Internal/External

A bird is singing in a tree. Where is the sound of the bird? In the tympanic membrane? Along the auditory nerves or behind my ears in the brain itself? Internal or external? Actually, the sound is neither in the bird nor in me, but rather in the total relationship. When there is total relationship, at the instant the division between the internal and external is not there. When there is sound it does not take time to hear the sound. There is just sound. When one sees anything, there is no time. here by “seeing” I do not mean just sensory input, although it certainly includes that. I am talking about the total relationship.

Does the response that comes with direct relationship take time? Time only enters when thought looks back at it. The seeing and the response are not separate. Only thought is trying to understand, which includes trying to recognize, separates perception from action. Newness can never be recognized. Only the old, the known, is recognizable. The seeing of challenge, which by its nature is new, and the response to it are not divided. They are one. Thought, which after the fact wants to explain the response, creates time by putting the explanation in casual terms. That is, it makes the challenge the cause, and the response the effect. When thought is analyzing totally mechanical events, it can be creative in explaining the sequences, but only in mechanistic terms. Seeing totally, which never occurs in time, has its own movement, which is in that moment choiceless. Of course the moment that comes from clarity can span a period of time. What I’m saying is that the awareness initiates that momentum. ~ Page 125