A father was walking with his little smiling son until they came to a shop that sold bonsai trees. Pointing to one in the window, the father said to his son:
"See that? That's a bonsai. It's a miniature tree."
"No, daddy," answered the little boy, much to his father's surprise.
"Bonsais are not little trees, trees are big bonsais!"
I find that life is every day stealing away all of the spiritual concepts that have accrued in this body-mind over the years, not forcefully, only gently... gently loosening the strings that tether these old ideas to their familiar shores, allowing them to release their moorings and to drift off into the vast and open seas of the unknown.
I see so many beautiful faces on my daily bus rides, so many beautiful modes of life living themselves out, expressing themselves. I see the sun reflecting on the polished windows of a skyscraper, a group of birds pecking at seeds sprinkled on the ground, the living bark of a tree under a snowy winter blanket. This brilliant beauty makes the mind stumble in amazement, the heart stop in awe. Everywhere is the same old reality, nothing is hidden, nothing concealed.
There was a time when mountains were not mountains, trees were not trees, but now, mountains are again mountains, trees are again trees. And I find I cannot capture the elusive beingness that is everywhere laid wide open, that is even here looking through these eyes. The hand, reaching for the moon, closes shut and finds itself empty. This ordinary, amazing, daily life is It.
Sitting before a tree, all thoughts of infinite consciousness, planes of existence, and spiritual attainments are swept away like driftwood in a river current. I laugh and smile and breathe in the cool winter air. The Great Books are silenced, there is a finger to the Great Teachers' lips. This very moment is it.
I look dearly upon my fellow human beings as they run about, trying to gain things, trying to be things, laughing, crying, drowning in desperation, soaring in freedom, not knowing, being lost, helpless, feeling alone, smiling, feeling connected, screaming, shouting, exploding, spouting foolish lies and wise words, and here there is only love for the whole panorama of human experiences and responses, only love and openness to all that we are, all that life is. I have nothing to give, so I give it every day, with all of my heart.
This peace cannot be grasped; it is empty of itself and full of the ten thousand sufferings of this deeply suffering world. The warp and weft of this silence are the very sounds of daily life. The unfathomable mystery is everywhere we look, in everything we see. It penetrates the conceptual mind and hits home in the deepest recesses of the heart. What it is, I cannot say... but I see it it in the beauty that shines through and as your very being... Astonishing, astonishing. Words fail me completely...
Flash of an instant:
A young boy
In a schoolbus window,
A beef jerkey cigar,
Smoking.
****
Walking on the snow,
Slip! Ice underneath,
Down on the ground,
Laughing and laughing,
Bliss.
And all these words, they fail to reach,
The Inexpressible expressed,
Beyond all words, all forms, all thoughts,
The Boundless pure and deep is This.
This Love is One, this Love is All,
Unblocked, uncaught, all free and pure,
All beings are it and loved by it,
In silence, felt, in Being, sure.
Oh One, so glorious and true,
More silent than the silent sea,
All words all fail, cannot construe
The vast unbound so fresh and free.
In it, the thousand things appear,
Tears and laughter, trees and flowers,
But it is always clean and clear,
Eternal in this very hour.
Here and now, and ever-present,
Everywhere we look, it is.
The heart that knows this is content,
For that which looks it also is.
Unformed, unborn and born and formed,
There is no thing that it excludes,
Free from fierce tears, yet weeping storms
And all our suffering, it includes.
You search and search for years to find,
The One so glorious and true;
The One who knows your very mind,
The object of your search, is you.
Attachment, clinging and aversion,
Are witnessed only by that which
Is free from pain, beyond subversion,
Empty while full and poor while rich.
The peace it is has no intrusion,
Cannot be gained, cannot be lost,
Always laid bare, beyond illusion,
With depths that nothing can exhaust.
That which inspires them to flow!
We are grains on its sandy beach,
One with the ocean rolling slow.
A wave and a majestic sea,
Encompassed not in part or whole,
It shines on with wondrous beauty,
It has no name, it has no goal.
What is this Silence-Stillness One
That none can capture, grasp or mar?
This One away from which words run,
This very One, here, now—you are.