http://www.joantollifson.com/writing1.html
True spirituality is possible only when you
let go of everything.
--Nisargadatta
Maharaj
What is life all about? Does it mean anything?
Where are we looking for happiness or liberation? Do we have free
will? What is enlightenment and how can I get it? Can anything be done
to free ourselves from depression, anxiety, compulsive behavior, wars,
holocausts, prejudices? What is spiritual (and what isn't)? What
happens when we die?
The thinking mind wants
to find answers to questions. When you're trying to find out which bus
to take or how to build a house, this ability to find answers is a
useful function. But the thinking mind doesn't know when to stop
thinking or when thinking is useful and when it isn't. And so, as we
grow up, we live more and more in a conceptual world trying to think
our way to happiness. We lose touch with the immediacy and wonder we
had as children.
When I was a little girl, my
mother used to give me a pail of water and a paintbrush so that I could
paint on the sidewalk. I'd paint these paintings on the sidewalk with
water, and they would disappear in a matter of minutes, but that didn't
matter because what I was enjoying was the sheer joy of doing it. It
needed no reward, no praise, no permanence. It was complete in itself.
And then at another point in my life, I was an art
student, and I can remember seriously questioning whether it was worth
painting at all if I weren't Leonardo or Picasso, if I were less than
perfect. That sense of playfulness and curiosity that children have so
naturally, enjoying the simplicity of being, gets overshadowed by this
attempt to make something out of me, to make "me" into a successful me.
Very often when we come to spirituality, even when
it's supposedly all about waking up from this story of me, it morphs
into it's own new version of this same story, focused now on how
successfully I'm waking up, how well I'm meditating, whether I'm
enlightened or not. Oddly enough, this me that we're so concerned about
may be nothing more than a kind of mirage or mental image, the central
character in a movie story generated by thought and imagination,
nothing real at all.
How can we find out? Is it
possible to wake up from this mental mirage, this entrancement in
thought? What is it that would wake up? Is it "me"? Or is it something
else?
Again, the thinking mind looks
immediately for answers. We seek out authorities and adopt their views.
We cling to ideas and explanations, and seek bigger and better
experiences.
***
Liberation is not about having the answers or having an
experience. It has nothing to do with belief, but is rather the absence
(or transparency, or seeing through) of belief. Waking up does not
happen in the past or the future, only Now. Liberation or enlightenment
is not something you find or acquire like a new car. It is not some
dazzling or exotic experience like being permanently high on ecstasy or
LSD. Liberation is seeing through the ubiquitous fabrications and
mirages of conceptual thought, including the whole idea of liberation
and the one who supposedly needs to be liberated.
Ultimate Reality is hidden right in front of our eyes in plain view.
It is showing up as breakfast dishes, laundry, sunlight on leaves, the
barking of a dog, sound of traffic or rain, the humming of the
computer, the taste of tea, the shapes of these words, and the
awareness being and beholding it all. And only when we describe all of
this in words does it seem as if "awareness" is one thing and "the taste
of tea" is something else. The non-conceptual actuality of this
breathing-hearing-seeing-being is undivided, without center or
periphery. No inside, no outside. No subject, no object. Simply this,
just as it is.
And then perhaps a thought:
"There must be more to life than this," or "What is the meaning of it
all?" or "What about final enlightenment?" or "Isn't this all just the
phenomenal manifestation, and isn't that an illusion?" Thought creates
imaginary problems and tries to solve them. The complex human brain has
an astonishing ability to conceptualize, imagine, remember, project,
and think about things that have no actual reality. Yet even these
thoughts are nothing but a momentary dream-like shape or expression of
the One, undivided, boundless Whole.
Thought
labels, categorizes, evaluates, and reifies the ever-changing
perceptions that appear. Conceptual thought creates the hypnotic,
mirage-like illusion of solid, persisting, independent things (including "me" and "you") -- the illusion of duality and separation.
Thought imagines "me" as a separate character on a journey through time.
It conjures up goals and stories of success and failure. It even
creates the image of "me" as a serious spiritual person dedicated to
getting rid of the "me." But without thinking, where is the "me"? What
am I, really?
***
Is it possible that the peace and well-being we seek
(that longing at the root of all our more superficial desires), cannot
be found or satisfied by answers or attainments or experiences of any
kind? Is it possible that the very search for it "out there" is
precisely what prevents us from noticing that what we are seeking is
the very essence of Here and Now?
And what is
that?
It is nothing you can take hold of
conceptually, and it's not any particular experience (as
opposed to any other experience). It is the beingness, the
groundlessness, the IS-ness of this moment -- this that is undeniably
present beyond all doubt, requiring no proof or belief, impossible to
deny -- before and after and even during all the grasping and searching
and experience-seeking. The words (beingness, groundlessness, IS-ness)
are only pointers. What they point to is nothing you can get hold of
as an object. In fact, there really are no solid objects because
everything is thorough-going flux. This no-thing-ness (or
emptiness) is all there really is.
And this
no-thing-ness is vibrantly alive, aware, conscious, awake,
present. The grasping, searching and thinking may seem to
destroy the wholeness of being or the spaciousness of
presence-awareness, but can anything really destroy awareness,
or the present moment, or beingness? Doesn't everything appear
Here and Now, in awareness? And doesn't everything appear altogether
at once as one diverse but seamless whole?
***
Conceptual
thought (apparently) divides it up. The division and separation are
never really there, of course. They exist only in thought and
imagination, but if that thought isn't seen through, if it is believed
and taken seriously, then the result is suffering. Zen and Advaita are
all about waking up from this entrancement and suffering. But it isn't
"you" who wakes up and then becomes "an awakened person." That is
delusion. The very notion that there is someone who needs to wake up
from delusion is part of the delusion! The problem of bondage only
exists in the thought-created movie world of imagination. The whole
problem is a kind of mirage. What's real is never absent, and what seems to obscure it is never real.
No words can ever
capture the actuality of this one eternal present moment. It can be
talked about and pointed to in various different ways, but anything we
say about actuality is never actuality itself. We may nod in agreement
upon hearing that; nevertheless, we habitually tend to mistake the map
for the territory, the concept for the actual. We then get into endless
debates and confusion over imaginary dilemmas such as whether there is
or isn't free will, or whether any kind of spiritual practice is worth
doing or not, or whether the world is real and deserving of our
attention or only a dream-like illusion that is best ignored. This
mind-spinning goes in circles leading nowhere. Reality can't ever be
captured in concepts (like free will or no free will, self or no self,
this or that). Whatever you say is never quite right. No word or
concept is ever complete enough. If you say that you can't learn to
ride a bicycle because there's no you to do it, or no free will, you'll
be foolishly disempowering yourself. And yet, if you look carefully at
who or what is riding the bicycle or "choosing" to do so, you won't
find anything or anybody, nor can you really explain how exactly "you"
do this bicycle riding.
We can argue endlessly
over who rides, and whether or not they can freely choose to do it, or
whether instruction and training is necessary or only a hindrance, and
we can discuss the mechanics of bicycles and bicycle riding, or tell
stories about legendary riders of the past, but finally, no amount of
description or prescription will tell you how to ride a bicycle or how
it is to be riding one. Talking about it, reading about it, watching
others do it, or debating about who does it best, is not the same as
simply doing it. Of course, enlightenment isn't quite the same as
riding a bicycle, because enlightenment isn't an activity, but rather
the realization of what has never been absent and the recognition that
there is no way in or out of the groundlessness of what is. This is all there is, and you are this. But as in bicycle riding, it's the
actuality that matters, the territory itself and not the map.
Discussing enlightenment (or awakening, or liberation), thinking about
it, imagining it, or seeking it as a future event are all map-events.
But enlightenment is the territory itself, although paradoxically, even
the map is the territory, for the One Reality is inescapable and
unavoidable. It is absolutely simple and immediate and impossible to
lose.
***
Right now, simply listen to the sounds that are
occurring. Traffic sounds, honking horn, bird cheeping, lawn mower,
snow blower, rain falling, wind, rustling leaves, dog barking, vacuum
cleaner, children's voices, boom box, siren, train whistle, whatever it
is. Listen to the sounds as pure sound, in the same way you might
listen to music. If there is no sound at all where you are, listen to
the silence. Feel the breathing, the sensations of the body, the heart
beating, the rushes of energy, the tightness in the chest, whatever is
felt. Feel all of this as pure sensation, without labels or judgments,
without resistance, without trying to correct or improve or enhance it
in any way. See all the colors and shapes and movements around you in
the same way you might enjoy an abstract painting. Notice that
everything is constantly changing, and yet, it all happens Here and
Now. Here is always here. It's always Now. This "Now" can't be pinned
down, nor can it be avoided. It's always right here, seamlessly
present. Here and Now is obvious, unavoidable and undeniable.
What is Here and Now?
Notice what happens when this question is asked. Does the thinking mind
instantly kick in looking for the answer? Does thought begin searching
the spiritual (or scientific, or psychological) files? "This is all
Consciousness," we might think. Or, "This is pure awareness," or "This
is brain activity," or "This is my living room," or "This is text on a
web site," or "This is Intelligence Energy vibrating into different
patterns," or "This is a dream," or "This is the phenomenal
manifestation and I am pure neumonom."
Can it
be seen right now that these are all thoughts? They are concepts,
ideas, explanations, words, labels, beliefs. They may have their
usefulness, and they may be relatively more or less accurate as
pointers or maps, but notice right now that they are all words.
They are not the actuality (the suchness) of
ever-changing sounds, sensations, shapes and colors. They are
descriptions or labels (as are all the words I just used). The word
"awareness" is not awareness. Any idea of awareness or presence
can be doubted or argued. But the actuality of awareness or
presence is beyond doubt or belief. It needs no proof. The word
"awareness" seems to make "awareness" into a separate thing. But the
actuality isn't really separate from everything else, is it? The Present
Moment isn't really divided up into "awareness" and "content." It is
one seamless Whole.
Can all words,
labels, concepts, ideas, and beliefs be allowed to fall away (not
forever and ever, but right now)? If they are let go, then what
remains?
Is the thinking mind looking for something (an experience, a particular sensation, the right conceptual
understanding, the absence of something, or whatever it might be)? Can
that seeking activity be seen through and allowed to drop away? Can
there be a simple resting in what actually remains -- this that is utterly inconceivable and yet totally obvious and impossible
to avoid? Seeing, hearing, awaring, breathing -- simply this. Not the
words, but the actuality. (And if the mind is now trying to banish
words and thoughts in order to achieve some imagined non-conceptual
purity, can that effort also be seen for what it is? Nothing needs to be banished, not even this effort! It's all one
indivisible flowing whole -- this ever-changing appearance that always
happens in this omnipresent Here and Now).
Every moment is utterly new. Don't cling to the words. They're never
quite right. Language is inherently dualistic. It requires subjects and
objects, it reifies and divides, but in actuality, where are the
boundary lines? Where does "inside" turn into "outside"? You can think of a conceptual answer, but looking directly with awareness, can you
actually find such a place? Can you see that this boundary is
purely conceptual, that it's not actually found in direct experience?
Don't take this on belief, but right now, if you close your eyes and
pay careful attention, can you actually find the place where "inside"
ends and "outside" begins? How solid is what you think of as
"your body"? Is the apparent border between "you" and "everything else"
really there in your actual experience, or is it actually nothing more
than an idea, a mental image, a river of ever-changing sensations, a
story appearing in awareness? Can you find any limit to
present awareness?
***
What is being pointed to is not something you can
formulate and take hold of and possess. Zen, Advaita, Dzogchen, Taoism,
meditative inquiry, the power of now, presence-awareness, radical
non-duality -- many names have been given to this aliveness. The danger
in names is that they so easily solidify, codify, and deaden into
dogma. Next thing we know, we have priests, scriptures, lineages,
doctrines, holy wars, blogs - right ways and wrong ways. You may
consider yourself a free-thinking, anti-authoritarian type, but this
tendency toward dogmatism, fundamentalism, and authoritarianism can
take subtler and subtler forms. It's easier to see it "out there" than
it is to see it in oneself. Faced with uncertainty and insecurity, we
want answers and reassurance. It's easy to slide into believing
something, and then into identifying with those beliefs, and then into
defending them to the death (literally or metaphorically). Belief is
always shadowed by doubt. Let go of everything that can be doubted, and
see what remains. What is beyond doubt takes no effort to maintain.
The ability to think in highly complex and
abstract ways is both our greatest gift and our greatest source of
suffering. Reactions and behaviors that make perfect sense in the wild
often become useless or destructive when they get carried over into the
psychological realm. We react to an insulting remark in the same way
we react to an attacking tiger, or we search for enlightenment "out
there" in the same way we search for food and shelter, and we end up
with anxiety, depression, insomnia, and global warfare. We could say
that waking up is about seeing through illusion, discerning the
difference between what is real and what is imagination. Awakening
doesn't mean never thinking again or throwing out all the conceptual
maps, but it does mean being able to see (in the present moment) the
difference between the map and the territory, and this seeing gets ever
more subtle and refined.
Thinking is not the
enemy. In practical matters, thinking makes sense. It's a wonderful
tool. But much, maybe most, of our thinking has nothing to do with
practical matters. Instead, it's a kind of habitual spinning of our
wheels, chasing mental phantoms, battling with ghosts, obsessing over
dreams. This kind of thinking never really works or satisfies us in the
way we want it to. If you pay careful attention to it, you'll begin to
notice how painful it is, and yet also how compelling. It's very much
like an addiction. In fact, we could say that this kind of thinking is our root addiction. You may also notice that all of these obsessive
thoughts center around the fictional "me" in some way or other:
evaluating "me," judging "me," trying to make "me" happy or safe or
powerful or enlightened. Waking up is not about bringing the story of
me to a satisfying conclusion. It's about seeing through the story.
It's about recognizing that the story appears and disappears within
you, within awareness. The story is ephemeral, insubstantial,
intermittent, fleeting. Awakening doesn't mean you forget your name or
your life history, or that you lose all sense of being a particular
individual. It simply means recognizing that all of that is a momentary
appearance in awareness, a kind of play.
***
In some spiritual
circles, there is considerable preoccupation with having a big bang
awakening, imagined to be some line in the sand that "you" cross, after
which the mirage of encapsulation is forever, irrevocably ended, and
after which "you" are a liberated sage at last! Among so-called
seekers, there is often great fascination with teachers, sages, and
gurus who have supposedly crossed that mythical line. Everyone wants to
hear their story. And above all, we want to know how this same
wonderful thing can happen to me! Is it possible to see that this is
the same old story about me? There may be people (but only ever in the
dream-like movie of waking life) who have had all kinds of amazing
experiences, but enlightenment is the end of the one who cares about
being enlightened or unenlightened. It is the realization that there is
not, and there has never been a separate person to get
enlightened. And however many times the mirage of encapsulation
appears, it is always only a mirage. And it isn't "me" who wakes up
from this mirage because "me" is the mirage! In fact, it isn't
"me" who does anything.
As "you" are reading
these words right now, little markings appearing on this page in
various combinations are being seen and instantly translated into
meaning. Is there someone doing this remarkable activity, overseeing
all these elaborate optical and neurological processes, or is it all
happening automatically, on its own? We say, "I" am reading, "I" am
seeing, "I" am hearing, "I" am thinking, "I" stopped smoking, "I"
overate. But what exactly is that "I"? Do "you" really know (or
control) what "your" next thought or "your" next action will be?
Right here, there is the ability to put
attention on your left foot and wiggle your toes. But how does all that
actually happen and what initiates it? Where do will and intention
come from? Once the mind tries to capture this happening in words, it
instantly creates the mirage of duality. Suddenly we are apparently
lost in imaginary problems and conundrums: Do I have free will? If so,
why do I do things I don't want to do? How can I change? What should I
do? Can I do anything? Do I exist?
This is all
thought. Whenever there is confusion and seeking, it's a clue that
thought is busy chasing its own tail. Actuality is simple. The present
moment is simple. Here, there is no confusion, no problem, no
free will, no absence of free will. You are simply doing whatever you
are doing. And actually, there is no "you" doing any of it. That "you"
is an after-thought, a mental image, a grammatical convention, a
reification of some energetic flow that is truly no-thing at all. In
actuality, life is simply living itself through the appearance of "you"
and "me." Truly seeing this eliminates all guilt and blame.
Given the "wrong" combination of genetics,
neurochemistry, conditioning, provocation, and opportunity, what we
consider horrible things can happen. "I" could be the perpetrator of
such things, or "you" could. And while we would certainly want a serial
killer or a child molester locked up for the protection of everyone;
at the same time, if we look deeply, we can see that they are
blameless. No one would commit atrocities if they really had a choice,
if they were really free. Looking closely, it can be seen that if "I"
were in "their" shoes (that is to say, if "I" had the same combination
of genetics, neurochemistry, conditioning, provocation, and
opportunity), then "I" would do exactly the same thing "they" did,
because there is no "I" and no "them" apart from the "shoes" (the ten
million conditions -- nature and nurture).
Does
that mean that we should be totally passive or inert or maybe wildly
licentious because, "It's all just happening," and "We have no choice"?
No. It means that the "me" who could apparently choose to be
this way or that way is a phantom, a mental image with no substance.
Does that mean we are powerless, that nothing can be done?
Rather than slap down a conceptual answer (yes or no), is it
possible to live with the question, to not know? Watch carefully as
actions occur, as choices are made and decisions are reached - from the
little ones like whether to get up from the chair, to the big ones like
whether to get married or move across country - watch carefully. See
if you can find the one in control, or if you can catch the decisive
moment, or if you can explain how it all happens. You may find that you
can't find anyone at the helm or say how it is that "you" do the
simplest things, like raising your arm or reading these words. On the
other hand, you can't really say that you can't do things
either, since there is clearly an ability right here to act.
You simply can't get hold (conceptually) of exactly what that is or how
it works. And the more awareness is brought to any particular activity,
the more refined the activity and the awareness seem to become, and
the more possibilities open up. But who brings awareness to an
activity? Is there a choice involved? You may find that words and
concepts simply can't contain the actuality.
Here,
in non-conceptual actuality, is the natural response-ability and
intelligence, the choiceless choice or effortless effort exerted by
life itself: breathing, circulating blood, thinking, awareness of
thinking, dreaming, waking up, appearing, disappearing -- one
indivisible wholeness in which there is nothing separate to have or not
have free will, to cause or be caused, to be born or to die, to be
enlightened or unenlightened.
Thought seemingly
divides this wholeness up. It imposes a grid on top of the emptiness
and conceptually sorts it into little squares. Then it imagines that
Square A causes Square B, or that Square B is the result of Square A,
or that Square A has free will to choose between Square B and Square C,
or that Square A comes before Square B in time and space. This is all
imagination, a way of conceptualizing. The squares aren't really
separate; the boundaries don't actually exist; they're only conceptual,
as are the imagined relationships between the squares, including time
and space. The squares are actually not related at all because they're
not two. And this thinking process that imposes conceptual grids on
wholeness is itself an aspect of the same wholeness, as is the
awareness that sees through the imaginary grids. Everything is
included in the Absolute. We could say that the Absolute includes the
relative (the world of apparent grids), but isn't bound by it.
Awakening doesn't mean ignoring, discounting or denying relative
reality, but awakening sees through it. It recognizes the emptiness of
everything. But in relative reality, the show goes on, and you (as an
apparent character) play your part, apparently making choices and taking
actions.
What we often think of or call choices are simply thoughts that arise unbidden that may or may not be
followed by the result they appear to select. A thought such as "I am
going to quit smoking" arises on its own out of the ten million
conditions and may or may not be followed by the cessation of smoking
because that thought has no power. The "I" to which it refers is a
powerless mirage, an illusion. A mirage cannot choose to do (or not do)
anything. To the mind, this idea of having no choice and no free will
sounds scary, as if "I" might then be a robot with no control. But this
apparent dilemma vanishes into thin air with the realization that
there is no "I" here in the first place to be either bound or free.
And actually, thought and conditioned existence are quite robotic and mechanical, but there is something prior to thought
and conditioned existence that is free and unbound. The energy and
aliveness is in that boundlessness. "You" as the character in the story
of your life are an imagination, a phantom, an ever-changing
appearance. You (in Truth) are the emptiness that is being and
beholding it all, the no-thing-ness, the boundlessness that is
appearing as everything, including you (the character) and the story
of your life. Whatever appears will disappear. Whatever comes can go
again, and whatever goes, can always come back. But boundlessness is
ever-present. That is all there is. There can be the idea of "your mind" and "your body" and "your free will" or your "lack of
free will." But look closely and see if any of this is really here.
***
Zoom in close enough or back far enough, or turn attention
to the source of seeing or to awareness itself, and you find nothing
that you can grasp, and yet, you find everything! You know that you (as presence-awareness) are here, and you know this with
absolute doubtless certainty. Being here is beyond doubt.
No word can contain or describe what has been called
the Unborn, the Absolute, the Tao, Pure Awareness, Oneness,
Buddha-Nature, the Self, Truth, Totality, the One Mind -- the words are
only pointers. They point beyond conceptualization, to what is utterly
obvious and omnipresent. They point to Here and Now, the One Eternal
Present Moment.
And what is that?
Any attempt to grasp it ends in frustration. And
yet, it's unavoidably right here. It is not something mystical and
transcendental that you have to work very hard to see. It is this
direct experiencing right now. It is seemingly obscured by the
very effort to pin it down, grasp it mentally, conceptualize it. In
that grasping and the ensuing frustration, we feel confused and
separate. Waking up is simply relaxing that mental grasping. In the
words of one Zen teacher, waking up is opening the hand of thought.
Buddha-Nature (or the Self) is actually
omnipresent---it never really leaves us, even in the midst of grasping
and seeking, for even the grasping and seeking is an activity of the
same indivisible boundlessness. Boundlessness is the ever-present
reality in spite of whatever form it appears to take, never because
of any form it apparently takes. But whenever attention becomes
absorbed in thoughts (mental movies, worries, obsessions), then it seems that boundlessness has been lost. It seems that "I" am a
separate somebody struggling to regain "Oneness" or "awareness" or "the
present moment," as if that were some object apart from me that I need
to find, grasp, understand, experience, merge with, identify with, or
become. The mental mirage-world fills the screen and the story seems utterly real, all-pervasive and convincing. And paradoxically, every
attempt to resist suffering only seems to confirm the imaginary problem
and make the suffering worse. Ultimately, there is no way out except to
see that there is no need of a way out.
See
how transparent it all is. These thoughts and the movies they unfold on
the screen of awareness are simply secretions of the brain,
conditioned habit patterns, mental weather -- there is nothing personal
about them. There is no need to resist or vanquish them; simply see
them for what they are.
Seeing the mirage-world
of thoughts and mental movies for what it is gets ever more subtle.
Being down on yourself for "thinking too much" is just more thinking!
There is no "you" doing the thinking or the seeing; that "you" is only
another thought, another mental image. Liberation isn't about getting
rid of anything; it's about seeing that there is nothing
separate from anything else. The "me" who wants to stop thinking is
just another mental image, another thought, another movie character in
another story.
Reality is unavoidable. It is
right here in the smell of rain, the song of a bird, the whoosh of
traffic, sensations -- the nondual absolute. Totally alive.
Ungraspable. No final result, no finish line, no Big Bang event, no you
-- just what is, as it is. No need for exotic experiences. Nothing to
be eliminated or held on to, and nothing to be acquired or understood.
Nothing excluded. Nothing singled out. Freedom is utterly simple and
uncomplicated.
***
Although everything is seamless and without division,
entrancement in the story of separation is a different experience from open, spacious, unclouded awareness. In the extremes of
entrancement, people torture and exterminate millions of other people
because it seems like a good idea. Naturally, we want to wake up from
such entrancement on both the personal and global levels. But there's a
very subtle catch here.
Resisting suffering or
trying to wake up is itself part of the suffering, part of
the confusion. It doesn't work because it is rooted in the illusion of
separation, the same illusion and confusion that generates the
suffering. Suffering can only end here and now with the total
acceptance of what is. It is the very nature of Now
(awareness, emptiness, beingness) to include and accept everything.
Everything is allowed to be, obviously, because it's here!
Everything is as it is, and could not be otherwise.
Taking action (or non-action) to relieve pain, heal injury,
or correct injustice arises naturally. The universe acts. Ultimately,
what is healed will be broken down again. All form is impermanent; it
never even exists in the way we think it does. True freedom is
recognizing the emptiness (or boundlessness) that is unborn and
undying, the emptiness that is here regardless of relative
circumstances and never because of relative circumstances.
If the movie begins playing in which "you" are
trying to "get" this recognition, and feeling badly when it appears
that "you" have failed, then simply notice that this is yet another
movie, another dream-like appearance in consciousness, another story
about the imaginary character. Emptiness is already here. It can't be
lost (or found). Awareness includes everything and sticks to nothing.
Clouds appear. Contraction appears. Pain appears. Resistance and
tension appear. Expansion and relaxation appear. Mental movies appear
and disappear. Dreams come and go. Everything disappears in deep sleep
and death and reappears again in waking life. It's all a boundless ebb
and flow that includes absolutely everything, even contraction
and distraction and resistance and the appearance of
separation and encapsulation -- even so-called "evil." It all is.
But that doesn't mean losing the ability to
differentiate between clarity and confusion, nor does it mean not
flossing your teeth or not working to correct injustice if you are
moved to do so. Wholeness includes discernment and the ability to act.
It includes the ability to notice errors and correct them. So awakening
doesn't mean we have to sit back and do nothing about problems because
we have the idea that everything is "okay" as it is. As my
first Zen teacher told me: "You're perfect just as you are, and that
doesn't mean there's no room for improvement." There's room for
everything! But the true source of any action is the Totality,
not the imaginary separate person. And whatever happens is a
dream-like appearance. The last moment has already totally vanished
into thin air! How real was it?
There is no
distance at all between samsara and nirvana. The illusion of
distance is samsara, and nirvana is simply the realization that this
distance, or separation, is imaginary. Liberation is not about "you"
getting from samsara to nirvana. That is illusion. Liberation is the
absence of that whole story of separation and lack.
***
But
as a belief, all this is meaningless. Liberation isn't about picking up
a new belief system or a new set of answers (for example, that, "All
is One," or "There is nothing to attain," or, "Consciousness is all
there is," or, "There is no free will," or, "Everything is perfect.").
Liberation is the aliveness and immediacy beyond belief. Liberation is
when all the answers, explanations and positions disappear,
and what remains is the open mind of not knowing.
Thus it has been said, if you meet the Buddha, kill it. If you find
the answer, drop it. Yesterday's answer is today's dead meat. Let it
go. There is no enlightened person. There is only enlightened seeing,
enlightened being, enlightened consciousness -- impersonal clarity.
There is no unenlightened person either -- only confusion and
entrancement, impersonal obscuration. All of this is like
weather -- it comes and goes -- and all of it is an aspect of
the undivided whole, inseparable from every other aspect: the confusion,
the clarity, the desire to wake up, the impulse to clarify and heal,
the various forms of meditative inquiry and exploration, the practices,
the waking up from practices -- all of it is what is.
If you try to make sense of all this and adopt some fixed
position or view, sooner or later, the ground you imagine yourself
standing on will be swept away. Liberation is not a matter of pinning
down the "right" answer or the "correct" position. Reality cannot be
pinned down or put into a box. Does waking up take effort or is it
effortless? Is there a choice or is it choiceless? Is the world real or
unreal? Does what happens matter or not matter? Will I still be here
after death or not? Such questions defy answers because they are all
rooted in trying to describe the indescribable, and/or they are rooted
in conceptual fallacies, like flat-earth questions (What will happen to
me if I fall off the edge of the earth? You and the edge are both
imaginary; the question is based on a misconception).
As soon as we have words like "Oneness" or "Emptiness" or
"Awareness," the word instantly creates the mirage-sense of an object.
But that object isn't real, it is conceptual, and it isn't what these
words are pointing to. Boundlessness is inconceivable, and yet it is
visible everywhere, as everything.
***
Boundlessness,
Oneness, or Non-duality does not mean that a bunch of separate pieces
are now joined together. It doesn't mean that everything is made of one
primal substance. It means that everything is equally insubstantial,
that there are no separate "things" to be joined, that there is no
substance to get hold of anywhere. And yet, that doesn't mean there is
nothing. Emptiness does not mean voidness or formless nothingness.
There is an old Zen story where a Master asks a student to grab
emptiness. The student makes a gesture of grabbing a handful of empty
space. The Master says, "That's nice, but there's an even better way to
grab emptiness." He takes hold of the student's nose and twists it.
Everything is emptiness! The sensations of nose twisting are emptiness.
Your nose is emptiness. And emptiness is nothing other than your nose.
Emptiness means everything (including your nose) is empty of solidity
and permanence and separation. Form and emptiness cannot be teased
apart except in thought. Truth is not something mysterious you need to
search for. It is just this -- the computer screen, the shapes
of these words, the roar of traffic, the gurgling stomach, the barking
dog, your nose -- just this. No-thing at all!
Ultimately, the universe is a fleeting dream, a bubble in a stream.
Wipe your forehead and you've killed and maimed billions of
micro-organisms. Horrible events and misfortunes are often the source of
tremendous wisdom, insight, compassion, and awakening. Light and dark
are two sides of the same coin, and there are no one-sided coins.
Seeing this, there is more acceptance of life as it is. Enlightenment
is not about "you" getting to the sunny side of the street and staying
there permanently. Enlightenment includes the whole picture.
Groundlessness is everything, and everything is
groundlessness. Enlightenment doesn't mean dissociation or lack of
caring, for it is the realization that everything is myself. The
dividing lines are all imaginary. Enlightenment is unconditional love.
Each drop of dew, each snowflake, each piece of trash in the gutter,
each human being is unique and precious, and it's all one seamless
being, marvelously diverse but utterly without separation. When we
really see that, naturally, there is compassion for all beings
including ourselves. Sometimes the greatest compassion does not look
like what we usually think of as compassion.
Whatever appears -- whether it is confusion, resistance, pain, pleasure,
efforting, bliss, boredom, me-stories, clear skies or thunderstorms -- all of it is allowed to be Here, even judgments and preferences! It all is Here! There is space Here for everything.
***
If
you're beginning to think that "awareness" is actually something (a Blank Screen, an Empty Container, or a Mirror), notice that these
are all mental images, conceptual ideas, subtle imaginary objects.
"Awareness" is a word that points to what remains when everything perceivable and conceivable falls away. Are you trying to see what
that is? Can you see the joke in trying to do that?
Don't think that everything perceivable and conceivable has to
disappear. But how solid is anything perceivable or conceivable (any
image, any idea, any memory, any sensation, any thought, any emotion,
any event, any object, any experience)? Where is your childhood or
yesterday or a minute ago or the last second? On close inspection,
everything is insubstantial, ungraspable, vanishing. The mind keeps
trying to get a grip. It wants answers, certainty, a place to stand.
What is this Whole Thing? The mind wants to understand. Thought imagines
that "you" can step back and take a look at yourself, at Totality. But
no matter how hard it tries, the eye cannot see itself. You already are what you are seeking. You always have been. There is no possibility of
separation. You can't not be what you are.
***
Experiences
come and go. This is not about having a special experience, a big
event, a final breakthrough, or a psychedelic vision of some kind. It
is not about regaining any previous experience or achieving something
you've read about or imagined. All of that is in the world of
dream-like appearances.
Simply notice that everything (mental movies, dreams, perceptions, thoughts, waking life, mirages,
the I-illusion, apparent duality, time and space, chairs, tables,
expansion, contraction, meditation retreats, traffic jams, everything)
is without substance or continuity, and it all appears and disappears
right here. Here is always here. It's always Now. Even memories of the
past, fantasies about the future, and thoughts of elsewhere can only
appear Here and Now. Awareness is always here, whether it appears clear
or "clouded" by thoughts. In deep sleep, the entire universe
disappears. All words and ideas disappear. Even the sense of
awareness or presence disappears. The whole quest for understanding and
awakening disappears. You (as anything perceivable or conceivable)
disappear. There is no "you" left to notice that "you" have
disappeared! Nothing perceivable or conceivable remains. Out of this
vast emptiness, dreams arise, and then the movie of waking life. Wave
after wave crashes on the shore, and the ocean remains, waving.
People-ing is something that Being is doing, in the same way that the
ocean is waving. There are no waves apart from the ocean, and no people
apart from being. What is born and what dies? Boundlessness cannot be
captured by the mind. Something is happening here, but it
can't be grasped by thought. And it doesn't need to be grasped
or explained! You can't find the Totality because you are the Totality. There is nothing other than the Totality. You
contain the whole universe and the whole universe is showing up as you.
Awakening is never about achieving something
that isn't right here, right now.
Ordinary present awareness. The shape of these words, the hum of the
computer, the sound of the traffic, the listening presence, the
sensations that appear and disappear. Only thought divides it up and
tries to figure it all out. And that very movement of thought is itself
only energy and vibration, another appearance, mental weather. No-thing
at all.
***
So what to do? Effort or no effort, practice or no
practice? The question is like a cloud floating across the sky.
Practices may appear or disappear, efforts may happen or cease
happening. Either way, there is only this one present moment, just as it
is. So-called meditation (in the truest sense) is not about going
anywhere or achieving anything. It has nothing to do with special
postures, techniques, results or experiences. It is simply effortless
awareness, awake to what is. It is the direct discovery that there is no
meditator and no possibility of stepping in or out of the
boundlessness of Here and Now. When that is seen, the whole concept of
"meditation" falls away. What remains is not a new belief system, but
rather, eveything, just as it is.
So, if
you're feeling confused, trying to figure out whether or not you have
free will, or whether or not you exist, or whether or not you should
meditate or do nothing, or whether to believe this teacher or that
teacher, simply wake up right now from these mental conundrums. Stop.
Look. Listen. Hear the traffic, the birds, the wind. Feel the
breathing. Nothing special. Simply the extraordinary miracle of what
actually is.
All that (apparently) stands in
the way is the story that this isn't it, that something more or less or
different is needed. You can't make that story disappear because that
very effort is part of the story, as is the "you" who longs to be free
of the story. The stories and the illusion of encapsulation can only be
seen for what they are, as they arise, here and now. If they are not
seen through, then it may appear that "you" are lost or bound
or in trouble. But is there really a "you" who is lost? Is the
screen ever burned by the fire in the movie?
Words and concepts are complicated; reality is utterly simple. You
can't eat the menu or live in the map, and these words are an
invitation to see through all beliefs and ideas, even the very subtle
ones from Advaita or Zen or this text. Truth is not in the future, but
Now. Not hidden, but obvious and unavoidable. Not in concepts, but in
actuality. When all that mental clutter of seeking and trying to figure
everything out and trying to get somewhere is seen to be nothing at all
(and nothing personal), when it is clear that you are beyond all
appearances, and that all appearances are nothing but you, the One Mind,
then there is no one left to awaken. This can be called liberation,
but why call it anything?
---copyright
Joan Tollifson 2009--