Being What We Are

Seeing how we fool ourselves

What we are seeking—freedom from suffering—is right here in the awaring presence that we are. This freedom is never really missing. We know it intimately. We are it. There is nowhere we can point where it is not, as in the famous analogy of a sphere, the center of which is everywhere and the circumference nowhere. The body-mind-world that seems so solid, substantial and problematic is actually evanescent, nonsubstantial, cloud-like, without any independent or persisting forms. It is a play of consciousness very much like a dream. We habitually think and believe that we are a mind in a body looking out at a world in which we live. But if we look closely, we find that the body-mind-world appears in us, this all-inclusive, unbound, impersonal awareness that we actually are.

It seems otherwise because we are caught up in thinking and in mistaking the conceptual for the actual. We believe we are stuck in various situations or dilemmas, struggling to make sense of everything, to get somewhere, to make something happen, to make other things stop happening. We are trying to figure it all out and getting ever-more confused. This is suffering.

As I always say, pain and painful circumstances are an unavoidable part of life, and life can certainly involve many challenges and difficulties. But what I’m calling suffering is the mental overlay on top of the bare actuality—the thoughts about it, the resistance to it, the thought-sense of being a separate “me” who is suffering from this or that, the attempt to grasp and hold onto things that don’t actually exist.

Luckily, suffering can be seen for what it is. We can begin to see how we are doing it, and in the seeing (or awaring), it can dissolve. As one guru pointed out, it’s like we are pinching ourselves and not realizing it—but once we recognize what we are doing, once that’s clear, we simply take our hand away. We see how we are creating imaginary suffering by thinking, and the seeing is the dissolving. We discover how to let go and relax into the boundless openness that is always right here. Actually, “we” don’t do any of this; it’s more like that thought-sense of being a separate, encapsulated little “me” is the pinch, and in the light of awareness, it dissolves into seamless unbound presence—simple beingness.

Once ever-present boundless awareness has been discovered, or more accurately, noticed, since it has never actually been absent and is never really not here, we can consciously re-turn attention to this openness again and again, letting go of the disturbing thoughts and relaxing the bodymind, allowing it all to dissolve. And when this seems impossible, as it sometimes does, we can give open attention to the disturbance and the contraction, and we can discover its lack of substance and its ephemeral nature.

In giving open attention to direct experience here and now, the nature of this living reality reveals itself: that it is always here-now as this present immediacy; that any apparent form it takes appears and disappears in the same instant; that no-thing ever really forms, persists or exists independently of consciousness (or the whole); that this aware presence is undivided and seamless; that the whole cannot be broken up or pulled apart; that the more closely we look at any-thing that appears, the more we find it to be unresolvable and unpindownable; that we never find anything outside of consciousness (including matter); and that if we look to see what we actually mean by the word “I,” nothing is found—and yet this no-thing-ness is vibrantly alive and is showing up as everything—like the zero that makes all other numbers possible or the empty mirror that shows up as infinitely varied reflections.

We can begin to notice when we are coming from wholeness, awareness, openness—and when we are caught up in thinking and trying to grasp, understand, figure out or reconcile apparently different things. We can feel the difference in the whole bodymind. We can notice when our thoughts come from and refer to boundless presence, and when they come from and refer to the idea of being a separate self.

“I still don’t get it,” is a thought that comes from and refers to the imaginary little me. Once believed, it brings forth contracted feelings in the bodymind and a sense of being deficient, which then triggers restlessness and seeking. But it’s all imagination. This little me who supposedly doesn’t “get it” is a kind of mirage, and what it is trying to get is already fully present and simply not being noticed because the attention is focused on this story of lack and on the thought-sense of being separate and encapsulated.

“Is the fundamental nature of reality mind or matter?” is a thought that is imagining two conflicting possibilities, two apparently separate, substantial, seemingly irreconcilable “things,” and then trying to figure out the “correct” answer. We can feel the grasping mind trying to work this out and the endless frustration of not being able to do it. We can see that it is the little me (the thought-stream, the apparently separate self) that is desperate to get the right answer. Why? Because then thought imagines that “I” will finally be able to relax and simply be as I am. But why postpone this? We are always already free and unbound. Wholeness, totality, awareness, presence is not troubled by such questions.

By giving open attention to whatever is showing up, we can see how we get caught up in confusion, fear, anger, hate and blame—we can notice how the news affects us, how we defend our political and spiritual views, how we argue and cast blame. Ignoring the seamless and unresolvable nature of reality, we think we can pin down who or what the problem is or what the correct answer is. But it’s never really like that. Seeing from wholeness is seeing from unconditional love. It sees the bigger picture and the dream-like nature of all that appears to happen. Seeing from the deluded perspective of separation, there is inevitably conflict, judgment, doubt, shame and blame—an endless cycle of suffering.

So-called awakening or liberation is nothing more or less than seeing (as it happens) how suffering is created, how we mentally pinch ourselves, how we turn the inevitable pains and challenges of life into imaginary, seemingly solid monsters that are attacking us, how we scare ourselves and each other with stories. To paraphrase my favorite Mark Twain quote, I’ve been through many horrible things in my life and some of them actually happened.

Yes, lots of very painful and destructive things are going on (at least apparently, and they are as real as we are, so we can’t ignore or deny them), but what is at the root of them? Instead of looking “out there” for the answers, meditation and spiritual exploration is about seeing how the mind works, how consciousness creates a seemingly substantial, fractured world of apparent duality (subject and object, this and that, us and them), how we get lost in imaginary problems and in absurd and heartbreaking conflicts. When we act from unconditional love, from wholeness and openness, the action is very different than when we act from imaginary separation.

Liberation is simple. It’s not about picking up new beliefs or getting an intellectual understanding. It’s about seeing directly how suffering happens and waking up (again and again, NOW) from the trance. It’s about relaxing the grasping mind. It’s about opening and dissolving into the undivided wholeness of here and now—THIS that we always already are.

The separate self, which is nothing more than a mirage crated by thoughts, mental images, memories, stories and sensations, cannot do this. A mirage is powerless to do anything. Awareness is the great solvent, the great transformer. Our illusory problems dissolve, NOW, in the light of awareness—simply seeing how we are pinching ourselves needlessly, how we are confusing ourselves, everything naturally relaxes and releases. It may not happen instantly because the force of habit is very strong. And it’s not about relaxing once-and-for-all or forever-after, it’s always only NOW. The clouds of confusion and the old habit of pinching ourselves will most likely recur, probably many, many times. But thinking about all that, taking it personally and wanting it to be different is only another kind of pinching. The important focus, the one that actually liberates, is NOW.

Because everything is appearing and disappearing in the same instant, and because separation is illusory, it can be discovered that everything actually self-liberates moment by moment. Everything vanishes before it even forms. As Ramana Maharshi put it, “Experience takes place only in the present, and beyond and apart from experience nothing exists.” But thought and memory create the illusion of continuity. This can be seen. We can begin to see how we hold on to the past—or really, an imaginary version of it—and how we keep certain emotions and storylines alive.

We find impermanence frightening until we fully understand how complete it is. When we think there are separate, persisting “things” like you and me and everything and everyone we love, and that all those “things” are vanishing, we feel fear and grief. But when we realize that no-thing ever actually forms, that nothing ever stays the same, that everything is an inseparable whole, then there is nothing to fear and nothing to gain or lose. Yes, there can still be grief when someone we love dies—that’s natural. But we can notice that they were actually dying and being born every instant, as were we, and that in a very real sense, they are still here—not as some ghost, but as the boundless, seamless, indivisible presence-awareness that is all there is.

The words are never quite right. We can easily pick them apart. But instead, maybe we can see where they are pointing—and they are always only pointers. Liberation is in the seeing, the awaring, the presence—not in thinking about it all. If it interests us, maybe we can give attention to the living actuality, letting go of our conceptual ideas and beliefs, holding on to nothing at all, relaxing the grasping mind, and simply being what we actually are, which is no-thing we can grasp. We can’t get it; we can only be it, and actually, we can’t not be it. But we can see how we pretend to be something limited and confused, and how we create our suffering by mentally pinching ourselves.

It seems that consciousness has a fantastic imagination and enjoys playing hide and seek. And yet wherever it goes in the movie of waking life, it never departs from itself. Realizing that, we can begin to take it all more lightly, with a sense of humor. It’s a great show, and we all get to play the main character. But it’s very helpful to recognize that we’re only playing. We’re never really lost or bound or encapsulated inside a body looking out at a world.

Habits such as mentally pinching ourselves can be very tenacious and persistent as we all probably know, and yet, the more closely we attend to them with open awareness as they are happening, the more we discover them to be utterly without substance. They may keep coming back, and then we can notice the stories we tell ourselves about them and what they supposedly mean about us. We can feel the desire for them to be gone and stay gone and the frustration and disappointment when they come back. We can see the ways we take them so seriously and personally instead of seeing them as the passing impersonal weather they are. And the more all of that is seen for what it is, the less believable it becomes and the less grip it has on us.

So, is it possible to meet the old habitual movements (the mental pinching and grasping) with curiosity and interest and love, to see them from wholeness, from unconditional love—not needing them to go away? We can’t make them go away. They dissolve in their own time. Will-power and effort won’t work. But we can simply relax and open and let go into the boundlessness, the no-thing-ness, the wholeness that we are. And when we can’t do that, we can explore the tightness, the resistance and the grasping—feeling it all as pure sensation, without the labels or the stories, allowing it all to be just as it is.

Many sages have simply said, keep quiet. The solution to our imaginary problems is not found by thinking. It is found in silence, in stillness, in unbound presence, right here, right now, at the very heart of our being, as this all-inclusive awareness that we are—holding on to nothing at all. Awareness is not some “thing” that we can stand apart from and see or grasp or pin down or get hold of as an object. We are this awaring presence. There is only this. It is not other than the morning breeze, the woof-woof of the dog, the steam rising from a hot cup of tea, the whooshing of the freeway, the stars sparkling in the night sky. Nothing is missing. Nothing needs to be attained. THIS is already whole and complete, just as it is. It is ever-changing in appearance and yet immovably always here-now, never departing from this one bottomless moment that is all there ever is. Infinite, eternal, timeless, unborn, ever-present. Just this.