Before zazen, I could never have understood what it meant to sit outside of time.
When I’m not doing zazen, moreover, I don’t have the slightest idea what that actually means.
In zazen, I don’t really know if I’m 50 or 90 years old.
My 40 years old life dissolve, spread out, mean nothing at all.
Next to me, I’m not sure there is someone else sitting.
I put down my pencil and go back to check.
Notes & Silence 
All time is now.
But you sit there with a pencil? The mental image is vaguely bizarre…
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
Yes I do,
the pencil I used to write those lines.
I always sit with a pencil…And a notebook next to me.
I have a very bad short (and long) term memory…And every time I feel the words passing through me are so perfectly defining what I’m experiencing, I’ll never be able to forget them, I do no have the slightest idea of what I meant to write a few minutes later.
Maybe because it wasn’t worth it….
Eventually, I’m well aware that, on a certain level, none of this is worth it eventually.
Words, words, words.
—-
Bizarre-ness, like beauty, I guess, is always in the eyes of the beholder.
Though, as far as Beauty is concerned, there are some indisputable cases, where objective consensus applies.
—
thanks for giving me the opportunity to read this post again…I had written : « I’m 40 years odd », which made me laugh..
‘Odd’ is surely true
’40’ is two years late, now.
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
I have to regard you as a « youngster », now.
Objective beauty? Not sure if you are not straying into Platonic forms.
Anyhow, I am curious. You seek, I presume, the expansion of awareness into « nothing » – mere words; you may phrase it otherwise, but I suspect we would end up saying much the same thing.
Does not the specificity of attending to a pencil point on a piece of paper get in the way?
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
it does.
This is my noble contribution to the enlightenment of peasants.
Seriously : it does, this is why I referred to this inner knowledge it will have to wait outside the dojo at some point.
For the time being, I write mostly to myself, knowing how forgetful I can be, I’m writing those posts as ‘notes to myself in the future’, if ever come to forget.
Notes to my perimeter self
hastily scribbled as inner pipes arranged favorably.
Like a camera you clumsily take out of the backpack, knowing you only have one split second to take the picture before the light changes completely.
Other people have written similar notes to my present self,
Such people and such notes seem to attract one another.
Yet it is not the notes who make the people,
neither is it such people writing the notes.
I’ve already quoted Marcus Miller, I guess (Bass player)
« I shall always remember that the music does not come from me, but only passes through me ».
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
And yet the hand and mind are yours, and the pencil, paper and action must draw attention to a « something » and to a process..
Hmm. I see the problem, however. A fleeting idea that has once fled is not easily recalled, let alone recaptured. I must confess to having forgotten far more musings than I recall. I wonder if a dictaphone would be more or less intrusive. Probably more so.
Then again, perhaps that which is not consciously recalled is more deeply embedded in one’s being.
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
For some reason…anything involving technology in such moments is not welcome.
This is revelatory of how those technical concerns we have no other choice but to deal with whenever we interact with such devices (however basic those may be), inhibit consciousness processes.
There is a correlation between one’s addiction to smartphones, PC’s….and their distance from inner watchfulness and any spiritual aspiration.
I would not, here again, follow the trend according to which one must admit that « correlation does not mean causation ».
Such devices, therefore can be considered as a consciousness-inhibitory jabs.
Sorry, I got carried away.
I’m in a rebellious mood
again.
The less I’m supposed to say things, the wilder the urge to to so.
How juvenile…
—-
Following on your last sentence : It is interesting to consider that maybe everything that ends up on a notebook ( and therefore found its way to shallow consciousness levels) is probably what is the least worth of interest.
Mere scum, leftovers,
I could agree with that.
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
Rather, the pointers to what lies deeper and unexpressed. Perhaps.
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne