11 August 2016

As though the weight of the universe were balanced on a single point, and that point entered us. To teach is to point; to suffer equally so. He puts the photo of his wife's dress on Facebook. It's tropical blue, laid flat so we see only fabric. She'll wear it again before she's cremated. “When I heard she might have more cancer, I envied her the experience of dying.” There is so little to this life. Saijo asked Bryant if he believed the phrase “no being left behind,” and he said he did. We're not bodhissatvas, and yet we stay. We look for the best property and then slip in, as if breathing were a sequence of empty rooms. To lack desire to do is not to forsake the breath. Is it?

Thisness is the experience of a distinct thing in such a way that the resonant structure of the world sounds through it. The middle register of the meditation bell; a flash mob around middle C; truck tires between bird calls. His wedding ring clothes the left fourth finger as he holds his hands up, finger tip pressed to finger tip. Here's the roof and here's the steeple, open it up and see all the people. Do you want to live today, I might ask. And if you don't, please stay. Air brings a better sound: palm rustle, pot or pan and spoon, mynas quarreling, intermittent fart of a drill out back.

--11 August 2016

#54, 55, Zwicky