past and future exist only in the conversations we have about them
language
whether to speak of the One, emptiness, God, or even in the philosophy of Zen, the nothingness beyond God, is not to describe reality, transcendental or otherwise, but to make a poetic choice
right and wrong are not part of the Way; they arise with the conversations that make us human
where do these lines I write come from?
these lines that are writing me
transparent: air to the bird, water to the fish, language to ourselves
because we are human beings, we live in language;
because we live in language, we live in time;
because we live in time, we have a future;
because we have a future, we have concerns . . .
(Adapted from a talk by Fernando Flores circa 1985)
spirituality has to do with our mood around the ultimate questions that arise because we humans live in language and, thus, in time
bullshit is fatiguing
not two — the interpreter and the interpreted
all is discourse, some is song
we are fishes in a sea of words just beginning to feel wet
as told by Clifford Geertz:
There is an Indian story–at least I heard it as an Indian story–about an Englishman who, having been told that the world rested on a platform which rested on the back of an elephant which rested in turn on the back of a turtle, asked what did the turtle rest on? Another turtle. And that turtle? “Ah, Sahib, after that it is turtles all the way down.”
yes, but not turtles, metaphors . . . all the way down
fundamental distinctions are always obvious, but only after they’ve been distinguished
it’s not the I that speaks, the I itself is spoken
none of us was present for our birth — we arrived later
somewhere in the middle
was the word
and the word brought forth
the beginning
chop words!
brevity is the soul
of this moment