It's a problem, right? It's got to be, I don't know about you but as
for me I really want to see that whole complete shape. And all these small
things seem to get in the way, they catch your attention and take you away
from the big thing they're part of. To make matters worse, there are lots
of things that you can't even see to get in the way as well. Take the Boaters
Cafe for instance. There are tables and cushions and teacups and candles,
but what about the sound of the water pouring from pot to cup? Then there's
the warmth when we drink it up. And the gust of wind that slips past the
door when someone comes in. What about the smell of the cliental, the Pirates
and boaters, the riffraff of floaters who hang around telling their tales?
What is the sense and the point of their stories, the shape of their mores,
what are their feelings for eels and each other?
There's a whole lot of stuff going on all around, but even if you managed
to grasp every bit, each and every separate thing you can see or sense,
you still wouldn't see what the Cafe is. No matter how long a list you might
make, no matter how thorough you manage to be in describing each thing you
isolate, you still won't see the whole big shape. It's exactly the same
with the Territory. You're missing the most essential thing. The way things
relate in their small separate shapes, the structure of how they're contained
and move inside the big shape of the Territory is a thingless thing, an
emptiness, a hole in the whole of the shape that will fall right through
any list you might make. And that's too bad, it's the biggest clue as to
what you must do to be aware of the Territory. It gives you the curve or
the verve of the shape.
And the Territory is always changing, adjusting itself to flow on through
each moment appropriately. That big shape, it doesn't stay the same, or
maybe it does in a bigger big way, but anyway however you say it, it spins
and it turns and it moves. And all those small shapes that you manage to
see in a separate way, they move and change too in the Territory wind. Kind
of hard to explain but we just had a view a few moments ago when the Pirates
went out through the door. Now maybe the Pirates didn't see it that way,
maybe they thought they had places to go, plunder to plund or some rum balls
to gum. But actually it was the Territory just spinning its shape and changing
the emphasis. Those Pirates don't know this, or maybe they do, but really
how could they have someplace else to go, they're always right there in
the Territory.
That's probably because they aren't just themselves. It works that way
in the Territory. Any one thing that you seem to see as having a separate
identity, like objects for instance, or Pirates or seals, they aren't separate
things at all you know, they're a point of view of that larger shape of
the Territory. In other words, even though you think you see all these different
things, what you're seeing really is the Territory expressing itself in
many different ways.
This might sound like a rather odd idea, I mean if you look around the
Boaters Cafe, there are cushions and tables and teacups and candles and
they occupy space, don't they? Not really, not from the point of view of
the Territory, from the Territory's point of view there is no table here
at all. This table here is really just the Territory expressing itself as
a place to sit, as an opportunity for you and me to be together. You (as
yourself) are mistakenly isolating this table here by seeing it as a separate
thing.
What a problem, it's hard to get past. All these things that you think you see aren't there at all, you just get attached to their shape and size and pretend they are separate. That's not the worst thing, the worst thing is this: you do the same thing with you. You think you are something separate too, when all you can ever be actually is an aspect of the Territory just like everything else. And one of the reasons you can't ever see the whole big shape of the Territory is because you are right inside it yourself. You have to look through the Territory in order to see the Territory, you have to use the Territory itself as a medium of seeing. Because of this your seeing becomes totally subjective, things look the way they do because of the place you occupy in the Territory. And moving around within the Territory doesn't help much at all; even if you were in a different place within the Territory (if you were somebody else for instance), the Territory would just look a little bit different (but not like the whole Territory). In other words there is no place within the Territory from which to see the whole Territory. And because you are not separate from the Territory, there is no way to get yourself out of the Territory.