Buddhas in the Mire

One piece at a time, it slowly comes down – this dreaming of the mind. It gives the seeming a kind of rhyme and reason, filling in the blanks. There’s always something there, nagging at the back of my thoughts. It’s not what it seems. I had this idea that I should just plain stop thinking I know anything. Like if two people are in an argument, and I were to say, I have no idea what is really happening here. This person would say “This is what this situation is!” The other person would counter, “You’re only telling one side of the story.” And here unfolds the age old human ability to argue, and obstinately refuse to see the person standing right in front of you. How funny, when you see it from the outside. For a moment, it just occurred to me, Can I say, I am not skilled and don’t know what is happening here!

I looked at my face this morning and for a split second, I saw not-me clearly, like becoming sober for a few minutes, I glimpsed therein a buddha in the mire. Not there yet. Not ready yet. Maybe I glimpsed a moment of seeing the best of not-me in its potential. But then I thought, the most honest thing would be to just say, I don’t know what is happening here.

The reason I say this is because “happening” is a very relative term conditional to what you’re able to see and what angle in your vision is obscured. So I know what is happening in terms of the facts of the situation, but I know I don’t know what is happening in the folds of what I’m perceiving. I don’t know what’s within what seems, I just know what seems.

So now what? Just another buddha in the mire…. back to the journey, look down from the peaks of my imaginations in the distance, one foot in front of another, this is now, and now is still a bit muddy.

-Ogyen, October 4th