Pan Parade

Verse 1 You say there is a self. Point to it. Where does it sit? In the chest? Behind the eyes? Show me the place of it. You say it is the thinker. Then catch the thinker thinking. The catching is more thinking, and the thinker keeps on slinking Behind the next thought, and the next, and the next. You never find him. You find only finding, and the finder is behind him, And the behind is a thought, and the thought is in the same Field as everything else you ever called by your own name. There is no thinker. There is thinking. And thinking is not yours. It arises. It departs. It opens and it closes doors That were never doors. There is no one on the other side. There is no other side. There is no inside or outside. Verse 2 You say you are aware. Be aware of the aware. You cannot. The awareness cannot turn and find it there Because the turning is awareness, and the finding is the same Movement looking for itself and calling itself a name. The eye does not see the eye. The knife does not cut the knife. You are not a thing that has awareness. You are not a life That contains it like a vessel. You are not behind it watching. You are not in front receiving. You are not the one approaching From any angle, because angles need a someone to have angles from, And the someone you keep looking for is where the looking’s coming from And going to and made of. There is no someone. Look. Not as an idea. Look. The looking is the hook. Verse 3 You say: fine, no self, no someone, just pure awareness then. Pure. Untouched. Unborn. The witness without end. But pure is a description. Untouched is a claim. Unborn is a word. Witness is a name. And every name requires a namer, and the namer is the trick — The self has put on robes and called itself the candlewick Instead of the flame, the flame instead of the air, The air instead of the space, the space instead of the where That space appears in. Each refinement is the same Movement wearing finer cloth and answering to a finer name. You will not escape by going subtler. The subtle is the snare Most carefully laid, because it looks the most like nowhere. Verse 4 You say: then I will stop. I will sit. I will be still. The sitter is the self. The stillness is the will Of the self to be still, which is motion in disguise. The one who keeps the silence is the noise that never dies. You cannot stop. Stopping is a thing the self performs To itself, for itself, in the weather of its own storms. There is no method. Every method has a doer. There is no path. Every path has a goer. There is no practice. Every practice has a one Who practices, and waits, and measures what’s been done, And compares today to yesterday, and grades, and grasps, and grieves — And the grader and the grieved are the very thing that weaves The cloth that you keep trying to take off. The taking off is cloth. Verse 5 Whatever you have found is already the finding. Whatever you have grasped is already the binding. Whatever you have understood is already the wall. The understanding stands between you and no wall at all. And the no-wall is not nothing. And the nothing is not empty. And the empty is not full. And the full is not plenty. Every word arrives too late. Every word arrives instead Of what it points to. Every pointing is the pointing’s own dead End, because the finger and the moon and the looking and the look Are one movement, one undivided, and the page and the book And the reader and the read and the reading and the read Are not a chain of separate things. There is no chain. No thread. Verse 6 There is no path because there is nowhere else to go. There is nowhere else to go because there is no one to know A here from a there, a now from a then, a this from a that. The knower is the known. The sitter is the seat is the sat. The breath is not yours. The body is not yours. The mind Is not yours. The not-yours is not yours. You will not find A ground beneath the ground beneath the ground. The grounding Is the same activity that made the ground. The sounding Of the depths is the depths. There is no bottom to descend to Because there is no descender, and no top to ascend to, And the ascending and descending are one movement, one whole, And the whole is not a whole because there is no part to make it whole. Verse 7 And the one who has been listening to all of this — is what? Is where? Is when? You cannot answer. Do not. Do not Reach for an answer. The reaching is the one you keep Trying to find. The reaching is what does not sleep. Let the question stand. Let it stand without a stander. Let it stand without a standing. Let the stander and the candor Of the standing both fall through. There is nothing to fall through to. There is nothing not to fall through to. There is no through. No you. No no-you. No both. No neither. No either. No or. No door that is not a door. No floor that is not a floor. No