Without giving much thought to my intention, I left this blog in suspension for awhile. Then I picked it up again. Did it stop? Did it start?
Before this item was posted, what was there?
You might say, « There was the previous item. » But before that previous item, what was there?
You might say, « No items for a long time! » But before that long absence of posts, what was there?
Another post, and another and another. But before that, and that and that?
The « farther » we go, the « farther » we have to go! Until we come to before the before. And at that moment, what we call « not knowing, » there is nothing and everything. Then if it’s raining, it’s just raining, it’s neither good nor bad. Or we’re just sick, neither good nor bad. Or enjoying a coffee break, neither good nor bad.
A Zen master in ancient China said, « From the beginning, not a thing is. » Or in the opinion of the contemporary American Zen master Bernie Glassman, « Our job in Zen is to experience that beginning, that place before there’s anything. »
A coffee break with nothing and everything
About the Author: zenscribe
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.
Similarly, silence is not the absence of sound, but sound in a different form. Or at least it is what it sounds like to me. What lays then before the sound I wonder…