Nothing Missing

Always Complete

No creature ever comes short of its own completeness. Wherever it stands, it does not fail to cover the ground.
– Dogen

There is nowhere at all which is devoid of the Way.
– Huang Po

All there is, is this one bottomless moment, present experiencing here and now—ever-present, ever-changing. Sometimes it is lit up (in waking and dreaming); sometimes it is dark (in deep sleep). Although darkness and light are different, they are inseparable. This boundless whole is seamless and indivisible. Inside and outside, self and other, awareness and content, good and evil cannot be pulled apart. That isn’t a philosophy to adopt as a belief, but something to confirm by giving open attention to direct experience.

When this presence is lit up, the ten thousand things appear, but the “things” are all imaginary. They are like a kaleidoscopic display of Rorschach blots that the pattern-seeking mind is endlessly interpreting and turning into stories and apparently fixed shapes. What appears is infinitely differentiated and varied, but it never resolves into any fixed or final form. The separations, the seemingly independent and persisting forms with their apparently impermeable boundaries, the apparent solidity and substantiality of it all—that is illusory. 

Although we appear to be somebody who exists in time and space, moving from past to future and from here to there, in direct experience, the only actual time is NOW, this eternal, timeless presence, and the only place we ever actually are is HERE, this unlocatable immediacy in which all locations appear and disappear. Here-Now is synonymous with this one bottomless moment, present experiencing, just this. But no words can capture or contain this aliveness. Words like these can only point to what is right here—utterly obvious, unavoidable, never absent.

If thought pops up and says, “What exactly does she mean? What is it? Have I got it? Yes, but, what about….” — those very thoughts instantly create an illusory separation between some imagined “it” and this mirage-like “me” who seemingly needs to “get it.” The problem is entirely imaginary. It feels real, but it’s only a story accompanied by a contraction in the body and a kind of mental straining. The contraction and the straining, and the thoughts themselves are all nothing but passing sensations and impersonal movements of energy. Thought takes them personally and gives them meaning: “I still don’t quite get it—I’m not quite there yet.”

But “there” is always imaginary, as is the one who seemingly needs to get there. Consciousness (or the universe, or whatever this is) identifies as a separate character in the movie of waking life. Thought poses as “me,” the thinker of “my” thoughts, the character in the story who is supposedly calling the shots and who could or should be doing better. This “me” always seems to be deficient, alienated, vulnerable, endangered and imperfect. Something always seems to be missing or not good enough. There is the contracted sense of straining to “get” something, to achieve something, to become something, to see or understand or be something other than this very moment, just as it is. “I” seem to be an encapsulated self in a separate body, terrified of being extinguished.

And, indeed, the body and the mind are both vulnerable and impermanent—but only in the story. Here and Now, in this moment, there is no body and no mind and no me. That isn’t some weird nondual dogma, although it can become that once it is conceptualized—but it’s actually pointing to everyone’s direct experience right now.

There is simply sensations of breath moving in and out, heart beating, whooshing sounds of the freeway, tap-tap-tapping of computer keys, fingers moving, the woof-woof of a neighbor’s dog, the hum of an airplane passing overhead, the urge for a sip of hot tea, the hand reaching out, the feel of the hot cup against the lips, the taste of tea, the ever-changing display of colors and shapes—simply this. Never the same from one instant to the next, without any enduring substance or form, without any center or periphery, without any author or doer pulling the strings or making it happen—all of it simply appearing and disappearing.

The stories woven around this kaleidoscopic appearance can be wonderful or terrible, enlightening or delusional, entertaining or misery-inducing. The stories and the imaginary shapes and forms are all movements of this undivided wholeness. Nothing is left out. Every apparent form that appears, including each unique, unrepeatable, one-of-a-kind, ever-changing, individual bodymind person is a momentary expression of this wholeness, this absolute freedom.

None of this needs to go away or be any different than it is. It’s ALL included, it all belongs. Nothing is left out of this completeness. Dreams, mirages, imaginary things, stories, thoughts, contractions and expansions, apparent forms, the thought-sense of being “me” — it’s ALL included. It’s all a movement of the whole. Nothing can be separated out or removed. And it all dissolves the instant it appears.

Words such as awareness, consciousness and experience are all used in different ways by different speakers and writers. Various analogies are frequently employed, such as mirrors, movie screens, ocean waves, holograms, fractals, kaleidoscopes and Rorschach blots. Such words and analogies can be helpful in pointing out different aspects of reality and distinguishing different qualities, dimensions and variations in what is. But this whole happening is not actually divided up into mirrors and reflections, movies and screens, oceans and waves, awareness and content, enlightenment and delusion, mind and matter, chickens and eggs, or me and you. Those are all imaginary, conceptual divisions and abstract categories generated by thought.

We can get very confused trying to reconcile different pointers and teachings. But in simply being here, there is no confusion and nothing to reconcile. There is simply what is, as it is. So it is very helpful, when possible, to hold all words, pointers, descriptions and analogies lightly and not turn them into beliefs, fundamentalist dogmas, or absolute ideological certainties that cannot be questioned—although, of course, fundamentalist dogmas and imagined certainties are also a momentary movement of this indivisible wholeness. In some unfathomable way, it all belongs.

“Finally, none of it makes sense. There’s just sensation. Just what is. Just the absolutely beautiful, crazy, unknowable, ungraspable mystery that produces the giraffe, the camel, the zebra, the elephant, the orchid, the neon colored tropical fish, the dolphin, the shark, Toni Packer, Da Free John, Ngeton, Mother Teresa, Rajneesh, Gangaji, Billy Graham, Ramana Maharshi, Oral Roberts, Joko Beck, Papaji, and the Pope—all in the same Universe. One can only laugh. Sing bhajans. And be amazed.”

—from my book Awake in the Heartland: The Ecstasy of What Is

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Beginning of Spring (or autumn)

Tomorrow is the first day of spring on the traditional Chinese calendar, or the first day of autumn if you’re on the other side of the blue ball. In that calendar, the solstices and equinoxes are viewed as the height of the seasons, not the beginning. The beginning is marked by an earlier date on that calendar when the energy of the new season first starts to enter the picture, and in my experience, that date is always right on the mark. Tomorrow is one of those days, so you may find yourself noticing the first signs of a shift.

Happy spring (or autumn) to all of you,

with Love…