unknowable knowingness

the unborn flower of nothing

 

if you want to know
the Unknowable start by
throwing out the absolute
and the relative and
everything between

and should you be blessed
with the capacity to survive
the free-fall
of your o-so-precious
intellectual infrastructure
into roaring silence
into spaciousness
into stillness

then you’ll know that Knowingness as
“the unborn flower of nothing”
and you’ll be its own soft echo
as it sings its eternal song
to itself

 

Echoes from Emptiness - the unborn flower of nothing

 

Who would dare to go nameless in so secure a universe?
Yet, to tell the truth, only the nameless are at home in it.

They bear with them in the center of nowhere the unborn flower of nothing: 
This is the paradise tree.
It must remain unseen until words end
and arguments are silent.

– Thomas Merton

 

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year. May your life blossom on the paradise tree, fulfilled and at peace in every way. You are so loved!

Image source unknown – if it’s one of yours please let me know so that I can give proper credit.

dear disappointment

 
Well hello there Disappointment! You’ve been on my mind of late. I’ve been reflecting on how your gracious appearances in my life were usually both misunderstood and unappreciated. And I reckon I owe you an apology. It’s a bit late coming, but since you are surely impervious to expectation I doubt that will bother you too much.

This morning these words lined up unbidden. They made me smile; I thought you might like to read them.
 

Echoes from Emptiness - Johannes Vermeer: A Lady Writing, detail

 

dear disappointment

 

your thumping Grace opened up
a view without a viewer
a life without an agenda
a heart at home in its hallowed holiness

 

your diamond-edged scalpel
shaved clean the fluff and fantasy
called “me-myself-mine”
excising my every erudite question
leaving no trace –

 

not even a shadow of ‘understanding’
survives

 

nothing
a phantom could claim as ‘I am’
or even I am not

 

you turned me towards your ruthless kindness
revealing every betrayal and abuse
every heart-break and aching longing
to be an instant portal
to the eye-popping Knowing
that is unknowable

 

beyond, so utterly beyond,
where every word is empty, hollow, meaningless
untrue
and all there is to do is giggle
at this glorious ever-unfurling
suchness

 

are you not the supreme guide and guru?
is there a faster track to seamless intimacy
with the everyday world of multiplicity?
could there be a greater blessing than your quiet interest
in our stumblings towards the light?

 

take me!
oh have me so completely
that true vulnerability is birthed

 

yours

 

truly

 

. . .

Image: Johannes Vermeer: A Lady Writing, detail.

Source – Artmight.com

can you, do you, live this savage wisdom?

 

impossible! see

this ultimate knowingness
isn’t a teaching, a path, a doctrine
one can ‘live’ or embody

(although the earnest peddlers
of nonduality apps
would love you to buy the notion)

you can’t “live this savage wisdom”

it’s what’s living you

and not just when you’re clear and angelic
oh no
it’s living you when you’re a mess: lost, confused, angry,
seducing and story-telling

its play is infinite

it has no preferences;
it loves all that it creates and beholds

and because You and It are inseparable
your recognition of this
is ITs total fulfillment

it’s how IT gets its jollies!

 

"It's how it gets its jollies!"

 

(c’mon, wake up, don’t be a party-pooper!)

 

Uncredited image found in an archive on my hard drive and played with in Photoshop. Please contact me if you recognize it as your work and I’ll add your name.

 

prajñāpāramitā

calligraphy by Jayarava - prajnaparamita

always at home
in this inescapable
bright unlit luminescence

this crucible of Creation:
Mother of time and space;
vast unknowable knowingness

always at rest
in this ultimate abode;
unassailable, yet ever available

prior to the mind
container of consciousness –
beyond the concept of beyond

always at home, always at rest
always already
p e r f e c t

. . .

Calligraphy credit

About prajñāpāramitā – here and here

hairy caterpillar horror

340

It’s difficult to describe the intense pain and excruciating itch experienced on contact with Australia’s notorious hairy caterpillars.  I had a tactile taste of it today.

 

Echoes from Emptiness - Australian Hairy Caterpillar

 

These caterpillars march along in head-to-tail formation – long columns of fluffy wigglers in search of tucker.  As they travel they drop miniscule invisible hairs which carry some kind of poisonous irritant.  You merrily dash out to the clothesline in the morning and unwittingly walk over these hairs in your bare feet.  The effect is instant – the body’s immune system sets up a red alert.  If you’re a baby or a toddler you could die.

Searing itching agony creeps up the feet to the ankles, then up the shins to the knees. The hand that scratches picks up the poison and becomes affected as well.  You dive into the swimming pool to escape the fury of itching and to wash the hairs away.

Sheer agony.  Undeniable.  And yet …

Why is it that the pristine awareness in which this hairy horror movie plays out is utterly unaffected?  Beats me, but turning to that ultimate changeless refuge never fails to sabotage the arising of suffering.

~

wondrous wild wonderment!

337

Jolted from slumber by a crawing crow competing with a kookaburra trio,
I sit in this little tent
watching the sky turn from quiet grey to pearl shot with apricot

The tide rides high, the water gleams like stretched silk

Big fish leap out of their watery homeland, soar into the
dangerously dry habitat of airborne breakfast-morsels
and plop! home again

 

Echoes from Emptiness: Australian Pelican

 

A pelican floats effortlessly, silently, past my perch,
and more noisily, the motor boats of small-time fishermen go by

And now there’s a deeper thrum, slower and more powerful:
the big yellow fishing boat that went out last evening returns to port,
a dozen seagulls swirling hungrily over its decks

The pelican is oblivious;
diving for some fishy morsel then surfacing,
it throws its huge pink beak open and up, and swoosh, down goes breakfast

In every direction, through every sense-portal,
the unknowable knowingness of awareness spreads itself in lavish abundance

Everything is inside IT and no-thing is outside of IT – oh

wondrous

wild

wonderment!

Image source

the dawning sky is the coral of a persimmon’s blush

327

the great view is seeing
as the I-eye
of primordial awareness

the great understanding is knowing
as the unknowable knowingness
of simple suchness

the great adventure is living
as the untutored creativity
of wild wideawakeness

~