III

O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark,

The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant,
The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters,
The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers,
Distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees,
Industrial lords and petty contractors, all go into the dark,
And dark the Sun and Moon, and the Almanach de Gotha
And the Stock Exchange Gazette, the Directory of Directors,
And cold the sense and lost the motive of action.

And we all go with them, into the silent funeral,
Nobody’s funeral, for there is no one to bury.

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God.

As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama

And the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away—

East Coker by T. S. Eliot, stanza III

     Sunyata* – emptiness, without form, darkness within darkness…

   Easter weekend has arrived. Today is Saturday and tomorrow will be Easter Sunday.

I was raised to identify as a “Christian.” Into early adulthood if you had asked me to give account of myself, I would’ve said that I follow Christ. That was then. One way or another, I’ve journeyed on. I remember though, those spring weekends when Easter Sunday morning service in church was the high point. For me the story of Jesus’ death and “resurrection” was my primary existential tether. As “that” was then, I still remember.

A pivotal concept of the Mahayana Buddhist, including the Zen tradition is that of “emptiness.” The notion is “non-being” the “not yet” of possibility is the correlate of “being”. The whirling furniture of “the world” as we feel, perceive, savor, and know it is a matrix of experience that comes and then goes. In fact the coming and going is never separated, except only as abstraction in my mind.

In order to communicate with you, or simply to store memories, even to entertain thoughts, words which define, which sever reality into parts, words are meanings that we-have-agree-upon  — are necessary. Words work. Because they work they also surrealize everything.

   Easter is a rite of spring. Perhaps you have thought about metaphors which are indigenous to eastern cultures… If so, you understand that “the world”, that is, all things simultaneously die and and are born, a transformation that can be counted upon. The pattern is as real as it gets. Easter does not wait.

Thus this emptiness, the darkness within darkness is the birthplace, a universal mother-of-all-things, our source-beginning and final-end.

Strictly speaking no “church”, no religious training, no confession of faith, and certainly no murderous fanaticism is essential, at all called for.

Relax into what you already are. Simply be, enjoy your good fortune to be at the party.

Easter is every day, and every moment.

* An essay was written on the concept of “emptiness” by Indian philosopher Nagarjuna.