A kōan is a fundamental part of the history and lore of Zen Buddhism. It consists of a story, dialogue, question, or statement, the meaning of which cannot be understood by rational thinking but may be accessible through intuition. One widely known kōan is “Two hands clap and there is a sound; what is the sound of one hand?”
Why do we do what we do? What is within me? Who am I really? Why am I here? When I see so much and feel so much, I wonder where I am to put my gifts. I wonder whether I am yet to find what I need to find, or whether I am able to give all I want to give right here, right now. There is a lot of joy. There is immense exuberance. There is total oneness and an urge to share this particular vision. What am I able to do with this body and voice and brain? I sense that the manifestation of my particular gifts has to do with the visual medium as much as the written word. I sense that I am ready to do new things and explore new realms, uncover hidden talents. I want to get to know myself, really know myself. Could I learn the harmonica? Could I live out in the wilderness for a month or so, by myself, and go within, before going without? Dive in, and dive out? Are they the same thing? Certainly not, although I think they are intrinsically connected.
Why am I so curious about what it is that I am to do here? Left to my own devices I am a simple human, perhaps more an Indian human than an American or an Australian one. I like to start the mornings with yoga. I like to cook my own food, and have it be nurturing, and holistic. I take supplements, and pray, and divine my day. When that is done, all I want to do is create, create, create. I want to paint, I want to make insane messes. I want to write whatever it is that I want to write. I want to nudge my way through my work, that is, my work on these massive ideas and stories hibernating, germinating, recuperating within me. What is it that I am to do with these ideas? Nobody knows but me. I can sense, from afar, the inklings of the journey, but gosh, it is so very difficult sometimes to wonder where to go from here. Perhaps we just move where we can. But then I realize that if we only moved where we could, we would not discover new worlds. We might not venture out of our comfort zones. We would not go elsewhere except towards the familiar and habitual places of our places.
Ah, I have missed you words and writing. How wonderful it is that I can discover and learn new things through this writing. It is like walking, indeed. And I am filled by new things and ideas: the psychologist on the plane today, who I could intuit excavating ideas and words and ideas from me, in a way other people do not; her Chinese daughter, Lily; and Native Indian medicine cards, the significance of the eagle. I have recently learnt about acquiescence, and have been bolstering my intuition. I am working with the present and the future, dancing in step with what is and what I wish to become.
“The acorn becomes an oak by means of automatic growth; no commitment is necessary. The kitten becomes a cat on the basis of instinct. Nature and being are identical in creatures like them. But a man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or her commitment to them. People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make day by day. These decisions require courage.” – Rollo May
This quote frightens and very deeply, empowers me as a human of the material substance. Am I not like the kitten too? Am I not like the oak? Do I not grow automatically and become myself on the basis of instinct? This thing called choice is beautiful to me. This thing called decision feels uninspired. Do I have to make such harsh decisions about my path, against my instinct or natural growth? Can I not simply be in this world without the lead depression of accomplishments and keeping up with the Joneses? Why is it so hard to just be who I am becoming? It may have something to do with my surroundings, and very potentially the company I keep. We are so osmotic. My atoms interact with your atoms. This exchange can be deadly, depending on the dance partner.
In the meantime, the road I must walk is surrounded by counterintuitive signals. There exists immense consumerism amongst me, immensely conflicting messages, totally tempting stimulations and distractions, a world that has changed physically in the last fifteen years in ways I never foresaw. Am I right to have wanted to be situated in a city within which almost anything can be generated, found, experienced? Or am I right in my intuitive knowing which points the way forward towards a space in which life is simpler, time is undivided, and distractions and stimuli are limited except toward that which I create as necessary? It is such a struggle to balance this life in a way that is natural and, to be honest, tangibly challenging, in a manner which is both joyous and achievable. What might be a big enough challenge to walk into, something I myself have chosen, something that I designed and created? Is anything created in a vacuum? Is anything fully my own? (“Nothing is ours”)
I keep thinking of death, and what it is I’m really doing here. Perhaps it is my youth, this urge to BE someone and MAKE something of myself. But I’m not sure anymore just what that something or someone is. Because the truth is, I just want to be me. I just want to dance myself into this world and be the fullest expression and manifestation of the spirit that has been named Sophie Claire Ward, from Perth Australia, that I can most humanly be. I have this urge to bust out of my skin sometimes. Is that normal? (What is normal? What is normal today was not normal yesterday. A road is made by walking on it.) Sometimes I lose myself in the nether worlds, and forget that I also have a body, and that I am also here living, in a physical body, and that I am responsible for my existing today. Sometimes I wonder (oh, how I wonder a lot of things) whether I’d be better off pleasing crowds, and playing the game of least resistance. But, you know, I think I’d lose some of my fire and frisson. Questions, questions! And where do I find the answers? I believe I need to go on a vision quest. “Writer seeking wise mentor.” Apply here.
“Therefore, Lucilius, do as you write me that you are doing: hold every hour in your grasp. Lay hold of to-day’s task, and you will not need to depend so much upon to-morrow’s. While we are postponing, life speeds by. Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time. We were entrusted by nature with the ownership of this single things so fleeting and slippery that anyone who will can oust us from possession. What fools these mortals be!” from Senecas Letters as captured by Randall Cream
