Words Create Words, Reality Is Silent

Be careful.

The moment you start talking you create a verbal universe, a universe of words, ideas, concepts and abstractions, interwoven and interdependent, most wonderfully generating, supporting and explaining each other, and yet all without essence or substance, mere creations of the mind.

Words create words, reality is silent.

— Nisargadatta Maharaj

Billions and billions of words have been spoken and written to help guide people toward a state that can’t be described in words—enlightenment. Billions and billions of words have been spoken and written about upādāna—the Pali and Sanskrit word for the clinging and grasping that divert people from reaching enlightenment.

Getting lost in all those words is a prime example of upādāna. That’s true wherever we live and whatever our ethnicity, but for those of European ancestry who live in the West, we love our words and either/or logic. We want answers, not questions. We want the truth to be either this or that.

One prayer used in Vajrayana Buddhist practice expresses an aspiration to “precisely determine” the meaning of the teachings we practice. Another aspires for “confusion itself [to dawn] as primordial awareness.” By not choosing between the two, by accepting both aspirations, we gain experiential—not conceptual—learning and wisdom.

If that last sentence leaves you scratching your head, you’re not alone. It took me more than three decades of meditation and guidance from inspired teachers to begin to gain experiential wisdom. As one of my teachers, Lama Surya Das, has said:

The scarcest human resource is wisdom.

I began writing this post with a different destination in mind, but I realize now that fewer words are better, and this is a good time to begin a period of meditation. So, I’ve turned this into a podcast with guided meditation and periods of silence. In the broadcast industry, they call that dead air, but silence has a beautiful life.

So, please find a comfortable, quiet spot and relax in whatever position you prefer for meditation.

You might close your eyes and find your pure awareness. In a moment, I’ll ring the bell of mindfulness three times. See if you can listen each time from that place of pure awareness, listening until the sound fades...

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You can find the full From the Pure Land blog at melpine.substack.com