses, nearly drowned it. clapped it into black-site-solitary-confinement. But it continues there. Its whisper persists.
Sometimes it's a howling tornado of demons, a Yakuza tattoo. It's a pair of wings commanded by its own will. You will go where it takes you, and you will not be able to close your eyes or stop your ears. What it shows you will ravage you, what it tells you will shred your sanity into cole slaw.
Then there are other times, there, just on the other side of sleep - all that activity. It shows you a glimpse of another world in full swing, a world you cannot hold or remain in long enough to comprehend. There's a trick to it, you know that, but you haven't mastered it yet. That world is happening right now.
And at other times it brings sweetness. Like slowly waking to a warm soft voice, gentle kisses. It's as as though your very self is blossoming into love. And then you are on this side again, awake, and it slips slowly out of reach, then out of sight, and the memory of the feeling is vivid enough to make you ache for days after.
Wings of feather or wings of fire - imagination transports alright, but you may not get to pick the destination.
What if you could get back all the time your imagination made you serve in hell? The Buddha, or someone writing in his name, said something like, "the mind is a wonderful servant and a terrible master".
"Wrong perceptions" the Buddha says calmly.
"Or maybe more right than you want to understand" it whispers.
You starved it, poisoned it, blunted it; hated, humiliated and disowned it; ran it down and beat it back routinely. You deprived its senses, nearly drowned it. clapped it into black-site-solitary-confinement. But it continues there. Its whisper persists.
Sometimes it's a howling tornado of demons, a Yakuza tattoo. It's a pair of wings commanded by its own will. You will go where it takes you, and you will not be able to close your eyes or stop your ears. What it shows you will ravage you, what it tells you will shred your sanity into cole slaw.
Then there are other times, there, just on the other side of sleep - all that activity. It shows you a glimpse of another world in full swing, a world you cannot hold or remain in long enough to comprehend. There's a trick to it, you know that, but you haven't mastered it yet. That world is happening right now.
And at other times it brings sweetness. Like slowly waking to a warm soft voice, gentle kisses. It's as as though your very self is blossoming into love. And then you are on this side again, awake, and it slips slowly out of reach, then out of sight, and the memory of the feeling is vivid enough to make you ache for days after.
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