Icicle Moon

A fingernail of the waning moon hangs in the sky at dawn, flirting with a small pink cloud, which drifts away as the sliver of moon rises into the day and disappears. A nearby icicle watches all of this, frozen as it is on a freezing day.

The moon disappears though we "know" it is still there. Sort of like Awareness, there but invisible to ordinary eyes. Our ordinary eyes focus on icicles, freezing the ever-changing movement of Now into things. And we play with these things as if they are real. As one teacher says, "Nouns are just slow-moving verbs." Nouns make us think that things exist. Nouns delude us into everyday reality.

We catch glimpses of Awareness, just as we catch glimpses of the fingernail moon. Awareness is always there--quietly saying nothing.

The Ever-Changing Garden

A Thai friend who has beautiful gardens and who arranges flowers and leaves so artfully has received her third diagnosis of cancer.

I emailed her a note of sympathy, and she responded:
"No birth. No death. It's the anatta [not-self]. I am not holding on to the notion of existence. Life itself is an illusion. We are passing, evolving, changing, and transforming away from the illusion."

Just like our gardens that evolve, change, and transform from day to day, from hour to hour, and, if we can apply the microscope of our attention, from minute to minute.

A noun is simply a slow-moving verb. The noun "garden," for instance.

We may like or dislike the changes, but what's the use of liking/disliking? The changes simply happen. The garden, the elements of the garden, move on.

Pronouns are faster-changing verbs. "I," "me," "mine" change from moment to moment. The in-breath is completely different molecules from the out-breath (CO2). The "I" is born minute after minute, second after second. Pay attention. Notice moments of not-I, maybe when you are quite relaxed. Those "not-I" moments are moments of no birth, no death either. When we hold on to the notion of existence, we perish.

Just life unfolding.