A Bird Flies like a Bird

“Clear water all the way to the bottom;
a fish swims like a fish.
Vast sky transparent throughout;
a bird flies like a bird.”
- Zen Master Dogen

And this is a beginning of possible relevance and possible irrelevance, depending on where you stand.

For there was once a boy made of wind and water.

He wore a fishbowl for a head and had legs of tall timbers and arms of bone antler. And his feet were made of mission bells, his liver a sack of cement and solder, his left ear a mortar shell, his fingers sea stacks and pretzel rods. Because though it was not his home, he lived in the place of gravity, density and compression, the only one of five elements that limited movement, flexibility and form, because he believed it to be his home.

This came to him one day when he tossed an acorn into a pond and observed the effect. The acorn had changed location. The pond had changed composition. He had expended energy he would never get back. Everything was profoundly affected and irreversible. If he were to do this every day within sight of another human being, would he be called an acorn tosser, or consider himself an acorn tosser? Probably not. Were he to write every day and post these writings, would anyone call him a writer or he consider himself a writer? Probably so.

What is the difference, then, between the two pursuits, he asked himself. An acorn in the air. Words on a page. These are actions with some or no intent, some or no aim, effects and results unchangeable, the same action. Only when the name was spoken, the “ter” or “or” or “er” or “tor” or “can” or “ist”, did the power of the name take hold. Only when the name was believed and defined by generations of belief, did the binding lock down. What is it more important to be, an acorn tosser or a writer? They are the same. And so, this is where he had lived, in name and construct of name, in role and construct of role, because it was the only ordered world that made sense and was commonly inhabited – the logos of slow-moving molecules.

Through this, he came to see that there was no definition, no role, only action. There was only what he affected, what he touched and infused, what he collided with and connected with, a reality made of all-sided perceptions. Ego and “I am” were traps. He was a resistor that stood in-between the charge and the ground. The less solid he could become, the less resistance would be provided, less and less to stand in the way. And in this, the manifestation of what he might envision and what might inspire him might become instantaneous, the resistance and friction null. Spark, connection, with only diffusion to undertake.

And if this could happen, if he could not exist, he might see "creation" as an act of non-aggression, story a wave that exists beyond oneself, that keeps moving irregardless. He might see that it is impossible to create anything, for there is nothing to make anew, only to discover. And in that act of discovery, there is no active action. Be quiet, and it comes. Move with it and let it ride you.

But he was a boy made of wind and water who had always been alone, scared, hurt, apart, shy, unable to belong. The things that gave first validity and acceptance later became dangerous to toy with because they had become load-bearing beams. Any attempt to move them or any small crack in them could easily lead to a loss of definition, then a loss of firmly-clutched validity, and then a collapse of the structure. For all actions untaken can be made perfect, the only possible deterioration of that perfection being an attempt to act at all. Without the attempt, the perfection is maintained and the solid is both solid and safe. And the equal can be said for imperfection, as no action untaken can ever improve upon its situation.

These became heavy furs piled upon icicle shoulders, mountains of seaweed on a hard barnacle chin, until the shape of the covering became the thing it had been covering.

While the thing that was being covered continued not to exist at all in any solid form.

But this was largely unnoticed….for a long time.

When he realized this as the acorn struck the surface, he recognized a problem of solidity and decided to try to solve this problem, because even though he was a boy made of wind and water, he believed in gears and steam valves, in the greased machinery of solids. And so, the attempt was made, many attempts were made at punching fog and enclosing sound and shadow and fixing slack.

But any attempt has within it, by design, a “try”, which is the defining of a problem state and the solution state, or the goal state. So, an attempt has within it, a non-state and a completed state, thus a duality. But an action apart has within it no problem and no goal, the focus not on the dirt collected or the cleanliness of the floor, but in the action of sweeping itself. The before and after represent a change of state from a perceived less to more, from off to on, from problem to solution. The middle represents the present moment and the movement both towards and away. And this is the place of wind and water, the will pure, not directed to any outcome other than continuance and expression, fed by things like intuitive desire or open intent. This is a non-dualistic, non-thought state – zero resistance to the flow, charge, or wave. It is being and not existing.

And so, he was reminded that the attempt was a Chinese finger puzzle, and the solution instead of pulling and struggling, examining the casing for gears and pulleys and levers was to let go and stop resisting, indeed stop solving – for even seeing it as a problem that requires a solution was still dualistic and fed the struggle unnecessarily. Flow is flow, and all else fades back into the dot field, and you believe what you believe.

There is still a boy made of wind and water, with a soup pot hat and geode eyes, a belly of old suit linings. If you see him, give him an acorn and point him in no particular direction at all.