I had an email from someone who was trying to reconcile my last post, about whether or not “I am my body,” with another post that seemed to be suggesting an opposite perspective from mine. The person was confused and said they were “trying to grok what seems to be known as Eastern spiritual philosophy.” This is an edited version of my response:
In my experience, the mind can get easily obsessed with trying to reconcile different, apparently contradictory maps or formulations, trying to figure out which is right or which offers the best path to some imaginary future awakening.
Is it possible to simply notice this obsession as it happens? Can you feel the tightness in the body, the desperation, the straining to finally “get it”? Just see this as it happens, be aware of this whole movement in the bodymind, feel it, see how it works.
It’s a very seductive habit. It promises that if you just think about this a little bit longer, or consult one more teacher or book, then finally, the goods will be delivered, the fog will clear. You will arrive at last! But like all addictions, it’s a false promise.
Can you see that this habitual movement is centered around a “me” who is supposedly not quite clear about all this, not quite “there” yet—a deficient self? And isn’t it all about striving toward a future moment of clarity, some final breakthrough perhaps, after which you’ll finally “get it” and be able to relax and simply be as you are? It’s like straining toward an orgasm that never arrives.
What if you stopped postponing this long-desired relaxing into being just as you are? What if you were simply present and alive, right here, right now? Simply being this present experiencing, just as it is. This is effortlessly always already the case, so it’s utterly simple. You can’t get it wrong. And if the mind starts trying to figure out exactly what this is, or what you are, or what you should do to “get” something or have some special experience, simply notice that old habit and let it go. Just be as you are.
Right now, in this moment, is it possible to give up "trying to grok what seems to be known as Eastern spiritual philosophy”? There is simply this one bottomless moment, this aware presence, this present experiencing. Notice that this is so. Never mind what it might be called or how it might be described, or any ideas about where to place your attention or your identity, and instead, simply let your attention move as it wants to move. Relax. Enjoy the sounds, colors, textures of this moment. Instead of trying to see it or “get” it, simply be the awareness that you naturally always already are. Enjoy simply being alive.
And if we must go off into the conceptual map-world, I would remind you that “Eastern spiritual philosophy” has within it many variations, different maps, different methods, different views. One can spend a whole lifetime avoiding the simplicity of here and now by being lost in trying to sort out and reconcile these different maps, comparing and contrasting them, trying to figure out which one is truest, best, most enlightened, most effective, most accurate, most advanced, or most whatever—so that you can then go whole-heartedly into that one and maybe finally someday arrive at the place where you’ve been all along, where you can finally relax and just be.
Why postpone? Why spend your whole trip in Paris in your hotel room comparing the different maps of the city, trying to find the best one, and reading descriptions of the city in the travel brochures? Why not simply step out into the city itself? Explore. Enjoy. This very moment, right now, is all there ever actually is. The rest is fantasy. And the truth is, no one knows what this is or why it’s here. And it turns out, we don’t need to know!
Different expressions point out different aspects of this living reality, different ways of seeing and experiencing it. There isn’t One Right Way. Each approach or formulation can be helpful at the right moment, and all of them are subject to misinterpretation and unintended consequences. There is no Perfect Way, no perfect expression, no perfect teacher—except in the sense that everything is perfectly what it is.
One approach (found in Advaita and elsewhere) emphasizes recognizing that you are open, free, boundless awareness, the space in which everything perceivable and conceivable appears and disappears. You are not this separate little character with a life story supposedly encapsulated inside the body. Whatever can be perceived or imagined, you are not that. You are the awareness beholding it all, the Ultimate Subject, the eye (I) that can never see itself, the One Consciousness behind all the masks. You are not bound or limited.
And yet, there is only the Self. Everything that appears is recognized to be nothing other than Consciousness forming and unforming, as in a dream. As the great Advaita sage Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj put it, “Love says: ‘I am everything.’ Wisdom says: ‘I am nothing.’ Between the two my life flows.”
It’s liberating to realize that the character you’ve taken yourself to be is a kind of mental image, a bunch of stories and memories. And it’s liberating to discover that when you turn attention to your actual experience in this moment of what you most fundamentally are, without referring to thought or memory, you find simply open, aware, unbound presence showing up as everything.
Importantly, this is always already the case—you can’t not be this aware presence. It may not have been noticed before—it’s so obvious it’s easy to overlook it—and even after initially recognizing it, consciousness tends to re-identify itself with the small self and imagine itself separate from this boundless awareness, which it then conceives of as a subtle object that “I” (the separate self) need to somehow attain or regain.
It’s not uncommon for people to get stuck for a while in trying to identify the phantom “me” with awareness and not with the bodymind or the character in the story, trying to feel that “I" (the little me) am the screen and not the movie. This subtle efforting endlessly reincarnates and reaffirms the illusory story of separation and deficiency, and gives rise to the belief that “I” (as the little me) am alternately “getting it” and then “losing it,” always hoping to someday “get there” permanently.
But any “there” is always a fantasy—there is only Here-Now. The “me” who is trying to get somewhere is a mirage, and no experience is ever permanent. Boundless awareness is ever-present, allowing everything to be as it is, whether it is a contracted experience or an expanded one. Awareness is not an object that can be seen or grasped. It’s always fully present here and now. Like space, it is everywhere. There is no need to “get” it. “You” (the imaginary little me) can’t get it. “You” are appearing in it, and it is what you most fundamentally are. You can’t not be what you are, except in imagination. All that needs to happen is seeing through the thoughts and stories that create the mirage of separation and lack.
In a related but somewhat different approach (found in Zen, Taoism and elsewhere), everything is seen to be empty of separate, independent, persisting existence. Form is emptiness, and emptiness is form, so there is no separate “Emptiness” that contains all the forms, like a mirror without the reflections or a movie screen without the movies. Rather, it’s more like the waves and the ocean—no separation. There is diversity, but no separation. Not one; not two. There is simply present experiencing, which is centerless, boundless, seamless, infinitely diverse, ungraspable, unresolvable, self-aware no-thing-ness appearing as everything, including the intermittent sense of being a bodymind person in the play of life. You don’t have to stop being a wave to recognize yourself as the ocean, and every wave contains the whole ocean.
In short, there are many different ways of formulating this ungraspable living actuality. Many different ways of helping people see through their storylines, beliefs and false ideas of limitation, and inviting them to directly discover the absence of separation, the wholeness of being, the evanescence of experience and the aliveness of right now.
Different strokes for different folks or for different moments. One moment you need Zen. The next moment you need Advaita. Then maybe you suddenly find yourself drawn to Christian mystics or Sufis. Or maybe you’re suddenly moved to throw it all out the window and start from scratch, knowing nothing, believing nothing. Each possibility has something unique to offer.
One moment (or one week, or one year, or one decade) one teacher (or path, or expression) resonates, and in another moment (or week, or year, or decade) a very different teacher (or path, or expression) resonates. Give up trying to reconcile them or figure out which one is right and instead, simply go to the heart of where whichever one is resonating right now is pointing. That’s where the juice is. Not in the philosophy. Not in the map.
Don’t get lost in the maps. Come back to actual direct immediate experiencing right here, right now. Tune into the heart, the aliveness. Explore. Enjoy. Allow this direct experiencing, this living presence to act on you, to inform you, to move you, to reveal itself to you. Instead of you trying to do it, recognize that it is doing you. It’s not really other than you. And it has many different flavors and dimensions to discover. It is ever-fresh, always renewing and unfolding itself. There’s no need to figure it all out or pin it all down or reconcile all the seemingly contradictory maps. Just be what you cannot not be, this one bottomless moment right here right now, which is ever-changing and ever-present.
Relax! Be as you are. Enjoy the dance.
Love to all…
Awesome, thanks!
I wasted way too many years chasing after the “right” philosophy, religion, or “way,” until reflecting on Jesus’ words, “I AM the way …” and decided to start living from my heart instead of my head. Peace and serenity are “my way” now.