no longer working to get free
(or fix or heal or please)
no longer needing to understand
how any of this is possible
not to mention
knowable
I rest
entirely wrapped
in wonderment
Photo by ml:
A recently completed small work, a candle, my mother’s ashes, a daffodil, an apple and a magic arrow
2021 covid lockdown, Aotearoa New Zealand
I don’t know what it is.
I can’t meet it face-to-face.
I can’t turn my back on it.
It’s impossible to flee from it.
If, by some wild grace
(I don’t know what that is, either)
it turns its all-knowing eye upon itself,
the default idea of duality
(by which I mean the unquestioned compulsion to label, define and separate)
vaporises.
Even the concept of ‘one’ is clearly one idea too many.
Knowing without a centre, without a knower,
knows.
It excludes nothing. It has no preferences.
Separation ceases.
The old urge to know what it is,
how it is, why it is,
has become irrelevant, obsolete, laughable.
I say: here it is. Show me how you can possibly ignore it.
– ml
2021
Painting by Michael Leunig, Desert Song Man
Woken by a shift
in the Earth’s breath,
I sit in silence –
the pre-dawn hush
and my green tea for company.
In the east,
over the Pacific,
a bright star soars,
shaking off the shackles of night.
Its brilliance beggars belief.
I blink, I bow, a thought flashes:
Never forget that
more than two millennia ago
Gautama saw this star
and knew
{ as do you }
that nothing needed to be
understood, learned or believed
felt, integrated or expressed
fixed, healed or overcome
dropped or avoided
actioned or attained,
in order that his body’s naked awareness might meet itself
as the morning star.
{ Halleluja! }
Image: Painting by Clifton Mack: Jurlurrunha – Morning Star
Clifton Mack is an elder of the Yindjibarndi people whose country is around the Millstream Tablelands in Western Australia’s Pilbara district.
See www.japingka.com
The continuation of the spiritual journey really depends on how crazy we’re willing to be.
– Reggie Ray
I had no idea I’d end up this crazy. Or this contented. Or this fulfilled. Don’t ask me about happiness – it’s a sub-category these days. Imagine being happy to be unhappy? Imagine being contented to feel like shit? Imagine being at peace with pain and weariness? Imagine being ok with depression, flatness, confusion? If this isn’t your version of liberation I totally understand. (We all start out on this journey imagining ‘waking up’ will magically erase all discomfort from our experience.)
But this absurd liberation lives here, and this is what the crazy cow offers tonight: five three-liners of the slightly nonsensical variety. They like to think they are haiku, but would duck and hide in the presence of ‘real’ haiku. Apologies for my warping of noble zen aphorisms, koans and haiku. I mean no disrespect; after all these years they are deeply embroidered in the fabric of this brain and have a life of their own.
My sanity does too. Where the hell did I put it?
–
old flesh, old bones
on the zafu, aches come and go
just like I used to
–
~
–
weary old mind
data flows in, data drops out
plop!
–
~
–
music to my ears…
the sound of someone else
chopping
–
~
–
puddle on zafu
old cow’s melted-down stories
moo!
–
~
–
relentless koan:
what is the sound of my neighbor’s dog
barking?
~
About the image. This delightful brush drawing comes from the cover of an exhibition catalogue: L’Au-delà dans l’art japonaise. Paris 1963. Nowhere in the book does it mention the name of the artist whose work is featured on the cover. My instincts tend towards Sengai… what do you think?
Here I am.
Sitting in Paradise
breathing.
Breathing the tide of clarity – in it comes
crystal-clear, out it goes,
often muddied by mind –
and I smile as this lifestream flows on
saturating each sensation, yet
paying no heed;
never cocking an eyebrow or casting a vote,
only ever reminding me:
Here I am
I-without-name-or-boundary
here and now
as This, and This and This.
The current version of Paradise finds me staying in a place of great beauty, beside a large lake. This entire year has unfolded as a series of deep retreats. It is a time for, and of, integration. Health issues are being lovingly tended and their emotional causality explored. It’s both harrowing and heart-swelling: Grace delivers whatever is needed, reminding me I signed up for the Full Monty.
Apropos of nothing (I never go fishing) these three small poems landed in my net:
breathing with the lake
I am
Monet-mind beside the Seine
–
black swans glide by, curious:
pounding the lakeside path
a rainbow!
–
fog hiding the lake
one solitary oarsman
rows through melting space
Photograph taken from my zafu.
xlvii
unblinking eyeballs
on the march at low tide
sky-gazers!
[the river mouth at Brunswick Heads, NSW]
xlviii
a smokers’ dawn chorus
shatters azure silence
cockies aloft
[near Armidale, NSW]
xlix
eyeless emptiness
gazes at its ancient artistry:
on the road
to now-here
[Wellington Caves, near Dubbo, NSW]
Image credits:
Soldier Crabs by yours truly.
Sulphur Crested Cockatoos from ABC News.
Wellington Caves from juliusbergh.com – see more stunning images of the caves on this blog.
I was asked to find my mind
and
I failed
I was asked to find my thoughts
and
I failed
I was asked to find my self
and
I failed
So then it seemed timely to try to find
the I
that was so successful at failing
ha!
it couldn’t be found
yet
it can’t be escaped
oh how I love being so deluded
that simply watching words leak out of a pen
can deliver shameless delight!
Image: Andrew Wyeth – Wind from the Sea
Tempera on hardboard, 1947, detail
[What moves – the curtain or the wind?]
Source: Washington Post
All writing on this blog leaks from the pen of Miriam Louisa Simons. Over at my other blog this unlit light, you’ll find more of a smorgasbord of writing, including some of my own.
I chose this WordPress theme for its uncluttered minimalism, and because it’s responsive (i.e., it displays readably on all devices). All the links that normally appear in a sidebar or footer are hidden behind the menu icon at the top of the page. If you feel inclined to explore the offerings posted here since 2010, please click that icon. You’ll also find a way to follow this blog by email there. I promise you won’t be overwhelmed – emptiness has erratic and unpredictable habits. Posts turn up. I marvel.
– mls
Copyright © Emptiness
echoes from emptiness 