Being

In your moment of finding a wormhole in time and space, reaching the far shore in an instant

Scripture

The dew hangs at the leaf’s tip, about to fall, not yet fallen.

The flying arrow does not move; being is in the instant, in the frame.

Light is in the dew’s belly; the cosmos is in the micro-distance.

Being is congealing, is suspending; being is cutting, is dwelling.

Not speed, not slowness—it is stopping that is nursing.

The dew being is not the dew; the eternal being is the dew.

Wenzi · On Being

You search everywhere for a switch that could make time dwell. Until you stop, hold your breath, and gaze at that dew-drop at the tip of the leaf, about to fall yet not fallen. The drop is full; sunlight passes through it, casting a small trembling spot of light on the leaf. The whole world seems suspended at this critical point of “about to fall, not yet fallen.” Time has “jammed” here.

You gaze at this drop of dew. Not at its shape—at this very state of “suspension” itself. A flying arrow, in some infinitely divided slice of time, is also “unmoving” (the flying arrow does not move). What you have caught is exactly this “instant,” this “frame” (being is in the instant, in the frame).

“Light is in the dew’s belly; the cosmos is in the micro-distance.” You focus your consciousness to the extreme: you see the light imprisoned in the round “belly” of the dew (light is in the dew’s belly). And “the cosmos” (time) is compressed into this minuscule “distance” (the cosmos is in the micro-distance). One sand, one world; one instant, one eternity.

“Being is congealing, is suspending; being is cutting, is dwelling.” You and the dew are together in “congealing” and “suspending” (being is congealing, is suspending). You are “cutting out” this instant with your consciousness (is cutting), and trying to make it “dwell” forever (is dwelling). You want to stop time.

“Not speed, not slowness—it is stopping that is nursing.” But soon you find: this instant moves you not because it is “fast” or “slow” (not speed, not slowness). It is because in this extreme “suspension” (it is stopping), time seems to be “nursing” something beyond time (that is nursing). Eternity is feeding this one instant.

“The dew being is not the dew; the eternal being is the dew.” At last you realize: the existence of this “dew-drop” (the dew being) is, in essence, no longer that physical drop of water (is not the dew). It is “eternity itself” (the eternal being), at this moment incarnating as “a drop of dew” to show itself (is the dew). Through gazing at the instant of one drop, you have touched eternity.

The wind rises; the drop falls at last, splashes on the soil, and vanishes.

But that “suspended instant” has not vanished.

It has withdrawn from outside, printed deep in your consciousness,

becoming an eternal coordinate you can return to at any time.

You are not the catcher of time—

you are that timeless “instant” itself,

manifested by the drop of dew.

Being-Instant: you are not the one snapping a shot—you are that frozen instant itself, the ripple eternity specially freezes for you in the river of time.