By Adam J. Pearson
Prior to experience,
Experiencing,
And experiencer–
We are That.
Experience and experiencer
Appear in the play of manifestation.
And experiencing
Is the dreaming of consciousness
Beyond which,
Even experiencing gives way
To silence and not-knowing.
That, all words fail to reach,
A pathless land none can traverse,
The root of all lands–
There, all concepts dissipate
Like smoke in the wind,
And even this poem never was.
Knowing can never touch
Our deepest nature–
Which is beyond getting and losing,
Becoming and unbecoming,
And yet ever-suffusing all.
Nor is it ever experienced,
And yet there is nothing else,
For everything
Is this nothing!
To be nothing,
Simply to be,
Is the end and the beginning
Of the circle of Zen,
The heart of the Way.
The true nature of all Buddhas
Never becomes a known object
To the mirage of an assumed knower,
Beyond known and knower,
Beyond the activity of knowing–
Beyond, beyond, beyond!
At the root of all,
Immanent in all,
And transcendent of all
Lies the Open Secret,
Prior to consciousness,
Prior even to I Am–
Yet, always available,
Here and now,
What’s seeing these words is it!
Part of a series on Nonduality:
One Step is One Too Many: Waking Up as Stripping Away
Beauty, Wonder, and the Invitation Home
The Heart of the Way: Not One, Nor Two
Everything You Experience “Now” is Remembered: Neuroscience and Nonduality
Willing the Way: Wanting What’s Happening
We Were Never Broken: Beyond the Sense of Lack, Incompleteness, and Deficiency
Emptiness and Radical Negation: Shifts in and Beyond the Story of “Me”
One Step Is One Too Many: Waking Up As Stripping Away
Does “Living in Bliss” Mean We Feel Like We’re Having a Constant Orgasm?: Ananda and Equanimity
Practical Nonduality Exercise: Consciousness Is Appearing As …
