Oh Shariputra

On the train tonight, I was reading the book I have been reading for the 102 days (1 page per day) on John Cage and Zen Buddhism. I was trying to make sense of this semi-indecipherable section on the Heart Sutra and the Flower Sutra. The gist of it as expressed by Avalokiteshvara to his student Shariputra:

Oh Shariputra, form is no other than emptiness; emptiness no other than form. Form is exactly emptiness; emptiness exactly form. Sensation, conception, discrimination, awareness are likewise like this.

which leads to the mantra

Gone beyond [delusions]! Gone beyond [the ignorance of samsara]! Gone beyond! Gone to the other shore! Awakened!

And then the train came to a stop and the doors opened, and I soon as I got off,  I noticed that for the first time in my 115 days here, I had gotten off at the wrong station, one station beyond, and were it not the end of the line, who knows where I would have gone beyond that.

 

About The Lost Pedestrian

In my wanderings throughout the moments/days/years, I try in earnest to find the mystical within the mundane and the mundane within the mystical, oftentimes confusing one from the other. I have wandered and roamed through many a city, many a town, in a state of wonder and bewilderment, without necessarily going anywhere. I am easily lost, but eventually found. (I am guessing you have just found me). My sincere hope is that you will find Something in this warehouse of thought, memory and false memory, words, numbers, tangents, murmurs, echoes (lots and lots of echoes), voices, dreams, and other paraphernalia.
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