Riffin' On Song of Songs; The Tenacity of Heart

“Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.” Song of Songs 8:6

At the Jimmy John’s I used to work at there used to be a sign, formatted largely around the words “More AND Enough” which expressed the sentiment “The gap between more AND enough never closes.” The emphasis is on the word “and” and this is a Zen koan from an American corporation that has dipped so heavily into wisdom culture that you can see the marketing phrase “wise guys” printed on the décor of most stores nationwide…there’s a lot of that stuff in there.

I haven’t studied koans yet so there’s a lot that could be said gracefully about them that I probably won’t do justice by. But these things are not only teachings…they are universes. There are no clear right or wrong interpretations to them…they pivot and twist every which way; the entire world, as it is at this very minute, is somehow accessible within every true Koan of any tradition which has ever been…the same is true of sound waves, in general, and this is how clairvoyants can access information that they shouldn’t be able to, from a pure mechanical-mechanistic view of the universe.

Everything…is in everything. Truly.

This particular koan was very relevant to this company which tended to recruit workaholics with grand visions… these were men already deep in some nearly intangible flow which was whipping them around like marionettes. You see, any overly-parental…overly-karen reading of the koan would offer teachings such as “well, if you keep saying “and” you’ll never feel as if you have enough! You should just be happy with what you have!!” Well, kudos, that’s beautiful and cute, but we were the types of people that when things stopped there was something there telling us that we were personally obligated to do more. It wasn’t our will propelling us, truly (which happens often, and unfortunately we tend to act like it happens rarely and only in religious circles…not even close to true).

You had to already be at the destination, knowing fully well there was decades of amounts of work facing your personhood that no rational mind could reasonably consider a treat without extreme conditioning. The gap between more AND enough never closes…so it always had to be more than enough, even when it was time for “and…more…”

You see…as today’s passage states, “love is as strong as death” not because they are evenly matched, but because they are two sides of the same coin. They are distinctly different (at times…truly only when the death isn’t to be permanent, which does happen believe it or not) when experienced amidst duality and ignorance, but in the radiance of the clear light, the mortal death is but another phenomena of perfect love crashing upon us.

But while they appear to be one in the same upon close reflection…upon serious and comprehensive spiritual practice (maybe by practicing you transform them so that they are one in the same, alchemically), at the surface level they clearly are polar opposites, somehow…love and the constraint of the mortal form (the mortal death). Death itself seems to be an offense to life; our mortal forms are hardwired to detest it, to be inspired by our fight or flights into seeking transcendence at some level, so that we can legitimately rip the veil of the mortal death off and see it for what it is…merely another act of universal will…of God’s perfect love.

Or maybe we don’t see it as that, and God’s perfect love manifests as love’s “jealousy”, which we are told is just as “unyielding” as “the grave”.

What we’re after in either instance is God’s will. We want to see the desert for the sand…to see what ought to have been. When we understand death in such terms, we deal with death effectively. Where we don’t, we ask our Father to raise our friend Lazarus, and you would be a little green in the face if you truly understood how often He does.

There are spiritual experiences out there happening in the lives of individuals which appear to either beat off a looming mortal death, or reverse one. It’s rare, but people come forward with stories. It happens. In a world this weird and big, it truly happens.

To think that anything is off of the table, particularly things that are explored deeply in the New Testament, in the story of the life and times of Christ…is absurd. That was all put on the table for a reason, and that reason entailed proper incentives to continue devotional practice. I hate to say it but…religion botched these bad. Even Buddhism… I understand recently why some people call it a philosophy instead of a religion…when people try to force the sorts of things that religions force…the Dharma appears to get violated rather easily, as does the sense that life is magic/truly anything is possible.

I’m sure there are many Sanghas out there that have figured it out. But I don’t exactly live in the land of Sanghas and where I’m at…trying to grow the presence of Buddhist temples in the West truly could be greatly detrimental to Buddhism in the West. Anything that constrains personal liberty at all…I’ve never had an in person teacher. All of my stuff has been centered around a music scene I was already attending recreationally… Buddhism came to me, clairvoyantly. I don’t think I truly would’ve came to it if it hadn’t came to me under such terms.

I digress. Why does the heart smart when we lose dear ones? As bratty and seemingly impractical as it is to say…at some level, as childish as it is to think, we do have access to a sentient, loving, all-powerful, all-pervading Source which is capable of even going back in time and undoing the thing which you took offense to, leaving only the awareness of that cancelled timeline as a secret between you and It. At some level, your body knows this (I speculate it learns it during the birth…which is just a wild rupturing of the laws of physics, truly, taking place largely within…the laws of physics). It cries out in desperation, with “jealousy” as “unyielding as the grave”.

And sometimes, that jealousy becomes the winning vehicle of Universal Will. More often than men of society, hopelessly conditioned into moderation and pragmatism, into the small self, would care to admit, this jealousy wins out over “the grave”. “The grave” ceases to be so “unyielding”; it was the Father crying out (amongst many others) which resurrected Jesus…this is how lives are saved.

Your cries of anguish and pain are prayers. I honor them. I turn them into plans. The sensibility they are based on is more pure than the sensibility acceptance of suffering is predicated upon. And I do my best to actually in a direct way give you guys exactly what you want moreso than these simply being motions that always portray our utter smallness as small selves...rather than these being motions which ultimately force you to face your utter inability to truly do anything at the cosmic level regarding this situation…that’s not Dharma. We are boundless when we live within the scope of wisdom.

I am arguing for the heart, amongst cynics who lost the wonders of childhood and the wisdom of spontaneity.

What is today’s passage asking of us other than to use spiritual wisdom, to use God, to use “Me” like “a seal over the heart” so as to affirm that we truly are… God? That we are boundless…that we are omnipotent and omniscient, while still being locked within our “small self”…that wise and prudent action is to access the territory known as “God” or “God’s power” or “God’s love”, entirely…and that this looks normal/exactly like social etiquette/ethics.

It is only men who have not yet unraveled the universal riddle who see death. The dead are right here…ready to talk to us. There are people I’m separated from routinely, in some sense, as we live our mortal lives, that I will have greater access to actually after they die.

Also too, that’s not utterly true because wise and prudent action sees us unwittingly accessing boundlessness in a meaningful way. So, I’m not super separated from them often right now but still… all-pervading, it’s a thing.

Love is God. Loving action is like…by some enigmatic mystery God became trapped in an Old Man’s body in New Jersey, and that old man is now in a coma, and you can awaken him from said coma through loving action, and if you do, this will start a chain sequence of events that will drastically transform the world in big ways across time… you might not continue to feel super comforted by such a notion across time, but if it bleeds out its simply a thing of what you’re supposed to be doing day in and day out…it doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen.

The gap between more and enough never closes. And I’ve been gambling here abouts for ten good solid years…and if I told you ‘bout all that went down it would burn up both of your ears.

We just hold it down. There are 8 billion people in this world and a lot happening.

But I digress. I just turned God almighty into a category of potential actions. If that isn’t enough to solve every single problem the world has ever or will ever see, nothing will ever be enough.

How do I steal? Honestly, I steal in service of life...I steal the causes and conditions of suffering, I steal any and every little thing I can get my hands on, because the gap between more and enough never closes...

And also too, I made those things in the first place.