I was just playing… a juxtaposition of ideas, sounds, and quotations that opened my eyes and mind…
Try listening to this song while you read along…
“As long as we remain closed to the openness of space, we tend to hold on to what we think we have already. We may recognize that our perspective is limited; that there is much we cannot see. But what other possibilities do we have?
This way of thinking fails to recognize that we are presently living out the consequences of space disappearance. Holding on tightly to the truth of what we know now, we fear going too far; risking too much. We attempt to go forward bit by bit, extending knowledge one step at a time, like ancient sailors afraid of falling off the edge of the world. But zeroless space openness has a different knowledge to communicate…â€
[Dynamics of Time and Space, p. 46]“Space appearance marks the ‘completely open’ of everything. All is allowed, and all that is allowed shares in the completeness of the allowing. Ordinary knowledge cannot say in a logical way how this is possible, but space allows for a different knowing. Whenever we illustrate or exhibit accommodation in operation, inviting space to appear, this invitation is an allowing initiated by space. Space availability is already space appearance.
Within the ordinary, the extraordinary is active. The moment we look ‘behind’ the established point, appearance and its derivation become questionable in fruitful ways. What appears to be so appears in a new light. Its qualities vary, depending on the angle from which we look, the perspective we take, and the depth of field of our focal setting.â€
[Dynamics of Time and Space, p. 45]“Take these broken wings and learn to fly…
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see…
You were only waiting for this moment to be free…â€
[Blackbird, The Beatles]
Absolutely in love with this. Lifts the heaviness of reading and understanding. The text is transformed into song, light and spacious rhythm.
With foot stomping and head bobbing appreciation
Hayward ; @ )
David,
Very nice post, and insightful also.
In some way, we can´t see that we are already free; we remain closed to the openness of space.
Letting go the tendency to hold on to what we think we have already, within the ordinary, the extraordinary is active…
Don´t wait to be free!
Reading your excerpts while listening to the music was interesting for me. I found there was a competition going on between two parts of my mind. One part (perhaps the left brain) was willing to float along with the melody and now and then an image from the text would connect naturally with a spaciousness that was not threatening because the music was filling it. But then I had to push aside the carefree explorations of the music in order to concentrate on what was being said about space and knowledge (perhaps that was my right brain?). And finally in the Blackbird lyrics the two ways of attending were able to walk hand-in-hand, perhaps because the lyrics were already presented in a musical, rhyming cadence . . .
Thanks for helping me to see a bit about how my mind works–I think I have an issue with multi-tasking. So perhaps it’s not just–as my wife would say–a problem with listening, but my mind needs to concentrate single-mindly to absorb anything. As a Zen master might say: “ten more years.”
I put the above post on my Facebook page originally, and our friend Bruce Alderman responded. So I decided to share it here. I like how my post elicited a kind of TSK handshake, but I also appreciated that at least one other enjoyed the fun too…