#2642 - Wednesday,
November 15, 2006 - Editor: Gloria Lee
The Nondual Highlights
Listen to the
sound of water. Listen to the water running through chasms and
rocks. It is the minor streams that make a loud noise; the great
waters flow silently.
The hollow resounds and the full is still. Foolishness is like a
half-filled pot; the wise man is a lake full of water.
A whole life
without speaking,
"a thunderous
silence"
that was Wei-ma's Way.
And here is a place where no monk can preach.
I understand now what T'ao Ch'ien, enlightened,
said, he couldn't say.
It's so clear, here, this water
my teacher.
The sun
wasn't up yet; you could see the morning star
through the trees. There was a silence that was really
extraordinary. Not the silence between two noises or
between two notes, but the silence that has no reason
whatsoever the silence that must have been at the
beginning of the world. It filled the whole valley and
the hills.
The two big owls, calling to each other, never
disturbed that silence, and a distant dog barking at
the late moon was part of this immensity. The dew was
especially heavy, and as the sun came up over the hill
it was sparkling with many colours and with the glow
that comes with the sun's first rays.
"The delicate leaves of the jacaranda were heavy with
dew, and birds came to have their morning baths,
fluttering their wings so the dew on those delicate
leaves filled their feathers. The crows were
particularly persistent; they would hop from one
branch to another, pushing their heads through the
leaves, fluttering their wings, and preening
themselves. There were about half-a-dozen of them on
that one heavy branch, and there were many other
birds, scattered all over the tree, taking their
morning bath.
"And this silence spread, and seemed to go beyond the
hills. There were the usual noises of children
shouting, and laughter; and the farm began to wake up.
"It was going to be a cool day, and now the hills
were
taking on the light of the sun. They were very old
hills probably the oldest in the world with oddly
shaped rocks that seemed to be carved out with great
care, balanced one on top of the other; but no wind or
touch could loosen them from this balance.
"It was a valley far removed from towns, and the road
through it led to another village. The road was rough
and there were no cars or buses to disturb the ancient
quietness of this valley. There were bullock carts,
but their movement was a part of the hills. There was
a dry river bed that only flowed with water after
heavy rains, and the colour was a mixture of red,
yellow and brown; and it, too, seemed to move with the
hills. And the villagers who walked silently by were
like the rocks.
"The day wore on and towards the end of the evening,
as the sun was setting over the western hills, the
silence came in from afar, over the hills, through the
trees, covering the little bushes and the ancient
banyan. And as the stars became brilliant, so the
silence grew into great intensity; you could hardly
bear it.
"The little lamps of the village were put out, and
with sleep the intensity of that silence grew deeper,
wider and incredibly over-powering. Even the hills
became more quiet, for they, too, had stopped their
whisperings, their movement, and seemed to lose their
immense weight...
"Silence has many qualities. There is the silence
between two noises, the silence between two notes and
the widening silence in the interval between two
thoughts. There is that peculiar, quiet, pervading
silence that comes of an evening in the country; there
is the silence through which you hear the bark of a
dog in the distance or the whistle of a train as it
comes up a steep grade; the silence in a house when
everybody has gone to sleep, and its peculiar emphasis
when you wake up in the middle of the night and listen
to an own hooting in the valley; and there is that
silence before the owl's mate answers. There is the
silence of an old deserted house, and the silence of a
mountain; the silence between two human beings when
they have seen the same thing, felt the same thing,
and acted.
"That night, particularly in that distant valley with
the most ancient hills with their peculiar shaped
boulders, the silence was as real as the wall you
touched. And you looked out of the window at the
brilliant stars. It was not a self-generated silence;
it was not that the earth was quiet and the villagers
asleep but it came from everywhere - from the distant
stars, from those dark hills and from your own mind
and heart. This silence seemed to cover everything
from the tiniest grain of sand in the river-bed -
which only knew running water when it rained - to the
tall, spreading banyan tree and a slight breeze that
was now beginning. There is the silence of the mind
which is never touched by any noise, by any thought or
by the passing wind of experience. It is this silence
that is innocent, and so endless. When there is this
silence of the mind action springs from it, and this
action does not cause confusion or misery.
"The meditation of a mind that is utterly silent is
the benediction that man is ever seeking. In this
silence every quality of silence is."
"Silence is our real nature. What we are
fundamentally
is only silence. Silence is free from beginning and
end. It was before the beginning of all things. It is
causeless. Its greatness lies in the fact that it
simple is. In silence all objects have their home
ground. It is the light that gives objects their shape
and form. All movement, all activity is harmonized by
silence.Silence has no opposite in noise. It is beyond
positive and negative. Silence dissolves all objects.
It is not related to any counterpart which belongs to
the mind. Silence has nothing to do with mind. It
cannot be defined but it can be felt directly because
it is our nearness. Silence is freedom without
restriction or centre. It is our wholeness, neither
inside nor outside the body. Silence is joyful, not
pleasurable. It is not psychological. It is feeling
without a feeler. Silence needs no intermediary.
Silence is holy. It is healing. There is no fear in
silence. Silence is autonomous like love and beauty.
It is untouched by time. Silence is meditation, free
from any intention, free from anyone who meditates.
Silence is the absence of oneself. Or rather, silence
is the absence of absence. Sound which comes from
silence is music. All activity is creative when it
comes from silence. It is constantly a new beginning.
Silence precedes speech and poetry and music and all
art. Silence is the home ground of all creative
activity. What is truly creative is the word, is
Truth. Silence is the word. Silence is Truth.The one
established in silence lives in constant offering, in
prayer without asking, in thankfulness, in continual
love. "
