Tabula Rasa
Tabula Rasa is the state of total erasure (“erasure” comes from lat. “rasa”), enabling a restart, often of memory, but it might also apply to a project, a program. I often find myself in the Tabula Rasa state, experiencing emptiness, experiencing the absence of an object in my inner vision, absence of a driving force propelling me in a set direction, absence of self as an experience distinct from what I take on from my surroundings.
And then a visual experience, the sight of a person’s face, the appearance of a sign, the experience of an incidence in the street, any of these will act to rally my mind into a state that is entirely different: a state that is unique, recognizable and owned by myself, to the extent that the “I” becomes re-constituted from the ashes, the state of all-conscious but ego-less being.
Thinking about it, I found a simile. Once, in North Carolina, I spent some time on the beach with my 10-year old daughter and her girl friend and her girl friend’s father. Night fell, and as we were walking on the wet sand of the beach each footstep left a phosphorescent footprint, from tine sea creatures that responded to pressure by emitting light.
So here in this simile: the empty mind is the community of all these little creatures hidden without purpose, listlessly in the wet sand, and the visual experience, or any sensual experience, is the footstep that touches and singles out, rallying and lighting up a small subset of the creatures, which enjoy the buzz tremendously and keep it going long after the triggering event.
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