The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao;
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
The named is the mother of ten thousand things.
TAO TE CHING, 1
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Sometimes, we need solitude from our solitude. From the inevitable extraordinariness of our ordinary lives. A little break. A fine retreat to the nature in its rawest form. Even if one is at peace with the mundanity of routine and rock at their job, they need ‘space’. A period of time when they aren’t paralysing their mind with unnecessary analysing, when they aren’t dumping all the information and data into their brain like a garbage can, when they aren’t burdened by a hill of expectations and don’t expect anything from anyone either, when they can observe incongruous rise and fall of waves, ants pushing leftover breadcrumbs towards their invisible anthills, butterflies fluttering from one flower to another, oscillation of pendulum in a clock or a swing in the park, constant dance of leaves and branches of trees, immobility of their roots, slight drizzle on the windowpane, apparent rising and setting of the sun, passing of candy clouds & stories the shapes weave. When they can trace murmurations and wish upon the airplanes. When they can taste every element of the food they eat & feel every drop of water moving down their throat. When they can hear the morning prayers and croon along unawares, overhear the conversations of strangers but not judge, see the mountains but not compare their heights but observe the divine placement of every stone, meditate on the chirping but without wanting to discover where it’s coming from. When they don’t have to reply to messages or e-mails. When the ten thousand things between the earth and ether are not changing their thoughts to thinking. Constant thinking as Nisargadatta M. would say, decays the mind.
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I might have overthought it through but now I’m certain that rather than being a mountain or a beach person, I’m a nature person as long as there aren’t many humans in sight. As soon as the place swells up with people, the unwanted commotion, soft murmurings and indecipherable sounds pushing the songs of mother Gaia to the background, my body stops cooperating with my spirit’s desire to stay put. Whether it’s sitting on a rock, under a waterfall, among the trees, over a bridge, at a hilltop, gazing at the moon, counting stars in constellations, basking in the sun or sleeping in the sand, I want to do all the ten thousand things but in a pin drop silence. The spiritual noise cancellation. Even my family making any noise irks me. But since I’m trying to become more social, I take every opportunity to get out of my house head on.
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Few days back, we decided to visit hills to celebrate my parents’ anniversary but more so, the years they’ve spent tolerating each other like almost all married couples. Every atom in the universe is a mirror but nothing mirrors one more than the non-human elements of Mother Nature. You can leave nature but it never leaves you because it is aware that you are an integral part of it and not its master. You don’t see the valley, the valley exposes itself to you the way she wants you to see it. It’s an unspoken pact where she knows you more than yourself. She doesn’t want you to be certain or to be right, the two biggest plagues affecting the humankind. She just wants you to be. Just like a desert greets your eyes until your eyes become the desert. Just as an ocean strikes your ears from miles away like perpetual sound of knitting needles of a reclusive grandparent. The mountains feed your insatiable longing even if you aren’t aware of what or whom you long for. Words drop. Concepts drop. You can’t go back to being what you once were. Different fragrances waft across the way and mix up before reaching the olfactory cleft but still manage to soothe your senses. The cool wind strikes your face once the sun sets & you finally realise that you’ve arrived at your destination, which, as a matter of fact, is the hairpin road you took, the hills along with beautiful cultural graffitis, the fading river, shops and houses made just to serve the need not extravagance, construction workers clearing boulders with their cranes to widen the path even when it isn’t needed, under kept eateries serving sumptuous local food, vendors selling cotton candy, fruits or coconut, the one man tollbooth without any proper arrangement and the ten thousand things in the journey which you overlook in anticipation of a particular place.
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The feeling of community is one of the most underrated feelings in the world. Singing a song in unison with the singer, sharing a buffet or eating at a community kitchen, an unknown child running around you and initiating a conversation, sharing a common space with people you’ll never meet again, marvelling at the nature together without sharing a word but with similar beatific expressions, using the same tracks for daily walks without feeling obliged to talk, share names and numbers or even glances. Thus, at community spaces, thousands of rooms house thousands of people who have a lot in common yet nothing at all. They all are united in their need for a breather, their loneliness and the ten thousand things which make up the human life. I love the feeling of all of us being together in this, in sickness and health, as one united global race. But crowds lead to uninterrupted channelling of cuss words, they make me feel nauseous and unsafe. Apart of hygiene issues, there are other concerns which have started bothering me rather recently as a young woman at public places. One of them is being raked at by middle aged women finding a suitable daughter-in-law for their man-child. They keep an eye on you, your clothes, accessories, mannerisms, food you pick at the buffet, parents and pass smiles. Sometimes, they are bold enough to start a conversation with your parents to extract some information and finally make the move. Fortunately, my parents brush them off faster than the speed of light. They infuriate me.
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On the hill adjacent to the one where my room was, I could see an old couple watching TV. I couldn’t make out anything in a minute I stood there, except for the outlines of their bent backs and subtle light glimmering from a screen they sat right in front of all day. Understandably enough, aging costs a lot of things and the ability to walk for long periods is one of them even when you are on a vacation. It isn’t a plague affecting others, it is an absolutely inevitable truth. We can slow it down but it will eventually catch up. There’s something about elderly people I find particularly interesting but can’t pin point. Maybe, the ten thousand wrinkles on their frail bodies mapping every path they took ever since they were born. The elders relying on canes but walking hand in hand look like turtles in love. When you observe them, the time slows down, your breathing drops a little, your heart settles and you sigh, you sigh again and wonder if you’ll have something like that ever in your lifetime? Will you even grow that old? Will you find a man who is capable of being the love of your life and the best parent to your children, to share the burdens and happiness alike, who wants you to soar, who is his own person but complements you like no one else in the world, who is telepathically connected to you (at least in my case), who knows the difference between being present and being clingy, who doesn’t mind sharing your silences, with whom you don’t worry about co-dependency of any kind for it is noise and a proof of lack, who doesn’t get jealous of your progress, who is as devoted to you as you are to him, who is your best friend, who loves you for the ten thousand things absolutely unique to you, whom you don’t mind giving away your world for? After all, how big is the world anyway? Just as big as the size of our arms, as Nida Fazli would’ve said. Sometimes, home is indeed a person, a place that nurtures you, heals you, sets you free and you return to it every single day. The yin to your yang. The black to your white. Complete in itself. A place that’s like a silent eye in your stormy world. A place where the ten thousand things you’d been carrying, you have been carrying and you will be carrying on your shoulders don’t matter. At all. We all carry a home within us, retreat to it before seeking comfort elsewhere. You can’t love someone unless you love you too. You can’t escape the ten thousand things but you are certainly, beyond them.
The Tao generates the One, the One generates the Two, the Two generate the Three, the Three generate the ten thousand things.
TAO TE CHING, 42
Love,
P
P.S.- I’m allergic to talking about love but I guess it works once every few years. Besides, I’m desperately waiting for another season of “After Life” and re-reading or watching “The Art of Racing in The Rain” both of which didn’t get much public attention. Who cares!
🎵 : Today’s strings attached. A composition titled, “The Ten Thousand Things” by the legendary composer John Cage. It is one of my most favourite meditations on Zen and music. The words, the music, the laughter of a wonderful audience, it’s all a treat to the soul. Please spend 45 minutes of your precious life on it, you won’t regret.
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