(4)

CONSCIOUSNESS

For just an instant, I see.  It's nighttime.  I kneel down in front of the window and look outside – and for just an instant, I see.  There's snow on the ground.  The boughs of a pine tree growing nearby are lightly sprinkled with white, but the tree itself is a mere silhouette in the dark.  I'm thinking about the poem I've just scribbled; I'm thinking of how consciousness is nothing but a kind of soundless laughter – and for just one instant, I see.  No longer am I trying to see; no longer am I divided within between a self that acts and a self that observes.  Nor am I even a self of experience, really.  Consciousness folds in upon itself.  I am/I am not.  There is no struggle; my mind is as still and calm as a pond untattered by any wind, upon which not a single ripple stirs.  And for just one instant, I see.  And what I see is this:  that "enlightenment" is a pine tree silhouetted in the dark of a winter's night.

LIVE THIS

(enlightenment)

The "realization" of enlightenment, the "encompassing" or "embodying" of it, fades – but the memory and understanding do not.  Enlightenment itself does not – not completely.  What does this teach me?  It teaches me that karma is never erased:  I am who I was, and will always be.  My sorrow remains.  And still I believe that the compassionate act is the most important, the most valuable one that we can achieve.  I am not free.  And still I wonder about how I am to survive in this world, in the midst of this terrible and terrifying thing called human society.  I would rather be an animal.  But I am not; I am a man.  And still I wonder about how to realize the experiential connection that exists between dreams and reality.  I wonder about what feats the manipulation of consciousness may yet achieve.  All this wonderment still awaits me – still awaits us.  Enlightenment – even the briefest glimpse of it such as I have had – changes nothing.  But it gives me hope.  It makes all the rest seem possible.