Tag: understanding

Mind Control

On By centerlesscenterIn Awareness, Non-Duality, Zen6 Comments

‘To give your sheep or cows a large,

spacious meadow is the way to control them.’

~ Shunryu Suzuki

You might hear a spiritual seeker, or possibly someone who meditates, say, ‘If only I could control my thoughts, stop my thinking, I could find lasting peace and happiness.’

To paraphrase Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki, if you want to control your sheep or cows give them a large pasture. If you want to control your thoughts, give them a vast space in which to go through their magical dance of appearing, lingering, and disappearing.

If you give your sheep or cow a large pasture, they will not try to break through the fence to find something to eat or a place to run free. They will be happy having such an expanse of land in which to graze, play, and rest.

Ultimately, there is no need to control your thoughts. In what do they appear? A limited, confined space? No, they appear in the unlimited realm of awareness. We think our thoughts are confined to the brain in our head, appearing in our mind, but if this were true, with the number of thoughts we have over the course of a day, month, year, or lifetime, our brains would explode!

All experiences occur in awareness, in which no limits have ever been found. All things, that is, all objects, that occur in awareness, including thoughts and feelings, have limits. There is nothing that we know that doesn’t have a beginning, middle, and an end. Except for awareness itself, the knowing element in all experience.

We don’t actually ‘know’ awareness, as it has no objective qualities and is therefore unknowable.

But awareness knows itself – knowing knows knowing. And at our core, this is who we are, who we all are. We think that we are a body-mind made up of a cluster of thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perceptions. And this is true on a relative level, that is, in relationship to other body-minds. But this is how all conflict and unhappiness arise – from the belief that we are separate individuals, who must defend our own particular positions and opinions, which are founded on the false premise that . . . we are separate individuals.

In fact, there are no separate individuals, only unique manifestations of awareness. Set aside your temporary attributes that make up your-body mind, as they are, in the truest sense, not real. Settle into your unshakeable self, that which knows all experience, yet itself is not an experience.

The terms ‘Set aside’ and ‘Settle into’ are a bit misleading. It implies that an action or actions must take place in order to be your, our, unshakable self, which actually takes no effort whatsoever. Think more of a raindrop falling from the sky and melting, dissolving, into the ocean.

Lucid Waking

On By centerlesscenterIn Awareness, Experience, Non-Duality4 Comments

‘You can lucid dream, in which you know you’re dreaming, but even then, when you’re lucid dreaming, you still perceive the dreamed world from the localized perspective of the dreamed character. It’s just that you realize the whole thing is taking place in your own mind.’ ~ Rupert Spira

Awareness is to the waking state as the dreamer is to the dream state. In other words, just as the dream is nothing other than a manifestation of the dreamer’s mind, the experience of the body, mind, and world is nothing other than a manifestation of awareness.

If you trace our experience of the body, mind, and world back to its source, you arrive at awareness. That is, if you have experienced the infinite and eternal nature of awareness. If you have a limited view of awareness, you believe that it resides somewhere in your body, or perhaps your mind, and with that belief it follows that all seven point nine billion of us have our own personal awareness. But if you look at our actual experience that is not the case. It’s the opposite.

If everything in a dream is made out of the same stuff, the dreamer’s mind, why isn’t it possible that everything in the waking state is made out of the same stuff, awareness?

Just as the dream world, which seems entirely real to the dreamed character, is a product of the dreamer’s mind, the so-called waking state, the ‘real’ world of the dreamer, is the dream world of awareness and only made of awareness.

In the dream state, the dreamed character thinks that it is moving and acting in its own world of people and objects when, in fact, it is moving in a world created solely by the dreamer. There is nothing there other than the contents of the dreamer’s mind.

In the waking state, we think that we move and act in a world of people and objects when, in fact, we are moving in a world created solely by awareness. There is nothing in our so-called world other than a manifestation of awareness.

Waking up to the truth of our existence in the waking state would be similar to lucid dreaming. i.e., we ‘wake up’ in the dream. Just as we know that we are moving and acting in a dream world when we are lucid dreaming, we know that the waking state is nothing more than objects, selves, and experiences made of awareness.

The dreamed character in a lucid dream has a kernel of the waking state mind – it knows that it is dreaming and can act in a way that is possible in the dream world, e.g., it can manipulate the circumstances, breathe in water, fly, etc.  

The character in the waking state contains a kernel of awareness, although this fact is often obscured by thoughts, images, memories, feelings, sensations, and perceptions. Even though this knowing presence never comes and goes, the waking character often associates his or her existence with the temporary, and therefore not real, attributes of the body, mind, and world.

But it’s more than that. It’s not that the dreamed character contains a kernel of the waking state mind, or that the waking state character contains a kernel of awareness, because that would be like saying the clouds contain a patch of sky.

The fact is that everything is made of awareness – the contents of the dream, the body-mind of the dreamer, and the world in which they both appear.

There is only one thing going on, awareness, and we are that.

R.I.P.

On By centerlesscenterIn Beyond Spirituality, Natural State, Non-Duality3 Comments

Die to your false identity as an individual self and rest in peace.

How do you do this?

There is no way.

Which is not very helpful.

So . . .

There is one way.

But no one knows it.

Very helpful!

When All Is Said and Done

On By centerlesscenterIn Beyond Spirituality, Happiness, Love, Peace8 Comments

‘Once all our beliefs are uprooted, it’s not really necessary to assert what is true . . . even the assertion that consciousness is infinite and eternal should be thrown away.’ ~ Rupert Spira

All has been said.

Not all has been done.

Yet.

I hope to see you in the marketplace.

And when our eyes meet for a timeless moment . . .

. . . that we share a smile.

And don’t forget to play, sing, and dance!

Peace, happiness, and love to all

. . . in the Now Year!

Pendulum of Change

On By centerlesscenterIn Natural State, Non-Duality, Original Self6 Comments

You are not the pendulum of change:

Thoughts, moods, sensations, perceptions,

Swinging back and forth, this way and that.

You are that which knows the pendulum of change.

Notice this fact, and you are home:

The Changeless One.

Throw Away The Mask

On By centerlesscenterIn Awareness, Experience, Original Self7 Comments

Remove the mask of the personal self and reveal your original face.

Remove the mask of separation, division, and delusion, the mask that says I am this, I am that, you are this, you are that.

We hide behind a mask of mistaken identity. We think that we are individual selves with our own particular conditioned beliefs, often sitting in judgement of who or what is right and wrong.

Take off the mask of the ego, the separate self, and reveal your original face, your inherently intelligent and compassionate original self of pure awareness. For what are you at your core other than the knowing presence of awareness, experiencing all things, but yourself not an experience?

If you look at your awareness, that which observes the coming and going of all things but does not come and go with them, can you find any limits or boundaries? Can you find a place where your awareness ends and someone else’s begins? When asked, are you aware, we all answer yes, and this awareness is the same for everyone. We don’t each have our own individual awareness. Just as a wave on the ocean has no distinct border between itself and another wave, our assumed individual awareness has no distinct border between itself and another’s awareness.

There can only be one limitless and timeless awareness, not two. Challenge yourself to identify anything that has come from outside of awareness and you will discover the impossibility of this occurring. Where would it come from? Just as a wave doesn’t arise from outside the ocean, no object or appearance can arise from outside of awareness. And if nothing can arise from outside awareness, we, all things, must be made of it. At the core of our being, at the core of all that exists, there is only the unnamable stuff of awareness, and we are that.

Just as a wave is a unique manifestation of the ocean, you, I, we, are each a unique manifestation of this timeless and limitless awareness. Be this, as this is the truth of your, our, effortless being, before the mask of separation was inadvertently, innocently, placed over our original face, obscuring our view of reality.

Throw away the false mask of anxiety and doubt, paranoia, division, and fear, and expose the one true face, our one original face, the all-embracing, loving, compassionate, luminous faceless face of awareness.

Our actions in the world will reflect this clear and open understanding.

Whatever Happens

On By centerlesscenterIn Awareness, Experience, Happiness4 Comments

Whatever is happening is happening in awareness. Not to awareness.

As individual selves, we think things are happening to us, but that is not our actual experience.

When we identify as separate selves, then yes, things happen to us that make us feel happy, angry, inspired, or depressed. But when we look for the self to which things happen, we can’t find it. All we find is a conglomeration of ever-changing thoughts, images, memories, emotions, bodily sensations, and perceptions of the world through our five senses. These are all temporary qualities, and therefore can’t be considered part of our essential nature.

The only thing that is not temporary in our experience is awareness – that which knows all experience but itself is not an experience. Experiences come and go, but awareness does not come and go with them.

Ask yourself, does awareness, the knowing element in all experience, happen in a thought, or does thought happen in awareness? This is easy to confirm one way or the other. Which comes first, a thought or awareness? Thoughts are continually coming and going, but that which knows them doesn’t appear and disappear along with them. For just a moment, sit quietly and observe a thought entering your field of awareness, lingering for a moment, and then leaving your field of awareness. You, that is, your essential being of ever-present awareness, exists prior to, during, and after a thought has appeared, lingered, and disappeared. And this is true for all of the temporary qualities of the body-mind, or so-called separate self.

These observations being irrefutable, we can only conclude that our essential being is awareness itself. And if we investigate the qualities of this awareness, no limits or boundaries can be found. It is therefore infinite and eternal, and we can’t each house our own private infinite and eternal awareness. Where is there room for two?

You, I, we, are this one and only awareness. So as you move through this temporary life form as a body-mind, remember that all things happen in you as infinite and eternal awareness, not to you as a limited separate self. And with this revelation, happiness prevails.

Whatever happens is happening in awareness, not to awareness. This is very reassuring, in fact, completely liberating when you are established in this realization. When you are having a difficult time, don’t worry. Just as a violent thunder and lightning storm leaves the sky unchanged, untarnished, and unharmed, similarly, awareness, our essential shared being, is untouched, unchanged, and unharmed by whatever is happening in it.

To Beat A Dead Horse

On By centerlesscenterIn Awareness, Experience, Happiness, Non-Duality2 Comments

We beat a dead horse over and over – wake up, Wake Up, WAKE UP! – and still the horse is dead.

As a spiritual seeker we beat our heads against the illusionary wall of separation over and over, hoping that some time in the future we will wake up, Wake Up, WAKE UP! But still we are dead to our true nature.

The separate self, the body-mind, the ego, seeks the happiness as proclaimed by sages, past and present, and goes to any means possible to find it. It seeks it through possessions, relationships, substances, thrills, or meditates, prays, chants mantras, surrenders to a guru . . . and is never satisfied. It might find momentary relief in some of these experiences, but all experiences come and go, which leaves the separate self in an endless and futile quest for relief. Relief, as it turns out, from itself.

The separate self cannot find the happiness it seeks because the separate self doesn’t exist. There is no ‘me’, as we have been taught to believe, to do the seeking in the first place.

The separate self is a body-mind made of flesh, sinew, and bones, housing thoughts, images, emotions, and sensations, perceiving the world through the five senses. All these attributes are continually changing, forever coming and going, and therefore can’t be considered real in the truest sense.

For something to be real shouldn’t it be ever-present and unchanging?

What in our experience is ever-present and unchanging?

The only thing ever-present and unchanging in our experience is awareness, that which knows experience but is itself not an experience.

Once this aware-presence at the core of our being has been identified, ask yourself, can anything exist outside of this awareness? Does anything in our experience enter our awareness from some other place? Does a cloud enter the sky from a location other than the sky? And, strictly speaking, awareness itself is not a place. As it is ever-present, it is not limited to one particular location in time or space. It is beyond, or prior to, time and space, and therefore infinite and eternal.

Where in the infinite and eternal is there room for two?

Awareness is all there is.

If awareness is all there is, everything must be made of awareness. There is no horse, no self, no other, no thoughts, sensations, or perceptions, no world, no galaxy, no universe. There is only awareness and its infinite manifestations.

So now, for the two hundredth time, let’s beat on one more dead horse: the idea of ever-present awareness. We have come to understand that awareness is all there is, that nothing comes from outside of awareness, that everything is made of awareness, and finally, as awareness is the source of all things, it wants for nothing.

Now let’s take our neti neti stick of discrimination and with one pure stroke beat the concept of awareness into oblivion . . .

. . . and vanish into the full emptiness of the centerless center of our shared being.

Nothing To Know

On By centerlesscenterIn Advaita, Non-Duality, Original Self2 Comments

When you are searching for ultimate reality there is nothing you need to know. All knowledge is a hindrance to realization. Basing understanding on knowledge is like thinking that the reflection in a mirror is the real thing.

All reflections in a mirror are made only of mirror, just as all appearances of the body, mind, and world are made only of awareness, or that which knows them.

To say that all knowledge is a hindrance to realization is not exactly true. There is one thing you do need to know, and that is the knowing element at the center of our being that knows all experience. And even this is not quite right, as it’s not something you know, it’s something you are.

All you can truly know is your original self, or the unchanging awareness that is at the core of your being, or more accurately, at the core of our shared being, because if you investigate the qualities of awareness you find that it is borderless and beyond time, or infinite and eternal, and therefore there is no room for two.

So polish your mirror, the one mirror, recognize the unchanging awareness at the core of our being that knows all experience, but is not itself an experience, and reflect all that is real – our original one self.

Then throw away the mirror.

Forever

On By centerlesscenterIn Consciousness, Experience, Love, Natural State1 Comment

Our

Centerless Center

Dissolves

Vanishes

Into Its

Centerless Center

Never To Be Found

Never To Be Lost

Never To Be Ever

Never To Be Never

Again

Forever