We’ve worked our way into a corner, on many fronts I suppose. The corner is in a library, and there are tiny windows high up the bare walls affording a bit of light. Behind us, blocking our way out, are books upon books piled up to the ceiling on all manner of topic. We, collectively, have read our way through the books and now find ourselves trapped in this ill-lit corner.

Awkward metaphor for who we’ve become.

It came to me while reading a few paragraphs of David Attenborough’s Life on Earth. Specifically, reviewing conditions and possible events here on planet Earth at the very outset, say three to four billion years ago. I’m not saying Life’s origins because I don’t believe in origins, only flowing throughs.

What subject, what topic of interest, what deep human conundrum wouldn’t benefit from knowing what the tiny goggle-eyed frog knows on Attenborough’s cover? Everything we see and do have their roots in the very same Life flowing through that diminutive watcher, not to mention the leaf behind him and the twig in the foreground. We are one with it all, and the chance/design of it all has us more or less coordinating group activity and hence accomplishing the Great Passing Through with the use of our brains. It just so happens an offshoot or side benefit (though many would argue the point) of our singular brain is a unique ability to turn the focus back on ourselves.

We have become self-aware.

Too much so.

And it’s that self awareness that has piled the myriad books up behind and blocked the way out from our corner.

Can we lose ourselves once more? Can we forget what we’ve learned and participate fully once more in Life?

Zen is not in books or monastic retreats, it’s in the four odd billion year evolutionary flow of Life in which we play such a short and insignificant role.

Embrace it and know….

Life is ALL there is