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Sitting in this kayak
floating on the river, alone
no one knows
i'm here, raindrops falling
water quiet, dark, alive -
the mood i'm feeling
i'm not praying any gratefulness -
though i feel it -
not needed
feeling in love
not saying anything about it -
not needed
sweet
simplicity
silent solitude
loving yet not loving
anything specific -
here, the arms surround everything
here, without a there, resting in
the unspoken
no praying
no singing
no chanting
no rush to get to somewhere
no sense of the passing of time
this is enough
this naked moment
unclothed of moments
sanctuary from
the 'frenzy of topicality' -
here, depths
with and without water
a meaningless communion
no ritual, rite, scriptures, creed -
all Nature festive...
symbol of underlying currents to
the surfaces of day-to-day life
in places and times of being-with
this mood
no worship need be done
being-with
its own fullness
its own resplendence
is
so is enough... and
more
but, here, nothing about more
needs said...
just to rest-in-itself
and en-joy
*
We have moments of aliveness, of fullness. Being-with, being in-love. They remind us of the atmosphere natural to us. They pull bodies and minds forward into their grace, which is outside their reach.
We might not always feel this mood of our own true nature, but it is present. That is why we can return to it. Little in postmodernity encourages anything other than rushing and buying on the surfaces. How can spirit make sense in a transactional society?
Depth, which is being-with, is all that can satisfy, finally. Being is relational, so being-with is relational, yet topical togetherness lacks the nurturing undercurrents of Eros.
Haste is counter to such libidinal contemplation. Contemplation, which might be nurtured through some form of practice of silence, yet is more - the seeing into with wonder, the intimacy-with. Some have called this mood the gaze of love.
*
We need set-aside time daily to enter no-time, no-place, and enjoy being-with. The mental obstacles to this natural liveliness - we could call Eros - can be exposed to the silence. The silence is erotic, not in the sense of sexual, yet not bereft of that sense, either. That is, Eros is sensual; it does not deny the body as the channel of energies.
Through the healing, as the Light shines upon the veils separating the self from the depths of intimacy with the unspoken, this being-with, which is being being-in-communion, becomes progressively more the tenor of our everyday lives.
The mood of this contemplation can manifest as emotion. Yet, it is more than emotion. When it is non-emotional, one can feel into it, for it has its own richness of sensation.
Martin Heidegger termed this contemplation "pure resting-in-itself." In the "frenzy of topicality," a phrase by the philosopher Han Byung-Chul, there is no place or time for this kind of rest. To rest means a break from doing, not a rest-in-itself. In a capitalist culture, a vacation from work is a gap between a break from work and returning to work. People ask when meeting others, "What do you do?" - and that is not a question about being-with or relationship. This rest-in-itself is not from or to; it has nothing to do, but shines with its own luminance.
Byung-Chul, again: "Contemplation is opposed to production." Things will be done, but the contemplative mood is not a doer. This non-doing, as Zen Buddhists teach, can be integrated into a life where doing takes place. It is like having a quiet, still sanctuary with a loud, bustling city all around. Contemplation, or being-with, is not the opposite of action but is the source of the integration of action and non-action.
We practice this leaning-into, which leads to lingering-in, during meditation. We cease chasing pleasure, including higher states of consciousness, and discover this mood of in-depthness.
*
Some early Chinese Buddhist nuns used the word "cool" for this intimatic mood. For example, the nun Vimala, a prostitute who became a nun, ends one of her poems -
All ties are cut, whether divine or human,
I have thrown away all that fouls the heart,
I have become cool, free.
A nun, mother of a monastic known as Vaddha, and she called by others "Vaddha's mother," wrote, likewise of the Eros, when her son visited her following his ordination -
... cooled, tamed,
nothing oozing out from within, Vaddha.
Hence, Eros manifests in contemplation as a sense of coolness, rather than the passion, hurriedness, and stressfulness accompanying action lacking
contemplation.
Last, since contemplation is not an-accomplishing but a resting-in-itself, or resting-in-the-unspoken, this provides an important insight into spiritual practice. In spiritual practice, one can never rightly claim to have accomplished anything, and that is one reason many people turn such practices into supposed means of spiritual capital. Grasping is converted into spiritual practice. So, engage spiritual practice with the attitude: "In this, I will not achieve anything."
*
(C) brian wilcox, 2026
*Quotes. Heidegger and Han Byung-Chul. In Han Byung-Chul. Vita Contemplativa: In Praise of Inactivity. Chan Nuns. In Charles Hallisey. Poems of the First Buddhist Women: A Translation of the Therigatha.
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