nothing stands out
when everything fits in
of course not.
which of my parts is the whole?
none of them.
when we are near are we one or two?
NO.
yet there is no nothingness involved
each collection fades at the edges into something else
back-and-forth in-between what we can & cannot say
but this is hardly the presence of an absence
it seems shunya bifurcates where only you cannot see it
into two emptinesses
one stream flowing toward a well-praised void
some obscure ideal of self-cancellation
while the other stream blurs into a luminous ambiguity
that you can’t quite put your finger on
look! this photograph of a bench without you upon it
is not an image of your absence
but a full picture in every detail
in fact
only your absence is missing
before the universe there was Nothing else
but do you think it sprang from the void?
i don’t think you CAN think of a void
think of digging with your hands into the dirt
you break through into a hollow space concealed below
where expected resistance gives way
for a moment you cannot tell whether you are grasping
or not
this is the -ness of the hollow not the fact of a space
two ice cubes melt into the same water — now they are not quite gone
interblending two different ways to be the same
the same enough to be different
cross and recross the logical limit until it glows
you pass through the boundary
and the boundary remains
is it a boundary?
only very nearly so
a mind smeared out to its edges
this is the “almost” when you say “i almost didn’t recognize myself”
one emptiness is not necessarily compassionate
another is not all that
it is open, released relationally-blended quasi-interbeing
quite a mouthful for an empty mouth!
so i do not call it empty
i call it indiscernibility