It is fitting, that here, for the first post at Fire and Essence, the topic is hearts. When we say heart, we usually mean warmth, light, things that a fire provides. When we mean essence, we often say, the heart of the matter. What we might mean is the deepest, most vital part of the matter, the part that we couldn’t live without. This is a topic I am curious about. What can’t you live without? Is it an object, a person, or something less substantial like an identity or a job? In any case, this is the source of the name Fire and Essence. The dance between the deepest part of the matter and the light we shine on it. Warmth, energy and what I like to call sovereignty are often invoked by that dance.
Today I visited with an Anna’s hummingbird. She (and I know it was she, because she wore no scarlet headdress) visited me while I visited the flowers in the garden. She came right up to my ear, like she wanted to talk especially to me. She probably thought I was a giant pink flower, full of nectar, since I was wearing my bright pink sweatshirt. It was a delicate moment as I did not wish to offend her or send her away, but the fear that she might just puncture my eardrum caused me to step back. We think of hummingbirds as delicate creatures, and certainly weighing less than a penny, they are technically quite delicate. Though the etiquette of the moment was delicate, the message was not. Tuned in at a high frequency, glowing with fluorescent color and magically fast, she whispered to me.
I don’t usually see birds very well because I am near-sighted. Nonetheless, I have always felt akin to them. Lately, a number of birds, including the hummingbird have decided to get close, stopping just feet away, coming where I can actually see them. I feel it is some kind of sign, because I have a bird name. My bodhisattva name, a name given to those who take vows in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, is Patience White Bird. I always thought that meant I should prefer white birds. In fact, though, I pretty much like all birds equally. But I haven’t had the chance to meet many of them up close. Now, I was listening.
Hummingbirds have to work fast to feed their rapidly beating hearts. They weigh very little but they must consume enormous amounts to maintain their little hearts. They fly vast distances and they lose and gain a lot of weight in the process. It is hard to believe, but when you stand right next to one, hearing it vibrate, well, then it is easier to imagine. So, they dip into the flower fast, sip up the nectar and zip on to the next magnificent bloom. They especially like red, the color we associate with our hearts, our blood. In Chinese medicine, we say the spirit is carried in our blood, anchored there by our essence, nourishing the life in every cell.
Hummingbirds seek out the blooms with the most nectar, large, showy blossoms, so they can make good use of their time. And they have nice long bills to do the job. They don’t have time to have a preference. They simply go for the goods when the color and size are right, attracting them unfailingly to what they need. Not like us humans, now, is it? I, for one, always seem to have a preference. At the moment, it seems I prefer the flowers that the hummingbirds are attracted to for their survival, which is how I came to hear the following message: they all have one taste. Yes, all flowers, to the hummingbird, have one taste. They go for the big, red, pink, showy ones for volume, not for taste, for survival, not for sweet. All nectar is sweet.
Stepping back, she and I taking stock, she eyed me carefully, decided I was not a flower, and having delivered the message, left me pondering. How would life go if all flowers had one taste? If I had a vibrating fluorescent little body, a fluttering very warm heart and I just went about my business? Very differently, I am guessing. So, now, is all life sweet if we are willing to let every taste be the one we like?
Thank you Josephine for your observations and thought provoking questioning. Are all tastes one taste? A Daoist perspective always returns to the one, but the mind is a machine of discernment. It puts pure sensory input through its interpretive prism to make visible the colorful fibers of it’s makeup. In my experience, this entropic pattern has great momentum, yet the return to pure essence requires active cultivation. Moments of connection to the pure/absolute/one bring immeasurable richness to life. Paradoxically, it seems to be the movement back and forth through the prism that allows flavor to be revealed. This dynamic contrast is the palette from which each flavor and the union of all flavors is simultaneously experienced. Like birds wings beating what is not visible, the airborne vibration creates the thrum of life which can deliver a potent message.
Thank you Sally, for your poetic remarks! I love the image of birds beating the invisible air to create the force of life and so good to be reminded of the back and forth, the forming and dissolving, the coming and going, that is the core of life. Somehow there is no contradiction in one taste with two movements, eh?
Josephine
But perhaps your questioning was more about intent. The way we act to get at the sweetness of life and why. I wonder if you could comment on this if it is not too far off topic.
I have recently been introduced to the Heart Sutra. “Form is emptiness and emptiness if form…” and then “no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind…. (it is important to refer to the complete sutra of course, but I’m sure you are quite familiar with it). In CM, the senses are rather like antennae which reach out further than our skin and both receive and project information. They are our way of navigating and interpreting our life and their sensitivity can be honed and through them a greater understanding can be gleaned of our experience. Of course mere understanding and the great perfect wisdom are not the same. It is an immature question, Does the Heart Sutra suggest that shutting the senses down is a good practice? Or that these organs of discrimination are not very helpful in recalling the wholeness of life, or worse lead us to delusion? Putting these questions in words is clumsy because it is silly to put things in a good/bad dichotomy, but I hope you can shine a light on my ignorance and how to reconcile the two points of view (or not). thanks for your thoughts.
Hi Sally,
I love this sort of inquiry and I don’t think it is at all immature. The short answer directly related to the Heart Sutra is to say that the expression “no eye, no ear, no nose, no mouth” does not refer to shutting down the senses, but rather to letting go of the concept of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, etc. To let go of the concept is to relate directly to the experience itself, “that which cannot be named” if you will. This is the experience of emptiness in my estimation. Words nor objects can capture such an experience. The Heart Sutra attempts to invoke the experience by suggesting that we could relate directly to all things without the intervention of their concept or even their physical shape as an intermediary. For example, we have many different colors of eyes. Do blue eyes see the same as brown eyes? How would we know if your experience of seeing were the same or different than mine if we have different color eyes? But if we say that this is about letting go of concept to perceive directly the true nature of things, than we do not have to worry about these differences. Such differences become immaterial. Experience becomes one taste, the taste of awake. We leave both the object and the concept and step directly into the experience. Yet, even the experience of such emptiness does not negate the reality of this exquisite human body that has an infinite capacity and array of potential experience. Can we enter each experience as it arises, free of concept, experiencing each object or concept whole and real, free, moving, unstuck? This is the question I am left with this morning. And this really is the short, short answer to a long, long inquiry that many, many people have been pondering for as long as there have been humans…
Hello Ladies,
Thanks for speaking so deeply and eloquently about something so illusive as this…or perhaps I should say That. It is interesting that this sutra is called The Heart Sutra. I believe this refers to the story that the Arhats all had heart attacks when the Buddha spoke these teachings. However, I think it is aptly named because my experience of letting go of concept is that it has an immediate effect in the heart center. I experience sadness and longing when I release grasping and wanting. And seated there with this tenderness, I feel whole and strong and connected with no expectation. As experience arises my heart is moved by wonder. As experience dissolves there is no residue of mine…just space and breath and..
Thank you, this discussion gives me much to ponder and digest.
Our paradoxical experience is confounding, often. My mind studies, parces the details, yet when I surrender grasping at understanding, emptiness on the inside brings unity with all that is. Perhaps it is the contrast of striving and non-doing that brings about the unity that comes from standing on the edge as it curves around the extremes of dualistic belief.
Hello to Josephine and Sally, and Great Eastern Humor! What a beautiful conversation. Your words express a depth of experience that gives me a taste of the vast possibilities of life. My experience is that, caught in my human body as I am, it is my desire to be in touch with the oneness that motivates me to make room in my life for stopping and listening and seeing. I am reminded of Jeffrey saying that the only way to change our lives is to open the sensory orifices: to see and hear and smell and taste the world differently. How to do that? I am at the very first step of seeing that I filter the world in unconscious ways…and to use my mind to know how my body unconsciously lives its life. And my hope is that if I can shine the light on my unconscious habits, that light will change me…or I will change (I’m not sure which, but I tend to believe that it is the experience that will change me, not my will.) Thank you all for your beautiful languaging of such a meaningful topic. (And on a complete mundane note, is anyone else having trouble seeing the text as you write? The screen is only showing me a portion of each line…thereby providing a perfect excuse if I am not making sense!) Love to all.