what it all comes down to, part two

(some further pondering on non-duality; image above by the author)

XI

even die-hard non-dualists
(who say it is hopeless, impossible
to ‘do’ anything that will make
the dissolution of the self more likely to happen)
acknowledge a resonance
that seems at least to clue the self
into thinking that its understanding of what is real
is somehow not quite right,
without knowing why.

perhaps instinct is the ‘voice’ of that resonance,
the whisper of hidden truth, an inkling,
a self-doubt that at least opens the possibility
of the self’s dissolution, leaving only
all-that-is.

XII

look: the tree is real,
but not in the way the mind perceives it.
mind sees patterns, makes meaning.
but these are just thoughts, renderings.
what self calls ‘this tree’ is in reality
an unfathomably complex and inseparable part of all-that-is —
it is turtles all the way down.
it is not ‘this tree’ that the self-mind sees as beautiful;
it is all-that-is, of which ‘this tree’ is just an instance,
the mind’s representation, a glimmer.

the self wants to know ‘this tree’ as finite;
it analyzes it, names it, tears it apart,
looking for what it cannot find or even conceive of.
still, it cannot help but find it beautiful,
and it cannot help
not bearing the thought it cannot be known.

XIII

wild creatures would seem
to have something-of-a-self,
in moments of existential stress,
but then shake off the illusion fast enough.

XIV

ever the doubting thomas, i wonder:
is the dissolution of the self, its non-existence
just another idea, another way out,
another trick of the too-smart-for-our-own-good minds?

XV

so now: even more radical:
no ‘One Consciousness’, ‘Awareness’, or ‘Presence’,
no time, no matter, no mind, no one, no thing, no self —
all illusions, and not even illusions of some one.

no perturbations, sensations, perceptions, conceptions.
no purpose, no reasons ‘why’.
‘all-that-is’ is no thing, inconceivable,
beyond the mind’s ability to comprehend, or to imagine.
infinite, eternal,
requiring no observer, no perceiver, no one and no thing.
beyond the twin follies of spirituality and science.
beyond quantum, which is as far as we can understand.

just all-that-is, of which an infinitesimally small part
are our illusions, and the illusory selves that have them,
and everything we thought was real, and is.

but not really.

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