My Forest Koan

My forest koan:

an answer to my forest koan - that no tree ever falls without my presence near, somehow joined across land and shared sky, connected by unseen, deeper, roots. If a tree falls, there is only the sound of my own descent, my own crash to earth, all vibrations carried through stillness, reaching for ears, and yet there's just the listening, pure, undisturbed, and it's this that reveals my true connection to the world. 

nothing occurs without my participation. 

or perhaps a better answer to my forest koan, is that it's not my participation, but more truly, only participating, that right now the world hums with singular belonging, everything simply aspects of the whole.There is no real forest, no tree that can be found absent from earth, sky, and more subtle still from my own breath. Not one thing is ever separate from another, entwined by senses, we only see aspects of our own arrangement of particles, shifting to new designs, we hear our own falling, sounding as a tree, crashing to the ground of one existence. 

it's all one thing, unique, appearing as distinct, yet always just one thing. 

the classic koan is, if a tree falls in a forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? And my answer to this is - that I don't know, there is no forest without me, no tree falling on its own. There's only the sound of participating, of air lending itself to the vibrations of the fall, particles in a wave, and through all this, somehow too I belong. There's just the falling, and only thoughts of forest, of tree, and even of a witness, but nothing is present but the listening, pure and undisturbed. 

~

Peace, Eric