Sunday, June 21, 2009

Running

There is a human compulsion to make sense of things. We want things to be connected, to reveal a pattern, to satisfy our lust for meaning. We want this moment to be strung together with the next and the one before it so we can put our arms around time and life - to make something of the unmade.

We can't imagine a life where none of this is so - where each moment is on its own - orphaned. We can't imagine something so alone. It frightens us and chills us to the bone, as only something can that we know to be true. So we construct an elaborate facade and we collaborate to keep it strong and upright - not allowing each other to remember, lest the clear seeing of one become the undoing of all.

So precious is this life of meaning we say that we are willing to take its knocks just to live its grandeur. What garbage we feed ourselves. We are like a bird on the ground that does not know it has wings - and so it walks about and has little adventures - little triumphs and little mishaps. They don't really satisfy and so the bird uses its little beak of imagination to weave something grand out of the little things - and invents meaning for a filler - to fill the gaps between the little things so they can stick together and appear much bigger than they actually are.

We allow ourselves to be fooled by a life woven this way - from imagination and empty fillers. Out of fear we continue weaving and building out the emptiness. Till it grows so big and so hungry it swallows us whole. And there is nothing again. The very nothing we tried to run from. It is everywhere we run. And all the running is only running into its lap.

We can get desperate then and crumble or we can laugh - laugh a great big belly laugh. It is ridiculous to run from our self, believing we might escape the bugger. When what is running is the self. It is funny to realize this.

Then the sound of our own laughter dissolves into the nothing. And it's like it never was.

Then something is forgotten deep inside us and something is remembered there but not from a memory. And we look into the distance. And a tree waves its leaves and the sunlight filters in through a window. And we blink our eyes. And it is all one thing. Everything is just one thing. And we choke on the lump in the throat and we are blinded by the rush of tears. Gratitude and peace course through the veins. And there is fullness to bursting. Like a ripe peach cracking its skin to share the sweet juiciness. We spill over with complete abandon, not even noticing what is given up.

3 comments:

Ben said...

Hi Ameeta,

I Love this entry. I mean I really LOVE this entry for no specific reason and every reason.

Clearly, I can build a prison of meaning and rules about what life is about and miss the direct experience of what is here right now.

I wrote you about one of my awakening experiences that I was openness and life was dynamically expressing itself (and still does) rising and falling away.

While it had a magical quality to it that drifts in and out, the point I make is there was no meaning to it. Just a wondrous dynamic expression of life and great gratitude, wonder, and awe at its expression. Such a gift it was.

Such a gift this post is because it points to the freedom beyond the conceptual filters. That is important over here even after awakening experiences because old conditioning still comes up that says there is meaning and rules.

So, I feel into this entry and not think into it and I smile at the freedom it points to and I experience beyond the pointing.

So deep bow of Gratitude for this post.

Someone asked Master Yunmen, It is said one should not leave home without one's parents consent. How would one then be able to leave home.

Master Yunmen said, "Shallow!"

The questioner said, "I do not understand."

Master Yunmen said, "Deep!"

Great Love For the Work You Do & The Expression You Are.

Jim Keller said...

Thank you for your comments about this post Ben. your comments are very helpful to me. Am still amazing myself at this beautiful stream of life...and how beautiful it appears...without the attachment to words and concepts and past...and a typical individual stance. Goodbye to stance with its various posturings...and welcome a new river...that was flowing next to me all along! Jim

Ameeta said...

Hi Ben - thanks for your gracious comments.

Meaning is an overlay upon reality. It is not necessary although we seek it incessantly.

When the incessant need for meaning drops away we sink into the solidity of what we are.

Love and gratitude
A