Shifting Sensation Dissolves To Stillness

Nagasawa Rosetsu

SIITING IN ZA (at rest) or in the midst of the everyday, there is this enduring, shifting flow of thought, moments, weathers, mountains, continents, planets, moons, stars, galaxies, atoms, aging, breath, sounds, remembrances of phrases of sutras, scientific data, daydreams,

and in all of it , a cognitive understanding of a sense of nothing to which dust can reliantly

cling, and therefore nothing to which to attach to—all affirming Siddhartha’s disturbing, 

albeit comforting dictum that change is a constancy.

With realization, suddenly, there is stillness in all this change.

There is this direct experience of one thing in all of this shifting sensation.

With realization of just one thing, stillness emoting calmness, tranquility, serenity, eloquence, grace.

In Buddhist lore, in morning star, What does Siddhartha directly see that passes through the gate of shifting sensation?

Not buddhas, not oneness, not emptiness—all shifting things--

Something very direct, very intimate, very simple.