The Book of the Die. Luke Rhinehart
given moment but the wise man makes no claim of permanence for any of his ‘I’s.
A Diemaster once said: ‘All of my dieciples are good dice-persons except Whim. He alone is no one.’
STUDENT: But who are you?
WHIM: Here today, gone tomorrow.
STUDENT: But who are you?
WHIM: Me? I’m … oops, not any more.
Even the normal human knows he is multiple. For example, a man slaps his wife. Thirty minutes later another self bursts into his consciousness saying, ‘Oh, what a horrible thing to have slapped my wife. I love my wife.’ When the man returns to his wife the ensuing dialogue might go like this:
‘I love you, Sweetheart.’
‘You prick, an hour ago you hit me.’
‘No, no, I didn’t mean to. That wasn’t the real me.’
‘It was too you!’
‘Not me. I love you. I could no more hit you than I could kill myself.’
‘Then who was it using your body who belted me?’
‘Beats me, but let’s fuck.’
Die-ing eliminates internal conflicts by eliminating the illusion that some mes are more real, more important or morally superior to others. We assume that there is no real me; we are nothing but a collection of fakes, some of whom are under the illusion they are more real than others. There are layers of self-deception which wise men peel and peel until at last they stand face to face with the Ultimate: layer upon layer of further self-deception.
The sage rips off mask after mask until at last he is free of his compulsion to rip off masks. He begins instead to create mask after mask, joyfully and without guilt. He knows that no matter how many masks he ripped off he was still in self-deception; he knows that no matter how many new masks he now adds he is being utterly honest.
Scoop up water and the moon is in your hands,
Pick up dice and hold green stars.
Drop them, and watch the lightning strike.
Die-ing permits us to let go of our ‘true self’ and let Chance choose from among the optional aspirations we are willing to risk expressing. Soon we come to realize that our problems and conflicts are in some sense not ours to worry about: that no matter how hard we try, no ‘I’ can ever have any control.
In giving up trying to control life through an illusory self, one feels liberated, ecstatic, stoned. It’s something like newly-born Christians giving up their souls to Christ or God, or the Zen student or Taoist surrendering to the Tao. In all these cases the ego-control game is abandoned and one surrenders to a force which is experienced as being outside oneself.
Of course, there is the danger that at first we may cast the dice to choose among our options and think: ‘Now I must have the will power to do it.’ But obviously the illusion that an ego controls or has ‘will power’ must be abandoned. We will come to see our relation to the dice first as that of a baby in a rubber raft on a flooded river: each motion of the river is pleasant; we don’t need to know where we’re going or when, if ever, we’ll arrive. Motion is all. Later, the feeling of separation from the river will disappear. The falling die, the flow of experience, the succession of ‘Is’ will all blend into a single swim. The I will have died.
Of course, the death of the personality is a slow and unending process. In the early stages of die-ing only a few of the buried selves are able to offer themselves to the Die. But as we progress, more and more selves, desires, values and roles are raised into the possibility of existence; the human being grows, expands, becomes more flexible, more various. The strength of the normal dominant personality declines, disappears. We die. And, having died, at last we feel free.
DIE-ING WITH DICE, DIE-ING WITH MEDITATION, DIE-ING WITH ZEN, DIE-ING WITH THE SUFIS – IT DOESN’T MUCH MATTER HOW YOU DIE. THE IMPORTANT THING IS TO PRODUCE A CORPSE.
HOW WHIM KNOWS WHO’S WHO
One day the Zen master Oboko said to Whim: ‘Have you finally discovered where your true Self is when you are driving a car?’
‘Yes, Master,’ said Whim, smiling happily.
‘Where?’ asked Oboko.
‘Whenever I’m driving a car my True Self is right there!’ and Whim pointed directly at the master’s chest.
‘That’s very good,’ said Oboko. ‘But then where is my True Self when you are driving your car?’
‘Well,’ said Whim with a frown. ‘I guess your True Self is right here,’ and he pointed at his own chest.
‘That’s very good,’ said Oboko. ‘But then how can we tell who is you and who is me?’
‘Simple,’ said Whim, smiling happily again. ‘You drive a junky station wagon and I drive a Porsche.’
When the self has been burned away, watch the children come out and play.
LUKE PRAYS
Royal Cube and King,
Forgive me for not having communed with you more often. That fatal feeling that I am someone, and that certain actions are more important than seeking your Way has sometimes blocked my path. This week when once or twice I turned to you for guidance, I flowed free. When I tried to ignore you and guide my own life in pursuit of my quest, I often moped around like a sea-sick clown – until I heard your Laughing Men in the Sky roaring at my silliness. It is clear to me now that you are God. I know it. Your Way is my Salvation. I know it. The great freedom sought by Kierkegaard, Dostoyevski, Nietzsche and George Harrison exists, and is contained within your six walls.
I am a pebble, Lord, kick me. I am a corpse quickened only by your breath. I lie upon the sunken bed; you touch, I walk. My hate flares; you fall across the floor, extinguish it. The birds of appetites gnaw me; you speak, doves all. You but whisper and I roar; you but nudge and I fly.
But my self must first come to you, and the very selves which you create with your decisions then try to avoid you with all the cunning of dogs avoiding a bath. They fight you, my Ivory Lord, by ignoring you. In the fog that is my self, sound the horn that will lead me always to thy Cube.
Thirty years, O Die, I sold myself to self. It swallowed me. Your touch alone has vomited me free. When I hold you in my hand I share in your Divinity; when I let you fall, you raise me up.
Even now, Six-sided Seer, as I try to tell you of my progress in your way, the self steals the mind to thoughts of fame and fortune, thoughts unworthy of a twelve-year-old boy, yet mine, still mine. Liberate me, Lord, from my vanity: cleanse me of self.
I am a weakling. I have been a 238-pound weakling all my life; I see that now. You alone have given me strength.
No more sand kicked in my face, unless your foot swings.
No girl shall laugh at me, unless you provide the tickle.
I will try this coming month to place myself in your hands at every hour, to wear you near my heart that I may feel your power and use it at each turning. Those who shake my hand and pat me on the back do not know what Power lurks beneath my shirt. A tiny, spotted cube: if I let it fall it may choose to create or to kill. Not my will, Die, but Thy will be done, on earth, as it is everywhere else.
For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, Forever and Ever.
– from Luke’s Journal
Love yourselves: be a multiman