Everything that is not present during deep dreamless sleep is not real...
Parts 1-4
Part 1:
Ok here it is:
You are made of Body, Mind, and Witness.
The you You see in the mirror, is your body. Your experience of it occurs entirely within your senses.
Your mind can exist exclusively of your body. Your thoughts, memories, and dreams in all their infinite complexity, make up your mind.
The ultimate You is viewer of these sensations and experiences, thoughts and emotions. Developing the ability to go beyond your thoughts, and dwelling as this Witness of your life, you may free yourself from some, if not all of the agony inherent in the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. In addition to this, dwelling as the Witness will give you uncanny good judgement and grace, particularly under fire.
There are thousands of ways of developing this capacity for yourself. Some work better than others, but it is up to you to decide what method works best for you.
This is a shortened synopsis
Any Questions?
Part 2:
How can I dwell as the Witness?
Whether or not you realize it, you are already quite adept at it. You've been doing it your whole life, even when you were a little baby.
Have you ever felt as though you were in the "Zone"? Perhaps when playing sports or music, or when performing in a theatrical play. Those moments of zone-ness are an example of residing as the Witness.
A place of thoughtless grace, where the tools of your mind and body are completely at your disposal rather than the other way around.
Many people think of enlightenment as being some state someone attains, most likely while seated serenely on a mountainside somewhere. As effective a means to arriving at enlightenment that may be, the truth is enlightenment is something that is everywhere, all the time.
What stands in our way of recognizing it are the sensations of the gross body and subtle mind.
We walk through our day, in a haze of thoughts, often overwhelmed by the complexity and difficulty of our mundane lives.
When in this mode of thought, it is like we are encumbered by a heavy load, too distracted by our burden to really be aware of what is happening around us.
We forget to offer kindness to others, we overlook a smile cast our way, we miss the beauty that is ever present in the world around us, so enraptured by our thoughts we are.
By residing as the Witness, we discard that encumberance of thought and emotion, and instead really experience our lives.
If you must revisit your thoughts, you can, they are always there when you need them, but your mind is no longer your master.
It takes practice to be able to reside as the witness all the time, and at times it can be very difficult to do so, but you are never too old and there is no better time than the present to start.
Part 3:
In the last two parts I endeavored to explain the spiritual concepts using a simplified approach. Often we find ourselves so overwhelmed by our day-to-day dramas that we see a religious or spiritual practice as a drain of both our time and energy.
There is some truth to this, spiritual practice is something one must approach like a habit. It's akin to brushing your teeth or taking a shower everyday, but unlike those habits, a spiritual practice is not something in which you can quantify results.
My teeth are clean and I smell fresh, but there is a spiritual body that too requires maintenance.
There are many ways of performing this maintenance, but for many people these disciplines ask too much.
Something more simple then is asked for, a cure-all pill of meditation or something like it.
I want you, the reader, to try something for me.
Turn off the lights, sit on your bed, and close your eyes.
What do you see?
The likely answer is the blank, black sea that is the mind's eye.
Periodically into this ebon ocean the image of a thought might intrude.
It could be the face of someone you love or hate.
It could be an experience you had, or wished you could have.
It could be a fond memory of a place you have been.
It could be the rush of anger at some unkindness real or perceived.
More often than not these thoughts take the form of an image your eyes captured.
But the image is not all the thought contains. There is meaning to these thoughts, meaning, that a lifetime of experiences has instilled in your image of 'mother' or 'friend' or 'lover'.
You think 'mother', and her face appears in your mind's eye, but not only that, everything your mom has made you feel becomes part of that image. Every kind or unkind word she uttered in your direction, every gift she gave you, every stern look and loving tear she shed for you is encompassed by the image.
So now having the image of your loving or harpy-like mother in your mind, convert the image to the word "MOM".
The word, you will see, carries all the weight of the image, all the connotations the mind's eye picture contains. In fact you can likely switch back and forth between the word and the image without much difficulty.
Now with the image firmly transformed into the word, think of a memory, preferrably a good memory you share with your mom.
"Mom used to take me to the zoo."
"Mom loved to eat strawberry shortcake."
"Mom used to scratch my back with her awesome fingernails."
Whatever it is, use the same method we used to convert the image of mom into the word, to convert the memory into a sentence.
Now as the words, signifying the memory, float across your mind's eye. Notice that the words, like the words on a printed page, have spaces between them.
Now instead of focusing on the words themselves, and all the emotional and psychological weight they carry, focus on the spaces between the words.
The space between the words/thoughts is the "Witness" or the "Nothingness" or the "Observer" also known as Ultimate Reality.
Learn to dwell in the 'spaces', focus on them exclusively, rather than your thoughts, and you will see that "You" is not your thoughts. "You" is the space between the thoughts.
Everything that is not present during deep dreamless sleep is not real.
I am born, I grow, and will someday die. The mountains rise and must someday wash into the sea. All this 'reality' we get so bent out of shape about is impermanent.
The only constant in this world of ephemera is those spaces between the thoughts.
It never changes even during deep dreamless sleep.
As far as we can tell it has always been with us and everyone shares it, Everyone.
The only unchanged element, the only thing that endures through every state of consciousness.
However, aside from your own experience of it, it cannot be described, for it is the ultimate describer.
Aside from your own perception of it it cannot be shared, for it is the ultimate perciever.
And unlike everything else in your life, it does not change, it is the Ultimate Reality.
Your closeness to it, determines many things in your life, most important of which is your power to not be attached or averse to your thoughts and experiences.
Rather than that you greet all reality with open arms and an open heart
That's what I call "Open-Heart Surgery".
Part 4:
The biggest reason many people cite for not pursuing their spiritual nature, is that it takes a long time and there isn't some higher authority present to tell them how much progress thay are making.
In most eastern philosophies a person's religious development is pursued under the watchful eye of a teacher or guru. Someone who has already walked the path to a certain level of awareness, and using this heightened awareness, gauge the progress of his or her students.
This isn't going to happen in our western society, we need to work, we need to play, and for many people the need to get sloshy drunk out of their gourds on the weekends overcomes the desire for spiritual enlightenment.
I'm here to tell you that those reasons are not enough to hold you back. In fact in many ways these distractions can be helpful on one's path.
Zen buddhist monks were historically known to take their meditations in Charnel Yards.
Charnel Yards are the funerary depositories of the dead. Large, open air caskets are built, and on them are placed the honored remains of the deceased, to rot in the sun and be picked apart by flies and storm-crows.
This is how the bodies are returned to God.
Hardly a peaceful place to find enlightenment, wouldn't you say?
But therin lies the rub, with the stench of rotting corpses permeating every inch of that place, the incessant buzzing of blowflies and the cawing of crows, these monks seat themselves and go into a meditative state the intensity of which we in the west can only dream of.
Your job, the charnel yard. The nightclub, the buzzing of flies and cawing of crows. The booze and pot, the stench of the dead.
You ask, 'when in the course of my busy day will I find time to sit quietly in my room and meditate?'
Right now, as you sit at your computer staring blankly at these words on the screen, zone out into your mind, don't even close your eyes. Your thoughts are still racing around, look at them as they pass. The black ocean of your mind, the canvas unto which your thoughts are painted is still there. Just as it is at work, just as it is at play.
I am fortunate perhaps, because when in a calm mood, I can slip in and out of a meditative state at will. But this means that ANYONE CAN, I've been after this goal for years, and perhaps this is what gives me this power, I don't know.
My goal is not to be arrogant and lord this over anybody, but rather this ability has instilled in me a tremendous compassion and desire to see all those close to me gain this power over sadness and anger and alienation.
You need only recognize the current of consciousness that rolls ever beneath the clutter of your thoughts, and develop this recognizance until you too can do so at will.
In my next 'Presence' blog I will endeavor to explain how our consciousness enters different states, give examples of these states, and try to show methods to recognizing the substrate consciousness that is ALWAYS present beneath it all.