I like asking paradoxical rhetorical questions. Sometimes just asking them gives insight to the unanswerable ones. I like pondering extremes, ultimates. It gives me perspective. I feel more able to handle the little ups and downs in my life.
These questions are not new. They are certainly influenced by Lao Tzu.
How can we know anything until we know nothing? Do you think it’s possible to know nothing? How can you know it if it is nothing? Is “anything” better known if seen with the awareness of its opposite, nothingness? Nothingness is like the star you can only see if you look slightly away from it. It’s only there in absence of everything else. In the above illusion, the wheels turn where you do not look.
Somehow everything, anything, has a little more presence, aura, after a little absurd discussion about nothing. The presence of life is more poignant when seen in the shadow of nothingness. We all get caught up in the drama of our lives, and we often forget the void which gives everything perspective. We forget the soothing comfort of knowing we are timeless, that we were always here, that we will always be here, even when our bodies go back to the earth. We forget the freedom that affords us, the fearlessness it affords us.
In the rare moments when I feel completely (in Krishnamurti’s words) “free of the known”, I am most capable of making decisions, solving problems, attending duties. I am capable of throwing myself into life, filling it up.
For the next few weeks, I plan to ponder the nothingness of my blog, experience its absence, to see what it really is. (we’ll see how long it lasts!)
ah…. yes… paradoxical, rhetorical questions.. I like pondering paradoxes and find them good for clearing the head of the trivial (a paradox there too?).. and making me smile. I agree with you that they do give perspective.
These seemed powerful words to me: “We all get caught up in the drama of our lives, and we often forget the void which gives everything perspective. We forget the soothing comfort of knowing we are timeless, that we were always here, that we will always be here, even when our bodies go back to the earth. We forget the freedom that affords us, the fearlessness it affords us.”
I wish I had your certainty and seeming sereneness about the timeless part.. I don’t think I have come to terms with something I know and understand on one level, but which still seems like an end rather than the continuation of the circle that it is… I am caught in linear time- sometimes feeling it as if it is running out and that there are still things or something I need to do.
I am really hoping your last sentence doesn’t mean a step away from blogging for long.. Your perspective adds value to the whole.
ps.. loved the optical illusions… good post!
Absence does make the heart grow fonder and famialiarity does breed contempt.
Fascinating post! Philosophy of this sort intrigues me; I enjoy your thoughts. This reminds me of positive and negative space in art- as art mirrors life, philosophy, or vice versa, but more profoundly than I can express. (Just read your own words for that! 😉
Thanks for the comments. I don’t plan to stay away long, just long enough to get other things in order, and to yearn for blogs afresh.
Wish I could say something profound like the others did. “Nothing” comes to my mind 🙂
Hope you come back soon.
Look forward to your return, Garnet. Meanwhile, a thought from my new practice of karate: the body knows, and can do, what the mind forgets and cannot do. When I allow even one moment of mental process, not only do I know–with absolute certainty–that I don’t know the kata or the series of movements, but I also know that I am not strong enough, or my technique isn’t solid enough, to do it. And really, it’s true: I am new at karate, I don’t remember a lot of stuff, I am having to build strength to do what I’m asking of my body because it’s grueling and difficult…but the key is this: when I stay out of the way–empty, mindless, fully present, out of my own way–I DO the things I don’t know and can’t do. With some mistakes, sure, and some limits, but they don’t matter and they lead me forward. Magic? Buddhist principles in action? The power of letting go of self-doubt? Yes and yes… But the point is, I think writing is the same. Once we achieve the basic skills of the craft, it becomes a matter of getting out of the way. I hope your meditation yields emptiness of this kind, and look forward to reading your writing upon your return.
Jessamyn- The encouraging guidance offered in your comment is driven by gentleness. Thank you.
Letting the body forget. Letting the mind go. Letting. It’s a kind of forgiveness, and healing. When practicing clarinet I sometimes benefit from time off. Then my playing is restored to its more guttural articulation of spirit. The practicing is there, in me, idealizing, a cocoon.
The complex relationship between letting go and control hounds me. Instead of riding the bike, I want to think about it, posess it with my imagination. Those thoughts are like mosquitoes, babbling at the screen door, waiting to pierce and suck from the soft underbelly of experience. That compulsive leap to meaning, or shaping of it, is daunting, mesmerizing, distracting, filtering. And also vital to refining the spirit. Sometimes those words come from me, but for now I prefer to digest what others say.
I used to read books that changed my life. Even snippets of something would launch me into fruitful activity. I would dip into Emerson, Aristotle, Elliot, or Pop Zen, Richard Bach, Mary Renault, the Dune Series. Each jumped out at me, imbued me, renewed. Now I can barely keep up with the news. The details of life crowd out the bigger picture. Sometimes the words choke me. I agonize. Doubt. Then words like yours come through the clog.
Stormwind- I am certainly not certain about the timelessness of the body, but the thought liberates me from the bondage and pain of this temporary state, knowing that with the suffering also comes its opposite, bliss. It’s just we don’t trust and give in to it. Fear locks the door. I am often paralyzed by doubt and fear and anxiety. All the more reason to just “fall” into that emptiness, breathe through it, embrace it. If we are but particles in a wave, we must learn to ride the wave. No one said we wouldn’t get seasick, though.
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