Comic script for V6 No4

(4/25/09)

Scene: On a deer trail in the Catskill Mountain woods Softdoor and D-11 are heading for their favorite place. It is the sandy island in the middle of Tinker Creek. The early summer sky is warm enough for a swim and blue enough to be forever.

Page #1

Daffodil Eleven: (out of the blue) "Now ... what do I want?"

Softdoor: (the one finger professor gesture) "No! That's not the question."

Softdoor: "'Who am I?'(2) That is the only Real question, everything else; all your doings, all your stuff, all your thoughts and beliefs, all come down to the question; who am I? Who is this 'I' experiencing all this?"

Page #2

Daffodil Eleven: (with a hand flourish to her chest) "I'm Daffodil Eleven!"

Page #3

Softdoor: (smiling) "For sure. But when I call you 'D' are you still you?"

Daffodil Eleven: (the duh look) "Duh."

Page #4

Softdoor: "So ...You are not your name, your name is just a sound used to get your attention. But you are something a bit more real then just a sound, right?"

Daffodil Eleven: (one squinty eyed look) "Bet-ya-yam I yam."

Page #5

Softdoor: (Softdoor with a crazy smile holding-up and aiming the Stoogers two finger jab) "So if I poke out an eye would you still be you?"

Daffodil Eleven: (D-11 frowning and holding up one hand between her eyes to block the possible jab) "Yeah… but you don't wanna mess with me, Doorsey."

Page #6

Softdoor: "So how much of your body could you lose and still be you?"

Daffodil Eleven: (pause) "Well, I guess as long as I can still think, I'm still me."

Softdoor: "You can't think while you're in deep-sleep, and yet when you wake up every morning you're still you."

Daffodil Eleven: "So."

Page #7

Softdoor: "So, there is still You under your thoughts, beyond your thoughts. Your thoughts are just a pile of ideas inside of you that calls itself 'me', but no ...thing... is You."

Daffodil Eleven: (one eyebrow raised) "That's weird."

Softdoor: "But true?"

Daffodil Eleven: "...ok."

Page #8

Softdoor: "Ok, so You are actually a kind of space inside you, that we've agreed to call "D" or "Daffodil" but it has no real name. You are a silent space of awareness that continues on even when you have no thoughts like in deep sleep. You are the space of you and not the things in it."

Daffodil Eleven: "Cool."

Page #9

Softdoor: "So, You, the real you, is just an awareness that looks out of your eyes. It perceives your thoughts but is not your thoughts."

Daffodil Eleven: "'Perceives?'"

Softdoor: "Do know the word perceive?"

Daffodil Eleven: "Maybe."

Softdoor: "The word perceive means to take in, to observe, to understand, to become aware of or conscious of something. You-know, like ... to grok (5). You-grok?"

Daffodil Eleven: "Yeah I grok. But how do you know this?"

Softdoor: "I looked it up."

Daffodil Eleven: "Why?"

Softdoor: "I needed it."

Daffodil Eleven: "What for?"

Softdoor: "To perceive."

Page #10

Daffodil Eleven: "To perceive what?"

Softdoor: "Well, I could just say, to perceive "who I am," but it's really to perceive something Treegirl told me.

Daffodil Eleven: "Go-on."

Softdoor: "She said, 'What is perceived can not be the perceiver.' (1) Then she said that if I really understand those words that they would see me through to my very self.

You-know... like to the Other Side."

Daffodil Eleven: "THE other side?"

Softdoor: "Yeah."

Daffodil Eleven: "The place where truth lives?"

Softdoor: "Ah ...Ok."

Daffodil Eleven: "Where happiness is real?"

Softdoor: "Sure."

Daffodil Eleven: "Where all knowing is known?"

Softdoor: "Yes?"

Daffodil Eleven: "Heaven? Nirvana? Shangri-La?"

Softdoor: "Whatever!"

Page #11

Daffodil Eleven: "Homely-home of the Easter Bunny."

Softdoor: "Yeah, all that good stuff."

Softdoor: "But I think what Treegirl meant was that all that you perceive can not be you - because you, the real you, is that which is always perceiving, and never the thing perceived. Anything you can hold in your awareness can not be you because your awareness is separate from all things. Your awareness is not a thing. It comes from outside the world of things, from what we call The Other Side."

Softdoor: "That means that every thing; your name, your body, its face, your stuff, your memories, ideas and beliefs, your thoughts, even your mind is just another thing in your perception - held in your awareness."

Softdoor: "And You, the real You, are none of these things."

Page #12

Softdoor: "So who you think you are is just a cloud of ideas that your mind holds on to because it thinks that it - that collection of things - is all that there is to you. And all the while beyond that spinning cloud of thoughts, your awareness, vast and deep in peace, is going on and on ... as wide as the universe."

Softdoor: "And if you let go of that whole cloud of ideas about you, you would still be the vast space of your awareness - watching."

Daffodil Eleven: "'Wow. Space! The final frontier!'"

Softdoor: "You got that right."

Page #13

Softdoor: "So ... you want more?"

Daffodil Eleven: "I don't know. What's it good for, knowing this stuff? It's like one of those things people say. Like; when something's not around it doesn't exist. I mean, so-what? Like, where's the proof? And what's it good for?"

Softdoor: "You're right about that too. Knowing something is just more stuff, just another thing to float in the mind. But to experience ... that's what we want."

Softdoor: "Knowing all about the Northern Water Snake is nowhere near the same as being bit by one, right?"

Page #14

Daffodil Eleven: "Oh-yeah, Oh-Sure! Tell me about it! One of your better ideas."

Daffodil Eleven: "Though, I got to admit, I dig the scar he left."

Softdoor: "Yeah. But 'knowing something is only as good as your experience of it.'(7) Yeah?"

Daffodil Eleven: "Truth."

Page #15

Softdoor: "Now I gotta tell you, if your mind is doing the listening at this point you won't get what I'm about to say - what you'll get is ...bored because that is how the mind usually deals with truth. You must be Present beyond the mind to hear this, so take a deed breath and listen with your whole body."

Softdoor: "'The world is because you are.' (1) In other words there must be a perceiver - you - before there can be anything to perceive. You are the beginning and end of the universe that is You - you are your own God, within. I mean if experience is the true guide towards what is True, then this is true."

Softdoor: "And there is a second meaning under that grok, and that is that the world is the way it is because you perceive it that way. The world feels good because you feel good, the world is a problem if you perceive it as a problem."

Daffodil Eleven: "Yeah I know this too well, it's almost as if you have a choice what kind of world to live in."

Page #16

Softdoor: "You do choose! And what you choose attracts the same to you. The world gives true because you are true."

Daffodil Eleven: "Yes-I!"

Softdoor: (one hand lifted up high the other on her heart) "And in the words of the holy Milk-River 'The truth is not an idea beyond all other ideas, the truth is an experience.' (5) Can I get a witness!?"

Daffodil Eleven: (both hands high, palms up like a holy-joe) "Yes-I!"

Page #17

Softdoor: "And now that you know all this you'll begin to experience it more and more. That's the way it works. Your heart will be on the look-out for it. Treegirl says that the truth is like a virus, once you catch it, you are it."

Daffodil Eleven: "You're it!" (swatting Softdoor on the shoulder)

Softdoor: "Treegirl said that there are as many ways into that experience of Awareness as there are people to experience it. You could …follow your breath There or ride a sound There or you could see it There in a flower or you can literally feel your way There through the energy inside your body. There are a million ways just waiting to take you There."

Softdoor: "And using the word There is just a way of talking ... because There ...is here and now."

Page #18

Daffodil Eleven: "Ok, I hear ya, but why bother?"

Softdoor: "Why bother?! Why bother loving Wallie-dog? You just do! It as natural as bees to honey. You are drawn to Awareness because that is where all the good stuff in your life comes from! You goose!"

Softdoor: "The good stuff doesn't come from outside of you it comes from that silent awareness that is you, deep inside. It is the source of all your inspirations, your joys, your love and peace, all the good stuff. "

Softdoor: "And what do you think is the one thing that stands in the way of the full flow of the good stuff within you?"

Softdoor: "...Huh. Come to think of it, I've just told you the answer twice."

Daffodil Eleven: "Yeah-yeah I heard you. So thinking is the problem?"

Page #19

Softdoor: "Yes ...and no."

Softdoor: "Have you noticed that your mind won't shut-up, that it repeats thoughts endlessly, exhortingly. It is a Babble-box, and it can not stand silence. It gets all squirmy and jittery, or bored, the moment there is a deep quiet. It constantly judges and compares and is most happy when it has something to complain about. Oh-how-it-loves to complain! And it loves to be against something. That is its nature. And being such, it is no wonder that the world is in the state it's in - war is the natural state of the mind, and the mind runs the world."

Softdoor: "And what is the mind at war with?"

Softdoor: "Peace."

Softdoor: "Love."

Softdoor: "Life its VerySelf."

Daffodil Eleven: "Why?"

Page #20

Softdoor: "Because the Mind dissolves in the Presence of peace. It dissolves in the Presence of love. The mind is made up of only that which is known and knowable, and peace is not a knowable thing it is purely an experience, and so the mind fears its loss of control and ownership of you in the presence of peace. The mind is all about control and greed and fear."

Daffodil Eleven: "So what is fear?"

Softdoor: "Well fear is really a part of desire. Desire happens when the mind imagines a thing as part of itself, like; my food, my boyfriend, my beliefs, my thoughts, my things, my country, my religion. Mine all mine! Fear comes when that desire for a thing, which the mind imagines as part of itself by calling it 'mine,' is in some way threatened. The mind fears any loss of its imaginary self. It gets greedy and hoards things out of fear that it may lose some part of itself. The mind desires more - always more - to calm its fears. But the mind can never-ever get enough."

Page #21

Daffodil Eleven: "Wow, sounds like a demon."

Softdoor: "Yeah ...very! Way back before civilization began we were all like …animals. Happy just to be alive, to be living the Awareness of life itself. Easily gathering food, easily-living, easily-dying. Then something happened, some earth event, and we began to depend on the cleverness of mind to survive. Maybe food became scarce as our home in the Sahara became a desert. The mind then became a way of life. Greed and war became a way of life. The mind was born and grew in fear. The mind slowly took over our lives until we could no long feel, as the animals do, that vast awareness of peace beyond the mind. Today the mind dominates everything, and holds up a mask as itself, in fear of others. That mask that we call the ego."

Softdoor: "The ego is a small greedy character who is by nature contrary to everything, especially the experience of peace and love which desolves the ego by its very presence. The mind does not allow peace and love does not alow us to experience the essence of who we are. Today most of the world doesn't have a clue who they really are. Everywhere people are so sad and ugly for lack of love. They look outside themselves everywhere fighting and dying, complaining and blaming, all just to find love, and all the while it is right there under their mind, a vast and deep rich ocean of love that is who they really are."

Softdoor: "It's mind blowing."

Daffodil Eleven: "Ooh-sooo, that is how it all comes back to the question: 'Who am I,' right? If I am an Awareness that is not a thing, that can not be lost or found, that is always right-here and right-now, beyond the mind, and is actually the source of everything the mind is looking for, then the mind doesn't need to fear for any thing. The mind doesn't even need … to be."

Page #22

Daffodil Eleven: "Whoa!"

Daffodil Eleven: "How do you know this stuff? And how come I don't?"

Softdoor: "You don't read!"

Softdoor: "Treegirl gave me some books about it (6)."

Softdoor: "When was the last time you read a book? I mean there are some amazing things being discovered, and bigger things then war going on in the world right now, but you won't find them on the news, you've got to read to find them."

Page #23

Daffodil Eleven: "I read Batman."

Softdoor: "Yeah the Bat's cool. But even he, the greatest detective since Sherlock doesn't have a clue. The guy's been at war on a monthly basis for like 50 years. Yeech! What-a-rut! You'd think he might start wondering if maybe he is the problem."

Page #24

Softdoor: "But the mind is here to stay. And it's a good thing, when you know it for what it is. I mean, to blame the tool is so lame, and look how nice the mind is trying to be, it read all this stuff and told you all about it."

Daffodil Eleven: "Who's-a-goodgirl?!"

Softdoor: "It made our bikes. It made chocolate ice cream. It made movies. It made the USA. It's ...even-almost... given us equal rights."

Daffodil Eleven: "It made computers and cyberspace."

Daffodil Eleven: "And made Linky dink Zelda!"

Softdoor: "Ha!"

Softdoor: "The mind just needs to be guided by knowing its relationship to the truth. It just needs to know how to 'let go and surrender to what is.' (3)"

Daffodil Eleven: "And, 'what is' ... is what?"

Softdoor: "'What is', is what is experienced right now. Right now is that Awareness that is Present beyond your mind"

Daffodil Eleven: "Ok, mind can hang with us. But it better stay out of the way when we're having fun."

End

1. I Am That conversations with Nissargadatta
2. Who am I by Ramana Maharshi
3. A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
4. The Work lecture by Agnes Martin (holy Milk River)
5. Grok: meaning to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed like drinking in understanding such that the water becomes part of the drinker, and the drinker part of the water (as first used in the Robert Heinlein's novel Stranger in a Strange Land)
6. The Fall by Steve Taylor
7. Comrade-X