An Abstracted Truth

The Human Bond Series : VI

A Zen saying says ( paraphrased ) ' the truth always is but by gazing at it too long it appears no longer true … therefore Zen is like the thorn that is used to take out the thorn in the untrue.' Like so many Zen sayings either the reader understands it at once or not at all. But perhaps it may be said in other ways.

 

Innocence in children is an experience that is not yet named or titled as naturally true … but when the child encounters something strange they react to it … sometimes in protests and sometimes in mute silence.

 

Beyond the experience of children most adult experiences in the world today rely on a certain give-and-take attitude but even that does not absolve us from the patently untrue … in which case the passions plunge into the depths and the mind is in a state of aghast.

 

Each time a man figures he needs to do something about it, he is lifted on a wheel that goes round and round and when he's done … he'll probably say its something relative. But is there a social application for what we term as true in our affairs? That's a good question, isn't it?

 

In all the time that I gave my heart to the study of the issue … I came to understand two things. One … I was just fed up with giving the usual excuses and I wanted to know for myself … the way people say it … that it is relative … that everybody experiences his own truth … whether that is the case. Answer … Yes. The second thing I came to realize even half way through my studies is that I'll never be able to communicate it to someone else.

 

In the more than 400 essays, narratives, poetry and songs I have written to-date regarding the nature of human experience I realize that it relates to all manner of living experiences in the world. I have come to intuit a large part of the understanding of the world … and they are all true when I put it together to create a form of the early experience of man … its movement through the last 5,000 years … and what the personality may be today.

 

Last night I came to find out that an old friend of mine in the US had passed away. He was 80 years of age. In some way my writings were in relation to his boyhood charm and innocence. His spirit however will continue to live in the Americas. I figure he resembled the personality of the individual in the abstract at this time ... and he has now come to rest.