The less I know

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The less I know

In the garden this morning, I am looking where I always look.
Blossoms stand ghostlike in abundant tree foliage. A dead leaf hangs captive in the frayed strands of a flag, flit-flapping. Undergrowth and overgrowth fill the day’s holes with unknowing.
I watch.
New faces of color and light emerge.
The more I look, the less I know what I see. Or who.
« Je pourrais passer le reste de ma vie simplement à dessiner deux chaises et une table, » said Giacometti. (« I could spend the rest of my life simply drawing two chairs and a table. »)

By | 2017-04-04T06:58:22+00:00 mars 25th, 2008|Textes|5 Comments

About the Author:

Enseignante Zen et poète, Sensei Amy “Tu es cela” Hollowell est née et a grandi à Minneapolis, aux Etats-Unis. Arrivée en France en 1981 pour étudier la littérature et l’histoire, elle y est restée, s’installant à Paris, où elle élève ses deux enfants et gagne sa vie en tant que journaliste. The Zen teacher and poet Amy “Tu es cela” Hollowell Sensei was born and raised in Minneapolis, but came to France in 1981 to study literature and history and has lived in Paris ever since, raising her two children and making a living as a journalist.

5 Comments

  1. little white cloud 29 mars 2008 at 9 h 13 min - Reply

    We live in words – (*)
    unable to pervade life…

    *concepts, categories

  2. mongolian steppe 28 mars 2008 at 19 h 07 min - Reply

    free translation:

    "…
    from wonder to wonder
    being/existence opens up. "

    Lau Tze – "Tao Teh King" 1

  3. wild primula 28 mars 2008 at 18 h 53 min - Reply

    Like: most of the time we don’t see; we "recognize" what we allready "know": the old.
    When we see we don’t "recognize" as allways: everything is new. Although a table is a table…
    In this way we can do the same walk over and over again – the same for drawing a table…

  4. anémone des bois 26 mars 2008 at 11 h 16 min - Reply

    "The more I look, the less I know what I see. "

    When we don’t know anymore what we see ( categorical storylevel), we are maybe able to see for the first time…??? (abstract lervel)???
    To do so we have to be "totaly naked"???
    (There is only one lettre differece in seeing and being???)
    (And yet at the same time abstract level = storylevel (hartsoetra))
    At the same time we "see" for ex. the horizontality of the hoizontal which is very different of the verticallity of the vertical…???
    Seeing is differentiating very clear and profound without making categories…??? so without making things solid – for they apear in the moment…???
    So when we have to react on something , the reaction comes out of a kind of open wisdom of seeing/feeling/ a kind of non categorical understanding but not a categorical "knowing" of "the verticallity of the vertical"???

    "or who"

    When we? "see" we don’t see the solid concept we made of the people we know.
    We? see/feel the abstract level of what (kind of energy) there is????`

    Who is seeing???

  5. Hugo 26 mars 2008 at 0 h 03 min - Reply

    i could spent the rest of my life trying to draw the drawing of my life… and failing every time… and succeding all the time… that’s my life

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