Looking at the Looker
A jade bangle embellishes my left wrist, the stone cool at all times against my skin, with one exception being in the sauna, when the jade warms up. A jadeite jade that, off my wrist, fits only three of my fingers, put on me once with force, and it stays on until otherwise moved. A part of me now, I will have surgery with it on, cook with it on, always have it on. The curved line that marks my skin when the bracelet is far up my arm. I believe like many Vietnamese that should my bangle break, it will have prevented me from a terrible accident happening, and broke therefore instead. I believe in luck, in fate, in Duyên. I believe in beliefs holding weight when people collectively believe in it. If you think it's real, is that not real?
Is it truly magic, or alchemy? Is it truly happening outside of you, to you? Or are you summoning it within yourself naturally? The meeting may be fated, but the conditions that made awareness possible to one another could have been chosen.
Don't steal when someone's watching, or just don't steal because you know you could be caught? Am I behaving because it's intrinsic, or am I guarding myself, on the collective's behalf? And what would happen if I stopped guarding? Perhaps I would live my life day to day, do what I please, be that lounging around the living room, or chain smoking 40 cigarettes or rave every weekend for a year. Is that what I would do? How about the life I'm already living? Why anything at all? So why not what you want? Extend a branch into the void and you might just get a tug back.
If I criticise myself then have I guaranteed not getting hurt when others critique me? My custom built prison was built for me, and it's all volunteers working here.
Only coincidence speaks to us, said Milan Kundera. The Year of the Tiger will recognise and draw even closer to another Tiger, believing even more in the fate that has brought them together. I know two such Tigers, twelve years apart, both born under Sagittarius. Could fate ring more true?
Walkers of the same street, yet two entirely different worlds constructed from it. Skin feeling hot from proximity, yet not touching. I know they are looking and they know I am. One does not feel connection all alone. A challenge we saw each other as, and the push and pull of the heat was heavenly.
The web that caught the prey also missed everything outside of its net. I can't be bike focused without being entirely car ignorant. Eventually the gaze turns inward and you try to look out for the looker. Where is this I? Why do I believe it is located inside the silhouette of my body, behind my eyes, or inside my heart?
To notice something is also to miss something else. A mirror without an angle, only the angle you see.
Where is the looker? Who's looking at the looker?
I'm checking myself in the mirror every time I am alone, so that I can be ready for the external looker.
Beneath the turmoil of gazing, and being gazed at, there is a stillness that no turbulence can touch. The mighty, ultimate I, that just is. The one that hears the insult, guards itself, feels the fall and the break, and is still. Is equanimous, non-reactive, because the ego has dissolved in that dream, and all is looking. No looker at all.