Sand and Pearls

Zen Master Nish taught me more about looking at the actions and machinations of my mind in one afternoon than I had learned in decades of sesshins, zazen and books.

…my mind is like a Monkey — perverse, seemingly everywhere at once, unfocussed, provocative, ill-discliplined.  Following it is hell’s own job.  but after several sesshins of following it, it begins to slow down.  I begin to see; to notice.

Behind Monkey Mind is Gecko Mind.  Gecko is the one observing Monkey.

But there are not two.  There is only one.

But when I ask, “who is the I who notices Monkey?”, I catch a teeny glimpse out of the corner of my (?) eye (I?) before ‘he’ disappears behind the neural lampshade.  And Who notices the disappearance?  And there she goes again, this I which is so sneaky, so quick.  but there must be only one because while (I?) am noticing Gecko Mind, Monkey Mind is gone — so they are the same.

The I which notices and the Eye which observes, noticing the noticing is the same eye/I.  I can see why the rinzai are attached to koans.  Perhaps koans are only a metaphor for Gecko Mind.

Nish tells me that it takes 1/4 of a second for a sight signal to travel down the optic nerve and be interpreted by the visual cortex as an image.  This is a long, long time in the life of a neural complexity, where most things happen in billionths (or shorter) of a second.  A long time.

So there is time.

e.e. cummings was right:

in time’s a noble mercy of proportion

with generosities beyond believing

(though flesh and blood accuse him  of coercion)

or mind and soul convict him of deceiving

..a 1/25th of a second’s generosity.  Really, it happens so very slowly – surely we have enough time to notice Gecko Mind in the quarter of a second it takes between perceiving something and having a relatinship with it.

Noticing the interstices – what I referred to in shamanic practice as ‘betwixt and between’.

So perhaps we have to slow down the mind – to observe the interstice – the 1/4 of a second.

But at the same time, it happens so quickly – we must be so quick to observe Gecko Mind.

And from Monkey Mind, I arrive back at koans… to impenetrable paradox…because it is the nature of paradox to be impenetrable; to resist linearity.