(continuation)Most of the thresholds and liminal spaces we encounter in our mundane lives are physical entities like gates, doorways and windows, but there are times when these irresistably beckoning places are invisible to the eye and intangible — liminal or interstitial moments rather than places, tiny "aways" which allow us to transcend ordinary life for a brief intense interval and go somewhere else entirely for a while. Such intervals are certainly not physical entities, and they possess no mass or shape whatsoever, but when they appear, they have a presence so vibrant and luminous that they seem real — we feel as though we could walk right into them and strike out for other worlds and great adventures. Anyone who has ever been carried away entirely by the memory of an old tree, a rock, a gentle summer breeze or a Showy Lady's Slipper blooming in a sunny bog knows that sort of liminal feeling very well.
For students of Buddhism, particularly Zen, doorways, gates, thresholds and liminal spaces are powerful symbols and metaphors for mindful living and the plane of earthly existence. Buddhist literature contains an abundance of references to such places and reams of commentaries on them. There is an old teaching tale about a Buddhist monk who became weary of mundane life and walked right into the painting hanging on the wall of his cell. Thereafter the monk was occasionally glimpsed moving about within the picture, but his brother monks never encountered him on this plane of existence again.
In Buddhist practice, anything at all may become a doorway or gate, and beyond each and every one, enlightenment and the Buddha are waiting to be discovered. Through the simple act of entering a doorway or stepping onto a threshold, one acknowledges and makes a commitment to something which is at the same time smaller and greater than the self. One contemplates the intrinsic nature of the threshold, the random thoughts which form there and are held within the space, those who travelled the path before us and came to this place and those who are yet to come. When one is thinking kindly of other beings, doorways and thresholds become gates of compassion and realms of Tara.
(to be continued somewhere up the trail)
2 comments:
I am fascinated by thresholds. I love doors and gates and that place just after you walk up the rise of a hill. It's just as you say. They are liminal places. And I love the story of going into the painting. That's one of the theories of what happens to the Old Mermaids—that they walk into the beautiful artwork that's painted on the walls of their beautiful home. Thanks for the lovely piece and photo, my friend.
I've been fascinated by the concept of liminality since I was introduced to Turner in grad school. Liminal places -- how seductive, how frightening.
I didn't know that Buddhism incorporates liminality. I'll need to check that out, carefully.
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