We were hiking down Ward Canyon, up in the mountains way away from anywhere. There is no particular trail so we were just meandering down the creek, taking in the Arizona monsoon green, the erosion damage, the wildflowers and whatnot. And the three of us were bantering back and forth about the Mexican Generals crossing the road the day before. Not guys in uniforms with medals and decorations south of the border, but mega grasshoppers whose sleek and decorative bodies crunched under our tires.

Jesse mused, “What have they got to do? They just get born, hang out, and then they die.” I replied, “Well, that’s kind of not so different from us, really.”

You had to be there. Some pauses are bigger than others. This was a big pause – a pause that invited Silence, the kind of silence that erases the pettiness of our ambitions, our pretensions, our joys and our woes – the kind of silence that reveals Presence, the presence that underlies and penetrates all of life, erasing the birth/life/death boundaries, the kind that makes it all whole, of a piece. You had to be there.

And then the banter and the meandering continued, along with the burbling of the creek, and the Silence, everything in fullness. Brimming.

See here a Mexican General, aka Horse Lubber, musing on human life.

Pratyabhijñahrydayam, The Heart of Recognition, verse 3: Consciousness diversifies itself into the many who interchangeably play the roles of objects and subjects.