Fascinating stuff...gives rise to a whole avalanche of thoughts and ideas, ironically...
A particular interest for me currently is this issue of illusion....and I think where I stand at the moment is that whatever we experience is necessarily filtered by the lens of our perception - we can only know things as we perceive them. We cannot step outside of our individual perspective, and as such whatever we experience simply IS what we experience...distinctions such as "illusion" are always applied retrospectively, and often following input from the perspectives of others.
Doesn't make it any less interesting, but it is not what is directly known at the time.
I tried intellectualizing all this already. Read a bunch of zen books. How many different ways can you say you are actually the ocean, not the wave? Turns out, a lot. But unless I take mushrooms or go sit out in nature, I really struggle to feel it. But I have felt it, and that peace is unlike anything else, words do not do it justice. I've come to the conclusion that living in a hyper capitalist city is interfering with the work. I have to find a better way to live where I never have to think about money again. Participating in this bullshit system of extraction and exploitation and truly connecting with the source feel like conflicting goals within me right now. I now understand why monks go live in caves in the mountains. Guess I am going to have to find my own version of that.
Nah, I deeply appreciate asceticism but if I am honest with myself living this way would not make me happy. I love human culture and technology too much.
It really doesn't require leaving the city or retiring to a cave. Extraordinary experiences inevitably come and go. The goal isn't to be on a continuous mushroom trip. It's really about finding the sacred right where you are—in the city, in the office, in the family, in prison, on the streets—wherever you are, in whatever circumstance. Being okay with life as it is. Finding the beauty in life just as it is. What city are you in?
Thank you for your reply. I know you are right ultimately. I just get so conflicted sometimes. Its really hard to work on myself and try to spiritually improve when I feel like I am drowning financially all the time. The city doesn't matter, its the dominant American culture of selfishness and hyper individualism that I now object to. I am so much happier since discovering zen because it helped me let go of a lot of past traumas and take better control of my emotions. But its not a magic bullet. What I really meant is my life no longer feels aligned with my spirit , so it is up to me to fix that. I just don't know what that actually looks like right now and its making me feel frustrated and lost.
I don't know if you've just read Zen books, as you said, or if you've ever actually practiced Zen. That's why I asked what city, because I know some good Zen teachers in cities and also some great places near cities. It's the practice that really changes our lives. And, of course, Zen isn't the only way.
It's fine to listen to the deep calling of our heart and maybe that leads us to move from the city to someplace in the country, or to find a different kind of job. And that's all fine. No problem.
But ultimately, it's not about finding a better place or a better culture or a better job or a better partner. Because none of those things will ever totally satisfy us. There will always be parts we dislike. So ultimately, it's about finding contentment and sufficiency right here where we are. And then it doesn't matter where we are, although of course, there's nothing wrong with going to a place we prefer, but we don't need to do that. And often, we can't do that.
Human society in any form will always involve things you don't like. There will always be problems, trends you don't like, things not going as you think they should. But what bothers us "out there" is often a mirror of what is troubling us "in here." (You might investigate The Work of Byron Katie in that regard.)
I am currently in Charlotte, NC. My practice such as it is is just meditation at the moment. I get out in nature whenever I can, thats the real medicine. I am at the stage of trying to internalize all the theory and actually live by it. Its creating friction within though. But I know the middle way is the path I want to pursue. It just feels right. I know I need to find a teacher or join a sangha, I think I may have gone as far as I can on my own for now. Just this simple back and forth with you has helped me clarify my feelings some. This is the second time this week someone has told me to look up Byron Katie as I vent about my journey. Guess I better do it.
I don't know much about N Carolina. You may already be aware of Southern Dharma: https://southerndharma.org -- I know one of their teachers, Jeff Collins, from Springwater (Toni Packer's place) years ago and he's wonderful. And I guess there's a lot going on spiritually in Asheville. As for Byron Katie, I've found her work quite helpful: both the questions and the turnarounds. You have to really feel into it, not just think about it. And then it can be very liberating. Anyway, wishing you all the best.
Today’s writing was particularly impactful for me. I actually got a glimpse/flash of something that I can’t put into words, but it felt like seeing thru illusion. It happened when I read the section beginning “But consciousness can be lost in its own creations…” Thank you Joan!!
Thank you Joan 🙏 like in all your texts there is a big relief, nothing to achieve, it’s already present, even if there still is a lot of fog above the ocean
Hola ¡aquesta Vida un somni il·lusió ? podria ser però per si a cas fes com sinó
Allò no sabut sense canvis no nascut però sí aparegut com es aquesta Vida això som ho és tot tal com es. Així aquesta Vida es pot conèixer a si mateixa en l'esser humà y saber que es Allò no sabut en absolut aparegut aquí així com és aquesta Vida. Així tal com es tot ens coneixem a nosaltres mateixes ser Allò no sabut així com som
Thanks Joan. And I agree with your description of therapy but I think the approach you describe is rare. It is wonderful but rare. I was lucky to have a Jungian analyst who was not doctrinaire and who supported me in the way you describe. Often I’d be looking at something difficult and eventually come to see feelings of mine were common, even cliche. Once I complained that it always seemed I ended up with a cliche and her response was…”There’s a reason they’re cliches.” Great wisdom.
Great to hear from you. But I do find it hard to imagine any therapy that wouldn't involve exposing and questioning habitual thoughts, storylines and core beliefs, as well as helping the client develop the ability to be with difficult emotions, moods and situations without turning to self-destructive, harmful or addictive escapes. I've been in therapy a number of times with different therapists using different approaches, and it always involved these things. And while I do think there's wisdom and relief in realizing how common and shared our human problems are in their fundamentals, we are also each unique and often suffer from different things, and it seems that part of what is healing about therapy is being listened to, heard, witnessed and accepted, and in the process, we begin to do this for ourselves...and maybe even begin to recognize that this is the very nature of awareness. And maybe through practices such as Zen, we begin to notice how everything is dissolving naturally, instant by instant, and how it takes thought to keep our problems alive. Anyway, great to hear from you. Hope all is well in the Zen world. ❤️🙏
It seems like therapy always addresses "how to navigate in a human body, in a human-centered world."
Your books and messages (in my view) lead us beyond that, or suggest that we drop any "human perspective," since it's constructed by thought.
Even if any form is a temporary, illusory “thing,” even if we are not what we think we are—not the body-mind, not separate “things”—there’s something peculiar and unique about manifesting as human. Even if we’re indivisible drops in the ocean of being, is there something special about appearing here, on this planet, as humans? Why are we drawn to others who appear in this form? Why are we drawn to other “not-body-minds” who appear in the world like us? And also sometimes repelled by them (more than other forms)?
I can only imagine the thought process of a dog, a cat, a dolphin. I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to appear as a tree, a flower, any plant. Much less what “inanimate” really means.
We may not believe in evolution: That would require time and space. One illusory, apparently separate being can’t be “more highly evolved” than another. I can only say that we “appear to be different.”
This is my koan for the moment: Is being human anything special?
I would never say we are not the body or the mind. I'd say those are not the solid, separate things we think they are, and they are not all we are.
I would say that every wave, every snowflake, every leaf, every fingerprint, and every human being is unique, and certainly being human is not the same as being a dog or a tree.
Nothing solid is found when you dig into any experience, as you described, but describing that as nothingness or emptiness just doesn't seem to cut it because the entirety of the experience of being alive is one of being a Self.
The shift we are all trying for is a shift in what we essentially assume without even thinking about it (in other words, knowledge), and the direction of it is from the sense of separation, lack, and incompleteness, to limitless fullness without an opposite.
That is not nothing, in any sense of the word. It is selfhood itself, which is existence shining as consciousness. Imagine anything at all, any experience of any kind, and what you are actually imagining is yourself (awareness) plus name and form (objects). It is never anything but that, and even when the objects come and go, you don't.
Obviously you does not refer to your ego, which does exist but isn't real because it is as temporary as any other object, but it also does not refer to nothing. To say it refers to nothing means that nothing must be known, which automatically implies something else.
There is nothing other than "me," limitless existence shining as ordinary, unborn awareness. That's the good news, because it means I am utterly free from experience which in turn means that I am utterly free to experience - accent on the operative word, free ☀️
I don't think I spoke of "nothingness," as in some kind of voidness. I do sometimes use the word no-thing-ness, meaning that THIS (what you call Self) is not a thing or a collection of things. It is an indivisible nondual whole.
I use the word empty in the sense of being empty of persisting form, empty of observer-independent reality, empty of separate self. And in the Buddhist sense where emptiness refers to impermanence and interdependence as the nature of reality, or perhaps in some schools of Buddhism, as the empty mirror of awareness.
I don't think we're saying fundamentally different things here. We may be formulating, language-ing, and expressing it somewhat differently, and it's true that Vedanta and Buddhism are not exactly the same. But they're not entirely different either. I draw on both, and mainly, I draw on my own direct experience and insight. So I wouldn't say things exactly the way you do either. But I think we're playing somewhere in the same ballpark.
I agree, same ballpark to say the least. I hear the same voice, most often.
One place we seem to have a different view on or experience with is related to the most important thing of all, and one of the headlines in your post, which is "What actually liberates us?" You said:
"Thinking about all this, analyzing it, understanding it conceptually, reading about it, philosophizing about it can perhaps be helpful. But ultimately, so-called awakening or being free here and now is about going beyond thought to the living actuality itself."
Where I agree with this completely, and where I think you are actually coming from with it, is with an accent on the "living actuality." What I would say that actually IS is my experience of being myself in the deepest possible sense, which implies that no aspect of myself is left out or unaccounted for.
So, when you say "beyond thought" that phrasing unintentionally (I suspect) implies both that thought is somehow different from or more superficial than "living actuality," that thought is capable of obscuring the "living actuality," that thought (specifically knowledge, which leads to discrimination, which engenders dispassion, which all added together is the experience of limitless Bliss as "me") is not essential to liberation, and lastly that thought is not an inseparable "aspect" of "living actuality" no different than any other experience.
On the other hand, thought in the form of ignorance (notions of fundamental separation) is the *only* problem from one standpoint, and so it makes sense to say "go beyond thought." The question is, to what? If we say that is "living actuality," then it means there is a distinction drawn between thought and living actuality, which doesn't seem to add up.
The way it does add up is taking the standpoint that there is not actually a problem at all, and therefore that thought is not in the way, which means the only other option is we are entertaining the "wrong" thoughts so to speak. And, the solution to the "wrong" (self limiting, self denying) thoughts is not bliss or push-ups or being a vegan, it is the right (self knowledge, self love) thoughts :)
The last point, really the kicker, is that maybe one of the reasons the idea of going "beyond thought" is so popular is because it is right, just incomplete. For liberation we need to go beyond everything, not just thought. Only if we are beyond everything, so to speak, are we unconditionally free of, from, and to experience fully and freely. According to Vedanta, "going beyond everything" is straightforward, since it is already so, it is just about removing ignorance.
What I was taught that really solidified this for me is understanding that the way knowledge removes ignorance is in the same way that a base removes an acid. It neutralizes it, leaving NEITHER behind.
Hopefully my reasoning came across in a cohesive manner 🙏🏻
You love these heady discussions, and I do not. It's not what interests me. You love to pick things apart, and when I feel you've misunderstood what I was trying to say, I try to clarify, but to what end? As we both know, talking about nonduality is an impossible job, but we do our best, and inevitably, anything we say can be picked apart. I just don't have the energy to respond to this. I wish you well. 🙏
Fascinating stuff...gives rise to a whole avalanche of thoughts and ideas, ironically...
A particular interest for me currently is this issue of illusion....and I think where I stand at the moment is that whatever we experience is necessarily filtered by the lens of our perception - we can only know things as we perceive them. We cannot step outside of our individual perspective, and as such whatever we experience simply IS what we experience...distinctions such as "illusion" are always applied retrospectively, and often following input from the perspectives of others.
Doesn't make it any less interesting, but it is not what is directly known at the time.
Thanks as always Joan. Have a great day!
"gives rise to a whole avalanche of thoughts and ideas" -- Oh well, the arrow missed the target again. Such is life.
Haha...it just happens mate - out of my control...😂
That's true.
🙏♥️
I tried intellectualizing all this already. Read a bunch of zen books. How many different ways can you say you are actually the ocean, not the wave? Turns out, a lot. But unless I take mushrooms or go sit out in nature, I really struggle to feel it. But I have felt it, and that peace is unlike anything else, words do not do it justice. I've come to the conclusion that living in a hyper capitalist city is interfering with the work. I have to find a better way to live where I never have to think about money again. Participating in this bullshit system of extraction and exploitation and truly connecting with the source feel like conflicting goals within me right now. I now understand why monks go live in caves in the mountains. Guess I am going to have to find my own version of that.
Why not become a monk? Are you a Christian?
Nah, I deeply appreciate asceticism but if I am honest with myself living this way would not make me happy. I love human culture and technology too much.
It really doesn't require leaving the city or retiring to a cave. Extraordinary experiences inevitably come and go. The goal isn't to be on a continuous mushroom trip. It's really about finding the sacred right where you are—in the city, in the office, in the family, in prison, on the streets—wherever you are, in whatever circumstance. Being okay with life as it is. Finding the beauty in life just as it is. What city are you in?
Thank you for your reply. I know you are right ultimately. I just get so conflicted sometimes. Its really hard to work on myself and try to spiritually improve when I feel like I am drowning financially all the time. The city doesn't matter, its the dominant American culture of selfishness and hyper individualism that I now object to. I am so much happier since discovering zen because it helped me let go of a lot of past traumas and take better control of my emotions. But its not a magic bullet. What I really meant is my life no longer feels aligned with my spirit , so it is up to me to fix that. I just don't know what that actually looks like right now and its making me feel frustrated and lost.
I don't know if you've just read Zen books, as you said, or if you've ever actually practiced Zen. That's why I asked what city, because I know some good Zen teachers in cities and also some great places near cities. It's the practice that really changes our lives. And, of course, Zen isn't the only way.
It's fine to listen to the deep calling of our heart and maybe that leads us to move from the city to someplace in the country, or to find a different kind of job. And that's all fine. No problem.
But ultimately, it's not about finding a better place or a better culture or a better job or a better partner. Because none of those things will ever totally satisfy us. There will always be parts we dislike. So ultimately, it's about finding contentment and sufficiency right here where we are. And then it doesn't matter where we are, although of course, there's nothing wrong with going to a place we prefer, but we don't need to do that. And often, we can't do that.
Human society in any form will always involve things you don't like. There will always be problems, trends you don't like, things not going as you think they should. But what bothers us "out there" is often a mirror of what is troubling us "in here." (You might investigate The Work of Byron Katie in that regard.)
I am currently in Charlotte, NC. My practice such as it is is just meditation at the moment. I get out in nature whenever I can, thats the real medicine. I am at the stage of trying to internalize all the theory and actually live by it. Its creating friction within though. But I know the middle way is the path I want to pursue. It just feels right. I know I need to find a teacher or join a sangha, I think I may have gone as far as I can on my own for now. Just this simple back and forth with you has helped me clarify my feelings some. This is the second time this week someone has told me to look up Byron Katie as I vent about my journey. Guess I better do it.
I don't know much about N Carolina. You may already be aware of Southern Dharma: https://southerndharma.org -- I know one of their teachers, Jeff Collins, from Springwater (Toni Packer's place) years ago and he's wonderful. And I guess there's a lot going on spiritually in Asheville. As for Byron Katie, I've found her work quite helpful: both the questions and the turnarounds. You have to really feel into it, not just think about it. And then it can be very liberating. Anyway, wishing you all the best.
Thanks, I'll check southern dharma out. I need to go on a retreat somewhere this fall.
Beautiful. Thank you Joan
Precioso. Estimulante. Muchas gracias!
This gave me my devotion back. Thanks Joan 🙏🏻
Beautiful ! Thank you Joan 🙏
As usual, very bright, open and of course compassionate and loving. Thank you, Joan! 🩷🥦
Today’s writing was particularly impactful for me. I actually got a glimpse/flash of something that I can’t put into words, but it felt like seeing thru illusion. It happened when I read the section beginning “But consciousness can be lost in its own creations…” Thank you Joan!!
Look up PCT Perceptual Control Theory, by William Powers, if you want to understand what we're all doing, all of the time.
Chatgpt explains it well.
Thank you Joan 🙏 like in all your texts there is a big relief, nothing to achieve, it’s already present, even if there still is a lot of fog above the ocean
Hola ¡aquesta Vida un somni il·lusió ? podria ser però per si a cas fes com sinó
Allò no sabut sense canvis no nascut però sí aparegut com es aquesta Vida això som ho és tot tal com es. Així aquesta Vida es pot conèixer a si mateixa en l'esser humà y saber que es Allò no sabut en absolut aparegut aquí així com és aquesta Vida. Així tal com es tot ens coneixem a nosaltres mateixes ser Allò no sabut així com som
Thanks Joan. And I agree with your description of therapy but I think the approach you describe is rare. It is wonderful but rare. I was lucky to have a Jungian analyst who was not doctrinaire and who supported me in the way you describe. Often I’d be looking at something difficult and eventually come to see feelings of mine were common, even cliche. Once I complained that it always seemed I ended up with a cliche and her response was…”There’s a reason they’re cliches.” Great wisdom.
Great to hear from you. But I do find it hard to imagine any therapy that wouldn't involve exposing and questioning habitual thoughts, storylines and core beliefs, as well as helping the client develop the ability to be with difficult emotions, moods and situations without turning to self-destructive, harmful or addictive escapes. I've been in therapy a number of times with different therapists using different approaches, and it always involved these things. And while I do think there's wisdom and relief in realizing how common and shared our human problems are in their fundamentals, we are also each unique and often suffer from different things, and it seems that part of what is healing about therapy is being listened to, heard, witnessed and accepted, and in the process, we begin to do this for ourselves...and maybe even begin to recognize that this is the very nature of awareness. And maybe through practices such as Zen, we begin to notice how everything is dissolving naturally, instant by instant, and how it takes thought to keep our problems alive. Anyway, great to hear from you. Hope all is well in the Zen world. ❤️🙏
Very helpful. Thanks, Joan.
It seems like therapy always addresses "how to navigate in a human body, in a human-centered world."
Your books and messages (in my view) lead us beyond that, or suggest that we drop any "human perspective," since it's constructed by thought.
Even if any form is a temporary, illusory “thing,” even if we are not what we think we are—not the body-mind, not separate “things”—there’s something peculiar and unique about manifesting as human. Even if we’re indivisible drops in the ocean of being, is there something special about appearing here, on this planet, as humans? Why are we drawn to others who appear in this form? Why are we drawn to other “not-body-minds” who appear in the world like us? And also sometimes repelled by them (more than other forms)?
I can only imagine the thought process of a dog, a cat, a dolphin. I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to appear as a tree, a flower, any plant. Much less what “inanimate” really means.
We may not believe in evolution: That would require time and space. One illusory, apparently separate being can’t be “more highly evolved” than another. I can only say that we “appear to be different.”
This is my koan for the moment: Is being human anything special?
I'd like to hear your take on that, Joan.
I would never say we are not the body or the mind. I'd say those are not the solid, separate things we think they are, and they are not all we are.
I would say that every wave, every snowflake, every leaf, every fingerprint, and every human being is unique, and certainly being human is not the same as being a dog or a tree.
And I wouldn't dismiss evolution or hierarchy.
Nothing solid is found when you dig into any experience, as you described, but describing that as nothingness or emptiness just doesn't seem to cut it because the entirety of the experience of being alive is one of being a Self.
The shift we are all trying for is a shift in what we essentially assume without even thinking about it (in other words, knowledge), and the direction of it is from the sense of separation, lack, and incompleteness, to limitless fullness without an opposite.
That is not nothing, in any sense of the word. It is selfhood itself, which is existence shining as consciousness. Imagine anything at all, any experience of any kind, and what you are actually imagining is yourself (awareness) plus name and form (objects). It is never anything but that, and even when the objects come and go, you don't.
Obviously you does not refer to your ego, which does exist but isn't real because it is as temporary as any other object, but it also does not refer to nothing. To say it refers to nothing means that nothing must be known, which automatically implies something else.
There is nothing other than "me," limitless existence shining as ordinary, unborn awareness. That's the good news, because it means I am utterly free from experience which in turn means that I am utterly free to experience - accent on the operative word, free ☀️
I don't think I spoke of "nothingness," as in some kind of voidness. I do sometimes use the word no-thing-ness, meaning that THIS (what you call Self) is not a thing or a collection of things. It is an indivisible nondual whole.
I use the word empty in the sense of being empty of persisting form, empty of observer-independent reality, empty of separate self. And in the Buddhist sense where emptiness refers to impermanence and interdependence as the nature of reality, or perhaps in some schools of Buddhism, as the empty mirror of awareness.
I don't think we're saying fundamentally different things here. We may be formulating, language-ing, and expressing it somewhat differently, and it's true that Vedanta and Buddhism are not exactly the same. But they're not entirely different either. I draw on both, and mainly, I draw on my own direct experience and insight. So I wouldn't say things exactly the way you do either. But I think we're playing somewhere in the same ballpark.
I agree, same ballpark to say the least. I hear the same voice, most often.
One place we seem to have a different view on or experience with is related to the most important thing of all, and one of the headlines in your post, which is "What actually liberates us?" You said:
"Thinking about all this, analyzing it, understanding it conceptually, reading about it, philosophizing about it can perhaps be helpful. But ultimately, so-called awakening or being free here and now is about going beyond thought to the living actuality itself."
Where I agree with this completely, and where I think you are actually coming from with it, is with an accent on the "living actuality." What I would say that actually IS is my experience of being myself in the deepest possible sense, which implies that no aspect of myself is left out or unaccounted for.
So, when you say "beyond thought" that phrasing unintentionally (I suspect) implies both that thought is somehow different from or more superficial than "living actuality," that thought is capable of obscuring the "living actuality," that thought (specifically knowledge, which leads to discrimination, which engenders dispassion, which all added together is the experience of limitless Bliss as "me") is not essential to liberation, and lastly that thought is not an inseparable "aspect" of "living actuality" no different than any other experience.
On the other hand, thought in the form of ignorance (notions of fundamental separation) is the *only* problem from one standpoint, and so it makes sense to say "go beyond thought." The question is, to what? If we say that is "living actuality," then it means there is a distinction drawn between thought and living actuality, which doesn't seem to add up.
The way it does add up is taking the standpoint that there is not actually a problem at all, and therefore that thought is not in the way, which means the only other option is we are entertaining the "wrong" thoughts so to speak. And, the solution to the "wrong" (self limiting, self denying) thoughts is not bliss or push-ups or being a vegan, it is the right (self knowledge, self love) thoughts :)
The last point, really the kicker, is that maybe one of the reasons the idea of going "beyond thought" is so popular is because it is right, just incomplete. For liberation we need to go beyond everything, not just thought. Only if we are beyond everything, so to speak, are we unconditionally free of, from, and to experience fully and freely. According to Vedanta, "going beyond everything" is straightforward, since it is already so, it is just about removing ignorance.
What I was taught that really solidified this for me is understanding that the way knowledge removes ignorance is in the same way that a base removes an acid. It neutralizes it, leaving NEITHER behind.
Hopefully my reasoning came across in a cohesive manner 🙏🏻
You love these heady discussions, and I do not. It's not what interests me. You love to pick things apart, and when I feel you've misunderstood what I was trying to say, I try to clarify, but to what end? As we both know, talking about nonduality is an impossible job, but we do our best, and inevitably, anything we say can be picked apart. I just don't have the energy to respond to this. I wish you well. 🙏
Well that's not WHAT I love, but you are right I will split a hair until there's nothing left :)
This format artificially compresses what would otherwise be a wide open, leisurely conversation… which I much prefer as well🙏🏻