atdtda:31 pp 890-891 Desire

Sun May 4 10:18:08 CDT 2008

The light at the end of the hosting section 31 tunnel is coming - 1  
more post after this.

pg 890.20-.21   "They accompanied the Irish Anarchist as far as the  
French border with Spain, and took an end-of-the-season pass around  
the French casinos.  But  along with the mysteries of Desire, Cyprian  
was feeling a shift in its terms, an appreciation that something was  
coming to an end... "

Seasons change and Cyprian changes - autumn is an ending -  but  
Cyprian is also  changing again, more.  He feels something ending.   
He apparently no longer desires Reef and Yashmeen - or much else for  
that matter it doesn't seem like.

Is this feeling of Cyprian's a psychic awareness  or just human  
insight?   Where's the line?  Is there one?  It it the same thing?

***********
890.21-22  "The sources of Desire were as unknowable as those of the  
Styx."

The River Styx is from Greek mythology.  It  encircles Hell 9 times,   
thoroughly separating it from the Heavens and the Earth.  "Its name  
comes from the Greek word stugein which means hate,  Styx, the river  
of hate."
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/s/styx_river.html

** So to rephrase,   "The sources of Desire were as unknowable as  
those of Hate."

************
890.22-.24  "But no more accountable was absence of desire - why one  
might choose not to embrace what the world judges, it often seemed  
unanimously, to lie clearly in one's interest."

Looks like Cyprian is going into another phase in Buddhism,  now even  
Desire is fading,  without his even desiring it to do so.  He's not  
self-hating anymore (or what looked like that).  Is his ego just  
withering away?

************

890.24  Yashmeen:  "You are not the same person,"...  " Something  
happened out in Bosnia,  I feel ... that somehow I am coming slowly  
not to matter as much to you as something else, something unspoken."

What happened in Bosnia was that Cyprian found himself set up.   
betrayed and ultimately alone  (pg 832).   Since then he's gone  
through a period of self-hatred and self-abnegation followed by an  
acceptance of masochism as an avenue through pain and finally  
transcendence of pain.  He desired pain in order to transcend it.     
Now he is transcending Desire -  he's even transcending  the desire  
to desire transcendence.   I think he may be looking at attaining  
Nirvana / "Kingdom of Heaven"  through Grace rather than via the very  
disciplined 8-fold path.

Transcending time and sexual desire
http://tinyurl.com/4vlgbt    (a Google book)

Buddhism (The Way of Salvation):
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/buddhism.html
The First Noble Truth is that there is pain and suffering in the  
world. Gautama realized that pain and suffering are omnipresent in  
all of nature and human life. To exist means we will all encounter  
suffering. Birth is painful and so is death. Sickness and old age are  
painful. Throughout life, all living things encounter suffering.

The Second Noble Truth relates to the cause of suffering. Gautama  
believed theroot cause of suffering is desire. It is the craving for  
wealth, happiness, and other forms of selfish enjoyment which cause  
suffering. These cravings can never be satisfied for they are rooted  
in ignorance.

The Third Noble Truth is the end of all suffering. Suffering will  
cease when a person can rid himself of all desires.

The Fourth Noble Truth is the extinguishing of all desire by  
following the eight-fold path.  The eight-fold path is a system of  
therapy designed to develop habits which will release people from the  
restrictions caused by ignorance and craving.

*  And   "As it says in the Heart Sutra, having transcended the  
fallacious, one goes to nirvana. "

http://tinyurl.com/4zehj8

************

890.29-.34    Cyprian adores Yashmeen - he just doesn't desire her  
like he did.   And Yashmeen knows that.

************

890.35 -  Yashmeen:  "Now I may no longer ask."  (How far he would go  
to prove his adoration.)  "I may no longer even wonder."

************

Yashmeen and Cyprian are physically positioned in their "set"  places.

890.36-891.2  "He was on his knees, as always.  She had two gloved  
fingers carefully beneath his chin, obliging him to look directly  
into her face till she slapped his own away.  The classic tableau had  
not changed."

  But the reality is that Cyprian can walk away now, "as if roles in  
a drama had been reassigned."

************

891. 6  Reef walks in,  but rather than  understand "their tableau as  
an invitation, as once it would have been,"  he walks on into a  
"further chamber."

Reef too, knows something has changed and he may have changed too -  
through dreaming,  meeting Wolfe, and so on.

************

891.8  "One day at Biarritz..."

Biarritz is at the  very south-western corner of France,  bordering  
Spain,  in French Basque country.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biarritz

************

891.10   "It was a bal musette"

French:  "musette dance hall"

Musette is a form of French music originally played with bag-pipes  
which were replaced with accordions by Italian immigrants around  
1900 .  - Musette became very popular - many dances were suitable,  
the waltz (see below) was common.  It had some influence on jazz  
and,  I might say,  dozens of 60's French movies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bal-musette

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bx9OtIw6hU    (some faster dancing)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFNcu7wOf90  (more traditional musette  
waltz)

************

891.9  "A curious certainty took hold of her, and she looked in."

* psychic knowing again

************

  891.12  "Light came in at some extremely oblique angle to reveal  
Reef and Cyprian formally in each other's arms stepping in rhythm to  
the music.  Reef was teaching Cyprian to dance."

*  The angle of the light would certainly add something to the  
scene,  but I'm not sure what word to use - sweet?  touching?

************

  891.14-18    -  Yashmeen does not interrupt them.  She remembers  
Noellyn's telling her that only she (Yashmeen) could get Cyprian on  
the dance floor.

Noellyn is Yashmeen's friend from Cambridge.

* One wonders why Cyprian is learning to dance and why Reef is  
teaching him.   (perhaps we shall find out -  perhaps not).

************

891.19 -  Yashmeen discovers she is pregnant with Reef's child.   
Cyprian imagines it to be his.
* But he doesn't necessarily "desire" it to be his.

Bekah

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