The obvious and unavoidable happening of this moment
Just This!
A brief introduction:
Recently, I was awash in feelings of uncertainty about what I’m doing, something that happens not infrequently. This was mixed with moments of exquisite silence and openness, and sometimes a deep sense of the warm, full, radiant presence of God. Then other moments of feeling bleak and lost, losing my temper, feeling anger and frustration, and below that, a deep primal fear revealed itself, the fear of being alive as this utterly vulnerable bodymind, a fear no doubt brought forth in part by having multiple new acute spinal fractures and back pain.
I felt how tight this body is at times, how it feels like a brick wall between me and everything else—and then in awaring, feeling and revealing all that to a listening friend, the wall melts and everything opens and dissolves. There has also been deep sobbing with no content both in waking life and in my dreams.
I received an email recently inviting me to participate in a university study on awakening and liberation. It says they have identified me “as one of the most ‘advanced’ spiritual teachers/authors/commentators” that they know about. Advanced? I do not feel advanced. I feel uncertain. Clueless. Stumbling through the brambles, lost in the weeds, falling into the same holes again and again.
I’m resonating with Christianity in one moment, with radical nonduality in the next moment, and with nothing at all in the moment after that. Liberated? Awakened? The words sound like gibberish. What do they mean? What is it that I want to offer in my writings and my meetings? What is this life all about? Conflicting ideas seem to be pulling me this way and that in a cacophony of imaginary noise.
Then, for a moment, everything stops. There is just the sound of the airplane passing over, just that sound, nothing else. No me, no problem. Just this!
And then today, somehow it all comes together—Christianity, Advaita, Buddhism, radical nonduality, being lost, being found—and none of it feels like a problem that needs to be solved. As I said to a dear friend earlier today, “life lately has been full and empty and wondrous and confused and joyous and bleak and human and divine.” And always, just this!
I’m going to share two pieces from my website, the first one rather long, the second quite short. I often say, I’m always talking to myself, and as many have noted, we teach what we need to learn. Some of you may already have read these pieces, but we never read the same words twice, nor are we ever the same reader twice, so perhaps they will be as fresh and new for you as they were the first time you read them.
It’s always the first time. With everything.
The first article I’ll share is from my website Outpourings page. It was originally published as a guest teaching on Awakening Clarity Now back in 2012, and it might find its way into my new book-in-progress as well:
How Simple Can This Be?
What is happening in present experiencing right now? Reading words on a computer screen, hearing sounds, seeing shapes and colors, breathing. And what else is going on? Is there expectation, curiosity, excitement, boredom, restlessness? Can we take a moment to pause and be aware of how it is right now, without trying to modify or correct it in any way, but simply being awake to the bare actuality of this moment, just as it is?
Traffic sounds, bird songs, an airplane flying over, wind rustling the leaves, a television in another room, children’s voices, a dog barking. Shapes, colors. The movement of breathing, the sensation of contact with the chair, a cool breeze gently touching the skin, a tingling in the feet, maybe an uneasiness in the belly or a tightness in the throat, perhaps a vague sense of anxiety or discontent, these words registering in the mind.
Does this present happening take effort, or is it all happening effortlessly by itself?
This moment is utterly simple and straightforward, totally obvious, completely unavoidable, effortlessly being just exactly the way it is, however that is. It may be painful or unpleasant, but there is nothing confusing about the present moment until we start thinking.
Then suddenly we begin to think (and believe) that we are a separate fragment disconnected from the whole. We feel lost and lacking. It seems as if we need to figure everything out and get somewhere better than where we are. We try desperately to improve ourselves and to succeed at being somebody. We fear death, imagining this bodymind to be something solid and persisting, something separate from the rest of the universe. We crave what we don’t have and resist what we are. Fearing the thought-created specter of meaninglessness, we search desperately for meaning, and the more we search for it, the more meaningless everything seems.
We try to think our way to liberation, and the more we think, the more tangled up in perplexity and uncertainty we seem to get. We try to get rid of the self but can’t seem to do it. We try to have a nondual experience (whatever we imagine that might be) and then we try to make that experience last forever, but instead what seems to show up again and again is disappointment and dissatisfaction, frustration and doubt.
Rather than trying to fix all of this or come up with some comforting new philosophy or some inspiring plan of action, can we wake up instead to what is utterly simple and totally effortless, the happening of this moment, just as it is?
Is it possible that simply waking up here and now could be the gateless gate, the golden key, true enlightenment, total liberation?
Of course, enlightenment and liberation and golden keys are loaded ideas that can instantly trigger a kind of hopeful excitement and expectation, so rather than getting lost in wild ideas about something spectacular and imaginary, let’s come back to the bare simplicity of right here, right now.
How is it?
Instead of rushing in to provide a label or a conceptual description, can we simply be awake to the bare actuality of this present moment, the wordless reality?
If the mind says, “Okay, this is nice, but what’s next? Where’s the enlightenment and the total liberation?” – can we hear those thoughts as thoughts and come back to the nonconceptual simplicity of sounds, bodily sensations and breathing? Can we feel the desire for something bigger and better, or the urge to get away from what’s here now, and simply allow those feelings and sensations to be here?
If we’re interested in exploring the nature of reality, rather than adopting the ideas of others, can we explore our actual direct experience here and now?
There is undeniably variation and diversity in this present happening (different sounds, sensations, thoughts, feelings, shapes, colors), but is there any actual separation between hearing and seeing and thinking, or between awareness and the content of awareness, or is it all showing up together as one whole, seamless moving picture, ever-changing but always Here / Now?
If you look for the one who is supposedly “having” this present experience, the one who is supposedly “doing” the hearing and the thinking, can you actually find anyone or anything at the helm? Can you even find a helm or a center? There may be an idea that there is “me” encapsulated inside “my body” looking out at “the world” and steering this bodymind through life, authoring my thoughts, making my decisions, choosing how to live my life. This “me” is conceived of as a kind of soul-like entity living inside the body, an independent unit of consciousness. But can it be seen right now that this separate, encapsulated entity is only an idea, a mental image, a thought, a story about what’s going on here that has been learned?
Can you see that even your “body” is also an idea, a mental image, a conceptual abstraction of something that is actually nothing but continuous movement inseparable from everything that is supposedly not your body? If that sounds far-fetched, close your eyes and give your full attention to sounds and somatic sensations. As you do that, what happens to the apparent solidity and separateness of “your body”? Can you actually find a place in your direct experience where “you” begin and end, an actual boundary-line between inside of you and outside of you? You can think of a boundary. You can picture (or imagine) one. But can you actually find it? Does it actually exist? Are the traffic sounds inside you or outside you? Is there a difference?
Of course, functionally, you have a sense of location and boundaries and identity with a particular body, and this will always be here as needed (unless you have a serious brain injury), so that you will know your name and how to cut up a carrot without chopping off your fingers, and whose mouth to put the food in, and how to distinguish between your dog and your computer. Waking up to seamless, boundless unicity doesn’t mean you will make the mistake of eating dog poop for lunch or walking in front of a bus because “all is one.”
Waking up to unicity simply means not being fooled by thoughts and concepts, not mistaking a mirage for reality. And waking up only happens now. There is no such thing as a permanently awake person. So don’t imagine that “you” will cross some magical finish-line after which mirages no longer show up and being fooled never happens again. Being fooled is no problem unless thought is taking it personally and identifying with it as “my” problem that means something “about me.”
Thinking is an aspect of this seamless, nondual happening. It happens automatically. You don’t even know what your next thought will be. Thoughts pop up, unbidden – sometimes useful and creative thinking, sometimes mindless gum-chewing type thinking, and sometimes the me-centered, obsessive, confused, tail-chasing, problematic thinking that generates the dualistic mirage and brings with it suffering and ever-more confusion: “I’ve ruined my whole life, nobody loves me, I’m a failure, the world is going to hell, I’m right and you’re wrong, you’ve ruined my life, I’m not enlightened and I probably never will be, how can I stop feeling anxious all the time? What if…? If only…. Maybe I should…..”
We can’t make ourselves stop thinking these kinds of painful thoughts. That doesn’t work. But if we begin to pay careful attention to what is actually happening (as opposed to what we think is happening), we begin to wake up from the hypnotic entrancement in thought and belief. We begin to notice how thinking creates a virtual reality, a mental abstraction, a map-world – and we begin to question our thoughts, and to realize that thoughts are never absolutely true, and in many cases, they are not even relatively true. We begin to notice and be aware of the difference between thinking, on the one hand, and perceiving or sensing on the other. We notice that sensing can include pain, but that it takes thinking to suffer or to become confused. And it takes thinking to materialize the mirage of a separate self.
Thinking is not some evil force that is opposed to unicity. But it is only in the virtual reality created by thought that we seem to have dualism, conflict, confusion and separation. This is why many teachings focus so much on being aware of thoughts as thoughts. But it’s helpful to recognize that even the appearance of dualism is nothing but unicity appearing as dualism. Thought is not an enemy that we must banish, and waking up doesn’t mean never thinking again. It simply means waking up in this moment here and now from entrancement in that virtual reality.
What is it that wakes up? What is it that sees thoughts as thoughts? What is beholding the whole movie of waking life, including the character we identify as “me” and the ever-changing story-lines and dramas? Where is all of this occurring? Is awareness inside the body, or is the body appearing in awareness? Does awareness have a size, a shape, a gender, an age?
When we first wake up in the morning, it actually takes a split second to remember our name, our role and our story. Sometimes we can actually see that reconstruction happening. And then every night in deep sleep, it all disappears again. The world disappears, our story disappears, our problems disappear, “I” disappear as the one who cares about all this – everything perceivable and conceivable disappears. How solid and substantial and real can all the forms and events in this movie of waking life actually be, and how real is the “me” at the center of it all?
Waking up to boundlessness and seamlessness doesn’t mean we dismiss everyday life or ignore the world as “just an illusion.” But we begin to see it all in a bigger context, in a more fluid way, without imagining that form is something solid and fixed and “out there” apart from this awaring presence. And we no longer imagine that this awaring presence is encapsulated inside a separate bodymind, or that the imaginary thinker is in control of “my life.”
Whenever we feel filled with doubt and confusion, I recommend letting go of everything that can be doubted and discovering what remains. What is it that we are absolutely certain about? What is it that we cannot possibly doubt? What is it that requires no believing in order to be?
We cannot deny being here now, can we? And by that, I mean this impersonal awaring presence. We can doubt any idea about who or what is present or aware, but we cannot doubt the bare fact of being here and knowing we are here. And we cannot deny this present happening (hearing, seeing, sensing, thinking). We can doubt any description or explanation of this happening, but not the bare actually or suchness of it.
When we “come back” to this that requires no belief and is impossible to doubt, the simple actuality Here / Now (which, of course, we have never really left), there is no self, no other, no dualism, no problem. There is simply this, just as it is.
By giving attention to our actual present moment experiencing, we begin to see that there is simply this ever-present, ever-changing happening, that there is no one at the center of this present experiencing (even if it sometimes seems that there is). We see that this endless unfolding never goes anywhere, for it is always Here / Now. This present happening is obvious and unavoidable, but at the same time, it cannot be grasped.
And we don’t need to grasp it. Unicity isn’t something we have to “get.” It is what we are. It is all there is.
But whenever we imagine that we are separate from unicity, we instantly feel alienated, vulnerable and lacking. We begin to seek what we imagine is missing. We are like a wave seeking the ocean and insisting that we have never experienced water. We imagine some fantastic state of consciousness that we think others have arrived at, a state beyond all suffering and confusion, and we want to arrive at this mythical promised land. Chasing after that promised land is like running towards a mirage-lake in the desert sands. It is hopeless.
But that’s not really bad news, for when we wake up from this false picture of reality, we realize that nothing is missing, nothing is broken, and there is no one to be enlightened or unenlightened, lost or found. There has never been anything other than the ocean waving. Even running towards a mirage-lake is nothing but ocean waving.
This realization is sometimes called awakening or enlightenment or liberation, but these words create a lot of confusion, because the mind habitually tends to picture some kind of achievement or permanent experience, and it tends to take this imaginary achievement personally and imagine that there is “me” who either is or isn’t enlightened. And that’s delusion. We’re back to that absurdly comic adventure of the wave seeking the ocean and evaluating which waves are the wettest.
Enlightenment isn’t a perpetually sunny day. No sunny day lasts forever, nor does any cloudy day. And there is no “me” going back and forth between clear skies and cloudy ones, or stabilizing permanently in the sunshine. There is simply weather, with no owner, no doer behind it. The clouds and the sunshine are one undivided happening, like the heads and tails of a coin.
Unicity includes everything. It includes light and dark, up and down, enlightenment and delusion, clarity and confusion, thinking and sensing, dreaming and waking, practicing and not practicing. It includes deep sleep and the movie (or multiple movies) of waking life. It includes imagination and fantasy. It is everything, and everything is it. There is nothing outside unicity, and there is nothing that is not unicity.
That doesn’t mean Hitler was enlightened or that we can’t distinguish between a chair and a table. It just means that what we functionally and conventionally refer to and think of as Hitler or a table or a chair is not actually a solid thing that exists independently of everything else. Every apparent form is nothing but movement and change, and everything is inseparable from everything else. There is no “me” apart from Hitler, and there is no enduring “somebody” to be forever enlightened or forever deluded. The only forever is now, and now doesn’t ever stay the same.
That can all sound very heady and abstract and mystifying if we’re hearing it only with the intellect and trying to figure it out with thought. But if we simply pay attention to present moment experiencing, it becomes more and more obvious in ever-more subtle ways that this is how it is. But it doesn’t become obvious “to me.” That’s thinking again, inserting an imaginary subject, an imaginary actor apart from the action, and in reality (in our actual experiencing), no such thing actually exists, not ever. In direct experience, before we think about it, there is no seer apart from what is seen, there is simply undivided seeing.
Nonduality isn’t about “me” becoming somebody who no longer gets confused or no longer has any human flaws. It doesn’t mean “me” turning into someone who is in some special state of mindful presence 24/7. It doesn’t mean that “I” have no self anymore. It doesn’t mean that “I” am “somebody” who is constantly aware of being nobody, or constantly aware of nondual boundlessness as some kind of special experience, or never again fooled by mirages or never again caught-up in a movie-story of encapsulation or separation. The very notion of a permanently enlightened person is predicated on the very misunderstandings it claims to have risen above.
So, can we stop trying to figure all this out mentally and simply come back to the utter simplicity of where we are: the sounds of traffic, the sensations in the body, the taste of coffee, the rise and fall of breathing, the cool breeze blowing in through the window?
And if the mind says “that’s just the phenomenal manifestation, that’s not enough,” is it possible to hear these thoughts as thoughts and not get hypnotized by the picture they paint? In that imaginary picture painted by thought, there is separation, dualism and lack. And there is “me” wanting something more, something special. But in the sound of the traffic, there is no me and no separation. There is only the nondual absolute, just as it is.
So if we find ourselves lost in thought, racing on the mental treadmill, chasing after phantasms and mirages, is it possible to wake up, to stop running toward something or away from something, to simply be present right here, right now? To feel the breathing and see the raindrops glistening on the green leaves and the exquisite cigarette butt floating in a pool of rainwater in the gutter. And maybe to investigate the sense of dissatisfaction and restlessness and unease that is at the root of so much of our human activity. Is it possible to allow this dissatisfaction to be here, to simply feel the sensations without running away or seeking a solution, to see the thoughts that are involved as thoughts, to allow it all to unfold and reveal and dissolve itself, effortlessly?
In that simple wakefulness, open to whatever is here, we can notice that everything is included Here / Now. Even judgments and desires, even resistance and seeking, even the human mind spinning those familiar thoughts about “This isn’t it” and “I’ve ruined my whole life,” all of that is allowed to be here, and all of it is simply another momentary appearance, another momentary shape that unicity is taking. None of it is personal. None of it is really a problem.
When this presence is awake to itself, there is love for everything. This unconditional love, this boundless awareness, this open heart dissolves hatred and ignorance. It dissolves them not by condemning them or fighting against them or trying to control them, but by accepting them as impersonal happenings and by shedding light on how life actually is (rather than getting lost in thoughts about how everything could be, should be, might be, or used to be).
And the most important thing to remember is that waking up always boils down to right here, right now. It is never somewhere else or yesterday or at some future time when conditions are different or better. It is just this, exactly as it is.
How simple can this be?
The second article I’ll share with you is the Home page of my website, which I periodically tweak and revise, but this is the current version:
Just This, As It Is
We habitually search for special experiences, for certainty and something to grasp. But in holding on to nothing at all, there is immense openness and freedom.
Experience is ever-changing while never departing from the immediacy of right here, right now. It is infinitely varied but can never actually be divided up or pulled apart. A person is like a waving of the ocean—an ever-changing movement inseparable from the whole. There is no real boundary between inside and outside. We are this all-inclusive presence, this vast no-thing-ness, this present experiencing.
Thought labels, divides, categorizes, interprets and seemingly concretizes the seamless, boundless, centerless, inconceivable flow of experience, creating the illusion of apparently separate, independent, persisting things, including a self that is supposedly authoring our thoughts and making our choices. But none of this holds up to scrutiny.
Our urges, desires, impulses, interests, preferences, talents, thoughts and actions emerge unbidden. Nothing could be other than exactly how it is in this moment. Realizing this is the freedom to be as we are and for everything to be as it is, including our abilities or inabilities to change, heal or correct things.
What is offered here invites firsthand exploration and direct discovery, not belief or dogma. It points to the simplicity of being what we cannot not be, this one bottomless moment, right here, right now, just as it is. There is no finish-line, no formula, no method, nowhere to go, only this ever-fresh aliveness.
Conclusion:
Just this! It seems that unicity appearing as Joan wakes up to this simplicity again and again, always now, always freshly. And as the painter Agnes Martin observed in her writings, the times that feel lost and off the track, in both our personal lives and in the world at large, are not really mistakes at all:
Of all the pitfalls in our paths and the tremendous delays and wanderings off the track I want to say that they are not what they seem to be. I want to say that all that seems like fantastic mistakes are not mistakes, all that seems like error is not error; and it all has to be done. That which seems like a false step is the next step.
– Agnes Martin, from Writings
A word of gratitude:
Thank you again to all of you who send donations. Your generosity sustains this work and continues to move me deeply. And thank you to all of you who subscribe and read and listen and “like” and sometimes comment. Thank you for your listening presence, for being here, for being just exactly as you are. We’re all in this awakening together, and I’m grateful for all of you. One undivided whole showing up in marvelously unique and unrepeatable ways. 🙏❤️
Love to all…
I so needed to read this, now. Thanks Joan, your writing is always so relatable.
Joan, I am so sorry about your back. And so grateful for how you make your suffering helpful for others by sharing it in the context of your nondual understandings and joys.