Can You Grasp Emptiness?

The Fireplace Records, Chapter 1

Can You Grasp Emptiness?

One drizzling cold afternoon, Shih-kung and Hsi-tang stopped along the steep trail up to the Temple on Mount Wudang.  They rested while quietly sitting.  Shih-kung picked up a small rock and tossed in down the hill. A short while later, Shih-kung asked Hsi-tang: "Can you grasp emptiness?" Hsing-tang replied: "Yes, I think I can."  Shih-kung continued: "How would you grasp emptiness?"  Using his hand, Hsi-tang then grasped at empty space.  Shih-kung replied: "You are 70% correct, and 30% uncertain." "Then how do you do it?" asked Hsi-tang.  Shih-kung then grasped Hsi-tang's ear and pulled it. Hsi-tang exclaimed "Ouch, your hurting my ear!"  Shih-tang said "You can grasp and hear emptiness only in this way."  Hsi-tang gently rubbed is ear, laughed, and told Shih-kung, "You are a clever devil, Shih-kung, and your diligent practice on your zither has improved your music." 

Hsi-tang then picked up a small rock and tossed it down the canyon.  

Both listened.  Both smiled.

Capping Verse

Opening bell
echoes from the canyon walls —
raindrops on the river.

The sounds of rocks bouncing off rocks;
the shadows of trees traced on trees.

We sit quietly, still.
The canyon river chants,
moving mountains.

The sermon spun on the still point:
dropping off eternity, picking up time;
letting go of self, awakened to Mind.

Can You Grasp Emptiness?  A Dialogue.
By Michael P. Garofalo

- For a insightful discussion of Eihei Dogen's (1250-1253 CE) views on Buddha-Mind, expressions and actions, existence, emptiness, the total exertion of a single thing, thusness, and time read Chapter 4 of "Eihei Dogen: Mystical Realist," by Hee-Jin Kim, 2004.

Another version of the Shih-kung and Hsi-tang dialogue is found on p.134 of Hee-Jin Kim's fine book.

Spiritual Stories and Dialogues

Zen Poetry

Refer to Fireplaces, Stoves, Hearths, Campfires

"There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot." - John Cage

The Fireplace Records Compiled with Commentary by Michael P. Garofalo

A Sidewalk Poem by Esther M. Sternberg, M.D. 

What Transcends Lao Tzu?

The Fireplace Records, Chapter 2

What Transcends Lao Tzu?

Ju-ching and Chang San Feng were hoeing and weeding their garden one cool Spring day around noon. Ju-ching asked: "What transcends Lao Tzu, Confucius, or the Buddhas?" Chang answered: "Here, have a bite of my cold rice." Ju-ching responded: "But, you have not answered my question." Chang replied: "Your quest for knowing is quite admirable, Ju-ching. However, sometimes your thirst for mental matters cannot be satisfied. Here, enjoy a cup of cold water." Ju-ching said: "You think that cold water transcends Lao Tzu?" Chang replied: "Yes, or hot tea. The ordinary is the best scaffolding for transcending. The fruits emerge from trees with strong roots. Find the spring that unceasingly flows to nourish your growing garden." Ju-ching was a little startled and said: " Oh! Ah!" and he became enlightened - for an hour.

Considerations 

Enlightenment comes and goes;
Just don't fret your mind or body.
Fathom your being startled,
Revel in your wonder;
And remain steady on the scaffold,
or you will fall into errors. 
Be Patient! 
A callused palm and dirty fingernails precede a Green Thumb.
Only from the Ground of Somethings,
Can Lao Tzu's true words flourish.  

Comments, Sources

Chang San Feng is regarded as a Immortal; a enlightened man who has lived far over 888 years. He appears and disappears at will at different places around the world, and in different eras. He can incarnate as speaking animals and plants. He is regarded as a shaman, fang-shi, wizard, Taoist master, philosopher, fortune teller, mystic, Taijiquan and Internal Alchemy master, wise elder archetype, popular gift giver, odd dresser, and among the revered patriarchs. I have met with Master Chang San Feng many times.

Master Ju-ching (Rujing) was the Chan Buddhist teacher in China of Eihei Dogen from 1230-1235 CE. 

Refer to the Blue Cliff Record (Hekiganroku), Case 77.

Refer to my Cloud Hands Blog Posts on the topic of Koans. 

The Daodejing by Laozi

Pulling Onions Over 1,043 One-line Sayings by Mike Garofalo

Chinese Buddhist and Taoist Stories and Koans 

Refer to Fireplaces, Stoves, Hearths, Campfires

The Fireplace Records Compiled with Commentary by Michael P. Garofalo

Powers of Scents

"Of all the ingredients we employ in the creation of a garden, scent is probably the most potent and the least understood.  Its effects can be either direct and immediate, drowning our senses in a surge of sugary vapor, or they can be subtle and delayed, slowly wafting into our consciousness, stirring our emotions and coloring our thoughts."
-  Stephen Lacey, Scent in Your Garden, 1991

"Scents bring memories, and many memories bring nostalgic pleasure.  We would be wise to plan for this when we plant a garden."
-  Thalassa Cruso, To Everything There is a Season, 1973  


"The act of smelling something, anything, is remarkably like the act of thinking. Immediately at the moment of perception, you can feel the mind going to work, sending the odor around from place to place, setting off complex repertories through the brain, polling one center after another for signs of recognition, for old memories and old connection. "
-  Lewis Thomas 

The Five Senses

Body-Mind Centering

Exploring Body-Mind Centering: An Anthology of Experience and Method.  Edited by Gill Wright Miller, Pat Ethridge, and Kate Tarlow Morgan.  North Atlantic Books, 2011, 470 pages, index. bibliography. VSCL.

Principles of Body-Mind Centering Approach

"All cells have consciousness (mind).

All levels of physiological organization (e.g., tissues, systems) have consciousness that can be experienced directly.

As we begin to make all systems more conscious,
they become more accessible. 

We can transmit to each other the embodiment.
of the group's shared learning.

The mind of the body system (e.g., bones, muscles, organs,
nervous system) is reflected in the room when that system.
is touched.  

It is possible to create, evoke, and titrate resonance.

Support precedes movement.

Embodiment can initiate movement; movement can
initiate embodiment.

The is a difference between the map of the body
and the territory of the living person's somatic experience."

Classical Skills

SKILLS

"Zither, chess, book, painting, sword.
These symbolize classical skill.

There was once a wanderer who cared nothing for fame. Although he
had many chances for position, he continued to search for teachers who
could help him master five things : zither, chess, book, painting, and
sword.

The zither gave him music, which expressed the soul. Chess
cultivated strategy and a response to the actions of another. Books gave
him academic education. Painting was the exercise of beauty and
sensitivity. Sword was a means for health and defense.

One day a little boy asked the wanderer what he would do if he lost
his five things. At first the wanderer was frightened, but he soon
realized that his zither could not play itself, the chess board was
nothing without players, a book needed a reader, brush and ink could not
move on their own accord, and a sword could not be unsheathed without a
hand. He realized that his cultivation was not merely for the
acquisition of skills. It was a path to the innermost part of his being."

-  Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao: Daily Meditations  

Standard 32 Sword Form: Black Dragon Whips His Tail

The Rain of Our Reality

 

A Sunday in July

Children playing in shallow river pools;
fat grandpas sleeping in the shade.

Burnt leaves on sagging shrubs;
robins munching on wiggling worms.

Cold beer and crispy chips;
music playing from cellphone chips.

I watched them baptize a weeping woman,
now saved from the fires of hell,
safe and soaking wet.

A firecracker cut the laughter,
dogs barked, babies cried,
the smell of powder smoked by.

Hamburgers coated in ketchup red,
laced with lettuce on tired bread,
bit by bit down the hatch,
bellies satisfied at last.

Corndogs and cornbread,
beans and coleslaw;
dirty paper plates in paper bags,
pink vomit on the green grass. 

Riverbed rocks bit their cold toes,
mosquitoes bit their sun burnt backs,
lovers bit their aroused lips,
infants bit their mommies tits.

Dry ground,
centuries of death things
underfoot,
covered by a grey wool blanket
hiding this Distant Past. 

In this way on this day
the thousands of drip drops of experiences
make up
the rain of our reality. 

- Lewis River Park, Battleground, Clark County, Washington
  By Michael P. Garofalo, Poetry 

 

Body Moving, Mind Moving

"We human beings have bodies.  We are "rational animals," but we are also "rational animals," which means that our rationality is embodied.  The centrality of human embodiment directly influences what and how things can be meaningful to us, the ways in which these meanings can be developed and articulated, the ways we are able to comprehend and reason about our experience, and the actions we take.  Our reality is shaped by the patterns of our bodily movement, the contours of our spatial and temporal orientation, and the forms of our interaction with objects."
-  Mark Johnson, The Body in the Mind, 1987, xix

“The human body is the best picture of the human soul.”
-  Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

"It was a great thing to be a human being. It was something tremendous. Suddenly I'm conscious of a million sensations buzzing in me like bees in a hive. Gentlemen, it was a great thing."
-  Karel Capek  

“Somaesthetics can be defined as the critical study of the experience and use of one’s body as a locus of sensory-aesthetic appreciation (aesthesis) and creative self-fashioning.”
-  Richard Shusterman


Somaesthetic Practices for Health, Well-Being and Mindfulness

A Good Life

The Five Senses

The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason  By Mark Johnson.  University of Chicago Press, 1987, 1992.  Index, notes, 272 pages.  ISBN: 978-0226403182.  VSCL.

Thinking through the Body: Essays in Somaesthetics.  By Richard Schusterman.  New York, Cambridge University Press, 2012.  380 pages.  ISBN: 9781107698505.  

Feldenkrais Lessons near Portland, Oregon

I have enjoyed taking many Feldenkrais' small group classes from a local Feldenkrais practitioner, Christine Toscano.  She is knowledgeable about Feldenkrais, acupuncture, qigong, meditation, Jungian psychology, and she is a song writer and singer.

I also practice this method alone at home.  I have also read a number of books and listened to audio CDs on the subject.

Mrs. Toscano teaches at her lovely studio on 20th Avenue at 14810 NE 20th Ave., Vancouver, WA 98686.  Phone: 360-798-5286.  There is a small sign at the street titled:  Feldenkrais Movement Center.  

If your are driving north from Portland, on either I5 or I205, exit at 134th Street in north Vancouver, Washington.  Vancouver is directly across the Columbia River from north Portland, and another suburb of the Portland Metropolitan Area.  The Feldenkrais Movement Studio is a block north of the Kaiser Permanente Health Center, and three blocks north of the Legacy Hospital Complex.  Highway 99 changes its name to NE 20th Ave at 134th Street.  

This clean and comfortable practice space is very welcoming.  The other older people are all pleasant and quiet.  The teacher provides clean mats and support pads. Lots of windows look out on a large beautiful yard.  

The Feldenkrais teachers I have listened to all talk you through a series of explorative gentle movements and techniques for drawing out attention/awareness implications.  You self-observe, track, monitor, listen, feel, and experience yourself, non-judgementally, in a relaxed state, with a coach encouraging subtle insights.  

I have read and studied many books and viewed and studied instructional CDs, VHS tapes, and UTube videos about Feldenkrais, Yoga, and Qigong.   

Mrs. Toscano recommended we read Chapter 5 of the book by Norman Doidge, M.D., "The Brain's Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity," (Penguin Books, 2016). The chapter covers the life and work of Moshe Feldenkrais (1904-1984).  He was a Ph.D. engineer, kudo master, movement therapist, author, and healer.  The chapter discusses some of the core principles of his theory and methods as follows:

"1. The mind programs the functioning of the brain.
2. A brain cannot think without motor function.
3. Awareness of movement is the key to improving movement.
4. Differentiation: making the smallest possible sensory distinctions between movements - builds brain maps.
5. Differentiation is easiest to make when the stimulus is smallest.
6. Slowness of movement is the key to awareness, and awareness is the key to learning.
7. Reduce the effort whenever possible. Relax.
8. Errors are essential, and there is no right way to move, only better.
9. Random movements provide variation that leads to developmental breakthroughs.
10. Even the smallest movement in one part of the body involves the entire body.
11. Many movement problems, and the pain that goes with them, are caused by learned habit, not by abnormal structure." 

Awareness Through Movement.  Easy-To-Do Health Exercises to Improve Your Posture, Vision, Imagination and Personal Awareness.  By Moshe Feldenkrais.  HarperOne, Reprint edition, 2009.  192 pages.  ISBN: 978-0062503220.  VSCL. 

Awareness Heals: The Feldenkrais Method for Dynamic Health.  By Stephen Shafarman.  Da Capo Lifelong Books, 1997.  224 pages.  ISBN: 978-0201694697.  VSCL. 

The Brain's Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity.  By Norman Doidge, M.D..  Penguin Books, 2016.

Change Your Age: Using Your Body and Brain to Feel Younger, Stronger, and More Fit.  By Frank Wildman, Ph.D..  Da Capo Lifelong Books, 2010.  240 pages.  ISBN: 978-0738213637.  VSCL. 

Embodied Wisdom: The Collected Papers of Moshe Feldenkrais.  Edited by Elizabeth Beringer.  Foreword by David Zemach-Bersin.  North Atlantic Books, 1st Edition, 2010.  256 pages.  ISBN: 978-1556439063.  VSCL.  

Responding to Changing Circumstances

Lately, I have been reading the letters and short essays by the Roman philosopher, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 4 BCE - 65 CE.  Seneca was a wealthy Roman, influential writer, political advisor, and aristocrat.  Many consider him a Stoic. He grew up in Spain.  Once, he was banished to Corsica for seven years; and, later, ordered to commit suicide by the Emperor Nero.  

"And we ought to make ourselves adaptable.  We should not be partial to a rigid program but pass easily where chance has taken us without shrinking from change or plan or status, provided we do not fall into the vice of fickleness, which is an enemy to repose.  Obstinacy is necessarily anxious and unhappy because Fortune often forces it askew, but fickleness is a more serious fault because it never holds its posture.  Each, inability to change and inability to persevere, is hostile to tranquility.  In any case, the mind must be recalled from externals and focus upon itself.  It must confide in itself, find pleasure in itself, respect its own interests, withdraw as far as may be from what is foreign to it and devote itself to itself; it must not feel losses and must even construe adversity charitably."
-  Seneca, On Tranquility, Section 14, p.99 in the Hadas' translation; online version transleated by Aubrey Stewart.   

Letters from a Stoic. By Seneca. Translated with an introduction by Robin Campbell. Illustrated by Coralie Bickford-Smith. Hardcover Classics Series. New York, Penguin Classics, Reissue Edition, 2015. Index of persons, appendix, notes, 352 pages. ISBN: 978-0141395852. VSCL. 

Seneca The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca: Essays and Letters. By Seneca. Translated with and introduction by Moses Hadas.  New York, W. W. Norton, 1958, 1968. 261 pages. ISBN: 0393004597. VSCL. 

Stoicism: Bibliography, Links, Notes, Quotations, Reflections, Resources.
A hypertext notebook by Michael P. Garofalo.

Personally, I favor the metaphysics and natural philosophy of the Epicureans over the Stoics.  

Aging Well

How to Live a Good Life: Advice from Wise Persons

More Than Just a Rock

I have a keen interest in the subjects of somatics, somaesthetics, lived experience, sensations and perception, and consciousness.  The psychology and philosophy of these subject has stimulated my thinking and understanding for decades.  My practices of body-mind arts such as Tai Chi Chuan, Qigiong, walking, yoga, and gardening have provided insights and profound experiences related to these subjects.  

Somatics 

The Five Senses

I am now reading the following two books on the subject of how our experience is generated by our sensory relationship, interrelation, and participation with the manifold objects, beings and processes of the precious world.  

Phenomenology of Perception.  By Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961).  Translated by Donald Landes.  Foreword by Taylor Carman.  Routledge, 1st Edition, 2013.  Originally published in French in 1945.  696 pages.  ISBN: 978-0415834339.  VSCL.  

The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World.  By David Abram.  New York, Vintage, 1996.  Index, bibliography, notes, 326 pages.  ISBN: 978-0679776390.  VSCL. 

 

In our sacred circle garden, the outer edge of the circle is lined with stones we have collected from the mountains, canyons, rivers and sea shore of Northern California.  These stones are markers, signs, energies of our interactions with places that define and have enhanced our experiences.  I like to rest and reflect in their midst.  The are more than just rocks.  

David Abram (p.71) quotes a Lakota medicine person who addressed a stone  as "Tunkashila" - "Grandfather."

unmoved
from time without
end
you rest
there in the midst of the paths
in the midst of the winds
you rest
covered with the droppings of birds
grass growing from you feet
you head decked with the down of birds
you rest
in the midst of the winds
you wait
Aged one." 

Mystical Experience: Sakipata

"My own experience of śaktipāta occurred at the age of 16 through meeting a powerful and loving meditation master.  It was not the product of wishful thinking, because I didn't even want to be there, at least on the level of the conscious mind.  My mother had persuaded me to take a two-day meditation retreat and I had acceded because I wanted the reward she was offering me; I had neither expectation nor hope that anything particularly magical would happen.  And indeed, the whole thing was fairly boring, though in the final meditation of the weekend, I did make a grudging effort to be fully present in the warm, dark stillness of the meditation room.  It was nice, but nothing special, until I opened my eyes and walked outside.  I was astonished to discover that the whole world had apparently changed.  Everything was more vivid and real, and almost sparkling.  Not only that, I was feeling an incredible energy in my heart, and it was flowing palpably between my heart and the hearts of everyone else I could see.  I call it "energy" for lack of a better word; it was a tangible power or force, not a passive feeling, and it had the nature of exquisitely pure love.  It was connecting the hearts of all the people around me, coursing freely in a kind of web or grid of power, entirely independent of whether the people liked each other or not.  Then I noticed it was really everywhere; the very air around me seemed thick with it; it was undoubtedly the most "real" thing in reality, though not perceptible with any of the five senses!  It was astonishing, and I was never the same, now that I knew this power, this love beyond anything I had ever imagined, was a real possibility in human life."
-  Christopher D. Wallis, Tantra Illuminated, 2012, p.323


Tantra Illuminated: The Philosophy, History, and Practice of a Timeless Tradition   By Christopher D. Wallis, M.A.  Illustrations by Ekabhumi Ellik.  Woodlands, Texas, Anusara Press, 2012.  Index, endnotes, bibliography, three appendices, 506 pages.  ISBN: 978-1937104016.  VSCL.  In 2012, the author was a Ph.D. candidate in Sanskrit at the University of California, Berkeley.  This book takes as its exemplar and focal point the lineages of nondual Śaiva Tantra most clearly typified by the Kaula Trika lineage.  Written for the educated lay reader.  The author shares his personal life, his spiritual life, his practices, his yoga, within this tradition of Tantra.   

Tantra: Path of Ecstasy  By Georg Feuerstein (1947-2012), Ph.D.  Boston, Shambhala, 1998.  Index, bibliography, notes, 314 pages.  ISBN: 157062304X.  VSCL.  An excellent introduction to Tantra, and a great starting point for readers.  I own, and have read and reread in the last ten years nearly all of the books by Dr. Georg Feuerstein.  If my understanding is correct, Dr. Feuerstein personally followed the path of Vajrayana Buddhism, a Tibetan Buddhist tradition, a lineage of Tantric Buddhism.  


"Tantra's body-positive approach is the direct outcome of its integrative metaphysics according to which this world is not mere illusion but a manifestation of the supreme Reality.  If the world is real, the body must be real as well.  If the world is in essence divine, so must be the body.  If we must honor the world as a creation or an aspect of the divine Power (shakti), we must likewise honor the body.  The body is a piece of the world and, as we shall see, the world is a piece of the body.  Or, rather, when we truly understand the body, we discover that it is the world, which in essence is divine."
-  Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: The Path of Ecstasy, p. 53  


Somaesthetic Practices and Theory

Tantra: Bibliography, Quotations, Links, Resources

Nature and Spirituality 

Look Hard at What Pleases You

"I live so much in my habitual thoughts that I forget there is any outside to the globe, and am surprised when I behold it as now--yonder hills and river in the moonlight, the monsters. Yet it is salutary to deal with the surface of things. What are these rivers and hills, these hieroglyphics which my eyes behold? There is something invigorating in this air, which I am peculiarly sensible is a real wind, blowing from over the surface of a planet. I look out at my eyes. I come to my window, and I feel and breathe the fresh air. It is a fact equally glorious with the most inward experience. Why have we ever slandered the outward?"
-  Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), Journal Vol. 4, 1852

"Look hard at what pleases you and harder at what doesn't."-  Colette 

Pleasures   

"It is easy to suppose that few people realize on that occasion, which comes to all of us, when we look at the blue sky for the first time, that is to say: not merely see it, but look at it and experience it and for the first time have a sense that we live in the center of a physical poetry, a geography that would be intolerable except for the non-geography that exists there - few people realize that they are looking at the world of their own thoughts and the world of their own feelings."  -   Wallace Stevens, The Necessary Angel 

Spirituality and Nature

A scene along the Sacramento River near Red Bluff, California.  The Sacramento River is less than three miles due east of my home.  The smaller volcanic cones in the background are about 10 miles northeast of Red Bluff.  The area north of Red Bluff is forested with deciduous "blue" oaks (Quercus douglassii).  Our area is considered to be the beginning of the volcanic Cascade Mountain range, starting with Mt. Lassen.  Mt. Shasta is 100 miles north of Red Bluff.  Volcanic mountains and cones are essential to the "hieroglyphics" of our place on this earth. 

Seeing - Quotes and Poems

Mt. Shasta (14,179 feet high): Lore and Information

 

Complexity is Closer to the Truth

"For the Eastern mystic, all things and events perceived by the senses are interrelated, connected and are but different aspects or manifestations of the same ultimate reality.  Our tendency to divide the perceived world into individual and separate things and to experience ourselves as isolated egos in this world is seen as an illusion which comes from our measuring and categorizing mentally.  It is called avidya, or ignorance, in Buddhist philosophy and is seen as the sate of a disturbed mind which has to be overcome.

'When the mind is disturbed, the multiplicity of things is produced, but when the mind is quieted, the multiplicity of things disappears.'

Although the various schools of Eastern mysticism differ in many details, they all emphasize the basic unity of the universe which is the central feature of their teachings.  The highest aim for their followers - whether they are Hindus, Buddhists or Taoists - is to become aware of the unity and mutual interdependence of all things, to transcend the notion of an isolated individual self and to identify themselves with the ultimate reality.  The emergence of this awareness - known as 'enlightenment'- is not only an intellectual act but is an experience which involves the whole person and is religious in its ultimate nature.  For this reason, most Eastern philosophies are essentially religious philosophies."

-  Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics, 25th Anniversary Edition, p. 24  


   In my experience, life is rightly characterized as diverse, complicated, varied, rich in multiplicity, saturated with the 'ten thousand things.'  Personally, I find little need to seek or to find or to have the "experience of unity."  This state of "unification," when actualized, is in most cases rather fleeting.  It may be profound, but no more so that the beauty of complexity and the fascinating reality of diversity.  I do not find the experience of the multiplicity of things distressing, disturbing, or disheartening.  

Just because all of the eggs today are in one basket does not make the colored basket more real or more interesting or more valuable than the eggs.  

Ignoring the facticity of the complexity of the natural and mental realms seems to me a more serious ignorance, not very sensible, and ultimately unwise.  I long ago gave up on any quest for "enlightenment" (in Hindu or Buddhist terms) and prefer the ordinary state of mind grounded in a world that is not simple, not one, not unified, complex, and rich in details.  To claim that our normal experience of complexity and variety is an "illusion" or "ignorance (avidya) seems to me a form of incorrect judgment.  

No doubt, trying to simplify one's life has its benefits, reducing sensory overload can reduce stress, and not becoming overly infatuated with novelty can be helpful; but, pushing on this strange path towards the "enlightenment" or "realization" of a pure and uncluttered "Unity" can produce its own distressing and disturbing predicaments for a person.  

Many philosophers, ancient and modern, have made a sharp distinction between appearances and Reality, the many and the One, the phenomena and the Noumena, and multiplicity and Unity.  For me, it is muddled thinking to call all of our experiences "just fleeting illusions" and fabricate a true realm of being outside of our personal and social and practical experiences.  Indeed, we can't "see" in any ordinary sense of "see," the cells, molecules, atoms, and the subatomic particles that constitute the objects of our macro-cosmic world; but, this in no way means the multiplicity of objects in our ordinary environment are in any way "illusions."  The meaning of "objects" is much more complicated, varied in linguistic usage, and functional in many practical contexts.  Again, complexity is closer to the truth.  

"I, who make no other profession, find in myself such infinite depth and variety, that what I have learned bears no other fruit than to make me realize how much I still have to learn.  To my weakness, so often perceived, I owe my inclination to coolness in my opinions and any hatred for that aggressiveness and quarrelsome arrogance that believes and trust wholly in itself, a mortal enemy of discipline and truth."
- Michel de Montaigne, "Of Experience," 1588

Our selves are, to Montaigne, "wavelike and varying" - ondoyant et divers. 


Complexity and Diversity 

Nature Mysticism:  Resources, Quotes, Notes

Gardening and Mysticism

Green Way Research Subject Index