EVIDENCE OF THE END, Poems and Other Writings by Donald L. Simons
Donald L. Simons
His dust accumulated at his feet.
His carefully carved expression
Etched its frozen waste about the room.
His laughter had nowhere to go.
Nothing remained of him but his maintained heap
Positioned for its lifetime facing nowhere.
Quarry Run and How It Had to Be
Snow drifted through the
hourglass,
Winter rolled over in its dust.
Tentacled trees imposed their suspended animation
And the world became one
Ice sickle network
Cut-glass web
Dead statuary.
Rivulets seeped from open wounds in the mountain’s side,
The plants were bleeding to death.
Insects built the earth a cocoon.
There was no sound.
The sun shone a spot in the gray
Recalling music,
The moon in the darkness the dead poet.
In Flashes and Rivers
The silence of a fallen
tree
Along now tranquil rivers,
A storm’s end.
Tiny sprouts rose
The remnants of umbilicals
And debris.
Noisy morning.
Stained buds
Empty and aching
Into their lives.
Day Out
The previous day was the same as that day,
The agonizing return of dusk and night,
The strangulation,
The rekindling of cold,
While the brilliant creeping vines of wakefulness
Turned gray and ceased their movement to sleep.
It was hard to believe that it had happened so soon.
Morgantown, West Virginia, January 13, 1970
It is 7:20 p.m.
Winter
And nighttime for several hours.
The backdoor of the house
Opened onto a small porch
Where he was standing at that moment.
He had been looking down the valley
And at the houses across the way.
It had snowed and
Some would say the houses were
Illuminated by the streetlights
And looked as though they were draped in
Nativities
But he contended that they looked
Covered in cobwebs
Things stored on dark dusty shelves,
But then he did not know,
He had lived there longer than most.
Turning toward the door as though to enter
He found the refection of his face in the door window
Where he saw that he had webs of his own.
As They Saw Him Watching
Their fat faces trying to look mature
As they saw him watching.
Their seriousness made him smile, his own seriousness.
The hour trailed off, as a line of trailing cars passed him by
Each reflecting its driver’s puzzled stare
As they saw him watching.
And he melted back into sleep
Dreaming of needs.
Untitled
So, there on that long-wintered bench
In that white rust chamber that was home and him,
He sat contemplating the gaping orifices
And dangling appendages of himself,
Not believing he ever was.
Recalling Thoughts of Children
Returning to his room
He saw where his bed remained unmade for days
Badly rumpled by the sickness of his sleep.
He was recalling thoughts of children
So ugly before or after the rain.
As the argument raged
The little boy moved from his mother's side
To securely clutch the arm of a chair.
His expression, his own expression, was heartbreaking.
Now older, he trusted no one.
In school he liked looking that way
But not anymore.
With thorny hands
And a fear of people everywhere
He worked daily at spoiling friendships.
He knew no one.
Inside his brain’s grave
Spittle and whiskers had emerged, a continuous flow
From all his previous lives.
Last clay gains
Over and above the solid
flat squares
Erupted now from not enough footsteps,
Or perhaps from too many footsteps.
Too old then, too thin, the walk did not lead to his house anymore.
Nor did the trees along the street lead anymore to the sky,
Gone to the belly of a blight which sucked them dry
Leaving them skeletons pointing away at nothing.
Only telephone wires drooped through their hair now
Hidden voices clattering back and forth to empty ears.
Not that there was anything new to be learned
As everyone knew all there was to know,
Including that he had returned for a final glimpse
Before the old street went under.
They also knew that he had changed,
Anyone could see that, the internal changes.
What they did not know was that he had come to see for himself.
Shell
Slick trees stepped into shell skies
Last long dance down.
Deep holes appeared, lost suns pecking out.
He walked among blocks of rain, the last long place.
Children
Just out of sight,
Speaking all the secrets.
Squares into squares
Into bottomless circles.
Tinted tents
Lacquered lawns
Grins that did not heal.
Only the End Again
Mechanical cattle rattled and mauled
Yellow cylinders from their sockets
All the last cob walls worn
Fields to seas of weeds
Reflecting then the sickle sky
The sun in its circle
The bubble gone dry.
Down fences of winter snow
The stare of another moon
Surrendering at last to sky's cave
Answering again as death.
Bereft, his eyes slid wearily in their holes
The dull ledge of fading brow
The ache of hard air in his hair
Pondering once more the imponderable
Knowing what he knew, having been shown.
Within the Confines
He gazed into a pensive pond
Tailing the thoughts within
When one thought had another thought,
And since the one thought, thought that,
They all thought that as well.
But then the one thought changed its mind
So that all the others changed their minds too
Without thinking.
The Up Downing
Leafless to the towering rim,
Spoke branches circled and poked.
Knee and elbow limbs push-pulling
As his leathery head dropped to the ground
Bursting into feathery seed.
Wats
Leaf plates bobbed in the low reeds.
Afraid of what they would do.
Jasmine
Barges on the Monongahela River once dragged coal up to Pittsburgh to make steel.
Now, though, they hauled garlands of jasmine to hang on the neck of Prabhupada.
Grimacing Saints
No identity but pain.
Was there a reason to look at them
Or must he merely pray to them?
There was a mass at the end of the corridor
Blessed Mother in ivory blood and black nails,
Blistered knees
Callused knees.
Steep steeples slumped
Under the weight of their prayers
As insects clogged the stained glass for light.
Mosses enough to hide the mortar
As years of dew etched age
About the mass Jesus.
Inside, towering timbers
Hollow and resounding
Were human faces
Too distinguishable faces
Scarred
Beholding too scarred
Indistinguishable faces.
More
All
He awoke to find that he was only awake,
Ever the Same
Long-since said.
The End
The end only ended at the end.
Reincarnation
The tracks he was following were his own.
Mantra
No more striving, grasping, clinging, clutching, wanting to do this or to be that, or to have that. No more obsessing, struggling, suffering. No more attachments in the world of form, no more engagement in the world of form, no more being active in the world of form, no more clinging to life in the world of form, no more him in the world of form. He wanted to stay dead.
Once
The universe only said him once.
Places
Meditation point. There were places on Earth where no humans had ever set foot and never would.
God Broke on the Plain
The eyes of night flickered out.
He was not breathing.
Calling After God
He saw God in the hallway and called after Him,
But all He would say was that He never promised him anything.
He told Him that he knew that already.
It was encouraging.
Eternal Spin
And so there he spun for his eternity
In that forest of eternities,
Emptying into where he had already been.
His Leaves
He had fallen away from his leaves,
Leaves so old as to miss him.
Void
He was a void that only another void could fill.
Grave
He was a shallow grave.
No Water
Second Awakening
The floor dropped out
from under him
Leaving him standing in a bottomless pit,
Nothing but darkness all the way down.
He wanted to say that he told himself so
For he was the one who insisted on unraveling himself
Of purging himself of himself.
Only that yarn of him remained
Only that pile of yarn in the dark.
Whereupon God opened His eyes all at once,
Not this God but that one, and they recognized
That neither of them recognized the other, and
That all they were was that steep space under the floor.
Monk
Time chiming in the dark,
In one spot in a corner of the dark,
In the same spot in the same corner of the dark,
Where a long candle stared at him slowly.
He confessed to being a monk
That he had always been a monk
And that he would always be a monk
Despite the spot in the corner
Despite the chiming in the dark.
Spirals
He wanted to be gone without a trace but already was.
He did not want to be dead but already was.
He had left his breath behind.
Missing Person
He found himself missing.
Maps
Nothing Again
All he remembered was
buzzing through a long barn,
When there was a loud crack from a far-off shadow
And all that was, was nothing again.
Out of the Way
There was no longer a way for him to be in the way of.
March
He watched a centipede marching across the ceiling. It did not know where it was, what it was doing, or
where it was going, just like him.
Rhyme
Hanging Bones
He missed his bones to
hang himself on.
Other Half
The End Again
The end could end only so many times.
Last Thing He Remembered
He was on his way back from his morning walk when a crow
spotted him and leapt into the air. It flew across to the other side
of his path, then dropped what it had in its beak. What laid
now in the short grass beside him, was the head of a jackrabbit, only the head. As the rabbit had no expression on its face, he could not tell whether it died in terror, in surprise, or in ecstasy, or in all of those, having never been eaten before.
Too Many
Always too many of himself, nowhere to put him.
Deep Shadow
He was a deep shadow.
Episodes
Cloud of Spirits
The church was a shrine to the Jesuit missionaries who were martyred by the Indians in 1649. The church was Roman Catholic. He himself was Roman Catholic, and a Jesuit missionary. Visiting the church, he did not stay long, though, as
it was not why he was there.
On his
way down the hill to the mission, the Indian village where the martyring
occurred, he got the distinct feeling that he was not wanted there. The
further down the hill he walked, in fact, the more intense the feeling
became. It was then that he realized that it was
spirits. There were spirits everywhere, a cloud of
spirits. He turned and hurried back up the
hill.
Above
the church was a crest overlooking a bay. Up there he paused, deciding
whether to end his trip at that point, his encounter with the spirits still
fresh in his mind. Indeed, he would have ended it there except that
he had not yet accomplished what he came there for. He turned back
around.
Down
again at the mission he was once more into the cloud of spirits, but this time
he did not run away. It was because he knew now who the spirits
were. He also knew who he was, the reason he came
there. In the graveyard was a headstone with his name on
it.
Visit
It was pouring rain when he got off the plane in Charleston. He worried that Cliff would not be there to pick him up. As it happened, it was Cliff’s neighbor who was there for him. He had a photo of him that Cliff gave him so he would retrieve the right person. There they sat then, scrunched together in the little cab of the neighbor’s little truck, where, not knowing each other, they had nothing to say.
When they
got to Cliff’s place, a cabin in the woods up in Ellamore, there were other men there as well,
all waiting for them to arrive so they could light their marijuana
pipes. In fact, the pipes were the first thing that they offered them
the minute they walked in the door. He then paid the neighbor fifty
dollars for the ride from the airport, as Cliff told him to do in a note on the front door.
The
next morning everybody was gone, including Cliff whose routine was to leave
the house at 10 a.m. and return at 10 p.m. Doc,
Cliff’s companion of many years, an eighty-five-year-old retired
psychology professor was up earlier. All Doc did all day was lie in bed and read
psychology journals, Cliff told him, indeed to the extent that his eyes were now
pinholes.
What
Cliff did between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. was mow his grass. He had a
mower that he rode to cover his large property. But the grass grew
only so much, so he had to come up with something else to fill his day, such as
his pond. He built a pond where he said he fed his livestock, as he
called the ducks who
lived there. But again, the ducks did not eat much of what he put out for them, so then what did he do?
That Cliff did not want him to stay there was clear from the start. First, he said that his big sister was coming that Friday to
make sure that he was taking care of himself, the same day that hospice workers
stopped by to see how he was feeling. He had already lived passed
his expected death, they told him, a used liver the hospital gave him expiring. He had cirrhosis of the liver in his own liver.
Evidence that Cliff did not really want him there for long was that there was no food in the
house, a mystery as Doc, who was there all the time,
would need sustenance.
The next day it was time for a wander along the Middle Fork River just down from the cabin and he did so composing poems, nine of them in all, the actual reason he came there to begin with. Cliff was an artist too, a painter of pictures. The proof of it was a separate building that was his studio, but which was now dark and with broken glass in the windows. There was a wild painting, however, that covered the entire side of the building evidence of Cliffs frustration.
And so, he did indeed not stay. His last night began at 10 p.m. when Cliff bounded back in the door. Barking was his limping old dog Pooka, who it turned out was dying just like Cliff. Doc was feeding Pooka bits of wiener that he tossed across the floor to her.
Out came Doc’s marijuana pipe next, which
he passed between himself and the now-seated Cliff. There was also the
double whiskey and orange juice in a mug that he saw by Cliff’s side, just like
the old days back when they were drinking buddies in college.
So, that was why Cliff let him come visit him he
realized then, a chance to relive there past together. The difference was
that he himself had been sober for ten years, but Cliff was now drinking again.
In the middle of that night came Cliff’s sad call to his faithful dog of so many years. He felt sorry for her and looked in on her in the living room, except that Pooka had passed now. So did Cliff then the next morning.
Outside on Cliff’s mower, he rode down to the little pond, just like Cliff used to do, and the ducks came waddling over.
Talk
When he was in school none
of the guys ever talked to him. About what did not matter, just
talked to him. So, he came up with the Regal Eagles
Club. He made up membership cards by hand for it, with a logo of an eagle
on them, wings outstretched. He left stacks of the cards where he
knew the guys often went, the gym, the lunchroom, the tennis
courts.
He even had a clubhouse,
which the lady next door let him turn her barn into. A
Barn? Well, it wasn’t a barn exactly, but a garage. It
held three cars that entered from the street above. On the top level was a grease pit, below
which were two lower floors which the original owner used as a glassmaking
shop. He was a retired glassworker down
at the plant at the river.
As a clubhouse, though,
the garage was perfect, a long low couch, not in good shape anymore but a couch
at least, on the second floor, where club members could gather and talk. But try as he might he could not attract
anyone to join his club. Was it something to do with
him? He was friendly enough, outgoing, always ready to chat about
anything with anyone.
The ultimate test was
his club's grand opening. Decked out with banners and balloons,
rock and roll music pumping from his little boombox, if that did not bring the
guys in, nothing would. It proved a
prophetic thought because nobody did show up all day. And so there he sat on the long low couch, not
in good shape anymore, talking to himself.
Aim
He was light and dark at the same time, yet neither light nor dark but at the same time.
And he was not conscious anymore, not anything anymore, not anymore of anything. Present, though, he
was certainly present, something was surely present and with an aim. Yes, that was it. Whatever he was, he
had an aim, the same aim he always had only this time in death.
The aim began when he attended the church in town for Sunday School. He was in Grade School. He wore a medal
around his neck that said he was a member of that church, and he made an
altar in his spare room, so that he had a place to pray. At
suppertime, he said grace from a book of graces that inspired him. Then during his Sixth-Grade tour of Washington D.C., he bought a small wooden cross that he
had for sixty years.
In High School he was the speaker at his High School Senior Sermon, and he led the Youth Sunday Service at the church. He also went to the Adult Study Class there, where he learned about other faiths. In college he took a class on the Early Scriptures, followed the next year by two semesters of Comparative Religions.
Something came over him then, though, a powerful something, except that it was not it, none of it was it, none of it was his aim.
And so, he died again.
Just Stared
His family owned a summer home that they had built that year. It was an A-frame design with bedrooms on the right and left sides. It had two stories to it, with an upstairs living room and two bedrooms, and a garage on each side downstairs.
However, all he did at his desk all day was stare out the narrow window, just stared. He wasn't there.
Sad Eyes
He thought the portrait looked like him because of the sad eyes. It was Van Gogh’s painting of Armand Roulin. He hung it on his bedroom wall. But then his mother claimed it when he moved away, putting it on the living room wall downstairs. She missed his sad eyes.
Prodigy
He watched a variety show on television where a twelve-year-old boy, a prodigy, played the piano. He memorized the boy’s face so that he could watch for him in the years ahead. Sitting in his living room, an old man then, he heard a knock on his front door. Taking his cane, he pulled himself over to it. But then opening the door he stopped, then stopped again. He never forgot a face.
Somethings
He parked at the North Gate, the only car there. He then made his way through the forest out to the lookout point above the river valley. He was keen to see it again after not seeing it since his childhood. Out the trail he went then until he reached the rocky overlook. He was only just there, however, when he felt something staring at him, or rather lots of somethings, studying him. “Oh,” he thought to himself, and then turned slowly back to the river below. But the somethings made him nervous a minute later, and he abruptly turned back to his car. A slow walk soon became a fast walk soon became a mad dash. His heart pounding, his brow streaming, at last he reached the gate again. Almost.
Charterhouse
He lived in a monastery called a charterhouse. There was a center courtyard where his room, his cell, was, in a row of cells around the yard’s perimeter. He had a garden
in the yard, 15 by 20, where he grew food for himself. His crop was
potatoes because a person could live on potatoes alone.
The main floor of his cell contained a wood stove, a writing table, and a chair. Upstairs was a bed, a kneeling bench, and a window, austere because all he did there was pray. It was on his kneeling bench that he confessed that he was not at the monastery for the reason he was supposed to be there, but that he had no choice. He was like the needle of a compass drawn to a magnet.
He was there for only a week when he realized that despite the favorable environment, it was not it. He thought it was it, but it wasn’t. He even thought that he was it, but he wasn’t.
Bookstore
He said to the lady manager at the bookstore that he was expecting some men looking for him there, to which she said that she would let him know when they arrived, but could he shelve some books for her? It was the beginning of the semester, she said, and they had a lot of new volumes to put on the shelves. She patted him on the arm and went back to her desk.
Everybody liked him in the store and besides it was nearby. A twenty-minute walk up Falling Run Road and he was at Jake’s Laundromat, where mopping the floor and wiping off the machines every night gave him a free room behind the driers.
He liked the little room because it had a range, a couch, and a bathroom, all he needed. Still, Jake kept an eye on him. He didn’t want him to bring girls in for parties every night. It was not a problem, he assured Jake. He was a monk basically, a thinker, he said.
The bookstore manager gave him a task the following week that would be for a fulltime regular employee rather than for a student just out of college like him. He beamed. She wanted him to drive their van to a community college an hour away where he could sell them the books they ordered. And he could do so completely on his own. Off he went then and was soon at the school where they were eagerly awaiting him.
He had an unexpected passenger on the trip, however, a bumble bee that got into the van somehow. He could swat it with a newspaper, but he did not want to kill it for just being itself. So, he stopped the van and opened the windows and doors to let it fly away. If you didn't create it, don't kill it, the adage went.
Returning to the bookstore, he announced to the manager that the mission had been accomplished, that he sold all the books. She thanked him, smiled, but then frowned. She said that the men he was expecting were there. They were two U.S. Marshalls and an FBI agent who had come to arrest him for refusing to be drafted into the military.
Other Thoughts
Empty
He did not want anything
and did not care about anything or anybody, which was to say that he really did
not want anything and really did not care about anything or
anybody. The result was that he emptied his mind. But did
he really empty his mind? He emptied only part of it. What
remained watched him
doing the emptying.
Falling Apart
He
did not do well at meditation because it was doing something. Doing something made him feel like somebody,
and he did not want to feel like somebody.
As well, it made him feel like he existed when he
did not really exist. Rather he was like a pile of sticks, a thinking pile of sticks, a conscious thinking pile of sticks, falling apart.
Same But different
The
leaves turned yellow and were blown away by the wind. But then they were born again, the same but different, exactly like him.
Particulars
The particulars, the details of life, the world swirl as he called them, were a nuisance. They were a distraction. All of life was a distraction. Being alive was a distraction.He repaired used things using used parts from the used part store, where the employees
there did
not know what the used parts were used for.
Artist
A true artist painted everything else.
Salvation
There was no God, no soul, no karma, no reincarnation. There was no afterlife. Consciousness just was. Morality was arbitrary. The universe always was and always would be. As opposed to, there was a God, was a soul, was karma, was reincarnation. There was an afterlife. Consciousness was more than just consciousness. Morality was not arbitrary. The universe had a beginning and would end.
The conclusion: There was no salvation.
And with that, there was.
He Knew Where He Was Hidden
He saw himself coming.
He knew where he was hidden.
Following the poplars, he was the one out of step
Next to the brook where he was playing alone
Searching for himself
When he was everywhere.
Monastery
The
monastery was located where nothing could be located. It was where
he was born and lived. It was ten stories high and, despite its towering
height, was on top of a mountain where it teetered precariously on a crag. It looked like that painting by Bruegel.
It was named the Six Fingers Monastery to limit the number of people who lived
there. A person must have six fingers on his left hand to join.
The
entrance was at the end of a black marble walkway, ending at black double doors
with a black knocker. The attic, high out of the way, was his room, his
cell. It looked as if no one lived in the place, because no one
did. They were renunciates.
You came right up to me, the monk said when a young man stepped to him out front.
I did, yes, the young man said
You want to ask me my name.
I do.
Except that I have no name. None of us here do.
The young man stared.
You want to be like me, the monk said finally.
No.
I know you better than you know yourself.
The young man looked down.
So, what do you want from me? the monk asked finally.
I—
You see, I already know when, where, and how you have done everything.
I understand.
I also know that you have no attachments, no baggage, and no agenda.
I have none.
And that nothing is going to become of you that hasn’t already become of you.
Nothing is left.
So, you came right up to me.
Yes.
Stop thinking then, stop contemplating, stop meditating, stop speculating, stop
reflecting
Have no concepts, no ideas.
Do not be distracted
Do not anticipate anything
Have no regrets
Do not be deluded.
The young man looked up.
Do not read, write, or speak
Unless read to, written to, or spoken to.
Avoid confusion, frustration, and depression
Avoid recalling your past
Avoid planning for your future
Be empty, be done, be nothing
Stop trying, let go, relax, be still.
I will, the young man said.
The monk saw his six fingers.
Tomb
Healed shut after all his departures,
Even as he still heard the clanking bones,
All the empty bones.
Advantages
There were advantages to being him when no one was looking.
Presence was hard to see.
He was the one in the room when no one was in the room,
When the room was all there was.
Door
He asked on his way out the door, but the door said no.
It knew nothing it said, only how to open and close.
He replied that he did not know how to do that himself,
But the door was now shut.
Drawers
He did not miss his dead life
In those drawers up in the hills
Where a breath was only a breath
And only once.
Only the drawers missed him.
Looking
He looked at the lawn and the trees and the sky but only looked at them.
He thought about everything until there was nothing left for him to think about.
Purpose
He had no purpose on purpose.
What
He did not know what he was, only that he was.
All At Once
The it was not a person but all persons all at once. The it was not a thing but all things all at once. The it was not a place but all places all at once. The it was like the wind that was nowhere and everywhere all at once.
Cerebral Cortex
The cerebral cortex in humans was the most developed section of their brains and played a critical role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language, and consciousness.
Their false perception that they were separate from everything else in the universe, rather than one with everything else, was the doing of the cerebral cortex.
The egoic self, a creation of the cerebral cortex, was the one seeing itself as apart from the rest of things. The egoic self was an illusion, a psychologically and socially conditioned phenomenon whose purpose was dubious.
The fall of man as it was called in religion could be put in the lap of
the cerebral cortex as well. The fall
came with the emergence in humans of the discriminating mind.
A Person
A person was a temporary collection of momentary events
that were constantly in flux in their causal relationship to each other, with a
consciousness that expired when the person expired. The body then
came apart like a pile of sticks and dispersed. Nothing continued.
Suffering
Suffering was the common denominator of all living beings. The source of suffering predominately was impermanence, which was to say that nothing was in one moment what it was in the previous moment or in the next.
Defilements
Anger
was the result of frustration, of wanting what one could not have, or having
what one wanted but did not want and could not get rid of. Greed
was wanting more of something despite the additional suffering. Delusion
was clinging to the false belief that one's thinking mind was his
authentic self when his authentic self was purely consciousness.
Sexuality
Engagement did not relieve the urge in a person but made it stronger, increasing his attachment and suffering.
Nirvana
Dependent Origination or from this comes that, meant that nothing existed unless something else
happened first. Nirvana was when nothing else came first.
Name
He accumulated himself from the moment he was born but always using the same name as though he was the same person, except that he was never the same person.
Lost
In college he took every course in psychology that there was hoping to learn why he was so lost. Layer upon layer followed until he was completely lost.
Later Writings
Unrecognizable
He followed the river so he would not get lost. He walked and walked and walked and until finally, he got to the end. There he turned around to head back. But when he did so he found that he did not recognize anything. He rubbed his eyes, paused, then started out anyway. Again, he walked and walked and walked but the farther he went the more nothing was the same, the more he was not the same.
Room-for-Rent
He made sure to remove his winter boots when he entered the house as they still had snow on them. He walked quickly past his landlady where she was watching television in the living room and nodded hello. She turned to him and waved.
Up
the steps he went, reaching the second-floor hall where his key opened the door
at the hall’s end. There was another hall there just as long as the one where he was. His
key opened that door as well. That door revealed yet another hall and
one more door. He unlocked it, where
there was a blank wall where he lived.
Room
He did not have a choice.
A storm, black as steel,
Stretched to the peak
As he huddled alone in a shrub in the black,
Alone in the black in a shrub on the path.
He had never been to the peak before
Knowing, though, that it was waiting for him
Waiting for him alone on the path
Now
One breath, one heartbeat at a time.
One Death
One death at a time.
Meanwhile
Nothing was permanent.There was no enduring self.
Nothing existed on its own
Everything existed first.
Last Life
It ended there, his last life
Written away where it began
All pictures now
Tight and gray
Forever tight and gray.
Strangers
He was all strangers then
Fading as he passed them.
No Return
He recalled people he did not know.
It
He should do what he was meant to do he was told, and
if by that meant that he should do what his life had been pointing him toward,
then he knew precisely what that was. What his life had been pointing him
toward was It.
A new Facebook posting showed photos of him from his
youth. He first met It then. He
should have been moved by the images because they reminded him of how It
was still in his heart. But he was not moved because they also
reminded him of how they were in his past, buried under the rubble of himself.
He researched devotional art on the Internet;
he needed a way to get closer to what he had lost. He prayed to be shown
how to do so. That day, alas, he was shown
how. His devotional art was to do what he was doing at
that moment, writing about It.
He was currently reading Thomas Merton’s
autobiography Seven Storey Mountain about his rocky road to
becoming a priest, but his own road was rocky, too, writing about It.
The many declarations he made about being empty,
nobody, no one, nothing, made sense to him suddenly. The less there
was of him in him the more room there was for It in him. But he had
made room for It in him in past years, had he not? Or
was it It that had made room for Itself in him?
He
saw what happened. He was walking on a razor’s edge. On
one side was the outside world, the world of form, the world of the senses,
while on the other side was the world of It.
Commitment
Monks were an instance of commitment. They lived it every day. Then again, they had the environment for it, living in solitude, silence, and anonymity. But did he need to live in a monastery like them to achieve it? Solitude, silence, and anonymity were a state of mind and so he could achieve that on his own anywhere, anytime, could he not?
Emptying
In the past he said that he did not want anything and did not care about anything or anybody, which was to say that he REALLY did not want anything and REALLY did not care about anything or anybody. The result was that he emptied his mind. But did he really empty his mind? He emptied only part of it because what remained watched him doing the emptying.
Carthusian
He
was a Carthusian monk first. He lived in
a monastery called a charterhouse. There was a center courtyard
where his room, his cell, was located, in a row of cells around the yard’s
perimeter. He had a garden in the yard, 15 by 20, where he grew food
for himself. His crop included potatoes because he could live on
potatoes alone.
The main floor of his cell contained a wood stove, a writing table, and a chair. Upstairs was a small bed, a kneeling bench, and a window, all very austere because all he did there was pray. It was on the kneeling bench that he confessed. But confessed what? He was not in the monastery for the reason he was supposed to be there. It was not what he was looking for. He thought it was, but it wasn’t. He even thought that he was what he was looking for, but he wasn’t.
Inspiration
When
his students asked Professor Joseph Campbell, the mythologist, what they should
do with their lives, Campbell replied that they should follow their bliss,
meaning that they should follow what inspired them the most, in his case
poetry. So, he did that, except that it was not what he wanted
either.
Poet Friend
He was friends with a man who was a staging crew leader in television, a man who was also a serious poet, having published ten books. He was a poet who happened to be a staging crew leader and not the other way around. He announced one day that his work was finished, that he no longer wanted to write, whereupon he sat outside in the middle of winter and froze to death. That was not what he himself was looking for either.
Consciousness
There
was the foreground or everyday consciousness that woke up, took a shower, went
to work, and then there was the background consciousness that was aware of what
the foreground consciousness was doing but did nothing about it. It was something like that.
Thinking
Mind
His thinking mind complicated things for him, which ended in confusion, frustration, and depression. He then ignored his thinking mind, but it made everything worse.
Yogi Book
Since Autobiography
of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda was a classic of spiritual literature,
he wanted to give it a fair shake. But, alas, Chapter Three was as
far as he made it. Out of body
experiences, mindreading, and floating heads were also not what he wanted.
His Past Lives
How quiet they all were despite what they wanted to say. It was something like that that he wanted.
Retreat
Venerable Nick and his Buddhist colleague Venerable
Michael held a retreat at the Meditation Center in Azusa, California. The fifty participants sat in a candle-lit
circle where they chanted and then heard a dhamma talk by Michael and Nick.
It was very theatrical. What the participants of the retreat did
not realize, though, was that the reason they were really there was for It.
Particulars
The
particulars, the details of life, the world swirl as he
called them, were a distraction. All of life was a distraction to him,
including himself.
Divine Intervention
The ancient Greek theatre had a platform that lowered into the scene of a play to resolve the play’s apparent unresolvable issue. The platform was the deus ex machina, or God machine. It was divine intervention. Was there divine intervention in the real world? Only intervention.
Spider
He was praying in a corner of his room when he noticed a spider weaving its web in the ceiling above him. It occurred to him that the spider did not know where it was and what it was doing any more than him.
All Knowing
It knew how everything began, how it
would go, and how it would end. There
was no need for anything to do anything.
A Lie
Everyone lived their lifetime being somebody they were
not.
Authentic Self
Anger, greed, and delusion caused
suffering. Anger came from confusion. Greed was having something and wanting
more of it. Delusion was believing that the
thinking mind was the authentic self when there was no authentic self.
Knowledge
There were two kinds of knowledge, empirical knowledge
and transcendental knowledge. Empirical knowledge came from the senses,
while transcendental knowledge came from It.
Something
The saying that something was taking its course
was that It was taking its course.
Renunciation
A renunciate did not support or connect with anything
or anybody and did not want anything. He
was a renunciate.
Thinking
When
he died he would still be thinking.
Squirrels
Squirrels did not fall out of the tree because they and the tree were one thing.
Outgrew
He outgrew his life.
Seeking
He sought It and It sought him.
Restless
It was restless.
Just It
It was not It and then something
else.
Cause and Effect
When he did something, something else happened. Even when he did nothing, something else happened.
Every Time
When he thought of It, It thought of
him.
Communication
Reaching It was difficult, even though It
was never not with him.
Importance
Knowing what It was, was not as
important as knowing that It was.
Presence
It felt like something else was in the room.
Something
It was not a person, had no will, did not intervene in life, and could not be known, yet it was.
Transience
Nothing was what it was a second ago.
Looking
It knew when he was looking at it.
Definition
A person was a temporary collection of momentary events that were constantly in flux in
their causal relationship with each other, with a consciousness that expired
when the person expired. The body then came apart like a pile of sticks
and dispersed. Nothing continued.
Priest
His parents would not have been surprised if he became
a priest.
Hollow Victory
His life was a hollow victory in that he experienced everything he ever wanted to experience, only not enough of it.
Pondering
He did not know what would become of him even after it did.
Arrival
It wanted
him to be where he was.
Purification
He did not want to be anything, be anybody, be anyone, so he wasn’t.
He wanted to be nothing, nobody, no one, so he was.
He was not a mystic any longer.
He was not a writer/poet any longer.
He was not an identity any longer.
He was vacant now.
He no longer grasped, clutched, or wanted to be one way or the other.
He did not obsess, struggle and suffer.
He was not attached to the world of form in his
mind anymore, was not active in the world of form anymore, did not cling to
anything in the world of form anymore.
He did not support or have a connection with anything or anyone anymore either,
and did not want anything.
He had nothing for the world anymore and the world nothing for him.
So began his practice of being nothing,
So began his discipline of being nothing,
So began the blessing he had of being nothing.
All that remained for him to let go of was letting go.
He was up at 4:00 a.m.
He did not have a cellphone.
He did not have the emotional attachments of a wife, children, or pets.
He was celibate.
He did not consume intoxicants or depressants such as alcohol or coffee because they were addictive and unreliable, unreliable because their effect one day was not the same effect as the next day.
He did not adorn himself with neck chains, rings, or tattoos.
He had no baggage, no attachments, and no agenda that he would carry into the next world with him, if there was a next world.
With no baggage he would die easily, not hard like most people. Most people had family and friends that they would miss and that they knew would miss them as well, a hard death.
He was not greedy.
He took nothing for granted.
He did not listen to music. Too many moods, memories, earworms.
He did not own a home.
He did not own anything.
He did not worry.
He did not steal.
He did not lie.
He did not get angry.
He was not jealous.
He was mindful, aware of everything that went into my brain and everything that came out of it.
He did not kill or otherwise harm other living beings.
He ate plant-based foods only, no meat, no dairy, no eggs, no cheese, to maintain his good health but also to not cause animals to suffer.
He did not want anything. By not wanting anything he did not miss it when he did not have it.
He was not hostile.
He had compassion for the suffering of all sentient beings.
He did not confront people.
He did not take sides.
He did not argue.
He sought to be nobody and remain nobody. He did not change his name either because by changing his name he became somebody again.
He was not violent.
He did not speak harshly, divisively, or idly, and never talked about other people.
He was not territorial.
He did not initiate anything, recalling Krishnamurti’s question, do you really want what you think you want?
He was like a Taoist in that he did not try. He let things go as they went.
He followed the Taoist principle of wu wei, noninterference. Again, he let things go as they went.
He focused on what was, rather than on what might be.
He did not have possessions.
He did not have prized possessions because prized possessions were attachments that led to suffering.
Purification was a powerful word that meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people. He looked past all that now, however, and let it mean what he wanted it to mean.
Other Eye
Flowers
A hill looked down on him
As he turned and it turned.
Ashes
A blade of grass heaved,
Leaving its latest ashes.
Dreams
His dreams were haunted by haunted dreams
Clawing through the brush.
Branches
Straight black slacks,
Broad black hat,
Moored branches.
Ten ten-year-olds denied coincidence.
Roderick
The title of the play was Roderick
As through the back door stepped an actor named Roderick
While on the gallery above was a stagehand named Roderick.
Saw Out
There was a bee standing on the windowpane across from him. It flew up and down and around trying to find a way out, but to no avail. Finally, it just stood there looking out at where its home once was. For the remainder of its life, it just stood there and saw out.
Collie
The little brook out back was dry,
The cold with nothing to freeze.
His handkerchief stuck to his nose
As he called his collie to come inside
Where it already was.
Crows
Crows stared from the branches
Dogs barked in the barn.
Spot
High in a pine tree there was a bug
That did not know how it got there
And did not know if it would leave,
But it had that spot in the tree, its spot.
All it could do was wait.
Location
He did not have a compass, a ship-to-shore radio, or a sextant.
He wasn’t anywhere.
His clothes did not fit him suddenly.
Approximation
He was an approximation.
Cow
He went to the field scraping his brow
Of worn sweat
To bury a cow still breathing.
Same Wind
The same wind called him at night
On the loose end of dreams.
He knew who the dreams were about
But not the wind.
Gone
He did not know yet that he was gone.
Home
They looked for him
On the way down,
Bursting coils.
Sun
A sun climbed down a far sky.
Ear
He listened to a lost ear.
Grass
A shaft of grass plunged from the ground
As the day rippled awake.
Sign
Entwined vines
Crossed branches
No sky.
Winter
Stiff cliffs
Hard birds
Old snow.
Leaf Plates
Leaf plates in the wet grass.
Why have you come?
Why are you here?
When
He rushed beside the tide
To the jetty at the end,
Longing to meet himself once again
When it was time.
Ferns
Black ferns
In a dark cloud
Teetering.
Too Many
There were too many of him to see.
Beads
He found a string of wooden beads
That he once counted the time with.
It made all the difference.
His Death
The paths he walked did not lead anywhere anymore, not even to the end, and the people he passed were all him. The only way he could get there was by not being there. He had come upon it many times, that place that was no place, each time as though the first time, always the last time.
A map was handed to him once more, the same map with the same paths going nowhere, except that there were fewer of them then. As for the hour, it was all one hour, the same hour.
He found God, although not where he thought he would find Him, not in death, not in that death.
But now who was it who delivered the map to him each time? He believed it was himself always, but it was not, not yet.
He saw God in the hallway and called after Him, but all God would say was that He never promised him anything. He did not want to be blamed, He said. He himself would not want to be blamed either. It was encouraging.
Standing over himself, he was only corners then.
And so there they spun for their eternities, in that forest of eternities, emptying into where they had already been.
The End
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