Tag: Buddhism

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Clinging to Thelema

When I decided to restart this blog (simply throwing posts in The Stream), I had intended to do more Buddhism-related posts, as I have grown a great affinity for exploring the many aspects of Buddhist schools, from Theravada to Zen. I still intend to write on these matters too, though I often struggle in doing up site posts. There’s a weird blockage, a conflict over what I wish to write upon. Lately Thelema has been demanding my attention, and I have a number of posts simultaneously coming together about various subjects as it relates to Thelema, though I haven’t been giving them too much attention. Yet, when I write about Thelema, it always feels like picking up the largest uncomfortable boulder. The words go out when you hit publish, and you may see responses elsewhere and fear association, fear others misunderstanding, or fear being misunderstood. The snare of a thing so ugly, yet so beautiful as is Thelema. It becomes a very human idea, so turning from it and abandoning it is quite difficult once it has set its claws in one.

Bhikkhu Ananda, known to others as Charles Henry Alan Bennett, said of Crowley’s system, “No Buddhist would consider it worthwhile to pass from the crystalline clearness of his own religion to this involved obscurity.” Yet, what if one were to have the fortune, or misfortune of starting with that obscurity and through striving and contemplation made it through and then onto something like Buddhism? Then in viewing Buddhism, it’s easy to see into and appreciate deeply the more complex and esoteric writings, such as koans, and the wonderful Chan tradition. Thelema has a massive body of work by Crowley, with some real gems for analysis and critique, for examination and appreciation. Yet it hasn’t been held by thousands of hands over thousands of years, which is to its detriment, but also to its advantage, as there is a lot of opportunity to prove one’s capabilities–to shew clear understanding of these Thelemic pointers, or to create new inspired works in their vein. Yet to do so requires a bravery that falling back on Buddhism certainly does not when it comes to the court of public opinion and of reputation! Yet when I retreat for this reason, I tend to back right into the sword which reads: ‘Fear not at all; fear neither men nor Fates, nor gods, nor anything. Money fear not, nor laughter of the folk folly, nor any other power in heaven or upon the earth or under the earth. Nu is your refuge as Hadit your light; and I am the strength, force, vigour, of your arms.’ (BoTL III-17)

I’ve had to re-assess my goals with the pandemic and its resulting effects. The idea of striving toward creating a public meditation space/sleep temple (offering free hypnotherapy and hypnosis classes) above or beside a store which would sell all kinds of wondrous books simply isn’t the most feasible goal when you have to crawl and scratch for every dollar to fund it and with the current retail apocalypse. It’s a big vision which replaced many smaller ones, and I have been kicking myself since we recorded a podcast episode in which we spoke about writing, and in it I had dismissed writing fiction, something I have wanted to do from childhood. The impulse to write fiction has reappeared, at first in the form of doing some short stories, sparked by recent life events. I decided to re-read Aleister Crowley’s Wordsworth Collection of short stories, and also had to view some early correspondence with my (now wife) where we were exchanging short stories and story ideas we had written down. In all this it evoked a memory of when I was in Grade 10 and took an elective ‘creative writing’ course. The teacher for it was also the gym teacher, and I was surprised by his boldness to bring up Crowley in our class. I put my hand up (for once) that lesson, and engaged in discussion with the class, having read a few books by Crowley then. I’d eventually end up writing a short story as was the assignment, and wrote one detailing a shift happening globally as people ceased in their mad ways, having attained an understanding of Life, dropping away all delusion and obscurity, thanks to Thelema. Most sad is, I had written that when I was practically half my current age! So Thelema had its claws in me from way back then, became a lens through which I’d view other mystical works I didn’t explore in my teenage years, or even early 20’s.

It is only in the past few years that I’ve really taken identity in the Buddhist works, especially Zen (which my mind sees as a parallel to Thelema, hence the itch to prattle on about it at times here). I believe there’s endless inspiration still untapped from the Buddhist works, I believe them to be truly timeless, and time will only tell it seems what will happen with Thelema. However how I approached the Zen writings was the result of years of studying Thelema, so the place I write from is unique, unlike other monks or surface-meditators. I won’t be writing as some expert Buddhist or Buddhism scholar, but I hope in the least to offer thought provoking fun when I cover those materials!

Buddhism is beautiful and meets the criteria quite well laid out by Crowley in his calling for ‘the Method of Science with the Aim of Religion‘. Having grown what understanding of it I have cultivated, I am amazed by how purely logical, coherent, and scientific the system is, which is an aspect not lost to Crowley who in 1902 wrote his essay Science and Buddhism to demonstrate this. Bhikkhu Ananda (Bennett) was a friend and travel partner of Aleister Crowley. In 1902 in Burma, Bennett took his monk vows, and assumed the name Ananda Metteyya or “Bliss of loving kindness” and would become one of the first Englishmen to become ordained Buddhist monks. Bennett also worked with Golden Dawn leader Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers on a book of correspondences, which Crowley would eventually expand upon to produce Liber 777… Crowley would devote fiction to Bennett, invited him to stay with him when he had nowhere else to turn, and Bennett in turn helped train Crowley in white magic and enlightenment practice; both saw the validity in Buddhist practice. Unfortunately they eventually broke apart, with Bennett not seeing the vision of Thelema and Crowley rejecting Buddhism in the establishing of Thelema. (I can’t help but wonder what Bennett would have thought of Zen, and if having knowledge of Zen and its literature, would he have assisted Crowley in establishing Thelema…)

I wrote this as I have seen a trend of people looking to throw Crowley in the waste bucket in some kind of mob-like madness, disregarding the work of others who have carried the boulder (or mountain) so far and had shewn light upon the grounds it concealed. From this recent movement called ‘Post-Thelema’, to the few ostentatious folk who insist on the lowest and most dishonest interpretation of Thelema by calling it a fascist system (see my response to their essay here). Alas, the Book of the Law provokes me again, III-68 ‘Yet to all it shall seem beautiful. Its enemies who say not so, are mere liars.’

When I can finally stop clinging to Thelema, or perhaps, when it can stop clinging to me, I will look to broaden the scope of my writings and hop off the recurrent themes. For now, however, there’s a few more Crowleyean frogs riding leaves and logs down the stream and they’re heading just this way.

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Zen Sex – The Way of Making Love

Zen Sex by Philip Toshio Sudo is a wonderful meditation on directing love to another, self-love, and surprisingly, the teaching of Zen. Published in 2000, I had purchased the book among a pile of other Zen texts (the actual writings of Zen Masters) when visiting a favourite used book store with my wife nineteen years later. I grabbed Zen Sex more for the expected novelty factor of it on the shelf, as I hadn’t expected to take much from its pages as I would with the other books I selected that day. It took a year for me to finally end up reading it, and I must say that I loved the experience, I loved the book, and I loved being wrong. As I laid in bed and read it from cover to cover in one sitting (or laying), I meditated as I flipped through each thoughtful page on Zen, life, and sex.

When I first saw the book, my ignorance expected the standard ‘self-help’ style writing that contains as much ‘Zen’ as the stone statue sold in Wal-Mart, or the calming blend of tea carrying that name, or even that album with the river on the cover featuring a silhouette of a woman in meditation. When I read the back blurb it mentioned Zen koans, and I then expected it to feature the writing of Zen Master Ikkyu, AKA Crazy Cloud. I wasn’t wrong there, Ikkyu’s verse is a thread throughout the book, but there was so much more than I expected, from quotes of Zen Masters such as Joshu, Hui-neng, and Hakuin, to references of scholars such as Joseph Campbell. These materials were not just slapped together, but examined, extrapolated upon, and then beautifully conveyed in eloquent, succinct wording.

Sex and death are intrinsically linked, this connection being brought up in a few chapters, but whilst reading, I was drifting in thoughts on life, both its frailty and beauty. This book offers so much more than its title or cover would convey, and may be one of the top books I’d suggest for someone who has expressed interest in getting started with the study of Zen in general. With the aforementioned Masters referenced and quoted, there would be plenty to investigate from here, along with some helpful pointers by Sudo of the quotes shared should the reader be unfamiliar and have their interest sparked.

Sudo’s writing and materials even gracefully elevated Ikkyu’s verse, which I had previously read years ago in a .PDF which simply put all of his poems together – and in that format, while I understood the reason for his prominence in the context of the tradition, I took little from his words. In the context of Zen Sex, Ikkyu’s prose opened up like a flower bathing in sunlight.

‘We appear as skeletons covered with skin, male and female, and lust after each other. When the breath expires, though, the skin ruptures, sex disappears, and there is no more high or low. Underneath the skin of the person we fondle and caress right now is nothing more than a bare set of bones. Think about it–high and low, young and old, male and female, all the same. . . This is how the world is. Those who have not grasped the world’s impermanence are astonished and terrified by such change. . . Free yourself from form and return to the original ground of being.’ – Ikkyu

Ikkyu is fascinating in the general context of Zen study, especially in contrast to the common image of chaste monks; he was open of homosexual encounters he had in his youth, and would write about masturbation and sex. While his writing consists of what often appears degenerate, brash and silly on the surface, to view it only as such would miss the wisdom and beauty in his words, and miss the meaning behind his penning them. Ikkyu’s red thread metaphor, our bloodline, examines the naturalness of our birth, the natural longing to embrace another, and the normalcy of sexual thought and act. To deny it in order to ‘act Zen’ is to delude oneself more than anything, it is to dissociate from who and what we are.

‘don’t hesitate get laid that’s wisdom
sitting around chanting what crap’ – Ikkyu

I would highly recommend that anyone in a relationship, anyone looking to get into a relationship, or anyone wishing to have a more comprehensive view of life and love to read this book. I’ll surely be reading it again. Something that stuck with me that I wished to share when I had the idea of putting this post up was a quote from the author. Sudo wrote, ‘Familiar as our lover may be to us, we treat each night in the bedroom as special. We do not wait for a diagnosis of cancer to start savoring our lover’s kiss. We do it now. Should tomorrow come, we do it again.’

I was saddened when I googled the author’s name, but also struck more deeply by that passage, having to then sit with it a little. On April 2, 2001, Philip Toshio Sudo had been diagnosed with stomach cancer and passed away just two years after the publication of Zen Sex at the age of 41, leaving behind his wife, and three small children. Here is an interview with Sudo which shared a diary entry from the day of his diagnosis. I’ll end this post with the last lines of that entry.

‘Love will endure through those whom we have loved.
Life is sorrowful, but to be lived in joy.‘ – Philip Toshio Sudo

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Don’t Be Boaring

It is a challenge to get back into the flow of things when you have spent so long in cessation. I used to pride myself on my drive to post frequent articles on this website, when I took to overthinking what I was writing and got caught up in wishing to deliver a message to an audience that I couldn’t quite fathom or figure out through the mist and phantoms of my mind. Frustrations settled in so I took pause… that pause turned into a stop. Days, weeks, months, and then years went by without striving to break through that mental block, without the ability to get back on that proverbial horse.

Finally, Covid-19 hit, I found myself at home and with ample time to re-enter the stream, though a few obstacles were inflated as to provide a reason to remain in stasis. For example, the old template I had made required each article or post to have a large header image, which I had fun designing, but to save money during this pandemic I had cancelled my Adobe subscription thus losing the means to create visually appetizing works. I finally changed the site layout to one that wouldn’t require images, and told myself not to stress so much about the text material being placed on the website… I mean, I have been paying for it all these years, would I want to resume in watching days go by and have the site sitting idle, nothing but a costly waste? It was silliness. I was being silly. If someone wishes to read these posts, they will. If I am writing to myself, well, I can use this as a record book of thoughts and ideas and draw upon it for future projects. There is no harm in putting these words here.

When in that lazy apathetic mode, I find life can slip away and days feel like they wash over in an instant. You arise, eat, do something, do another thing, eat again and then it’s nightfall, you feel unaccomplished and push those feelings down, or shut them off in mind pacification or indulgent entertainment. Writing used to be my daily ritual, and I’d like to get back to it, or something close to it at least. With such structure in place the rest of my actions fall into a sorting system where they are enacted based on requirement, situation and want, though all are enacted with greater intent. Gone is the lackadaisical pissing about.

“What’s the harm in doing nothing? It’s good to get rest.” Sure, when tired, rest! Though when tired of being bored… do something with intent, and do it often. I recently read a Buddhist story on this matter of intention. It was about a monk up in the mountains who happened to be wandering about his property. Mindlessly, he picked up a rock and threw it over a fence, unaware that out of sight the rock would make an impact with the skull of a bird as it hopped through the grass. It was killed on the spot, unbeknownst to the monk. If unfamiliar with the story, you may now beginning to think that the monk later discovered the birdie corpse, predictably giving it then a burial and repenting for his actions, even reciting the name of Amitabha Buddha chanting ‘Namu Amida Butsu’ (nianfo) but no! The bird was reborn as a boar, and a long while later, the boar ascended that very mountain, and while mindlessly wandering about it had knocked a boulder loose. The boulder rolled off a cliff-edge, falling upon the monk’s hut, resulting in one crushed, dead monk.

While I’d hope that my being boring with the mindless couch dwelling, snacking, thumb twiddling and days in a daze wouldn’t karmically produce a Buddhist Final Destination moment, I’d rather play it safe than sorry and consider all my actions, remain mindful in their doing, and ensure there is intent in all of my manifestation. That is afterall, the key to magic!

“Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will.” – Aleister Crowley.