I've often used the word "actuality" also, as have others. I like the title of John Astin's forthcoming book, "In Every Wave, the Entirety of the Sea."
Greg Goode has an excellent book, The Direct Path, A User's Manual, where he takes the reader through actual practical experiments to break the realist and materialist view of reality. I thought to add that as another recommendation to those you mention
Hey Joan, great writing, thank you 🙏🏼 💙 I have a question about this, if you have time to respond:
“Whatever we experience or perceive may say more about the possibilities of human consciousness than it does about the nature of the universe at large.”
You state this and yet simultaneously you do make statements that sound quite absolute about this-here-now/reality being a wholeness, everything going together, no self, impermanence, emptiness, etc
How do you hold both these within yourself? You state that you don’t turn any model into truth yet you do seem convinced of the truth of your model/seeing in many ways. Even to assert emptiness/unresolvability seems to be making an absolute metaphysical claim as to the nature of this-here-now, no? Curious how this shows up for you
Peter Brown also had a funny way of saying things like, “When you realize you can’t know what this is, that’s when you know what this is” -- pointing to unresolvability. Yet Peter also habitually made high-conviction statements about this-here-now being God, Heaven, the Great Perfection, beyond death, pure miracle, and so on...
Perhaps you are both saying that although no conceptual map is ever the territory, there are direct truths about the nature of experience that can be discovered through non-conceptual investigation? And maybe you, Joan, are primarily asserting experiential truths without wanting to universalize them? Whereas Peter seemed more willing to universalize experiential truth...
If I may speak freely -- please take what resonates, leave what doesn’t -- for me you (similar to Robert Saltzman) seem to grant too much credence to materialism. What is “human consciousness”? What is “universe”? These are abstractions that have no experiential basis...
As far as I can see all that is ever experienced cannot be said at all... to gesture toward it, I could say all that is experienced is this miraculous flash of pure imagination, pure weightless innocence, pure floating shape-shifting-ness overflowing with a literal infinity of detail...
The sheer infinity & omni-harmony & all-embracing-ness of this apparently self-existent, self-orchestrating dancing-ness reveals a loving intelligence beyond all fathoming... vastly beyond anything an ‘animal brain’ (whatever that is) could conjure... this becomes especially clear in certain rarefied (entheogenic) states (which are not any more ‘special’ yet allow a fuller unveiling of naked infinitely powerful loving intelligence)
Time and space cannot be found - more abstract overlays... nothing can be found... so all that is left is eternal loving intelligence.... miraculousness... silence (yet with a Heart that pours forth so much warm intimacy & relationality among the ‘waves of the Ocean’)
For me Peter Brown grokked this more profoundly than ~most/all other 21st century communicators I have encountered... and that is why his words are so ineffably juicy, alive, vital, uplifting, celebratory... he really saw that this is the good news, the best news... Divinity
None of this is intended to diminish in any way the beautiful messages you are sharing. I deeply appreciate you and your work. I’m just kinda reflecting out loud to try to understand why I don’t fully resonate with your expression of the view-less view (or beloved Peter’s, for that matter, who could sometimes seem to miss the full tender warmth of this throbbing Heart of God)... why it sometimes feels (vaguely, subtly) cold, clinical, removed, atheistic or nihilistic or solipsistic to me...
I feel your Love as well and thank you for it. Thanks for allowing me to share this here. I hope it’s valuable in some way and if not, it was valuable for me to write - so thank you 🙏🏼 💙
In response to your initial question, I'm talking about experience, not metaphysics. But no way we try to put any of this into words is ever entirely correct. Words can only describe, evoke, invite and point.
If mine sound "cold, clinical, removed, atheistic or nihilistic or solipsistic" to you, I can assure you that isn't how they feel here, nor is it what I intend to convey. And I don't have the sense that's where Peter was coming from or what he was trying to convey either. But people hear what they hear. And we all resonate with different expressions, and that's fine. I'm happy you enjoy Peter, and I'm happy that you at least enjoy some of the writing here and feel some sense of the love in it. And if some doesn't resonate for you, that's fine!
You say that I "seem to grant too much credence to materialism," apparently in part because I spoke of “human consciousness” and “the universe." What are those?, you wondered. "These are abstractions that have no experiential basis," you declared, as if this were a novel revelation I'd never considered before. But as the article said, "Like chairs and tables and dogs and cats and oceans and waves, these are ALL conceptual abstractions that thought has carved out of an ever-changing whole." Still, we use words to communicate and express. I could play the same game with all your words (as I did with "child soul").
In my experience, words DO have some correlation with what we experience. The map of NYC is not NYC--it is an abstract representation--but it has some connection to NYC and can help us navigate the city. Ditto words such as table, chair, computer, awareness, experience, and so forth.
As I said in the article, my sense is that relative and absolute perspectives are both important, and they're both here at once, like those duck/rabbit images where the same drawing can be seen either way. So yes, relatively speaking, I'm a human being and so are you. And at the same time, those labels are abstractions of an ungraspable, unpindownable, ever-changing, inseparable actuality. BOTH are true.
I'm neither a materialist nor an idealist. I simply don't know what this all is. I don't know if only consciousness exists or if consciousness evolved out of a so-called material universe., or even what "consciousness" and "matter" are. All I have with certainty is my ever-changing experience.
Yes, there does seem to be an intelligence at work, but I doubt it's the kind of intelligence that designs and plans the universe.
I can experience myself as a human animal named Joan who has an age, a nationality, a gender, a life story, certain medical issues, etc., and I can experience myself as open boundless impersonal awareness, or as this ever-changing present experiencing. I've had the experience of being dead drunk and the experience of being high on LSD and many other drugs and all kinds of experiences during meditation, while gazing at the night sky, while making love, while doing Feldenkrais lessons, while dreaming or going under anesthesia and so on. And as Thich Nhat Hanh wisely said, you don't have to stop being a wave to be the ocean.
You say of your comment that you "hope it’s valuable in some way and if not, it was valuable for me to write." I'm glad it was valuable to you. It was a bit tiring for me to be honest. But I hope maybe I clarified a few things. I see someone else also responded and apparently deleted their comment, so I didn't see that one. But I gather someone found your words valuable in some way.
Thanks for taking the time to respond. I want to apologize. It’s not my intent to badger you -- I can understand why my comment was not so well-received. I considered deleting it but ultimately left it up. It was an expression of a genuine attempt to deeply engage with your work and wrestle with my own feelings about it -- but I can see that it was somewhat ill-posed. I was in a rather strange sleep-deprived space when I wrote it.
To be clear I do deeply resonate with your work and with Peter’s -- and I was trying to parse out why there isn’t a *full* resonance, which I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced with anyone... maybe I am a ‘hopeless’ contrarian. And I really meant the “vaguely, subtly” part regarding the “cold, clinical, removed, etc...” It’s a subtle feeling sometimes reading your stuff -- not the primary experience. It may partially come down to stylistic choices: I tend to use more mystical or evocative language whereas you often seem to prioritize a more scientific precision. I believe I also have a pretty deep-seated bias against materialism and the scientific worldview -- which I should probably look at more closely -- and so perhaps your greater openness to those ideas (if only in a relative sense) is something that can trigger me about your work.
It’s kinda funny that I found myself asserting that our humanity cannot be found -- when often I have found myself arguing for an inclusive nonduality that deeply honors our personal, human, as well as soul-level experiences. I guess I was in a Jim-Newman-y mood yesterday when I wrote you. And I know we disagree about souls and other subtle-etheric ‘bodies’ or ‘entities.’ Perhaps ‘soul-ing’ is an activity of reality in a similar way as what you mentioned as ‘self-ing...’ I don’t claim to have any final knowledge about this; I’ve just had too many experiences of ‘non-physical entities’ so I’ve made room for these phenomena in my meaning-making. And I love the innocence of children so ‘child soul’ reminds me of that love.
Perhaps I am also triggered on some level by your brave willingness to admit you just simply don’t know and that you’re comfortable not knowing. As much as I have spent a lot of my life in a space of non-knowing, some deep part of me does really, really, really want to know -- wants to ‘piece it all together’ and ‘make it all make sense.’ Part of me wants to disprove materialism, prove that my grand metaphysical conceptions are true, and prove that my most profound experiences ‘revealed divine truth’ to me. I need to keep examining where this comes from -- and what I am afraid of.
Thank you for holding up the mirror here and helping me see myself more clearly. I am ultimately glad I wrote to you because your reflections here are very valuable. Perhaps I unconsciously knew I needed a little ‘zen slap.’ 😄 Whatever this reality is, it’s truly wondrous and it is all the more blessed by virtue of your presence. Sincerely, thank you for being. 🙏🏼💛
P.S. Maybe my vague feelings about “atheistic, nihilistic, solipsistic” also arise due to fear -- fear based on a mental conception of some of your pointers, rather than a full experiential recognition of what you are gesturing toward
That might be true. I've had similar issues in the past, e.g. with the suggestion that everything is a dream. Initially (conceptually, mentally) that seemed to me to somehow diminish or invalidates both the joy and the suffering in life, whereas I've grown now to experience that pointer in a very different way that actually feels very warm and vibrant and alive and doesn't invalidate anything.
Thank you. Well said. The dream-like insubstantiality is something I have also resisted... and the way ‘being that which alone is’ can seem solipsistic... as I relax into it though it becomes clear that the fears are basically rooted in mental assumptions rather than what it is actually like to simply rest as mystery
Thanks, Jordon. I've also had (and sometimes still do have) contrarian tendencies, so I can relate. From what I know of you, I was also surprised that you seemed to be "asserting that our humanity cannot be found" in your initial comment. I find science quite marvelous, and deeply spiritual actually. But I've never thought of myself as writing with "scientific precision," although I do endeavor to be clear, but I often use words such as God, unconditional love, the heart, and so on that my friend Robert Saltzman would likely not use, and I have a devotional, bhakti streak, a love of ritual, and so on. But you definitely wade into waters I do not. Everyone has a unique gift to offer.
Thank you for being you. I'm glad you're here. ❤️🙏
Thank you for this, Joan 🙏🏼💙 I appreciate your clarity. It seems I’ve projected some assumptions onto you and I hereby relinquish those! Wonderful that we share the Bhakti streak and fondness of ritual and are happy to call this God. And thanks for sharing that you see science as deeply spiritual -- have you written about that anywhere? I appreciate this re-frame; I can see how ‘putting experience under the microscope’ or ‘through the telescope’ basically just further reveals the unresolvability, infinity, and limitless imagination of what is 🙏🏼💛
“notice that thought and will-power can’t make caught-up-ness in the me-story stop happening, nor can they produce love and compassion on command”
The me-story has so little power and yet I attribute much. I am seeing that it’s just as impossible for “me” to conjure up hurt, comfort, resentment or forgiveness. Not being the creator is a comfort and allows forgiveness
Joan another great post. I also loved the dialogue between you and Jorden! I resonate with your “teaching”, sorry I can’t think of a better word, totally. As I do with Robert Saltzman, Nisargaddatta, Karl Renz, Salvadore Poe, and Darryl Bailey. I find apparent contradictions with all of you which I love because they only apparent and prevent my mind from acting on its desire to get it. lol thanks a bunch. Much love to all.
I love your repetition of the two words "totally gone" in the second paragraph. I indulge in the physiology of family dynamics and how that affected siblings, parents and the line of endless suffering. Who am I in this line? THE FIXER! Knowing that that is an impossible role makes it even more weird. So when you repeat "totally gone" it is a fantastic relief from the bondage of the "fixer". Thank you
Hi Joan. Thanks for this essay. With your mention and concise description of David Hinton’s writing, I got a little jolt. I was recently on a roll with several of his books, including China Root, and have wanted to shout the relevance of his perspective from my rooftop.
Flowing spiral of life constantly blooming & dying in such amazing geometry of color/sound/being & not
Love This! THX Joan. Just came across Amaya Gayles new book where in the title instead of the word reality she calls it...ACTUALITY infinity at play🙂
I've often used the word "actuality" also, as have others. I like the title of John Astin's forthcoming book, "In Every Wave, the Entirety of the Sea."
Love John and the title of the new book🙂
Wonderful, as always.
Right on Beautiful Joan, how do you do it?? So clear and as usual...so very helpful! Gratitude all around!
Excellent post, Joan. 🙏Succinct, clear and unassailable. Much love from this wave 🌊 🌹
Greg Goode has an excellent book, The Direct Path, A User's Manual, where he takes the reader through actual practical experiments to break the realist and materialist view of reality. I thought to add that as another recommendation to those you mention
I know Greg. He and the book of his you mention are both on my website recommended reading list that I linked to.
I just discovered we both were on Awareness Explorers! Love it!
Hey Joan, great writing, thank you 🙏🏼 💙 I have a question about this, if you have time to respond:
“Whatever we experience or perceive may say more about the possibilities of human consciousness than it does about the nature of the universe at large.”
You state this and yet simultaneously you do make statements that sound quite absolute about this-here-now/reality being a wholeness, everything going together, no self, impermanence, emptiness, etc
How do you hold both these within yourself? You state that you don’t turn any model into truth yet you do seem convinced of the truth of your model/seeing in many ways. Even to assert emptiness/unresolvability seems to be making an absolute metaphysical claim as to the nature of this-here-now, no? Curious how this shows up for you
Peter Brown also had a funny way of saying things like, “When you realize you can’t know what this is, that’s when you know what this is” -- pointing to unresolvability. Yet Peter also habitually made high-conviction statements about this-here-now being God, Heaven, the Great Perfection, beyond death, pure miracle, and so on...
Perhaps you are both saying that although no conceptual map is ever the territory, there are direct truths about the nature of experience that can be discovered through non-conceptual investigation? And maybe you, Joan, are primarily asserting experiential truths without wanting to universalize them? Whereas Peter seemed more willing to universalize experiential truth...
If I may speak freely -- please take what resonates, leave what doesn’t -- for me you (similar to Robert Saltzman) seem to grant too much credence to materialism. What is “human consciousness”? What is “universe”? These are abstractions that have no experiential basis...
As far as I can see all that is ever experienced cannot be said at all... to gesture toward it, I could say all that is experienced is this miraculous flash of pure imagination, pure weightless innocence, pure floating shape-shifting-ness overflowing with a literal infinity of detail...
The sheer infinity & omni-harmony & all-embracing-ness of this apparently self-existent, self-orchestrating dancing-ness reveals a loving intelligence beyond all fathoming... vastly beyond anything an ‘animal brain’ (whatever that is) could conjure... this becomes especially clear in certain rarefied (entheogenic) states (which are not any more ‘special’ yet allow a fuller unveiling of naked infinitely powerful loving intelligence)
Time and space cannot be found - more abstract overlays... nothing can be found... so all that is left is eternal loving intelligence.... miraculousness... silence (yet with a Heart that pours forth so much warm intimacy & relationality among the ‘waves of the Ocean’)
For me Peter Brown grokked this more profoundly than ~most/all other 21st century communicators I have encountered... and that is why his words are so ineffably juicy, alive, vital, uplifting, celebratory... he really saw that this is the good news, the best news... Divinity
None of this is intended to diminish in any way the beautiful messages you are sharing. I deeply appreciate you and your work. I’m just kinda reflecting out loud to try to understand why I don’t fully resonate with your expression of the view-less view (or beloved Peter’s, for that matter, who could sometimes seem to miss the full tender warmth of this throbbing Heart of God)... why it sometimes feels (vaguely, subtly) cold, clinical, removed, atheistic or nihilistic or solipsistic to me...
I feel your Love as well and thank you for it. Thanks for allowing me to share this here. I hope it’s valuable in some way and if not, it was valuable for me to write - so thank you 🙏🏼 💙
You’re welcome! Thank you for appreciating and for your reflection 🙏🏼💙
Hello Jordon, aka "child soul," whatever imaginary woo-woo sounding phantom that might be...😎
In response to your initial question, I'm talking about experience, not metaphysics. But no way we try to put any of this into words is ever entirely correct. Words can only describe, evoke, invite and point.
If mine sound "cold, clinical, removed, atheistic or nihilistic or solipsistic" to you, I can assure you that isn't how they feel here, nor is it what I intend to convey. And I don't have the sense that's where Peter was coming from or what he was trying to convey either. But people hear what they hear. And we all resonate with different expressions, and that's fine. I'm happy you enjoy Peter, and I'm happy that you at least enjoy some of the writing here and feel some sense of the love in it. And if some doesn't resonate for you, that's fine!
You say that I "seem to grant too much credence to materialism," apparently in part because I spoke of “human consciousness” and “the universe." What are those?, you wondered. "These are abstractions that have no experiential basis," you declared, as if this were a novel revelation I'd never considered before. But as the article said, "Like chairs and tables and dogs and cats and oceans and waves, these are ALL conceptual abstractions that thought has carved out of an ever-changing whole." Still, we use words to communicate and express. I could play the same game with all your words (as I did with "child soul").
In my experience, words DO have some correlation with what we experience. The map of NYC is not NYC--it is an abstract representation--but it has some connection to NYC and can help us navigate the city. Ditto words such as table, chair, computer, awareness, experience, and so forth.
As I said in the article, my sense is that relative and absolute perspectives are both important, and they're both here at once, like those duck/rabbit images where the same drawing can be seen either way. So yes, relatively speaking, I'm a human being and so are you. And at the same time, those labels are abstractions of an ungraspable, unpindownable, ever-changing, inseparable actuality. BOTH are true.
I'm neither a materialist nor an idealist. I simply don't know what this all is. I don't know if only consciousness exists or if consciousness evolved out of a so-called material universe., or even what "consciousness" and "matter" are. All I have with certainty is my ever-changing experience.
Yes, there does seem to be an intelligence at work, but I doubt it's the kind of intelligence that designs and plans the universe.
I can experience myself as a human animal named Joan who has an age, a nationality, a gender, a life story, certain medical issues, etc., and I can experience myself as open boundless impersonal awareness, or as this ever-changing present experiencing. I've had the experience of being dead drunk and the experience of being high on LSD and many other drugs and all kinds of experiences during meditation, while gazing at the night sky, while making love, while doing Feldenkrais lessons, while dreaming or going under anesthesia and so on. And as Thich Nhat Hanh wisely said, you don't have to stop being a wave to be the ocean.
You say of your comment that you "hope it’s valuable in some way and if not, it was valuable for me to write." I'm glad it was valuable to you. It was a bit tiring for me to be honest. But I hope maybe I clarified a few things. I see someone else also responded and apparently deleted their comment, so I didn't see that one. But I gather someone found your words valuable in some way.
Anyway, Jordon...I wish you all the best. 🙏
Hey Joan,
Thanks for taking the time to respond. I want to apologize. It’s not my intent to badger you -- I can understand why my comment was not so well-received. I considered deleting it but ultimately left it up. It was an expression of a genuine attempt to deeply engage with your work and wrestle with my own feelings about it -- but I can see that it was somewhat ill-posed. I was in a rather strange sleep-deprived space when I wrote it.
To be clear I do deeply resonate with your work and with Peter’s -- and I was trying to parse out why there isn’t a *full* resonance, which I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced with anyone... maybe I am a ‘hopeless’ contrarian. And I really meant the “vaguely, subtly” part regarding the “cold, clinical, removed, etc...” It’s a subtle feeling sometimes reading your stuff -- not the primary experience. It may partially come down to stylistic choices: I tend to use more mystical or evocative language whereas you often seem to prioritize a more scientific precision. I believe I also have a pretty deep-seated bias against materialism and the scientific worldview -- which I should probably look at more closely -- and so perhaps your greater openness to those ideas (if only in a relative sense) is something that can trigger me about your work.
It’s kinda funny that I found myself asserting that our humanity cannot be found -- when often I have found myself arguing for an inclusive nonduality that deeply honors our personal, human, as well as soul-level experiences. I guess I was in a Jim-Newman-y mood yesterday when I wrote you. And I know we disagree about souls and other subtle-etheric ‘bodies’ or ‘entities.’ Perhaps ‘soul-ing’ is an activity of reality in a similar way as what you mentioned as ‘self-ing...’ I don’t claim to have any final knowledge about this; I’ve just had too many experiences of ‘non-physical entities’ so I’ve made room for these phenomena in my meaning-making. And I love the innocence of children so ‘child soul’ reminds me of that love.
Perhaps I am also triggered on some level by your brave willingness to admit you just simply don’t know and that you’re comfortable not knowing. As much as I have spent a lot of my life in a space of non-knowing, some deep part of me does really, really, really want to know -- wants to ‘piece it all together’ and ‘make it all make sense.’ Part of me wants to disprove materialism, prove that my grand metaphysical conceptions are true, and prove that my most profound experiences ‘revealed divine truth’ to me. I need to keep examining where this comes from -- and what I am afraid of.
Thank you for holding up the mirror here and helping me see myself more clearly. I am ultimately glad I wrote to you because your reflections here are very valuable. Perhaps I unconsciously knew I needed a little ‘zen slap.’ 😄 Whatever this reality is, it’s truly wondrous and it is all the more blessed by virtue of your presence. Sincerely, thank you for being. 🙏🏼💛
P.S. Maybe my vague feelings about “atheistic, nihilistic, solipsistic” also arise due to fear -- fear based on a mental conception of some of your pointers, rather than a full experiential recognition of what you are gesturing toward
That might be true. I've had similar issues in the past, e.g. with the suggestion that everything is a dream. Initially (conceptually, mentally) that seemed to me to somehow diminish or invalidates both the joy and the suffering in life, whereas I've grown now to experience that pointer in a very different way that actually feels very warm and vibrant and alive and doesn't invalidate anything.
Thank you. Well said. The dream-like insubstantiality is something I have also resisted... and the way ‘being that which alone is’ can seem solipsistic... as I relax into it though it becomes clear that the fears are basically rooted in mental assumptions rather than what it is actually like to simply rest as mystery
Thanks, Jordon. I've also had (and sometimes still do have) contrarian tendencies, so I can relate. From what I know of you, I was also surprised that you seemed to be "asserting that our humanity cannot be found" in your initial comment. I find science quite marvelous, and deeply spiritual actually. But I've never thought of myself as writing with "scientific precision," although I do endeavor to be clear, but I often use words such as God, unconditional love, the heart, and so on that my friend Robert Saltzman would likely not use, and I have a devotional, bhakti streak, a love of ritual, and so on. But you definitely wade into waters I do not. Everyone has a unique gift to offer.
Thank you for being you. I'm glad you're here. ❤️🙏
Thank you for this, Joan 🙏🏼💙 I appreciate your clarity. It seems I’ve projected some assumptions onto you and I hereby relinquish those! Wonderful that we share the Bhakti streak and fondness of ritual and are happy to call this God. And thanks for sharing that you see science as deeply spiritual -- have you written about that anywhere? I appreciate this re-frame; I can see how ‘putting experience under the microscope’ or ‘through the telescope’ basically just further reveals the unresolvability, infinity, and limitless imagination of what is 🙏🏼💛
Thank you for reminding me that I am an imaginary creation. As such, I declare the future to be beautiful, and my words to be immutable.
Love your teaching
“notice that thought and will-power can’t make caught-up-ness in the me-story stop happening, nor can they produce love and compassion on command”
The me-story has so little power and yet I attribute much. I am seeing that it’s just as impossible for “me” to conjure up hurt, comfort, resentment or forgiveness. Not being the creator is a comfort and allows forgiveness
Joan another great post. I also loved the dialogue between you and Jorden! I resonate with your “teaching”, sorry I can’t think of a better word, totally. As I do with Robert Saltzman, Nisargaddatta, Karl Renz, Salvadore Poe, and Darryl Bailey. I find apparent contradictions with all of you which I love because they only apparent and prevent my mind from acting on its desire to get it. lol thanks a bunch. Much love to all.
Again wonderfully written Joan 🙏 your words always bring me relief and ease with life as it unfolds, whatever happens
Wonderful article, mind blowing, just what was needed on a Sunday morning.
Yes, let’s just label it “reality” and be done with it. And the activity appearing within it is just what is.
I love your repetition of the two words "totally gone" in the second paragraph. I indulge in the physiology of family dynamics and how that affected siblings, parents and the line of endless suffering. Who am I in this line? THE FIXER! Knowing that that is an impossible role makes it even more weird. So when you repeat "totally gone" it is a fantastic relief from the bondage of the "fixer". Thank you
❤️❤️❤️
Hi Joan. Thanks for this essay. With your mention and concise description of David Hinton’s writing, I got a little jolt. I was recently on a roll with several of his books, including China Root, and have wanted to shout the relevance of his perspective from my rooftop.
I look forward to reading more of your work.