On Looking For the Fixed Point

05/01/2006 6:40 AM – 7:04 AM

Give me one fixed point, a long lever and I can move the world. Where is that one fixed point? Where is the singularity of immutable stillness? We cannot see it, being fluid beings in fluid time. But it must be there. The world moves.

What a soft green on the budding leaves. What soft tufts on the floating clouds. Where am I, then? I’m here, sitting in my chair, looking out on the Elmwood Avenue that I’ve looked out on ten thousand times before. But that’s not the whole truth, is it? You can’t step out onto the same street twice. But I recognize it. The changes are more subtle than the recognizable landmarks. There is that tree. There is that house. There is that window. I cannot wake up twice in the same body. My body changes constantly. The old masters say that if you look hard enough for the self, you will discover that there is no self. But here I am, typing the instants once again.

Where is the underlying peace? It’s there, but how did it come to be? Did I force it to be perceived, which is to say – did I imagine it? Is the whole structure imaginary? Which is to say – will it be taken away? We perceive again. The senses tell us that this is what this is like. There is no absolute consensus among the roshies. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be illuminated by ten thousand things. It’s poetic, but is it useful. To say that there is an underlying stillness to existence is to take a stance of faith – is there, or did I merely make myself imagine it to be so? And does it really matter? No. Yes, I think the answer is no. It does not matter. I cannot divine the truth and I desire peace, therefore, I will chose to accept what peace I can find as real. There are external states and internal reactions, but it does not necessarily follow that this specific external state will produce this specific internal reaction. Only move, I suppose. It is movement that distinguishes the animal from the plant and growth that distinguishes the living from the dead. I am alive. If I am melancholy once again, even on a cool, quiet spring morning, I don’t have to be. Do I want to be melancholy? What am I punishing myself for? Or what silliness makes me think melancholy more profound that peaceful contentment? Just breathe in, Spike. Let the melancholy go. Hold onto peace. Clasp yourself around the one still point and float on down through passing time.