7
THE SEDUCTION OF THOUGHT
“One enlightened thought and one is a Buddha,
one foolish thought and one is again an ordinary
person. That is what we have to practise with.”
– HUINENG
Immediately after “my” realization, I confided what had happened to a spiritual friend who felt that I was conceited and possibly even deluded for talking about it. It’s interesting how obsessed and inebriated we all can be by concepts of enlightenment and liberation until somebody close to us dares to suggest that they could actually have realized it. Then, scepticism, criticism and even anger can arise. This is simply the ego’s defensive reaction against its own nothingness. In the end, everything is a reaction against that. It’s scary for the ego to face its own non-existence.
While it may seem “rude” or “mean” for a friend to do that, it was really a blessing. In the past, what she said would have crushed me, it would have made me doubt, it would have thrown me into the mind – but it didn’t. It didn’t alter what had happened whatsoever, which showed me the depth of what was happening to me. It also revealed to me the mystery of flip-flopping, where a seeker, even one that has had a strong recognition of their true nature, can seemingly lose it once again. As I contemplated what my friend had said, there was an inner certainty that yes, “this is it”. I also noticed that by trying to interpret, understand, analyse or explain this certainty, attention was turning automatically to the mind. Whenever that happens, we move away from direct experience back into concept, no longer connected to the certainty of spiritual perception. As soon as awareness saw this, attention once again collapsed in on itself, leaving no-thing.
Most people unquestioningly assume that their thoughts are real, and as long as it is believed that they are real, we will turn toward them time and again. We turn to our minds to solve problems, all the while not realizing that it is the mind that creates the problems in the first place. The answers we are looking for will never be found in the mind.
Whenever our attention gets involved with thoughts it seems that awareness is obscured, but awareness is what is always here, doing the seeing. All that is happening when we think we’ve found it and then lost it, is that the focus of our attention has become fixated on some thought of a separate “I” entity that believes it can get it and lose it.
There is no such “I” in the picture whatsoever, apart from a thought that appears and disappears in the ever-present presence that we are.
Thoughts and beliefs of “finding/losing” are appearing and disappearing in the pristine presence of our true beingness. Once this is understood, it becomes easier to see clearly and the wavering back and forth ends once and for all.
Notice that when the thought appears and disappears, it is appearing and disappearing in the naturally present, aware intelligence that contains and knows both the movement of thoughts and the stillness of no thoughts. Also notice that awareness doesn’t appear when the thought appears and doesn’t disappear when the thought leaves.
Peace, joy and clarity do not come and go. They are ever-present, flowing from our natural state; the presence/ awareness that is always here. For this recognition, simply look away from the mind and see what is aware of the mind.
If you have the thought, “It has faded” or “I have lost it”, who or what is aware of this thought? Investigate carefully the space in which everything appears. Can “this”, your true nature, ever be lost? Notice that all that is happening is that you believe the thought, “It has faded.” What has faded and what is still present even when the thought appears? Who or what is aware of this thought? See this. Investigate this.
The “you” that seems to “lose it and find it” is not who you actually are.
BE WHAT YOU ARE
Whatever you can possess and then lose is the content of awareness and not awareness itself. “Losing and finding” are the thoughts of this entity that you are identifying with and to which you have attributed an ongoing story, the story you consider your life. In this story, the entity, like in a dream, struggles with “losing and finding” the most elusive prize of all: enlightenment. But all of this is just a mind-created story.
Are you the entity in the story that is “getting closer”, or are you the awareness in which the story appears?
Awareness is already constant. It’s your thoughts, and your belief in those thoughts, that cause these apparent breaks in awareness. A break in awareness is simply a mental concept. What is it that is aware that there are breaks in awareness? Continue to be aware of that, and soon the breaks will be a thing of the past.
Continuous awareness occurs as a result of consistent surrender to it.
I am frequently distracted from awareness by thoughts. How do I step out of thoughts?
The one who wants to step out of thought is itself another thought. A thought can never “step out” of itself. If ever you feel like you’re succeeding in “stepping out”, all that is happening is that the assumed “I” entity is giving itself a break from its own imaginary point of view.
Leave the thoughts alone. Don’t touch them with another thought about them. Dismiss the story. It’s just another distraction that keeps you focused in the wrong direction. It is the very thing that keeps you (seemingly) caught.
Be more interested in what your thoughts appear in and on. This is the direction to explore. Who watches the coming and going of thoughts? You, as the awareness, are fully present as the one knowing the thoughts. They appear in and on you.
When thoughts rush in, relax the focus a bit toward the awareness of the thoughts rather than the thoughts themselves. Understand that you are this awareness and not what is projected upon it.
When you no longer care whatever ephemeral thoughts and feelings arise, you stop empowering them by fighting them, resisting them, trying to control them or even watching them.
You are pure awareness and not what is projected upon it. Just be what you are. If you take the story, “I am full of thoughts, I am not there yet, there is still something missing” and discard it, what is left?
What is left is what you are.
Once the energy stops going to the thoughts, the show is over.
Last year I experienced the unity of everything and the knowing that I was connected with all that is. Unfortunately, this faded after a while, and the phantom “I” has returned.
Pure awareness lasted only a few days? This is impossible. Timeless awareness always is. It doesn’t come and go. It is what you are, always. Did you actually disappear at any time? Who knew that the experience “came and went”, that it lasted only a few days and then was gone?
That which registered these thoughts is the awareness that I am talking about, the real you. Whatever came and went was not awareness.
If you identify with those thoughts, there is seemingly an appearance of movement, a coming and going with the thoughts. But has awareness really moved? What is here witnessing the comings and goings? Innate awareness is here before, during and after all conceptualizing.
Keep going with the looking and this will eventually resolve. Keep looking, keep inquiring, into the truth of your being. Keep exposing the non-existence of the person you take yourself to be. Be aware of it, notice it, but do not worry about it. Also notice that the awareness that sees this supposed fading of itself doesn’t actually fade at all. It’s simply that thoughts and stories are once again appearing and disappearing on the screen of awareness, appearing and disappearing in you and upon you. These stories do not define you. You are the space giving rise to and holding all stories.
Do not worry about assigning values to your experiences. Don’t bother with analysing or evaluating where you are or how far you have gone. These are just the imaginings of a mind-made character in the storyline.
Whatever view you might have of yourself is a mind-made construct, made up of assumptions and concepts about what you are and what the world is. It’s just a dream, a movie comprised of infinite assumptions and concepts. But you are not a concept.
You are that to which and in which all concepts appear. This One that you are looks with loving detachment at all the stories of losing, finding and awakening.
Why do some enlightened teachers commit not so enlightened acts?
Firstly, there are not enlightened people, only enlightened awareness. But for the sake of this discussion, let’s pretend that there are enlightened people.
Many have had a deep realization of their true nature, but few have embodied it so much that there are no gaps left between the realization and its outer expression. This is what is sometimes called embodiment or liberation, where actions start to flow from that which was realized.
While embodiment is not necessarily about becoming a moral person, in the words of the Tibetan teacher, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, “Your view should be as wide as the sky but your conduct as fine as barley flour.”
If we use the energy of our realization and the loftiness of our view as an excuse to fuel and indulge our conditionings, then the ego has co-opted awakening and has turned it into creating its own kingdom where it can once again rule unchallenged.
Recently I received an email asking “If the absolute is the only reality, then who is there to benefit from my good actions?”
This is the great mystery, but only to those of us who still see some difference between the seer and the seen, the enlightened and the unenlightened, the sacred and the profane.
Paradoxically, that’s the way the absolute set up the game, so that It, can discover Itself over and over again in and through the manifested world and in and through these impermanent forms of you and me, in which we find ourselves appearing. In truth, we are the absolute, expressing itself as the relative.
Why would the absolute want to express itself in this dreamy impermanent world?
Nisargadatta Maharaj summed it up perfectly when he said, “When I see I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I see I am everything that is love. Between these two my life flows.”
And with the realization that the function of the One in the many is love, we realize that we are also love and that love must love and serve all beings, even though ultimately there is no one existing independently from that One, including ourselves.