Footsteps in the Dust

It's not a sight you usually see. You would never expect it. Drumming your fingers on the armrest of a chair. Focusing on one sight for five minutes on TV. You and it. Even the simplest minds are frenetic. The world is relentlessly more.

For five minutes. Naked feet walking slowly. One step at a time. In the dust. One foot in front of the other. No pauses. Same pace. Just walking, turning back and walking, turning again and walking. One foot in front of the other. One step at a time. Five minutes in finger-drumming time. Eternity in foot time. Drumming your fingers . . . walking.

Just the feet. Heel. Arch of the foot. Toes. Walking.

Where is he going? Walking. No dust between his toes.

Suddenly Before Thinking Begins

Suddenly before thinking begins is going on right now. Unfortunately you are processing these words about before thinking begins and are therefore thinking. I write these before-thinking vignettes with the thought that one of them might thrust you into before thinking begins. Ridiculous I know, but that's what happens to a mind that has been ripped apart from here to Sunday. It only knows how to write things like this. It can happen suddenly right now, in which case these words drop off a cliff and you plunge right to the bottom into the root of your existence. That's when your ticket into life really gets punched.

Now such a moment is not illumination or enlightenment. Light is after thinking begins. God and truth are after thinking begins. If you receive some kind of illumination on the way to the bottom, well, that's good, why complain, but that just means you are still holding onto the thought that you are living in a world surrounded by stars and emptiness and suddenly it is very clear that the universe is so beautiful and life feels so good that you can spend the rest of your life thinking you've received some kind of grace, therefore forgetting the before place where it's all real, including your illusions. Too bad.

This kind exultation is not any more real than believing in the world of science, religion, and new age 5th dimensional ascension. "Believing in" and "seeing" are always a lie. This kind of illumination is still within the thought field, where lies thrive--the good, the blissful, the beautiful; the bad, the painful, the ugly. Still the world.

There is no world.

A direct plunge is best because then you don't get stuck thinking how great enlightenment is and how wonderful it would be if everybody were enlightened and the world would then be free of fear . . . you know the story. And if that scenario is true for you, then go for it. Most of what people experience is shit anyway, even when they like it, so why quibble? The question I am asking you is whether you can distinguish between what is "true" and what is "real." That's where suddenly-before-thought-begins pops in. There is no question. When you touch the root of your existence, you have touched existence itself. The before that always is. Where "What!" is not a question.

Now, is any of this true? If you think it is, it's not.

The Pavilion

Underneath the pavilion, everybody is engrossed in what lies on the table. So many things to do. So many places to go, people to love and hate, things to own and dispose of, power to gain and lose, hearts to break and salvage, nature to enjoy, ignore or exploit. And you, too, are there, eyes bulging, tongue flapping in the demand to speak, mouth shut to be silent. You and those around you move the pieces around on the table, either together in groups, or against each other in groups. Until one day your head pops up from the table, and you are not playing the game. You are just there while all around you people continue to play like gamblers at a craps table.

You are under a pavilion. All four sides of the pavilion are open. You look around. Outside the pavilion there seems to be nothing there, yet you slowly move to the very edge and look out. Nothing there. You step outside and forget everything at the table. You come back in and resume your game playing, but it is just not the same. You step outside the pavilion again but this time you feel something there. You look back into the pavilion and see everything as it has always been. Everything is the same: time and space dividing everything into the urgency of staying alive. What to do? Where to go? Quo Vadis?

Epiphanies and Language

Have you ever had an epiphany? By definition there is no language which can describe it. The is no future to bind it. No past to explain it. And why would you want to explain it? The more you try to explain it, the less real it becomes. And then what do you have? There are big epiphanies and little epiphanies. The bigger ones leave you outside the binding influence of language. They last indefinitely. Think of the "open road" or "blue sky." Where to go with that first step when there is no language with which to predict a second? Reality and language are simply not compatible. So what do you want? Where do you have to go in order to get it? Language is an energy that recirculates inside of itself, like clothes locked inside a washing machine that never stops tumbling. Maybe what we really want lies outside of the language with which we think. Sounds like a paradox . . . until you know.

Doorways into Mystery

1.   For astronomers it might be black holes. For biologists it might be DNA. For physicists it might be subatomic particles. For Walt Whitman it was a blade of grass.