truth

homage to Krishnamurti and Wei Wu Wei

148

When Jiddu Krishnamurti was asked for the most important point in his teaching, he replied: “The observer is the observed.”

For 20 years those 5 words haunted me wherever I went; they were a koan stuck in the neurons.

Intuitively, it was easy to grasp; intellectually it was entertaining.
But who or what (I wondered) was understanding and being entertained?

While Krishnamurti was one of the great mindshifters in my life, he failed to explain – in a way that this brain could grasp –  exactly why the observer cannot be anything but the observed, and further, why it is impossible for that observer to self-exist as an entity.

For those clarifications, I bow deeply to Wei Wu Wei, and it is to share that savage wisdom that I write.  Just in case there’s another brain out there that is as stubborn and slow and opaque as mine; a brain with a little slit that this ruthless arrow of truth can fly through.

~

the wisdom of a little shrub

104

Here in the tropics there’s a shrub that bursts into sensational bloom in the heart of winter.  It’s called the snowflake shrub*: when flowering, it resembles a mass of delicate white snowflakes.

The interesting thing about this shrub is that if you plant it beside a light source that isn’t natural – like a street light – it refuses to flower.

It will only flower on the side away from the artificial light.

It only responds to the real thing; artificial input shuts down its natural instinct to bloom.

I bow deeply before the savage wisdom of this little shrub.

~

*Euphorbia leucocephala

what’s the truth of the now-this-here?

61

twinkling flickering stars dance
on the wall of my little sanctuary

it’s easy to understand that they
aren’t ‘real’ stars, for one can also
see the brass candle-holder with its
tiny star-shaped perforations, and
one knows there’s a tea light
burning inside …

it’s less easy to understand
that the stars,
the candle container,
the candle and its flame
are all projections of perception
occurring in exactly the same manner

let’s look

what is actually experienced in this little scenario?
what is experienced before the naming, the describing?
what’s the truth of the now-this-here?

just this:
the eye sees color and it sees shape
the rest is inference and story

but since “eye” and “color” and “shape” are also stories
we need go deeper,
to the source of color and shape recognition:
perception
and then to the source of perception itself:
changeless awareness

and then we need to find out whether
the observed can be split from the observer

can changeless awareness exist aside from
its awareing of … anything?

can anything exist without
changeless awareness awareing it?

~