#Zen’s eyes are so mysterious and magnetizing

[lagoonalake]

Can you do zerobaseone ideal type to

ZEROBASEONE IDEAL TYPE

!!No reading for the maknae because he is still a minor!!

HANBIN

Personality: 9 of cups, temperance, the wheel of fortune

Very chill, light-hearted energy. I don’t hink he has a specific type that he is attracted to, he just wants something that feels good, that is relaxed, comfortable, where there is a feeling of calm, serenity, balance. But his type is still evolving and changing quite a lot. It’s like he’s discovering with each new experience his love style. It’s not codependent, it’s very light, very zen and about sharing and enjoying pleasures together. He’s also rather open to different types of people, different types of experiences in love.  sagittarius, pisces, jupiter, libra, aquarius

Appearance: king of wands, the hanged man, queen of swords

Rather proud looking haughty people, with have a certain class and prestige, could be attracted to a high status. Sophistication. I would say he’s easily impressed by beauty. More lavish, a bit extravagant trendy style, a lot of accessories, colors, make up. People who have an ethereal sort of beauty, a bit otherworldy, sleepy eyes, he likes the artistic idol look, with crazy hair colors, eye contact, the AI look. Rather tall and slender, long limbs.  leo, aquarius, pisces

Turn offs: the hermit, 9 of swords, the fool

People who are shy, who don’t open up, who never talk, people who are awkward, anxious, pessimistic. Party poopers, people who are too serious, who cannot enjoy the present moment. Either too mature or too childish and naive. People outside of his immediate environment. Overly “deep” and complicated people, he prefers someone more simple and light hearted.  negative cancer, capricorn, virgo, scorpio

JIWOONG

Personality: knight of pentacles, the devil, the sun, 5 of cups

This could be a specific person. On one hand there is someone with a rather calm, practical, slow moving, stubborn energy, rather discreet and modest. On the other hand there is the fast life linked with fame. And in the middle of it all is heartbreak. So I could see him being in a relationship with this non famous person, that matched him in many ways, grounded him, who was real too, with real love, real pleasures, simple but true. But he sort of fell for the temptations that come with fame, all the people throwing themselves at him, the attention…etc.   earth signs, leo, neptune

Appearance: temperance, the hermit, queen of pentacles

Very calm aura, grounded, earthy. Could be someone a bit older or just mature. Natural beauty, simplicity. Harmonious symmetrical balanced features, good proportions. Coziness, warmth, sensuality. Someone who looks both practical and spiritual, could be like a yoga teacher or something lol. Flexible feminine body. Comfortable in their own skin. Warm, rich, a bit darker colors. Soothing voice. earth signs, libra

Turn offs: 5 of swords, 8 of cups, 2 of pentacles

Here again I feel like I’m picking up on a specific energy, specific argument even that could be about money. He is more ambitious and wants to earn more and is ready to sacrifice some things while his partners may tend to be more simple, to be ok with having enough, but he wants more.  virgo, saturn, cancer, pisces

ZHANG HAO

Personality: high priestess, 6 of cups, queen of swords

Someone who is a bit mysterious, more introverted, secretive, magnetic, possibly who appears a bit cold on the outside but this would just mean that they have strong boundaries and would only let in someone special. Someone with a lot of depth, a lot of love to give, empathetic, a very calming, soothing healing sort of presence. Very calm. Intelligent, mature and interesting. Very elegant, alluring, feminine. Something untouchable about them. But once in the relationship the love would be very deep, unconditional, familiar, safe, a meaningful relationship. scorpio, saturn, libra, virgo, cancer

Appearance: page of cups, page of pentacles, the lovers

Even though when it comes to personality he is attracted to maturity, when it comes to looks, he likes a cuter, more youthful appearance. Small, round face. Small features, shorter height, petite stature. Someone who has a softness and kindness to their looks, a purity. Someone with a dreamy, artistic, romantic and also safe, calming, natural appearance. I see flowers, stars, very dreamy almost fantasy type of look but it’s also in nature, in a very cozy place. Soft skin. Colorful clothes, purple, pink, green, blue. Creative artistic fashion. Smells good, especially flowery perfumes. pisces, taurus, cancer, mercury, virgo

Turn offs: the magician, 2 of wands, knight of swords

Manipulators, people who are too chatty, the business type of people, always concerned with money, profit, that sort of enterprising spirit. People who are disconnected from their emotions, with no artistic sense, people who are blunt, lacking in empathy, tactless, unable to understand others or care about them, selfish, aggressive, impulsive, fast paced. Overly ambitious people. aquarius, gemini, capricorn, aries

SEOK MATTHEW

Personality: knight of swords, 6 of wands, 9 of swords

He likes people who he can get a strong reaction from. People who are a bit impulsive, easily triggered, whose emotions run high, even people who can worry easily, people who enjoy attention and who are a bit proud. I think it’s because he enjoys teasing them, and he likes when someone responds to him. Someone quick to react, with a rather active mind. Active body too, someone more action oriented. Who enjoys activities and going out. Someone who can be really fun too. He likes this bickering old couple sort of dynamic. aries, leo, gemini, virgo, sagittarius

Appearance: queen of swords, 2 of swords, the tower

Someone quite intimidating, haughty, who could even look a bit mean. When it comes to outer appearance very elegant, sophisticated and stylish. But you can feel passion and even aggression boiling just under the surface. The type who can be an ice queen most of the time and throw big tantrums from time to time. Something a bit explosive about their aura. They are trying to keep it under control but you can feel they are triggered. XD Lots of jewelry and luxurious items. Rather tall or appears tall. Pouty lips, that sort of Bratz doll mouth. aries, leo, libra, scorpio, mars

Turn offs: queen of pentacles, king of swords, the devil

People who are too serious, stoic and controlled, who don’t have any spontaneity. Someone manipulative, who is trying to control him. He wants to pull the strings! XD I don’t think he is so manipulative in an unhealthy way, he is more teasing and funny, but he doesn’t like when it goes the other way around, when someone is like that with him, he wants to be the one in control. Anyone too toxic or unhealthy.  saturn, capricorn, aquarius, pluto, negative scorpio

TAERAE

Personality: 7 of pentacles, 2 of wands, the star

I feel like his idea of relationships is mostly abstract and that he doesn’t really know exactly what he wants right now. But he would prefer to take it slow, so someone patient, observant, who would approach him carefully, he would probably want to feel the spark right away, but start off as friends. Yet he wants this person to be enterprising, to make the first step, to have a certain boldness, even if they would not force the relationship. Someone fun, inspiring, strong, confident, protective, positive who would give him hope and boost his confidence, and care for him, support him all the way. He would prefer his partner to be more experienced and the decision maker.  leo, aquarius, cancer, jupiter

Appearance: page of cups, 9 of cups, the emperor

A soft more masculine sort of appearance, someone who looks very chill, welcoming, kind, but also confident and relaxed. Short hair, big smile. Nice teeth. Relaxed fashion or style. Commanding presence, maybe a more powerful physique. More androgynous in appearance. Soft facial features, full lips, big eyes, tan and soft skin. The color blue, white, turquoise, purple dreamy watery colors.  pisces, taurus, aquarius, cancer

Turn offs: 5 of cups, 10 of cups, king of pentacles

Someone who wants to go too fast, who is too clingy, needy, codependent, he is not ready for a long term stable relationship right now. Maybe he had to turn down people who were very family oriented and traditional and wanted to build something long term with him, but it’s too early for him. So he would prefer someone more light hearted and who wouldn’t want to put any label to the relationship, something more free.  taurus, cancer, pluto, saturn

RICKY

Personality: 4 of wands, 5 of wands, the fool

Cards kept falling down so probably he likes something a bit chaotic! XD Definitely someone very fiesty, fun loving, who likes to party and who laughs a lot, very lively. Someone who is competitive too, hot headed, action oriented, sporty. Energetic, who enjoys a lot of activities. Someone very spontaneous, passionate, and everyday with them feels like a new beginning, never boring. The chemistry is what matters the most, he needs to feel that spark, and he doesn’t mind a bit of drama if it keeps the passion alive.  aries, sagittarius, leo, uranus

Appearance: 6 of pentacles, 6 of wands, 2 of wands

A more practical look, nothing too fancy. He prefers simplicity. Athleisure, mountain look, short hair or hair tied up in a bun, someone who looks like they are used to do things outdoors. Fit sturdy body, tan skin. A more natural look. Confident and mature. A bit fierce looking, strong eyebrows, sharper, stronger features. Warm coppery colors, brown, orange, red. mars, sagittarius, taurus, aries

Turn offs: ace of pentacles, 2 of pentacles, 3 of cups

Someone who is too focused on the practical, always thinking about money, only wants to do things that are useful, productive. Someone who never really loses control. Someone who is greedy and opportunistic. Someone who is a people pleaser. He also wants to feel the passion right away, so someone who appears to friendly lol, he needs that hot passion right off the bat. earth signs, libra, aquarius

GYUVIN

Personality: page of pentacles, the star, the high priestess

Someone very kind, helpful, feminine, soft, caring and practical. More discreet or shy, a bit mysterious. Positive. He could like a bookworm, think Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Someone who is doing their own thing, very compassionate, good with animals, who has a lot of culture and knowledge. Someone who is a bit spiritual or religious as well, who believes that something is looking out for them. Who would give him a lot of hope. A reassuring presence but at the same time someone he’d want to protect. Someone who likes to cuddle. virgo, pisces, cancer, jupiter

Appearance: 5 of cups, 7 of pentacles, queen of swords

Someone who looks a bit distant, melancholic, somber. Who could look a bit cold or even mean on the outside but he would feel that they are a wounded soul. Someone who is more of a loner, who doesn’t talk much, closed off body language. A more traditional asian beauty type, slender, pale skin, classy, long hair, clean looks, elegant, refined. Almond shaped eyes. capricorn, virgo, scorpio,  aquarius

Turn offs: justice, page of wands, the hierophant

Someone who puts a lot of pressure on him, demands that he is perfect, is making all the decisions, is hypercritical, cold, punishing, acts like a parent, a figure of authority or a manager. He also doesn’t like someone either too adventurous, immature or unreliable or either too traditional, controlling, structured, he needs a balance of both.  negative capricorn, sagittarius, saturn, taurus, aquarius

GUNWOOK

Personality: queen of wands, 7 of swords, the high priestess

He could be a bit impressionable and naive in relationships, because he tends to be attracted to tricksters, people who hide their true self or true intentions, who appear to him as very charismatic and over the top, could love bomb him. People with narcissistic tendencies, who could try to gaslight him so they have him under their influence. People who talk a lot of BS, who lie or distort the truth, exaggerate things to make themselves appear more impressive. People who can be domineering and arrogant, who don’t take no for an answer.  negative sagittarius, leo, gemini, cancer, scorpio

Appearance: king of cups, queen of swords, 10 of pentacles

He is easily impressed by status, money or a strong, intimidating aura. Someone who could even look a bit fierce, cold, mean, but who has very magnetic intense eyes. A touch of darkness in their aesthetic. Luxurious brands, jewelry. Could prefer older partners. Someone who looks a bit extravagant or who has a signature sort of look. This could be a specific energy I’ve been picking up for him since the start of the reading.  taurus, capricorn, scorpio

Turn offs: 8 of swords, page of pentacles, 7 of cups

Insecurity, shyness, someone who hides themselves from the world, who is more simple, humble in the way they present themselves and the life they want. Someone outside of the entertainment industry or who isn’t part of the elite. A misfit. Someone insecure who lacks confidence and self sabotage. With the 7 of cups showing up at the end, I feel like this is a clear indication that he is caught up in an illusion. He can’t see what’s behind the splendor of fame, money, luxury…etc. saturn, neptune, uranus

#zerobaseone #zb1 #kim jiwoong #sung hanbin #zhang hao #seok matthew #kim taerae #ricky #kim gyuvin #park gunwook #kpop tarot #kpop reading #zerobaseone tarot #zb1 tarot #zb1 ideal type #zerobaseone ideal type

[madmonkeydisorder]

Enthermal vision warmer layer seen outline bright sunny halo over our holy heads in Castle Park when you toss and Cheng position I try to fit in your energetic body balancing me golden cosmicro in makro pixel led lighted gelly smooth interactive glass on cell phone I touch thinking about your punkt G in pineal gland crystalline under grounded inside headspace secret cave I want to find your mysteries you hide deep down to protect state of mind but you not aware beautyfic holy communion we made in meeting points crossroads our lifelines met not by coincidence but by god manic episode I write script to encode imprint on the nervous core rooted into eternal source of the universe power of creation in the Eden garden when we were planted there to grow pro achieving fifth element fitted under elektronikal systemically recharging elektro power chargear I reset mindset on receiving magnetic electro field effecting me so realistical mistical mental enterprise suprise me I cleans myself being suppressed I expressed lifting the cover through the slits leaking light brightly sourround the darker side of town wild side baby cmon lay your eyes on me listen my bass line extract tracking base see my eternal racing overthinking cloud in twisted whistle so loud exhale commenting expressive chemical calories supporting muscles workout my brain electric top up when plug in the portal to upload Warholizm meeting basquiaty quiet echo logon on your personalized awesome profile.

You see you can see my fifth dimension portal trespasser who went on mental stroll to find the pi in sacred pattern focus magic eye overseer role play in the game I don’t play but I write the script in holy book I’m thin white Duke I’m van dyke I try to press your highest dream chasing technique when you sleep keep measure surrealist Salvatore Dali dream sick psychedelic disorder your mind exposed on backgrounds astral gold mine order reordering the state installations installations updated system changing encoded enigmat your mystic holy Impressionism in silent elrktronism magnific beautific meaning give to me I believe you mean so much to the timeline I describe on planetary impact my Buddah reincarnation in Zen golden scales balancing proportions troubled personality monkey disorder bring chaos turning things around tossing the network reworking connections exchanging surprise mixed influences in extra erotic romance we got but you reject me I represent art movement face expression cyber daft punk running the dope show related wordosis dispute monologos explaining indefinite essential absolute we create together scaling extremity in mythic romance feminist king under your control I am transcendancing alone among the monks on disco court observations on moving on body my dyke identitication in self realisation over nine year meditation in solitudes of my circumstances mirror on your implanted by aliens experiment installed in nuthouse episode I already overrun redoing Blade Runner slide on rainbow blades sharp Gillette razors my super trainers immunization upgrade personal experience I use this incarnation to save the progress in the game this universe play dices in god mode cheating like pro invisible superwoman extrancendental journey to the centre of the universal mind excellence intelligence influence stimulation motivation to get to the key hole dark room this steampunk vintage lamp striking free electric spark jumping in ping to reflect the oldschool serverses vertical symmetric insight imaginarium laboratorium research progress describing perception transparent entitlement to summary art surrealia teoria my work in progress I explain the essentials to draw silver arrows of timeless pattern on reality wallpaper I graze amazed in perception expansion in extension reaching oriental sci fy subjectivity operating systeaming overthinking machinery my headspaced outside insider operator the crane of my psycho synthesis simulacra respirate the city psycho Locoation I oversee in personal experience monk monkey king bring Morpheus rolled up chill out in the sunbath rays burning gold bridges on elektronikal synthesatorium in expressing pressure pressing surealien invasion overlooking back to the future real possibilities growing in proportions available to my enhanced IQ overseer encoded in key word gold setting zooming the combo booster in kung fu sick kick zenith in Solaris golden yellow shine bright confetti sprinkle over again celebrating game is over! War is over! See peace still passing on rolled joint sharing is caring bring me chilling feeling healing therapy I’m talking about you need to get my target so easy to get so great so high I offer you chill out listen the sound my voice is racing on super speed no limits no no no don’t stop me now I’m having such a good time!

Join me enjoy the joy you share joint adventure sending me thc download incubating receptory electro system wired inside brains receiving injection balancing missed substantial proportion infused into nervous system repairing damages and blockages in circulation refreshing quality infused impulses inserting energy flowing hardcore encoded star seed code deciphering numerologos login onto glassy reality thickness I research in many ways measuring in libran quality control professional obsession to save the holy text on the Wall etheric magic spelling out the scroll I imprint matrix rebirth of myth as Phoenix who inflict the flames firewall building resistance immunization my Neo ideological personal interpretation in cultural icon I exist myself included instance instant metaphor in subjective analytic metaphysical Poematrix I compose impossible mission my soul purpose detection inspection on official documentary schizoideal superego magnetic magnific extraterrestrial subtle energymnastic akctivation on simulator projecting visualizator my imaginarium laboratory research accidental LSD infusion through discovery of last century I follow the summons serving hippie sentiments my upbringing bring out the past present continues I set up machinery of world atom clock to perpetuum mobile phone ring stoned mind instrumental supersonic sound cut up laser beaming knife tearing up new design on the fabric knitted molecules infused intense scent my nose smell rosary warm wood in holy visionary pixel concentrated retro installation rescue in formalized programming excellent progress on computers writing programmatic futuristic supelatereal language C+++ installed in bios remedy in advanced patch on top of the newest Technika. I realize zen insane mind game over welcome the door open your mind take a seat in first person point of view sending ping to see connection with server version restored vision my mission impossible series installations Hollywood productions inc presents on silver screen that sick kicking king in the ring with Mohammed Ali mentality taken from super manic fighting techniques I used to practice in berserk level expert cockblocker dyke who bounce you out but these days my older experience in street games I service mime mimicking silence enjoy the silence my synthesator reduce harm the word strong bard skill in TRex extra position on scale allowed spectrum repulsion intros replays syntethic sound healing loopholes torn in fabric of the universe knitted spiderweb net trap sticky linear sequence reactor in chemotorisation engine steaming overrides the machinerium rusty hydraulic pumping heated clouds infused moleculear egoism uprising top secret coded trick to break enigma code in The Codexenigmat exe file extended copy master copy in txt doc enter bios bioshock hacking system operative function manipulating settings programator generating outcome reproduce copies spare version inversion reversing the password pass the joint get down make love get down with sound hit the ground around the drumming beat repeating buzzer beater heating up atmosfera transferring the meaning condensed essence locked lock in block double blocking unlocking super plant implant blueprint in soul fault code transcript set by ancient gods reproduction human micro manic nickel magic ring I got from wizard dessert man who sold me ring to save my kingdom progress to explain main domain my mental disorder the new world order in my own order I got that spelling out hot spot smoking pot robotic automatic reboot of the system upgraded I signed the rights in my defense explaining meaning in nonbinary source coded logos numeric scales balances zero pointing you the one in contrast in mathematic rationality understanding the aksjomaty filozofic thinking streaming informatic insight straight through lightning cord transferring electric pulsation in nervous system circulation in mind control switchboard on commander chair pole position requesting salvation our friendly aliens invaders provide in subatomic structural repair DNA key noted thinking text

#writing #the matrix #diary #poematrix #philosophy #dark electro #synthwave #synthesis

[rnm-magic-space-xsd]

Zenny (Twitter)

#Zen #mystic messenger #Zen x MC #LambPa #I love the way you drew their eyes! #Zen’s eyes are so mysterious and magnetizing #and our eyes are so bright and clear! like honey!

[parablesoftheone]

Zhuangzi investigates: Why don’t people react to Ginko’s appearance more?

 One of the most subtle yet impossible-not-to-notice threads running through Mushishi is the way people respond to Ginko—or rather, don’t. Many of those he encounters, even the blatantly superstitious, seem to never register the fact that he’s, you know, kind of odd-looking. Several fail to betray even the slightest puzzlement or wariness at the sight of a probably-twenty-something Japanese man with white hair and a single green eye, even if they’ve already encountered and been spooked by the supernatural. Watch, for example, Zen in S1 E13 “One-Night Bridge,” or the pair of highly nervous old ladies in S1 E14 “Inside the Cage.” 

In cases where Ginko does seem to make people nervous, other factors explain it, and his weird looks never come up. Even those whose reactions to him suggest they might have noticed slide swiftly past it, and this in a cultural environment where a mysteriously appearing child is at risk of being called a demon (S2 E13 “Lingering Crimson”).

Subtle facial expressions and behaviors are clearly well within Yuki Urushibara’s artistic scope, so what is going on with this recurring blind spot?

Zhuangzi has a possible answer to this little puzzle: Inner Chapters 5 tells us that for those who possess de, “virtue,” their physical appearances will simply go unnoticed (pg. 104). 

Before unpacking that wild claim, I’ll first let Zhuangzi explain Daoist “virtue.” The righteous and puritanical connotations that this word carries for us Western-thinking folk are misleading. According to Zhuangzi’s Inner Chapters 5 (tr. Feng and English):

“Life and death, profit and loss, failure and success, poverty and wealth, value and worthlessness, praise and blame, hunger and thirst, cold and heat—these are natural changes in the order of things. They alternate with each other like day and night. No one knows where one ends and the other begins. Therefore, they should not disturb our peace or enter into our souls. Live so that you are at ease, in harmony with the world, and full of joy. Day and night, share the springtime with all things, thus creating the seasons in your own heart. This is called achieving full harmony. ... Virtue is the attainment of perfect harmony.” (pg. 103)

"Virtue” is remaining centered, being untroubled by the shifting externalities of human affairs or the natural world. It’s the mindset that is the goal of Daoist practice—or, in Ginko’s case, the organic result of living a life within nature and outside the entanglements and distractions of human societies.

Of course, as Hall and Ames remind us, in the Daoist worldview everything is in motion and entails its opposite, and harmony is no exception:

“The notion of jing 靜—stillness, tranquility—that is often used to characterize this posture, far from being simple passivity, is an ongoing, dynamic achievement of equilibrium... Thus, tranquility (jing) stands in a dominant relationship in its partnership with agitation (dong 動); it does not negate or exclude its opposite.” (pg. 40)

It’s fair enough to say that Ginko doesn’t always remain in a state of “perfect harmony” (and wouldn’t he be less interesting if he did?), but then, in Daoism there’s no assumption that he should—quite the opposite. What lives moves, and we join perfect harmony only when we die and return to our original, undifferentiated state. But it can’t be denied that Ginko lives in a state of “dominant tranquility.” It takes a lot (a matter of life and death, usually) to jog him away from the center, and once jogged, he quickly returns to it.

The effect of such a mindset on external perceptions is no small part of Zhuangzi’s Inner Chapters 5. Pretty much the entirety of this chapter describes a succession of men who have achieved “virtue.” All of them are to some degree strange-looking, and one is even described as “hideous enough to scare everything under heaven” (source, pg. 100) (for which such rudeness Ginko certainly doesn’t qualify). Yet, despite the thick-headedness of some politicians and of course of Confucius, the people surrounding these adepts repeatedly either fail to notice or fail to care, or even begin to see others as strange-looking by comparison. These men attract heads of state; they attract women—with “ten or more such cases” of young women begging their parents to let them become the concubines of the “hideous” guy (pg. 100).

Chick magnet.

Explaining all this madness at the chapter close, Zhuangzi writes,

“... when goodness shines forth, the outward appearances are forgotten. We do not forget what ought to be forgotten, but forget what ought not be forgotten.” (pg. 104)

The message of Inner Chapters 5 is that our inner lives matter more than our appearances, to such an extent that for those who cultivate "virtue,” their appearances will be dismissed by anyone who can detect it—even if they look weird as hell.

Doubtful? I’ll close with one more suggestive instance: In “Pretense of Spring,” Ginko seeks shelter with Suzu, a young woman who lives alone with her little brother, and who is plainly nervous about opening the door to a stranger at night. But she does, and invites Ginko in almost instantly. Seeing him makes her less nervous, not more. (And, like Masumi, Suzu also develops a crush on Ginko... probably a good thing he doesn’t hang around high population centers that often.)

So, going by this Zhuangzian reading, the people who fail to notice Ginko’s appearance may signpost that he possesses what the men of Inner Chapters 5 possess: a state of centeredness powerful enough that, like the mushi, it sometimes flickers across the threshold from the invisible to the visible and becomes a blinding distraction. 

#mushishi #ginko #zhuangzi

[lyranstarwriter-blog]

Top 10 Compelling Golden Age of Aquarius Starseed Civilizations to visit for a Galactic Vacation

 

If you were every curious about whether we were ever alone in the universe, well forget about it because these civilizations will make you long for a galactic passport. The Universal Tree of Life will be calling souls awake and home with each amazing and unique abilities only found in the stars. If you ever felt

different, an outcast, or just simply weird, you can relate to one or more of these

great civilizations. In a world in need of great soul healing, galactic vacations seem

perfect and exactly what the doctor ordered. So, strap in with your Akashic record

and soul travel like never before.

1. Lyrans exude an adventurous Feline fire spark

 

Their main planet is Vega and it is like having a cat island in higher dimensions. If you enjoy hard work like construction or using your Peloton every day, then this might be the spot for you. Grounded and athletic, traveling here will pique your natural intuitive curiosity to explore. After all that work you will want to sleep forever in their stars and never look back. Being the center of attention is easy here and bringing your independent

fire will make you feel right at home among this civilization.

 

2. Agarthans turn Inner Earth into a rave

 

There is a lot than meets the eye to Hollow Earthy theory. If you love the

Earth and protecting the environment, this is your spot. Just do not be afraid of the Inner Earth folk like faeries and elves and you will be fine. If you ever wanted to relive the Lord of the Rings, then inner Earth’s qualities are for you. While having strong connection to Earth’s cycles and catastrophes can be a bit daunting, you will never think twice about your decision as wonders and ancient secrets await.

 

3. Procyans know life has wealth in the sun

 

Ever think “why don’t I ever get a minute to relax,” well now you can as Procyans know the simple things in life matter more than we think, such

as exercise, sun, rest, and physical health. Always running around worrying about deadlines lowers your energy and makes in harder to attune to yourself. They advocate for the enjoyment of life and what better way to

take a vacation than by full acceptance of enjoyment. If you have your head

in Earth but your soul longs for a mental and spiritual reprieve, then join this civilization to let go of your duality ego easily and breathe again. If you

do not like the corporate world and master money by giving it away, you will love the Procyans.

 

4. Nordics live long while being environmentally sound

 

If you want to live over 1,000 years and love ecological and sociological concerns, then visiting their Pleiadian star cluster and Plejaren home world Erra will give you everything you are looking for. Many Nordics also come from the Taurus constellation called the Seven Sisters, as many Native Americans have described in detail. Some ancient Nordics also come from Lyrae and are generally worried about the welfare of Earth and environmental sustainability. Tree huggers and green thumbs are welcome.

 

5. Alpha-Centaurians love being protectors and point out negative forces

 

If you want that Star Wars or Star Trek experience, these Alphas live and breathe these adventures. As strong protectors and caregivers, they are fearlessly identifying negative energies so your every day with them will feel like a Jedi. While being highly technical and analytical, they would rather transform theories into scientific practical application. They may also appear as loners in relationships, so if you love that “me time” then they are perfect for you.

 

6. Spicans live like they are on an island with no distractions or computers

 

If you want nothing but peace, serenity, calm, and feelings of true oasis, then Spica in the Virgo Constellation brings the energy you seek. While being super sensitive to electro-magnetic energy, you will not have to worry about pesky gadgets or computers affecting your much needed zen. Quiet and serene energetic waves will bounce around you and from you, making your chances of enlightenment and ascension that much greater.

 

7. Nihals can see through lies, fear, and never bow to authority

 

If your inner rebel is looking for an ideal location, yet you value an unrestrictive approach to exploration and life, then the constellation of Lepus or Beta Leporis may be perfect for you. Highly psychic and with third eyes wide open, their whole worlds are blue from within, the sixth chakra indigo activated. If you are looking for an unconventional vacation with no limits, challenging the status quo, while looking to better yourself and the world around you then get your soul passport quick for here.

 

8. Aldebarans THE peaceful galactic librarians of consciousness

 

You know the phrase “I wonder what it's like being in two places at once,” well these humanoid or crystalline form beings can do both. As holders of the records of galactic consciousness, you can tap into an abundance of knowledge and wisdom, all while being posh in plasma or humanoid form. If you want to feel alive with high electrical alignment yet upgrade your consciousness like a galactic librarian, their crystal garden awaits you.

 

9. Sirians as a soul way station with profound galactic variety

 

The movie Star Wars was partly based on the Orion wars involving the Sirians and Dracos. The Orion cluster contains a plentiful variety of 21-star systems with immense collection of genetic resources. Sirians also helped with the great pyramids and temples for Egypt and visited the Mayans. So, after mastering one planetary realm on a soul level, you can jump to Sirius to enhance your soul mission. Whether you are physical or non-physical, you can easily master astronomy and other advanced technology, all while basking in the brilliance of being in a wonderful cosmic melting-pot the whole universe knows about and will never forget.

 

 10. Blueprinters are master soul designers yet are a complete mystery

 

Have you ever heard of Blueprinters? Yea neither have I! Yet they are the architects of our soul blueprints and Earth’s blueprint as well. Imagine receiving a divine mandate from mission control and then actually working to transform those mandates into working ideas, aesthetic aspects, and technical specs like chakra systems or unique energy grids. They are the ones that came up with the Earth experiment and work to restore it, getting the attention of negative forces too. Blueprinters know we are capable of extraordinary abilities, but humans have forgotten. The Golden Age is all about the restoration of this original blueprint. If you feel you need to be of service to Earth during this amazing shift into the Golden Age of Aquarius, the Blueprinters make energy grids and world building a masterpiece.

 

©Sonja York (Lyranstarwriter)

#starseed #galactic #articles #writing #soul #ascension #age of aquarius #golden age

[simonlovelazy]

Saeran/Reader Halloween Fic

This is my very late contribution to the Halloween craze!!!

(Hey, it’s still Halloween here, ok?)

Title: The One Without a Costume

Fandom: Mystic Messenger

Pairing: Saeran/ Reader, Saeran/You

Tags: Teen and up audiences, mostly crack, attempt at writing something hot lol

Word count: 2452

Summary: You have a theory about people going to costume parties without costumes, but maybe Saeran will manage to change your mind?

takes place somewhere in the secret endings or whenever you want it to

   AO3 link

  The One Without a Costume

You would need way more fingers to count how many times you've heard the good old "don't judge a book by its cover" speech. But there is at least one situation when the rule does not apply. If you're at a costume party, a Halloween costume party to make the sin of dullness even more pronounced, and see a guy sporting his casual clothes, you know exactly what kind of story he is.

        You wait for Halloween the way kids wait for their Christmas gifts, and you’d happily buy yourself an Advent calendar counting down the days of October instead of December, but you don’t think anyone has ever come up with an idea to produce one. You always think what you’re going to dress up as in advance; it takes days to gather the supplies and fabrics, and then even more days (and nights) to sew and glue things together. While the process in itself is a joy, the costume party is the crowning moment, and this you enjoy the most.

          Some people can’t spend so much time or money on their costumes, or they simply don’t care as much as you, and it’s perfectly fine. A bandage mummy and a sheet ghost are not a repelling view – you enjoy the last-moment costumes and giggle at these conveying a pun.

        But the ones without a costume? They don’t attend these parties to have some fun, no, they’re here to announce how much they despise dressing-up, you, and the notion of having fun altogether. Excuse me, sir, but is this too much fun for you? Should we turn the music down? Or maybe, take our stupid costumes and get out?

        You shift from foot to foot. Who would have thought your mouth would turn into the Sahara after a song or two of dancing (and violent singing along)? And this guy! He isn't even pouring himself the damn punch!

        That's it. You readjust your protruding fang, grab a hold of your cloak, and march in the direction of the notorious punch-stirrer with a sense of dignity, head held up high.

        The tactic is to intimidate him with your sheer presence, so without a word, you stand next to him and wait. You have to give him that – even if nothing says “to hell with Halloween” more than a basic black and white raglan t-shirt, the atmosphere around him is saturated with gloom. You’re almost grateful he’s ignoring you and hasn't even looked up from the damn bowl. If his stiff posture and silent determination in stirring can be any determiners, his glare must kill on the spot.

        And so he looks up. "What?"

        You gasp.

        You were right about intensity of his stare. But boy, are his eyes a spooky surprise! One gold and one mint eye narrow at you. The only thing today you expected less than this was the guy who suddenly detached his hand and threw it across the room, scoring well-deserved three points and a little round of applause when it slapped the host across his beautiful face.

        Oh, and also:

        "You look just like this dude running around in a dress! The one with wings and a halo."

        He closes his eyes, letting out a heavy sigh.

        "Take what you need and go away."

        You do a once- over at the table. Melting ghost-cupcakes, cookies with yellow pumpkins made of watery icing, and... you actually don't know what cups of dirt are supposed to resemble, or if they're edible at all. Really makes you wonder how much Zen splurged on catering this year.

        "Yeah, but no, just wanted something to drink. Are you done with this?" you ask, pointing at the punch. He hasn't let go of the ladle for a single moment.

        "No," he answers with a scowl. "Still haven't found it."

        "Found what?"

        "My other lens."

        Suddenly you're not thirsty anymore. How do you lose a contact lens in a bowl of punch is a mystery you don't venture to solve.

        "Are you going to put it back in your eye when you find it?"

        He actually dumps the ladle and throws you the most incredulous look you've ever been gifted. He has quite a repertoire of glares, you must say.

        "No."

        "Then, why not forget about it and enjoy the party? But first, maybe flush the whole thing down the toilet, 'cause if someone chokes himself to death, I'll be the first one to point at you to the cops."

        "At least if someone chokes, we’ll have one convincing ghost in here," he says half-smiling, which suits him in a devilish kind of way. And he’s kinda right – the ghost girls in short skirts may be cute, but they have small chances to scare anyone present.

        You're about to make a brilliant remark when he grabs the massive vessel and walks off.

        "Come on, you'll open the door for me," he throws without turning his head, and you find yourself scurrying behind him before you have the time to question it.

The trip isn't long which isn't surprising considering the size of the apartment. The problem is that there are more people squeezed on one square metre than it should be physically possible, and still more and more guests pours in and, naturally, at least half of the gathering is partying in the line to the bathroom. There's Aladdin and his Carpet (she's not having a good time, you can tell), a promiscuous cat, three colourful feathery beings, and yes, you have found Wally, and guessing by the colour of his face, he really needs to go in asap.

        "Kitchen?"

        "Kitchen."

When the punch is finally gone in the kitchen sink, or more precisely, spluttered all over the mountains of the dirty dishes (still no signs of the lens to be seen), you start shifting uncomfortably. It must be a Halloween miracle (or rather a trick of fate) because there’s no one in the kitchen save for you and the guy without a costume.

        Only the muted echoes of music reach in here, so when you clear your throat, the sound is deafening. “I think I should go now.”

        “Why so fast? Is anyone waiting for you?” he asks. He's leaning on the counter, the tap behind his back letting out droplets like a metronome. One silence, two silences, three silences...

        In the pale light of the full moon, seeping through the window on the side, the shadows on his face become more pronounced and sinister. Even though he's not wearing a terrifying disguise, or any disguise at all, he gets a shiver out of you.

        “I came here with a friend.”

        “But?” he initiates, raising an eyebrow. Maybe he noticed how you were dancing alone on the makeshift dance floor.

        “But the last time I saw her, she was getting handsy with a werewolf in the parking lot.”

        He hums thoughtfully. “She shouldn't have left you alone.”

        It may be an attempt at consolation, but the way he says it earns another shiver from you. Was his voice low like this earlier?

        You step back to lean on the fridge and fold your arms, trying to mirror his casualness.“What are you doing here, anyway? You don't strike me as a costume-party animal.”

        “Wasn't really my choice. I had to come because I'm in the same organisation as our Zen.”

        The only organisation that comes to your mind is the RFA, but again, he doesn't look like a guy doing charity work. Not that you have time to mull it over with him lazily leaving his spot and coming in your direction.

        Suddenly you understand the infamous toil of breathing in a corset.

        “And you? A musical actor, perhaps?” he asks, jumping on a counter next to the fridge. You don't like how his new spot allows him to look down at you.

        For a terrible second you think the hand he's reaching out will be placed somewhere on you, and you freeze in both panic and anticipation. You only allow yourself to breath out when it lands above your head and starts playing with magnets.

        It’s hard to tell if he's playing with you or being clueless.

        What was the question again?

        “Haha, no. The werewolves-favouring girl is. I'm just the unnecessary plus one.”

        He takes his hand away from the fridge, visibly pleased with the rearranged magnetic letters. You twist your neck to see better, and surely enough, they spell some nasty words. How old is he?

        A warm breath tingles your exposed skin where the high collar has slid down a little, the stranger still hovering above your head. You will yourself to face him again, but then, oh Lord, his playful smirk can't mean anything good.

        This time his hand aims for you, you can tell by how his funny eyes never leave your face. He's not hurrying anywhere, and you can't stand the anticipation; it's hard to stand still as he closes the distance between you even more, ever so slowly.

        Against your better judgement, you pucker up your lips, but his hand doesn't cup your face like you hoped it would. Instead, he gets the hold of your chin with his thumb, and the next thing you know, the soft pad of his index finger traces the outline of your lips. He brushes your cupid's bow with a feathery-like delicacy, grazes your bottom lip, and pushes it slightly down. You open your mouth just a little, paying no heed to the gasp escaping it in the process, and only then you realise that the poking out fang has been painfully biting on your lip the whole time.

        “I wouldn't say–”

        “Saeran!” Someone turns all the lights on. “Stop hiding out like that, my costume is incomplete without you!”

        You jump away from said Saeran, adjust the collar of your cloak in the name of decency, and wholeheartedly hope that your pale make-up manages to cover the blush underneath.

        Saeran's clone creeps in the threshold, clutching a hem of his white gown with an unexpected skill and grace.

        “Oh! Am I interrupting something?” he asks innocently, but comes a couple steps closer to the two of you.

        “Yes, yes, you are!” Saeran growls, straightening. You can't help but share his annoyance. What it was exactly and where it was going – you don't know – and now, you may never get the chance to find out.

        “Sorry~” Saeran's clone wears a mischievous grin which doesn't quite match the halo on his head. “At least put on these,” he says, throwing something in your general direction. Only when Saeran catches it, you can take a better look. It's a head-band with devil's horns attached to it.

        So he has a costume, after all. Not the most elaborate, but still better than nothing. He doesn’t look too keen to wear it, though.

        "No horns, no party!” the one in a dress yells enthusiastically.

        "I’ll choose ‘no party,’ then."

        "Not an option! Sorry, I’m not the one making the rules. So, suit up and come – let's get this party started with some conga line, whaddya say?” he's about to leave when he turns around once more, “The vampire princess is also invited~”

        And with the last wiggle of his eyebrows, the dress-clad guy is gone.

        You snatch the horns from Saeran's hands – it's the cheap-plastic kind of deal you can get at any festival. And surely enough, you find the switch. The glowing red horns land on his head, sticking out almost seamlessly from his dishevelled red locks.

        “And now you too?” He tries to throw it off, but you stop him.

        “Oh, c’mon! Make my millennium.” You step back a little to give him an assessing look. “Suits you.”

        Saeran shakes his head in a feigned disbelief, “There’s a special spot in hell for sinners like you.”

        “I’d love to find out what you’d do to me if I got there, but I’m afraid I’m immortal.” You say in, what you hope is, a seductive whisper.

        From this angle, the red lights glimmer in his eyes like a warning.

        “We'll have to make do with the time we have tonight,” he says.

        It must have been flirting done right because he grabs you by your waist, bringing you closer to him.

        “Wanna get out of here, princess?” he murmurs to your ear, the timbre of his husky voice shattering your facade of composure.

        You only manage to hum in response, but it’s enough, and soon you find yourself lead out the kitchen and through the crowd of sweaty bodies, his hand never letting go of yours. Adrenaline rushes through your veins as you’re looking around afraid that Saeran’s brother will appear in front of you to ruin the fun.

        It’s been a while since you’ve done something spontaneous, and somehow Saeran seems to be a perfect person to be irresponsible with. God, you needed this. You run and giggle at how stupid it is that you’re dressed up as a vampire and yet feel so alive.

        When you finally reach the door, you still keep an eye on the surroundings, making sure you’re out of radar range while Saeran is skimming trough the overflowing hallstand. You came here wearing only your cloak, but something tells you, you won’t be cold tonight. He finally pulls out his leather jacket from underneath the tons of other clothes, but he’s not done there until he fishes out car keys from some other jacket’s pocket.

        “It’s not yours, is it?” you ask, but he only smiles in a truly devilish way and goes out.

        Yes, definitely, he’s not the bore you took him for. The party hasn’t even started yet.

        You only catch him up at the end of the staircase leading out of this weird underground apartment. He pushes the door open, ready to go into the night, knowing that you’ll follow, but you tag at his arm stalling him in place.

        “No, wait!”

        He turns to you with an adorably puzzled look, and you do the only logical thing. His jacket isn’t zipped up, it barely hangs on him, and it’s almost too easy to stand up on your toes and aim where every vampire would. The contact ends in a blink, but leaves you gasping for breath.

        Your dark lipstick leaves a mark on his pale neck. He looks pleased, but still very much puzzled, and the recognition lights up in his eyes only when you jingle the keys in his face.

        “I’m driving.”

~~

On that day, Yoosung promised himself that under no circumstances will he ever take care of party snacks again.

#mysme #mystic messenger #saeran #saeran choi #saeran/reader #saeran/you #mystic messenger fanfiction #mysme fanfic #halloween #mysme halloween #saeyoung's good end #saeyoung choi #yoosung kim #zen #simonsaysread

[mystic-messenger-writing]

Rfa + v + saeran with an MC who is a mystery magnet (hence her getting caught up in the RFA). She's like one of those characters from mystery shows. Everywhere she goes, everything she does, she inevitably ends up falling into some sort of mystery, usually one with danger and/or life-threatening peril involved. She always comes out alright in the end and solves the mystery, but even when she tries to stay away from them, she always ends up involved in a mystery somehow.

You’re bringing back the nostalgia for me anonny! I was totally into all kinds of mystery type things when I was younger like Scooby-Doo and mystery book series! This was a super fun request so I hope that you enjoy!! :D

Yoosung

Yoosung thinks that you’re just like a character out of a mystery story, and he’s hyped

He doesn’t think that he’s brave, so Yoosung likes to tag along with you when you’re wrapped up in a mystery

But since he’s intelligent, Yoosung turns out to be a valuable asset whenever you need help cracking a tough puzzle

Yoosung gets terrified whenever the two of you get into some dangerous mysteries

But he sees this as a chance to show that he’s become braver and Yoosung has helped you in multiple cases, helping build his self-esteem

Yoosung feels like he’s in a real-life video game whenever he goes on mystery cases with you, he thinks that it’s a fun time plus it helps bond the two of yours relationship

Zen

Zen says that you’re the picturesque image of a person who gets involved in mysteries because he played the role of a detective in a musical before

He gets really into it claiming that helping you with mysteries will help him with his acting

But what Zen fails to realize is just how dangerous some of the mysteries you get into really are

So now Zen tells you that he has to go with you so he can be your knight in shining armor and to make sure that you don’t get hurt

Zen’s better at identifying criminals from their looks rather than the puzzling aspect to mystery cases

He becomes majorly supportive and protective of you, always making you promise to take him along to make sure that you’re safe

Zen finds your mystery cases fun, but he always makes it a priority to get you both home safe and starts calling you his mystery princess

Jaehee

Jaehee dismisses it whenever you tell her that you’re essentially a mystery magnet

To prove her own point, Jaehee goes along with you on one of your alleged ‘mystery’ cases only to have her mind blown

She had no idea just how dangerous things could get and she honestly starts fearing for both yours and her own life

You reassure her that you always come out of things alive and healthy, but you always do inevitably get into danger

Jaehee makes you promise to always take her with you in cases since she can protect you

She usually ends up being the one to apprehend the bad guys because of her awesome judo skills

While she’s still skeptical and worried about your mystery cases, Jaehee knows that it’s something you can’t really avoid and vows to stay with you and to always protect you

Jumin

Jumin has already found you to be a mysterious person, so he’s not that surprised to learn that you’re a mystery magnet

In fact, he’s more curious than anything, believing it so be some kind of commoner tradition to go out on mysterious cases

He decides to go with you on one of the cases and even starts to consider it fun

That is until Jumin realizes how dangerous your mystery cases are then oh no Jumin’s not having it

Jumin doesn’t mind if you still continue doing these cases, if it makes you happy then good, but he only wants you going if he can go along plus at least fifteen bodyguards

He’s best whenever you need to help interrogate people during your mystery cases because who wants to mess with Jumin?

Jumin never would have thought that his favorite way to spend time with you would be through solving mysteries together, but he enjoys ever second of it if it means that he’s with you

Seven

Seven almost thought that you were in a hacker agency when he found out how much of a mystery person you are

He definitely wants to help out whenever he finds out and tells you that with the two of you working together, there’s no case you can’t solve

Totally wears a detective cosplay and buys you a matching set

But when Seven finds out dangerous your cases can be, he becomes extremely protective and wants to insist that you stop for your safety

Seven really can’t say anything though since he himself goes out on a bunch of dangerous missions because of being a hacker

So he decides to aid you as much as possible, always helping track down the culprit with ease

Seven is definitely one of the most fun and skilled partners a mystery magnet can have, much to your delight

V

V becomes extremely wary when he sees how many mysteries you get into

He doesn’t want you getting involved in any type of dangerous situations but V soon realized that you’re basically a mystery magnet and it really can’t be helped

Tries his absolute best to help you even with his poor eye sight

In most cases, V actually ends up being the one who almost gets hurt, mostly because he’s trying to push you out of the way

But V does have a knack for pointing out things within photos that were taken for the case

If the two of you ever get separated, V goes into panic mode and will not rest until he’s back in your arms

V really doesn’t like the idea of you going on these life-threatening mysteries, but he promises to always keep you safe, even at the cost of his own life

Unknown

Saeran thinks that you’re absolutely crazy when you tell him that you’re a mystery magnet

He thinks for a while that you’re just messing with him but after a while and seeing that maybe you are a bit of a mysterious person

Saeran thinks about all of the cases you’ve done plus the fact that he chose you out of all people to lure into the RFA

The minute Saeran finds out how dangerous your cases are, he goes into full on protective mode

No way in hell anyone or any case is going to hurt his love

Plus Saeran finds himself starting to secretly enjoy going on mysteries with you, he’s especially good with dealing force to other when needed

Saeran learns to love the thrill of going on mysteries with you but will always make sure to get you home safe every night

#mystic messenger #mystic messenger headcanon #mystic messenger imagines #mystic messenger Yoosung #mystic messenger Zen #mystic messenger Jaehee #mystic messenger Jumin #mystic messenger Seven #mystic messenger V #mystic messenger Unknown

[alittlebitoftruthcan]

‘Osho, I thought you knew everything. I thought that’s what being enlightened is about: knowing. But you don’t know about women, and that they trust precisely because they know each other’s heart. Women’s hate for women is a male myth invented to keep women separate and powerless. Who wants to be a man? Osho, I am totally upset. How can you talk nonsense? My mind is having a fit and so is my heart. What to do?’ Prem Judy, you must be carrying too much of the crap that the Women’s Liberation Movement is creating. You are too full of it. Next time you come to me I will have to look into your eyes, because when people are too full of crap, up to their heads, their eyes are brown! And you must have some lesbian tendencies. You say: ‘I thought you knew everything.’ You are absolutely wrong—I know nothing. NOT KNOWING IS THE MOST INTIMATE. If you have come here with this idea, you have come to a wrong person and to a wrong place. We celebrate ignorance! We destroy all kinds of knowledge. Our whole effort is to bring innocence back to you, the innocence that you had before you were born. The Zen people call it the original face. That innocence is intrinsic. Knowledge is given to you by the society, by the people around you, by the family. Innocence is yours: knowledge is always of others. The more knowledgeable you are, the less you are yourself. Enlightenment has nothing to do with knowledge. It is freedom from knowledge, it is absolute transcendence of knowledge. It is going beyond knowing. That’s why we started this series of talks with the great sutra: NOT KNOWING IS THE MOST INTIMATE. An enlightened person is one who has no barrier between him and existence. And knowledge is a barrier. Knowledge divides you from existence; it keeps you separate. Not knowing unites you. Love is a way of innocence. Innocence is a bridge: knowledge is a wall. Who has ever heard of knowledgeable people becoming enlightened? They are the farthest away from enlightenment. Enlightenment grows only in the soil of innocence. Innocence means childlike wonder, awe. The enlightened person is one who is continuously wondering—because he knows nothing, so everything becomes again a mystery. When you know, things are demystified; when you don’t know, they are RE-mystified. The more you know, the less wonder is in your heart. The more you know, the less you feel the great experience of awe. You cannot say ‘AH, THIS!’ You cannot be ecstatic. The knowledgeable person is so burdened that he cannot dance, he cannot sing, he cannot love. For the knowledgeable there is no God, because God only means wonder, awe, mystery. That’s why, as knowledge has grown in the world, God has become further and further away. Friedrich Nietzsche could declare that God is dead because of his knowledgeability. He was certainly a great philosopher, and philosophy is bound to come to the conclusion that there is no God because God simply means the mysterious, the miraculous. And knowledge reduces every miracle to ordinary laws; every mystery is reduced to formulas. Ask the knowledgeable person ‘What is love?’ and he will say, ‘Nothing but chemistry, the attraction between male and female hormones. It is no more important than a magnet attracting iron pieces; it is the same—like negative and positive electricity. Man and woman are bio-electricity.’ Then everything is destroyed. Then all love and all poetry and all music are reduced to nonsense. The lotus is reduced to the mud. The lotus certainly grows out of the mud, but the lotus is not the mud. It is not the sum total of its parts; it is more than the sum total of the parts. That MORE is God, that MORE is poetry, that MORE is love. But science has no place for the ‘more.’ Science reduces every phenomenon to a mechanical thing. And do you know what ‘science’ means? ‘Science’ means knowledge; the actual word ‘science’ means knowledge. Religion is not knowledge; it is just the opposite of knowledge. It is poetry, it is love. It is basically absurd. Yes, you can say that I am talking nonsense. If science is sense then religion is nonsense. But that’s the beauty of it. You say, Judy: ‘I thought you knew everything.’ That is YOUR thought—and I am not here to oblige everybody’s thought. I cannot be according to YOUR thoughts. I have more than one hundred thousand sannyasins; if I am to fulfill everybody’s thought I will be absolutely torn apart, into millions of pieces. I cannot fulfill your ideas about me; that is YOUR mistake. And it is not too late to drop that idea if you want to be here with me. You ARE here with a paradoxical person, with a person who is trying to convey something mysterious to you—not knowledge—who is trying to pour his experience of wonder and awe into your beings—it is more like wine than like knowledge—who is trying to make you intoxicated, who is trying to transform you into drunkards. Yes, for the rational person it will look like nonsense. That’s what one of the most important thinkers of the West, Arthur Koestler, has written about Zen. He calls it ‘all nonsense.’ If you look rationally, it is—but is reason the only way to approach reality? There are other ways, far deeper, far more intimate—NOT KNOWING IS THE MOST INTIMATE. I am not a man of knowledge, although I use words. I am not even a man of words. ‘I am a man of few words. Will you or won’t you?’ ‘Your apartment or mine?’ said the chick. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘if there’s going to be such a lot of discussion about it, let’s forget the whole damn thing!’ I use words, but I am not a man of words. It is just out of sheer necessity: it is because of you that I have to use words, because you won’t understand the wordless. I am waiting eagerly for the day when I will be able to drop words. I am utterly tired… because words can’t convey that which I am and I have to go on trying to do something which is not possible. Get ready soon so that we can sit in silence and listen to the birds or to the wind in the trees. Just SITTING SILENTLY DOING NOTHING, THE SPRING COMES AND THE GRASS GROWS BY ITSELF. That is going to be my ultimate message and my final work on the earth. You say: ‘I thought that’s what being enlightened is about: knowing.’ You cannot think anything about enlightenment, and whatsoever you think is bound to be wrong. It has nothing to do with knowing; it is a state of not knowing. ‘But you don’t know about women and that they trust precisely because they know each other’s heart.’ I know about nothing. What to say about women?—I don’t even know about men! So don’t be worried about that. If you know what a woman is or what a man is, beware of your knowledge, because that is not real knowing; it is just an opinion that you have gathered. Yes, man has been propagating ideas against women; now women are propagating ideas against men. It is the same foolish thing! And we go on doing this: we go on moving from one extreme to another extreme. Now, you say: ‘Women’s hate for women is a male myth invented to keep women separate and powerless.’ Man has created many myths about women, but now the women are doing the same. They are creating myths about men which are as false as man’s myths about women. But I am not here to decide which myth is right and which myth is wrong. I am not here to make you a propagandist for women or against women. My work consists in freeing you from man/woman duality. And now you say: ‘Who wants to be a man?’ Judy, if you really don’t want to be a man you would not have written this. It is just like the ancient parable of the fox who was trying to reach the grapes and could not reach: the grapes were too high. She tried and tried, and failed again and again. Then she looked around—foxes are very cunning people—to see if anybody was watching, any journalist, any photographer. There was nobody, so she walked away. But a small hare was hiding in a bush. He said, ‘Aunty, what happened?’ The fox puffed her chest up as big as she could and said, ‘Nothing. Those grapes are not worthwhile. They are not ripe yet—they are sour.’ Why should you write: ‘Who wants to be a man?’ Deep down somewhere you must be hankering to be a man. Every man wants to be a woman, every woman wants to be a man, for the simple reason that every man is both—man/woman—and every woman is both—woman/man. You are born out of the meeting of male and female energies; half of you belongs to your father and half of you belongs to your mother. You are a meeting of two polar opposites, two energies. The only difference between man and woman is this: that the woman has the consciousness of a woman and the unconscious of a man, and the man has the consciousness of a man and the unconscious of a woman. But BOTH are both! That’s why it is possible for there to be homosexuals, lesbians; otherwise it would be impossible. This phenomenon has been happening down the ages; it is nothing new. The reason is simple: because the man is only half man and half woman; the woman part is hidden deep in the darkness. But the conscious part can become tired, and when the conscious part becomes tired the unconscious takes over. Hence he may have the body of a man, but he starts functioning like a woman. And the same happens to a lesbian: on the surface she is a woman, but deep down the unconscious male energy has taken possession. Things have become upside-down. It will affect her physiology too. There are a few lesbians here. Their physiology is bound to be affected by their psychology, because psychology and physiology are not two separate phenomena; they are joined together. Mind and body are not two; you are mind-body. So whatsoever happens in your physiology affects your psychology. That’s why hormones can be given to you and your psychology can be changed. Now we know a man can be changed into a woman, a woman can be changed into a man. And this is MY observation: that in the coming century millions of people will change their sex. That will become something avant-garde; that will become something very progressive. That will be a new kind of freedom. Why remain confined to being a man your whole life when you can have both worlds? If you can afford it you can change your sex. For a few years you remain a man and you look at the world from the male’s viewpoint, and then you go for a simple operation and you are changed into a woman; now you can look at the world through feminine eyes. And it is possible that a man may change many times. If the process becomes simpler, and it WILL become simpler—that’s the whole work of science: to make things simpler and simpler—if the process becomes very simple, millions of people are bound to change. It will release great freedom in the world, but great confusion also, great chaos also. One day suddenly your husband comes home and he is a woman! Or your wife returns from a holiday and she is no more a woman… Because each is both, the desire to be the other is in everybody. Judy, it must be there and very insistently there. Hence you are writing: ‘Who wants to be a man?’ Judy wants to be a man! I don’t know about anybody else… And you say: ‘Osho, I am totally upset.’ That’s good! So I am succeeding! I want you to be completely uprooted, upset, disturbed. I want to create a chaos in you, because only out of chaos are stars born. You ask me: ‘How can you talk nonsense?’ What else?! Sense cannot be talked… only nonsense is left. So I don’t take it as a criticism—it is a compliment! Many many thanks to you. At least you are talking some sense! You say: ‘My mind is having a fit and so is my heart. What to do?’ I don’t think anything can be done now. It is too late. You CAN’T go back—I will haunt you!—you can only go ahead. Drop all these ideas that you are carrying within yourself, this antagonism about men. Drop all these ideas! I am neither for men nor for women. I am only for transcendence. And don’t take my jokes seriously! You are such fools that you can’t even take jokes playfully. Another woman has written: ‘Osho, you have been talking too much against women. The other day you called them ‘big-mouths’.’ Now this woman simply proves that she is a big-mouth, nothing else! Nobody else has felt offended. A joke is a joke! But why are you so touchy? Now this woman must have a big mouth. At least her husband must be telling her again and again, ‘You big-mouth, shut up!’ And now she comes here to hear something beautiful said about her, and I tell a joke… and again that big mouth comes in. Don’t take jokes seriously. In fact, don’t take anything seriously. You miss the point if you start taking things seriously. Even scriptures have to be taken non-seriously; only then can you understand. Understanding has to be with a deep, relaxed, non-serious, playful attitude. When you become serious you become tense. When you become serious you become closed. When you are playful many things can happen because in playfulness is creativity. In playfulness you can innovate. But your ideas are continuously there; you can’t put them aside. Judy, now nothing can be done. You are a sannyasin. Now, being a sannyasin means you are neither man nor woman. Finished—that game is finished!

Osho

#chaos #enlightenment #freedom #god #homosexuality #innocence #jokes #knowledge #men and women #osho #science #seriousness #silence #transgender #women #women's issues #women's liberation #wonder #religion #lbotca

[meditationadvise]

5 Ways to Become 1% More Mindful Every Day

Great points are accomplished regularly in small actions, rather than in excellent jumps. It doesn't matter if your objective is extremely challenging, or if it is shateringly simple (like taking a seat to practice meditation everyday) and you just can not appear to do it. Effective as well as tranquil people have actually learned that large objectives take tiny, child actions to accomplish.

To show the relevance of little steps we could look to the mysterious means in which Michelangelo carved his sculptures. Michelangelo's buddy and biographer, Giorgio Vasari, defines a tedious approach the master artist used to carve identify of stone. Michelangelo laid his model for a project down in a box like a coffin. He after that filled up package up until the figure was immersed. The water was slowly permitted to leak out, or he eliminated it a little bit at time, to see which components of the figure would arise very first - like an archipelago peeping out from the sea's surface.

This is exactly how he would recognize which components to cut first in his stone block. In some cases it would certainly be a hip, other times it would certainly be a nose, or a shoulder. The approach was really imprecise, as well as took numerous hours of observation before he might also obtain to the task of sculpting a work of art out of marble or granite.

When we initially readied to a task - like sculpting a masterpiece out of rock - it could appear leviathan, impossible, even, but there is always a means. If we are aiming to develop even more mindfulness in our actions, words as well as acts, it doesn't take place over night. There are little steps we can take though, that will certainly finish in an outright master work. Right here they are:

1. If You Aren't sure Where to Start, Simply Dive In

You might make use of the sheer number of mindfulness techniques and also practices as a way of procrastination if you really desired to. One might invest years researching the different wisdom traditions (yoga exercise, tai chi, qi gong, Zen, focusing prayer, chanting, transcendental meditation, and so on) to find to a particular practice, but deliberate, nonjudgmental understanding of our moment-to-moment experience could be practiced right now. Just pick one technique, and also do it each and every single day. Establish an alarm on your cellular phone. Write yourself a note and stick it in your purse to advise on your own, or put a rubber band around your wrist as well as each time you see it, do the method. If you aren't sure where to start, simply dive in. Don't allow lack of knowledge be a reason to keep mindfulness at bay. You can constantly learn as you go.

2. Don' t Allowed Your Faith Quit You from Being Even more Mindful

According to Jon Kabat-Zinn, a Jewish-born, Harvard graduated microbiology Ph.D. that as soon as instructed at the College of Massachusetts Medical Center, and later on ended up being a student of the Zen Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh - Buddhist meditation is not a faith. Neither is Vipassana from old India. Exactly what prevails to all types of mindfulness is that they are a method to focus our interest, cultivate recognition, and also pay more attention to our inattention.

You could be Christian, Buddhist, Jain, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, also atheist, as well as still method mindfulness. If you require to wed your mindfulness practice with your current religious ideas, that's o.k., but do not allow your spiritual background stop you from taking little actions every day.

If you are Christian, your mindfulness method could merely be, "Thank you, God." If you are Buddhist, it could be a five-minute incantation of the concept, "Om Peanut Padme Hum", which means imply, the gem is in the lotus (the 3rd eye.) If you are Hindu, you could simply sit silently and claim, 'Om Gum tissue Ganapatayei Namah,' which equates to 'I acquiesce the elephant-faced divine being (Ganesh) that is capable of getting rid of all barriers. I wish blessings as well as security.' Every one of these rules have vibrational power, and have been confirmed to alter your mind in incremental steps.

3. Move Into Challenges As opposed to Away From Them

By exercising mindfulness, we are much better able to removal right into difficulties and also discover how you can overcome them rather of shy away from them. Scientific research as well as imaging of the minds of meditators has actually located that an electrical change takes place in mind function, believed to reflect the growing of an "technique state," in which we approach, instead of away from, a tough exterior situation or inner psychological function such as an idea, feeling, or memory. Naturally, this could become a basis for durability in human beings.

When something disturbing, testing, or complicated shows up in your life, this is the excellent time to exercise mindfulness. Anyone could do a fundamental breathing reflection, at virtually any type of time, no issue where they are, or who they are with. The breath allows area in the nervous system, heart, and also brain to ensure that we could see things from a various perspective compared to before we began to breathe deeply and also with even more conscious interest. Just attempt it, as well as you'll be blown away by the advancing impacts of this basic practice.

4. If You Desired a Different Outcome, You Have to Do Something Different

How a lot of us long for more clam, even more happiness, even more tranquility, more success, more love, and so on in our lives? We long for these points like they are in some far-away desire. This mindset maintains us from taking obligation for our own actions. A desire is a great place to start, yet this need has to convert right into activity. Again, these activities can be little, they do not need to be monumental, once taken, as well as done once more and time and again, the results could be profound.

Mindfulness farming is an activity, or set of actions. Do not' wait around for more happiness, or a far better world. The adjustment absolutely does start with you - simply like Gandhi suggested.

Once you have a mindfulness technique developed you could see that you get even more maded with much less effort, yet it does certainly take effort when you initially venture making change.

https://youtu.be/xnLoToJVQH

5. If All Else Stops working, Listen to Conscious Music

Mainstream songs adjustments your resonance - were you aware? Not all of it is developed to boost you and assist you attach to Source.

One of the 'tricks' of the universe, is the innovative application of audio regularities. John Worley Keely discovered this creative use musical regularities in the late 19th century as well as accomplished outstanding tasks that opposed traditional physics as well as confounded the academicians of his day.

If you happen to listen Bob Marley on your iPod or songs player, then you'll probably be changed right into dizzying degrees of happiness. He was recognized to videotape his music in regularities that remained in placement with the Schumann Resonances - electro-magnetic waves that exist in the room in between the surface area of the earth as well as the Ionosphere - 7.83, 14.3, 20.8, 27.3 as well as 33.8 Hz. They are claimed to be the heartbeat of mom earth.

Many classic authors did the very same. Gregorian incantations, and also most old songs was tuned to positively influence our resonances. Pythagoras of Samos recognized that playing songs which was lined up with the beautiful bodies, might heal us from some of one of the most dire physical and also psychological problems. This is not real of a lot of modern music.

The easiest method to inform if songs is healing our harming you, is to observe exactly how it makes you really feel. Does it create you to ignore or tune up? Pick your songs accordingly, when you have no various other time to exercise mindfulness, a minimum of your mind is being modified by the positive as well as powerful impact of sound.

By practicing these tiny actions - transforming your thoughts and actions by 1% everyday, gradually you'll accumulate to a 100% modification. Since's something to obtain delighted about!

#buddhist meditation #chakra meditation #daily meditation #healing #meditating #meditation #spiritual #vipassana #what is meditation #yoga

[clausvonbohlen]

My Zen Rakusu

After three months investigating plant medicines in the Amazon, I flew to Japan with my friend S. My first visit was back in 2009, also with S, who lived there in his teens and speaks fluent Japanese. On that occasion we visited the ancient monastery complex of Koya-san, in the mountains south of Osaka. It was winter, and snowing, and I remember watching a monk sweeping the entrance to one of the monastery buildings. He did it so beautifully, and seemed so at peace with himself and the world, that I resolved that one day I too would visit a monastery in Japan and participate in monastic life. This trip to Japan, which would coincide with sakura – the cherry blossom period – seemed like the right moment, and a good way to consolidate my recent experiences.

  Since returning from that first visit in 2009, I have become increasingly fascinated by Zen. At that time I was living in San Francisco. I read Kerouac’s ‘Dharma Bums’, and I followed in his footsteps by climbing up Matterhorn Peak in the Hoover Wilderness. I read D. T. Suzuki, and I tried to get to grips with haikus and koans. I read John Welwood’s ‘Gradual Awakening’, and I was very struck by his description of a meeting with the Tibetan teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Welwood wrote:

 ‘I remember once walking into a room for an interview with him and being astounded by the vast space that seemed to radiate from him in all directions. It felt as though the roof and walls of the room had been blown out. Never having experienced anything like that before, I found it tremendously magnetic.’

 In addition to Zen, Japan has also provided me with both the most and least romantic experiences of my life. The former happened on that first visit in 2009, on a freezing night in Tokyo, in an all night florist’s. I met a gentle lost American girl, and paid for her flowers, and we walked for a while together and parted company on a windy street corner. We said goodbye with tears in our eyes, maybe because of the wind, but also because of the transience of life, and the other outcomes almost possible but not, and the things unsaid and maybe unsayable.

  The least romantic experience happened on a visit a couple of years ago, also in Tokyo, at the tail end of a long and humid summer. I must have been spiked with Rohypnol, or a similar dissociative ‘predator’ drug, since I have almost no memory of the night, something that has never happened to me before. The same thing happened to the friend I was with, and we later read online warnings from the US embassy about Nigerians in that area of Tokyo who were known for these nefarious activities. The drugs don’t knock you out, but they make you immensely suggestible; the snippets of memory I do have are of walking to numerous cash machines, accompanied by my new Nigerian ‘friends’; exceeding the withdrawal limit on all my bank cards (as I later pieced together from the receipts I found screwed up in my pockets); paying for large quantities of alcohol in a succession of seedy bars; and canoodling with two Columbian girls who, in retrospect, were almost certainly not the sweet, unbiased, and reciprocally enamoured civilians that I assumed at the time.  And then coming home the next day, rather dazed, with a wallet mysteriously empty not just of Yen, but of all the foreign currencies too.

  On that visit two years ago, I also went to Kanazawa, a city on the west coast about halfway between Kyoto and Tokyo. I fell in love with Kanazawa: it is less touristy than other places, boasts the Kenrokuen gardens – the most beautiful Japanese gardens I have ever seen -  as well as the D. T. Suzuki museum, whose two or three exhibits are not nearly as significant as the building’s clean lines, contrasting textures and calming use of space.

                   D.T. Suzuki museum in Kanazawa.

But above all, I fell in love with Kanazawa’s 1950′s American aesthetic, the kind of thing that Kerouac would have seen during his travels back and forth across America. And the light is reminiscent of Edward Hopper’s magnificent, lonely, brave paintings from the same period.

         Kanazawa, oddly reminiscent of Kerouac’s America.

I always wanted to return to Kanazawa, and I was very happy to discover that there is a Zen temple in Kanazawa that hosts visitors. I found an email address for the Guestmaster and wrote to him. My email went unanswered, so I wrote again, and again. I was not dismayed, since I knew of the Zen tradition in which an aspirant for instruction is turned away by the Master the first three times, though he should be accepted on the fourth. This proves that the aspirant is serious. In addition, a Master should always be asked to teach, rather than offer to do so; presumably, this ensures that the teaching is given for the right reasons, and not to inflate the teacher’s ego, or win fame.

  However, the Guestmaster never answered my emails, so I asked S to accompany me to the monastery in order to present my request in person, and in Japanese.  We stopped in Kanazawa on our way from Kyoto to Tokyo.

  Kyoto abounds with Zen temples and gardens, and we had visited a number of them. They are small, beautifully maintained, but also busy, and you have to pay to enter each one. Daijoji Temple in Kanazawa, by contrast, was a much bigger place, surrounded by tombstones on a wooded hill on the outskirts of town, with a view of the distant ocean. Enormous old trees cast dappled shade and created the sense of peace that I remembered from my visit to snowy Koya-san, where I had seen the sweeping monk. The huge and imposing red entrance gate was open, so we entered the temple enclosure and wandered down ancient wooden colonnades and past ornate Buddhist warrior carvings. There was no one around, and it was  unnerving, but also magical, to be able to explore this space all by ourselves.

                      Daijoji Temple, Kanazawa

Eventually we found a monk who was in the middle of performing his chores with a dishcloth tied round his head. S explained my request. The monk looked very surprised. Another, chubbier monk then arrived. He was more senior, and S repeated the request, adding that I had already emailed three times to the Guestmaster. This caused both monks some embarrassment. The chubby one disappeared for a while. On his return he explained that if I were to stay for a week, as I was hoping, then my visit would coincide with ‘seishin’, the intense five day period of meditation that happens once a month. Would that be ok? I tried to appear confident and said that it would. In that case, they said, they would present my request to the abbot, and we should telephone the monastery that evening to hear the result.

  Back in our hotel, I was feeling nervous, so I went to the sauna and watched a sumo match on the tv in there, alongside a lot of elderly Japanese men. On returning to our room, S informed me that my request had been accepted. I was jubilant, though at the time I didn’t fully realize what I had committed to.

  When I returned to the temple a few days later, I was greeted by Godo Roshi, the monk in charge of novices, and the only one who spoke some English. I picked up my futon and followed Godo Roshi down a series of paper-paneled corridors - confusing since the doors and panels look the same  – to my room, a small empty space enclosed by more paper panels. On the way, I had to change from outdoor shoes to sandals to slippers and finally to socks, an action that I would end up repeating countless times every day. On this first occasion, I was paid the only verbal compliment that I was to receive all week: when I placed my slippers on their shelf, Godo Roshi nodded his approval and said, ‘Very elegant.’

  I had been given a timetable as well as a short book on Zen, in English. The timetable came as a bit of a shock. Every moment of the day was accounted for, down to five minute segments. I would have to be up at 4.30am every morning for an hour of seated meditation (zazen) in the the zendo, followed by half an hour of sutra chanting in the main hall, then an hour of floor cleaning, then breakfast at 7am, a brief rest, and 10 more sessions of zazen throughout the rest of the day, alternating with more chores and brief rest or study periods.

  Despite going to bed early (around 10), the mornings were tough. My visit had coincided with a cold snap. The temperature dropped to 3 degrees at night, and it was no warmer inside the monastery than out. By day, when the sun shone, it was in fact colder inside. And I was not allowed to wear either a hat inside, or socks inside in certain parts of the building, so it was often a struggle to keep warm.

  I found mealtimes to be more challenging than the sessions in the zendo. Zen is very highly codified, nowhere more so than during meals. There are precise actions to be repeated every time, and I am sure there were many more of which I was unaware. Meals are the same every day: gruel for breakfast, rice with sides for lunch and for dinner. The bowls have to be placed in the correct formation and chopsticks angled in the right directions to accompany each phase of the meal. Food has to be wolfed down at lightening speed. This is partly because it is rude to finish after the abbot (who, despite being ancient, is a champion speed eater), but the deeper reason is so as to avoid developing an attachment to the pleasure of taste.

  I found it very hard to wolf down rice using chopsticks. I was invariably the last to finish, and although the other monks were never so impolite as to stare at me, it is nevertheless disconcerting to be stuffing your cheeks like a chipmunk while 8 impassive Zen monks sit around you, models of stony-faced silence.

  At the end of the meal, you have to leave two slices of horseradish in the top left hand bowl of the four in front of you. Hot water is poured into that bowl and you use the horseradish slices to mop the inside, pushing them around with your chopsticks and thereby cleaning the bowl. The water and horseradish slices are then poured into the other three bowls, in the right order of course, and finally the resulting liquid is swallowed. It doesn’t taste bad, and obviates the need for all but the most superficial washing up, which is performed in a similarly ritualized way by the novices and junior monks. At the end, you stand in a circle and say, utz gari sama desda, which means, thank you for your work.

  This may all sound fairly torturous, and in many ways, it was. And yet, after a few days, I found myself feeling more relaxed, and happier, than I have for a long time. In part, I am sure this had to do with the digital detox - the blissful escape from constant connectivity. The fact that every moment of the day was accounted for, and there were no choices or decisions to be made, also contributed to an increasingly deep sense of tranquility.

  Zazen itself is very simple, there is only one instruction: just sit. Do not think. Do not worry. Do not plan. Do not feel regrets. Just sit, in the correct posture, and observe. Do not follow thoughts, or try to block them out. Watch them arise, and let go of them. It sounds so easy, but of course, it is not.

  The other forms of meditation I have encountered have focused on an object, such as the breath, or a mantra, or a particular emotion. But zazen, with its emphasis on not doing anything, seemed particularly beneficial for me, given the restlessness of my mind.

  Of course, without any mental discipline at all, a session of zazen is likely to descend into one long reverie. But in Zen, I think that the discipline comes not from the meditation itself, but rather from every other aspect of life. That is why everything is so highly ritualized. You constantly have to focus – on how to change your footwear, how to eat, how to wash up. Mental discipline is learned through the hundred thousand other aspects of daily life, so you are in a much better position to truly ‘just sit’ when it is time to meditate.

  That is one very sensible aspect of Zen. Another is that you always meditate with your eyes open, though unfocussed; it is very hard to fall asleep when your eyes are open. And also, sessions only last 50 minutes, which is about the maximum concentration span for most people. Zazen is followed by kinshin, a few minutes of very slow walking meditation. It is a good way to finish.

  After the first morning session (in the dark), and the sutra chanting (a rather obscure business, and the most highly ritualized of all), my duty was to mop the long corridor, using a wet rag. It was a very simple task, and of course a repetitive one, though doing it well, and elegantly, was actually rewarding. And this is another aspect of Zen: you do things for their own sake, and not as a means to an end. That is what makes them meaningful. And that is also the key to unlocking Japanese culture, which can often appear so obscure. Everything is done to the highest possible level, because that gives it meaning.

  As I mopped the floor in my bare feet, and with my breath condensing in the cold air, I was surprised to be feeling content and at peace with the world. The German words ’Arbeit Macht Frei’  (work makes you free) came to mind. Yes, there was a form of liberation in what I was doing. It was so menial a chore, and yet I was happy. There was nothing to desire, and no choices to be made; where were the causes of suffering? But then, with a jolt, I remembered where those three words had been most famously displayed: above the entrance gate to Auschwitz. How utterly incongruous, a Buddhist truth taken up by a concentration camp. The monastery was nothing like a concentration camp, and it was certainly strange that a truth hidden in those words should crystallize for me here.

                              *

  That first evening a girl called Aida, from Azerbaijan, passed by the monastery to explain a few things to me. Aida spent 6 years in the monastery but is now teaching Japanese culture at Kanazawa university. She is a true polymath. In order to be able to stay in Japan, she had needed a student visa, and so, with no prior knowledge of Japanese, she had done PhD in neuroscience, in Japanese. She was also fluent in Russian, Arabic, Turkish, English and Spanish, as well as Azerbaijani.

  A few days later, with Aida as interpreter, I had my first formal interview with the abbot. He presented me with my own rakusu, the Zen Buddhist bib - sewn together from 16 or more strips of cloth - that is worn around the neck. The rakusu represents lay ordination. On the inside, the bearer’s name and status is painted in elegant calligraphic kanji, using jet black ink on a white silk backing. The abbot turned the bib around, and Aida translated the writing: Claus von Bohlen, London representative of the World Zen Centre based at Daijoji Temple, Kanazawa.

 A Zen monk wearing his rakusu

Aida was laughing a lot. Did it strike her as so ridiculous, or was her bright humour the result of 6 years in a Zen monastery? I never found out. She showed me how to wear the rakusu, and how to fold it and replace it in its silk envelope – predictably complicated. Then she asked me how I felt.

  ‘Elevated,’ I said. Aida translated. The abbot nodded.

  I was to see Aida on two more occasions, and it was a relief to be able to ask her some more detailed questions. My interactions with the other monks were very basic. The monk in charge of my training spoke no English at all. On a number of occasions, he needed to reprimand me (most severely, when I arrived one minute late for my solitary evening meditation session). He relied on the voice activated version of google (mis-)translate, with frequently bizarre results. He said something in Japanese into his phone, and then held it towards my ear: ‘Do not shit on the elephant. Everything is training.’

  The chubby monk whom I had met on my first visit to the monastery was a very kind man. I think he felt sorry for me because I had to request half-portions in order to finish my meals on time.  In the evenings, he occasionally passed by my cell to present me with biscuits or the peculiar chewy rice cakes called mochi.

  When it came to the meditation itself, no instruction was given. The book was a help, as was one comment that the chubby monk made: ‘Do not do zazen. Be zazen.’

  And this, to me, is the endless fascination of Zen. So simple, and yet so very difficult. Just sit. Be zazen. And the truisms: wherever you go, there you are… So obvious, and yet how easy it is to think that one can run away from troubles, when in reality we carry most of our suffering around with us. And then the haikus, so mundane, and yet they imply the whole world by its absence, in the same way that the negative spaces in a drawing create the solid image. So very elliptical, so very Japanese.

  My favourite, I think, is by the 19th century poet Masaoka Shiki:

 Butterfly asleep on a stone

You must surely be dreaming

Of the sad life of me.

 Zen is profoundly artistic: it is about harmony, and beauty, about doing things for their own sake, and also about impermanence and transience and time’s inexorable decay. From the perspective of Zen, everything can be an object of meditation, nature above all, most famously in the form of cherry blossoms and the turning of the leaves in autumn. They all bring home the fundamental truth of impermanence, and so much of human suffering stems from the attempt to escape or repress that truth.

 On one or two occasions during zazen, I experienced moments without thought - the spaces between thoughts. Of course, as soon as I became aware of it, then the unverbalised moment was lost and thought once again entered the picture. But those few moments consisted of pure awareness, pure consciousness without objects or boundaries. They made me realise that all my life I have seen the world from one perspective, or in one dimension; this felt like an entirely different vantage point, a whole new dimension, and one that dwarfs all that I have known up until now. They were just glimpses, but they were sufficient for me to understand why a person might devote their entire life to the practice of Zen.

 These were my thoughts as I left the monastery. The cold snap had passed, the breeze was a caress, and the cherry blossoms were just on the point of exploding like pink powder puffs in the Kenrokuen gardens. And I was homeward bound.

                                  *

 Back in the UK, I stuffed all my clothes into the washing machine. As Jack Kornfeld said, ‘After the ecstasy, the laundry.’ But in doing so, I overlooked the black silk envelope that contained my Zen rakusu, and it also went into the machine.

  When I subsequently took the rakusu out of the washing machine, I saw to my horror that the beautiful calligraphy bearing my name had almost been washed out of the white silk lining. My heart sunk. I had worn the rakusu for one of the most challenging weeks of my life. I was proud to have got through it, and proud of my official status as representative of the World Zen Centre. I cursed my stupidity, but the irritation sat like a stone in my chest.

 And then I realised how long the road is. This was suffering: my attachment to an object, to the status it conferred, and to an idea of myself. This was pride, and vanity, and desire, and all those emotions that cause suffering again and again. Sometimes desire can be satisfied, or pride validated, but the relief is only temporary, and the cessation of pain should not be confused with happiness.

 But is it so simple? Does attachment always cause suffering? And isn’t  suffering a part of what it means to be human, and to lead a full human life? Should we really aim not to feel attachment to our families and loved ones? These are difficult questions and I do not have the answers. I suspect that there is a middle way, a balance somewhere: it must be possible to love without clinging, to give without needing anything in return. But it is very hard. And like so much in this field, the balance is a delicate two-step, an oblique sideways glance: we find happiness when we cease to chase it; we alight upon one-pointed concentration when we stop trying to force it; and love is purest when it is based on surfeit and not on lack.

  That is what the laundry taught me.

[latestnews2018-blog]

Why Was Trent Lane From 'Daria' So Hot? An Investigation.

New Post has been published on https://latestnews2018.com/why-was-trent-lane-from-daria-so-hot-an-investigation/

Why Was Trent Lane From 'Daria' So Hot? An Investigation.

MTV announced last week that it plans to bring back “Daria,” an animated show with a titular outcast who became an icon of snark for a generation. As I thought back to the episodes I’d watched devotedly as a teen, specifics of what happened over the five seasons eluded me, save for something I still know to be true: Trent Lane was totally hot. 

Let’s review the facts: Trent, the older brother of Daria’s BFF, had perfectly mussed hair, a cool gravelly voice and multiple piercings. He hated authority and loved music. He was uncomplicated. He had a tattoo (that he copied from a tattoo magazine)! He was Daria’s ultimate crush, which made him my crush, too.

Adding to the fixation was the fact that, aside from not being real, he also wasn’t perfect. He was completely oblivious, flaky — “I’m always late. That’s why I don’t wear a watch. They depress me,” he said in one episode — and lacked any of the chutzpah required to actually get something going with Daria. When I was a teen, Trent was the beacon of all the frustratingly delicious obsessions to come; now that I’m an adult, he’s the memory of veiled flirtations that never went anywhere, someone to look back on with both nostalgia and relief.

If only I could relay all these feelings to Trent Lane himself. But he’s, as I mentioned, not real. Only Alvaro J. Gonzalez, the man who voiced the animated character, is. And he’s a biomagnetist whose natural voice sounds nothing like Trent’s, as I learned after finding Gonzalez on LinkedIn, calling him and convincing him to talk to me about my Mystik Spiral frontman crush.

When Gonzalez hopped on the call to talk about his time on the series, I was shocked he didn’t greet me with Trent’s characteristic low growl. Gonzalez can still easily slip into his old character’s voice when provoked, but his actual tone is light, amiable and unrecognizable.

“I’m a professional voice actor,” he reminded me gently. (“I’m not Trent, Jill,” he might as well have proclaimed.)

To this day, Gonzalez continues to work in voice acting, but he’s had a series of other unrelated jobs too, which is decidedly un-Trent-like. “It was sort of like doing the yin and yang thing, where I tapped into what I felt was the opposite of me,” he said of what it was like to embody the character in the late ’90s and early 2000s. 

Throughout our chat, Gonzalez was kind, informative and expressly eager to be involved in the “Daria” reboot. Check out our conversation below to hear more about his time on “Daria,” what he’s been up to since then and how I should reconcile my crush on an unattainable man.

(Listen to Gonzalez become Trent and revert to Gonzalez again in the soundbite above.)

The thing that most surprised me about getting on the phone with you is how different your voice sounds from Trent’s.

[Puts on Trent voice] Well, my voice can sound like Trent if I want it to. [Laughs] No, I’m a trained professional voice actor, so I can do a lot of voices.

I was in my early teens when the show was on and I had such a crush on Trent. I don’t think I was the only one who felt that way.

Oh, no! They would tell me of the fan mail that they would get and I would laugh, like, “It’s a cartoon. It’s a voice. Oh, my goodness.” There was a lot of that, and to this day, if I ever meet someone that — roughly in their 30s is the age demographic now. If they knew the show and I say I was Trent, they usually ― [Gasps] Ooooh! It’s an older show and people remember it, so it’s cool.

What do you think about Trent was so attractive, even if he was just a drawing?

Well, I think one of the main draws of Trent was that he was just so grounded. Even though he would be classified [by] society as a drifter, a loser, he really was centered, probably the most centered of the series, because he never really diverted. He was about his music and about taking naps, pretty much. It was refreshing to get a character that was honest and didn’t have an angle to get something over you. He was very sweet in that way.

The whole dynamic between Trent and Daria and this crush that she had on him ― his whole lackadaisical “I love music and naps!” ― is great. But then it’s also frustrating if you’re someone who has a crush on him and you’re like, “Why don’t you like me [back]?!” 

The main reason I think Daria fell for him was because he was an outsider. He didn’t fall into [society], and that was, I think, the real draw ― was between the two characters, was because Trent himself was refusing to do what society was telling him to do: Get a job, be responsible, be a good [guy]. And I think what happened eventually in the series after Daria decided that they couldn’t be a couple because he was so far off on the fringes … that was beyond her limit. That was beyond her threshold of tolerance for that kind of person, even though she was extremely attracted to that.

Do you think Trent was an obvious cartoon crush because he was kind of this mysterious, older guy in Daria’s eyes? 

Yes, I do. He was mysterious and in a way very philosophical. Trent’s personality was very calm and Zen, something Daria greatly lacked in her own family life. This calmness and laid-backness was a draw to many fans of the show, plus he was a musician, a nonconformist and in a band!

Can you tell me how you got the role?

My girlfriend at the time was attending [New York University] and in one of the hallways there was this nondescript flyer saying, “Hey, we’re looking for voices of high school kids.” It was a recorded voice audition, I think that’s what everyone did. They said, “OK, at the tone, give us the voices.”

So I called up and I did an entire classroom full. I did the most voices. They said, “Yeah, we’re really impressed. You did the principal, the teacher, 10 kids in the class.” I didn’t just wing it. I wrote out a little script for myself — that’s all I was doing then. Basically voice-over work and off-Broadway stuff then.

Did they tell you anything after that?

They then called [me] in for a second round, and they had me actually go into the booth and gave me some parameters of what they wanted me to do, and one of those was Trent. It felt natural. It was a really cool character, very laid-back, sort of very Zen, in his own way. And I just gravitated toward that one. Then the head writer [Susie Lewis] said, “That’s the voice I had in my head. That’s it.”

Did you have a favorite episode or storyline? 

My favorite episode was “Road Worriers.” That was one of the few where a lot of the technicians came up to me and said, “That work was stellar. I think that one really was a standout.” They really thought I captured, without getting too mushy, making Trent sensitive enough to connect with Daria on a meaningful level without getting too, you know, sappy.

Do you wish that Trent and Daria made it work?

I don’t know if you know this — and it got pretty far — I had pitched a sequel called “Mystik Spiral” which was following Trent and his band, Mystik Spiral. Glenn [Eichler] was on board, and I think it got to the point of first-stage animation, and then MTV pulled the plug on their animation.

Would that have just been following the adventures of the band?

Yeah, and of course Daria would have been in and out, like she was in college and she would come back. We had planned episodes like that. There was a whole pitch where the whole season, 18, 19 episodes [were] outlined. Daria would not have appeared in the first season. But, we had hoped to have her meet up with Trent later on and realize something was still there — but still unattainable; great cartoon drama!

Did you have any role in writing Mystik Spiral’s songs?

Oh, no. “Ow! My Face,” “Icebox Woman,” no. But I did sing them all, I sang everything. All of Trent is me. That also includes “Freakin’ Friends” and all that. 

Did you have any other favorite characters on the show that weren’t Trent?

[Puts on Upchuck voice] Well, you know, I was up for Upchuck, you know, once.

Ladieeees. I think I did one episode, but then one of the producers said I sounded too much like Urkel. But I did that. … In the episode “Esteemsters,” I did several voices, lines here and there. At that point, the show was new, so they gave actors several lines. I didn’t just do Trent. I did the security guard, I did the guy who was in the laundry room. I think I did a couple more in that episode. Periodically, they’d say, “Oh we’ve got this one-liner. Do you want to try it?”

Why do you think the show has had such a lasting legacy?

I think because it had to do with a strong female character expressing herself and not being told what to do and how to do it, but doing it in a way that she felt was right for herself. Very strong, independent woman. Back in the ’90s, when this was happening, not to say that there wasn’t a women’s rights movement going on, but it hadn’t really been prevalent, especially in a cartoon world, especially on a station like MTV.

Once Daria ended, you did some voice acting, but I see you have a different profession now.

I started off in recruitment advertising as an account executive. I went from there to a mortgage broker. I went from there to director of sales for a toy company. I went from there to a customized vitamin company. … I then started studying alternative medicines and then from there I became what I do now, which is a biomagnetist. I still do voice-over work when I get called, but my main gig now is biomagnetism, which is basically acupuncture without the needles. I use magnets.

What do you think Trent would think of your long résumé of recent careers? Would he think, like, “Hey, man, you’re working too much”?

[Puts on Trent voice] Way too complicated. [Laughs] I think Trent would be like: [puts on Trent voice again] You’re trying too hard, man.

So if the writers of the reboot called you to pick up Trent again …

Oh, yeah. I’d be there in a heartbeat. In a second. No question.

Was there anything about your time as Trent that you wanted to mention that I didn’t cover?  

It was great. It was sort of, like, my closest brush with fame. When we would have the wrap parties, there would be people like “paparazzi” who would be taking pictures of us and I always thought that was the coolest thing. In hindsight, I’m glad it stopped there, because I see how real famous people can’t even step out their door and I think, “You know, that’s nothing that I want.” Trent would say: [puts on Trent voice one final time] You’ve gone mad, man.

That’s practically the antithesis of Trent, is becoming super famous. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Audio clip edited by Sara Patterson. 

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[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Work That Is Audible to the Naked Eye

Rolf Julius installation with “Music for Old Paint” (1983) left, and “Iron Ring, Rusty” (1987) (photo by Rebecca Fanuele)

PARIS — If you’ve ever wondered what the conceptualist Soho art scene looked and felt like in the early 1980s, there is a current Parisian show at Galerie Thomas Bernard that nails it — down to the look of the foot-worn discoloration and creaky groans of the gallery’s floor. Installed here in nonchalant fashion are the early, intimate, sound sculptures of Rolf Julius, a notable, minimalist, German sound-sculpture artist who passed away in 2011.

Through his timid, meditative work with instruments, noises, human voices, and various everyday sounds (such as water drops) Julius acquired international recognition as a pioneer in the field of audio art. He has been videotaped giving a fascinating performance in 1988 at the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, where he modulates sounds by interrupting their solar power sources. Much influenced by the Fluxus-related sounds of Takehisa Kosugi — a co-founder, with Mieko Shiomi, of the famous, early-‘60s experimental noise music group Group Ongaku — Julius created a variety of meaningful and moving sound-vision works that explore for the attentive viewer-listener the symbiotic relationship between visual art and noise music. Julius specifically augmented the history of audio art by meticulously working in the Zen zone between everyday sculptural objects, dim dins, and quietness. In his often derelict but delicate works, subtle noise vibrations become palpable, physical things.

Rolf Julius installation with Iron Bamboo (1982) (left & Music for Old Paint (1983) (photo by Rebecca Fanuele)

Using the visual attraction of sculptural objects to entice the eye, the body’s so-called perceptive sovereign, to his sounds, Julius’s minimalist acoustic works sensitize the ear and mind to the great variety (and often subtlety) of sounds that exist in the world around us. He accomplished this John-Cage-like goal by using commonplace CD players or cassette recorders to play faint soundscapes that draw us deeper toward the objects. Sometimes (as in this show) he delicately nestled small speakers emitting apprehensive noises within rusted objects, piles of pigments, small, hand-made, ceramic bowls, paper bags, and sheets of glass — all which resonate and diffuse the sound. Generally, he used tiny, standard loudspeakers to produce slight, chirpy sounds performed at the limits of audio perceptibility, such as can be heard in his “Small Music #7: Dance on Takashima Island 1 and 2” (1998).

Rolf Julius, “Music for Old Paint” (1983) 2 bags, 2 speakers, elements of paint, cable, CD-player 30 x 16 x 23 cm; (courtesy of Galerie Thomas Bernard)

As example of how this visual attraction operates: I had to get down on my knees and bend over to hear the concealed cracking noises of “Music for Old Paint” (1983). The humility of the grating noise discovered there is typical not only of another great Fluxus noise master, Yasunao Tone, but also of the sonic flavor used by minimal techno and microhouse DJs since the early 1990s. “Music for Old Paint” is an underwhelming, yet seductive work that produced in me sensations of private revelation rarely encountered in our time of maximal availability. As with the dangling “Orange Cello (Sound Cooking)” (1984/2017), the vibrating cones of the speakers slightly enlivens the encrusting physical material that partially covers them. The work’s trembling crustiness makes the odd, low-volume noise become concrete to the eye.

Rolf Julius, “Iron Bamboo” (1982) 3 connected iron bars, 2 speakers, CD-player 90.5 x 3 cm (courtesy of Galerie Thomas Bernard)

Each frail, rusty, grubby piece here shares in the Arte Povera and post-minimal aesthetics popular in the Soho gallery scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s — the time of their making But in actuality, they are rather monumental works requiring copious amounts of empty space to properly frame their operational existence. In that way, they reminded me not only of Akio Suzuki’s simple but spacey sound recordings of everyday objects, like “Bottle,” made in 2007, but also of Fred Sandback’s très chic, ultra-minimal string sculptures: barely existing art objects that are also unimaginable to conceive without the generous, if tatty, Soho loft spaces of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

A few other tentative sound-sculptures by Julius, such as the elegantly minimalist “Iron Bamboo” (1982), also lightly occupied Galerie Thomas Bernard’s open atmosphere, and they too impacted me strongly. Their timorous seduction lured me into an enlarged visual-aural mindfulness that stayed with me throughout the day. “Iron Bamboo” is a cunning humming work that seems to be very much in the spirit of Marcel Duchamp’s sly sound sculpture “À Bruit Secret” (With Hidden Noise) (1916) that he accomplished with art critic and collector Walter Arensberg and playwright Sophie Treadwell. Just what softly rattles inside it when shaken remains a quiet mystery.

Rolf Julius, “Music in a Corner” (1983) speaker, cement power, corner, CD-player, about 62 cm diameter (courtesy of Galerie Thomas Bernard)

In Music in a Corner, only Julius’s “Iron Ring, Rusty” (1987) remained mysteriously silent the moment I bent down to hear it. As with “Orange Cello (Sound Cooking)” and the slightly pulsating (and very cute) “Music in a Corner” (1983), Julius had little CD players transmit buzzing noises that vibrate the membranes of small loudspeakers turned to face upwards. In particular, “Music in a Corner” is a wonderfully charming piece that seems to indicate a life within its banal, dusty material — something suggestive of panpsychism as much as vitalism or animism. Its dancing, greenish dirt reminded me too of what the German philosopher Thomas Metzinger says about reality: that from a certain scientific perspective, the physical world is only the quivering, electro-magnetic oscillation of wavelengths.

Rolf Julius, Music in a Corner, Early Works continues at Galerie Thomas Bernard (13 rue des Arquebusiers, 3rd arrondissement, Paris) through October 7. The Château Chasse-Spleen in Moulis-en-Médoc is also now presenting an exhibition of Rolf Julius titled Red (Inside) until October 30.

The post Work That Is Audible to the Naked Eye appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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[ashroseevans]

Enter Defender of Justice Seven-Zero-Seven!!!

By night he is 707, as the public calls him, a technokinetic vigilante who uses his powers to manipulate technology to get information on corrupt organizations and spread it around to the general public. By day, he is Saeyoung Choi, a hacker extraordinaire who uses his knowledge of computers to complete the odd hacking job. Sometimes he ends up working for the bad guys, but when this does happen, 707 swoops in and correct's his mistakes. In this particular instance, he received a tip from someone he was working for about a company who was running illegal sweatshops...

707 watched as the door closed. It was closed with a very complex security system and he couldn’t help but smile. Didn’t they know that the more high tech a security system was, the easier it would be for him to break into it? Clearly they thought that if they simply buffed it up more, he wouldn’t be able to crack it fast enough.

They seriously never learn.

His target was the personal home of a multimillionaire who’s company was running illegal sweatshops, but the information was hidden so every time someone tried to turn them in, the case would never stick for lack of evidence. He tried to find the information by hacking into the system of the scumbag, but there was nothing there, so that meant that the files had to be on paper. Smarter than having them digitized, but also not as smart as not having them at all.

He still remembered when he first cased the place a week ago. The security was minimal, a guard at every door, looking exceptionally burly and strong, and a magnetic lock. He broke in the first time just to see if he could do it and left a note on the Chairman’s desk saying that he would be breaking in. He was a particularly playful superhero and preferred a bit of a challenge, that and he didn’t have enough time to look for the information on his own. This time however, the Chairman was away on a vacation and wouldn’t be back, but since the security was tripled since he last broke in, it was a sure sign that the information was in that house somewhere and that it wasn’t destroyed.

Idiots.

If it had been him, he would have just destroyed the information and not done a single thing. But then again, he was a little more logical then most people, even if it didn’t seem like it. He peered over the roof to case the door he was going to be going through. Two guys. Each of them with earwigs. They looked like stereotypical mobsters. Both were wearing a pair of sunglasses, even though it was nearly pitch dark outside, and a black tie suit. Their arms were crossed and they scanned the area every 3.4 seconds and then reported to the others that the area was clear. If only they knew.

Seven snickered and took a deep breath. This would be like taking candy from a baby. But first, he turned to look at the computer suspended in air next to him. A blueprint of the building was on the screen and Seven looked one more time to make sure of his route to the mysterious room in the basement. It wasn’t there in the original blueprints, but when the Chairman bought the mansion he had it added in along with the Mother of All Security Systems. That had to be the room with the information he needed about the illegal sweatshops; things like death certificates of the workers, financial reports that didn’t add up with what the company was releasing for tax purposes, images of the warehouses and things of that nature.

He closed the laptop and slipped it into his pack on his back. He would seriously need to think of a better set up for his work. Maybe develop a pair of glasses that had the same amount of computing power as his laptop that he could control with his powers. Now that would be something to think about.

Just not now.

He looked down at the two men guarding the door. He’d have to take care of this job first before he started thinking about developing computer glasses. But it shouldn’t be too hard. He smirked and took a deep breath before he focused on the earwigs. Just a small nudge with his powers and a high pitched ringing blew out the guards eardrums. They let out a yell of pain before they fell to the ground, unconscious. He jumped down and landed gracefully next to them. Taking a second to check for a pulse, he walked to the front door.

Seven might be a vigilante but he wasn’t a killer. That would be the exact opposite of being the Defender of Justice!

He put his hand over the lock and focused hard. He could see the inner workings of the device when he closed his eyes and he issued a simple command.

Open.

The door clicked and Seven turned the handle and walked in, quietly closing it behind him. He didn’t want to alert any unnecessary people to his presence here. He wanted to avoid confrontation if at all possible. Once he was in he looked around before he spotted the staircase that he deemed safe for him to use. He quickly and quietly rushed down until he heard footsteps from the floor above. He froze and held his breath trying to listen to what they were saying.

“—an intruder somewhere in the house,” said one of the other guards, a male.

“You go down and watch over the vault.” This one was a woman. Must be some strong ass chick if she was one of the body guards. “I’ll check out the two outside.”

Seven cursed and then ran the rest of the way down the stairs and looked around for a hiding spot. He could hear the steps of the guard right on his tail. He ducked behind a stack of boxes just as the guard entered the basement. He cursed again under his breath. He could see the door to the vault. He was so close to getting the information that he could taste it. Looks like he’ll just have to do him like he did the other two outside. But when he looked closer he then realized the problem. This guard wasn’t wearing an earwig like the others. This wasn’t good. He pulled the backpack off his shoulders and dug around. At least he came prepared for contingencies like this. When he finally found what he was looking for, he pulled it out.

A robot cat.

He turned it on to the immobilize setting and stepped out from his hiding spot. “Hello!” he said cheerily to the guard.

The guard jumped and looked to see Seven standing next to the boxes. “So you made it down here, did you?” the guard said. “You must be pretty good to have been able to hack through the security system in less than a minute.”

Seven snorted. “I’m better than good,” he said. “So why don’t you step aside and let me get what I came here for and nothing will happen to you.”

This time the guard snorted. “Yeah, okay sure,” he said sarcastically and reached for the gun at his hip.

While the guard was distracted, Seven set Robot Cat down on the ground. “I warned you,” he said.

The guard pointed the gun at Seven, but he didn’t react to it. He just kept his hands in his pockets as he watched Robot Cat from the corner of his eye. The guard still hadn’t noticed it. How stupid could these jokers be?

“Come quietly and you might get out of this alive,” the guard said, trying to sound intimidating. Too bad for him this wasn’t the first gun that was pointed at 707.

Seven let out a sigh and shrugged. “It won’t matter if I do or don’t. You’ll be unconscious in 3… 2… 1.” Just as he said 1, Robot Cat shot a dart full or horse tranquilizer at the guard, getting him right in the gut.

It was a little bit of a delayed reaction, but it wasn’t long before the guard was face first on the ground. Seven walked over to him and kicked the gun across the room before he reached up and put a hand on the vault door. Since there was so much more security in the vault then the doors leading inside, it took a little longer. He needed to turn off the incinerator that was supposed to activate if the door was opened without a retinal scan and the poison gas that would spread around the room if the fingerprint scanner was bypassed. Seven had to admit that the security on this vault was pretty hardcore, but once he turned everything off and made sure it was safe for him to enter, he commanded the door to open.

When he pulled the door open, there was a single file cabinet in the center of the room.

This is too easy…

He walked up to the cabinet and checked around to see if there was any sort of device that would cause it to explode or otherwise would destroy the information. When he deemed it save he opened the cabinet. All of the drawers were empty except for the middle one. The entire drawer was filled with paper files. He pulled one out haphazardly and looked through it.

He was rather surprised to see that it was actually what he was looking for. He half expected it to be some sort of fake information since it was so easy to get in here. He shrugged. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth they say. He opened up his backpack and started putting whole drawer of files into pack and exited the vault as quickly as he came in. Didn’t want anyone to catch him with his guard down.

He left the guard on the ground and the door to the vault open before he made his way to the stairs to get out of the house as quickly as he could. He checked around the corner and didn’t hear anyone coming down so he picked up Robot Cat and made his way as quietly out of the house.

*     *     *

-707 entered the chat-

707: GUYS!!

707: DID YOU SEE THE NEWS!?!

Zen: You mean the thing about your hero?

707: He’s not my hero. I’m just a fan. God~

Jaehee: We get it, Seven. What about the news?

Jaehee: I didn’t get to catch it this morning.

Jaehee: Jumin is making me draw up business plans.

Zen: I’m so sorry for your loss.;;;;

Zen: anyway.

Zen: Because of 707

707: You mean the Defender of Justice Seven-Zero-Seven!

Zen: Oh shush.

Zen: Anyway, because of 707

Zen: the chairman of that big clothing company was arrested for running illegal sweatshops

Zen: and is being interrogated for also having mob ties.

-Jumin Han entered the chat-

707: Look who’s here!

707: did you see the news?

Jumin: About that chairman?

Jumin: I heard about it on the radio.

Jumin: It’s a good thing I was able to convince my father against going into business with him.

Jaehee: Mr. Chairman was considering signing a contract with him?!

Jumin: He thought it would be a good idea.

Jumin: I convinced him otherwise.

Jumin: and now he wants to have lunch with me to congratulate me on saving the company from ruining its good name.

Jumin: -_-”              

707: it could be worse!

707: You could have the police at your door!

707: I don’t even want to think what would happen to our Elisabeth 3rd if the cops randomly showed up at your house!

707: I would be forced to take care of her since you and Jaehee would have been interrogated!

Jumin: You will not get anywhere near Elisabeth 3rd.

707: That’s what you think!

-Yoosung ★ entered the chat-

Yoosung ★: DID YOU GUYS SEE THE NEWS!?

707: we were just talking about it.

707: you’re a little late to the party!

Yoosung ★: I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!

707: I can!

707: Isn’t 707 just…

707: AWESOME!?

Zen: yes we all know about your crush on him, no need to keep going on about it.

Zen: But I do have to admit that it was a pretty impressive feat. Doing all that without backup from his team…

707: He’s so awesome…

707: anyway, I have to go now!

707: I’ll be back later~

-707 left the chat-

Saeyoung leaned back on his chair and locked his phone. He looked to the side at the pile of files on the desk sitting next to him. He sighed, picking them up, and put them in the safe under the table. Even though he digitized and uploaded every single page to the internet, he should keep the paper copies just in case something were to happen to his hard drive.

He sat back down on his chair and opened up his computer. Now he had the time to work on those computerized glasses he was thinking about the other day…

Read more Mystic Messenger Stories (and others) here

#mystic messenger #707 #saeyoung choi #luciel choi #mystic messenger zen #mystic messenger superhero au