Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- A place to start, setting the scene... -- Mysticism, language and experience -- To the reader -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- The book as a narrative of open-ended enquiry -- Brief outline -- PART I - mysticism -- Introduction - what is mysticism? -- Being here -- Observation I - mist and clouds -- Martin Heidegger, Thomas Merton and Meister Eckhart -- Thomas Merton, thinking back on a busy day -- Being as process: John Dewey -- Mysticism: "this unravelling inkling" -- Jacob Boehme - the Signatura Rerum and being open to God -- Observation II - between table and stone -- Contemplative prayer - "listening in silence" -- T.S. Eliot, poetry and prayer -- Poetry, listening, praying -- Attending to what is here - Charles Tomlinson -- Nameless, limitless and beyond distinction -- Observation III - under the yew tree -- Saying and unsaying - apophatic and kataphatic traditions -- The "Cloud of Unknowing" - forgetting the self -- The many modes of silence -- Saint Teresa: the absurdity and necessity of writing -- Not knowing what to say -- Another perspective on mysticism and God: Baruch Spinoza -- Observation IV - intermingling -- Thomas Merton and Sufism -- Silhouette: Thomas Traherne -- PART II - mysticism, language and postmodernism -- Introduction -- Don Cupitt - "a mysticism of secondariness" -- Mysticism, Meister Eckhart, Jacques Derrida and différance -- Barthes, silence and the "speakerly church" -- Positive absence -- R.S. Thomas, presence and absence -- Poetry as bone, beyond understanding -- Stepping around the self - Simone Weil -- Observation V - being here -- Silhouette: Martin Buber -- PART III - scepticism -- Introduction - what is scepticism? -- Scepticism and dogmatism -- Sceptical dialectics -- Observation VI - the shower -- Sceptical enquiry.

Dynamic equanimity and non-attachment to dogmas -- Observation VII - learning from the lizard -- David Hume's "mitigated scepticism" -- "Skeptical fideism" -- Michel de Montaigne, scepticism and God -- Samuel Beckett -- Samuel Johnson's approach to religion -- PART IV - Buddhism and Daoism: sceptical mysticism -- Introduction -- Sunyata - "absence of self-existence" or "mutual dependency" -- Zen master Dogen and the mutuality of existence -- Observation VIII - a question of give and take -- Sitting and showing: Dogen and body-mind -- Observation IX - starlings -- Awakening to living - mindfulness and self-construction -- Returning to Montaigne - on being awake -- No matter -- Dogen and language as action -- The use of koans -- Hakuin's dialectics of doubt -- Buddhism - a sceptical analysis of self -- Another view of Buddhist scepticism -- Calculation, meditation and unknowing - Stephen Batchelor -- Zen and "everyday mind" -- Watching the fishes in the stream -- Daoism, impermanence, process and relativity -- Observation X - throwing stones in the pool -- Interweaving: scepticism, mysticism and equanimity -- PART V - the contrarium: a dialectical seesaw -- Introduction - the contrarium -- Observation XI - balancing in the park -- Barthes' The Neutral -- Adorno's negative dialectics -- Leonardo da Vinci's sfumato -- Observation XII - owl & stars -- Samuel Beckett: "I take no sides" -- Observation XIII - magpies -- Syadvada - the "maybe-so" doctrine -- Observation XIV - waves and ocean -- G.K. Chesterton, paradox and surprise -- Silhouette: John Bunyan -- PART VI - living with uncertainty: art and its making -- Introduction -- Living with uncertainty -- Artists and poets as agents of uncertainty -- Showing rather than telling -- Marina Abramovic -- Jannis Kounellis -- John Cage - waking-up: self-construction rather than self-expression -- Bill Viola.

Antonio López Garcia -- Ad Reinhardt -- Martin Creed -- Charles Wright -- W.S. Merwin and August Kleinzahler -- Arvo Pärt and John Cage - a bell sounded and a piano prepared -- Art and not-knowing -- PART VII - a drawing together -- Drawing together -- Coda Zazen practice - a personal history -- Triptych -- Bibliography -- Index -- Illustrations -- The Many and the One -- Window bird - seen while walking in a small French town -- Window chair -- Jacob Boehme (from portrait by Gottlob Glymann) and stone head -- Farm gate -- Nun at prayer -- Saying and unsaying -- Not knowing -- Blossoms like starlight -- Dust and light -- No reality unmediated by language -- Thirteen brush-strokes -- The scribe's hand -- Dartmoor stone wall -- Van Eyck mirrored -- Two organic forms -- Fountain -- Orthodox Christian church altar - Helsinki -- Drawing of monk sitting - zazen -- Two statues -- Figures in a fountain -- Existence is silent -- Cascading River Dart near Houndtor -- Everyday mind - potato-peeling mind -- Rippling pond -- Trees in motion -- River runes -- Old bottle in dark room -- Nothing is as it seems -- The art of not knowing -- Monk in a leaf -- Bird in the eye -- An unfolding of thoughts -- Writing in stone -- Bird thoughts - oyster-catcher in flight -- Window leaves -- Dao drawing.