The Whale Who Dreamed It Was A Bear Who Dreamed It Was A Whale
Billions and billions of years ago, way back when the Universe was a much
warmer, much younger, and a much more blue place there lived a giant whale
named White-Bear-Dancing who swam between the dusty expanses of exploding
supernovas and newborn stars on sparkling dancing waters that -- due to the
ever-faster expansion of the Universe -- have since become thin and diffuse and
no longer capable of sustaining life.
As it swam along fast-fluid corridors of warm vibrant liquid White-Bear-Dancing
breathed in great gulps of life-giving liquids and through the gargantuan
black-gaping blow-hole situated on the top of its head the giant whale spouted
enormous geysers filled with condensed gases and tiny droplets each containing
the seed of life growing deep inside its dark cavernous lungs forever breathing
in and out, in and out.
Since the Universe was (and still is) round White-Bear-Dancing found that it
had to swim in circles and though it really didn't know why, it discovered by
trial and error that it much preferred swimming to the right to swimming to the
left and so the giant whale imparted a right-hand spin to all the life-giving
waters it blew out its spout as it circled to-and-fro throughout the Universe
always turning to the right as it went.
The giant whale didn't remember where it came from nor did it have a particular
goal in mind; it simply never occurred to it to wonder at the wonder of it all,
but it did finally fall sleep after many eons of wandering amongst the
fast-forming galaxies and dreamed a dream of a beautiful blue world spinning
endlessly in the blackest of nights.
One day after a sleep of many billions of years the giant whale woke up and
discovered the Universe had become a mean polluted place filled with plastic
bottles, beach balls, and used computer monitors that clogged its blow-hole and
caused it to sneeze mighty sneezes that made galaxies collide and stars wink
out in an instant like candles on a birthday cake.
White-Bear-Dancing went in search of the source of the ever-growing stream of
trash, eventually following the trail back, back, back to the little blue dream
planet spinning madly around a tiny yellow star in an otherwise unordinary and
spectacularly unspectacular part of a cartwheel galaxy known as the Milky Way
to the speckled people who populated the pale blue dot known as Earth.
Gazing down onto the tiny treasure, the giant whale suddenly realized that even
though the Universe was forever growing larger, larger, larger, the whale
itself was not and so now it was no longer a giant whale but merely a very
large one, and as the gaze was a gaze (like everything the whale did) to the
right, it spiraled down, down, down into the atmosphere of the tiny blue planet
plummeting faster and faster until finally impaling itself in the middle of a
soft muddy bog in the middle of a large continent that would one day become
known as North America.
The rather large whale carved out a hole in the land that would one day fill
with water and be called Lake Michigan but for now it lay gasping to get the
breath back that had been knocked out with the sudden stop afforded by the soft
yet still remarkably resilient bog in which it had settled.
Then, a bright star rose up into the sky and shining down upon the large whale
began to dry it out and cause it to shrink smaller and smaller and smaller
until it lay in the middle of a vast depression formed when it hit the earth
ages ago.
As it dried out the whale's fins became arms and legs and its tail disappeared
to a little nub and it grew fur over its body and it learned to grunt and growl
in pleasure and pain like the bear the whale had become as it made stunning
discoveries about this new world it now inhabited.
The bear didn't remember being a whale; the bear didn't remember anything at
all before it became a bear and in fact such a thought never entered its head
in all the days of its life... the bear met another bear and had cubs, raising
them together in a warm cozy den that the bear entered by entering a cave and
turning right several times.
The bear became known as Boo Bear, third cousin to Smoky Bear (though twice
removed by marriage) and best friends with Master Yogi, who taught a night
class in mindful meditation at the local community church on Thursdays and
Saturdays and worked a day job as a garbage man (or sanitation professional as
he preferred to be called) in the local forest preserve.
One day Boo Bear and Yogi were sitting on the long wavy green grass by a
rainbow waterfall having a discourse over the collected works of Plato when an
arrow came shooting out of the nearby brush BLAM! striking Boo Bear in the
middle of her breast, piercing her aorta and filling her left lung with blood,
which gushed from her mouth and nostrils as the life ran out of her body and
her arms and legs twitched spasmodically and Yogi ran in circles screaming and
shouting.
The Hunter came out of the brush chasing Yogi away and then kneeling and
cutting Boo's liver from her still warm body, raising it to the sky in thanks,
not realizing what he had done in the name of his hunger, never knowing what
wonders Boo had seen, not caring for the cubs at her den who would never see
their mother again.
As per her last wish, her cremated remains were scattered to the breeze whereas
a tremendous mighty wind arose and blowing the ashes higher and higher in a
clockwise spiral they finally blew all the way back into the night from which
she had fallen so many years ago, and she remembered the dream she was dreaming
and became a whale once again, riding through the stars leaving a little trail
of broken pieces of her heart as she goes.
----------------------------------------
> Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:15:25 -0700
> From: [email protected]
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [MD] Smokey Bear Sutra
>
> SMOKEY THE BEAR SUTRABY GARY SNYDER
>
> Once in the Jurassic about 150 million years ago, the Great Sun Buddha in
> this corner of the Infinite Void gave a discourse to all the assembled
> elements and energies: to the standing beings, the walking beings, the
> flying beings, and the sitting beings--even the grasses, to the number of
> thirteen billion, each one born from a seed, assembled there: a Discourse
> concerning Enlightenment on the planet Earth.
>
> "In some future time, there will be a continent called America. It will have
> great centers of power called such as Pyramid Lake, Walden Pond, Mt.
> Rainier, Big Sur, Everglades, and so forth; and powerful nerves and channels
> such as Columbia River, Mississippi River, and Grand Canyon. The human race
> in that era will get into troubles all over its head, and practically wreck
> everything in spite of its own strong intelligent Buddha-nature."
>
> "The twisting strata of the great mountains and the pulsings of volcanoes
> are my love burning deep in the earth. My obstinate compassion is schist and
> basalt and granite, to be mountains, to bring down the rain. In that future
> American Era I shall enter a new form; to cure the world of loveless
> knowledge that seeks with blind hunger: and mindless rage eating food that
> will not fill it."
>
> And he showed himself in his true form of
> SMOKEY THE BEAR
>
> A handsome smokey-colored brown bear standing on his hind legs, showing that
> he is aroused and watchful.
>
> Bearing in his right paw the Shovel that digs to the truth beneath
> appearances; cuts the roots of useless attachments, and flings damp sand on
> the fires of greed and war;
>
> His left paw in the mudra of Comradely Display--indicating that all
> creatures have the full right to live to their limits and that of deer,
> rabbits, chipmunks, snakes, dandelions, and lizards all grow in the realm of
> the Dharma;
>
> Wearing the blue work overalls symbolic of slaves and laborers, the
> countless men oppressed by a civilization that claims to save but often
> destroys;
>
> Wearing the broad-brimmed hat of the west, symbolic of the forces that guard
> the wilderness, which is the Natural State of the Dharma and the true path
> of man on Earth:
>
> *all true paths lead through mountains*--
>
> With a halo of smoke and flame behind, the forest fires of the kali-yuga,
> fires caused by the stupidity of those who think things can be gained and
> lost whereas in truth all is contained vast and free in the Blue Sky and
> Green Earth of One Mind;
>
> Round-bellied to show his kind nature and that the great earth has food
> enough for everyone who loves her and trusts her;
>
> Trampling underfoot wasteful freeways and needless suburbs, smashing the
> worms of capitalism and totalitarianism;
>
> Indicating the task: his followers, becoming free of cars, houses, canned
> foods, universities, and shoes, master the Three Mysteries of their own
> Body, Speech, and Mind; and fearlessly chop down the rotten trees and prune
> out the sick limbs of this country America and then burn the leftover trash.
>
> Wrathful but calm. Austere but Comic. Smokey the Bear will Illuminate those
> who would help him; but for those who would hinder or slander him...
> HE WILL PUT THEM OUT.
>
> Thus his great Mantra:
>
> *Namah samanta vajranam chanda maharoshana Sphataya hum traka ham mam*
>
> *"I DEDICATE MYSELF TO THE UNIVERSAL DIAMOND BE THIS RAGING FURY BE
> DESTROYED"*
>
> And he will protect those who love the woods and rivers, Gods and animals,
> hobos and madmen, prisoners and sick people, musicians, playful women, and
> hopeful children:
>
> And if anyone is threatened by advertising, air pollution, television, or
> the police, they should chant *SMOKEY THE BEAR'S WAR SPELL:*
> DROWN THEIR BUTTSCRUSH THEIR BUTTSDROWN THEIR BUTTSCRUSH THEIR BUTTS
>
> And SMOKEY THE BEAR will surely appear to put the enemy out with his
> vajra-shovel.
>
> Now those who recite this Sutra and then try to put it in practice will
> accumulate merit as countless as the sands of Arizona and Nevada.
>
> Will help save the planet Earth from total oil slick.
> Will enter the age of harmony of man and nature.
> Will win the tender love and caresses of men, women, and beasts.
> Will always have ripened blackberries to eat and a sunny spot under a pine
> tree to sit at.
>
> AND IN THE END WILL WIN HIGHEST PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT
>
> ...thus we have heard...
>
> --
> ------------
> Self is Choice, so choose good
> ------------
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