also been thinking about intern!dogen lately as part of a little later intern group of chloe, benny, crystal, clem, and milka. the main theme with them initially was they were the former tender brains during raz’s tenure at camp, but i think dogen and milka would make for fun additions to their group. a collective thought would absolutely run between them when benny shows up for training because how the hell did he ever get accepted…(some other thoughts under the cut!)

with crystal, her private training with the deluginists led to her being promised a spot in the intern program. she was so excited! she couldn’t wait to connect with her old friends again, and she made sure to tell clem right away! with the confidence she’s gained from the deluginists, she’s something of a popular girl at school, but more in the sense that everyone knows she’s nice, somehow way better at sports, a good dancer, and she can lift a car with her tk hands with ease. (she isn’t close with them tho, so too deep with the deluginists and their rhetoric to properly bond, which is why she is so excited to see her old camp friends!)

well, clem…never really had much of an interest in the intern program! he was disillusioned by the psychonauts after a bit. he never connected with the counselors, seeing that they were unable to help him and crystal in basic ways like dealing with the bullies, etc. but when he hears crystal is in, he’s suddenly *very* interested in going. he wants to see her again, first and foremost, since their in-person get-togethers are pretty far and few. imo, his parents eventually divorce, but he lives with his dad, who makes the income. he later discovered a talent for lacrosse, so that finally “earned” his dad’s respect - a feeling he greatly dislikes because he knows his dad’s “respect” is highly conditional. his dad is also against clem going the intern program, but clem decides “fuck it” and goes for it with an application. the main issue is that his luck is awful, so he missed the period, but reversing that luck, i like to think sasha would come through for him and get him a spot by approving clem on the spot. clem might not be as advanced as his peers, but sasha sees he has talents that can be cultivated with proper tutelage. (i think sasha also feels like he’d want to connect more his former psi cadets, especially in a facility where he can really help teach them.) more importantly, clem is just psyched to spend a summer with crystal again and vice versa! (even if…something seems a bit. off. like her rampant psychic improvement. and how she keeps staring at the psychic seven mural.)

chloe’s a shoe-in for the program. she’s got advanced telepathy, but her issues still include insisting she’s an alien. she doesn’t connect much with her interns peers outside of benny and milka, benny being that he’s a friend of bobby’s and milka in that they were already chill. she was selected to attend right away when she graduated from camp and passed everything with flying colors. she’s very interested in any science or tech program, so she dives into her work - tho, when it hits that she isn’t an alien, and feels that people “played along,” her work slips.

milka’s still invisible, and she can stay invisible for a whole fortnight. even some of the best agents don’t know she’s present. she decided to go to the intern program after a bad fight with her mom, who kept demanding she leave. with how milka resembles her dad, and that appearance makes her mother cry, i feel milka would eventually want a break from all of that. she’s not connected with her dad nor does she want to know him if he hurt her mother this bad. she has issues with her appearance, so she tries to stay invisible whenever she can, but she’s still pretty bold and blunt and a bit of a prankster with an equal sense of justice when it comes to standing up to her friends like chloe. tho, she can also feel like something is…off with crystal when crystal begins to find her without much effort. her mentor would probably be sam!

benny…how…how did he get in…huh…it’s a weird thought that has come across the minds of every intern. no one knows why he’s here. even bobby was stunned when he was just expecting to see chloe again. but. there’s benny. in his fideleo glory. i’ll be real - i think benny comes from a decently wealthy family and paid his way in. he thinks the intern program would look snazzy on his resume! his parents just adore him, too, their little man who can do no wrong! and he’s making his way in the world, how sweet! he still has a chip on his shoulder, but he will absolutely defer to anyone stronger than him and higher on the chain for a chance to climb the ladder. bobby is pretty done with his shit by the end of the first day lol, so benny drops the act (mostly) to keep hanging out with him (and subsequently chloe) (but he’s also the one most honest with chloe about how she’s not an alien, and when she tells him she appreciated his honesty, he does not know how to take that lol. he feels like he should apologize. maybe. he should definitely apologize to crystal and clem and milka and dogen, buuut he doesn’t.)

and dogen! i think he gives himself a year or two to get ready. he’s nine in camp, so with crystal joining at sixteen, i think he does, too. he’s gotten his blastokinesis under more control. He might not be as close as he is with his fellow interns, but he has raz and lili! he’s glad he can spend more time with them…even if they seem to be going through their own stuff. relationship drama, growing up, pressure in general, he sees it’s weighing down on them and tries to be a support for both of them (even tho he’s definitely been their soundboard like “dogen, tell raz-” “dogen, don’t tell me anything because i’m RIGHT here and can hear lili” and dogen feels the blastokinetic energy swell lol). i think sasha also gets him in for some experiments to better help him concentrate his blastokinesis.

Dogen had a cool desing all thigns considered lol…

(pulls a slip of paper out of a hat for a post before i head off to bed) dogen…

dogen is such an interesting case to me as a psi cadet because it’s his first summer, but he comes from such a prominent psychic family. his grandfather is a psychonauts founder, and he’s inherited his dangerous blastokinesis. he’s one of the most powerful kids in camp, and not even mikhail is willing to wrestle him. bobby boasts that he could, but he’s all talk when it comes to someone stronger than him. kids keep such a wide berth with him because they’re afraid anything could set him off and boom, there go their heads.

i think in regards to dogen’s parents, i don’t view them as people who are neglectful. if anything, compton, with his own issues, has distanced himself from his family, and dogen’s parents are doing their best. with four deaths under dogen’s belts, i think it has an impact on how they raise him with a level of apprehension, much like the whispering rock kids. they’ve suffered that feeling of their brains boiling when dogen’s emotions run too high. it’s a fear of death that lingers while they try their best to raise dogen. being that this was dogen’s first summer in camp, i think they wanted to ease dogen into being around kids, especially kids who are like him to make him comfortable. he’s definitely been picked on, and he gets upset when he’s taunted, like when he mistakenly perceives the squirrels are mocking him (poor critters were just trying to help - at least, they’re cool with him by the end!). he’s skittish, too, when it comes to his “mistakes” as i’ll call them like he knows he needs to keep his temper and emotions in check, so his excuses come off as a frantic - and they are. they’re not well thought out, and i think he does try his best stay calm because iirc, his parents promised to get him a puppy or kitty, and i’m sure he doesn’t want to lose that chance to have a little friend waiting for him back home.

it’s why his friendship with raz comes off as so sweet to me. raz doesn’t treat him any differently. sure, they just met, but raz always keeps dogen on equal footing. he’s willing to help out, never to judge dogen for his worries or rapid, obviously false excuses. he just shrugs it off and walks off. raz sees dogen as a genuinely good kid, someone he can connect to right off the bat. i think dogen appreciates that, too, because raz doesn’t treat him like he’s some kind of ticking time bomb. he’s just his good friend dogen, and that’s really special to me since without his friendship with dogen, raz might not have realized loboto’s involvement in oleander’s scheme until later on when he finds lili’s bracelet.

Gandalf: ‘Pity? It’s a pity that stayed Bilbo’s hand. Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play in it, for good or evil, before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.’

Mercy

Trump hat in Venezuela bewiesen, Amerika ist eine Führungsmacht

Trump hat in Venezuela bewiesen, Amerika ist eine Führungsmacht

The Flow of Time

SPOCK: “Change is the essential process of all existence.”
Star Trek, “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” (s3:ep15), Stardate 5730.2

It is that time once again as we celebrate a new year. It’s an exciting time: plenty to celebrate and look forward to, but some very difficult times too:

Mark Twain: “I come from a time when men achieve power and wealth by standing on the backs of the poor, where…

The Flow of Time

ALT

“Many years wasted
seeing the mountain covered with snow.
This winter I suddenly realize
snow makes a mountain.” –Dogen

this is a verse by Dogen (1200-1253) on realizing the truth of the world through snow…

Dogen Zenji was also a Japanese Zen Buddhist monk who was the founder of the Soto school of Zen, known for his extensive writings.

“Do not seek the truth; just cease to cherish opinions.” –Dogen

“But do not ask me where I am going,
as I travel in this limitless world, where every step I take is my home.”

- Dōgen

“Firewood becomes ash, and it does not become firewood again. Yet, do not suppose that the ash is future and the firewood past.”

- Dogen

Ash in its state of being ash is not simply the “future” of what was once firewood. It is its own distinct and complete existence.

We tend to see a linear progression: firewood becomes ash and we think of the ash as the “future” of the firewood. Dogen teaches that this is a misunderstanding of reality, which is not a linear chain of past and future, but a series of complete and present moments .

The teaching encourages a focus on the “present moment” and seeing each thing, whether it’s firewood or ash, as a complete and whole expression of reality in itself. It’s a lesson in impermanence and the nature of change, without the conceptual baggage of “past” and “future” limiting our understanding of “what is”.

I just finished replaying the first psychonauts game, and oh my gosh, I just love dogen so much. He’s literally perfect.

i think these are the greatest storyboards to come out of psychonauts.

“… learn to listen to the voice within yourself.”

- Dogen

Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you will realize the unity of all things.
Dogen

If you want to see things just as they are, then you yourself must practice just as you are.
Dogen

dogen art ttorial

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August Meditations MMXXV

This isn’t my typical page updating readers on the past year. There doesn’t seem much to update. I’ve been feeling more and more that my old posts are outdated. I hope the newer ones both signal the end of my writer’s block and a greater understanding of the spiritual path.

I’d like to think that my new posts reflect a deeper understanding of what it means to awaken. There are better presenters of this material that are easily found on your computer or iPhone. Today people can find teachings that only a few decades ago would have taken years to track down. They can get one-on-one teaching from awakened people from the comfort of their home. They can attend on-line retreats or fly across the globe to attend ones where they can speak face to face with these liberated people. There seems little need to add my voice to all this. Still, we all play a part in the global awakening that is now taking place.

The consciousness that’s coming to the surface in humanity is a global consciousness. It moves like waves upon the sea heading toward landfall. While some waves lay on the distant horizon others are closer to shore. Any individual wave coming ashore doesn’t hit the beach all at once. It rolls in like a zipper closing. The wave then pulls back to the sea only to be pushed inland again by the next incoming wave. You and I are those incoming waves. Our voices and our efforts are helping to push others toward awakening even as we move closer to it ourselves. All of which is to say that if you can find a group of like-minded people, or just one spiritual friend, then let that be your sangha.

Those who have already reached the far shore may be of benefit as a teacher. But as they can only point to the Goal the only real teacher you need is yourself. Not the egoic self, to be sure, but the self within whose whispers can be heard if you stop and listen. Don’t replace that inner voice for any teacher’s lest you fall prey to someone who seeks to glorify their own self at your expense.

If a practice feels right, then do it even if others tell you that it’s not the way. If a teaching hits the mark, then adopt it. Practice is important but I’ve found that things deepen in their own manner and in their own good time. Enlightenment, as Zen master Dogen said, unfolds.

That said, I hope that my writings clarify some things that may have puzzled you. But know that awakening isn’t about gathering knowledge or having a deep mystical experience. It’s about living your everyday life without resistance. It’s about accepting yourself for who and what you are and living that authentic self every day. All while knowing the wave as the ocean.

@whumpgifathon | Day #8: “burns” Lost, 6x03, “What Kate Does”

Lennon: “We’re sorry we had to put you through that. It was a test. We had to be sure.”

Sayid: “Test to be sure of what?”

Lennon: “Don’t worry. You passed. … I just lied to him, didn’t I?”