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I once had a boyfriend who wrote koans, quoted Ram Dass, and read the entire “Be Here Now” to me, backwards.
I met him in a coffee house while ordering lapsang soushong. He was impressed that I liked the smoky flavor since, to his experience, most Westerns avoided it. I loved his curly hair, the way his eyes seemed a bit sleepy, and the crookedness of his bottom teeth that only showed when he laughed really hard.
He loved everything Eastern and chose Zen as his pathway to Nirvana. Late into the evening, before curfew, this striking and immensely wise man of 19 taught a high-school sophomore many things, exotic, rousing facts that made me into a moony inward-gazing scarab.
He once mentioned something, another riddle, about trees and forests. It went something like this: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it may any sound?
I found out the answer to this last Wednesday. My nephew and I were in my house. I was in the kitchen sanding some art boards and he was in the basement applying copper wire to a crystal.
When I walked into my studio as always I looked out the big picture window but something was amiss. The view was unsettling, some thing was misplaced or moved or I had been zapped to a new location. In just a few seconds I realized a 20’ mulberry tree that once stood tall and straight, had toppled over.
And it had made no sound whatsoever.
I walked outside and my neighbor was getting his mail. I asked him if he had heard the tree. He said he heard a small branch snap, not one on the mulberry, one on the neighboring white pine.
Amazing.
He works at a golf course and said that a tree fell right before him and made no sound either.
So maybe trees just turn into ghosts when they are done and the only time you would actually here a sound is if they strike something else such as another tree or a house or a person and it doesn’t matter if anyone is around to hear it. It’s mute.
So Emerson if I knew where you were I would call you and enlighten you and thank you for the many ways you enlightened me. Or perhaps you will read this and see the answer.
Wait. I recall you saying that the answer isn’t important, the pondering, the opening the door of perception is what is key…
So nevermind. Go back to sitting zazen.
