January 11, 2010

Walking Through Walls

I am in a room. I know this is a room because there are four walls that prevent me from seeing what is beyond them; thus I am confined to a space that is seemingly separated from what is beyond. These walls serve both to prevent me from witnessing the truth that lies on the other sides but also to protect me from what is there. So I can be scared of what's beyond. Rather, I am scared of losing what is here.

If there were no walls, I wouldn't know where I began and where I ended. I'd just float in space, having to suffer whatever is everywhere because there would be nothing that divides, nothing that protects.

Yet I assume something. I don't actually know that whatever is beyond the walls will hurt me. It is an assumption I make because my mind is scared of death and it knows that what is beyond will might attack me it and kill me it. But I am not my mind and I know this because I am still alive when I don't have thoughts swirling drunkenly in my head. When moments of peace and solitude descend upon me, such as when I have been awake for a long time and my body feels the need for sleep but cannot because I willingly and intentionally stay awake, thoughts reduce in number and intensity because they have much less energy to waste unconsciously. At those times, my world is calm and I know in those moments that I am alive, because I breathe in the crisp air, and I can feel it reach my lungs and then slowly disperse to every cell in my whole body.

So because I'm not my mind, I must be something else? How about, I am.

What lies beyond the walls could just as well be what lies in this room. In that way, the walls serve no purpose but to divide, to separate, and in that case they are separating space. But space is infinite - that's to say, walls cannot divide infinity, so even if mind death lies behind the wallpaper then mind death also lies here, in a different form possibly. There is space everywhere, there is nothing everywhere. This is who I am: nothing - not yet.

And me being in this room is a distraction from the truth. There is no room, there are no walls, there's no division, I am nothing and I am everything. Thoughts need to survive, I simply am, so I can either chase my thoughts away and hit walls and fear getting out of rooms, or I can simply let thoughts be, just like I am. That means there are no walls, and I can walk through, free.

2 comments:

Autumn said...

Walls were built to see who would care enough to break through them; not to keep people out.

So it would not be surprising if you did have a wall. Or even if you didn't. Surely having no limitations is good. But it is these walls that helps us appreciate what we have.

I highly agree with much of this post.

Cris / Hyphon said...

We all have walls until we realise there are no walls.
Thanks for your comment :)

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