Whatever You Say, Say Nothing

I really wanted to call this post "The orange assassin" but had a vaguely uncomfortable feeling that that particular title could hold sectarian overtones….!!  It’s the subject of a dream I had a few nights ago that I’ve been reflecting on a bit.  In this dream, I was in a building with many rooms - like a hotel - and was being pursued by a hit man, an assassin.  He was standing very close to me and was somehow blurred and misty and the only characteristic I could really make out was a sort of glowing orange hue.  I wanted him to just kill me and get it over with (he had a gun) but he gently refused and, putting his arms around me, told me that I had to enjoy the rest of the evening before it all ended.  I felt frightened but also strangely excited.  I knew I had to enjoy every moment, that I couldn’t just hurry the end along.  The assassin was very gentle but there was absolutely no question of escape.  The dream was in contrast to another dream I had months ago of being pursued by an assassin - in that case I was desperately trying to secure all the doors and windows to the house to keep him out, at the same time knowing it was futile.  That assassin was all in black and angular and very threatening and had a syringe as his means of dispatch. Mmmm…. publishing dreams feels strange when I don’t even know what they mean myself!  I think though the meaning is coming into focus more through reflecting on the first of the three laksanas (marks of conditioned existence) on this wabi sabi retreat.  This says that all things in samsara are impermanent (the other marks are unsatisfactoriness and insubstantiality).  Through really seeing and experiencing these marks, or characteristics, we can come to doorways to liberation.  So there could be 2 responses to the ultimate experience of impermanence which I guess is death - fear alone, or a realisation that everything is in the continuum of becoming and ending, and so the present moment is entirely meaningful in itself.  Perhaps these were the responses I was experiencing in dream 1 and dream 2…..

Well, resistance may indeed be futile, but I’m responding to autumn by looking for a holiday somewhere warm and bidding for a bikini on eBay. Impermanence may be unavoidable but you can’t help trying.