Beyond Words

         ABOVE THE TREE LINE

talking about    what's beyond talk
        presents certain challenges

look! here it isn't               again...

the grass grows back each year
                            without a word

the sun
       doesn't need a big vocabulary

and dusk    haven't you noticed
                       how quietly it falls

we're always making such a racket
every tiniest crack of silence
              gets crammed with noise

          but one day
Light will open and take us inside

   then we'll gladly stop all that

                       *

The great masters' entire teaching

can be found on the tips

of the ten thousand grasses.

Lingshao

      THE GRASS GROWS BACK EACH YEAR

     Ever since I can remember, grass has been my friend. As a boy, going off by myself or with other friends to a park in summer was a limitless passport to fun, freedom, exploration and adventure. It seemed the sky was always a clear, dazzling blue; the unchanging sun shone benevolently, forever at high noon, and those endless fields of rippling grass spread away invitingly on all sides. I discovered then that life was infinite, and so was I.

     Such are the tricks which memory plays--especially when, as C.S. Lewis put it, we're incontestably "surprised by joy!" I carry these timeless, crystalline hours inside me still, a healing spring of fresh, cold water I can drink from, even on the driest desert days. But my most intimate communion, I realize now, was with the grass. Sooner or later there I was, stretched out on my back under a tree, eyes closed, heart wide open, lolling on an enormous bed that was itself a breathing, living, growing thing!

     There were no words to this experience, and really no words I use now can possibly describe it. It was a primal connection completely bypassing my word-besotted brain, reaching right down through my blood, my bones, all the way into my soul. Out of utter innocence and inexperience, I'd managed to stumble onto a world of pure being, a state of sheer, luminous, inexplicable grace. There no longer was any distinction between the sky and me, the sun and me, the earth and me, the grass and me. We were all One.

     I can't help but contrast my recollection of those radiant moments with our postmodern addiction to television, cell phones, Blackberries, I-Pods, Face Book, Twitter. What an endless, incessant, overwhelming, benumbing babble--and Babel! Words about everything, and nothing. Words unhinged from facts, meaning, reality. Words confusing, seducing, cajoling, lambasting, deceiving, threatening, parading, pleading, insisting, outraging.

     Words infest our consciousness like billions of swarming nano-robots. Words never stopping, never leaving us alone, never allowing room for privacy, reflection, solitude. Words dragging us further and further from the truth--only in a Silence beyond words can we come home to our real selves.

     Here's the priceless lesson the grass taught me. I felt it there, knew it there, closer than my own fascinating thoughts, most original ideas or grandest imaginings! The grass was wordless, humble, open, real, unresisting, as if we'd known each other forever--and we have.

     This transforming encounter never could have happened though, without the benediction of Silence. I wasn't talking at anybody. Nobody was talking at me. I wasn't even talking to myself! For once, I was simply, deeply, genuinely listening. That's when Light opened and took me inside...

                           *