Wealth

I love to fall into the groundless. It is the greatest leap, the deepest adventure. Yet it can happen at any moment, wherever you are, when you let the mind dissolve into the vast space of the heart.

Only in that moment
when I have nothing,
want nothing,
become no-thing,
can I comprehend how
rich I Am,
how Being overflows
the edge of every cup,
and each breath kisses
the shores of this body
with a tidal wave
of grace.
O friend, true abundance
is to drown
in who you are.
_____________


Painting: JMR Turner, 'Seascape with Sea Monster,' 1845. I admire this painting because, like most of Turner, it is at once realistic seascape and mystical expressionism. The 'monster of the deep' in the ancient Near East was 'Behemoth,' a name derived from the Sumerian as the Hebrew word 'Bohu.' This terrifying abyss, with is suggestion of the ancient beast, appears in the very first verses of the Bible as Tohu wa' Bohu: 'formless and void.' 'Tohu' also derives from the ancient Babylonian monster of chaos, named 'Tiamet.' So one who has the courage to enter the darkness of the void may first feel it as monstrous chaos, the realm of death and the Un-created. But as we continue to meditate we see that this ocean of no-thing, prior to creation, is the voluptuous titanic bliss of consciousness itself, prior to thought. 'Conquering' the dragon, one's heart possesses the vast immoveable jewel of sparkling formlessness.