More and more I have less and less to say. I am like an old rusty water spigot that drips single, slow drops on some indeterminable timetable. During times when everything seems to be going well I am able to see, more than see, I am able to accept the impermanence and emptiness of every deep down thing.
This morning when it was still dark I looked at a photo of a demolished house in Florida. I just stared at it. Speechless. Without comment of any kind.
And wondered whether or not I’d see the impermanence and emptiness if I were standing looking at all of those broken things.
When we lose a shelter of any kind we feel the disruption – we see it – know it. The nervous system in the body reacts.
Devastation of any kind brings a reaction whether we are ready or not. Devastation like a loud bang grabs us by the collar and shakes us up not as a punishment as some may suggest, as many may believe but as a chance to see the unreliable nature of stuff. Everything breaks up and falls apart – giving us, giving me the sense that everything perishes. And the perishing may be sudden or slow, may catch us unawares leaving us shaken to the core. A rude awakening, perhaps, but an awakening nonetheless.
What do we depend on when devastation comes to our home? How do we respond when the weather is not fair and sunny? Will our practice hold – or will we be blown down with the stuff?
There is no prescription. Nothing I can or want to prescribe. Not for myself or for anyone else. I meet what comes and wait for the things that have come to wake me up.
Right now my house is not in shambles, but it has been hit in the past. Right now – Bear, our oldest dog struggles for breath, suffers from tremors – thunder terrors and loss of muscle in his hind quarters. When I quiet the foolishness of the mind – when I meet what comes I am able to forget about me and meet all of it as the veil that covers his sweetness and life that is complete this moment.
I kneel down on the floor as he turns his grayish whiskered face in communion with my hand. I feel the sadness and joy. It is an almost unbearable sweetness. I tell him not to be afraid and tell myself that as well. I tell him he is OK – alright. Nothing is wrong. Not in a real sense. Nothing is wrong. He is OK despite his hard knocks. In the middle of his gums turning black, his struggle to get up; he is OK.
My work – my spiritual work is to keep the boat of me in the water without the water getting into the boat. What I mean is that my practice is to meet him and all the changes without drowning in me-thoughts, feelings, reactions, worry and all those conditioned mind-states. To see and know he is OK. Life is complete this moment.
When I get scared I get confused. What scares me is when I see the veil of his body as a permanent thing – which confuses me and rightly so. It is a delusion, a haunting ghost and I get scared. The confusion takes me to a crazy place where I think I am not a part of this veil of impermanence – that somehow I am separate from it looking on at his changing body and mind as though I am separate from aging, sickness and death. I laugh at such nonsense since my body and mind are challenged by constant ailments.
Somewhere I know the truth frees me from being stupid and ignorant. And then I am able to see that the body and mind, his and mine, are impermanent, I relax in the leaky boat of body and mind and enjoy his old face.
I am as impermanent as him. We are in this together. We are not apart. And never have been.
The most wonderful realization of knowing this is when unconditioned love, of an almost unbearable sort, comes unbidden and I know who I am – I am not afraid. I am OK. Everything is alright. I know at an immeasurable level there is nothing to get here – no thing. He has never been mine. Nor is our 3 year old poodle. Nor my partner. Nothing is mine. Nothing is permanent. This knowing is a clarity that frees me beyond any explanation I am able to put into words.
I am not the body, not the mind, not thoughts in my head, not the intellect storage area of information, not the breath, not all the conditions of a long life – All I am able to say is what I am not…not afraid. Not overcome by the world. Not made. Not a thing. When I know this – when I know Bear – and when I know the truth we, Bear and I and all myriad things, somehow are together beyond name and form. And it is bliss that I can hardly bear.
May this encourage all those who seek the truth.
Author: FaShi Lao Yue
A Single Thread is not a blog. If for some reason you need elucidation on the teaching, please contact the editor at: yao.xiang.editor@gmail.com