Silence, as an expression of the organism, is a strange sensation. I’ll see if words can do it justice.

First, the physical body as it appears in the phenomenal world:

The feet are square on the floor. Buttocks firmly planted on the padded seat. Spine slightly arched, not touching the backrest. Hands resting on the table top. There is a slight breeze on the nape of the neck, and the eyes are closed.

The eyes close as the blood flows. The heart beats and doesn’t seem to falter. For that, one is thankful.

Now, the physical body as it is, beyond the phenomenal:

There is a tightness in the throat, and a feeling of great pressure a few inches above the forehead. It is not quite comfortable, but is easily lived with.

There are no stories, no reason, no conclusions, and no struggle. All things known - that have ever been known - are simultaneously here and not here.

Some might call it bliss, but there is no one to be blissful. Some might call it authentic happiness, but there is no one to be happy. There is no one to want for any state or result, but it is still entirely available.

All things are available at all times. Perhaps this silence just makes it jump out; a brilliant color, against an otherwise dreary background.

This is how silence came to Takuin this evening.

After my post on the recent illness of Adyashanti, I had a few e-mails from some readers that know nothing about him. That is a bit surprising, knowing how far into the spiritual world he is.

Here is a video of Adyashanti speaking on awareness and the self. Hope you enjoy! (Although, there are a number of negative comments on the YouTube page for some reason. Makes one want to disable comments sometimes.)

I found this video via the Blog of Tim Ferris. It is an incredible example of one’s physical potential.

This movement seems to be a combination of Capoeira, Break-Dancing, and Gymnastics. The amount of strength needed to pull-off some of these moves is amazing, but this guy (Junior) seems to move effortlessly.

Peak human performance is something that interests me greatly. Physical movement, guitar playing, acting, or any of one hundred other activities seem masterful in the hands of the right person. And this guy is wonderful.

I am not necessarily into it for the dancing. I just like to see the beauty of physical movement.

(For those of you on the RSS Feed, click though and check it out.)

Two weeks ago Akiko and I went to see Zero’s Company dance performance in Tokyo. This particular performance was called BASIC. (The site is Japanese, but you can see some small pics of the same performance here.)

We were both blown away. It was an amazing example of the physical expression of the human body.

The company consisted of probably 80% women and 20% men (with a total of around 20 dancers). The explored themes were mostly comedic, but there was one in particular that could be interpreted as a wonderful example of the movement of thought.

There were 4 women dressed in black as Raggedy-Ann dolls. They were sitting on wheeled office chairs that had the back rests removed. On the center of the stage was a woman wearing a red dress. She would dance about, and the dolls in the chairs would move in reaction to what she did. They slid across the stage, clumsily trying to keep up with the dancer, but the only thing they managed to do was to match or mimic themselves.

The dancer was bright, vibrant, and moving with complete freedom. The dolls were in washed out colors, confined to their chairs, completely restricted in their movement.

To me, the dancer in red was whole and complete; an example of a liberated human being. The dolls in the chairs were the experiences, the memories, the thoughts that try to corner the whole being, splitting it into infinity. But the images could never keep up with a whole human being; they could only recreate a rough approximation that lacks the finesse and movement of freedom. It was astoundingly beautiful.

One of the striking elements of the dancers was their ability to create an emotional response with only their movements. And even thought there weren’t any words throughout most of the performance, they were great storytellers.

It was all so beautifully new.

I received this question some time back.

What affect does food have on the body if someone is liberated?

It is easy to see the effects of food on the body. If one is looking at the body through chronological time, by the clock, then you can see the body transition from one state to another.

The body has what one might call a normal state. If you introduce a ton of sugar to that body, for example, then it has to perform certain functions to re-establish the initial state of equilibrium. If something introduced changes the body’s functioning, then the body does what it can to return to normal.

That is what the body looks like on the outside, or from a fragmented mind. I don’t mean to say that the body doesn’t change in its own way, but who is there to notice the change?

You can look at the body, and see how it is functioning. Then you introduce some food or drugs or whatever, and the state changes, but only if you are comparing it to what has come before.

“Five minutes ago, the body was like this. But now, the body is like THIS.” But is any of that true? It is only true by introducing the past.

I don’t want to make a big deal out of this, but the body functions in a way that you will never know. You can only know what has come before, but that has nothing to do with the body. It is just a memory of functioning that you might prefer to the moment.

Let’s say you have two arms. Then through no fault of your own, you lose one of them. You can see pictures of yourself from before, so you know that there were two arms at some point. But you look in the mirror and there is only one arm. What do you see when you look? A guy or girl that used to have two arms? Or do you see the reality of your functioning?

The truth has only to do with what is real, and not what should be. I should have two arms! Really? Do you? Why can you only see the body based on what may have been real in the past? All of that is gone. All that remains is the way you are presently functioning.

You might say, “If your blood sugar is elevated, then there is a change to what is normal.” That is true, but only by seeing through the past. If your blood sugar is elevated, then that is the way your body is functioning in the moment. There is no before or after. Only what is happening.

If someone is diabetic from birth, then diabetes is the natural state. In that case, one might take insulin to change the body to an un-natural state. They may have to do it to live, but it is not the natural state. (I am not saying that taking insulin is bad, by the way. Some need to take it for the entirety of their lives for whatever reason. But for better or worse, the body is functioning perfectly at every moment.)

Now, if somehow one is cured of diabetes, then the natural state functions without diabetes. You can’t really say that the body has changed, because the natural state is always the natural state, and the body functions as it functions.

Do you understand what I am saying with all of this? The natural state is always present. It doesn’t matter what has happened before. You can never really know how the body is functioning, because you only know what has happened in the past.

Food does have an effect on the body. But how do you see it? What do you do with it? Do you only relate to your body’s functioning because of what has happened before? If so, then there is no natural state; only your idea of a preferred state.

Does that make any sense to you?