free-fall

the unborn flower of nothing

 

if you want to know
the Unknowable start by
throwing out the absolute
and the relative and
everything between

and should you be blessed
with the capacity to survive
the free-fall
of your o-so-precious
intellectual infrastructure
into roaring silence
into spaciousness
into stillness

then you’ll know that Knowingness as
“the unborn flower of nothing”
and you’ll be its own soft echo
as it sings its eternal song
to itself

 

Echoes from Emptiness - the unborn flower of nothing

 

Who would dare to go nameless in so secure a universe?
Yet, to tell the truth, only the nameless are at home in it.

They bear with them in the center of nowhere the unborn flower of nothing: 
This is the paradise tree.
It must remain unseen until words end
and arguments are silent.

– Thomas Merton

 

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year. May your life blossom on the paradise tree, fulfilled and at peace in every way. You are so loved!

Image source unknown – if it’s one of yours please let me know so that I can give proper credit.

you want the ultimate refuge?

332

Echoes from Emptiness: bungee jumping

I was still very young when Granny taught me this little ditty:

sticks and stones
can break my bones
but words can never hurt me!

I hurled that little incantation at many a playground bully, oblivious to its profound truth.

Decades later I found out for myself that whatever ‘I’ is, it can’t be touched, let alone hurt, by words or anything else: no weapon, thought or circumstance has any power over ‘I’.

How could ‘I’ – a ‘something’ that isn’t an object of any kind – ever be a target?

What kind of weapon could ever affect a not-thing that has no particular place in time and space?
 

You want the ultimate refuge?

Break the bungee cord and free-fall into your very own ‘I’.

It’s nowhere near as scary as you might think.

Image source

fierce grace visits

230

What I notice when amnesia sneaks in and I begin again to claim doer-ship and control over tomorrow, doggedly pushing on, blindly following the ruts of conditioning and posing as supreme controller, is this:

Something happens to bring me back,
and, probably because I’m a gritty goer,
it happens to my body.

(Arm gets rms: can’t scribble or type,
back goes out: can’t stand at easel,
knee explodes: can’t move.)

Something makes me stop, sit, shut-up
and free-fall yet again
into the what-is of this life I call mine.

That ‘something’ is what I know as Grace.
It’s usually fierce.  Definitely not fluffy.

I’ve learned to love it as my most treasured Beloved,
for it returns me to ITself.

~