“Why, oh my feeling heart
do you live and die?
What makes my feeling heart
now to laugh and to cry?
Death is my life indeed,
I live when I die.
Pain is my pleasure, when
I laugh then I cry.”
The sage speaks to his heart. Who planted you in my breast? What a strange amphibian you are—half angel, half animal, and all paradox! You are always hunting for form in the void, and for the void in form. Desire is your law and your way, but at the very brink of consummation a gulf of separation gapes in your core. Then, just as bewilderingly, in the depths of exile you sip the cup of union.
The heart answers. Your language lacks the words I need. My speech is entirely tears and sighs and drifts of melody. “Life” and “death” make no sense to me—which is which? Nothing ever began and nothing will ever end. All is one thing, endless and splendorous beyond reckoning even when clothed in the meanest of rags. Knowing is feeling, and feeling is the pulsing ebb and flow of the ancient juice. Would you rather be a stone?