nothing more, nothing less

Human beings live by affixing the label of "meaning" to events and phenomena. Unconsciously, we assign value and read narratives into everything before us, into each and every event of our daily lives. But is the form we believe to be true really the world’s actual face? Is not most of it something that we humans have quietly added on ourselves?

A work of art is praised as "wonderful" because of the story or the artist's intention behind it. A landscape is spoken of as "beautiful" because it holds historical significance. But is that value truly inherent in the object or the landscape itself? Perhaps it is nothing more than us measuring the world with a very small ruler of our own making.

And so, we try to continually wander away from meaning. This is not to dismiss everything as hollow or void. Rather, it is like a small pilgrimage to touch upon the richness of meaninglessness—"the meaning of meaninglessness," so to speak.

As we walk this path, we notice something strange. When we dive deep within ourselves, there are moments when our perspective suddenly inverts, opening us up completely to the world outside. And the reverse also happens: when we simply quiet our minds and attune ourselves to the world before us, we are suddenly struck by the feeling of our own inner world bursting wide open.

At that moment, meaninglessness, stripped of the clothes of meaning, reveals its bare face.

A great wind blows, and the leaves of the trees turn over all at once, revealing their white bellies as they flutter.

A perspective of that single moment, where no one's intention, no knowledge or artifice, can intervene.

A phenomenon as it is—nothing more, nothing less.