The Point

"As soon as you open your mouth to speak," a zen proverb says, "already it is a mistake."

The proverb is talking about trying to describe enlightenment or awakening, but I think it can be applied more broadly than that.

I've devoted a lot of space the past few days to talking about issues about which I actually don't know very much. There are plenty of people out there with more knowledge of these events than I have, and more background and wisdom with which to discuss them. I didn't need to say anything.

In February of last year, I didn't post a single word on this blog for two and a half weeks, and it was because I didn't have anything to say. I still don't, but that hasn't stopped me from going on anyway.

When I first started trying to understand buddhist concepts of reality, I hit a place I described to myself as the 'dead stop'. It was the point beyond which nothing else is, and about which nothing can be said or described. Even if I said 'it just is', that would be too much.

All the things I've said and written since then are not evidence of having passed that point, but of having backed up from it. It's as if I subconsciously said to myself, 'Well, I can't deal with this. Let me retreat to some ground where I can go back to being myself.'

This is the challenge — to stay at that point that neither exists nor is non-existent, about which nothing can be said, about which no action can be taken.