Discussing with John yesterday the phrase “Forget self and become one with the Tao” I pointed out that many artists and creative people forget self regularly in their work (they have to for the work to come alive), and yet they are often more selfish than average. John explained that it's not really forgetting self that is important but putting the other person first – you forget self by remembering the other, not by rousing your (creative) spirit. He has been stressing this a lot lately, partly I suspect because he knows that I live alone without intimate interactions, so there is a vital part of my humanity that doesn't get exercised.
John just visited me to say that he is not prepared to use the phrase “Forget self” again because he doesn't care to mention or acknowledge a negative (even two negatives together don't quite make a positive). I suggested “Remember the heart” as an alternative which he liked, so we picked up the dictionary to investigate the word remember, which means to bring into the mind, or call to mind, which isn't quite what we wanted. We tried other words but eventually, after over an hour of rooting through the big book, he decided that “Engage the heart” was nearly perfect.
John has always stressed to me that it is vital to have a deep feeling and love for words and the language, especially their history and origins. Stilling the thinking chattering talking mind is not a matter of denying the language but of passing through it to the time words first began to condense from the energetic environment. Passing into the world of energy is like going back in time, through your ancestry, or the lineage, or your primal dragon body. When John uses words well he sinks into the energetic space he is attempting to elucidate and waits for the words to congeal and make themselves present. They come as sounds as much as meanings. “Slake at nature's breeding edge.” Why the word slake which, as Gerrilyn has pointed out, implies slacken, which isn't what he meant at all? But if you say the phrase the sound means exactly – it sounds perfect: menacing and intense.
John just visited me to say that he is not prepared to use the phrase “Forget self” again because he doesn't care to mention or acknowledge a negative (even two negatives together don't quite make a positive). I suggested “Remember the heart” as an alternative which he liked, so we picked up the dictionary to investigate the word remember, which means to bring into the mind, or call to mind, which isn't quite what we wanted. We tried other words but eventually, after over an hour of rooting through the big book, he decided that “Engage the heart” was nearly perfect.
John has always stressed to me that it is vital to have a deep feeling and love for words and the language, especially their history and origins. Stilling the thinking chattering talking mind is not a matter of denying the language but of passing through it to the time words first began to condense from the energetic environment. Passing into the world of energy is like going back in time, through your ancestry, or the lineage, or your primal dragon body. When John uses words well he sinks into the energetic space he is attempting to elucidate and waits for the words to congeal and make themselves present. They come as sounds as much as meanings. “Slake at nature's breeding edge.” Why the word slake which, as Gerrilyn has pointed out, implies slacken, which isn't what he meant at all? But if you say the phrase the sound means exactly – it sounds perfect: menacing and intense.
4 comments
Slake is poetry
...to diminish the intensity of one's efforts
of lime: to become hydrated
of fire: to burn less strongly
...abate,mitigate,assuage,appease,allay, satisfy,quench
refresh by means of water
the insinuated snake
at nature's bleeding edge
But every word is poetry.
Those meanings are not what he meant at all though.
It's nature's breeding edge not bleeding edge - makes all the difference.
He meant to drink there and become infected & intensified by its seething, agitated activity. To meet that intensity with one's own, which is the only way to survive it and properly participate.
It's the problem with poetry. It's beautiful and enlightening but in the end it is no substitute for real spiritual work. For that you need a ruthless teacher and plenty of courage.
About positive replacements for 'forget self'. John used to talk about listening. That was a good word to absorb for the active and impatient temperament, as I well know. Pat
Meant to say you can listen with the heart. I had read of Buddhist phrases 'prayer of the heart' and 'silence of the heart' which I liked a lot, but weren't quite right for me. I think I'll use 'Listening with the heart' as a little formula to remind me - not too passive, and not aggressively reaching out. Pat
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