Unspoken

The Leap

A spark

             

leaps

from brown eyes

to blue.

Who now

   looks out?

My Grandchild

My grandchild, I kiss you on the forehead

And watch you dive heart-first from my breast

Falling

            towards

                        fullness

I cannot protect you…

Does Big Mind Go "Zap"?

 

Dear Genpo,

 

Does Big Mind go “zap”?

Does Big Mind pick up his teacher’s Zen stick and threaten to hit him with it?

Does Big Mind threaten drop a stone Buddha on his student’s foot?

Oh, I think so.

But what about Big Mind the process?  That seems rather benign.

Where’s the fun in that?  Where is the transmission?

 

I know Big Mind goes “zap” because Big Mind is electrocuting me.

Big Mind stops electrocuting me when I express it; when it is transmitted through me.

Big Mind shouts and all is Negated.

Big Mind exists in me as a hurricane. 

As Big Mind, I have no interest in Big Mind the process.

And I am never not Big Mind.

 

But I am not limited to Big Mind.

I know what it means for Big Mind to come home.

I know what it means for Big Mind to die.

I know that freedom “as” is far superior to freedom “from.”

 

But right now, I exist as a firework rocketing towards dharmakaya.

I scream to the pinnacle of understanding and explode as Realization.

Undone and dispersed, I fall as mist upon the 10,000 things.

Only moisture remains, with no one left to behold this majesty.

 

I will not be distracted from my trajectory.

Until I explode, I will hold a sword to the throat of any process.

My teacher, what am I supposed to do with your teaching? 

I hate it.

 

Love,

Colin

Bittersweet Mirage

   

Bittersweet mirage, I surrender my heart to you.

          (Dear one, I am not deceived)

I kiss the precious disaster that you are.

          (Beyond the anguish, I feel the glory)

In eternity, I wait for you; just as you wait for me.

          (If not in this life, I will know you there) 

    

Home at last, words cannot describe our intimacy.

          (The chains have dropped, the fear is gone)

The distance between us cannot survive here.

          (Two souls dissolving into one radiance)

I will miss you, my love.

          (In perfect joy, my heart weeps for the face it will never see again)

   

Undone.

          (Released) 

Only tenderness remains.

          (Not-two)

    

Emptied.

          (Returned)

Peace without limit.

          (Just so)

 

 

Zero.

 

 

I subtly breathe in.

          (I will see you again....)

      

Friends, are you romantic with souls?  Are your friends as blessed as the object of your romantic affection?  With whom would you be willing to take this journey?  A lover, certainly.  But who else?  Whose soul would you let mix with yours?  Who else could you melt with, dissolved as radiance, released as all? 

In truth, I do not know how to be romantic with human beings.  Perhaps there is much you can teach me.  Perhaps you can help bring my heart into my body, into this waking life.  Perhaps you will know how to touch me. 

Perhaps not. 

But I am not worried, for my heart still sings out: Friends, are you romantic with souls?   

The Arrow

I have been reflected by a man who has lived through the contours of my present experience and come to another way of being. I have no idea if I shall ever arrive at the life he lives now, or if I should even want to, but the offering he has made is profound. I deeply encourage you to check it out.

http://zoosphere.typepad.com/zblog/2004/11/of_seriousness_.html

Thank you, Marco, my brother, my housemate, my shaven-headed Marine. Maybe you are resting deeper than the wave of my present experience. Maybe you simply tired of surfing, even though the merit of surfing remains. I do not know, but I deeply honor and respect the life you have lived and how you are living now. I Recognize its value even if it is not the value that I currently embody.

The seriousness that exists as my current life-flavor literally only recognizes itself--but it does not exist for itself. It has no self existence. It is an arrow in mid-flight, pointing towards its Master. I AM that Master. Of that I have no doubt. But in the developmental progression of my relative life, it feels appropriate to take the role of the Servant for as long as the impulse arises. I shall be that arrow, and I shall pierce all things--but in the moment of penetration the "wound" is instantly healed! Once the Master is revealed the arrow evaporates; and so I am left resting as the Master.

Perhaps one day I will cease to need to be the arrow and I will simply rest as the Master at all times. But the form of my dharma right now, as I understand it, is to be that arrow again and again and again until the Kosmos is so perforated that the Master can never be ignored.

As the Master that I am right now, I understand that this is not necessary. I can't be ignored--I would be the one doing the ignoring. But let Colin have his fun pretending to poke holes in all the sentient beings unfortunate enough to live in a thirty-mile radius. He'll calm down when the time is right. If nothing else, it's fun to watch ;-)

Love,

Colin-->Arrow-->Master

Serious Young Man, How Are You?

Serious young man, how are you? I read your words and I cry for the joy you do not express. You seem so sad, so angry. So alone... and it almost feels like you have given up on being touched by another human soul. Is there softness in your life? Who are the threads of love that melt the tension in your face? Dear one, have you ever been kissed?

Yes, I have been kissed. But it was a dream. I would have chosen to live in that dream if the choice was mine, but it wasn't.... and I awoke once again to the alienation of my waking life. I don't resent this waking life, I know the ultimate intimacy with which we touch, but for now I am... alone. This is simply how things are.

My heart, in this dream, what did it mean to be kissed?

It meant being touched... and seen... and known. Completely. But it wasn't even a kiss really, but a melting into one another that a kiss seems to imply. It was being surrendered and dispersed as golden light, and feeling the presence of the "other" as the shimmer and glow that we shared. It was total touching, totally intimacy. It was being home.

And how do you feel now? Do you feel at home?

I carry that dream-being in my heart, so home comes with me, at least in some small way. I am always touched by that presence so long as my heart is rested open to that unity.

My love, what does it mean for you to be whole?

It means bringing the intimacy of my dream life to the life I live here. It means being ruined by love, always. It means no longer having any excuses for not giving myself away... and receiving just as deeply. It's beyond anything I could ever communicate, but it's all I could ever want.

Dear one, will you hold yourself open to the possibility that one day this might happen?

I will. I don't know what else to do with myself.

Good. We'll talk again soon, okay?

Okay.

I love you.

I love you too.

Simple Resting, Broken Heart

A poem written to Genpo, Friday 10/29/04:

Wanting nothing, being no one.

I exist as self sufficiency.

I feel the 10,000 things, but they do not feel me.

What a strange, sad state of affairs.

What unique loneliness.

An ache that expands, touches, feels.

We are home together.

How can they not feel this?

How did I, not, feel this?

Simple resting, broken heart.

I do not know….

Behind the sometimes callous, prickly texture of my personality is a sadness that often leaves me unable to speak. My dearest friends, you who are my family, this human life has never felt my own, and so I often do not know how to share in our common humanity. I remain untouched, alone. I'm sorry I do not know how to be with you where you are, as you are, with the joys and pains that color your life. But that doesn't mean I don't feel you. I do. Deeply, I do.

Simple resting, broken heart.

I do not know....

Love,

Colin

Undefended

Friends, already the first comment I've received--via email--about this blog is one I truly needed to hear. "Skillful means 101: Defenses bring about what they were meant to ward off." I bet some of you can guess the source of that nugget.

Truly, I know my first post was a slightly veiled defensive rant. But please understand, resting as that One, my experience is of being attacked by literally every single thing and occasion in the manifest domain. Given a choice between rabidly defending that One or folding to the whims of the 10,000 things, I'm going to go down fighting. But this does introduce a contracted dimension to my communication. I can feel it in my stomach. Maybe you can feel it to. With all my heart, I apologize for the way that I was not prepared to give of myself in my first post.

But rather than rewrite my posts (though I may go back and tinker for clarity's sake), I think I should like to simply create new posts so that the evolution of understanding is made plain for all to see. Not the evolution of my understanding, the evolution of understanding itself as it exists between everyone involved in this process. Thank you for being here. Thank you for offering your attention.

I will write more about being undefended shortly, but for now I need to continue on to some other relative responsibilites--such as eating, something I ignored entirely for the five hours last night I spent getting this thing started ;-)

Much love,

Colin

Unspoken

This blog is the beginning of a process of making who I am known, explicit, public. To many of my friends and colleagues I am an unspoken presence. I am never truly shared, and thus, I am never truly known. For those of you in my life to whom I have remained a mystery, I offer this blog to you. If you are moved to do so, I am honored to have you bear witness to this process. But be forewarned, even though this blog exists for you, I do not. I exist for only One Thing. This blog is an expression of my understanding and relationship to that One Thing, and I shall serve that first, always.

I am unspoken in most of my human exchanges. Here, I shall pull no punches. This will interest and intrigue some. It will shock and offend others. And with no ill-will in my heart, I say this: I do not care how you feel about my offering. This is not to say that I don't respect and value you profoundly as a human being; I do. But the nature of this offering is unconditional. I exist as and for this One Thing, and no man, woman, or god shall ever change that.

Attempting to communicate this One Thing is at the center of my understanding of my dharma, my work in the world. However, it is not that I feel that I feel I "have" something which I wish to "give" to others. As Adi Da put it, "There are no winners in God." Damn right. But there are some who know this and some who don't. For those who know, attempting to express this reality is an enlightening movement. In this movement the distinction between those who know and those who don't is erased, literally and actually.

This blog is my first step towards actualizing that enlightening movement publicly. Up to this point, I've only shared this aspect of myself with about half a dozen people, but it now feels appropriate to expand the circle of my self-offering.

Implicit to everything I've said thus far is the fact that I believe I have some degree of enlightened awareness. I do believe this to be true. But let me explain what I mean by that. One way to think of it is this: on a scale of 1 to 100, where 1 is absolute ignorance and 100 is absolute enlightenment, 50 would be the tipping point. At 50, one's understanding of who one is would be fundamentally grounded in Reality. I believe I've reached 50, maybe even 51. As such, I believe my understanding is as Real as it gets, albeit very immature.

Therefore, I look to my teachers not because they understand something I don't, but because they have had decades more experience than I in integrating enlightened awareness with a human life. They possess the skillful means that I do not. They also rest much deeper than me, and thus act as a representative of a mature form of my own highest Self. But there is no grasping. The relationship is based in Understanding, where teacher and student are genuinely not-two.

So my gift to you, currently in the form of this blog, is profoundly selfish. I am only giving to mySelf. I am only speaking to that in you which understands me perfectly, even now. Perhaps you will join me in this enlightening movement. Perhaps you won't. Either way, I bow to you, perfectly. Received or rejected, I do not contradict myself when I say: I exist only for you.

Gassho,

Colin

PS I will leave the comment option on for my posts, and though I promise to read everything, I can't promise I'll respond to everything (or anything). I'm not yet entirely sure how to integrate the "we" aspect of this process. Like most things on this blog, it will be an ongoing question....