‘me’ is a mystery
to myself and to the world
of teeming memies
it morphs on-demand
to become … whatever is
projected-then-perceived
it’s a shape-shifter
expert nanodrama artist
in cunning disguise
but no such mystery
shrouds the changeless One called ‘I’
right here, always ON
Creation’s unblinking eye
please
don’t tell me you don’t know
exactly WHAT you are
(that you ARE the peace and sweet release
you seek)
. . .
I know you’ve looked;
you’ve seen, you’ve conceded
that
– nothing you know
– nothing you think
– nothing you feel
– nothing you remember
– nothing you experience
can be what you are
since
– all these phenomena
– all these perceptions
– all these peculiarities
come and go
yet
your bright alive Knowingness remains
. . .
Beloved – even your pain
your suffering, your grief,
rise and fall –
you’ve seen how they wither
(along with your hubris)
when you drop out of your story
and into mind-fucking
immeasurable
timelessness
that never changes
don’t tell me you haven’t yet fallen
back/forward/down/across/into
THIS
that can’t be known
or experienced
don’t lie to me, Beloved
I don’t believe you
. . .
awakening from sleep
awareness arrays a new-born world
splashes face
gropes for zafu
settles butt, folds legs
inhales the fragrant flowering gums
chuckles with the kookaburra
trembles with the palm fronds
sips steaming green tea
disappears into a silence
that senses every tone and texture
breathes – is breathed
marvels, that
not one scientist, philosopher or sage
can explain how any of this can possibly occur
on an exquisite pulsing rock
awhirl in a numinous space –
a space inseparable from
the immense, immeasurable awareness
in which it all appears
Image source – Parallax
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
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
318
Tends to answer a query or describe a condition with statements – usually absolutes and conclusions.
Tends to respond to a query with further questions and describe conditions with metaphors, always probing, open, non-conclusive.
Seem to be crucial to creative living. They indicate the presence of beginner’s mind, mind that’s open to new possibilities, willing to explore, experiment, extrapolate in fresh ways, while taking nothing too seriously.
Perhaps the essential requirement of the active dynamic of noumenon – that which seeds its manifestation into phenomena – is a kind of innocent, playful questioning …
Wouldn’t that indicate the necessity of keeping the questions alive and the mind uncluttered with conclusions in order for genuine, unconditioned creativity to flower?
~
302
after the fall
into calamitous clarity
one cannot call either the state of war
or the state of peace ‘real’
the only reality is the knowing
of war or peace
this unknowable knowingness
which hosts and populates
perception’s phenomena
never takes sides
and has nothing to lose
or to gain
ever
~
echoes from emptiness 