/lit/ - Literature

Clear your mind. Think of nothing.

A long exhaling of breath.

But behold! “Nothing” cannot be thought of, for Nothing is void, the absence of all thought. Thus, all thought reveals itself to possess being.

An extended, slow inhalation.

So, think of being, pure being. Avoid all determinacy of thought!

Another exhalation.

What is left my friend? What is this pure, indeterminate being? Can anything be said of it? Nothing? So, in truth, it is contentless — nothingness. So… “pure being” reveals itself to be the very “Nothing,” we had originally sought out.

Eyes closed, the young man shifted between poses as he inhaled. He stretched his arms overhead as he stood up on his left leg, extending out of a deep one-legged squat, his right leg held out straight before him. As he rose, his right foot moved up to meet his right hand until he was holding his leg out at full extension above his head. Sweat sloughed off the man, but his deep, rhythmic breaths betrayed no indication of exertion.

So, do you now think of Nothing?

The man's head turned upward on another long inhalation.

But how can thought, which “is,” be “of nothing,” which is not? So, the “nothing” we have grasped is not the true Nothing. Thus, this thought is not the true Thought we seek. Above this thought of “nothing,” below it, behind it, preceding it— there lies the true Nothing. Ain Zoph. The Darkness Above the Light. The Unground.

Fathom then, how your thought of “nothing” inevitably collapses into pure, abstract Being. But such Being is contentless, “of” northing, and so it collapses back into nothingness itself.

Slowly, the man released his right leg to the floor. Now he stood erect, legs together, hands held up above his head, head slightly upturned.

Nothing begets Being and Being begets Nothing. The “what is” of the present continually passes away into the “what has been” of the past. Being? Nothing? Both continually give way to —give birth to — our world of Becoming.

The man is perfectly still now, eyes shut tight.

But behind all things, there is the true Nothing, the Unground, the Darkness Above the Light. From this silent potentiality issues Becoming, the Ground of all that is. This Ground then, is the First Principle, the Father of All Things.

The man’s eyes snap open. His cell is small. He stands in the middle of the stone room, facing away from the iron grate door. A lone small window, set high in the wall, casts its light down around him. Through the window he can see only the unbroken brightness of the cerulean desert sky. His eyes immediately focus on a lone mote of dust, floating in the cone of the window’s light.

But why should the Ground beget one thing and not another? What shackles the torrent of possibilities that might break forth from the Unground? What determines what becomes and what does not?