"Don’t go to thought for an answer to either of these questions. Go to your own immediate direct experience."
OK, going to my immediate direct existential experience I realize that I currently am a 'being' requiring food, shelter, a mate, and likely some form of trade goods to barter with others for necessities of life. Even a sadhu with nothing but a beggar bowl needs someone to do something to fill his empty bowl. "Chop wood, and carry water..."
I am reminded of a passage by Dr. Alexander Lowen in his marvelous book, The Spirituality of the Body", where he mentions how animals live in a state of "natural grace" living free-flowing lives like you describe attuned only to the present moment. He quotes Aldous Huxley saying that humans do not and perhaps cannot live on the same plane as wild animals, for the fullness of animal grace is reserved for them. "Man's nature is such that he must live a self-conscious life in time and that animal grace is no longer sufficient for the conduct of human life and it must be supplemented by deliberate choices."
Lowen grants the validity of Huxley's observations but if animal grace is no longer sufficient for the conduct of human life, it may still be necessary. "How can behavior truly be gracious if it lacks a foundation in the body's animal grace?"
Your disembodied philosophy denies the reality of how far humans have fallen from Grace and no longer live in the Eden of effortlessness you describe. We have been banished and there is no option of return other than annihilation (which we seem to be choosing).
We are fated to live on a continuum of conscious effort and subconscious infinite grace. We must be aware of our mortality and securely grounded in our infinite immortality. If we get too caught up in our mortality, we do sink into nihilism. If we attempt to bypass or deny our morality we become "too spiritual for earthly good." There is a sweet spot dynamic in the moment on the continuum which we can sense if we're centered in our body and open to the subtleties of the flow of the Tao.
As I recommend, it is a shame to waste a perfectly good incarnation.
You go immediately to thought, John, without realizing it, mistaking it for your immediate direct experience, when you say: "going to my immediate direct existential experience I realize that I currently am a 'being' requiring food, shelter, a mate, and likely some form of trade goods to barter with others for necessities of life." That all takes a great deal of thinking, as well as memory, to conjure up--that you are a separate being, that you require a mate, etc. I'm not denying the relative biological existential things you are talking about, but I'm pointing to something more immediate. (And in doing so, I'm in no way intending to deny the value of thought, memory, conceptualization, etc.) You then go on with more thoughts, referencing others you've read, etc. So, you totally miss the point here, and most humans probably will miss what I'm pointing to in this post simply because we are so deeply habituated to living in the conceptual. You hear what is on offer as a "disembodied philosophy" (which is not at all where I'm coming from) and you then offer your own philosophy about how what you think (erroneously) that I'm pointing to "denies the reality of how far humans have fallen from Grace and no longer live in the Eden of effortlessness you describe." What?! Well...I can't put everything in any one post, and this one has a particular emphasis, one which obviously has no resonance for you--which is totally fine. But at least I wanted to let you know that what you heard was not what was intended, and that you immediately missed the main point altogether.
Well, if I am missing your "point" and "most humans probably will miss" as well, then maybe your point is "no-thing-ness" and imaginary?
Yes, I have to eat, breathe, and reproduce. I don't have to think about it, I simply "know" this on many levels within my body and through observations with Nature. We have all sorts of "memories" encoded in or DNA which we have natural access to. We probably have quantum collective knowledge that Jung refers to as well. Yes, we do live the the "conceptual" and that is our reality. Bypass that at your own peril.
Again, I'm not denying the need to eat and breathe. (You don't actually NEED to reproduce, and many of us don't, but if you follow certain urges in the absence of birth control, you very likely will reproduce). Nor am I advocating a disembodied life. Nor am I pointing to any philosophy. And yes, once we know language, the conceptual will arguably always play some part in what we experience. But I'm pointing to something more immediate, something even more fundamental and impossible to doubt. And yes, as soon as we speak of it, that's not it. But still, if life so moves us, we do our best to point to this ungraspable actuality. But the map we offer is not the territory. I don't think we'll clear this up through comments on Substack. But what I'm pointing to is not all these ideas.
John, all that Joan is pointing to, in my limited ability to understand and use language, is that sight, sound, sensation, smell, taste, perceptions, preferences, judgments, moods, emotions, desires, and aversions are all effortlessly and spontaneously appearing and disappearing, like the chirp of a bird, within conscious awareness. This is what you are at a fundamental level--conscious awareness--which is a direct claim about first person experience, not a metaphysical claim about reality. From the vantage point of Awareness, there really is no difference between a birdsong and a thought, which are both appearances in Awareness. We’ve just grown accustomed to taking our “self” to be one of the appearances but not the other. This leaves us often missing out on the full picture of this moment because our captured attention obscures the recognition of this larger space of Awareness, keeping us stuck/caught in the thought, the emotion, or the desire for something to be different. Even now as you read this, there are likely other things appearing that you aren’t noticing, such as the breath or your feet on the ground, and other appearances that you are taking yourself to be, such as the feeling of whether or not you like what I have to say. We, as human “beings,” have the intrinsic capacity and capability to drop back and rest/be Awareness itself (not a “thing”), as opposed to being caught up in one of the things appearing in Awareness. In this way of resting or being, there is no problem to solve, there is no experience of past or future, there is only the immediacy and spontaneity of what is--unconditional freedom. This is not to bypass any “problem” that may be here but to instead respond wisely in accordance with our deepest values and principles rather than react from our habit patterns and unconscious biases that so often drive our behavior. It’s a lot like a hand, after being balled into a clenched fist, finally realizing it can relax open and not strain so hard to stay clenched. See if you can be aware of your breath, bodily sensations, the thought you are having, the emotion you feel, and whether it’s pleasant or unpleasant all at the same time. The trick is Awareness is already and always allowing everything to be just as it is--the open hand. And the clenched fist is the sense of “i” in the middle of all this, which is just another appearance, and what keeps us from the recognition of Awareness itself--our true nature. I hope that helps, and if not, ignore me.
Joan, I thought what you wrote was beautiful. I know language is difficult to use to describe what is, as you said, truly ineffable, but what you wrote resonates well with the direct experience from this part of the ‘infinite sphere.’
In my article, in that first initial question, I was inviting an opening to something very simple but often overlooked—the immediate experiential undoubtable felt-sense of being here, present and aware, prior to any thought narrative about this, such as “I currently am a 'being' requiring food, shelter, a mate, and likely some form of trade goods to barter with others for necessities of life,” or “I am a verb,” or even “I am unbound aware presence.” It’s not that those narratives and labels might not be true, but what I was attempting in my post to evoke was something (that is not a thing) more fundamental. It’s subtle and easily missed, although once recognized, totally obvious, but then often dismissed as "so what...what's the big deal?"
Although this groundlessness (or emptiness, or presence) cannot be captured by any words, I might also describe it as an alive stillness, an open awaring presence, a simple sense of being here, not as someone in a life situation, not as a person with a name and a life story, but simply as presence or aliveness or consciousness itself (not those words, but the actuality to which they point).
In my experience, the more we open to this most subtle and most whole (and wholesome) groundless ground and abide knowingly (experientially) as this, even in the midst of life activity, the more we recognize and embody love. As Joan, I often fall short. Clearly, I fell short in responding to you, John. And it’s not that I disagree with anything you say—it’s just that it misses from the start what I was pointing to or inviting. But in trying to clarify that, I lost touch with it myself and was soon coming from a more mental and even argumentative place, so not surprisingly, it brought forth only more arguing and thinking in you. I know that you DO know what I'm pointing to, but you may not have recognized it. We humans are all deeply conditioned to live largely in thoughts and concepts and stories, and it's all so ubiquitous, we don't easily see it for what it is (a mental overlay). And I'm not AGAINST all of that. It's just not what I was inviting...
Thank you for the explanation. It was very crazy-making for me to have you embrace emptiness while acting otherwise. Yes, I am very aware of what you speak but also aware of how we (as you and I demonstrated) move on a continuum between emptiness and intense engagement depending on the moment. My point is we are fluid, not permanently parked in a state of eternal bliss. I recommend honoring the full range of ourselves for it is all sacred. Breathe...
Well I wasn’t expecting all this today. Let me say that in my meaningless opinion this was one of the best posts ever. For it all comes down to Douglas Harding’s powerful pointer “Having no Head the rediscovery of the obvious”. Agreeing with Andrew Tootell, Joan you are indeed a true nondual poet. Great post, thanks.
You're still missing the point, John, trying to work this out conceptually or ideologically. Now you're trying to figure out what pre-existing box (Taoism, Advaita, Buddhism, etc) to put this post in, and you're apparently wondering, why don't I just send out a post with a link to some scholarly article about Taoism, as if that would be the same thing and a simpler and far better way to do it. As I said in our previous thread, I don't think we will clarify this through comments back and forth on Substack, because that just keeps it in the realm of trying to sort it out conceptually. If you have a sincere interest in clarifying it, you might try reading the post again, slowly and meditatively, without getting caught up in thinking about it as you do so. And when you notice that starting to happen (arguing with the post in your mind, etc), if you can, just let that go. And then just rest in silence, simply being here. Perhaps a different dimension will open up, one that is here now but possibly overlooked or ignored. Intelligent meditation and meditative inquiry is what really clarifies all this in my experience, not trying to figure it out intellectually. And I don't mean that in some anti-intellectual way. There is a place for the intellect, for thinking and reasoning, for all of that. Those capabilities have gotten us to the moon and given us the internet. But you won't discover what I'm pointing to in that way.
You are very confusing. If there is "no-thing" then there can be no "point" for me to get. Do you not see the irony of you using words to describe what you admit is wordless?
"The Tao that can be told of is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name." ~ Lao Tau
I think you just want to argue, John. And yes, as I've said, I do see the paradox. Lao Tzu followed that first line in the Tao te Ching with 81 verses about the Tao, and so, like many others, I seem moved to do likewise. I get that you find all this confusing, and I get why. Thinking about this is confusing! The actuality of being here now is not confusing at all. Anyway, I wish you all the best, and I'm signing off this conversation with you now because I don't feel it is helping to clarify this for you or that it is a wise use of my time and energy. Nothing I write will resonate with everyone, and sometimes, when something doesn't make sense to you and/or just isn't your cup of tea, it's best to let it go and move on. 🙏😎
Pretty much every time I read your latest post, Joan, there's a warm appreciation, often accompanied by a thought like "Best ever. Done. That's it! Couldn't be better." Then the newest post drops, and THAT one is best ever! The dialogue with John was sweet, too, and made me chuckle a bit. Not a bit at John. Just how apparent conflict is all - on one level - an interplay at play which we can enter or not. Your compassion and good will is nicely evident through out.
Joan, thank you for the opportunity to do inquiry on that which is not from my mind. I trust your clarity and feel a resonance. I know this is thinking and my mind picking up something to solve, but can you help me with what you meant by those last words in following paragraph “inseparable from everything it apparently is not”
And the more closely and carefully we attend to anything that shows up here—a thought, a memory, an emotion, a chair, a table, a friend, a tree, a cloud, a sound—the more we discover it to be unpindownable, unresolvable, impermanent, and inseparable from everything it apparently is not.
If we explore experiencing (i.e., this so-called bodymindworld), we find that although there is infinite variation and diversity (without which it couldn’t appear at all), it all shows up as one whole inseparable picture, one whole movie. And you can’t actually pull it apart. You can’t have up without down, left without right, in without out, etc. They go together. They only exist relative to each other. The ceiling is up in relation to the floor and down in relation to the sky.
We often think that there are many things, many forms, including us, and these things are all impermanent. But in Buddhism, it is said that the true understanding of impermanence is that there is no impermanence because no-thing ever actually forms or persists to BE impermanent. It’s one flowing whole from which nothing stands apart. Buddhists also talk about interdependence—everything only exists because of everything else. You wouldn’t be here without food, air, water, your parents, their parents, the food they ate, the soil it grew in, the rain that nourished it, etc—ultimately, without the whole universe being just as it is in this moment, you wouldn’t be here now reading these words. In the image of Indra’s Net, everything only exists as a reflection of everything else.
In Advaita, the analogy is more often that of a dream, in which there are all these apparently different people, things and events, but they are all only momentary activities of the singular dreaming consciousness—as separate forms, they don’t have any actual existence—they are only appearances. Or in the example of the movie that is often used, the movie has many different people, landscapes and events—time seems to pass, locations change — but it’s all one undivided seamless movie, and it all shows up on the immovable empty screen—and in every moment of the movie, you are always seeing the screen, but you don’t notice it because your attention is on the story, the plot, the drama. The screen is like the immovable, ever-present (timeless, eternal, infinite) Here-Now (awareness, presence, consciousness, the immediacy of being).
Yes it does clarify, my logic kicks and scream at paradox. And language with any double negative to my conditioned mind, throws me. Like “inseparable from everything it apparent is not” lol
I have spent most of my life fighting uncertainty and needing answers. How you spent anytime with koans is to me superhuman!!!
Most of the Zen I did was not koan Zen...and when I did do koans, briefly, it was with Pacific Zen Institute, with John Tarrant and other PZI teachers, and they approach koans quite differently from the usual way...much more openly and playfully. The emphasis (as I heard it anyway) was on "keeping company with the koan," letting it work on you, and not on getting the right answer and "passing" it.
Thank you Joan, for this reminder. For your words that come across so light as a feather, without weight, and so point to what cannot be described by words. But they remind in the hustle and bustle of everyday life and let experience vastness, openness, liveliness and at the same time silence. Thank you
"Don’t go to thought for an answer to either of these questions. Go to your own immediate direct experience."
OK, going to my immediate direct existential experience I realize that I currently am a 'being' requiring food, shelter, a mate, and likely some form of trade goods to barter with others for necessities of life. Even a sadhu with nothing but a beggar bowl needs someone to do something to fill his empty bowl. "Chop wood, and carry water..."
I am reminded of a passage by Dr. Alexander Lowen in his marvelous book, The Spirituality of the Body", where he mentions how animals live in a state of "natural grace" living free-flowing lives like you describe attuned only to the present moment. He quotes Aldous Huxley saying that humans do not and perhaps cannot live on the same plane as wild animals, for the fullness of animal grace is reserved for them. "Man's nature is such that he must live a self-conscious life in time and that animal grace is no longer sufficient for the conduct of human life and it must be supplemented by deliberate choices."
Lowen grants the validity of Huxley's observations but if animal grace is no longer sufficient for the conduct of human life, it may still be necessary. "How can behavior truly be gracious if it lacks a foundation in the body's animal grace?"
Your disembodied philosophy denies the reality of how far humans have fallen from Grace and no longer live in the Eden of effortlessness you describe. We have been banished and there is no option of return other than annihilation (which we seem to be choosing).
We are fated to live on a continuum of conscious effort and subconscious infinite grace. We must be aware of our mortality and securely grounded in our infinite immortality. If we get too caught up in our mortality, we do sink into nihilism. If we attempt to bypass or deny our morality we become "too spiritual for earthly good." There is a sweet spot dynamic in the moment on the continuum which we can sense if we're centered in our body and open to the subtleties of the flow of the Tao.
As I recommend, it is a shame to waste a perfectly good incarnation.
You go immediately to thought, John, without realizing it, mistaking it for your immediate direct experience, when you say: "going to my immediate direct existential experience I realize that I currently am a 'being' requiring food, shelter, a mate, and likely some form of trade goods to barter with others for necessities of life." That all takes a great deal of thinking, as well as memory, to conjure up--that you are a separate being, that you require a mate, etc. I'm not denying the relative biological existential things you are talking about, but I'm pointing to something more immediate. (And in doing so, I'm in no way intending to deny the value of thought, memory, conceptualization, etc.) You then go on with more thoughts, referencing others you've read, etc. So, you totally miss the point here, and most humans probably will miss what I'm pointing to in this post simply because we are so deeply habituated to living in the conceptual. You hear what is on offer as a "disembodied philosophy" (which is not at all where I'm coming from) and you then offer your own philosophy about how what you think (erroneously) that I'm pointing to "denies the reality of how far humans have fallen from Grace and no longer live in the Eden of effortlessness you describe." What?! Well...I can't put everything in any one post, and this one has a particular emphasis, one which obviously has no resonance for you--which is totally fine. But at least I wanted to let you know that what you heard was not what was intended, and that you immediately missed the main point altogether.
Well, if I am missing your "point" and "most humans probably will miss" as well, then maybe your point is "no-thing-ness" and imaginary?
Yes, I have to eat, breathe, and reproduce. I don't have to think about it, I simply "know" this on many levels within my body and through observations with Nature. We have all sorts of "memories" encoded in or DNA which we have natural access to. We probably have quantum collective knowledge that Jung refers to as well. Yes, we do live the the "conceptual" and that is our reality. Bypass that at your own peril.
Again, I'm not denying the need to eat and breathe. (You don't actually NEED to reproduce, and many of us don't, but if you follow certain urges in the absence of birth control, you very likely will reproduce). Nor am I advocating a disembodied life. Nor am I pointing to any philosophy. And yes, once we know language, the conceptual will arguably always play some part in what we experience. But I'm pointing to something more immediate, something even more fundamental and impossible to doubt. And yes, as soon as we speak of it, that's not it. But still, if life so moves us, we do our best to point to this ungraspable actuality. But the map we offer is not the territory. I don't think we'll clear this up through comments on Substack. But what I'm pointing to is not all these ideas.
John, all that Joan is pointing to, in my limited ability to understand and use language, is that sight, sound, sensation, smell, taste, perceptions, preferences, judgments, moods, emotions, desires, and aversions are all effortlessly and spontaneously appearing and disappearing, like the chirp of a bird, within conscious awareness. This is what you are at a fundamental level--conscious awareness--which is a direct claim about first person experience, not a metaphysical claim about reality. From the vantage point of Awareness, there really is no difference between a birdsong and a thought, which are both appearances in Awareness. We’ve just grown accustomed to taking our “self” to be one of the appearances but not the other. This leaves us often missing out on the full picture of this moment because our captured attention obscures the recognition of this larger space of Awareness, keeping us stuck/caught in the thought, the emotion, or the desire for something to be different. Even now as you read this, there are likely other things appearing that you aren’t noticing, such as the breath or your feet on the ground, and other appearances that you are taking yourself to be, such as the feeling of whether or not you like what I have to say. We, as human “beings,” have the intrinsic capacity and capability to drop back and rest/be Awareness itself (not a “thing”), as opposed to being caught up in one of the things appearing in Awareness. In this way of resting or being, there is no problem to solve, there is no experience of past or future, there is only the immediacy and spontaneity of what is--unconditional freedom. This is not to bypass any “problem” that may be here but to instead respond wisely in accordance with our deepest values and principles rather than react from our habit patterns and unconscious biases that so often drive our behavior. It’s a lot like a hand, after being balled into a clenched fist, finally realizing it can relax open and not strain so hard to stay clenched. See if you can be aware of your breath, bodily sensations, the thought you are having, the emotion you feel, and whether it’s pleasant or unpleasant all at the same time. The trick is Awareness is already and always allowing everything to be just as it is--the open hand. And the clenched fist is the sense of “i” in the middle of all this, which is just another appearance, and what keeps us from the recognition of Awareness itself--our true nature. I hope that helps, and if not, ignore me.
Joan, I thought what you wrote was beautiful. I know language is difficult to use to describe what is, as you said, truly ineffable, but what you wrote resonates well with the direct experience from this part of the ‘infinite sphere.’
peace and love
As Buckminster Fuller wrote: "I sense I am a 'verb'... a being or becoming.
Shakespeare said it well; "Much ado about no-thing."
At the risk of saying way too much:
In my article, in that first initial question, I was inviting an opening to something very simple but often overlooked—the immediate experiential undoubtable felt-sense of being here, present and aware, prior to any thought narrative about this, such as “I currently am a 'being' requiring food, shelter, a mate, and likely some form of trade goods to barter with others for necessities of life,” or “I am a verb,” or even “I am unbound aware presence.” It’s not that those narratives and labels might not be true, but what I was attempting in my post to evoke was something (that is not a thing) more fundamental. It’s subtle and easily missed, although once recognized, totally obvious, but then often dismissed as "so what...what's the big deal?"
Although this groundlessness (or emptiness, or presence) cannot be captured by any words, I might also describe it as an alive stillness, an open awaring presence, a simple sense of being here, not as someone in a life situation, not as a person with a name and a life story, but simply as presence or aliveness or consciousness itself (not those words, but the actuality to which they point).
In my experience, the more we open to this most subtle and most whole (and wholesome) groundless ground and abide knowingly (experientially) as this, even in the midst of life activity, the more we recognize and embody love. As Joan, I often fall short. Clearly, I fell short in responding to you, John. And it’s not that I disagree with anything you say—it’s just that it misses from the start what I was pointing to or inviting. But in trying to clarify that, I lost touch with it myself and was soon coming from a more mental and even argumentative place, so not surprisingly, it brought forth only more arguing and thinking in you. I know that you DO know what I'm pointing to, but you may not have recognized it. We humans are all deeply conditioned to live largely in thoughts and concepts and stories, and it's all so ubiquitous, we don't easily see it for what it is (a mental overlay). And I'm not AGAINST all of that. It's just not what I was inviting...
Thank you for the explanation. It was very crazy-making for me to have you embrace emptiness while acting otherwise. Yes, I am very aware of what you speak but also aware of how we (as you and I demonstrated) move on a continuum between emptiness and intense engagement depending on the moment. My point is we are fluid, not permanently parked in a state of eternal bliss. I recommend honoring the full range of ourselves for it is all sacred. Breathe...
"as an alive stillness" Yes!
Joan’s words take us always beyond words and return us always to just this. At the same time she is a true nondual poet.
Well I wasn’t expecting all this today. Let me say that in my meaningless opinion this was one of the best posts ever. For it all comes down to Douglas Harding’s powerful pointer “Having no Head the rediscovery of the obvious”. Agreeing with Andrew Tootell, Joan you are indeed a true nondual poet. Great post, thanks.
OK, what you're "conceptualizing" is essentially ancient Taoism. Why not simply say so?
https://rsc.byu.edu/light-truth/taoism
You're still missing the point, John, trying to work this out conceptually or ideologically. Now you're trying to figure out what pre-existing box (Taoism, Advaita, Buddhism, etc) to put this post in, and you're apparently wondering, why don't I just send out a post with a link to some scholarly article about Taoism, as if that would be the same thing and a simpler and far better way to do it. As I said in our previous thread, I don't think we will clarify this through comments back and forth on Substack, because that just keeps it in the realm of trying to sort it out conceptually. If you have a sincere interest in clarifying it, you might try reading the post again, slowly and meditatively, without getting caught up in thinking about it as you do so. And when you notice that starting to happen (arguing with the post in your mind, etc), if you can, just let that go. And then just rest in silence, simply being here. Perhaps a different dimension will open up, one that is here now but possibly overlooked or ignored. Intelligent meditation and meditative inquiry is what really clarifies all this in my experience, not trying to figure it out intellectually. And I don't mean that in some anti-intellectual way. There is a place for the intellect, for thinking and reasoning, for all of that. Those capabilities have gotten us to the moon and given us the internet. But you won't discover what I'm pointing to in that way.
You are very confusing. If there is "no-thing" then there can be no "point" for me to get. Do you not see the irony of you using words to describe what you admit is wordless?
"The Tao that can be told of is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name." ~ Lao Tau
I think you just want to argue, John. And yes, as I've said, I do see the paradox. Lao Tzu followed that first line in the Tao te Ching with 81 verses about the Tao, and so, like many others, I seem moved to do likewise. I get that you find all this confusing, and I get why. Thinking about this is confusing! The actuality of being here now is not confusing at all. Anyway, I wish you all the best, and I'm signing off this conversation with you now because I don't feel it is helping to clarify this for you or that it is a wise use of my time and energy. Nothing I write will resonate with everyone, and sometimes, when something doesn't make sense to you and/or just isn't your cup of tea, it's best to let it go and move on. 🙏😎
Brilliant as always.
No, I do not find "being here now" but your vague description of having to be in Joan's skin to sense it properly. Yes, we're done here.
Pretty much every time I read your latest post, Joan, there's a warm appreciation, often accompanied by a thought like "Best ever. Done. That's it! Couldn't be better." Then the newest post drops, and THAT one is best ever! The dialogue with John was sweet, too, and made me chuckle a bit. Not a bit at John. Just how apparent conflict is all - on one level - an interplay at play which we can enter or not. Your compassion and good will is nicely evident through out.
Joan, thank you for the opportunity to do inquiry on that which is not from my mind. I trust your clarity and feel a resonance. I know this is thinking and my mind picking up something to solve, but can you help me with what you meant by those last words in following paragraph “inseparable from everything it apparently is not”
And the more closely and carefully we attend to anything that shows up here—a thought, a memory, an emotion, a chair, a table, a friend, a tree, a cloud, a sound—the more we discover it to be unpindownable, unresolvable, impermanent, and inseparable from everything it apparently is not.
So grateful
Laurie
Hi Laurie,
If we explore experiencing (i.e., this so-called bodymindworld), we find that although there is infinite variation and diversity (without which it couldn’t appear at all), it all shows up as one whole inseparable picture, one whole movie. And you can’t actually pull it apart. You can’t have up without down, left without right, in without out, etc. They go together. They only exist relative to each other. The ceiling is up in relation to the floor and down in relation to the sky.
We often think that there are many things, many forms, including us, and these things are all impermanent. But in Buddhism, it is said that the true understanding of impermanence is that there is no impermanence because no-thing ever actually forms or persists to BE impermanent. It’s one flowing whole from which nothing stands apart. Buddhists also talk about interdependence—everything only exists because of everything else. You wouldn’t be here without food, air, water, your parents, their parents, the food they ate, the soil it grew in, the rain that nourished it, etc—ultimately, without the whole universe being just as it is in this moment, you wouldn’t be here now reading these words. In the image of Indra’s Net, everything only exists as a reflection of everything else.
In Advaita, the analogy is more often that of a dream, in which there are all these apparently different people, things and events, but they are all only momentary activities of the singular dreaming consciousness—as separate forms, they don’t have any actual existence—they are only appearances. Or in the example of the movie that is often used, the movie has many different people, landscapes and events—time seems to pass, locations change — but it’s all one undivided seamless movie, and it all shows up on the immovable empty screen—and in every moment of the movie, you are always seeing the screen, but you don’t notice it because your attention is on the story, the plot, the drama. The screen is like the immovable, ever-present (timeless, eternal, infinite) Here-Now (awareness, presence, consciousness, the immediacy of being).
I hope that clarifies it. If not, let me know. 🙏
Yes it does clarify, my logic kicks and scream at paradox. And language with any double negative to my conditioned mind, throws me. Like “inseparable from everything it apparent is not” lol
I have spent most of my life fighting uncertainty and needing answers. How you spent anytime with koans is to me superhuman!!!
Most of the Zen I did was not koan Zen...and when I did do koans, briefly, it was with Pacific Zen Institute, with John Tarrant and other PZI teachers, and they approach koans quite differently from the usual way...much more openly and playfully. The emphasis (as I heard it anyway) was on "keeping company with the koan," letting it work on you, and not on getting the right answer and "passing" it.
The Taoist might explain it in this way:
Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.
Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding. (Tao V:1)
Thank you Joan, for this reminder. For your words that come across so light as a feather, without weight, and so point to what cannot be described by words. But they remind in the hustle and bustle of everyday life and let experience vastness, openness, liveliness and at the same time silence. Thank you
Yes!Yes!Yes! Great Stuff, Joan! What I have been experiencing for years in my meditative practice. Love It. Just be!!!!!!
dear joan,
thank you for sharing this! beautiful as always!
"No words are ever quite right." <-- these words are quite right!
love,
myq