In this space I sit, surrounded by a mystery that penetrates every particle and creek of my being.
This mystery moves. If I look inside I see nothing. If I sense the space before my eyes, I find darkness. If I place my attention behind, I see nothing, a dark shadow. I feel the cold presence of the empty void behind me, pushing me, supporting me.
I notice the emptiness moving through my fingers. I hear the emptiness surrounding my words––words that pretend to have meaning but are carried away from me by this emptiness, the echoes of something unknown.
Even the being who says “I am”, implied in every sentence, the being that observes, that hears, that sees shadow and light, the being that says “I am” sits in the shadows between the worlds.
If I look within the source of attention, trying to find the I am, it retreats even further. When I think I’ve grappled the self, surrounding it in a craftily and carefully constructed web of meaning and concerns, saying “here I am,” the I am becomes smaller, more remote, more in shadow. I look for the I am not realizing that the one who searches is also the I am, forever retreating yet always at the center of every experience.
