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Enlightenment, awakening, liberation, nonduality—so many fancy words to confuse us. So many different conceptual formulations or pointers: “You are not the body,” “There’s no self,” “All is One,” “Nothing is really happening,” “Everything is Consciousness.” So many different instructions to try to follow: Be here now, Stand as Awareness, Identify as Awareness, Stop thinking, Let Go, Rest as presence, Pay attention, Do nothing, Relax, Surrender, Be mindful, Give up trying to be mindful, Meditate, Don’t meditate. It’s easy to get confused. The habitual way of tackling all of this is to try to figure it all out and “get a grip” mentally by thinking and analyzing and trying to understand it all, and/or by trying to have some special experience other than the one that is happening now.
But this is all so simple. Whatever is happening right now is happening by itself, effortlessly: reading, thinking, hearing, seeing, breathing, digesting, moving, sensing, awaring. Can we pause for a moment and simply notice this happening right now that is going on effortlessly? Even what we experience as “our own effort” is happening effortlessly by itself. Can that be noticed? This eternal present is one whole undivided happening, even though it has many different colors and shapes and textures, and even though thought can identify many different and apparently independent objects: chairs, tables, people, dogs, cats, clouds, stars. But look more deeply, and it can be seen that none of these objects exist independently of everything else in the universe, and that all of these different things are ever-changing appearances in (and of) consciousness. They show up as one whole moving picture, one seamless happening. Don’t take that on as a new belief, but give attention to the living reality Here / Now and see for yourself how it is.
Thought can label this happening and all the different things that appear here—we have stories and theories and beliefs about cause and effect and how things happen and what they mean—scientific stories, religious stories, all kinds of stories. And these stories and theories and beliefs can all be questioned and doubted, and different people will hold conflicting beliefs and give differing descriptions of “the same” phenomenon, and over the centuries some of our apparent certainties may change. The flat earth turns out to be round, the earth goes around the sun, and so on. But the bare happening itself—before the labels and the stories about it—that is beyond doubt.
And this awaring presence that is right here beholding it all—this knowingness of being here now—this is also impossible to doubt. We can doubt our ideas about it, but not the bare actuality of being here, being present, being aware.
We may think that we are a person who is aware, that awareness is a function of the brain, that we are looking out at a world that exists independently of us, but the more closely we look, the more this deeply conditioned story about the nature of reality doesn’t actually hold up. What exactly is this person? Where are the boundaries? Is this the same person that was here 60 years ago, or even 5 minutes ago? What exactly is “my body”? Where does it begin and end? Does it stay the same from one second to the next? Is there an actual boundary between “me” and “not me,” or between inside and outside? Can any such boundary be found in direct experience? And if it seems that we’ve found such a boundary, how solid is it and where exactly does it begin and end, and what is beholding it? Doesn’t this body appear in awareness along with the chairs and tables, the dog and cat, the sky, the trees, the whole universe? Can an actual place be found where awareness ends and the body (or the cat, or the sky, or the tree) begins, or vice versa? Is there any actual boundary or division between subject and object, seer and seen, or is the reality undivided seeing-being? Don’t answer any of these questions from belief, and don’t rely on what anyone else says, but explore all of this directly for yourself. Look and listen. Feel into it. Discover for yourself.
That’s what true meditation and true inquiry (as I use the words) are really all about—not sitting in the lotus position trying not to move and concentrating on our breathing or asking ourselves over and over, “Who am I?” – but simply BEING Here / Now – looking and listening, questioning, wondering – not by thinking, but by paying attention, by being aware, by BEING awareness.
Is it possible to be here in this moment without an agenda, without needing to define what’s happening, without seeking something different, without judging what’s showing up or trying to control it any way—just being here? What is that like, to simply be here?
Is it possible to explore Here / Now without knowing what might be found? Can we simply feel this presence, this aliveness? Can we explore directly what we are referring to when we say “I”? What do we mean when we say, “I am”? Superficially, we are referring to an apparent person—this body, this mind, this personality, this “me” that has a name, a gender, a race, a nationality, an age, a story. But more deeply, if all of that disappeared, what would remain? Is it possible that the “I” to which we all refer is—at its depth—exactly the same I, the same boundless awaring presence?
Can we feel the spaciousness, the openness, the fluidity, the freedom that is Here / Now?
And if we can’t, or don’t think we can, then can we simply be with whatever IS showing up, just as it is? And whenever the sense of being separate shows up—when we feel hurt or defensive or angry or victimized or upset or misunderstood or overwhelmed or attacked or afraid or lacking or unworthy—can we explore directly what is going on? Can we hear the thoughts without being totally seduced into believing them? Can we recognize that they are a conditioned commentary and not an objective report on reality? Can we find the “me” who seems to be thinking these thoughts, the “me” who seems to be angry or lacking or who feels insulted or misunderstood—or is that “me” simply a bunch of changing thoughts, sensations, memories and mental images? Can we feel the bodily sensations without judging any of it or trying to change it in any way? Can we question our beliefs, our assumptions, our certainties, our stories about ourselves, about others, and about the world? Can we simply be here in the midst of a tumultuous storm of emotion-thought, being and beholding it all, in the same way we might behold a thunderstorm, without taking it personally or giving it meaning?
We are this storming, it is inseparable from what we are and all that is, and we are also that which beholds the storm, that which remains when the storm has passed, that which is untouched by the storm. And if the thinking-seeking mind is now about to go out in search of “that,” trying to figure out what “that” is—can that movement be seen for what it is? It is an old habit, to seek what we already are, to try to grasp what is ungraspable, to try to find wholeness as an object—trying so hard to get to this place Here / Now that we have never left, and then trying not to try. Instead of following this old habit, is it possible instead to simply be here as this undeniable awaring presence and this undeniable present happening, however it is? Not forever after, but right now, in this moment: hearing, seeing, sensing, awaring, thinking, trying, tensing, relaxing, contracting, expanding, breathing, storming, calming, opening, closing—BEING this whole seamless happening, beholding it all. Discovering the openness that is open enough to include being closed, the freedom that is free to be limited, the vastness that is vast enough to include specificity, the oneness that appears as multiplicity, the timelessness that includes all of time—THIS—Here / Now, just as it is.
What is it? Any answer we give is just a sound—a word—a label. But THIS—the direct, living reality itself—is effortlessly and undeniably presenting itself. Explore it, enjoy it, BE it. And recognize finally that there is no way not to be it. It is all there is.
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- Joan Tollifson (via oceanandwave)