Is it that. . .? Argh, this is some careful stepping I am attempting here. . . so have patience with me till it is time to strike, I am going to put up a target within my mind for the arrow in yours.

Is it that, we are all like so many leaves (objective consciousnesses) upon a tree (Yes THAT tree, the oak tree in the garden). And here we are, aware of being alive, but of being leaves. We do not comprehend the branches that connect us to the other leaves. Nay, in point of fact, we do not conceive of the great buddha-tree that connects all of us and IS US.

Foyan wrote about "turning around" to see clearly what is there, but all the leaves wish to do is seek rain and nutrients for succor and wind to make an impressive rustling with other leaves (I am guilty of this, just look at my indulgent postings). To turn around is to see the oak tree in the garden: a perfect metaphor for the continuity and connected-ness of life, but not just life but TRUE CONSCIOUSNESS between the inert and the material of the world voracious hungers of the un-inert (awkward phrasing, but I do not know how else to express our desires that gape like an open maw or yap). The tree balances the scales between these two realms synthesizing back and forth the flow of all things. Homeostasis is the buddha's modus operandi, no?

Daily, I am nothing but the leaf rustling against my companions. But I am turning to see. I turn so quickly sometimes I end up with only a glimpse and I'm right back into "leaf-mind". That is what the psychonauts with their drug fugues experience. The buddha does not see because the buddha knows himself to be the tree? All things rest within site? There is no need to turn from the 360-perspective?

Thank you for your time.