thinking

the ultimate conundrum

 

Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893

Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893
(OMG – another think coming!)

 

Contemplating the savage wisdom of one of my major mindshifters…

 

If you can forget it or remember it, it is not you therefore discard it.

If you can experience it, it is not you therefore discard it.

If you can know it, it is not you therefore discard it.

If you can be it, it is not you therefore discard it.

 

… I find myself scribbling some lines that say pretty much the same thing, but employ some of the more common jargon spinning around the contemporary seeker’s scene:

If you can surrender to it, it is not you therefore discard it.

If you can invite it, it is not you therefore discard it.

If you can activate it, it is not you therefore discard it.

If you can practice it, it is not you therefore discard it.

If you can lean into it, it is not you therefore discard it.

If you can rest in it, it is not you therefore discard it.

If you can embody it, it is not you therefore discard it.

If you can point to it, it is not you therefore discard it.

If you can master it, it is not you therefore discard it.

 

If you think you can discard anything,

you’ve got another think coming.

 

 

It cannot be invited; it is quietly present when you are absent.

 

The opening words are from Nisargadatta Maharaj. I have heard that when the realised teacher sees the efforts of the student towards their ’emptying’, they are filled with delight. Niz was not known for his patience with fools; would my application of some of the common lingo that shows up in the spiritual circus these days get his nod? Thank god it doesn’t matter.

The final words are not a quote, but my paraphrasing of the way my teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti would address the ultimate conundrum.

The image needs no introduction: Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893 – I am solely responsible for the sub-title, “OMG, another think coming!”

For those who might not be familiar with colloquial English usage:
“Another think coming” is the original form of the colloquial phrase aimed at someone who has a mistaken view. It comes from the old comical expression, “If that’s what you think, you’ve got another think coming.”

 

on “spiritual inquiry” – be warned

 

Echoes from Emptiness - Image credit: Jaypee Online - Flickr

 

if you endlessly ponder

your seeming lack of enlightenment

(the proof of;  the reasons for;  the need to overcome)

your life appears to be unenlightened

and is experienced accordingly

 

if, for one instant, you stop your pondering

the Real is found to be already and always there

(luminous;  changeless;  already perfect)

and your life, in that instant, IS enlightenment

and is experienced accordingly

 

you don’t need to seek or strive or supplicate

you don’t even need to understand or accept or believe

you just need to slow down

get really quiet

and stop

 

how cool is that?

 

Image credit: Jaypee Online – Flickr

are we listening?

361

To listen and to hear are as alike as oil and water. We often think we are listening, when all that’s really happening is that we’re hearing a download of noise from an external source, data which our memory (thinking) sorts into stories that gel with our own worldview.

The art of listening involves bringing relaxed word-free attention to the moment’s fullness – whether it’s a friend sharing confidences, a ghetto-blaster thumping, a kookaburra cackling, the water murmuring and the breeze sighing over its surface. In the same impartial way, this listening notices the constant commentary being broadcast inwardly by thinking and feeling – the whole movement of “me”.

It’s interesting to find that when this quality of listening is present there’s really nothing to say because opinions are absent. There’s nothing to say, yet everything that matters is being said. In the absence of words, something else has space to speak, something inextricably intimate that we recognize as Love.

~

the myth of merging

353

Expressing the inexpressible is so tricky.  As soon as words are uttered – or even thought – there’s duality by default, and the inexpressible is nondual by default.

Poets often speak of merging into oneness but this is misleading and mistaken, because, well, oneness being one, who or what could be outside it to “merge”?

There’s no merging involved in wild wideawakeness.  There’s just a waking up to the realization that nothing has ever been divided up – except by thought and language.

Wild wideawakeness embraces the totality of creation – as you, in you, and believe it or not – thanks to you.

~

today …

346

the sun rose
with no sympathy for a small-time insomniac

the heart sang
drowning out mind’s misery-mongering

an unavoidable Presence ‘watched’
aloof and impartial
and yet inextricably absorbed
within every thought and feeling and deed

(there was caring and cleaning and caring and cooking and caring
and shopping and caring and listening and caring and playing and caring
for the adorable ancients whose turn it is to be my toddlers)

the sun set

the heart sang
its little song of gratitude

~

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

o m g

331

Echoes from Emptiness: this is it

 

O is for

 

Opening
to the possibility that nothing
is the way it appears to be

Observing
thought’s dynamics, especially
the compilation of dear wee-me

Obsolescence
identification with anything nameable
is suddenly … laughable

Ordinariness
is the order of the day
nothing is special, only everything

Okeydokey
no more arguments with whatever-ness
(my battle-bruises get a rest)

Others
virtual or ‘real’ turn out to be
a mirror-image of ‘me’

O M G
this … this … this
is always IT

~

Image – probably the  beautiful calligraphy of Thich Nhat Hanh – see comments.