But for the woodpecker
tapping at a post, no sound
at all in the house. (Basho)
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We all have heard the woodpecker tapping, tapping…and the house must be very quiet to hear that tapping outside. But what is the house here? No thoughts in the house either. Thought are sound. Sound is movement. Thoughts are mind sounds. So now we are really quiet. All that exists is the woodpecker’s tapping. And even that is not a woodpecker, not something with a name because that naming is also a sound in the house. There is no “Oh, that’s a woodpecker.” There is not even the poet in the house, because the idea that I’m in the house is also a sound in the house. But for the tapping, tapping…there is nothing or no one there. This is Zen.
There is a shift from awareness-of the wood pecker as an object to awareness-as the woodpecker. There is a shift from awareness of the woodpecker to awareness-as the sound of the tapping. Awareness has shifted from objective to subjective, and subjective awareness has no boundary, a house without an IT. Only Now exists.