Writing The Wordless (and Worldless) Word
Surrender to your artistry and let the harmonies carry you forward.
I didn’t know where I was or what was happening while I was writing this. That’s why my respect for it is so deep… or I got to a certain point, after warming up, when everything melted away… time, place, attachments….
Where I want to go, words, ideas and concepts cannot take me. They do not exist in this place beyond logic. Beyond explanations. A place which can only be felt and experienced. Which requires you let go of all conceptual crutches. All manmade logic which tethers you. You let go of breathing so you can breathe. You let go of walking so you can walk. You let go of feeling so you can feel. You let go of tension so you can move.
Your conceptions block you from experience. Your obsession with organization keeps you from being organized. Your clinging to order ensures you’ll never truly experience it. There is a Natural organization. A Natural order. If we accept it, we’ll experience perpetual peace. Connection to Oneness. Connection to Source. To the space beyond words. Beyond time. One which has always existed and will always exist. Perceived separation from this space is the illusion which causes suffering. A suffering we don’t have to experience, but which our attachments guarantee.
Attachments hold our NS hostage. If your brain and body constantly predict the future, your predictions are based on your attachments, biases, and past experience. The reasonable know we cannot predict the future, yet we anticipate anyways. We close ourselves off to the future by seeing through the lens of our attachments. Our nervous system tightens. We anticipate needing to defend ourselves. Our biases against the future become stress in the present.
If the future does not go to expectation, then your brain sees failure. Either a personal one, a miscalculation from your preferred set of formulas, or a failure of life to remain within the acceptable parameters your attachments limit existence to. A shame. And an indication of how our level of consciousness, exemplified by our ability to let go, detach and accept life, determines not only our happiness but our very reality. Only the blade of wisdom, the light of all illuminating liberation can cut through the ego. Its ignorant desire for control is the root of suffering. The destroyer of personal and universal potential.
Not only does the ego steal your personal happiness, it robs you of your potential. Robs the universe of its potential as well. Your liberation, your joyful living has the power to cause events unique in the annals of history. No one else can inhabit the space and time you do. If your attachments throttle your experience, they throttle the Universe’s as well.
To trust the ground beneath us is to be liberated. Not only the literal ground, with its endless supply of free electrons which heal and balance us, but also the ground of Universal Consciousness. The energy of Nature. Those natural frequencies and vibrations which a liberated, trustful, and trusted nervous system has access to.
To master the Art of Living is to turn it into the Artless Art. Called such because there is no separation between artist and art form. They are one in the same. The distinctions between them no longer apply. No longer make sense. Wu wei, rigpa, nonaction, there are many manmade concepts to approximate this state of being. All that matters is the experience takes place. The effortless efforts which arise when the nervous system is freed. Bringing all experience, all skill to the present moment. Without interference from the dualistic ego. An unrestrained, interactive and spontaneous creativity appears. The kind that sees every moment as a new opportunity for fresh experiments. Fresh experiments. Totally lacking the self consciousness which leads to self judgment. Which hampers free flowing consciousness. Restricts a nervous system designed for liberation.
The Artist has no anchors. No chains. No ideas or concepts which function as limits. All ideas and concepts are simply tools to be used or not used. You’re free to combine them in novel ways. The big picture, the Art itself, asks for it. At the highest level, demands it.
There is a style, a way of being only you can express. If you allow yourself. The long hours of practice. The experience of playing. The ideas of success. The somehow visceral illusion of identity… Will you leave these things behind? These last vestiges of the ego, will you leave them behind and surrender completely to the Source? Allow its power to flow through your nervous system uninhibited? Show absolute trust in your/its style of creating?
Many cannot take this final step towards mastery. It feels like abandoning themselves. Disrespecting all the hard work and practice. The sweat. The tears. The grind. The breakthroughs. The setbacks. The bounce backs. But these things do not disappear. You do.
The ego’s sense of self is fully dissolved, revealing the very nature at the ground of your being. You’re free to use the most refined techniques, based in the most childish imaginings. You do not lose yourself. You lose limits. You gain the Truth. You cease to reserve or hide any part of your being. You become transparent. Experience a fearlessness which neither life or death can shake you from. You have surpassed both.
Existing in a place beyond ideas and concepts. Beyond space and time. You realize those manmade labels are of no consequence. Only right here, right now exists. And you naturally and instinctually know, here lies everything that ever was and ever will be. Of course it does. Because what could exist separate from the Source? You float freely within the Truth, supported by the Source. When experienced non-dualistically, what part of life could not be in touch with the Truth?
The concept alone is utter nonsense. Like every concept not based in, or sourced from, the human experience which words can’t describe. Only felt through this gift of the nervous system. This heart. This body. This moment. This space between awe inspiring outlines we call skin and bones. Which we take for granted. Reducing the experience of touch, of feeling, of warmth, of coolness, to mere words. Merely means to an end. Produced by a body we act like we’re not connected to.
Detached is different from disconnected. The former means we are in touch but not caught. While the latter means we’re out of touch and not grounded. To give ourselves some semblance of balance, or the illusion of it, we must attach to some dualistic concept. Something outside of ourselves. Born from our egotistical need to be right… and possibly someone else’s as well. Which is how we ended up attached to someone else’s idea of life. How we became buried under society’s idea of “should”.
As a writer, I’ve spent years chasing perfection. I wouldn’t call it practicing, but you can. In hindsight it seems born out of necessity. A burning need to speak with someone who understood. Even if it was only me. Even if it was only occasionally me. Even if it was only the blank page.
In this process, this relationship, I’ve run the gamut of emotions and attitudes. Not good enough. Not accessible. Not understandable. Not enough views. Experimented with and without punctuation. With and without proper grammar. Slowly liberating myself. Slowly decolonizing my consciousness. Separating from ideas of what is or isn’t acceptable.
Eventually, consistency came. A habit was formed. Was this just her compulsion to speak out metastasizing? Here, on the other side of the past’s bridge to the present, the question seems inconsequential. Who cares why it happened. It did. Whether I was dragged, or did the dragging, the pen moved across the page. The ambition to be discovered, to be chosen, fell by the wayside. The writing did not.
After an initial burst of chasing answers, the burning need to interrogate life through the proxy of self died down. I no longer chased answers. Or believed in conclusions. But I was curious about them. It would be nice to have them.
The more I searched for answers, the more and less informed I became. There were always more questions. More contemplations. More to know. More to discover. I researched to grow., The style of my writing, the form of it no longer concerned me. It was just a tool through which my thoughts came to life. Entered the physical plane and became organized. In my own, unthought of style. The flow of consciousness which only I could create appeared.
Lately, I’ve become more interested in art, creativity, and the Art of living. It only made sense to examine the art I had misnomered as a tool for many years. This writing. Even when writing poetry, it was simply a tool. A means to an end. A way to get the words out. Looking back, I don’t even know how I related to them. Was it cathartic? Did I feel released? I know nothing now, except that it felt right. It felt required. Even though this form of writing was pure and authentic, I wonder if it reached deep enough.
Did I understand words are solely tools through which feelings express themselves? Or, ambitionless as I was, did I still write for an audience? To appear a certain way? To spin a certain narrative? To tell a story deeper than the page? But one shallowly reduced to the writer’s egotistical way of using words. A way where the art took backstage to the performance.
Were my feelings disconnected in this unconscious chase of outside validation? Was I programmed for my creations to please others? To receive grades? Or was my lack of consideration for feelings the evidence they drove my writing the whole time? Who knows. The notebooks added up. They sit in a pile on my desk. Or on the floor. Or in a drawer. The curiosity about them is there, yet the desire to open them is faint…
Anywho, recently I’ve had thoughts on the depth of human creativity. What it means. I reexamine my framing of, and relationship with, writing. Was it authentic? Full of pretenses? I found myself once again chasing perfection. But of a different form.
I want to write wordless words. For “my” words to be free from words. Free from all ideas and concepts. To exemplify a level of consciousness unperturbed by manmade judgments. If words are manmade nonsense, I won’t worry what makes the page. I’ll move my ego out of the way. Let nonsense appear. This way I could experience the artless art. Write the wordless word. Over and over. Until I create works of art where no trace of myself remains. Yet, they would be full of the person I am. Filled with feelings only my life experiences could produce.
I realize, even though these noble desires advance my writing and make it more comfortable. More authentic. More true to me. But to take the next step, I need to free myself from even these guidelines. To let go of everything and operate with absolute faith in my body. Complete trust in my nervous system. With reckless abandon for all conventions that causes excess thinking. Concepts attached to anything other than the feeling of letting go of it all. Over and over, until fully detached from it all.
Have I reached this point? That’ s a nonsensical question. There is no point to reach. There is nothing to do. No path to follow. No convention to lean on. No dragons to chase. There is only the pen and the page. Uninterrupted by tension. Unaccosted by pretense. Unfettered from fear. Unflustered by the ego.
What is judgment? Why judge? Is something important happening? Is something separate from the natural course of the universe occurring? Obviously not. The ego might argue but the ego’s fear and insecurity over its place is nonsense. Everything has a place. There’s no need to assert your importance. You already have a place. Are a precious cog in the universal machine. Once you accept you’re a spoke in the Wheel of the Dharma, you become able to turn it both consciously and unconsciously.
To let go and reside in pure, open awareness, is to have no choice but to turn the Wheel of the Dharma. In this state you can turn the wheel of Samsara no longer. How could a Buddha, someone in harmony with Nature, turn the wheel of Samsara? Contribute to the cycle of suffering? It makes no sense.
Each of us is a buddha, if only we will recognize it. In some instances, we realize our potential without noticing it. It is natural and therefore unremarkable. At other times, we seem to fall short, stagnate, or stumble off the path. But with the light of Awareness, we recognize this. We transform potential causes of suffering into the sweet liberation of insight. We don’t believe in losses. Only lessons. The wisdom we acquire from experience becomes the fuel for the fire that devours ignorance. Which reveals our true nature. Rigpa, nirvana,nonaction, nonseparation, benefit, growth, love, wisdom, compassion. We cannot escape the innumerable blessings which have always existed, but we have finally realized. We have purified our awareness. Ceased to resist the light of the Moon, the roar of the Dharma, the touch of the Truth.