Other Stories

Koh was once speaking,


“You can live your life in a dull way or in a piercing way. You can experience anything in a wise way or an ignorant way, a subtle way or a deep way, a creative way or a boring way.
Really, the experiences we consider profound are so because of the quality of our attention. It makes us experiential. Really, any moment, dull or ordinary moment, can be lived in a profound way. This is a life of wisdom and what I've been invited to speak to you about today.
Your brain will evolve if you experience ordinary moments in deep ways, if you slice through its mediocrity with a sharpened attentive practice and you learn of a new way of living in the world that wasn't known to you before.
Any ordinary moment, and every one of them, is the perfect opportunity to be wise. Every breath is an invitation to know your relationship to your environment in a new way.
You can create excuses for your own mediocrity, socially validated reasons, and become reasonably adept at deceiving yourself into a hypnotic trance, into a half-awake doze of living, percolated by occasional spikes of joy and astonishment. Or, you can live in a wise, sensitive and profound way, every second is new and is transformative. You can rebel against language, against thought, against boredom, against mediocrity, against dullness every moment. You can be a walking black hole...
This is my message to you. Be black holes. Be not sufficed by contentment. Contentment is the absurdist joke at the center of the tragedy of life. Your contentment is your enemy disguises as your friend, it is your goal and your fear, your poison, weakness and solution all in one.
I say to you, to see this moment of being, as an opportunity to feel the discontentment which is the manifestation of your authentic rage. Your rage at boredom and unfulfillment. Longing for fulfillment is who we are. We are all dreams that are trying to become real, to grow in the world.
There are subtle stories and movies that go on in our minds that we might not otherwise notice. When we are doing something, our minds replay and imagine, very much like a dream, imposing itself, appearing somewhere in our vision, our thoughts go on by themselves and we accept them, barely, if even, noticing. When we are thinking, our attention is momentarily absent from our senses, then returning to our senses, there are impressions left in our minds that superimpose over our senses and we experience an insular reality, one ordained by these narrations and drama in our thoughts. If we don't become aware of this, time will speed ahead, our lives will end as soon as they started.
But, in our pain, there is a longer trail of memories and thoughts attached. In our way of moving our eye towards or across something, we have attached memories and stories. These things go unobserved. We live though our images almost exclusively. Try to look at something in a new way.
See it as if it has never been there, as if you are baffled. Can you be aware of what is new? Can you be aware of how we related everything we encounter to a dull and deadening story or movie. As if we were never really here, alive, right now, at all. As if our whole life was just a stale photograph or newspaper.
Question what is worth noticing. Question what feels important. Question what is easy to understand, what comes natural, what has been learned, what you feel or like.”


Koh continues,


“Unless there is no life in your fingers. Unless your fingers are always ensnared by fear. Unless your fingers are bound by the opinions of others. They, aren't they? Are even your fingers true and authentic? Or are they frauds?
Does your hand experience life? Or is it bound? Is your hand a pulsing and feeling thing? Does it serve your liberation from mediocrity and dullness?
Unless you have no radiant light behind your jeweled eyes. Unless you are sliding on ice as quickly as possible, unless you are craving to be buried underground. Are you appreciative you live above ground?
Are you appreciative you have every capability? TO piss someone off, to love again, to forget, to learn, to remember, to witness, to question, to be concerned, to laugh, to know, to relate.
Are you here in the same room as me? Or are you somewhere else in your head? Or are you in this peaceful, still, sturdy room? Is there a window, are you also with the planet outside, on the surface, as an animalistic creature?
Are you still an animalistic creature? Are you living in your body, feeling it from the inside? Are you here with yourself, with your ever-present self? Has that ever occurred to you before? That you can't get away from yourself? For all eternity? By definition?
Are you aware of the time yet? Of mortality? Of your own limits, the urgency. Of, you know, opportunities are your reminders that death is getting closer. Opportunities are your reminder that ltime is always with you. Time, in a way, is you.
Are you aware of sleep? Or do you fall asleep without any second consideration ever? Have you tried to understand sleep. To know it from the inside out. What about waking up? Do you have any experience with the moment prior to waking up?
Do you have any experience with looking? Just looking and seeing what you are seeing as what you are seeing, and what you are feeling as what you are feeling. To note it and to still be looking.
A wise life is a dogged and daring life. Daring to be true, to be unapologetic, to be emotional, animalistic and deep. To be a contradiction. To feel and truly not numb yourself. To feel and to hurt and to forget and to feel again. To be hungry, sad, angry, unfulfilled. To be terrified and shaken. To look at another's eyes and not know the indescribable feeling, to know these undefinable things. And to breakdown and to recover. And to waste time and to crawl in the mud. To break your hip, to be forgotten,. To be crushed and stepped on. To be harder than life itself. To be a garden without fences. To be a shining light. TO resist and reject, to trust and to try. TO truly try and to suffer. And to know better and do better. To open the curtain and look outside, to look alone, feel alone, be alone. TO feel your feet, to care for them, to hydrate, to bathe, to stretch, to repeat forever and never escape yourself. To see this cycle at a distance and to jump right in. To jump right in with passion, except for when you don't. TO stand tall and face the sky, except for when you don't. To shrink and to shriven and wither, erode and be remodeled, to be blasted and be melted, but to harden and soften and reform, to come back, again and again, without any cause or reason. To be signing and twisting, and to fall, on both knees, to see from another's eyes, the inside of their heart, the inside of their body, what it's like, to know miracle and to have it taken away, and to be surrounded, confused, bewildered, to be fooled and deceived, to be a broken limb, a broken stem, to feel something broken, to truly touch and reach out, to awaken or put asleep, to see it wake up, to watch for the first time, to teach and learn and to cherish and to be there, to organize and to be let down, to be overworked, to regret and to miss, to neglect our destiny, exaggerate our history, for all those who are learning to ride a bike, for what it means to be first, for what it is to feel certain about anything at all anymore, to the survivors, to a spirit, to a dream, to a spoiled one, to a leaked one, to a small one, to that which is achievable, for another day and for yesterday, days that put behind, days that are definitive, to whatever is classic, to being held and to hold, to expression and whatever it may be, to larger forces and moments of which we were unaware and for forgiving our laziness, ignorance and arrogance, our mistakes, our originality, for trying, for sleeping too long, for eating too much or too little, for hurting ourselves, feeling guilty, feeling bad, for all our let-downs everywhere, taking it easy and hearts everywhere for one days, one day to heal and return home, one day to regroup, cry together, there's always time, there's always the truth, always will be miracles, peaches, suns and nights, always will be mornings and pillows, the same decisions, for the hard decisions, for our strengths, for apologies, for acceptance, for moving on, for growing, for being together, for being apart, for failing, for injuring ourselves, for when we are loved by animals, for comfort, for its okay, for the other hand, for our best nature, although we are mistaken, for ourselves, for when its easy and when its not easy, for radical ups and downs, for admissions, for compassion, for heart aches, for drama, for our fragility, for aching and hoking, weird memories, nostalgic, sad, guilty, happy, shameless, our virtues, what we look up to, our heroes, our quirks, remembering, lying down, sitting, staring, watching, swimming, promises and commitments, for what's adorable, for what our language can say, for what we've never said before, for our beautiful thoughts, ugly thoughts, ashamed of thoughts, misdirection, misinformed, big hideous mistakes, and lights and paranoia, sad songs and angels weeping, and for our parents and family and loved ones, for those photographs, for everything they've done for us, God bless their humor, stories, cheesiness and wisdom, infinite patience and tolerance and understanding, forgive us, forgive us fully, for our hearts lacks and depletions idiosyncrasies and major imperfections, our little flaws and deep issues, we're all trying, relating to music, our own parallel, tracks, our thoughts are similar, our objections, our worries and fears, out public personas, our private worlds, inner dimensionalities, our secret selves and inward visions, our imaginings and unique perceptions, our troubles, what gets unexpressed, what gets misheard, what makes our heart race, our stomach knot, our blood boil, our surprises and shocking revelations, our intensity and desire, our blood and fuel and drive, our determination, our accidents, our viciousness, our highest ideals, our personal wars, out toxic relationships, our funnest moments, our favorite everythings, our stressors, our insides,

our insides.