Tuesday Inquiry

Here are the two selections I read Tuesday in Inquiry. Following these two selections is a third, bonus excerpt.  I think they have a kind of resonance with each other. What do you think?  

The Bright, Boundless Field

The field of boundless emptiness is what exists from the very beginning. You must purify, cure, grind down, or brush away all the tendencies you have fabricated into apparent habits. Then you can reside in the clear circle of brightness. Utter emptiness has no image, upright independence does not rely on anything. Just expand and illuminate the original truth unconcerned by external conditions. Accordingly we are told to realize that not a single thing exists. In this field birth and death do not appear. The deep source, transparent down to the bottom, can radiantly shine and can respond unencumbered to each speck of dust without becoming its partner. The subtlety of seeing and hearing transcends mere colors and sounds. The whole affair functions without leaving traces, and mirrors without obscurations. Very naturally mind and dharmas emerge and harmonize. An Ancient said that non-mind enacts and fulfills the way of non-mind. Enacting and fulfilling the way of non-mind, finally you can rest. Proceeding you are able to guide the assembly. With thoughts clear, sitting silently, wander into the center of the circle of wonder. This is how you must penetrate and study. 

Hongzhi Zhengue (1091-1157)

Inside a Moment

“Wouldn’t it be nice,” Chozen said, “to step inside a moment?” I’m considering that now, how it would be like stepping inside a cathedral, a great space soaring above and around you, filled with light from windows of many colors. And the sounds inside a moment would be rich as a symphony, a heartbeat, traffic, a sigh, a melting sound. The odor of something sacred, human and warm, a lingering aroma of a meal just cooked. Then too, the sensations of the skin against the air, against these clothes, a casual itch and a bit of tightness in one shoulder. How full-bodied and wholehearted would our experience be! And how might we fall down in profound gratitude for the splendor we are witness to. Our yearning, the grain of wood in the floor, the mysterious  light of the streetlamp, the moon, a passing car’s headlights. The gods envy this moment of a human life, torn as it is by suffering, anxiety, impermanence, and yet, inside this moment is timeless and complete. No worry left in it, no other place to be, nothing to do but look, and feel, and listen as long as we like. Could you ever grow tired of it? Did you forget to notice the dead ant in the corner, the subtle shading of the rice paper in the wooden frames, or the silent figures on the altar, the incarnations of great activity, great wisdom, great compassion, right here in this moment? Did you hear that? The refrigerator turned itself off, once it was cold enough, and a piece of paper rustled as someone turned a page. If you are longing for life eternal, please simply step inside a moment. 

Peg Syverson, Feb. 5, 2009

The Moment

It was like the moment when a bird decides not to eat from your hand, and flies, just before it flies, the moment the rivers seem to still and stop because a storm is coming, but there is no storm, as when a hundred starlings lift and bank together before they wheel and drop, very much like the moment, driving on bad ice, when it occurs to you your car could spin, just before it slowly begins to spin, like the moment just before you forgot what it was you were about to say, it was like that, and after that, it was still like that, only all the time.

Marie Howe, The Good Thief