The day of this photo, I lost hope. Stupidly, it seems. But I was certain that we were done for...that it was a new ice age that would not relent. We were stuck. In the end, it did unstick. Even when it seemed to be staying the same, it was changing in unexpected ways.
That car in the photo (on the right) that is frozen in place with doors locked and keys missing, did, in the end, move.
Hi Arnold, after reading your post I thought of the photo itself, the completeness of it, if you will, that symbolically seems to rest mind in the sense of independent reality and permanence; the "I lost hope" and presumed certainty of our beliefs. And yet, as Stevens and yourself would remind us, "even when it seemed to be staying the same, it was changing in unexpected ways." For, "in the end, [it does] move." It does change. In fact, it only changes,
"For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is."
Like Einstein who said that we can never solve a problem on the level of consciousness it was created, Stevens sought the resolution poetically in nonduality. The listener who listens, not to, but "in the snow," recognizes the fundamental interconnectedness of all phenomena, and so, is no-- independently existing-- thing himself. And in his claim of no-self, he then understands the ultimate nature of reality -- Emptiness-- which says: in my recognition that I, as a self, do not exist independently, behold "nothing that is not there and the nothing that is." I embrace two realities: the conventional ("nothing that is not there") and ultimate ("the nothing that is").
In the nondual, the photo reveals in its completeness snow that is not there and the snow that is.
SNOW
One must have a mind of winter
-- Wallace Stevens
...blowing in the same bare place...
The day of this photo, I lost hope. Stupidly, it seems. But I was certain that we were done for...that it was a new ice age that would not relent. We were stuck. In the end, it did unstick. Even when it seemed to be staying the same, it was changing in unexpected ways.
That car in the photo (on the right) that is frozen in place with doors locked and keys missing, did, in the end, move.
THE SNAPSHOT OF MIND: RESPONSE TO ARNOLD
Hi Arnold, after reading your post I thought of the photo itself, the completeness of it, if you will, that symbolically seems to rest mind in the sense of independent reality and permanence; the "I lost hope" and presumed certainty of our beliefs. And yet, as Stevens and yourself would remind us, "even when it seemed to be staying the same, it was changing in unexpected ways." For, "in the end, [it does] move." It does change. In fact, it only changes,
"For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is."
Like Einstein who said that we can never solve a problem on the level of consciousness it was created, Stevens sought the resolution poetically in nonduality. The listener who listens, not to, but "in the snow," recognizes the fundamental interconnectedness of all phenomena, and so, is no-- independently existing-- thing himself. And in his claim of no-self, he then understands the ultimate nature of reality -- Emptiness-- which says: in my recognition that I, as a self, do not exist independently, behold "nothing that is not there and the nothing that is." I embrace two realities: the conventional ("nothing that is not there") and ultimate ("the nothing that is").
In the nondual, the photo reveals in its completeness snow that is not there and the snow that is.