So I says---Rafe, is the asshole a self-cleaning organ?
This question knocked him back a foot or so from my already invaded personal 2 feet—HA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...I never thought about it man...HAHAHAHAHAHA...and those the fakest of HAHA’s, loud, I mean loud so that everyone turned and I felt stupid for asking but then again Rafe was proof to my belief that no, the asshole was not self-cleaning...otherwise he would have stopped getting himself all over himself and everyone around him years ago...ah man it was like waiting to watch your own funeral...what Rafe needed was to get in touch with the auditor of the auditor of his poor heart, ask a few leading questions and then get down to the business of clearing out the files, starting with the folder labeled “goatee”...
--Hey, I’m thinking of traveling in Guatemala, moving around a little, seeing some ruins, some sights, you know, man...
Was Ramona in Guatemala at the house of Lionel’s parents? Would I see the sometimes seen touch of green when the sun drops into the ocean? I could certainly see it, see it both as a chance to hone my Spanish and to gain some miles for my tender neophyte self who’d never been further than where I was standing at that moment, which was really an existence between a sleep and a sleep, in a semi-comatose state watching the parade of the word and the cross...
---yeah that sounds like it could be a good idea...you know this girl I told you about (I had filled him in on Ramona for kicks) is living on the mainland and she may be in Guatemala right now for the holidays...plus, my friend, (those first crude feelings of friendship) t’would be good for me to get myself out into the coffee flats of the Unknown to see a little beyond mall-america and the good ole popular republic of Boulder...and I can practice my Español with you—where will we stay?
--You can find places for dirt cheap, man, could live with a family and teach English to the kids, get meals, have a real experience, man, you know?
--Yeah, I says, it sounds great...
I gave this tall order to Rafe because I liked the idea enough but knew that too much time alone with him could jeopardize the four immeasurables—love, compassion, joy & equanimity—and leave me dreadful and strange even to myselves...no, better to stay amongst my kith and kin, work my sliding effect strut along white sand beaches with friendly passersbys and the tangibles of knowledge and beauty like a painting...and the breeze in Belize had an x-ray quality to it, its constant wearing away of armor until raw selves take home cool refreshment from the land of sky blue waters...Rafe would wear down other resistances, other ego imperfections but I was no Bodhisattva yet and those would’ve proven too much to deal with in a useful way...Ah, I sing my line in falsetto! However I managed to get free of Rafe was how I was beginning to see that belly philosophers and their like hedonists were looking for avoidance of pain through pleasure—seeking and in his naturo-ballistic way, Rafe was only interested in doing the same thing, for however much he talked of “being down” with Eastern philosophy or religion, he was only interested in so far as to how much “interested” could bring him in terms of goods or pleasures...just like overeating is a form of stealing...
I was leaning on better and better odds mostly because I was playing outside their reach anymore, where betting on better or worse wasn’t part of the schemata, rather a GRACE...dismantling illusions, delusions, contusions, profusions, attachments, fears, sorrows, opinions, desires, hopes, expectations—yes that area of grace was one I was keenly more aware of...not Art, tho I live it, Art has no existence as veracity, as truth...rather it’s an expression of the beauty of suffering and suffering is still well within the realm of the aggregates, the pushers, the fakers, the dying...I am beginning to want out while being capable of being joyous ‘in’ everything—out of trouble, out of relationship, out of [the fear of] danger, out of context, out of touch, out of reach, out and out entirely while remaining “in” in the wisest alchemical sense, hard to explain, but BE those concepts so there are no longer concepts! Kill Concipere! Get this—‘concept’ is nothing more than birth and birth leads to death [FEAR] without birth there is not death—to be outside of birth and death—conceit! But how? Can this be? Without birth no consciousness. No. One can get beyond being born and dying. One can be the Arhat but better to wax Bodhisattva, help all reach nirvana—gloriously...
-Michael Price
