Sunday, January 21, 2018

How Strange Fear Is (through Tenabah c2018)

Attention on any object.
Then shuttling between eye
that sees and what is seen.
Then falling into the seeing.
Seer nowhere found.

Spaciousness without center,
like a fertile field,
abundantly growing
a rich variety of plants,
noticing everything that is arising,
never looking
from one plant to another.

[note: "never looking from one plant to another" = not entering into subject-verb-object mental structuring of what is seen, but staying in unitary awareness]


Going beyond,

the narrow world
of dualistic struggle.

Soaring high above

every battlefield.

Going higher

than any bird,
yet being intangible
like a wind
that cannot be held.

Turbulent wind,

chanting and howling
through trees,
no struggle,
just the whole forest

making a symphony.

[note: the interdependent co-arising with its tapestry of creative forces shaping each moment and not really polarizing into the struggle of isolated selves]


How strange fear is,

wanting to run away
from everything,
and sometimes
even succeeding,
until the bush
rustles again.

When fear is fixated,

its constant attention
on what is feared,
makes sure the specter
that makes it shiver
is never far away.

Waiting in anxious anticipation,

it makes the next moment
like the last,
the waiting worse
than the coming of doom,
after imagination rules
the real king
seems very ordinary.

It is possible to end

fear's dark trance,
and no longer walk
in its shadow,
rising high into the Sun
through love and devotion,
the dark shadows
of the distant valley
are forgotten.

What fears dying,

already knows
that it will die.
Accepting this,
it is possible
to rise from its ashes,

and be forever free.