17 January 2024

It’s not the image I want, but the foreplay to image: “Awakened Mind is like.” The mind is like the sky, but is not the sky. To be like something is never to get there. That’s the entire openness of it.

“Awakened-Mind-is-like” is like an engine revving in the cold, waiting for the catch, the clutch, the act of pushing stick into reverse. (Some of us still drive stick.)

“Awakened-Mind-is-like” is like a compound German word, two objects transformed to a single idea. Shaft of knowing, Put the hand shoe in the cool cupboard before a day thief crosses the donkey bridge.

It’s like nothing else, like the smear of sunset on ocean at closing time, or like the freight train that rumbles before a gust of wind. It’s like the like of a like. We’re not even on social media, but I’m still liking things.

Like nothing else is not nothing, or is it? Like a phrase that leads to another phrase but never comes to a full stop. It’s the ground you stand on that shakes.

 

Awakened-Mind is like a parent looking to connect. Like a URL that promises connection, but takes you somewhere else like a shoe store. That links to soccer, hence Accidentally Awakened Mind. 

AwakenedMindIsLike is like a musical, set in Waikiki; buskers with their small speakers, a man holding a hand-scrawled sign that reads “I need a wife.”

Awakened Mind refuses metaphor entrance. Metaphor's a big bully who waits at the door and scampers in during a moment of inattention. Metaphor demands that it is what it is, except that it’s not. One cannot say that Awakened Mind is Metaphor.

Simile comes along, wearing a cloak. That would be a real cloak, would it not? Between the cloak and its body is a layer of warmth; outside the cloak is another story. The wet suit of metaphor squeezes all the oxygen out.

Is simile like Awakened Mind, or does the equation work only one way? Simile’s more versatile than that! It can also be Sleepy Head, for instance, or a Single Issue Voter. It’s all in the (mis)translation: Awakened Mind is like Insomniac Brain, like Sleepless Skull. How do you sleep? Like a log.

Awakened Mind is like a runway plagued by potholes. Shut it down for a night and in the morning land your plane. It's not the sky, nor is it like.

 

Note: inspired by the Awakened Mind is Like sutta. Thank you to Mary Grace Orr.

A google search yielded some good German words.