13. No-Thingness
In an obscure Sufi parable, a grand court banquet is taking place. Those attending are seated according to rank. All are awaiting the entry of the King. Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, a broken down, homeless man enters and and takes the seat above everyone else. His audacity angers the prime minister who orders the interloper to identify himself. “Are you a minister?” “No. Higher.” “Are you the King?” “No. Higher.” “Are you God?” demands the prime minister. “I am above that also,” replied the poor man. “There is nothing beyond God,” exclaimed the prime minister. “Yes, exactly. I am no-thing.”
We're back at square one.
Many of us didn't actually know resonance (either holding or potential space) at the level we most needed it when we were building our definition of "reality."
The questions we need to ask: Can we change? Can we find AND now? Is it too late to know being-with?
guysfromandromeda.com
Here's where the best hint I know begins: AND isn't to be found in the ways we're used to finding something. Because AND isn't a thing. Rather, it's the hidden-in-plain-sight, dark matter, unseen background being-with that is always present. For everything and everyone.
AND holds galaxies, atoms, and everything in between.
AND holds each of us, whether we know it or not.
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eightysevenminutes
When Piglet says "nothing," Piglet is naming the unrecognized, yet always present background, the AND that, once recognized, becomes holding personified.
Each something is a celebration of the no-thing that supports it.
— John Cage
AND isn't a thing. AND holds all things. AND is resonance-between-things.
When Piglet says "nothing" he is saying "no-thing." Piglet is saying, "What I most need is no-thingness. I need not-thing-ness. I need the AND-that-holds; resonance. I need the non-thingness at the heart of all things shared with you."
Moments of meeting. Moments of trust. Hidden-in-plain-sight.
babyblog.com
Out of no-thingness, holding and newness continually arise. As Meister Eckhart said 800 years ago: "There exists in the present instant, a now which, without end, is ever new." Presence is synonymous with emergence. AND is being born now.
And now.
And now.
Melancholy by Albert Gyorgy
No-thingness is actually the opposite of our procedural experience of "nothingness." Those of us who are afraid (or certain) that we live in a universe of random nothingness are actually reliving and describing the vacancy of our learned absence. This is memory now masquerading as "reality."
Said another way, our experience of nothing happening/no being-with when we were young continues to shape our worldview until we are open to seeing it as an early imprint that can be named and updated.
And always (hidden in plain sight) no-thingness remains vital, continually renewing, and filled with tenderness.
Being-with is never some-thing. It's the utterly obvious but all-too-often unrecognized resonance of between-ness. Space that appeared empty remains space, yet it is now (and now and now) activated, alive, new... with shared presence.
eightysevenminutes
Whenever we open to AND, we experience presence. Whenever we deny AND, we reconfirm absence.
The following brief commercial for SAS Airlines (yes, it is a commercial) invites us into AND, the only realm that ultimately matters. It is mystery beyond all control, ownership or dogma. It is pure gift, our birthright, the home we return to each moment we love.
[Click Image to Watch]
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Scandinavian Airlines via Good Ads Matter on YouTube
This may be what poet Mary Oliver means when she speaks of our finally being able to "hear the music with nothing playing."