The Flower Ornament Scripture ( Avatamsaka Sutra)

 

Two months before Arwen died and just before our water disaster a box appeared on my front doorstep. It contained a book that I’d been wanting to read for about twenty five years. Rendered in English by the astonishingly prolific translator Thomas Cleary, the Avatamsaka Sutra, better known as The Flower Ornament Sutra is one of the largest books I now own. This edition is between 1,600 - 1,700 pages in total with the actual translated sutra running 1,463 pages.  This massive tome is actually 39 sutras collected together. Some are very short (under 20 pages) the longest is hundreds of pages. 

This is the most mind blowing religious text I’ve ever read. Words practically fail me when I attempt to relate so I’ll borrow Robert Thurman for a little bit and let him speak of it here:

“When I recommend the book to a student, I always warn them, “Don’t try to read this text, to get through it, get the message, the point, file it in your memory as saying this or that and so on. You have to swim through it, bathe in it, let your mind’s eye visualize its extraordinary visual explosions and implosions, let the text take you into it, into the realm of its inconceivable liberation itself.  

The Flower Ornament is a sacred book, in the Buddhist sense. It is the doorway into the Realm of Reality, the reality witnessed by enlightened beings whose vision is no longer clouded by egocentric addictions. It manifests the sacred through its expressions, communicating from the Buddha’s mind to our minds the vision he first obtained under the tree of enlightenment.”  

                                                  And further down the page he says this:

“It is said that all other sutras subsequently taught were adaptations of this overwhelming revelation, which was apparently too much for most people, gods, and other mythic beings. The revelation of this sutra is the direct encounter with the completely perfect buddha-verse of enlightened beings. It is initiatory, beyond esoteric and exoleric. It is immediate, beyond sudden and gradual. Its very existence as a text that we can read, that can empower our imagination to enter into the total goodness that embraces everything and always has and always will, is itself an inconceivable liberation.”

[both quotes from: https://tricycle.org/magazine/flower-ornament-scripture/ ] 

Thank you Robert for putting it into perspective!  All I can say is it is mind blowing.  Thomas Cleary wrote a 55 page introduction that is essential to reading the text. He refused to footnote the text because he said the footnotes would interrupt the flow of the text and rob the effect of the rhythm of the endless descriptions and endless experiences that flow like Niagara Falls over the abyss. 

This book shows that the phrase "billions and billions" existed before Carl Sagan and indeed in the Flower Ornament Sutra the universe is described in numbers well beyond billions including trillions and quadrillions. That is in terms of atoms, and atomic particles and the numerous emanations of Buddha within every microscopic and sub atomic particle. 

I read this book in bites and nibbles.  Each snack like meal is a virtual psychedelic feast of the imagination.  

So, on this point, Einstein was Wrong - “Spooky Action At A Distance”

 Einstein did not like some of the predictions made by Quantum Mechanics (QM). Some of the predictions turned classical physics on its head and made outlandish sounding claims.  In 1935 Einstein published a paper (authored with other physics luminaries) that came out against the functions that were labeled by Einstein as “spooky action at a distance”.

In 2022 three physicists received Nobel Prizes for repudiating Einstein’s claims and proving that when you have entangled particles they communicate with each other at faster than the speed of light!

To read more about it check out: 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/spooky-quantum-action-passes-test/

This graphic accompanied the above article:

Credit: Matthew Twombly; Source: Modified from TU Delft—A Loophole-Free Bell Test (based on text by Michel van Baal and graphics by Scixel). TU Delft, 2015

It’s a fascinating read.  The fruits of this labor will involve progress in quantum computing and various cryptographic uses regarding random number generation. 

Thoughts On Arwen's Life With Us

 

Yesterday evening at 5:38pm Arwen breathed her last and her heartbeat stopped and as 

Haley Burke said “her spirit tiptoed out of the room” at the Alford Animal Clinic.

I’d been dreading this day since last September when Dr. Burke told us her kidney bun and 

creatinine values indicated she was in stage 4 kidney failure. It was agonizing to hear that 

diagnosis but we all had to carry on with life as best we could. There is nothing to be done 

with a diagnosis like that but try to modify her diet and encourage the intake of fluids. This 

past winter she almost died. She stayed at the  Veterinary Emergency Clinic for 36 

hours. I was expecting to make a call Sunday morning and find out that she’d passed. 

However, she continued to expend her “9-lives” and rebound back into our home. 

She’d been on thyroid medicine for about 5 years now, and without that drug she would 

have died years ago. A year or two after that she had a melanoma on her eye. Laser surgery 

saved her life and her vision. Lots of "lives" expended.

Arwen walked, cuddled, slept, ate, and loved her life with us. Her desire for our company 

increased as the years rolled by. When we returned from an out of town trip she glued her 

self to our sides for days as she, in her own way, rejoiced at our return. 

Arwen had a superpower. She could tell time. Or maybe she could mark time. Perhaps it was just 

keeping time.  At any rate, if you fed her a treat (which I used to do in the afternoons) at 4:30pm then 

she would be at my feet the next day at precisely 4:30pm to receive her treat. This would continue for 

twenty to thirty days in a row without stopping. She would also take note of the precise time she 

received supper and make sure that on the next day (or next twenty or thirty days) she would be present 

at my feet meowing the time. What time was it?  "Feed me time"! 

In the 41-42 years we’ve had cats its always been one at a time. During a couple of times 

I’ve regretted that. There is a certain dynamic that exists in a multiple cat household that 

we’ve never experienced. Obviously, the pain of losing a cat is lessened a little by knowing 

that there is another cat in the house when you return from that last trip to the vet.

For couples who do not have children a pet plays an elevated part in the family dynamic. 

Not only does exclusive access to your time play a part, but in many situations the adults 

open to their pet in ways it might have been difficult or impossible in a household with 

children. 

While many of us do refer to our pets as our “children” make no mistake, we do not equate 

human offspring (our own biological children) with four legged, winged or finned 

animals. Yet, for those of us who do not have children our pets do play an elevated and expanded role, 

one that is very important and sometimes is difficult to convey to others. 

Not all child-parent relationships are smooth and a few can be downright heartbreaking. 

All human pet relationships have challenges, but they are rarely at the same level of a 

diminished or damaged child parent relationship. These wonderful pets typically adapt to 

major changes with a calmness that is sometimes lacking in us humans. I know this to be 

true from personal experience!

Few things in life break your heart like the death of a loved one. I still recall going to 

funerals at an early age and pondering the mystery of life and death. That mystery never 

changes even as the decades roll by. The mystery is most deeply felt when pondering the 

change that occurs when one breathes their last breath or their heartbeat ceases.  

Being a student of philosophy and religion, both formally with a degree, and informally as 

a lifelong interest - that moment between life and death has captured my 

conscious and unconscious imagination. I’ve written poem after poem chasing that zephyr 

in an attempt to capture the moment in a frieze. My efforts are... well, they are just my 

efforts. It’s impossible to say for sure what has been accomplished. 

Happily my recollections of Arwen bring me back to that moment in time (see photo below) when 

Debbie received her birthday gift, a little furry four legged kitten (a rescue!) who while surrounded by 

20 friends and family plopped herself in Debbie’s lap with a look of love and contentment that seemed 

almost supernatural. Arwen was happy. Arwen had a new home. Arwen had a new mommy. 

Arwen is gone...

 Arwen has left this plane of existence.

She passed peacefully while I held her.

The most beautiful spirited cat I’ve ever known.

The Climate Shift Index - A New Tool for Visualizing Climate Change

 

On June 21, 2022 Climate Central introduced the Climate Shift Index.

"KEY CONCEPTS

• Today, Climate Central launches the Climate Shift Index—a new tool that shows the local influence of climate change, every day. 

• Climate Shift Index (CSI) levels indicate how much climate change has altered the frequency of daily temperatures at a particular location. 

• Starting today, Climate Central will be updating the Climate Shift Index daily with interactive maps and 3-day CSI forecasts available for locations across the continental U.S. 

• Climate Shift Index levels, maps, and forecasts can now be used in real-time to help the public understand that climate change is not just about long-term trends—it’s already part of our daily lives."  

• https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-matters/introducing-the-climate-shift-index

======================================================================

Here is where you can go to obtain the most current Climate Shift Index (CSI) map of the United States. Your interactive options including showing the map with the HIGH or LOW temperatures, and focusing upon one of three options the CSI, the anomaly, or the actual temperature. You can download an image (or several images) to your computer for your own use. 

https://www.climatecentral.org/tools/climate-shift-index

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In their FAQ they define the CSI thus:

"The Climate Shift Index is a number that indicates the fingerprint of climate change on any day’s local weather. The initial implementation of CSI is for high and low air temperatures. A CSI level above zero means that human-caused climate change has made that day’s temperature more common (and a level below zero, less common). A CSI can be calculated for observed temperatures and for forecasted temperatures."  

https://www.climatecentral.org/realtime-fingerprints

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They also provide a detailed definition of the Climate Shift Index in this handy chart:

"The CSI is a categorical scale, with the categories defined by the ratio of how common (or likely) a temperature is in today’s altered climate vs. how common it would be in a climate without human-caused climate change. For the positive CSI conditions (which occur much more often than the negative), we assigned a simple descriptor to these events (see table)."

https://www.climatecentral.org/realtime-fingerprints

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Going forward I can see how this will provide individuals with another tool that will be useful in conveying one of the more subtle concepts of climate change. 

My Poem Honoring My Friendship With William Barber Bancroft - I Could Not Stand Before You

Today I posted three separate poems (in 3 separate blog posts)  by Barber Bancroft that were written in his late teens. His impact on my life during those high school and college years was considerable.

I wrote this poem three weeks after Barber's untimely death while teaching his World Literature class at Auburn University.   

I Could Not Stand Before You

"Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question …

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”

Let us go and make our visit."

T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

-----------------------------------------

I could not stand before you today,

if I had not met Barber Bancroft.

Once upon a time,

when living in the teenage crucible

he took heat and applied

it to my amorphous self,

the one gone underground to

avoid formation.

He bound me to the forge,

watched the dross burn away

then,

with determined mind

tempered by love

-waited –

for the white hot

moment to bring down

the foundry hammer.

How the sparks did fly when the hammer fell!

The solitary bell like ring

of the metallic maul

rose an octave,

paused,

then caroled as he

sculpt,

stamped,

forged,

and pounded a fiery brand

that only we two could see.

Today I wear that brand with

a grief flavored joy,

and an intimate awareness of

my responsibility to translate him

with

each new day,

each new step,

each new breath.

Rod Scott - November 24, 2004

RIP Barber Bancroft
      August 9, 1956 - November 5, 2004

============================================================================

The writer Robert Smallwood created a blog post called "Remembering Barber Bancroft" that contains comments and poems about people's memories and impressions of Barber. 

Unpublished Poetry by William Barber Bancroft - Salty eyes in shriveled sockets

 I awakened this morning in the depths of a dream. The dream was about sharing some of Barber's poetry to the world. I've got limited resources to do that so the thought occurred to me to include some of his poetry in my blog. 

In this blog post I am choosing one poem written by Dr. William Barber Bancroft. Barber obtained his Masters of English from Auburn University and his doctorate in Critical Theory and Modern Literature from the University of California, Irvine. His untimely death in November 2004 left family and friends bereft and the world never received the full measure of his literary gifts.

I first met Barber when we were teenagers. He eagerly shared his poems with many of us during those years and the poem selected here was written before he turned twenty years old.  

Salty eyes in shriveled sockets

I cannot see things I’ve seen before

I perambulate with hands in pockets,

Shuffle silently on the carpeted floor

And I see in Time

My verse and my rhyme

Has served to a benevolent end

And I see Time flee

Like the reflections of me

That stroll across the window pane

Unimpassioned I cannot write of life or of the tomb

Even now like a still birth strife an idea rots within the womb

I listen to the silence and still

We listen to the silence the Still and I

We try to remember things forgot we try and cannot

We look at the children play we listen as they play and sing

We cannot know our minds and still am I still I

We strain for songs forgot try to remember and still cannot

We hum in monotone and wonder if we can still sing

The idea still within the womb slowly begins to rot I try to help

I try to to remember I find that I cannot

In memory only am I alive in memory I sing

But in the present I cannot find my wooden tongue a tongue that cannot sing

And Still

And I

And cannot

And Sing

Still I

Still cannot

Still Sing

I cannot

I Sing

And Still I cannot Sing

Unpublished Poetry by William Barber Bancroft - Cloud moves in with her vegetable speed and hums of dawn

 I awakened this morning in the depths of a dream. The dream was about sharing some of Barber's poetry to the world. I've got limited resources to do that so the thought occurred to me to include some of his poetry in my blog. 

In this blog post I am choosing one poem written by Dr. William Barber Bancroft. Barber obtained his Masters of English from Auburn University and his doctorate in Critical Theory and Modern Literature from the University of California, Irvine. His untimely death in November 2004 left family and friends bereft and the world never received the full measure of his literary gifts.

I first met Barber when we were teenagers. He eagerly shared his poems with many of us during those years and the poem selected here was written before he turned twenty years old.  

This poem by Barber has lived within my memory for five decades. His description of rainfall was so precise and measured that it inspired a small piece of music that I created on my synthesizer.  

Cloud moves in with her vegetable speed and hums of dawn

Mists embrace and tell each multi-fingered tree that their name is fog

Each smooth pellet streams down and pelts each petal

Dots the dry mineral dry sand and is gone

Drop

Droplets

Droplets

Droplets drop

Droplets drop

Droplets drop and push the dust into confused and muddy drops

Drops

Drops the sand in chorus sings its song and welcomes in the rushing throng

Of all the beaded bustling life that flies and falls and knives the air

With fertile calls that sing and give from the sky each prism-ed ball that

Prisoners each passerby in a cloud of moist and stalls the motors and cuts

The grease and wets what was once dry and you cannot you may not ask the

Rain reason why it comes as it does instead of in mist that kissed and

Nourished-nursed the ante diluvial earth but instead rather had carnival

Down and wreak the mad and madnesses as people charge from flowing gutters

With plastics or anything on their heads to guard their minds from the mad

And madnesses that evoke from the rush that renders dead all the plans

And certitudes of the day that finally gives up the ghost to that host and

Stops

Drops

Droplets

Droplets

Droplets drop

Droplets drop

Can we not see the carnival that promises for a season

At least a hope or a reason to cease the confusion to be left undone

And turn our faces upward as the rain is gathered to the sun

Unpublished Poetry by William Barber Bancroft - Slow In a Pink-a Boat

I awakened this morning in the depths of a dream. The dream was about sharing some of Barber's poetry to the world. I've got limited resources to do that so the thought occurred to me to include some of his poetry in my blog. 

In this blog post I am choosing one poem written by Dr. William Barber Bancroft. Barber obtained his Masters of English from Auburn University and his doctorate in Critical Theory and Modern Literature from the University of California, Irvine. His untimely death in November 2004 left family and friends bereft and the world never received the full measure of his literary gifts.

I first met Barber when we were teenagers. He eagerly shared his poems with many of us during those years and the poem selected here was written before he turned twenty years old.  

Slow in a pink-a boat

Slow through the mist

Slow down the river’s throat

By creeping vermin kissed

And the creepers hung down

With a susurrate sound

Upon the muggy ripples

Of the river that led us through

The heaving jungle the leaping jungle

To lead us where we had to be

To do what we had to do.

The monkeys hung like ivy from the trees

And the symphony was strengthened

By the humming of the bees.

Then like some death-blight sent

By soundless signal the jungle went

( In all its leaping screaming sound

With all its sighs and mutters round )

Still , dead, low… silent…

An oarsman broke the spell of the silence with a shout,

“Look back at the river ! Look back at our route !”

And we saw in the river as we looked back

The jungle consuming the river’s track.

But before we despaired and before we could doubt

Again his terrified voice screamed out ,

“Its comin’ on the water ! See it there !”

( The oarsman sweated as the jungle grew hotter.)

No tribe of huntsmen --- no vicious beast

Threatening to make our flesh its feast ----

But a beautiful woman came across the water.

She was so pale and not aborigine

And moved to our boat silently.

She held flowers in her hand and in flowers she was dressed

And the jungle kept time to the heaving of her breasts.

And I wondered at her beauty

And her small white hands

And her long dark hair with its flower-laced strands.

And the jungle grew louder with each new breath

And the sounds returned --- the life, the death.

The animals frenzied, mated and fed

And the noise was demonic

Like the breathing of the dead

When the passions wrestle and the blood is seething.

And the noise grew louder.

I fell into the water.

Down I sank in helpless confusion

Entranced by the vision but convulsed awake

By my burning lungs that shattered the illusion

As I struggled to the surface of that strange lake.

But there was no one to be seen

And nothing to be heard

But the bees loudly humming

And the jungle … breathing.

So I read strange tales in forbidden pages

For I find that a passion within me rages.

To find my friends. To see her face.

I live in the jungle and sleep under stars

And write this story by fireflies in jars

And even now as I write these lines

And hope for clues and pray for signs

I see the panther like the mythical fates

Has made his lair outside my gates

And he sleeps

And he smiles

And he waits.

I Just Released My First Album on BandCamp - Nimrod Scott Releases Galactik Tyde

AEGYRE/Nimrod Scott Releases Galactik Tyde: Music in the Ambient / Space Music Genres

 https://aegyre.bandcamp.com/

Electronic Music, specifically Ambient and Space Music, has been part of Nimrod Scott's listening library since the early 1980s. The passions evoked by absorbing such artistically crafted electronic soundscapes has inspired him to access and create with his own new and evolving voice.

A writer of poetry for 50 years, Rod Scott has come to musical expression late in life. Support from his musician friends has been key in fostering the belief that statements in electronic sound can exist on a plane as penetrating as that of the written word.

Meditative awareness of the ebb and flow of life itself, which incorporates human endeavor, provides inspiration for the inceptive musical expressions found throughout Galactik Tyde - the first album by AEGYRE (pronounced “eeGire”), the new solo project from Nimrod Scott

Galactik Tyde - Tracks:

1. Eridanus Lethe - Four Moments - 15:08

2. Journey to Antares - 11:13

3. Alpha Centauri Cc - 11:43

4. Marginal Traverse - 12:30

5. Orbital Insertion - 13:44

Galactik Tyde - Album Credits:

All Music Realized, Recorded & Produced by Nimrod Scott©2022                                            (each of the five tracks were captured live in the studio with no overdubs added)

Mastered by Robert Rich

Graphic Art Design by Sharon Chenault. Galactik Tyde album cover is an original image by NASA, ESA, STScI. Photo editing by Nimrod Scott and Sharon Chenault.

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