On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious

by Douglas E. Harding

The reality behind all appearances is lucid, open, and altogether accessible. I know my way in and out of the secret inmost heart of every creature, however remote or repulsive it might seem to the outsider, because we all are one Body, and that Body is one Void. And that Void is this void, complete and indivisible, not shared out or split up into mine and yours and theirs, but all of it present here and now. This very spot, this observation-post of mine, this particular “hole where a head should have been” - this is the Ground and Receptacle of all existence, the one Source of all that appears (when projected “over there”) as the physical or phenomenal world, the one infinitely fertile Womb from which all creatures are born and into which they all return. It is absolutely Nothing, yet all things; the only Reality, yet an absentee. It is my Self. There is nothing else whatever. I am everyone and no-one, and Alone.