After Zazen,
After collection,
Putting your hand on a log of wood,
Feeling an intense joy.
I’ve been sitting in front of this piece of wood for days and days.
Joy and peace are in me and radiate the world.
©FJ September 2022
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Notes & Silence 
Does joy indicate attachment? What is the significance of the wood? If none, why the joy and peace?
This may bear some analysis. Or not, as the case may be.
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
Joy is not on the wood,
Absolutely unrelated,
Yet, the wood is the situational platform for the experience to happen.
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
This exchange reminded me of old man Tcheng and the frustration he apparently felt.
He who has seen a grain of sand has seen every grain of sand on every shore and the bed of every sea in the world. If you see original spirit, then you see all of original spirit and you are a Buddha.
I am before you as a resounding piece of wood. There is nothing deserving or important in this for there has never been a lack of, nor, till the end of men, will there ever be a lack of beings like old Tcheng to resound in the same way.
But, nincompoops, it is to your misfortune that you are ever preoccupied with mere appearances and see here only the block of resounding wood. Because of this, original spirit finds not in you the echo which would suddenly make you realize that you are not, and have never been, other than it.
And old man Tcheng retired.
J’aimeAimé par 2 personnes
Thank you very much for sharing this story.
It is a much better way to phrase what I tried to mean.
J’aimeJ’aime
The Atman and the Brahman are one, comes to mind.
The ultimate in interconnectedness, where all is one. Most of us will need a new pair of spectacles to see that, I fear.
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
I was not expecting you Simon on this kind of lexical field to refer to unity,
That is a nice Monday morning surprise.
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
I have no problem with the idea of unity. Equally, I have no problem with accepting that I have to negotiate the fragmented pseudo-reality of this life.
I am surprised that you were surprised… Is my heresy that obviously fractious?
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
Your surprise surprises me as well.
I guess it takes one heretic to spot another.
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
So, whence your joy? And why does it need such a platform?
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
No reason.
The joy ‘without a why’
Any item, any face expression may as well have offered a similar platform.
Anything right there before my eyes.
In this situation, the wood.
This joy doesn’t need a context.
It infuses it, and reflects through it.
This reminds me that it is always there but most often poorly reflected.
Dust on our mirror, mostly.
The quest for rationality is a sure fashion to be guided astray.
Rationality demands a context, a platform set in a certain way,
Such a joy is ‘not of this [rational] world’.
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
So you find no cause for joy in reason? Is not the platform you find nothing more than a concept? Are not concepts the basis of rational thought?
Yes, I am feeling mischievous..!
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
arghhh.
The platform is called that way in an attempt to not conceptualize the reality at hand.
Anything before us is a potential platform.
I find no cause for joy in reason :
not because there are none to be found,
but because i’ve stopped searching there.
—-
You’re in a wild mood today, I pity those who’ll find you on their way.
Please show some mercy for such innocent beings.
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
Hee-hee.
I’ll resist the temptation to ask you how the « platform » is not a rather abstract form of conceptualisation.
Knowing that I have so asked by informing you of the intent to resist.
Signed « Ming the Merciless »…
J’aimeJ’aime
Platform for experience …Is as generic as can be.
Should I ever de-conceptualise one notch further and words would disappear, making my answer look like :
» »
Eventually, all resistance will be crushed.
Have you not heard ? Do you not see ?
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
If resistance is so crushable, I may as well give full rein to my wildness… Maybe by deconceptualising into nothingness. At which point I will be neither seen nor heard, and even quotation marks will be redundant.
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne