174
serendipities, coincidences,
the utterly unexpected and uninvited,
the unintentional and unwilled
these are the hallmarks of life on the
Gracetrack
who doesn’t want the Gracious life?
who doesn’t hunger for the magical and synchronous?
(if you say “Not me”
I don’t believe you)
slipping between mind’s tectonic plates
resting as empty-fullness
it’s such a blessed relief to find
that the Gracetrack is exactly
this
unadorned, uninterrupted, story-free
N O W
~
169
folded up on my zafu
eyes wide open
senses alive, alert
brain like a tuning fork
resonating, singing –
the pitch is off the scale
(can you hear the grass growing?
can you bear the pressure
inside a swelling dewdrop?)
sitting, breathing, being:
now
– the dawning of a soft new day
this
– body breathing itself sigh by sigh
here
– the hub of heaven’s heartbeat
shining sunbeams on skin
where just a breath before
was cool darkness
waking up is just like that
~
162
a mosquito has breakfasted on my unwitting ankle; fingers reach to scratch
a truck roars past, penetrating the last sigh of night’s silence; the toilet upstairs flushes and fills, birds are squabbling at the birdbath
crystals are rainbow-dancing over the slowly emerging outlines of the sanctuary wall; candlelight is flickering, the rising sun is painting primrose lozenges of soft light
in my celadon teapot green tea is steeping; a wisp of vapor makes the invisible visible
at home on this zafu, breathing is rising and releasing without effort or control; brain is fasting
wideawakeness and suchness are inseparably embedded: now! this! here!
~
99
now
awareness
flooded with lorrikeet-language,
with crow-craw and the chatter
of feathered friends
this
twinkling, sunbright morning
whitewashed sky
behind gold-tipped gums
here
on my cushion, sleepy-eyed
body breathing in and out
immersed in an ommm-ing ocean:
creation’s nameless name
~
87
Wei Wu Wei speaks of noumenality
as “the presence of the absence of phenomena”
the words are precise, the meaning unambiguous
but how can it be said more simply?
tick-tock mind comes up with a suggestion-of-sorts:
O=(nth-me)
where O
is pregnant emptiness
or the moon
or a riceball
(mooningriceballingwholeness)
and nth
stands for ‘now! this! here!’
or the furthest degree
of experience-ability and
imagine-ability
and me
is an idea become belief
subtract the belief from the field of experiencing
and what’s left?
simply put – by another big W
“that of which we cannot speak”
yet that which we
unquestionably
know to be ‘I’
(mooningriceballingwholeness)
~
15
silence
silver singing silence
suspended in eternity
when the ‘who’ goes
so do the ‘where’
and the ‘when’
only now-ness, thus-ness, here-ness:
n
wild w i d e a w a k e n e s s
~
09
there’s a man’s voice
there’s merry whistling
there’s ceaseless traffic
someone’s coughing
doves are calling
songbirds are singing
there’s a screen door slamming
there’s a white car passing by
there’s a stooped woman, hurrying
the palm fronds are trembling
green tea steams in this raku cup
a fountain pen scribbles
there’s a body beating
there’s the singing silence of this stillness
which is the source and substance of all sound
~
echoes from emptiness 