Multitudinosity

Ahhh.... multitudinosity. I looked it up and it wasn't even listed in my 'American Heritage Dictionary'. Ah well, doesn't mean it's not legit. Come to think of it words that end with -osity are kinda cool words: luminosity, viscosity, animosity, all great words right? Even the-ocity words are pretty cool: ferocity, reciprocity.... anyways. I am trying to stay away from the 'delete' button on the keyboard so bear with me.

This is much more zen, right? Yeah, right as if.... So, sticking right with the etymology thing we've got goin is words that begin with the letter K. Somehow the letter K is just like a force in and of itself. Wha? Who knows--well except when k is silent as in 'know' then its power is inverted and it becomes a total wuss. Let's start small and innocent: Cool-Aid vs. Kool-Aid. See what I mean? Okay, how about a little twist now: magic vs. magick. Hell, even putting it at the end of a word makes it somehow stronger (actually 'magick' isn't that great of an example because the 'c' is still in there). Well, maybe it has something to do with the fact that it is one of the least used letters e.g. 'k'-words (and also 'q'-words and 'z'-words).

So it is the basic 'kuh' sound as well that has a uniqueness when paired with the visual or written symbol k and maybe in our brains workings this sound/symbol combination is singled out as the brain may have to work through its habitual 'c'-word/sound association and maybe an extra neuron or two is fired thus giving 'k' more "power". Maybe not--but I think this ridiculous exercise in pseudo-linguistic analysis is at least burning a few extra calories in the form of brain metabolism which is another subject I am veering off into having no idea whatsoever. But I think it's fun.

Whatever. Yet I do feel pretty strongly that the average person ought to get up an run around inside their brains a little more often--you know shake out some cobwebs fire off some receptors get that lump of fat goin like some crazy thunderstorm and do it while you can! Be grateful that you can--someday you might not be able to. So even if it is just "useless" thought... I really believe though that thinking for oneself is of critical or kritikal importance.

Back to multitudinosity (ironically, perhaps) with this quote from an essay entitled 'Enlightenment and Ignorance' by D.T. Suzuki:
"In fact, our logical as well as practical consciousness is too given up to analysis and ideation; that is to say, we cut up realities into elements in order to understand them; but when they are put together to make the original whole, its elements stand out too conspicuously defined, and we do not view the whole 'in one thought'… an effort is to be made to go beyond our relative empirical consciousness, which attaches itself to the multitudinosity and not to the unity of things."

This effort which stands out among all other efforts is what I like to call the cultivation of mindfulness, or simply honest awareness, some would call it zazen. The real bummer for my analytical mind being that I feel an intuitive notion that true zazen itself is devoid of effort. My mind grasps and grasps to explain this just a little bit more but can only reply that it is perhaps the effort to obliterate effort.

I came up with a little saying well before I ever started to actually practice zazen and it was: "To explain not thinking in terms of thinking." One can plainly see that I am in what Suzuki calls the "hopelessly entangling logical mesh" of practical consciousness. Perhaps, but appearances can be deceiving.




Back to thinking for oneself.Most of the information we hear and see today has been taken over by the media/political/industrial complex. Conversely, most of the information we don't see and hear today has been taken over by the military complex (and much less obviously by our own individual ego complex--which is a whole nother point entirely).

It saddens me to see so many thoughts out there (virtual and actual) being preyed upon by the tunnel vision effect of these monolithic, monophonic, monotonic minorities(as in they are all owned/controlled) by a miniscule sliver of the populace.

Good people are doing the dirty work for them! It's not that the gabillion blogs out there that are abjectly political in content are invalid by any means, but I just don't believe that the communication going on here on planet earth is an accurate representation of what people are actually thinking about.

What are people actually thinking about? We don't even know because we are too caught up in the fear-consumption cycle of our modern world. I see it, and can actually feel it, a sickening feeling of fear every time I turn on the local evening news or CNN or Fox. The graphics, the headlines, the ticker at the bottom of the screen, the cornily inserted stories of heartwarming common people inserted between sensationalized reports of human cruelty, greed, vengeance, and confusion. It's like a cold sweat on the inside of my stomach.

The fnords have gone viral. Be mindful! A personal note in memory of RAW: You were/are/will always be a great teacher and kyosaku-like inspiration to many! Thank you so much.





"I would hate to be taken seriously. Serious people are always so grim and uptight that they make me want to dance naked on the lawn playing a flute."--Robert Anton Wilson (1932-2007)