Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Suchness of Universe

Writing after a long time, for one or the other reason, got busy every weekend. Feels good to come back to writing..:). The thought that has been occupying my mind is suchness. For quite some time, I was not sure what suchness is and what is the big deal about it. In my understanding, concept of emptiness directly leads into suchness. Nothing is made of itself and by itself, instead everything is a result of coming together of non-self elements. For example, table is made of all "non-table" elements - wood, screws, glass etc. Humans are made on all non-human elements - skin, hair, nails, flesh, blood etc. None of these things makes a human by itself, only coming together of everything creates one.

As a result,things have a certain nature based on what it is made of - water flows, rose is red, rock is hard, wind blows etc etc and this is there suchness. And there is beauty and harmony because of this suchness. All elements are needed and everything is equally important. A river cannot come into existence without drops of water and a mountain cannot exist without pebbles. Nothing is less or more important, everything has its place and is needed. There is natural transformation of one form of energy to another like clouds turning into rain, but while things have a form they "enjoy" it and not try to become something else. But with us humans, there is constant craving to become something other than what we are. We have forgotten how to enjoy what we are at the moment. We might have been wanting something for a long time, we get it and rather than enjoying it, we move on to next craving. A rose is not trying to become jasmine and jasmine is not trying to become marigold - they enjoy being themselves and gracefully go through cycle of birth and death. Why cannot we do that? When we are water, we want to become fire, when we are fire, we want to become wind and that is what keeps us tied.

2 comments:

  1. It is a lovily realization that each is itself, nothing more or less. I am myself, no need for concern, it's just me. You are just you, no need for concern, it's just you. Very peace offering.

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  2. Thanks Ann. I was conditioned totally opposite!! I was told to be the fastest, the best possible always and if I could not do it, I was to consider myself a looser. Thanks to sitting practice, whole another world opened for me.

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