“The map is not the territory”. – Alfred Korzybski, 1931
“There never was a Bodhi Tree,
Nor bright mirror standing,
Fundamentally, not one thing exists,
So where is the dust to cling
– Hui-Neng, 6th Patriarch of Zen
The road ahead
Awakened by the travellers
Strangely it too walks with them
Showing signs where to stop and relax
While the grass burns in the field
And the forests are on fire
Turning around the gyre
Seven steps at once
Choreographed the shaligram’s sacred epiphany
By the incantatory spell of the desert moon
The road is answered
By the travellers feet
Unspoken reading the unknown ways
By the movement of the stars
In a great space called the Supernal Void
It fashioned the desire of an endless toil
That gave existence an inscrutable will-force
So it can turn on its own head
Dissolve and create
Another road awakened by strangers
Unknown ecliptic or reclusive
Somewhere like the river
The road disappears into the ocean
Forever asleep and unborn
Only the footprints are a record
Of an illuminated passage of time called history
They too are washed away by the surge of a great wave
And stillness is the imperfection around the rim
And movement of toroidal lines constitute perfected thing
Seeing through the picture
The observer cannot see the territory on the map
The map is not the territory
Just a cry animated by the formless void
An activity by a conscious life-force
That utters something unintelligible
And vows to fulfill the prayer of a non-existent dream…
– J