The Zen N! #61 - Are You The Omnidirectional Knower? Part V
On Chuang Tzu
I am one of those silent artist hearts that reads the writings on the walls.
I heard a quote once, or maybe saw a piece of art, saying something to the idea of: We are cave men led around by the writings left on the walls.
Since the time I was fairly young, I would ride the train from the Oregon Zoo Max Station.
I was there so often, that I saw the difference between this tunnel being full of people, and then later, completely empty in silence.
I would look down this tunnel, and I would feel somehow lost in the middle of time.
It was though I was between the gap that was life. I was in between the interval.
People had built this place, and they were gone. One day, I would also vanish, nameless, unknown. I never had existed.
The tunnel, empty and dark at night, it was as if there was no world out there. Just a tunnel in infinity.
You may remember this scene from The Matrix Revolutions.
In this scene, Neo is left in a Subway tunnel that is like an eternity, a limbo you can never leave.
In that tunnel, the shadow that I was may as well have been God, at least, the God of that world, as there was nothing outside of it.
I bring this up because there is writing on the wall in that tunnel.
"There is a beginning.
There is a not yet beginning to be a beginning.
There is a not yet beginning to be a not yet beginning to be a beginning.
There is being. There is nonbeing.
There is a not yet beginning to be nonbeing.
There is a not yet beginning to be a not yet beginning to be nonbeing.
Suddenly there is nonbeing.
But I do not know, when it comes to nonbeing, which is really being and which is nonbeing.
Now I have just said something. But I don't know whether what I have said has really said something or whether it hasn't said something."
- Chuang Tzu - Disciple of Lao Tzu
I did not know who wrote those words. I didn't know anything about their life. All I knew, was that they understood my life.
They knew what I knew, they were what I am.
It was as though the events of their life were lost to me as shadows that had been forgotten in that tunnel.
The events of my life would also fade.
And yet, I exist.
I would think, "Whatever kind of person wrote those words, they must have seen so much, done so much, they were an entire world."
I felt like they were here with me. I felt as though I was the same consciousness that wrote those words.
I also felt like I was immaterial, unknowing, that I was not even of the same "expanded size" of a consciousness to be able to even string together such thoughts as those.
Those thoughts were as vast as the sky, while my thoughts were limited, human, and small.
I think I made some vows in that tunnel.
I wouldn't consider this a major set piece in my life. Rather, among an infinity of experiences, there is no reason for me to remember it.
Thank you for Reading!
The Zen World Newsletter shares the messages of mystics and open hearts from around the globe.
Part VI coming soon.
