Punctum Saliens

Eckhart Tolle talks about the stillness of a tree and says that what recognizes that stillness is the still part of me (see my post here). My suggestion is to not go into the meadow or the mountains to find the stillness in a tree but into the city. A tree is out of place in the midst of concrete, asphalt, cigarette smoke, carbon monoxide, blaring music, and Big Mac wrappers. But that is the point. That tree is still a tree. It still drinks water from the ground, collects sunlight with its leaves, produces flowers and drops its leaves. It does all those “tree things” despite being in a strange and oftentimes hostile environment. It is not perturbed when acid rain falls on it’s branches or a distracted driver slams into it or someone nails a flyer to its trunk. It doesn’t say, “How am I supposed to produce flowers under these conditions? This is ridiculous! I’m going to wait until a better time.” No, it goes on producing flowers. It goes on despite the distractions. That tree in the city is just as beautiful, just as majestic, just as still as the tree sitting on the quaint hill in the quaint meadow. And that is its stillness—the attitude that it doesn’t matter where, when, or under what circumstances it finds itself, it’s just going to go on being a tree.