All is Fleeting

In the quiet of the room, eyes closed with a straightened back, the noise of thoughts swirl within a silent, mental chaos. Images, some from the non-existent past and some from the non-existent future blind and deafen the silent peace of non-being.

Recognizing each of these, turn back to the breathing.

Suddenly, the high pitched sound rings out, as the thirty minutes have passed. And, in a flash of hammer against bell, the eternal mental agonies of thoughts during the long period of waiting dissolve.

It is so clear now that time slips like sands from the glass, like water flows down the stream, like air escapes from the lungs… and all at once I understand that my life slips out from my body, that which moves through me, moves on from me;

A life, flowing too quickly into space and time, into an abyss, a void, a spaciousness, a vacuousness , life flies to some place that lies beyond the boundaries of my flesh and bones, and blood, and brain.

All at once I feel my form dissolving around me, time is an acid that removes my sense of cohesion from my many parts, and for me this is moving all too quickly.

The mind I have resists this essential truth and grasps onto who I think I am… who I was… who I want to be…who I wish I were.

And with before the mirror of my mind, in the silence of the zendo, I my fleeting self.