The groundless ground springs forth.
There is “breakthrough practice” and self-study “present moment experience” practice. Tending the garden of now. Or knocking through the walls of the house, tearing it down.
It would be nice to think both kinds of practice lead to the same place, to some mythic land of redemption. Heaven, nirvana, enlightenment. And it’s true that there is only one place, one time – here and now – so in that sense they can only lead to the same place. And when we land here and now, and unfreighted, untrammeled, unconditioned, what a sweet return it is. And at the same time what a birth. The groundless ground springs forth.
The beginning of everything. The end of everything. No grass for 10,000 miles, as one master put it. Nothing but lovely grass as far as the eye can see, wherever the eye may look.
The eternal spring, beyond yin and yang, where “hundreds of partridges chirp among fragrant blossoms.”
Yet let’s not set up a knowing of what it is we’re seeking. Let’s not set up any knowing at all. How about instead letting go of all knowing, all distinctions? Instead why not just do our practice, just as we are asked to do?