There is a certain irony that exists around the idea of writing blog articles exploring concepts that are inherently nameless. In some ways, by putting words to what I am trying to investigate and describe, I worry that I will get further away from what is actually there.

Let’s get really analytical about words for a minute here before diving below the icy crust of language. What is the point of a word? What even is a word? Words are the mind’s attempt to convey its concepts and ideas to other minds. When someone says or writes “cat”, assuming they have been instructed on what concepts that word relates to, it will bring up thoughts, feelings, and associations relating to cats. It will also bring these up in anyone that knows what “cat” means, allowing two people to ideally speak about a similar inner concept. Picking it apart to an extreme degree, the word “cat” on the page here is a combination of symbols that represent certain vibrations that a human voice can produce which represent mental concepts and associations representing an entity in the physical world. I say all of this to illustrate just how far away the word “cat” is from the actual manifestation of a cat in the world.

Now that all of our heads feel heavy and hurt a bit, let’s explore this in a different way. To me, words feel solid, crusty, and airy all at the same time. They exist to categorize and solidify a world that inherently has no lines, no borders, or boundaries. In some ways, they are the spells that attempt bind and constrain life itself. So let’s try melting the ice for just a moment here. Pick any object, and look at it. I was looking at a pen, and if you’re like me, your mind will try to name it. It might even have a story or twelve about it (“this is my pen and this pen was bought at X store and was Y dollars and is Z color and sometimes it writes a certain funny way and it still has a lot of ink and I like this pen better than the others and…”) What exists below the story though? Just be with the object, not throwing the stories out of the window, but watching them arise and seeing what comes up underneath or between them. Again if you’re like me, your mind might try to tell stories about this space too (“well this is the emptiness of existence, this is where peace lies…”) Let’s let those be as well. Go deeper here, just for a few seconds. Feel and see, before words, and before labels, and before thoughts, and before images, and before even concepts, what is there.

And at this moment, words fail to really convey what’s there. I invite anyone reading here in this space to just breath and be in it for a moment. This is where life is. This is the flowing ocean of existence that lies beneath our concepts, judgements, and labels. Nothing here is right or wrong, good or bad, it all just is. There is no wrong way to be here. There is nothing to do.

Just breathe. And be.

Let’s come back up now, remembering that this place can always be returned to. I have a confession: when I started writing this I was trying to understand what the point of writing at all was. Why not just sit in silence and be with existence? A blog that discusses the nameless would just be a website with nothing in it, and that feels like a bit of a waste of my WordPress subscription. But this was all a reminder for me: that’s not what I’m here to do. There is a creative space that exists when we marry our mind’s crusty words to the flowing sands of existence. That is where we’re heading, and what we’re exploring. Better put, that is what is being received, because it is not a matter of breaking out the microscope to examine the molecules of the heart. It is not about taking a scalpel to it so that we can name and label every cubic micrometer. It’s a matter of allowing our antennae raise up and receive the signals that life’s been sending all along, and let our mind do their best to shape those messages into words that point to life itself, life beyond words.

So yes, there is a certain irony and paradox writing about the nameless. But, a paradox is exactly what’s needed here. One more dissection: the word “paradox” comes from ancient Greek: “para” meaning “beyond”, and “doxa” meaning “expectation”, “opinion”, or “judgement”. So, a paradox speaks to what lies beyond judgement. And that’s exactly where this path is heading.