Footprints in the Windsm # 998
How do we find the ground material of the universe in the arms of dementia? The ground material I see as life, as meeting. We then are in the place of meeting ourselves when we no longer have a brain to call our own. This is frightening for those left behind in brains, seemingly unable to follow us. Yet is there a gentle life, a gentle land out beyond the brain where we can meet? What is it like, and how do we find our way?
What does Rumi say?
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
“When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.”
We might say, Out beyond ideas and right thinking and mind there is a field. I’ll meet you there. The world is too full of talk: ideas, language, even the phrase each other, do not make sense.
Where is that field? Who are we if we do not have our accustomed mind? What does it say if we are, even without our thoughts? Who is this potentially happy person, whom can we meet? Who are we?
What is that field? We are already there. Now we only need to find ourselves here. Then we will know. We can know now.
This is tough work, incredibly painful blood-sweating labor.
So it is beyond 88th birthday parties and not fussing about scattered playing cards. It is facing the presence. Facing the absence of what we thought was presence in order to face the real presence. Who is Mom or Dad without a mind? Who am I without my mind? Who are we together? Is there a together that is more fundamental than each of us?
Here we are. We can do no other. We. Are. Love.
