Grasping at life

From no place,
         in time and space
A heart burst forth in full embrace
And we collect it all within our minds,
         repeating this story with written lines

But when we collect,
         do we purely project?
A babe falls and we catch her
Grasping at life,
         what would you prefer?

A flowing presence,
         reveals a quiet pleasance
Oh little bird, you’ve left your nest
Your song sows no doubt,
         there’s no place for rest!

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Image credit: Southern brown-throated weaver (Ploceus xanthopterus castaneigula) male building nest, Divundu, Namibia (2018), Charles J. Sharp.

Inspirations:
From Inside Vasubandhu’s Yogacara: A Practitioner’s Guide by Ben Connelly:

By conceiving what you put before you to be projection only,
you do not rest in just this. ||27||
When consciousness does not perceive any object, then it rests in projection only;
When there is nothing to grasp, there is no grasping. ||28||

From Book of Serenity, translated by Thomas Cleary.
Case 100: Langya’s “Mountains and Rivers”:

A monk asked Master Langya Jiao, “Purity is originally so – how does it suddenly produce mountains, rivers, and the great earth?” Langya said, “Purity is originally so – how does it suddenly produce mountains, rivers, and the great earth?”