Poetry is the great language. It is the art of saying what cannot be said. Every poet knows that they are trying to describe the indescribable. Every poet knows that nothing is describable. Whether you take some sort of ineffable mystical experience at one extreme, or an ordinary rusty nail at the other, nothing is really describable. In the words of the famous Count Korzybski [scholar of sematics], “Whatever you say something is, it isn’t.”
*Alan Watts. Buddhism the Religion of No-Religion.
* * *
Not-knowing does not mean you do not know.
It means you thought you knew before, but, then, you did not know.
You knew what you thought, or thought you did.
Now, you know you do not know, now, you know what you do not think.
So, now, you know and know you know.
This is knowing knowing.
* * *
Zen says
'if you meet the Buddha on the road
kill him'
would a Christian be that respectful
'if you meet God on the road
kill him'
when Buddha in the head when God in the head
dies
hard death, hard! hard! dark night
for clingers to Buddha and God
but, please, respect that much
you, Buddha, God
for behind the curtain of dark skies
shines a Full Moon
when you see ... "Thank God!" "Homage to Buddha!"
when eyes drop from head to Heart
wonderful! wonderful!
Stop looking - See
* * *
Inevitably, on the Way, our sacred images must die. They melt like wax in fire - the fire of Truth. Meaning, our clinging to them as a something is extinguished into nothingness: simply meaning, no-thing. God is not a thing. Buddha not. You not. Love not. Nothing not. Then, the images may or may not serve us, but, if so, differently, for we see unlike we saw.
What remains? What was already there? We cannot say that. No one can. Yet, we can know.
You know. Beautiful knowing! Liberating knowing! Do not turn back. Without the crucifixion and burial, no resurrection. Without the bodhi tree, no awakening. See that you see what you see. See?
* * *
If you wish to understand the deep truth that is in God and in yourself,
keep still and listen; become poor in yourself, desiring nothing and
knowing nothing and possessing nothing. Only when you are empty
of all your chatter will there be room enough in you to receive
the gift of wisdom you long for.
*Source, "Room Enough." In Jon M. Sweeney, Mark S. Burrows, Meister Eckhart. Meister Eckhart's Book of Darkness & Light: Meditations on the Path of the Wayless Way.
