Blank page. No fear. The rain hanging like crystal earrings on the slender branches of Serefé. The sound of traffic on wet asphalt. The search for the truest sentence I can find right now. I think it is this:
I doubt my own existence more than the existence of God.
Considering that something exists, that leaves no room for God, the Creator, not to exist.
On the other hand, something is knowing that creation. I call it “I”, but I do not know what that “I” refers to. That’s what I mean when I say I doubt my own existence, what the word “I” refers to. Where does that I begin and end?
The alpha and the omega.
There is a body, yes. I know it well. It appears when I wake up in the mornings, dressed in a seemingly immense world. It is not transparent, it cannot pass through walls. But it is transparent to the one who knows it. I follow each of its movements, I feel its sensations. I move from here to there in the form of attention. The soles of the feet vibrating. A slight pressure on the forehead. I take care of it because, whether I like it or not, Mother Earth has loaned it to me and I am responsible for keeping it in good shape.
There is a mind too. I often confuse myself with it and whenever I do, I suffer. I suffer because what it says seems to be true, and it is not usually kind things. Everything is vanity, because everything revolves around a supposed “me”. Everything is violence, because everything is separation. By giving Serefé the name I have given her, I have segregated her in my mind from all the other trees and from myself. She is better off without a name. I am better off if I do not give her a name. Because then I see what she is. Not a tree. That is just another name. What she is has no name. But I know it and it is so intimate that it could well be I. But if I close my eyes it disappears, and I do not disappear when I close my eyes, so it must not be I either.
There is a light sadness in my chest. Heavy like today’s sky. By mentioning it and observing it, it has transformed into something else. There is no sadness anymore. Now there is a light joy, and a slight smile on my lips. Perhaps all it wanted was to be recognized, held in loving awareness. Maybe it wanted someone to write a poem about it, but then it was too shy, running away before the second verse.
My breath is there too. It’s been a while since I noticed it. I remember when, as a child, I discovered that I could breathe consciously. I hated when that happened, especially when I was trying to fall asleep. I can’t fall asleep if I’m responsible for keeping my breath! Sometimes I tried to avoid it by thinking “don’t remember that you can breathe consciously.” The result was always disastrous. Fortunately, the fear of dying of suffocation while sleeping was unfounded; I have never had to breathe consciously while sleeping. It would be difficult, since the body is not there. This last part is so strange that I am surprised we are not talking about it all day. Every morning we should wake up screaming and looking at our limbs, breathing relieved by their reappearance. But we don’t, because deep down we don’t miss it at all, nor do we need it to continue being “I”. We go to sleep so happily at night, knowing that sleep offers us true respite: the absence of the body and, hopefully, of the mind too.
Now I can do two things, breathe consciously, controlling its rhythm and depth. But I can also let life breathe for me, without losing consciousness of the breath. To do this, all I have to do is exhale, relax, and wait. Sooner or later, the nervous system will take the reins and breathe again, without us having to do so voluntarily. It’s wonderful to observe this. It reminds me that everything is happening spontaneously, and that life knows what to do without us having to tell it what to do or how to do it. I intuit that this could be done with everything, letting that cosmic intelligence take care of all aspects of my life.
In fact, I now realize that that’s exactly what has just happened with this letter. I’ve been trying to write a letter for 4 days. I wanted to tell my story in it, but also explain some interesting things I’ve read, and also be funny and bright, and hopefully help someone by giving them exactly what they needed to hear, and I also wanted it to make sense and for all the pieces to fit smoothly. And yet, it wasn’t going anywhere. It just didn’t fit, because my own mind was divided about it.
I tried rewriting it from scratch, keeping only what seemed essential. Nothing. I tried going to the kitchen and eating chocolate, but that didn’t help either. I prayed and meditated several times, invoking divinity to solve the puzzle I had started, but it just wouldn’t fit, and I kept on pushing.
Finally, out of sheer frustration, I did the last thing a writer should do, I went on Instagram. Immediately, a photo of Hemingway accompanied by a text:
“Sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, ‘Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.'”
Thank you Hemingway. Thank you algorithm. Thank you God who inspired those Ernest words, and who now manages the algorithm to offer me those words like water to a thirsty person.
I then abandoned all effort. I opened a new page, I let the air out, relaxed and waited. A few seconds later, effortlessly, being just pure observation, the letter began:
The blank page. Today it’s raining. That’s true, but I also know it only half-true, because this world is a dream. What is more true than “today is raining”?
Having reached the end of the letter, I see that it had a message for me: my purpose today was not to try to express what God is, but simply to point in His direction.
There might also be a message here for you.
Where do you feel you’re putting too much effort? Where are you trying to fit the pieces by force, but not succeeding? Is there a problem you feel responsible for solving, but feel you lack the strength?
Truly, there is an intelligence that breathes for you when you don’t control it. An infinite intelligence that lights up the stars, orchestrates the Spring, composes the melodies of birds and Bach, and plays with the evolution of species more easily than one who doodles in the margin of a notebook. An intelligence that designed these orchids. An intelligence that knows you fully, far beyond what you know about yourself. And knows everyone else too. An intelligence that sees all the cards. We can always turn to it and say “take care of it for me, for I do not know how.” It only requires faith or, in its absence, enough desperation. But we don’t have to go so far.
A.
