The One With Zazen and Snowflakes

02/17/2006 9:19 AM – 9:48 AM

What is zazen? Everything is zazen, only zazen is zazen. There are no contradictions only stubbornness of perspective. Zazen is the simplest and hardest game ever conceived. Sit and think only of this one moment. This one. This one. This one. In its entirety, this moment. What do you see, what do you hear, what do you touch, what do you smell, what do you taste, what are you thinking? Now think only of one thing, for as long as you can. Think of your breath. How does it feel, passing through your nose, touching the back of your throat, expanding your belly and your chest?

Think of only this one thing. Think only of this moment. Think of nothing. Think of everything. Think of the ones reading. Think of the ones not reading. Think of the typing. Think of the sensations of finger striking keys. Think of going and slowing and speeding. Don’t try to make sense of it. It’s only a game of utter gameness.

Why start? Why stop? Why time at all? Why a single progression? Why can’t we see the minds of others as we can see the skin of their faces? Where? Nothing. Stop. Breathe. One. Two. Three. Count them. Only you exist. All things exist and you are so small as to be completely neglectable. This is the being meditation. What is proof? What validates the assertion that existence exists? No thought. No proof. No care. Only this. There is a story to tell. The story meditation. What is the pale? No connection. The scattering of quanta, emerging from nothing to collide with other quanta that are emerging from nothing before they drop back to nothing. Nevertheless.

Here you are. Watch the snow fall. Don’t give a fuck if you can’t figure it out. It’s enough to be. Play with things. The finger that was cut off was cut off because it was raised as an imitation, but both are just fingers, pointing to the moon. Look. Look. There is the snow swirling as it did on that Thanksgiving in the old farmhouse in Addison. There is true existence. Bleak and cold, slightly afraid, and yet contented with a belly full of turkey and the possibility of discovering something that the grown-ups didn’t want us to discover. Watch the snow blow by the window. Move your legs to let the blood flow. There’s only this. The flicker. The flash. The click-clack whir of the movie projector. Sit and watch the show. What is going through the snowflakes mind as it crashes into the window and, clinging, melts? When you discover the mind of the mindless thing, you’ve found the state without fear. I’m awake now. I awake and moving. I'm clenching my jaw and fighting the super-villains. I’m the fucking hero. I’m the king of existence. I’m fucking snowflake, fearlessly crashing into the window, giving up its individuality. How long before we melt? Only this and then it’s gone. Grab the moment then let the fucker go. Now there is love. Now there is me. Baby, now there’s you.