Thoughts Arise

"Two hands clap and there is a sound. What is the sound of one hand?" Hakuin Ekaku Another enigmatic koan. It is like an impenetrable stone. I can only skip it across the water and observe the ripples left in its wake. No one else’s answer will do. I have to find my own. I meditated on it, and now I run with it. Towards the end of my route the trees and plants seem to urge me on. They extend their blessing of life. I feel like reaching out to touch them. At the very least, I lose the instinct to move away from their swaying arms. A leaf brushes against my forehead and reminds me of that part of my face. Where was my face without the leaf? Overgrown native grasses line the side of the track. A long spiky blade scratches my leg. “Stay away.”  Was that my voice? The refrain seems to repeat from both my leg and the prickly plants. How could it occur without either? I spot another person on the track. My identity comes vehemently to the fore; self-conscious and insecure. The quest

“What you are now looking out of isn’t two small and tightly fastened windows called eyes, but one immense and wide open window without any edges. In fact you are this frameless, glassless window.” “On Having No Head” by Douglas Harding. The word glassless had a profound effect on me. It triggered a palpable feeling that if this view was a window, there was no obvious barrier separating me from the world. Perhaps this was more noticeable because I usually wear glasses and had taken them off. Some invisible concept collapsed; very much like that feeling when you realise there is just empty space where you had assumed a transparent barrier. There is a chink in the armour of my concept of self.   Photo from www.freepik.com  

“Where am I?” Ask yourself the question as you run. Don’t expect the answer to be handed to you! Investigate your experience as you push your body to its limits. Where is the I? In the soles of your feet? The beating heart? Definitely not in the head. Can you even feel the shape of your head? Are you a single point in the grand vista of your vision? Or is vision also contained within the I? You may be looking meaningfully at the sky searching for an answer, and perhaps something mundane such as the traffic lights will draw your glance. That red, amber or green exists within you and not “outside” in the “real” world. In fact all colours; the blue of the sky, the green of the leaves, the grey of the tarmac, are your subjective experience. As are the abstract concepts of the sky, leaves and tarmac. And what about that sound you just heard? Does it originate over there and travel to you, as a matter of experience? Or does it simply appear and hint at the extent of your awareness? "Whe

The trees are aglow. Light dances off their boughs, In more directions than I can know. A few ripples enter my eyes, And resonate with the rhythm of life. In such awareness is the ego’s brief demise. I was looking at some trees in the distance, while walking home after a morning run. But then my sense of looking seemed to shift. Wasn't I simply receiving light reflected by the trees? And weren't the trees scattering light in all directions? The trees seemed to be basking in the glow of life. Imagine waves of light spreading out from those intricate branches. Imagine the vibrant leaves, their pattern of veins, the multitude of ways in which one could observe these monumental beings. A portion of that light reached my eyes, not directly seen, but translated by my mind into a vision of beauty. I could still feel my heart beating vigorously from the run. That rhythm and the glow of the trees seemed to superimpose; humming in resonance to evoke an overwhelming sense of being alive.

At the extremes of physical effort, one may find insight. My heart was thundering and my breath laboured, as I ran past a bag lying by the side of the road. The thought of checking the object arose spontaneously. The personality I think I am, could not possibly be interested in anything lying discarded by the pavement. So where did this urge come from? One can hold on to the ego and assume separate whisperers and demons. Or realise the incoherence of a known self. The demands of the body returned my attention outwards. But that moment of introspection continued to percolate into experience. When the urge to slow down came, I noticed it from a distance and knew it to be a passing thought. There was a certainty that soon the urge to quit would reach its peak and then recede. And it did. By the end of the run my awareness had spread out to the boundaries of vision. There was the sensation of my labouring body connected to the immense, moving bowl of the world. My arms, legs, and head wer