READ Only in Your Mind: Not-Quite Poems from the Not-So-Linear Awakening Path

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Only in Your Mind: Not-Quite Poems from the Not-SoLinear

Awakening Path

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I&#8217m not sure exactly what this book is- I only know it is a book of contradictions. A collection of poetic prose and prosaic poems, roughly half of which were written over a period of 25 years, and the other half which were written in five wildly inspired months. Its creation has not been linear. Which is fitting, because it is (at least ostensibly) about the Awakening Path, which is also neither linear, nor paved with lotus petals. But most of us who have come to this path began from a place of such discomfort that even a road strewn with thumbtacks and stinging nettles seems preferable to remaining at home. These not-quite poems outline the peaks and valleys of the path, in a semi-autobiographical (and largely fictionalized) way. Such original and beach-reading-suitable topics such as depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, psychosis, and psychedelic peak experiences are intermingled with societal grousing and direct pointing to the illusions that fabricate our sense of identity, and our world as we conceptualize it. (Mental health issues suck, but there are ways to slip through their gnarled clutches. This is an abstract abstraction of what worked for me. )You are reading this blurb because you want to know if this book is written for you. Honestly, it was just written, so I&#8217m afraid I can&#8217t help you decide. If you are looking for a collection of Feel-Good Inspirational Fridge Magnet Poetry, it&#8217s possible that you might be disappointed. If you are looking for a book that will take your hand and lead you directly into the blissful floodlight of enlightenment,

it&#8217s likely that this will leave you sitting in the dark, considering whether to just touch a match to it to receive a few minutes of guaranteed illumination. It doesn&#8217t really matter who it is for. It just needed to be expressed.It&#8217s not really a Dharma book, but it&#8217s not not a Dharma book. (Various Buddhist names get dropped, and mantras dutifully chanted.) It&#8217s neither a poetry book, nor not a poetry book. (Some of the words even rhyme!) It exists in a superposition of ambiguous possibility&#8230 at least until you read it. Then instantly, you will make it into something. Isn&#8217t that a travesty&#8230 Why confine anything by one limited and arbitrary label? Perhaps go buy a nice vegan cookbook instead. Or how about a spy thriller? I&#8217ve heard people seem to enjoy those. Follow your gut, that&#8217s the core message in it. There, I just saved you 400 pages of inscrutable reading. Don&#8217t label, don&#8217t assume, and do what feels right, as long as you aren&#8217t acting out of old traumatic habits that could use a loving touch to be healed, and can then be left behind on the lonely shore of fragility and self-definition.Have you made your decision yet? It&#8217s fine if you haven&#8217t. Just pay attention to what it actually feels like to try to make that decision. In your direct experience, do your straining muscles force a choice to be made? Doesn&#8217t the decision appear long before you&#8217ve noticed the gears clicking and formulating something out of nothing?Leave it. If the time is right, you will find the book in your hand. Otherwise, it wasn&#8217t meant to be. Go on, enjoy your life. Take a twilight stroll. Let your body swing and shake and writhe like you were possessed by Terpsichore&#8217s less talented sister, even when the only music you can hear is courtesy of chirping crickets and distant traffic. Poke your nose deep into an orchid. You probably won&#8217t smell anything, but it&#8217s nice to see the familiar from a closer, fresher perspective. (It&#8217s always been right here, even closer than your invisible face.) And in the end, a life fresh and contrivancefree is the only thing that will break us out of our exhausted, apathetic trance of insignificant daily minutia. However you need to get there is just fine&#8230 Anyway, good luck with all that. It&#8217s been nice chatting. Now go buy that cookbook.

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