haiku at midnight
344
midnight
a solitary cicada rasps
the surf’s deep throat
responds
~
echoes from emptiness
May 20, 2012
never will you meet such an unapologetic narcissist
343
I settle on my zafu
poised as the Presence
of a world displayed -
a world whose appearance
is wholly dependent upon
the sensory capacity
here, yet without location
anywhere
I marvel that after turning up
for more than 300 mornings,
pen-in-hand and heart-at-the-ready,
words still spill themselves
out of the silent emptiness
on the other side of thought
as fresh and fecund as on day
one
There is no author here -
my authorship could never sustain such
freshness for even a fortnight.
I’d bore myself to tears and quickly move on.
Wild wideawakeness is simply singing
soulfully
to itself in the mirror.
A small hand
holding an old-fashioned Waterman fountain pen
scribbles the opening libretto:
Everywhere I look
I see
laid out in luscious
lu-mi-no-si-ty
the miracle
of unknowable
Me!
I’m cracking up at the audacity when out of nowhere a gleeful chorus pipes up:
It’s a new dawn
it’s a new day
it’s a new life for Me
and I’m feelin’ good!*
[Never will you meet such an unapologetic narcissist!]
~
*from Feeling Good, by Peter Schick
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May 11, 2012
time is mind’s favourite toy
342
On a sun-drenched Easter Sunday nearly seven decades ago, two destiny maps – known as my Mum and Dad – came together in marriage and stayed together.
It happened in the remote Ida Valley, Central Otago – sheep-station country in New Zealand’s South Island. Think tussocks blanketing the dry landscape with shimmering liquid gold, huge rock outcrops and only a few scattered willows bordering the creeks; skies of unfathomable indigo with tiny skylarks soaring and diving and ceaselessly singing on the wing…
Time! How it creates this apparentness of be-ing! Creates the insistent illusion of individuals with identities and histories; creates the fabric on which Life embroiders a multitude of manifestations. Time is mind’s favourite toy.
This is my question:
What was never born
never entered into marriage
never had children or parents
never succeeded or failed at anything
never suffered injury or heartache
nor enjoyed a single moment’s pleasure
and yet ‘knows’ it all, intimately,
while remaining
utterly unaffected and impartial?
~
Painting: Road West, Ida Valley by Grahame Sydney 1999
710mm x 1220mm
Oil on Linen
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April 30, 2012
what happens when all authority is abandoned?
341
If you’re born blind, totally blind, you need to be told about light. That’s the only way you’ll come to believe something like light exists. But if you aren’t blind, belief isn’t necessary – you simply see and know light.
It’s odd then – with respect to ‘awakening’ - the way beliefs seem to cause blindness in those with eyes to see. Beliefs are just like cataracts.
To see for yourself that wideawake brilliant awareness is all there is, is simple. It’s probably the most obvious of all observations. So why do we resist? Why do we look for the Real everywhere but here?
Conditioned from tiny-hood to believe ourselves blind (unenlightened) we unquestioningly accept the beliefs of those who appear to have vision (authority): parents, priests, teachers, gurus, scriptures.
What happens when that conditioning is questioned? What happens when all authority is abandoned? What happens when we use our own eyes and trust our own vision?
Clear brilliant awareness is inescapably present. Clarity flowers. And clarity instantly removes cataracts.
~
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April 28, 2012
hairy caterpillar horror
340
It’s difficult to describe the intense pain and excruciating itch experienced on contact with Australia’s notorious hairy caterpillars. I had a tactile taste of it today.
These caterpillars march along in head-to-tail formation – long columns of fluffy wigglers in search of tucker. As they travel they drop miniscule invisible hairs which carry some kind of poisonous irritant. You merrily dash out to the clothesline in the morning and unwittingly walk over these hairs in your bare feet. The effect is instant – the body’s immune system sets up a red alert. If you’re a baby or a toddler you could die.
Searing itching agony creeps up the feet to the ankles, then up the shins to the knees. The hand that scratches picks up the poison and becomes affected as well. You dive into the swimming pool to escape the fury of itching and to wash the hairs away.
Sheer agony. Undeniable. And yet …
Why is it that the pristine awareness in which this hairy horror movie plays out is utterly unaffected? Beats me, but turning to that ultimate changeless refuge never fails to sabotage the arising of suffering.
~
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April 18, 2012
wonder, creativity and wonderment
339
wonder births questions
questions birth creativity
creativity births wonderment
The cycle of creation begins with wonder
What exactly wonders?
Not ‘me’, not ‘you’!
Life Itself wonders, and billions of bubbles of sentience (felt as ‘I’-ness) explore its questions in billions of different ways.
The questions will always generate creativity in one form or another, but it takes a ripening awareness for creativity to birth wonderment.
Whose ripening awareness?
Not ‘mine’, not ‘yours’!
It’s a natural ripening without subject or object, without knower or known; a flowering that’s conclusion-free and that operates outside of time.
~
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April 16, 2012
the great way isn’t difficult
338
The Great Way isn’t difficult
- nor is it easy
aspiring to walk it
one hobbles oneself
better to sit down now,
rest your tired feet
and with a sweet sigh soak up
The Great View
~
The Great Way by Sengstan (Third Zen Patriarch)
