Do you sometimes want to wake up to the singularity we once were?
so compact nobody needed a bed, or food or money—
nobody hiding in the school bathroom or home alone
pulling open the drawer where the pills are kept.
For every atom belonging to me as good Belongs to you. Remember? There was no Nature. No them. No tests to determine if the elephant grieves her calf or if
the coral reef feels pain. Trashed oceans don’t speak English or Farsi or French;
would that we could wake up to what we were — when we were ocean and before that to when sky was earth, and animal was energy, and rock was liquid and stars were space and space was not
at all — nothing
before we came to believe humans were so important before this awful loneliness.
Can molecules recall it? what once was? before anything happened?
No I, no We, no one. No was No verb no noun only a tiny tiny dot brimming with
We live with a stunning specimen from the plant world who I’ve named Eptasia. Or Epa for short.
Epa is a cactus which belongs to the night-blooming Cereus family. I’m not sure what their botanical name is… perhaps someone knows and can let me know.
Epa was a gift from the former tenants of our home. They gifted it to us as they were moving overseas (5 years ago) and couldn’t take it with them. They took a cutting and planned to grow another one in their new home. They had received it as a wedding present a few years earlier. We’re still in touch and I still send photos of Epa to them and we both continue to be nourished by our sweet connection.
Eptasia is a derivative of the greek word for 7 (epta). A cross section of one of Epa’s limbs would reveal a 7 pointed flower-like shape.
Epa is a steadfast companion for me. Along with the sun, the moon, the stars and the breeze.
One morning I wrote this after coming out to witness one of the flowers at dawn.
Night melts into day Darkness into light Many buds Blossoming From tough skin and prickles
I feel like this. Blossoming, from tough skin and prickles.
Academic Note: No-one is/was quite sure/un-sure whether Bu Yi actually existed/didn’t exist, or whether he/she was male/female, or something else. Otherwise, the reader can be certain of everything else.
Starting here, what do you want to remember? How sunlight creeps along a shining floor? What scent of old wood hovers, what softened sound from outside fills the air?
Will you ever bring a better gift for the world than the breathing respect that you carry wherever you go right now? Are you waiting for time to show you some better thoughts?
When you turn around, starting here, lift this new glimpse that you found; carry into evening all that you want from this day. This interval you spent reading or hearing this, keep it for life –
What can anyone give you greater than now, starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?
on a day of human crisis sweeping fallen pollen, a carpet of yellow on the ground by the tree ……waking up slow-ly to the vibrant buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz of hundreds of bees
swept up… swept clean away in this sound of rapid wingbeats a doorway to our shared home where time stands still just buzzzzzing …. full and complete the deep hummmm of the earth
no crisis here for bees serving the tree that serves them so well gentle visitors moving deftly each twig and leaf lightly touched, each one working with single purpose no effort or complaint Just This….. collecting pollen for the queen bee’s nest obeying the careful law of mother earth my heart is warmed ….all is well in this endless bee moment
and now as I return, a great tenderness and curiosity I wonder where they live….? ….it must be nearby………
How can you be lonely, with no gap between you and all there is?
Roshi Susan Murphy
Now that the Covid-19 virus has caused many of us to isolate ourselves from the normally frenetic modern world it may be a good opportunity to take time to explore at least little bits of the infinity of the Buddha’s Universe. No need for trekking boots and backpacks. No need for Four Wheel Drives or speed-of-light spaceships. All that is needed is an inquisitive mind….and, a black pencil and a sheet of white paper.
Background
As the story goes the Buddha was born into a high status family in a small rural, non-Brahman, republic, in contrast to the surrounding Brahman (Hindu) kingdoms. It is now thought that the Buddha was contemporary with the Greek philosopher Socrates (470-399 BCE) with his famous claim that ‘…..an unexamined life is not worth living’. More than a hundred years earlier the original of the Sophoi, or the seven Wise Men of ancient Greece, was Thales of Miletus on the Ionian Coast of Greece. Thales, besides correctly predicting an eclipse of the sun, some credit as being the originator of the profound Delphic Oracle advice of – ‘Know thyself!’.
Well into his young adult life Gotama the Buddha became dissatisfied with his understanding of the causes of suffering in the world around him. The prevailing Brahman view at the time was based on a cosmology of belief, a super-natural world with Brahma as the creator, the all-pervading Universal Consciousness. The life-force or soul (atman) was the individual Brahma spirit in all living things, and the re-incarnation cycle of life was this spirit of Brahma leaving the mortal body at death and then re-entering a newly forming body at conception, to be re-born into the world of suffering unless the ‘good’ kharma accumulated in the previous life or lives far outweighed the ‘bad’.
The Buddha spent six years in searching and practicing the traditional yoga and ascetic practices until, as the story goes, he gave up his searching, relaxed and sat in meditation under the Bodhi tree. It is there the understanding of the origins of suffering came to him. The methodology the Buddha used in gaining his insight or ‘Enlightenment’ is set out in the Buddha’s own words to Ananda, his personal assistant, almost hidden away in the Pali sutras, in the Paticca Samuppada.
