8/3/97

No Words

I feel like a deflated balloon, relieved that I don't have to hold my breath.

In the last two years I have crossed over several times from the land that has words to the land that has no words. It has been hard crossing this boundary, both to and from. Even this word, hard, means such different feelings from the world of words and the world of no words. These two places don't seem to comprehend each other. No-words does not have much use for words, and words must just stop at the frontier. Why am I writing this in the land of words? I babble because I'm tired, I'm sad, I'm scared in the land of words. The space of no-words has no fear. I know it is foolish to throw words at the land of no-words. All it can do is mislead, the world of no-words has no contradiction, the world of words has infinite contradiction. All my life I have heard of this land of no-words, but until these last two years I could never find the door. I now know why, but it has no-words.

So this is my introduction to the world of no-words, a world that I have spent some time in, though time doesn't exist there. This is my chronicle not of the land of no-words but how my journeys across the frontier have changed my world of words, how the two seem to be blending. And if I wander to deeply into the land of words, no-words pulls me back. Usually it is hard, this blending, sometimes it is with joy. I don't understand and the words just betray and confuse, but I must babble, it is my way of crying, both in joy and sorrow.

When I meet someone in the land of words, we work hard to find common ground to stand on. In no-words there is no ground. Even when talking with someone in words, at the same time, we can visit in no-words through the eyes, and just being there, opening the heart and accepting the unknown that we share but find no words for. So difficult to hold on to, we sometimes think that if we can contain it in words it can be held on to.

Many times it is suffering that opens the window, occasionally joy. Joy or suffering, no matter, the only word for no-words is love, but even that betrays the land of no-words. So I will stop.

All my life I have been running desperately to find me. Like the boy running from his shadow not understanding he can stop and rest in the shade. I have been, in all ways that is me, looking for some insight, some understanding of the mysteries of no-words. What is my existence, body, mind, spirit. Is there purpose or connection with God (another no-word word). I have been struggling to find my soul in all this, but always through others and my own thoughts, emotions, and structures that make up the land of words. Driven by the belief that I could achieve through hard work an opening within, and a journey within, out of this world. A divine understanding of the mysteries of this existence, and a home with no suffering. It's hard to let go, to stop running. I must run to be alive, I can't stop running until I have the answers. My purpose of existence, to find the structure to hold no-words.

What a waste, the land of no-words has no answers and all questions must be discarded at the boarder crossing. It is a sad loss, that I no longer want to understand. My purpose is in who I am, not who I want to become. Much of what I find in the last breath is the time I've have spent in the land of no-words, everything else just doesn't fit. I'm now constructing a structure to hold no-words, forgive me. Purpose is, no-words opening to birth and death at every moment.

My purpose of existence is who I am.

On the frontier, actually when I was wired up in a hospital's intensive care unit, I understood that I didn't want to be alone crossing over. I didn't know this until then. How important it was that someone who knows me with no words hold my hand as I cross to, no words. Physically, but felt with no words in my heart. It can be frightening to step out of this world of who we are. So much of my life has been building structures of thought, intellect, and beliefs. Carefully building an identity in this world when none of it fits through. Like the monkey with it's fist in the jar, it's no more complicated than that. And the time left over from building these structures of my own reality has been spent defending or modifying them. For 47 year it has kept me very busy, leaving little time. Sometimes I think the purpose is to fill this space of time, even my deepest beliefs are discarded, don't fit, no words, don't know.

Touching, with the heart, carries me across. In everything I do, I should also find my heart there, with no words.

Why do I write this. To leave something behind, it doesn't fit through the door. Sometimes I feel like a 100 year old man, looking back at my life. Why do I tell my daughter to clean her room and get a good education. It's not the words.

Ty