Nothing As Something

By Michael Erlewine

Walked today down by the creek and along the creek now swollen with melting snow from the spring runoff. The forest floor and the path we walked, flattened by winter, is already growing soft to the foot as ice melts. It was walking on a carpet of leaves.

No camera, no photographs, and quite a wind (20mph), with a temperature of around 48 degree F. I wore a scarf for the wind-chill factor, yet almost didn’t need it.

After a certain point in life, it’s all about returning, having reached the point of no return where there is no longer any return coming back, we turn and then return. Tired of being out, we turn within.

There is nothing like this sense of letting go, clearing my schedule of years past, turning away from all the busyness, at last a leaf let loose to dance, swirling in the air of the empty forest.

It’s been years of pressure releasing.

I know just what to do, which is nothing at all. What’s not done, the not doing, I can do. I have learned. All that’s holding me back is divesting myself of what remains. I have been doing that for years.

Until now, I’m not sure I understood what doing nothing was there for. ‘Nothing’ also has to be done. Completed.

Am I hollowed out like a grapefruit at breakfast, having done enough in life, yet I’ve not yet had enough of doing nothing.

At last, undistracted enough to rest in the emptiness of the mind itself. If we are not distracted, emptiness is immediately known. And knowing undistracted emptiness is then recognized as familiar and thus longer an unknown.

Now, to come to terms with the ‘unborn’ nature of the mind and our relation to that.

[Midjourney graphic prompted by me.]

EMAIL Michael@Erlewine.net Note: If you would like to have access to other free books, articles, and videos on these topics, here are the links: SpiritGrooves.net.

As Bodhicitta is so precious,

May those without it now create it,

May those who have it not destroy it,

And may it ever grow and flourish.