Photo by Takuin Minamoto
It is seeing your face for the first time.
Walking to the mirror, someone is seen staring back. Those features are familiar, but the recognition cannot be built into an experience to be had, or a static sheet of info for later reference. It is a unique being that stares back. It is always new, and always surprising.
It is approaching a roaring fire.
As you near the flames, you feel the reaction of every cell in your body, moving in sync with the fire. This movement of fire, the aliveness of the flames, the symphony of the conflagration, is everything it means to be a human being. White hot at its source, it moves with great energy, until the diffusion kills the entirety of what once was. It is the movement of life.
It is the feel of the wind on one’s face.
Feel how it tickles the hair on the back of your neck; how it caresses your face and loves only you. You cannot hold it, imprison it, beguile it, delude it, or deceive it. The breeze moves and moves. You are this wind, and let nothing stick to you.
It is the shattering sound of thunder.
The body winces at the sound. But there is no gap for thought to arise. It cannot tell you to be annoyed. It cannot tell you how you should react. It may try to do so, but there is no one able to respond. The sound may arise. Thought may arise. But for whom do they arise?
It is the flower that blooms on the branch of a tree.
Appearing from seemingly nowhere, the bud slowly pushes its way outward, lifeward. It blooms only for you, giving itself completely at every possible moment, in every possible condition. It is this way, and this way alone. This selfless giving is complete living.
It is the life that has ended, and the body that rots.
Even in death, the body keeps giving, breaking down into useful materials for other organisms. It gives itself over freely, selflessly. This may be the only time in the life of the organism where there is no thought of getting something in return. It gives and gives, until there is nothing left to give.
It is sitting in a chair and typing these words.
12 Comments
Beautiful. I especially like the first. I’ve noticed that. The post is almost elemental - fire, air, space, earth. Life is like that, diverse in the details but simple in it’s fundamental movement. Thank you.
@Davidya. You’re welcome.
All of this life, every movement, everything we could ever wish to know or understand, is already available in nature. We are that nature, of course. Whether it is seen clearly is another matter altogether.
Yes, this evening I helped a friend move some furniture. She spoke of a recent experience she had had in a large shopping mall. She was feeling judgment about the mall and people there, then noticed she was judging. Then it all fell into oneness and she felt a deep closeness and compassion for everyone around her. A deep love and bliss. As several have observed, this is much easier in nature. But one never knows when reality will peak in
I enjoy hearing about these “processes” and how they may unfold in others. One thing that may be difficult for the one that listens is to keep the mouth shut, and let it unfurl as it will. Haha.
But I suppose that is a difficulty with the speaker, as well.
Indeed (laughs)
In seeing some suffer confusion and doubt, there is a desire to be supportive. That can leave to concepts, or it may lead to opening.
One can ask, who is the speaker and who the listener? Is there a difference? Is speaking when the movement is there an error? Or is that simply what unfurls?
I am not sure about the desire to be supportive, but in that moment, if another is suffering, there is a natural inclination or openness or whatever you might call it.
The important point is that one doesn’t try to solve the problem for the other person through a certainty of knowledge. Or maybe it is better to say, don’t try to force another to see what you think is right. We can only turn over the meat to observe how thoroughly it has been cooked.
In order to get into the questions on the speaker and the listener, one must really know what it means to listen. Not “know,” but it must be completely explored. One can’t listen if they are hearing with opinion, beliefs, or ideas of right and wrong. One must be free of all of that stuff.
Complete listening occurs in freedom, and complete freedom occurs in listening. It is a magnificent thing.
Yes, exactly, a movement I might call it.
A listening and a sharing what arises.
Cannot say I am an expert in that yet, but as the need to know falls away more, it gets better. (laughs)
“This may be the only time
in the life of the organism
where there is no thought of
getting something in return.
It gives and gives, until
there is nothing left to give.”
Perhaps this is the reason why
a lot of us is afraid of death:
We have no choice but to love,
dissolving like grains of salt
in the immensity of the ocean
of life…
Pardon the parroting,
this reminds me what
the two Ks once said.
JK: “To die is to love.”
UG: “We are more useful to nature
dead than alive.”
@Sass
It seems for the general populace, it is too difficult to see death and love, death and oneness, death and joy - to see all of these - as the same thing.
Yet, this true being, this liberation, is a kind of living death. It is the discovery of death through living. And the clarity of that discovery brings truth to the eventual ending of the conscious organism.
@ takuin
and the “clarity of that discovery”,
like ones thirst, is very difficult,
if not at all impossible, to convey
fully to another
and yes, like thirst, seeing
death and love and all that you
mentioned are all but natural
phenomena
one is just so addicted
to living articifially rather
than authentically: a secondhand,
dictated, recited, and imitated
existence in which ones life is
a belief to be believed
rather than
a life being lived….
Sass
It is interesting to consider, when one speaks of living authentically, in many cases, it is this artificial living in disguise. So many build authentic life into a grand idea that needs to be pursued. From there, it dissolves into the chase, the search, the state to be had.
One may live authentically when there is no idea of living authentically.
One must be vigilant.
living authentically
can be artificial living
in disguise as one is
so used to living
according to a concept
chasing the authentic life
is an amusing and thrilling chase
but very, very tiring
vigilance indeed as
this “living the concept of life”
is a very subtle stuff and
deluding oneself
is one of the many possibilities
that can happen…