There is a freshness everywhere, living, neither old nor new. We cannot say it had a beginning or has an ending. When we let the veil of time part, with its thought, we see as though for the first time. Life is preparation to receive fully this freshness, when the body relaxes at what most call death. To welcome the freshness, untouched by time, before death, is to welcome life itself and know the illusion of death as a state opposed to life. Life is not a state of being or mind, life is untouched by all changing qualities and states. Yet, almost nothing and no one inspires us to this, not even most religion and spirituality, for they become for us another collection of socialized meanings and doings that add to our separation from life as Life Itself is - that is, they thicken the veil. These systems of thought are not, however, in themselves unhelpful, and they can lead to a spaciousness that is before they began. Ultimately, they must all fail us, they must all die, for they have no meaning in themselves and no lasting significance at all. There are many deaths possible on the way to what most call death, and these deaths are to lead us more fully into the freshness of Life, a Life no death can touch, for this Life is untouched by time, free of even meaning.
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I picked up the Tibetan Buddhist mala, one I had used for prayer and meditation and chanting, and looked at it. The mala was made in the area of Nepal. I held it in my hands. The mala looked different, something had changed, but not the mala - I. I was seeing differently, simply. I sensed immediately the mala no longer had any spiritual or religious meaning added to it, the mala was simply a mala, a garland of beautiful seeds with naturalness.
In this seeing was a sense of relief in the dying of the exotic, of added significances, okay in themselves; yet, relief I could appreciate, even see and feel, the mala as it is an ornament of Life Itself. A quiet bliss to hold it in my hands, like I was learning to see every breath as purely, nakedly itself. I was being graced, I sensed, to be free of added meanings, to have to have a meaning added to anything~meanings are veils between the heart and what we look upon and relate to and with. I was seeing nothing needs in itself to have meaning, placed by culture or mind, to be appreciated, loved, and respected wholeheartedly. Like saying, "I love you, but there is no reason I love you. I love you." I was seeing the essence of pure~nothing added, nothing need to be added, simply. Then, in reflection, I could sense this was partly a fulfillment of the vow of simplicity I had taken many years before~the turn from the muchness and manyness, in things and thoughts, is not a loss, but a path to ever-unfolding depths of adoration and gratefulness.
*Video can be accessed on original site through upper left artist-title...
