ultimate surety

the ultimate surety

184

What is the only thing I know for sure?  What is the ultimate surety?  The word surety has its roots in the Latin securitat-, securitas, meaning security.  But strangely enough the ultimate surety – that which never changes and is never not-here – has nothing to do with security in the worldly sense.

The surety of the sages is radical insecurity.
The surety one is embodied within is choiceless ceaseless change.
The surety of Life is movement, flow, Tao.

The pleasure of surety is its unalterable thusness-
nothing to fix!

the leisure of surety is the hereness of all thusness-
nowhere to go!

and the treasure of surety is that all thusness exists Now-
nothing to lose!

~

pleasure … leisure … treasure

183

I’m still half asleep, but a lonely zafu is beckoning.

The tiny sanctuary is already bright with sunbeams;
the candle flame is bold and unwavering.

Incense trails wander lazily through the air
crossing paths with dozens of tiny dancing rainbows
thrown out by a slowly spinning window crystal.

Outside the birds are in full shout,
busy about the business of birding.

What a treasure, to find such languid leisure
in the pleasure of now!

~

Suddenly I notice that these three words share a common component: pleasure, leisure, treasure.
They all end with ‘-sure.’  And that makes me think of surety.

What is the ultimate surety?

~