_/!\_
with
palms joined
Nama'ste
A Poetry Influenced Profile
• ♦ Akasa Maitreya Levi
Laughing Buddha Sangha Meditation
The First Wave Meditators • 1970's
♦ Come Study with the Old Timer's Sangha
that Studied Mindfulness Meditation in India
Back in The Day Before You Were Born !
Now Guiding "Mind-FULLY" and ZEN•MEN
Santa Monica CA 90405 • 1-310-450-2268
-------------------------------------------------------
.-:¦:- Big Bro • Bio Profile • To Go
-------------------
According to
Sir Charles...
We’re Living In
a Most Alarming
“UNCERTAINTY
of TIMES” ~
MINDFULNESS
Awakening-Practice
Has Your Back !
-----------------------------
page 1Sir Charles...
We’re Living In
a Most Alarming
“UNCERTAINTY
of TIMES” ~
MINDFULNESS
Awakening-Practice
Has Your Back !
-----------------------------
It Was The Best of Times -
It Was The Worst of Times
It Was The Age of Wisdom -
It Was The Age of Foolishness,
It Was The Epoch of Belief -
It Was The Epoch of Incredulity, It Was The Season of Light -
It Was The Season of Darkness,
It Was The Spring of Hope -
It Was The Winter of Despair,
We Had Everything Before Us -
We Had Nothing Before Us,
We Were All Going
Direct To Heaven -
We Were All Going
Direct The Other Way.
We Were All Going
Direct The Other Way.
In Short, That Period
Was Just Like
The Present Period.
Was Just Like
The Present Period.
----------------------------
Sir Charles Dickens
"A Tale of Two Cities"
"A Tale of Two Cities"
a British novel (1859)
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
" Ma -- They Vetted Me " !
--------------------------------------------------
" Profile / Sch'mo-file,
I told you to tell 'em
Absolutely Everything
-- and did you ?...
Now you go back
in there and...."
♦ An INTRODUCTION: "Pointing Towards"...Now you go back
in there and...."
About this Home-made Blog-site collection:
I promised I'd make some more pragmatic, more tangible 'Work in Progress' on my own writing progress. I've never done this 'memoir' thing before ~ So here goes... plz read patiently and tolerantly.
WHY ? and HOW COME ?
'How' did this great and persistent inquiry of mine shape itself ? -- 'How' did it 'Come' to be ? to Arrive ? ( seems there's a 'method' being suggested ) How did you get interested in things Buddhist ? How Come you became a Buddhist monk. Why'dya do that ? But you were Jewish !!! People always want to know what motivated you -- to see how that fits into their head -- Could I do that ?? Nah...
A somewhat tone of Urgent Concern -Sam'vega carries me forward now as I know the Body of Time and the Body of Flesh is fleeting-- so this thrown about tale, this loose, non-academic exploration, almost an awkward schoolboy's account of an off the wall investigation that led me to an organically deeper truth-inquiry within -- and a maturing of my odd, little kid size anomaly of a quirky peculiar personal story.
'Peculiar' it is: so I'll apologize first in these first few messy in-work paragraphs that'll top this thing off with really bad grammar and a biased point of view -- as it jumps the fence of first second third person tense recklessly, irresponsibly: as you read, who's talking ? --is it me, or you on about me, or there's a name dropping narrator out here somewhere.
Best of all, Worst of all -- it's all about Me. I'm here in sunny Solipsistic Town as self-obsessed and self-important as anyone can get -- actually Not True. Which begins to lead me again to the serious purpose of this whole loose bag of a blog--- this site is meant to be a sort of mystical Pass with the hands, or a Mudra, a teaching Gesture of the fingers "Pointing Towards" ---and this my initial intent for being here on your screen to make these Great Road Trips within easier for you to eat Saag n' Subgee at my favorite Indian rest stop on the Benares Trunk Road while hitch-hiking to Calcutta on 18 wheelers. ( 1972 )
If you ask "Which Way ?" -- hopefully you get answers that include a "Pointing Towards" -- But Firstly, Why was I even Here - back There - back Then ? -- When I was smaller. I was fascinated with objects Asian since a child quietly drawing while sitting on my Granpa Max's library floor on a little red Tibetan saddle rug on top of the last of the old Chinese medallion rugs, on top of a vast and never ending Persian carpet that could almost fly. In a pixelated Universe I thought visually and remembered life in textures. My , Dad was a big time big brass and copper pot collector. To me, he cautiously claimed to be an agnostic when I was eight, but by the time I was approaching the 13th Year Hebrew boy to adult male right of passage -- I knew that he knew, that I knew that he was an atheist -- and that I was confused.
To get right to it: I had to know, I didn't like not knowing. I started off with a simple but seminal question: Is there an authentic, wholesome, sound and stable, true, benevolent and universal spirituality 'element' that coalesces into the various individual, indigenous culture based Religions. And, of course, is there a God. By now I am a professional Seeker. I am doing a Spiritual Inquiry: I want to know things. It visibly began when I was eight and I asked "Could I See It ?" Could I plumb the depths, the density of it ?" Simply put: is Religion and Spirituality and even God -- is it all Real ? -- you see, there's a PURPOSE to this shaggy dog story, which is Oiy ! OK here's a Hint - It's the Original One that got me out the door and on my way. Actually I should say The Way !
Apologia --
I Give Thanks and Grateful Appreciation to several friends - and of course, myself, that this old Notebook Journal of my journey even got assembled -- as I've got more pressing considerations, so they say, to give my attention to at 76 -- like the # 1 item in our home is composing my Advance Health Directive, Living Trust and other grown-up gravitas stuff like that to do -- maybe 'cause I'm still in Stage One foot dragging in Denial / Anger about my recently diagnosed Parkinson's Disease ( Dis-at-ease.)
~ Surprise, Blindsided, I didn't see it coming !
Parkinson's --
It's brought the whole felt-notion of 'Death' itself so truly close as a 'supreme inevitability' -- that in of itself, it pales in it's very own presence.
It's brought the whole felt-notion of 'Death' itself so truly close as a 'supreme inevitability' -- that in of itself, it pales in it's very own presence.
I just don't have the time left to tell it:
So I'll give you Links
-----------------------------------------------
"To Me, It is ALL Metaphorical !
Metaphorical is Metaphysical:
It's all the same. Humans dream...
Metaphorical ~ The Stories Prevailed
The Stories prevailed. The Healing stories, the Hunting and Battle stories, the Tribal Family stories, the Mystical and the Spirit stories of real Seasons and those now gone. The stories come with pictures and Dance called Ritual. Stories are powerful. Some tribals have lost their people's stories. Often they Suffer. Did I mention that, to me, it was/is ALL Metaphorical. Metaphors were created in the indigenous Human mind for their own wellbeing. The "Existential" metaphorical metaphysical experimental experiences seek n' find me and what I 'know'. Yes, It's ALL Metaphorical -- it all started with a story about an Empty place. Math and Business machinations never were my forte'-- yet the 'Creatives' find me and ask me. Deep inquiry into the Unfamiliar does provide $ustenance for the Non-ordinary, Uncommon person. Literally, it's been a wonder-filled esoteric Life streaming by --right here in amongst the ordinary dharma of the everyday world's massive consuming mall, as it's always been. "Buy Low, Resell Higher, Feed Your Family, Then Feed Your Mind," pondering body/mind contemplations on the details of good thought and appreciative actions. Sutra stories and folk tale scenarios crafted in Buddhist art, confusing conundrums, and the poetic sacred words of the Heart. Like the Tarot's Fool card true to the role of a Yogi Poet Dharma Bum -- I'm just an Old Hippie (1941) and always kinda' loving it ! Nowadays I meet with new people drawn here by their own soul-felt needs. And the Chakra of Life eternallly turns. "I am Poor yet Blessed" -- Odd, Huh... • Akasa Levi
'Search' -- James Hilton's 1939 film "Lost Horizon", an Indiana Jones of it's day strongly influenced Akasa by the repeatedly persistent presence of 'The Search' for Wisdom Elders, sacred 'power objects' and human liberation from suffering. 'Search' as an umbrella theme explored in G.I.Gurdjief's "Meetings with Remarkable Men" 1927, and Paul Brunton's "Search In Secret India" 1931 -- these innocent and romantic pulp non-fiction adventure stories motivated Akasa’s sincere aspiration in going into the uncharted --and be willing to get entangled in the fascinations of Indra's Net in the first place... So Where did he go and what did he do ? --- there is more to come, but with the Answering process - just like the Questioning process - is up to the reader, adventurer, seeker -- facilitated by the Search.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Akasa Levi’s original motivated intention was to visit with a very special, now extremely endangered, almost extinct 'spiritual species'-- and a sincere and developing heart-felt aspiration of his was:
To Be Directly With the Last Living
Asian Buddhist Meditation Teachers
of the Pre-Global Era (most passed on)
Akasa's 'actual' Meetings with these
Remarkable Holy Men face-to-face --
was still a relative subjective Reality
that was seemingly totally Real
for that moment of experiencing.
The proof is I still posses intact,
my well worn and road weary
old-style passport stamped
into story time oblivion.
That was 'Real' Enough for him.
Off he went on his way --
a solo Traveler all on HIS very own
improvised way towards 'The Way
( 1968 Europe/Mideast somewhere
-- The Big Bippy was yet to come )
------------------------------------------
Caveat Emptor
Given Akasa's Way -
an askew True Being:
A Bogus Rogue in
Buddha's Nature for
Fraudulent Tricksters.
So someone thought
this cheeky Big Bio is
rumored to be snarky,
affected, self-effacing,
flamboyant and funny.
So it is.
About MY "SELF"
I Became
a Famished
Mad Poet
How Come ?
-------------------------
Everybody
Elsewhere,
Everyone
Everywhere,
------------------------------
Knows About Certain
Dreadful Things called
"Undesirable Deficit"
Everyone Else Knows
That To Be Undesirable
is Not Desirable.
is Not Lovable.
------------------------
Actually,
Maybe Desirable,
Maybe Wanted
Just a Little Bit --
Just 'Not Enough'
Bodies Laughing
Touch Warm Skin
but Me Not Held -
And That Left Me
A Very Needy
Grumpy Little Kid.
-------------------------
The Curse of
'Rejection' and
'Just Not Enough'
Karma: Genetically,
Purely Choiceless,
It Strikes
Any One
Any Body
Any Where
Any Which Way
Six Ways to Sunday
" Hey You --
It's Gotta Be
YOU First ! "
Given Akasa's Way -
an askew True Being:
A Bogus Rogue in
Buddha's Nature for
Fraudulent Tricksters.
So someone thought
this cheeky Big Bio is
rumored to be snarky,
affected, self-effacing,
flamboyant and funny.
So it is.
----------------------------------
Big Bro • Poetry • To Go
Mentors Mindfulness Therapy
"Mind-FULLY" and ZEN•MEN
------------------------------------------------------------
Mentors Mindfulness Therapy
"Mind-FULLY" and ZEN•MEN
------------------------------------------------------------
About MY "SELF"
I'm A Construction,
Fabricated
Out of My Own
Wounded 'Idea'
Out of My Own
Wounded 'Idea'
of A "Self"
--------------------------
" I Didn’t Get
--------------------------
" I Didn’t Get
Enough Love
As A Child "
------------------------- I Became
a Famished
Mad Poet
How Come ?
-------------------------
Everybody
Elsewhere,
Everyone
Everywhere,
------------------------------
Knows About Certain
Dreadful Things called
"Undesirable Deficit"
Everyone Else Knows
That To Be Undesirable
is Not Desirable.
is Not Lovable.
------------------------
Actually,
Maybe Desirable,
Maybe Wanted
Just a Little Bit --
Just 'Not Enough'
Bodies Laughing
Touch Warm Skin
but Me Not Held -
And That Left Me
A Very Needy
Grumpy Little Kid.
-------------------------
The Curse of
'Rejection' and
'Just Not Enough'
Karma: Genetically,
Purely Choiceless,
It Strikes
Any One
Any Body
Any Where
Any Which Way
Six Ways to Sunday
Any Damn Way,
ANYWAY -- Needy,
Angry and Confused.
The Loba, Dosa, Moha
Dark Mother Mantra cries
--- Sad n' Scary, Huh ?
and Buddha roared ANYWAY -- Needy,
Angry and Confused.
The Loba, Dosa, Moha
Dark Mother Mantra cries
--- Sad n' Scary, Huh ?
--------------------------------
'Cept If You Teach
Yourself To Love
Yourself, First --
Compassionately
'Cept If You Teach
Yourself To Love
Yourself, First --
Compassionately
" Hey You --
It's Gotta Be
YOU First ! "
-------------------
So I asked --
"Which way
is The Way ?
The Way
Outta' Here ?"
You Mean
The Real Deal--
The Big Bippy--
Self-Realization to
the Emptiness of Self
------------------------------ is The Way ?
The Way
Outta' Here ?"
You Mean
The Real Deal--
The Big Bippy--
Self-Realization to
the Emptiness of Self
"So Which Way
is The Way ?
Someone Pointed
n' said confidently
"That-a-Way" and
He Pointed East.
-------------------------
is The Way ?
Someone Pointed
n' said confidently
"That-a-Way" and
He Pointed East.
-------------------------
is The Way ?
as Centuries of sometime Time Lines pass
-- and Monks with Exotic Spiritual Names
having honest to God ancient mystical
incarnation lineages that never ever died---
as I deeply soak into kind, loving eyes merge
with a smiling little nut brown forest dweller
who's been happy almost for ever -- and
that's the Way in some Pacifica place
they're monastery-made in a gracious
silent flurry of a hurry as they scurry
like a happy house full of enabling
Bubbies and Aunties
with big soup spoons
----------------------------
‘All-the-time-Awareness’
-- then I was stuck on the freezing Beach 34th Street boardwalk with a hot potato k'nish in what's now become greasy cotton gloves solidifying in the bitter cold bite of a Far Rockaway NY snowy winter..
NOTE ---WHAT FOLLOWS BELOW is UNFINISHED notes, sketchy IMPRESSIONS, and site SCRAPS etc... enjoy other tabs up top here, reading those sections FIRST.... or be welcome to continue to read here too...
♦108 AKASA LEVI ♦ PROFILE / INTRO ♦ Akasa Levi and S.R.Levy
_/!\_
with
palms joined
Nama'ste
A Poetry Influenced Profile
• ♦ Akasa Maitreya Levi
Laughing Buddha Sangha Meditation
The First Wave Meditators • 1970's
♦ Come Study with the Old Timer's Sangha
that Studied Mindfulness Meditation in India
Back in The Day Before You Were Born !
Now Guiding "Mind-FULLY" and ZEN•MEN
Santa Monica CA 90405 • 1-310-450-2268
-------------------------------------------------------
.-:¦:- Big Bro • Bio Profile • To Go
-------------------
According to
Sir Charles...
We’re Living In
a Most Alarming
“UNCERTAINTY
of TIMES” ~
MINDFULNESS
Awakening-Practice
Has Your Back !
-----------------------------
page 1Sir Charles...
We’re Living In
a Most Alarming
“UNCERTAINTY
of TIMES” ~
MINDFULNESS
Awakening-Practice
Has Your Back !
-----------------------------
It Was The Best of Times -
It Was The Worst of Times
It Was The Age of Wisdom -
It Was The Age of Foolishness,
It Was The Epoch of Belief -
It Was The Epoch of Incredulity, It Was The Season of Light -
It Was The Season of Darkness,
It Was The Spring of Hope -
It Was The Winter of Despair,
We Had Everything Before Us -
We Had Nothing Before Us,
We Were All Going
Direct To Heaven -
We Were All Going
Direct The Other Way.
We Were All Going
Direct The Other Way.
In Short, That Period
Was Just Like
The Present Period.
Was Just Like
The Present Period.
----------------------------
Sir Charles Dickens
"A Tale of Two Cities"
"A Tale of Two Cities"
a British novel (1859)
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
" Ma -- They Vetted Me " !
--------------------------------------------------
" Profile / Sch'mo-file,
I told you to tell 'em
Absolutely Everything
-- and did you ?...
Now you go back
in there and...."
♦ An INTRODUCTION: "Pointing Towards"...Now you go back
in there and...."
About this Home-made Blog-site collection:
I promised I'd make some more pragmatic, more tangible 'Work in Progress' on my own writing progress. I've never done this 'memoir' thing before ~ So here goes... plz read patiently and tolerantly.
WHY ? and HOW COME ?
'How' did this great and persistent inquiry of mine shape itself ? -- 'How' did it 'Come' to be ? to Arrive ? ( seems there's a 'method' being suggested ) How did you get interested in things Buddhist ? How Come you became a Buddhist monk. Why'dya do that ? But you were Jewish !!! People always want to know what motivated you -- to see how that fits into their head -- Could I do that ?? Nah...
A somewhat tone of Urgent Concern -Sam'vega carries me forward now as I know the Body of Time and the Body of Flesh is fleeting-- so this thrown about tale, this loose, non-academic exploration, almost an awkward schoolboy's account of an off the wall investigation that led me to an organically deeper truth-inquiry within -- and a maturing of my odd, little kid size anomaly of a quirky peculiar personal story.
'Peculiar' it is: so I'll apologize first in these first few messy in-work paragraphs that'll top this thing off with really bad grammar and a biased point of view -- as it jumps the fence of first second third person tense recklessly, irresponsibly: as you read, who's talking ? --is it me, or you on about me, or there's a name dropping narrator out here somewhere.
Best of all, Worst of all -- it's all about Me. I'm here in sunny Solipsistic Town as self-obsessed and self-important as anyone can get -- actually Not True. Which begins to lead me again to the serious purpose of this whole loose bag of a blog--- this site is meant to be a sort of mystical Pass with the hands, or a Mudra, a teaching Gesture of the fingers "Pointing Towards" ---and this my initial intent for being here on your screen to make these Great Road Trips within easier for you to eat Saag n' Subgee at my favorite Indian rest stop on the Benares Trunk Road while hitch-hiking to Calcutta on 18 wheelers. ( 1972 )
If you ask "Which Way ?" -- hopefully you get answers that include a "Pointing Towards" -- But Firstly, Why was I even Here - back There - back Then ? -- When I was smaller. I was fascinated with objects Asian since a child quietly drawing while sitting on my Granpa Max's library floor on a little red Tibetan saddle rug on top of the last of the old Chinese medallion rugs, on top of a vast and never ending Persian carpet that could almost fly. In a pixelated Universe I thought visually and remembered life in textures. My , Dad was a big time big brass and copper pot collector. To me, he cautiously claimed to be an agnostic when I was eight, but by the time I was approaching the 13th Year Hebrew boy to adult male right of passage -- I knew that he knew, that I knew that he was an atheist -- and that I was confused.
To get right to it: I had to know, I didn't like not knowing. I started off with a simple but seminal question: Is there an authentic, wholesome, sound and stable, true, benevolent and universal spirituality 'element' that coalesces into the various individual, indigenous culture based Religions. And, of course, is there a God. By now I am a professional Seeker. I am doing a Spiritual Inquiry: I want to know things. It visibly began when I was eight and I asked "Could I See It ?" Could I plumb the depths, the density of it ?" Simply put: is Religion and Spirituality and even God -- is it all Real ? -- you see, there's a PURPOSE to this shaggy dog story, which is Oiy ! OK here's a Hint - It's the Original One that got me out the door and on my way. Actually I should say The Way !
Apologia --
I Give Thanks and Grateful Appreciation to several friends - and of course, myself, that this old Notebook Journal of my journey even got assembled -- as I've got more pressing considerations, so they say, to give my attention to at 76 -- like the # 1 item in our home is composing my Advance Health Directive, Living Trust and other grown-up gravitas stuff like that to do -- maybe 'cause I'm still in Stage One foot dragging in Denial / Anger about my recently diagnosed Parkinson's Disease ( Dis-at-ease.)
~ Surprise, Blindsided, I didn't see it coming !
Parkinson's --
It's brought the whole felt-notion of 'Death' itself so truly close as a 'supreme inevitability' -- that in of itself, it pales in it's very own presence.
It's brought the whole felt-notion of 'Death' itself so truly close as a 'supreme inevitability' -- that in of itself, it pales in it's very own presence.
I just don't have the time left to tell it:
So I'll give you Links
-----------------------------------------------
"To Me, It is ALL Metaphorical !
Metaphorical is Metaphysical:
It's all the same. Humans dream...
Metaphorical ~ The Stories Prevailed
The Stories prevailed. The Healing stories, the Hunting and Battle stories, the Tribal Family stories, the Mystical and the Spirit stories of real Seasons and those now gone. The stories come with pictures and Dance called Ritual. Stories are powerful. Some tribals have lost their people's stories. Often they Suffer. Did I mention that, to me, it was/is ALL Metaphorical. Metaphors were created in the indigenous Human mind for their own wellbeing. The "Existential" metaphorical metaphysical experimental experiences seek n' find me and what I 'know'. Yes, It's ALL Metaphorical -- it all started with a story about an Empty place. Math and Business machinations never were my forte'-- yet the 'Creatives' find me and ask me. Deep inquiry into the Unfamiliar does provide $ustenance for the Non-ordinary, Uncommon person. Literally, it's been a wonder-filled esoteric Life streaming by --right here in amongst the ordinary dharma of the everyday world's massive consuming mall, as it's always been. "Buy Low, Resell Higher, Feed Your Family, Then Feed Your Mind," pondering body/mind contemplations on the details of good thought and appreciative actions. Sutra stories and folk tale scenarios crafted in Buddhist art, confusing conundrums, and the poetic sacred words of the Heart. Like the Tarot's Fool card true to the role of a Yogi Poet Dharma Bum -- I'm just an Old Hippie (1941) and always kinda' loving it ! Nowadays I meet with new people drawn here by their own soul-felt needs. And the Chakra of Life eternallly turns. "I am Poor yet Blessed" -- Odd, Huh... • Akasa Levi
'Search' -- James Hilton's 1939 film "Lost Horizon", an Indiana Jones of it's day strongly influenced Akasa by the repeatedly persistent presence of 'The Search' for Wisdom Elders, sacred 'power objects' and human liberation from suffering. 'Search' as an umbrella theme explored in G.I.Gurdjief's "Meetings with Remarkable Men" 1927, and Paul Brunton's "Search In Secret India" 1931 -- these innocent and romantic pulp non-fiction adventure stories motivated Akasa’s sincere aspiration in going into the uncharted --and be willing to get entangled in the fascinations of Indra's Net in the first place... So Where did he go and what did he do ? --- there is more to come, but with the Answering process - just like the Questioning process - is up to the reader, adventurer, seeker -- facilitated by the Search.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Akasa Levi’s original motivated intention was to visit with a very special, now extremely endangered, almost extinct 'spiritual species'-- and a sincere and developing heart-felt aspiration of his was:
To Be Directly With the Last Living
Asian Buddhist Meditation Teachers
of the Pre-Global Era (most passed on)
Akasa's 'actual' Meetings with these
Remarkable Holy Men face-to-face --
was still a relative subjective Reality
that was seemingly totally Real
for that moment of experiencing.
The proof is I still posses intact,
my well worn and road weary
old-style passport stamped
into story time oblivion.
That was 'Real' Enough for him.
Off he went on his way --
a solo Traveler all on HIS very own
improvised way towards 'The Way
( 1968 Europe/Mideast somewhere
-- The Big Bippy was yet to come )
------------------------------------------
Caveat Emptor
Given Akasa's Way -
an askew True Being:
A Bogus Rogue in
Buddha's Nature for
Fraudulent Tricksters.
So someone thought
this cheeky Big Bio is
rumored to be snarky,
affected, self-effacing,
flamboyant and funny.
So it is.
About MY "SELF"
I Became
a Famished
Mad Poet
How Come ?
-------------------------
Everybody
Elsewhere,
Everyone
Everywhere,
------------------------------
Knows About Certain
Dreadful Things called
"Undesirable Deficit"
Everyone Else Knows
That To Be Undesirable
is Not Desirable.
is Not Lovable.
------------------------
Actually,
Maybe Desirable,
Maybe Wanted
Just a Little Bit --
Just 'Not Enough'
Bodies Laughing
Touch Warm Skin
but Me Not Held -
And That Left Me
A Very Needy
Grumpy Little Kid.
-------------------------
The Curse of
'Rejection' and
'Just Not Enough'
Karma: Genetically,
Purely Choiceless,
It Strikes
Any One
Any Body
Any Where
Any Which Way
Six Ways to Sunday
" Hey You --
It's Gotta Be
YOU First ! "
Given Akasa's Way -
an askew True Being:
A Bogus Rogue in
Buddha's Nature for
Fraudulent Tricksters.
So someone thought
this cheeky Big Bio is
rumored to be snarky,
affected, self-effacing,
flamboyant and funny.
So it is.
----------------------------------
Big Bro • Poetry • To Go
Mentors Mindfulness Therapy
"Mind-FULLY" and ZEN•MEN
------------------------------------------------------------
Mentors Mindfulness Therapy
"Mind-FULLY" and ZEN•MEN
------------------------------------------------------------
About MY "SELF"
I'm A Construction,
Fabricated
Out of My Own
Wounded 'Idea'
Out of My Own
Wounded 'Idea'
of A "Self"
--------------------------
" I Didn’t Get
--------------------------
" I Didn’t Get
Enough Love
As A Child "
------------------------- I Became
a Famished
Mad Poet
How Come ?
-------------------------
Everybody
Elsewhere,
Everyone
Everywhere,
------------------------------
Knows About Certain
Dreadful Things called
"Undesirable Deficit"
Everyone Else Knows
That To Be Undesirable
is Not Desirable.
is Not Lovable.
------------------------
Actually,
Maybe Desirable,
Maybe Wanted
Just a Little Bit --
Just 'Not Enough'
Bodies Laughing
Touch Warm Skin
but Me Not Held -
And That Left Me
A Very Needy
Grumpy Little Kid.
-------------------------
The Curse of
'Rejection' and
'Just Not Enough'
Karma: Genetically,
Purely Choiceless,
It Strikes
Any One
Any Body
Any Where
Any Which Way
Six Ways to Sunday
Any Damn Way,
ANYWAY -- Needy,
Angry and Confused.
The Loba, Dosa, Moha
Dark Mother Mantra cries
--- Sad n' Scary, Huh ?
and Buddha roared ANYWAY -- Needy,
Angry and Confused.
The Loba, Dosa, Moha
Dark Mother Mantra cries
--- Sad n' Scary, Huh ?
--------------------------------
'Cept If You Teach
Yourself To Love
Yourself, First --
Compassionately
'Cept If You Teach
Yourself To Love
Yourself, First --
Compassionately
" Hey You --
It's Gotta Be
YOU First ! "
-------------------
So I asked --
"Which way
is The Way ?
The Way
Outta' Here ?"
You Mean
The Real Deal--
The Big Bippy--
Self-Realization to
the Emptiness of Self
------------------------------ is The Way ?
The Way
Outta' Here ?"
You Mean
The Real Deal--
The Big Bippy--
Self-Realization to
the Emptiness of Self
"So Which Way
is The Way ?
Someone Pointed
n' said confidently
"That-a-Way" and
He Pointed East.
-------------------------
is The Way ?
Someone Pointed
n' said confidently
"That-a-Way" and
He Pointed East.
-------------------------
is The Way ?
as Centuries of sometime Time Lines pass
-- and Monks with Exotic Spiritual Names
having honest to God ancient mystical
incarnation lineages that never ever died---
as I deeply soak into kind, loving eyes merge
with a smiling little nut brown forest dweller
who's been happy almost for ever -- and
that's the Way in some Pacifica place
they're monastery-made in a gracious
silent flurry of a hurry as they scurry
like a happy house full of enabling
Bubbies and Aunties
with big soup spoons
----------------------------
NOTE ---WHAT FOLLOWS BELOW is UNFINISHED notes, sketchy IMPRESSIONS, and site SCRAPS etc... enjoy other tabs up top here, reading thosesections FIRST.... or be welcome to continue to read here too...
‘All-the-time-Awareness’
-- then I was stuck on the freezing Beach 34th Street boardwalk with a hot potato k'nish in what's now become greasy cotton gloves solidifying in the bitter cold bite of a Far Rockaway NY snowy winter..
Kubler-Ross's 5 Stages...
( please see the readings tabs on either side-bar columns <--------> for Journal Notes of an American Buddhist Monk )
the living spark, weaving eternally integral
" Profile / Sch'mo-file,
Kubler-Ross's 5 Stages...
( please see the readings tabs on either side-bar columns <--------> for Journal Notes of an American Buddhist Monk )
the living spark, weaving eternally integral
Then --" I " --
a talking swamp frog,
and two Buddhist Nuns
looking for the ladies room
walked into a NY snowy winter....
‘All-the-time-Awareness’
--as I write this Leonard Cohen just died today at 86 -- Thank You so much, Sensei. Nov 2016
Kubler-Ross's 5 Stages...
" Profile / Sch'mo-file,
I told you to tell 'em
Absolutely Everything
-- and did you ?...
Now you go back
in there and...."
NOTE ---WHAT FOLLOWS BELOW is UNFINISHED notes, sketchy IMPRESSIONS, and SCRAPS etc... enjoy other tab reading sections, or be welcome to continue to read here too...
Now you go back
in there and...."
NOTE ---WHAT FOLLOWS BELOW is UNFINISHED notes, sketchy IMPRESSIONS, and SCRAPS etc... enjoy other tab reading sections, or be welcome to continue to read here too...
♦ Once upon a time, long, long ago, even before digital time you were again reconsidering some kind of exasperating reincarnation -- back in the great unrest feral state of the late 60’s ♦ Akasa Levi ( a nice Jewish mensch of a man from Far Rockaway NY ) was in the U.S.Army 63-to-65 -- and full of Sixty's protest anger, he abandoned 'Madison Avenue' for Asia - and by 1975, he became an officially ordained Buddhist Bhikkhu Monk, six years a mendicant Sadhu in “beggar-man’s” orange robes with an alms bowl in mid-70's back-country rural Asia • Trained and ordained into the Buddhist Theravada senior monastic Amarapura Order of The Triple Gem by the beloved and revered Bhante NyakaThera Balangoda Ananda Maitreya and Kassapa MahaThera in Kandy, Sri Lanka's lush Bamboo Forests. My novice robes were given under the Bodhitree in Bodhgaya India itself. (ordination story)
♦ At the precise moment of ordination -- in the most sacred Buddhist vortex on Earth -- I was so Here ! -- At-one-ment for a timeless moment amidst a 25 hundred year old back-story running in tandem with Them for a moment, alongside all the Buddhas that have ever been -- as the karmic parallels just keep eternally narrowing and narrowing -- I was so There... I almost wasn't anywhere. I almost didn't exist ! Yup, So here I was... (more ordination story)
• Previous to this final 'anointing' ( only two tiers - novice junior and bhikkhu senior ) which all monks enter into with the Maha-Sangha only on the basis of Seva/service 'time' in sangha, not with 'attainment'. Akasa Levi was a Gelugpa Vajrayana initiate and temple gardener to Geshe Lama Thubten Yeshe and Thubten Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Monastery, Kathmandu in Nepal during the early 70's • "Big Love" - Digging holes with Lama, urinating on tomato plants with Lama, moving giant rocks with Lama • Much later on, a sabbatical resident Vipassana student to learn Mindfulness practice directly from the renown Anagarika Munindra Barua, the leading teaching-master of Satipatthana Mindfulness in Bodhgaya, India where the ancient Bodhi Tree still stands giving Refuge to all newbie Bodhisattvas to come • Akasa relished his annual monsoon seasons of non-duality practice in satsang under the wild and notorious ‘Bede Baba’ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj in India's Mumbai slums in Old Bombay.
♦ At the precise moment of ordination -- in the most sacred Buddhist vortex on Earth -- I was so Here ! -- At-one-ment for a timeless moment amidst a 25 hundred year old back-story running in tandem with Them for a moment, alongside all the Buddhas that have ever been -- as the karmic parallels just keep eternally narrowing and narrowing -- I was so There... I almost wasn't anywhere. I almost didn't exist ! Yup, So here I was... (more ordination story)
• Previous to this final 'anointing' ( only two tiers - novice junior and bhikkhu senior ) which all monks enter into with the Maha-Sangha only on the basis of Seva/service 'time' in sangha, not with 'attainment'. Akasa Levi was a Gelugpa Vajrayana initiate and temple gardener to Geshe Lama Thubten Yeshe and Thubten Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Monastery, Kathmandu in Nepal during the early 70's • "Big Love" - Digging holes with Lama, urinating on tomato plants with Lama, moving giant rocks with Lama • Much later on, a sabbatical resident Vipassana student to learn Mindfulness practice directly from the renown Anagarika Munindra Barua, the leading teaching-master of Satipatthana Mindfulness in Bodhgaya, India where the ancient Bodhi Tree still stands giving Refuge to all newbie Bodhisattvas to come • Akasa relished his annual monsoon seasons of non-duality practice in satsang under the wild and notorious ‘Bede Baba’ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj in India's Mumbai slums in Old Bombay.
• The Bhikkhu monks and lay teachers of Sri Lanka were very, very good to Akasa-- Nyanaponika, Kassapa, Godwin, Lilly -- and the precocious Henri Van Zeyst up in Kandy's Bamboo Forest.• Bhante Piyadassi gave him lots of singing lessons • Back then, practice--sojourns with teachers took the gift of long stays of Time at the right time - mid 70's • BTW, all these special teachings may take several lifetimes to comprehend --and one can still be a jerk • Akasa’s sincere aspiration: To Be Directly With the Last Living Buddhist Meditation Teachers of the Pre-Global Era --most passed on now. "That's the last of 'em, Luke -- Yoda was for real.
• For his BA, Akasa attended SUNY Harpur College, State University of New York, Binghamton University • Returning from a whole 70’s decade abroad, Akasa studied 'Why' and 'How' -- Who's on first, What's on second - through the overly aloof, intellectual intricacies of Western psycho-dynamic analytic intersubjective therapy at UCLA, yearning for something simpler • He currently guides Insight Awareness Mindfulness Meditation at The Laughing Buddha Sangha on 14th Street's Zafu Row • Coaches a ZEN•MEN peer group • and offers Buddhist-based Individual counseling and Insight therapy • Akasa's Sri Lanka affiliate in LA is Dharma Vijaya Buddha Vihara under his decades long old friend from Calcutta, Bhante NyakaThera Walpola Piyananda.
• Akasa now a feisty 76 - finds himself just not a proper academic, but more of an out on a limb improper 'experience provider' -- he has an odd, sort of awry, happy Doubter's Joy in his altruistic, aesthetic, atheistic approach to the Dharma. At heart, Akasa is a vulnerable old school Bohemian from a NYC art-based family, that can be a perpetual nud'nik to the gravitas of established Buddhist composure. At times, truly without a clue about his own genuineness, a fragile identity, an authentic 'Not knowing' What he is, maybe play acting the curmudgeon, or maybe the Fool card - in that he didn't like the other lay-life choices offered anyway. Maybe he was the original Zelig.
• To counter his delusive Bewilderment, he's continually serving up generous Seva ( service ) by creating lots of pro-bono available time for basic heart to heart and hand holding of people in pain. He’s really funny, an eccentric Grandpa Dharma - and a respected BuJu tribal elder. K'vetchy by genetics, but not too creepy, a flamboyant old rogue, he's definitely an acquired taste like Thai shrimp paste.
• To counter his delusive Bewilderment, he's continually serving up generous Seva ( service ) by creating lots of pro-bono available time for basic heart to heart and hand holding of people in pain. He’s really funny, an eccentric Grandpa Dharma - and a respected BuJu tribal elder. K'vetchy by genetics, but not too creepy, a flamboyant old rogue, he's definitely an acquired taste like Thai shrimp paste.
• Seriously: Akasa is into nourishing the many 'contemplative' vocal aspects of the emerging 'heart-wisdom' poetry revealed in a student's use of developing dharma vocabulary words -- mentoring a maverick “iconoclast intelligence” in the students and people he treats, teaches, counsels at his little meditation shrine room near the beach, filled with Dharma books, tribal masks and ritual objects, and cool calm statues of the ancient Buddha.
• Akasa Levi, an emeritus-level senior meditation teacher in the Theravada lineage, guides us into the cognitive/empirical Felt Sense Awareness of a Sati-awakening present moment -- fully self-caring, fully self-aware training in his mindFULLY approach. Akasa knows that by building on Self-inquiry and meditation practice skills, you can effect a calm, fearless and loving, meaningful, noticeable difference in yourself. Akasa is known for his spontaneity, wise ready warmth, and wry unpredictable humor.
-----------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------
" Kindness " is more
important than ' Wisdom ' -
and the clear recognition of this -
IS the beginning of Wisdom "
~ Theodore Issac Rubin
----------------------------------------
" You don't get enlightened --
it is 'enlightenment' itself
that gets enlightened."
---end---
_________________________♦ Once upon a time, long, long ago, even before digital time you were again reconsidering some kind of exasperating reincarnation -- back in the great unrest feral state of the late 60’s ♦ Akasa Levi ( a nice Jewish mensch of a man from Far Rockaway NY ) was in the U.S.Army 63-to-65 -- and full of Sixty's protest anger, he abandoned 'Madison Avenue' for Asia - and by 1975, he became an officially ordained Buddhist Bhikkhu Monk, six years a mendicant Sadhu in “beggar-man’s” orange robes with an alms bowl in mid-70's back-country rural Asia • Trained and ordained into the Buddhist Theravada senior monastic Amarapura Order of The Triple Gem by the beloved and revered Bhante NyakaThera Balangoda Ananda Maitreya and Kassapa MahaThera in Kandy, Sri Lanka's lush Bamboo Forests. My novice robes were given under the Bodhitree in Bodhgaya India itself. (ordination story)
♦ At the precise moment of ordination -- in the most sacred Buddhist vortex on Earth -- I was so Here ! -- At-one-ment for a timeless moment amidst a 25 hundred year old back-story running in tandem with Them for a moment, alongside all the Buddhas that have ever been -- as the karmic parallels just keep eternally narrowing and narrowing -- I was so There... I almost wasn't anywhere. I almost didn't exist ! Yup, So here I was... (more ordination story)• Previous to this final 'anointing' ( only two tiers - novice junior and bhikkhu senior ) which all monks enter into with the Maha-Sangha only on the basis of Seva/service 'time' in sangha, not with 'attainment'. Akasa Levi was a Gelugpa Vajrayana initiate and temple gardener to Geshe Lama Thubten Yeshe and Thubten Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Monastery, Kathmandu in Nepal during the early 70's • "Big Love" - Digging holes with Lama, urinating on tomato plants with Lama, moving giant rocks with Lama • Much later on, a sabbatical resident Vipassana student to learn Mindfulness practice directly from the renown Anagarika Munindra Barua, the leading teaching-master of Satipatthana Mindfulness in Bodhgaya, India where the ancient Bodhi Tree still stands giving Refuge to all newbie Bodhisattvas to come • Akasa relished his annual monsoon seasons of non-duality practice in satsang under the wild and notorious ‘Bede Baba’ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj in India's Mumbai slums in Old Bombay.
• The Bhikkhu monks and lay teachers of Sri Lanka were very, very good to Akasa-- Nyanaponika, Kassapa, Godwin, Lilly -- and the precocious Henri Van Zeyst up in Kandy's Bamboo Forest.• Bhante Piyadassi gave him lots of singing lessons • Back then, practice--sojourns with teachers took the gift of long stays of Time at the right time - mid 70's • BTW, all these special teachings may take several lifetimes to comprehend --and one can still be a jerk • Akasa’s sincere aspiration: To Be Directly With the Last Living Buddhist Meditation Teachers of the Pre-Global Era --most passed on now. "That's the last of 'em, Luke -- Yoda was for real.
• For his BA, Akasa attended SUNY Harpur College, State University of New York, Binghamton University • Returning from a whole 70’s decade abroad, Akasa studied 'Why' and 'How' -- Who's on first, What's on second - through the overly aloof, intellectual intricacies of Western psycho-dynamic analytic intersubjective therapy at UCLA, yearning for something simpler • He currently guides Insight Awareness Mindfulness Meditation at The Laughing Buddha Sangha on 14th Street's Zafu Row • Coaches a ZEN•MEN peer group • and offers Buddhist-based Individual counseling and Insight therapy • Akasa's Sri Lanka affiliate in LA is Dharma Vijaya Buddha Vihara under his decades long old friend from Calcutta, Bhante NyakaThera Walpola Piyananda.
• Akasa now a feisty 76 - finds himself just not a proper academic, but more of an out on a limb improper 'experience provider' -- he has an odd, sort of awry, happy Doubter's Joy in his altruistic, aesthetic, atheistic approach to the Dharma. At heart, Akasa is a vulnerable old school Bohemian from a NYC art-based family, that can be a perpetual nud'nik to the gravitas of established Buddhist composure. At times, truly without a clue about his own genuineness, a fragile identity, an authentic 'Not knowing' What he is, maybe play acting the curmudgeon, or maybe the Fool card - in that he didn't like the other lay-life choices offered anyway. Maybe he was the original Zelig.
• To counter his delusive Bewilderment, he's continually serving up generous Seva ( service ) by creating lots of pro-bono available time for basic heart to heart and hand holding of people in pain. He’s really funny, an eccentric Grandpa Dharma - and a respected BuJu tribal elder. K'vetchy by genetics, but not too creepy, a flamboyant old rogue, he's definitely an acquired taste like Thai shrimp paste.
• To counter his delusive Bewilderment, he's continually serving up generous Seva ( service ) by creating lots of pro-bono available time for basic heart to heart and hand holding of people in pain. He’s really funny, an eccentric Grandpa Dharma - and a respected BuJu tribal elder. K'vetchy by genetics, but not too creepy, a flamboyant old rogue, he's definitely an acquired taste like Thai shrimp paste.
• Seriously: Akasa is into nourishing the many 'contemplative' vocal aspects of the emerging 'heart-wisdom' poetry revealed in a student's use of developing dharma vocabulary words -- mentoring a maverick “iconoclast intelligence” in the students and people he treats, teaches, counsels at his little meditation shrine room near the beach, filled with Dharma books, tribal masks and ritual objects, and cool calm statues of the ancient Buddha.
• Akasa Levi, an emeritus-level senior meditation teacher in the Theravada lineage, guides us into the cognitive/empirical Felt Sense Awareness of a Sati-awakening present moment -- fully self-caring, fully self-aware training in his mindFULLY approach. Akasa knows that by building on Self-inquiry and meditation practice skills, you can effect a calm, fearless and loving, meaningful, noticeable difference in yourself. Akasa is known for his spontaneity, wise ready warmth, and wry unpredictable humor.
--------------------------
--------------------------
" Kindness " is more
important than ' Wisdom ' -
and the clear recognition of this -
IS the beginning of Wisdom "
~ Theodore Issac Rubin
----------------------------------------
" You don't get enlightened --
it is 'enlightenment' itself
that gets enlightened."
-------------------------------------------
-- then I was stuck on the freezing Beach 34th Street boardwalk with a hot potato k'nish in what's now become greasy cotton gloves solidifying in the bitter cold bite of a Far Rockaway NY snowy winter....
_________________________♦ Once upon a time, long, long ago, even before digital time you were again reconsidering some kind of exasperating reincarnation -- back in the great unrest feral state of the late 60’s ♦ Akasa Levi ( a nice Jewish mensch of a man from Far Rockaway NY ) was in the U.S.Army 63-to-65 -- and full of Sixty's protest anger, he abandoned 'Madison Avenue' for Asia - and by 1975, he became an officially ordained Buddhist Bhikkhu Monk, six years a mendicant Sadhu in “beggar-man’s” orange robes with an alms bowl in mid-70's back-country rural Asia • Trained and ordained into the Buddhist Theravada senior monastic Amarapura Order of The Triple Gem by the beloved and revered Bhante NyakaThera Balangoda Ananda Maitreya and Kassapa MahaThera in Kandy, Sri Lanka's lush Bamboo Forests. My novice robes were given under the Bodhitree in Bodhgaya India itself. (ordination story)
♦ At the precise moment of ordination -- in the most sacred Buddhist vortex on Earth -- I was so Here ! -- At-one-ment for a timeless moment amidst a 25 hundred year old back-story running in tandem with Them for a moment, alongside all the Buddhas that have ever been -- as the karmic parallels just keep eternally narrowing and narrowing -- I was so There... I almost wasn't anywhere. I almost didn't exist ! Yup, So here I was... (more ordination story)• Previous to this final 'anointing' ( only two tiers - novice junior and bhikkhu senior ) which all monks enter into with the Maha-Sangha only on the basis of Seva/service 'time' in sangha, not with 'attainment'. Akasa Levi was a Gelugpa Vajrayana initiate and temple gardener to Geshe Lama Thubten Yeshe and Thubten Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Monastery, Kathmandu in Nepal during the early 70's • "Big Love" - Digging holes with Lama, urinating on tomato plants with Lama, moving giant rocks with Lama • Much later on, a sabbatical resident Vipassana student to learn Mindfulness practice directly from the renown Anagarika Munindra Barua, the leading teaching-master of Satipatthana Mindfulness in Bodhgaya, India where the ancient Bodhi Tree still stands giving Refuge to all newbie Bodhisattvas to come • Akasa relished his annual monsoon seasons of non-duality practice in satsang under the wild and notorious ‘Bede Baba’ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj in India's Mumbai slums in Old Bombay.
• The Bhikkhu monks and lay teachers of Sri Lanka were very, very good to Akasa-- Nyanaponika, Kassapa, Godwin, Lilly -- and the precocious Henri Van Zeyst up in Kandy's Bamboo Forest.• Bhante Piyadassi gave him lots of singing lessons • Back then, practice--sojourns with teachers took the gift of long stays of Time at the right time - mid 70's • BTW, all these special teachings may take several lifetimes to comprehend --and one can still be a jerk • Akasa’s sincere aspiration: To Be Directly With the Last Living Buddhist Meditation Teachers of the Pre-Global Era --most passed on now. "That's the last of 'em, Luke -- Yoda was for real.
• For his BA, Akasa attended SUNY Harpur College, State University of New York, Binghamton University • Returning from a whole 70’s decade abroad, Akasa studied 'Why' and 'How' -- Who's on first, What's on second - through the overly aloof, intellectual intricacies of Western psycho-dynamic analytic intersubjective therapy at UCLA, yearning for something simpler • He currently guides Insight Awareness Mindfulness Meditation at The Laughing Buddha Sangha on 14th Street's Zafu Row • Coaches a ZEN•MEN peer group • and offers Buddhist-based Individual counseling and Insight therapy • Akasa's Sri Lanka affiliate in LA is Dharma Vijaya Buddha Vihara under his decades long old friend from Calcutta, Bhante NyakaThera Walpola Piyananda.
• Akasa now a feisty 76 - finds himself just not a proper academic, but more of an out on a limb improper 'experience provider' -- he has an odd, sort of awry, happy Doubter's Joy in his altruistic, aesthetic, atheistic approach to the Dharma. At heart, Akasa is a vulnerable old school Bohemian from a NYC art-based family, that can be a perpetual nud'nik to the gravitas of established Buddhist composure. At times, truly without a clue about his own genuineness, a fragile identity, an authentic 'Not knowing' What he is, maybe play acting the curmudgeon, or maybe the Fool card - in that he didn't like the other lay-life choices offered anyway. Maybe he was the original Zelig.
• To counter his delusive Bewilderment, he's continually serving up generous Seva ( service ) by creating lots of pro-bono available time for basic heart to heart and hand holding of people in pain. He’s really funny, an eccentric Grandpa Dharma - and a respected BuJu tribal elder. K'vetchy by genetics, but not too creepy, a flamboyant old rogue, he's definitely an acquired taste like Thai shrimp paste.
• To counter his delusive Bewilderment, he's continually serving up generous Seva ( service ) by creating lots of pro-bono available time for basic heart to heart and hand holding of people in pain. He’s really funny, an eccentric Grandpa Dharma - and a respected BuJu tribal elder. K'vetchy by genetics, but not too creepy, a flamboyant old rogue, he's definitely an acquired taste like Thai shrimp paste.
• Seriously: Akasa is into nourishing the many 'contemplative' vocal aspects of the emerging 'heart-wisdom' poetry revealed in a student's use of developing dharma vocabulary words -- mentoring a maverick “iconoclast intelligence” in the students and people he treats, teaches, counsels at his little meditation shrine room near the beach, filled with Dharma books, tribal masks and ritual objects, and cool calm statues of the ancient Buddha.
• Akasa Levi, an emeritus-level senior meditation teacher in the Theravada lineage, guides us into the cognitive/empirical Felt Sense Awareness of a Sati-awakening present moment -- fully self-caring, fully self-aware training in his mindFULLY approach. Akasa knows that by building on Self-inquiry and meditation practice skills, you can effect a calm, fearless and loving, meaningful, noticeable difference in yourself. Akasa is known for his spontaneity, wise ready warmth, and wry unpredictable humor.
--------------------------
--------------------------
"
♦ Once upon a time, long, long ago ~ before a time when you were again reconsidering some kind of exasperating reincarnation -- back in the unrest feral state of the late 60’s ♦ Akasa Levi ( a nice Jewish mensch of a man from Far Rockaway NY ) was in the U.S.Army 63-to-65 -- and full of Sixty's protest anger, he abandoned 'Madison Avenue' for Asia - and by 1975, he became an officially ordained Buddhist Bhikkhu Monk, six years a mendicant Sadhu in “beggar-man’s” orange robes with an alms bowl in mid-70's back country rural Asia ♦ Trained and ordained into the Buddhist Theravada monastic Amarapura Order of The Triple Gem by the beloved head of the sect, the revered Bhante NyakaThera Balangoda Ananda Maitreya and Kassapa MahaThera, monks who lived in Sri Lanka's elephant forests and magnificent caves. ♦ FYI: There are "Point Men" ( sorry, actually both genders ) very remarkable special 'strangers' often called Angels in the bygone days of Mythos, who 'find us' bewildered at the Crossroads and they simply do just that: They Point towards ... The Way knowing that you almost know what that means, and almost missed it anyway. Yet, you will recognize them and them you - Thank You Barry Plunkett and Rainbow Tribe people for the sacred pointing. I have continually walked in at the right time and at the right place almost ready - possibly pre-maturely - to hear a 25 hundred year unbroken remembered back-story running in the vast background of Humanity, behind all the currently playing NOWness.
----------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------
-- Please see the readings tabs
for "Journal NOTES of an
American Buddhist Monk"
----------------------------------
To Continue and Go On ~
• Previous to Theravada monkhood, Akasa Levi was originally a Gelugpa Vajrayana initiate and temple gardener to Geshe Lama Thubten Yeshe and Thubten Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Gompa Monastery, Kathmandu in Nepal during the early 70's • 'Big Love' was digging holes with Lama • Much later on as a matter of ritual colors, Akasa gave back the burgundy red cloth for the plain white cotton - becoming a resident Vipassana student of the renown Anagarika Munindra Barua, the leading teaching master of Satipatthana Mindfulness in Bodhgaya, India where the ancient Bodhi Tree still stands giving shade to refuge-building to all bodhisattvas who come nere • Akasa relished his annual monsoon seasons of Non-duality practice in satsang dialogue with the notorious ‘Bede Baba’ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj in India's Mumbai slums of Old Bombay • Maharaj made you fight for the clarity of your inquiry !
• The Bhikkhu monks and lay teachers of Sri Lanka were very, very good to Bhante Akasa-- Nyanaponika, Kassapa, Godwin, Lilly -- and the precocious Henri Van Zeyst, all up in Kandy's Bamboo Forest.• Bhante Piyadassi gave him lots of singing lessons • Back then, practice sojourns with teachers took the gift of long stays of Time, at the right time - mid 70's • BTW, all these teachings take several lifetimes to comprehend --and one can still be a jerk • Akasa’s sincere aspiration: To Be Directly With the Last Living Buddhist Meditation Teachers of the Pre-Global Era --most passed on now. That's the last of 'em. Yoda was for real. Shuk'crea.
• For his BA, Akasa attended SUNY Harpur College, State University of New York, Binghamton University • Returning from a whole 70’s decade abroad, Akasa studied 'Why' and 'How' and the 'intersubjective' through the aloof intricacies of Western psycho-dynamic analytic therapy at UCLA • All human interaction is transference. He currently guides Insight Awareness Mindfulness Meditation at The Laughing Buddha Sangha in Santa Monica on 14th Street's Zafu Row • He coaches a ZEN•MEN peer group • and offers Buddhist-based Individual counseling and Insight therapy • Akasa's Sri Lanka affiliate in Los Angeles is Dharma Vijaya Buddha Vihara under his decades long old friend Bhante NyakaThera Walpola Piyananda.
• Akasa now a feisty 76 - a mindfulness 'experience provider' who has an odd, sort of awry, happy doubter's joy in his altruistic, aesthetic, atheistic approach to the sturdy, soul-less Dharma. At heart, Akasa is a tender, sentimental yet cool old school Bohemian from a NYC art-based family. He can be a perpetual nud'nik to the gravitas of established Buddhist composure. At times he too is without a clue, not knowing 'What' he is amidst the 'What is',,, maybe play acting the curmudgeon, or maybe the Fool card - in that he didn't like the other lay-life choices offered anyway • To counter his chronic Identity Bewilderment, he's continually serving up generous Seva and creating lots of pro-bono available time for basic heart to heart and hand holding of people in suffering pain. He’s a really funny, eccentric Grandpa Dharma - and a respected BuJu tribal elder. K'vetchy by genetics, but not too creepy, a flamboyant old rogue-- he's definitely an acquired taste like Thai shrimp paste.
• "Don't even bother trying to shape yourself into being anything at like me-- it would be a waste to create a double identity... you yourself is enough of a distortion to have to work with-
• Seriously: Akasa is into nourishing the many 'contemplative' vocal aspects of the emerging 'heart-wisdom' poetry in a student's developing own dharma words -- mentoring a maverick “iconoclast intelligence” in the students and people he treats, teaches, counsels at his little meditation shrine room near the beach, filled with Dharma books, tribal masks and ritual objects, and cool calm statues of the ancient Buddha.
• Akasa Levi, an emeritus-level senior meditation teacher in the Theravada lineage, helps guide us into the cognitive empirical Felt Sense Awareness of a Sati-awakened present moment -- fully self-caring, fully self-aware training in his mindFULLY approach. Akasa knows that by building on inquiry and meditation practice skills, you can effect a calm, fearless and loving, meaningful, noticeable difference in yourself. Akasa is known for his spontaneity, wise ready warmth, and wry unpredictable humor.
( ♦ Smart-phone me, let's make a time
and have some tea -- no fee, simply
the pleasure of a visit with a
semi-retired Old Pointer thas' all )
and have some tea -- no fee, simply
the pleasure of a visit with a
semi-retired Old Pointer thas' all )
--------------------------------------------
" Kindness " is more important than ' Wisdom ' -
and the clear recognition of this -
IS the beginning of Wisdom " ~ Theodore Issac Rubin
-----------------------------------------------------------------
" You don't get enlightened ---
it is 'enlightenment' itself
that gets enlightened."
" You don't get enlightened ---
it is 'enlightenment' itself
that gets enlightened."
1
♦ Once upon a time, long, long ago, even before digital time you were again reconsidering some kind of exasperating reincarnation -- back in the great unrest feral state of the late 60’s ♦ Akasa Levi ( a nice Jewish mensch of a man from Far Rockaway NY ) was in the U.S.Army 63-to-65 -- and full of Sixty's indignant protest anger, he abandoned Madison Avenue for his lost years in Asia - "You mean nobody, not ever your family knew where you were/" -- Nope, not even me. I was a very politically pissed-off guy back then. Chilling took work ( plz see my Journal for details ). By 1973, I had morphed into a softer, sweeter person --a monstrous job converting a monster into a monastic ! Do you realize how many nasty bad boys wind up in kindness-based monasteries?
By '75 Akasa became an officially ordained Buddhist Monk, six years a mendicant Sadhu in “beggar-man’s” orange robes with an alms bowl in mid-70's back-country rural Asia • Trained and ordained into a Buddhist Theravada Bhikkhu monastic of the Amarapura Order of The Triple Gem by the beloved and revered Bhante NyakaThera Balangoda Ananda Maitreya and Kassapa MahaThera in Kandy, Sri Lanka's lush Bamboo Forests. My novice robes were given under the Bodhitree in Bodhgaya India itself. (ordination story)
♦ At the precise moment of ordination -- in the most sacred Buddhist vortex on Earth -- I was so Here ! -- At-one-ment for a timeless moment amidst a 25 hundred year old back-story running in tandem with Them for a moment, alongside all the Buddhas that have ever been -- as the karmic parallels just keep eternally narrowing and narrowing -- I was so There... I almost wasn't anywhere. I almost didn't exist ! Yup, So here I was... (more ordination story)
• Previous to this final 'anointing' ( only two tiers - novice junior and bhikkhu senior ) which all monks enter into with the Maha-Sangha only on the basis of Seva/service 'time' in sangha, not with 'attainment'. Akasa Levi was a Gelugpa Vajrayana initiate and temple gardener to Geshe Lama Thubten Yeshe and Thubten Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Monastery, Kathmandu in Nepal during the early 70's • "Big Love" - Digging holes with Lama, urinating on tomato plants with Lama, moving giant rocks with Lama • Much later on, a sabbatical resident Vipassana student to learn Mindfulness practice directly from the renown Anagarika Munindra Barua, the leading teaching-master of Satipatthana Mindfulness in Bodhgaya, India where the ancient Bodhi Tree still stands giving Refuge to all newbie Bodhisattvas to come • Akasa relished his annual monsoon seasons of non-duality practice in satsang under the wild and notorious ‘Bede Baba’ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj in India's Mumbai slums in Old Bombay.
By '75 Akasa became an officially ordained Buddhist Monk, six years a mendicant Sadhu in “beggar-man’s” orange robes with an alms bowl in mid-70's back-country rural Asia • Trained and ordained into a Buddhist Theravada Bhikkhu monastic of the Amarapura Order of The Triple Gem by the beloved and revered Bhante NyakaThera Balangoda Ananda Maitreya and Kassapa MahaThera in Kandy, Sri Lanka's lush Bamboo Forests. My novice robes were given under the Bodhitree in Bodhgaya India itself. (ordination story)
♦ At the precise moment of ordination -- in the most sacred Buddhist vortex on Earth -- I was so Here ! -- At-one-ment for a timeless moment amidst a 25 hundred year old back-story running in tandem with Them for a moment, alongside all the Buddhas that have ever been -- as the karmic parallels just keep eternally narrowing and narrowing -- I was so There... I almost wasn't anywhere. I almost didn't exist ! Yup, So here I was... (more ordination story)
• Previous to this final 'anointing' ( only two tiers - novice junior and bhikkhu senior ) which all monks enter into with the Maha-Sangha only on the basis of Seva/service 'time' in sangha, not with 'attainment'. Akasa Levi was a Gelugpa Vajrayana initiate and temple gardener to Geshe Lama Thubten Yeshe and Thubten Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Monastery, Kathmandu in Nepal during the early 70's • "Big Love" - Digging holes with Lama, urinating on tomato plants with Lama, moving giant rocks with Lama • Much later on, a sabbatical resident Vipassana student to learn Mindfulness practice directly from the renown Anagarika Munindra Barua, the leading teaching-master of Satipatthana Mindfulness in Bodhgaya, India where the ancient Bodhi Tree still stands giving Refuge to all newbie Bodhisattvas to come • Akasa relished his annual monsoon seasons of non-duality practice in satsang under the wild and notorious ‘Bede Baba’ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj in India's Mumbai slums in Old Bombay.
• The Bhikkhu monks and lay teachers of Sri Lanka were very, very good to Akasa-- Nyanaponika, Kassapa, Godwin, Lilly -- and the precocious Henri Van Zeyst up in Kandy's Bamboo Forest.• Bhante Piyadassi gave him lots of singing lessons • Back then, practice--sojourns with teachers took the gift of long stays of Time at the right time - mid 70's • BTW, all these special teachings may take several lifetimes to comprehend --and one can still be a jerk • Akasa’s sincere aspiration: To Be Directly With the Last Living Buddhist Meditation Teachers of the Pre-Global Era --most passed on now. "That's the last of 'em, Luke -- Yoda was for real.
• For his BA, Akasa attended SUNY Harpur College, State University of New York, Binghamton University • Returning from a whole 70’s decade abroad, Akasa studied 'Why' and 'How' -- Who's on first, What's on second - through the overly aloof, intellectual intricacies of Western psycho-dynamic analytic intersubjective therapy at UCLA, yearning for something simpler • He currently guides Insight Awareness Mindfulness Meditation at The Laughing Buddha Sangha on 14th Street's Zafu Row • Coaches a ZEN•MEN peer group • and offers Buddhist-based Individual counseling and Insight therapy • Akasa's Sri Lanka affiliate in LA is Dharma Vijaya Buddha Vihara under his decades long old friend from Calcutta, Bhante NyakaThera Walpola Piyananda.
• Akasa now a feisty 76 - finds himself just not a proper academic, but more of an out on a limb improper 'experience provider' -- he has an odd, sort of awry, happy Doubter's Joy in his altruistic, aesthetic, atheistic approach to the Dharma. At heart, Akasa is a vulnerable old school Bohemian from a NYC art-based family, that can be a perpetual nud'nik to the gravitas of established Buddhist composure. At times, truly without a clue about his own genuineness, a fragile identity, an authentic 'Not knowing' What he is, maybe play acting the curmudgeon, or maybe the Fool card - in that he didn't like the other lay-life choices offered anyway. Maybe he was the original Zelig.
• To counter his delusive Bewilderment, he's continually serving up generous Seva ( service ) by creating lots of pro-bono available time for basic heart to heart and hand holding of people in pain. He’s really funny, an eccentric Grandpa Dharma - and a respected BuJu tribal elder. K'vetchy by genetics, but not too creepy, a flamboyant old rogue, he's definitely an acquired taste like Thai shrimp paste.
• To counter his delusive Bewilderment, he's continually serving up generous Seva ( service ) by creating lots of pro-bono available time for basic heart to heart and hand holding of people in pain. He’s really funny, an eccentric Grandpa Dharma - and a respected BuJu tribal elder. K'vetchy by genetics, but not too creepy, a flamboyant old rogue, he's definitely an acquired taste like Thai shrimp paste.
• Seriously: Akasa is into nourishing the many 'contemplative' vocal aspects of the emerging 'heart-wisdom' poetry revealed in a student's use of developing dharma vocabulary words -- mentoring a maverick “iconoclast intelligence” in the students and people he treats, teaches, counsels at his little meditation shrine room near the beach, filled with Dharma books, tribal masks and ritual objects, and cool calm statues of the ancient Buddha.
• Akasa Levi, an emeritus-level senior meditation teacher in the Theravada lineage, guides us into the cognitive/empirical Felt Sense Awareness of a Sati-awakening present moment -- fully self-caring, fully self-aware training in his mindFULLY approach. Akasa knows that by building on Self-inquiry and meditation practice skills, you can effect a calm, fearless and loving, meaningful, noticeable difference in yourself. Akasa is known for his spontaneity, wise ready warmth, and wry unpredictable humor.
-----------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------
‘All-the-time-Awareness’
" Kindness " is more
Bogus n' Sketchy than
Buddha Nature gets itchy
for Fraudulent Tricksters.
So someone thought
this cheeky Bio is
supposed to stick
to the Wall when
properly throne
and funny.
So it is.
♦108 AKASA LEVI ♦ PROFILE / INTRO ♦ Akasa Levi and S.R.Levy
A Poetry Influenced Profile
It Was The Season of Light -
" Ma -- They Vetted Me " !
--------------------------------------------------
" Profile / Sch'mo-file,
I told you to tell 'em
Absolutely Everything
About this Home-made Blog-site collection:
I promised I'd make some more pragmatic, more tangible 'Work in Progress' on my own writing progress. I've never done this 'memoir' thing before ~ So here goes... plz read patiently and tolerantly.
WHY ? and HOW COME ?
'How' did this great and persistent inquiry of mine shape itself ? -- 'How' did it 'Come' to be ? to Arrive ? ( seems there's a 'method' being suggested ) How did you get interested in things Buddhist ? How Come you became a Buddhist monk. Why'dya do that ? But you were Jewish !!! People always want to know what motivated you -- to see how that fits into their head -- Could I do that ?? Nah...
A somewhat tone of Urgent Concern -Sam'vega carries me forward now as I know the Body of Time and the Body of Flesh is fleeting-- so this thrown about tale, this loose, non-academic exploration, almost an awkward schoolboy's account of an off the wall investigation that led me to an organically deeper truth-inquiry within -- and a maturing of my odd, little kid size anomaly of a quirky peculiar personal story.
'Peculiar' it is: so I'll apologize first in these first few messy in-work paragraphs that'll top this thing off with really bad grammar and a biased point of view -- as it jumps the fence of first second third person tense recklessly, irresponsibly: as you read, who's talking ? --is it me, or you on about me, or there's a name dropping narrator out here somewhere.
Best of all, Worst of all -- it's all about Me. I'm here in sunny Solipsistic Town as self-obsessed and self-important as anyone can get -- actually Not True. Which begins to lead me again to the serious purpose of this whole loose bag of a blog--- this site is meant to be a sort of mystical Pass with the hands, or a Mudra, a teaching Gesture of the fingers "Pointing Towards" ---and this my initial intent for being here on your screen to make these Great Road Trips within easier for you to eat Saag n' Subgee at my favorite Indian rest stop on the Benares Trunk Road while hitch-hiking to Calcutta on 18 wheelers. ( 1972 )
If you ask "Which Way ?" -- hopefully you get answers that include a "Pointing Towards" -- But Firstly, Why was I even Here - back There - back Then ? -- When I was smaller. I was fascinated with objects Asian since a child quietly drawing while sitting on my Granpa Max's library floor on a little red Tibetan saddle rug on top of the last of the old Chinese medallion rugs, on top of a vast and never ending Persian carpet that could almost fly. In a pixelated Universe I thought visually and remembered life in textures. My , Dad was a big time big brass and copper pot collector. To me, he cautiously claimed to be an agnostic when I was eight, but by the time I was approaching the 13th Year Hebrew boy to adult male right of passage -- I knew that he knew, that I knew that he was an atheist -- and that I was confused.
To get right to it: I had to know, I didn't like not knowing. I started off with a simple but seminal question: Is there an authentic, wholesome, sound and stable, true, benevolent and universal spirituality 'element' that coalesces into the various individual, indigenous culture based Religions. And, of course, is there a God. By now I am a professional Seeker. I am doing a Spiritual Inquiry: I want to know things. It visibly began when I was eight and I asked "Could I See It ?" Could I plumb the depths, the density of it ?" Simply put: is Religion and Spirituality and even God -- is it all Real ? -- you see, there's a PURPOSE to this shaggy dog story, which is Oiy ! OK here's a Hint - It's the Original One that got me out the door and on my way. Actually I should say The Way !
Apologia --
I Give Thanks and Grateful Appreciation to several friends - and of course, myself, that this old Notebook Journal of my journey even got assembled -- as I've got more pressing considerations, so they say, to give my attention to at 76 -- like the # 1 item in our home is composing my Advance Health Directive, Living Trust and other grown-up gravitas stuff like that to do -- maybe 'cause I'm still in Stage One foot dragging in Denial / Anger about my recently diagnosed Parkinson's Disease ( Dis-at-ease.)
~ Surprise, Blindsided, I didn't see it coming !
I just don't have the time left to tell it:
So I'll give you Links
-----------------------------------------------
"To Me, It is ALL Metaphorical !
Metaphorical is Metaphysical:
It's all the same. Humans dream...
Metaphorical ~ The Stories Prevailed
The Stories prevailed. The Healing stories, the Hunting and Battle stories, the Tribal Family stories, the Mystical and the Spirit stories of real Seasons and those now gone. The stories come with pictures and Dance called Ritual. Stories are powerful. Some tribals have lost their people's stories. Often they Suffer. Did I mention that, to me, it was/is ALL Metaphorical. Metaphors were created in the indigenous Human mind for their own wellbeing. The "Existential" metaphorical metaphysical experimental experiences seek n' find me and what I 'know'. Yes, It's ALL Metaphorical -- it all started with a story about an Empty place. Math and Business machinations never were my forte'-- yet the 'Creatives' find me and ask me. Deep inquiry into the Unfamiliar does provide $ustenance for the Non-ordinary, Uncommon person. Literally, it's been a wonder-filled esoteric Life streaming by --right here in amongst the ordinary dharma of the everyday world's massive consuming mall, as it's always been. "Buy Low, Resell Higher, Feed Your Family, Then Feed Your Mind," pondering body/mind contemplations on the details of good thought and appreciative actions. Sutra stories and folk tale scenarios crafted in Buddhist art, confusing conundrums, and the poetic sacred words of the Heart. Like the Tarot's Fool card true to the role of a Yogi Poet Dharma Bum -- I'm just an Old Hippie (1941) and always kinda' loving it ! Nowadays I meet with new people drawn here by their own soul-felt needs. And the Chakra of Life eternallly turns. "I am Poor yet Blessed" -- Odd, Huh... • Akasa Levi
'Search' -- James Hilton's 1939 film "Lost Horizon", an Indiana Jones of it's day strongly influenced Akasa by the repeatedly persistent presence of 'The Search' for Wisdom Elders, sacred 'power objects' and human liberation from suffering. 'Search' as an umbrella theme explored in G.I.Gurdjief's "Meetings with Remarkable Men" 1927, and Paul Brunton's "Search In Secret India" 1931 -- these innocent and romantic pulp non-fiction adventure stories motivated Akasa’s sincere aspiration in going into the uncharted --and be willing to get entangled in the fascinations of Indra's Net in the first place... So Where did he go and what did he do ? --- there is more to come, but with the Answering process - just like the Questioning process - is up to the reader, adventurer, seeker -- facilitated by the Search.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Akasa Levi’s original motivated intention was to visit with a very special, now extremely endangered, almost extinct 'spiritual species'-- and a sincere and developing heart-felt aspiration of his was:
To Be Directly With the Last Living
Asian Buddhist Meditation Teachers
of the Pre-Global Era (most passed on)
Akasa's 'actual' Meetings with these
Remarkable Holy Men face-to-face --
was still a relative subjective Reality
that was seemingly totally Real
for that moment of experiencing.
The proof is I still posses intact,
my well worn and road weary
old-style passport stamped
into story time oblivion.
That was 'Real' Enough for him.
Off he went on his way --
a solo Traveler all on HIS very own
improvised way towards 'The Way
( 1968 Europe/Mideast somewhere
-- The Big Bippy was yet to come )
------------------------------------------
"Which way
is The Way ?
Phenomena Come and Go and Ebb and Flow
as Centuries of sometime Time Lines pass
-- and Monks with Exotic Spiritual Names
having honest to God ancient mystical
incarnation lineages that never ever died---
as I deeply soak into kind, loving eyes merge
with a smiling little nut brown forest dweller
who's been happy almost for ever -- and
that's the Way in some Pacifica place
they're monastery-made in a gracious
silent flurry of a hurry as they scurry
like a happy house full of enabling
Bubbies and Aunties
with big soup spoons
----------------------------
NOTE ---WHAT FOLLOWS
....-:¦:-
So someone thought
this cheeky Bio is
supposed to stick
to the Wall when
properly throne
and funny.
So it is.
--------------------------
♦ About MY "SELF"
I'm A Construction,
Fabricated
Out of My Own
Wounded 'Idea'
Out of My Own
Wounded 'Idea'
of A "Self"
------------------------
Someone Pointed
n' said confidently
"That-a-Way" and
He Pointed East.
----------------------
Someone Pointed
n' said confidently
"That-a-Way" and
He Pointed East.
----------------------
♦108 AKASA LEVI ♦ PROFILE / INTRO ♦ Akasa Levi and S.R.Levy
_/!\_
with
palms joined
Nama'ste
A Poetry Influenced Profile
• ♦ Akasa Maitreya Levi
Laughing Buddha Sangha Meditation
The First Wave Meditators • 1970's
♦ Come Study with the Old Timer's Sangha
that Studied Mindfulness Meditation in India
Back in The Day Before You Were Born !
Now Guiding "Mind-FULLY" and ZEN•MEN
Santa Monica CA 90405 • 1-310-450-2268
-------------------------------------------------------
.-:¦:- Big Bro • Bio Profile • To Go
-------------------
According to
Sir Charles...
We’re Living In
a Most Alarming
“UNCERTAINTY
of TIMES” ~
MINDFULNESS
Awakening-Practice
Has Your Back !
-----------------------------
page 1Sir Charles...
We’re Living In
a Most Alarming
“UNCERTAINTY
of TIMES” ~
MINDFULNESS
Awakening-Practice
Has Your Back !
-----------------------------
It Was The Best of Times -
It Was The Worst of Times
It Was The Age of Wisdom -
It Was The Age of Foolishness,
It Was The Epoch of Belief -
It Was The Epoch of Incredulity, It Was The Season of Light -
It Was The Season of Darkness,
It Was The Spring of Hope -
It Was The Winter of Despair,
We Had Everything Before Us -
We Had Nothing Before Us,
We Were All Going
Direct To Heaven -
We Were All Going
Direct The Other Way.
We Were All Going
Direct The Other Way.
In Short, That Period
Was Just Like
The Present Period.
Was Just Like
The Present Period.
----------------------------
Sir Charles Dickens
"A Tale of Two Cities"
"A Tale of Two Cities"
a British novel (1859)
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
" Ma -- They Vetted Me " !
--------------------------------------------------
" Profile / Sch'mo-file,
I told you to tell 'em
Absolutely Everything
-- and did you ?...
Now you go back
in there and...."
♦ An INTRODUCTION: "Pointing Towards"...Now you go back
in there and...."
About this Home-made Blog-site collection:
I promised I'd make some more pragmatic, more tangible 'Work in Progress' on my own writing progress. I've never done this 'memoir' thing before ~ So here goes... plz read patiently and tolerantly.
WHY ? and HOW COME ?
'How' did this great and persistent inquiry of mine shape itself ? -- 'How' did it 'Come' to be ? to Arrive ? ( seems there's a 'method' being suggested ) How did you get interested in things Buddhist ? How Come you became a Buddhist monk. Why'dya do that ? But you were Jewish !!! People always want to know what motivated you -- to see how that fits into their head -- Could I do that ?? Nah...
A somewhat tone of Urgent Concern -Sam'vega carries me forward now as I know the Body of Time and the Body of Flesh is fleeting-- so this thrown about tale, this loose, non-academic exploration, almost an awkward schoolboy's account of an off the wall investigation that led me to an organically deeper truth-inquiry within -- and a maturing of my odd, little kid size anomaly of a quirky peculiar personal story.
'Peculiar' it is: so I'll apologize first in these first few messy in-work paragraphs that'll top this thing off with really bad grammar and a biased point of view -- as it jumps the fence of first second third person tense recklessly, irresponsibly: as you read, who's talking ? --is it me, or you on about me, or there's a name dropping narrator out here somewhere.
Best of all, Worst of all -- it's all about Me. I'm here in sunny Solipsistic Town as self-obsessed and self-important as anyone can get -- actually Not True. Which begins to lead me again to the serious purpose of this whole loose bag of a blog--- this site is meant to be a sort of mystical Pass with the hands, or a Mudra, a teaching Gesture of the fingers "Pointing Towards" ---and this my initial intent for being here on your screen to make these Great Road Trips within easier for you to eat Saag n' Subgee at my favorite Indian rest stop on the Benares Trunk Road while hitch-hiking to Calcutta on 18 wheelers. ( 1972 )
If you ask "Which Way ?" -- hopefully you get answers that include a "Pointing Towards" -- But Firstly, Why was I even Here - back There - back Then ? -- When I was smaller. I was fascinated with objects Asian since a child quietly drawing while sitting on my Granpa Max's library floor on a little red Tibetan saddle rug on top of the last of the old Chinese medallion rugs, on top of a vast and never ending Persian carpet that could almost fly. In a pixelated Universe I thought visually and remembered life in textures. My , Dad was a big time big brass and copper pot collector. To me, he cautiously claimed to be an agnostic when I was eight, but by the time I was approaching the 13th Year Hebrew boy to adult male right of passage -- I knew that he knew, that I knew that he was an atheist -- and that I was confused.
To get right to it: I had to know, I didn't like not knowing. I started off with a simple but seminal question: Is there an authentic, wholesome, sound and stable, true, benevolent and universal spirituality 'element' that coalesces into the various individual, indigenous culture based Religions. And, of course, is there a God. By now I am a professional Seeker. I am doing a Spiritual Inquiry: I want to know things. It visibly began when I was eight and I asked "Could I See It ?" Could I plumb the depths, the density of it ?" Simply put: is Religion and Spirituality and even God -- is it all Real ? -- you see, there's a PURPOSE to this shaggy dog story, which is Oiy ! OK here's a Hint - It's the Original One that got me out the door and on my way. Actually I should say The Way !
Apologia --
I Give Thanks and Grateful Appreciation to several friends - and of course, myself, that this old Notebook Journal of my journey even got assembled -- as I've got more pressing considerations, so they say, to give my attention to at 76 -- like the # 1 item in our home is composing my Advance Health Directive, Living Trust and other grown-up gravitas stuff like that to do -- maybe 'cause I'm still in Stage One foot dragging in Denial / Anger about my recently diagnosed Parkinson's Disease ( Dis-at-ease.)
~ Surprise, Blindsided, I didn't see it coming !
Parkinson's --
It's brought the whole felt-notion of 'Death' itself so truly close as a 'supreme inevitability' -- that in of itself, it pales in it's very own presence.
It's brought the whole felt-notion of 'Death' itself so truly close as a 'supreme inevitability' -- that in of itself, it pales in it's very own presence.
I just don't have the time left to tell it:
So I'll give you Links
-----------------------------------------------
"To Me, It is ALL Metaphorical !
Metaphorical is Metaphysical:
It's all the same. Humans dream...
Metaphorical ~ The Stories Prevailed
The Stories prevailed. The Healing stories, the Hunting and Battle stories, the Tribal Family stories, the Mystical and the Spirit stories of real Seasons and those now gone. The stories come with pictures and Dance called Ritual. Stories are powerful. Some tribals have lost their people's stories. Often they Suffer. Did I mention that, to me, it was/is ALL Metaphorical. Metaphors were created in the indigenous Human mind for their own wellbeing. The "Existential" metaphorical metaphysical experimental experiences seek n' find me and what I 'know'. Yes, It's ALL Metaphorical -- it all started with a story about an Empty place. Math and Business machinations never were my forte'-- yet the 'Creatives' find me and ask me. Deep inquiry into the Unfamiliar does provide $ustenance for the Non-ordinary, Uncommon person. Literally, it's been a wonder-filled esoteric Life streaming by --right here in amongst the ordinary dharma of the everyday world's massive consuming mall, as it's always been. "Buy Low, Resell Higher, Feed Your Family, Then Feed Your Mind," pondering body/mind contemplations on the details of good thought and appreciative actions. Sutra stories and folk tale scenarios crafted in Buddhist art, confusing conundrums, and the poetic sacred words of the Heart. Like the Tarot's Fool card true to the role of a Yogi Poet Dharma Bum -- I'm just an Old Hippie (1941) and always kinda' loving it ! Nowadays I meet with new people drawn here by their own soul-felt needs. And the Chakra of Life eternallly turns. "I am Poor yet Blessed" -- Odd, Huh... • Akasa Levi
'Search' -- James Hilton's 1939 film "Lost Horizon", an Indiana Jones of it's day strongly influenced Akasa by the repeatedly persistent presence of 'The Search' for Wisdom Elders, sacred 'power objects' and human liberation from suffering. 'Search' as an umbrella theme explored in G.I.Gurdjief's "Meetings with Remarkable Men" 1927, and Paul Brunton's "Search In Secret India" 1931 -- these innocent and romantic pulp non-fiction adventure stories motivated Akasa’s sincere aspiration in going into the uncharted --and be willing to get entangled in the fascinations of Indra's Net in the first place... So Where did he go and what did he do ? --- there is more to come, but with the Answering process - just like the Questioning process - is up to the reader, adventurer, seeker -- facilitated by the Search.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Akasa Levi’s original motivated intention was to visit with a very special, now extremely endangered, almost extinct 'spiritual species'-- and a sincere and developing heart-felt aspiration of his was:
To Be Directly With the Last Living
Asian Buddhist Meditation Teachers
of the Pre-Global Era (most passed on)
Akasa's 'actual' Meetings with these
Remarkable Holy Men face-to-face --
was still a relative subjective Reality
that was seemingly totally Real
for that moment of experiencing.
The proof is I still posses intact,
my well worn and road weary
old-style passport stamped
into story time oblivion.
That was 'Real' Enough for him.
Off he went on his way --
a solo Traveler all on HIS very own
improvised way towards 'The Way
( 1968 Europe/Mideast somewhere
-- The Big Bippy was yet to come )
------------------------------------------
Caveat Emptor
Given Akasa's Way -
an askew True Being:
A Bogus Rogue in
Buddha's Nature for
Fraudulent Tricksters.
So someone thought
this cheeky Big Bio is
rumored to be snarky,
affected, self-effacing,
flamboyant and funny.
So it is.
About MY "SELF"
I Became
a Famished
Mad Poet
How Come ?
-------------------------
Everybody
Elsewhere,
Everyone
Everywhere,
------------------------------
Knows About Certain
Dreadful Things called
"Undesirable Deficit"
Everyone Else Knows
That To Be Undesirable
is Not Desirable.
is Not Lovable.
------------------------
Actually,
Maybe Desirable,
Maybe Wanted
Just a Little Bit --
Just 'Not Enough'
Bodies Laughing
Touch Warm Skin
but Me Not Held -
And That Left Me
A Very Needy
Grumpy Little Kid.
-------------------------
The Curse of
'Rejection' and
'Just Not Enough'
Karma: Genetically,
Purely Choiceless,
It Strikes
Any One
Any Body
Any Where
Any Which Way
Six Ways to Sunday
" Hey You --
It's Gotta Be
YOU First ! "
Given Akasa's Way -
an askew True Being:
A Bogus Rogue in
Buddha's Nature for
Fraudulent Tricksters.
So someone thought
this cheeky Big Bio is
rumored to be snarky,
affected, self-effacing,
flamboyant and funny.
So it is.
----------------------------------
Big Bro • Poetry • To Go
Mentors Mindfulness Therapy
"Mind-FULLY" and ZEN•MEN
------------------------------------------------------------
Mentors Mindfulness Therapy
"Mind-FULLY" and ZEN•MEN
------------------------------------------------------------
About MY "SELF"
I'm A Construction,
Fabricated
Out of My Own
Wounded 'Idea'
Out of My Own
Wounded 'Idea'
of A "Self"
--------------------------
" I Didn’t Get
--------------------------
" I Didn’t Get
Enough Love
As A Child "
------------------------- I Became
a Famished
Mad Poet
How Come ?
-------------------------
Everybody
Elsewhere,
Everyone
Everywhere,
------------------------------
Knows About Certain
Dreadful Things called
"Undesirable Deficit"
Everyone Else Knows
That To Be Undesirable
is Not Desirable.
is Not Lovable.
------------------------
Actually,
Maybe Desirable,
Maybe Wanted
Just a Little Bit --
Just 'Not Enough'
Bodies Laughing
Touch Warm Skin
but Me Not Held -
And That Left Me
A Very Needy
Grumpy Little Kid.
-------------------------
The Curse of
'Rejection' and
'Just Not Enough'
Karma: Genetically,
Purely Choiceless,
It Strikes
Any One
Any Body
Any Where
Any Which Way
Six Ways to Sunday
Any Damn Way,
ANYWAY -- Needy,
Angry and Confused.
The Loba, Dosa, Moha
Dark Mother Mantra cries
--- Sad n' Scary, Huh ?
and Buddha roared ANYWAY -- Needy,
Angry and Confused.
The Loba, Dosa, Moha
Dark Mother Mantra cries
--- Sad n' Scary, Huh ?
--------------------------------
'Cept If You Teach
Yourself To Love
Yourself, First --
Compassionately
'Cept If You Teach
Yourself To Love
Yourself, First --
Compassionately
" Hey You --
It's Gotta Be
YOU First ! "
-------------------
So I asked --
"Which way
is The Way ?
The Way
Outta' Here ?"
You Mean
The Real Deal--
The Big Bippy--
Self-Realization to
the Emptiness of Self
------------------------------ is The Way ?
The Way
Outta' Here ?"
You Mean
The Real Deal--
The Big Bippy--
Self-Realization to
the Emptiness of Self
"So Which Way
is The Way ?
Someone Pointed
n' said confidently
"That-a-Way" and
He Pointed East.
-------------------------
is The Way ?
Someone Pointed
n' said confidently
"That-a-Way" and
He Pointed East.
-------------------------
is The Way ?
as Centuries of sometime Time Lines pass
-- and Monks with Exotic Spiritual Names
having honest to God ancient mystical
incarnation lineages that never ever died---
as I deeply soak into kind, loving eyes merge
with a smiling little nut brown forest dweller
who's been happy almost for ever -- and
that's the Way in some Pacifica place
they're monastery-made in a gracious
silent flurry of a hurry as they scurry
like a happy house full of enabling
Bubbies and Aunties
with big soup spoons
----------------------------
‘All-the-time-Awareness’
-- then I was stuck on the freezing Beach 34th Street boardwalk with a hot potato k'nish in what's now become greasy cotton gloves solidifying in the bitter cold bite of a Far Rockaway NY snowy winter..
NOTE ---WHAT FOLLOWS
....-:¦:-