Swanwick Star Issue No. 9 (2016)
The Bird on the Verandah
CS – Let’s talk about the possibility of stepping out of time and how the need for physical space fits into it.
AA – It is a very seductive notion explored by many others before including the New Romantics etc. etc.
CS – It seems that the ending of psychological time is the ending of all our problems.
AA – Be careful – K. has not clearly delineated the difference between psychological and chronological time. The whole concept is rather cumbersome: we exist in time after all!
D.T. Suzuki has said something useful – There is no infinitude except in finite things.
CS – Yes, we live in a world of finite things and our minds are filled with finite thoughts.
To find space within that frame…
I guess “stepping out of time” is a cliche, then. Let us look at the whole thing afresh.
I will only talk from my own experience.
The mind is not very quiet these days, not because it is pre-occupied with one particular thought but because thoughts flit in and out in a chaos; dreams reflect the same pattern. Perhaps, it has a lot of responsibilities at the moment.
YET, life does not seem to be limited by its activities.
AA – Is each instant not new? –
a giving up of the past,
a rediscovery of Awareness.
Is not limitation, or its perception,
a consequence of self-misunderstanding?
CS – …the inability to dissolve the imprisoning walls…
yet, silence is required for this to take place, a sense of limitless space.
It seems that Silence is the source of Self-Awareness;
it is a way of life born out of “aloneness”.
If there are always people and noise around, one cannot be alone.
AA – Yes, silence and quietude are essential to existence. There is a rhythm, a pattern that is peculiar to oneself. One has to listen to it and respect it.
CS – …without becoming a recluse, running away, suppression…
AA – Of course – there is always that danger.
There is a harmony in living, a balance.
CS – Yes, it is like a dance.
Silence feels just as comfortable as speech.
Company is just as comfortable as solitude.
The Tao is always at ease.
AA – Indeed, existence can be a series of jarring or incongruous events.
I am reminded of the walk down to the ocean at Swanwick:
how it starts in the pastoral scenery around the house,
passes through the darkness of the forest, and,
suddenly, emerges in the light upon the pebbly beach by the sea.
What a contrast!
CS – It has always struck me that way, too. Life is like that walk.
I guess what matters is one’s relationship to the challenges presented by it.
There is no Good or Evil:
Awareness is the only thing.
[These are personal impressions by Chanda Siddoo of her dialogues with Professor Allan W. Anderson, held in February 2010 and printed with his permission; in no way does CS purport that these are verbatim discussions, but only excerpts recalled after conversations in which she has tried to “pluck out” their essence from her notes taken during these talks. It shall be serialized in its entirety as a tribute to his life and work in the coming issues of The Swanwick Star. This is the third serial installment from a compilation called “The Bird in the Verandah”]
