Postby vinceschubert » Sun Jun 12, 2016 4:19 am
i'll be back in a few hours, in the meantime have a read of this lovely lady;
Joan Tollifson
June 2 at 12:39am · Politics · Thoughts
If you stop thinking just for a moment, what remains? There is still hearing-seeing-smelling-breathing-heart-beating-sensing-perceiving-awaring...yes? Not those words or concepts, but the actuality to which they point—the green of the leaves, the sounds of the traffic, the sensations of breathing, the knowingness of being present...all of it, one whole effortless happening.
Thought comes and goes. It labels what is being perceived, comments on it, judges it, evaluates, compares, tells stories, etc. The more you pay attention, the more you can discern the difference between thoughts and sensations, and between thinking and awaring. You can’t think your way to “getting” this. Clarity comes from paying attention wordlessly, and this attention is an open, spacious, relaxed devotion to the present moment, just as it is. Listening, seeing, being aware, being this boundless present moment. This is what intelligent meditation is all about.
You begin to see that the “me” who is supposedly the thinker, the meditator, the doer, the chooser, the experiencer, the controller, etc. is nothing more than a kind of intermittent mental mirage made up of thoughts, mental images, memories, sensations, and emotions. The more closely you look for the “me,” the more you discover it can’t be found. It is like chasing a mirage. Simultaneously, you begin to feel yourself as the unbound spaciousness of presence-awareness, the seamless fluidity of present experiencing, the vibrant aliveness of Here / Now, the infinite and most intimate Ultimate Subject from which nothing stands apart. It’s not that you’re THINKING of yourself as unbound awareness, or TRYING to remember to identify yourself as unbound awareness. It’s that you simply notice that you already ARE unbound awareness. And you notice that this boundless awareness has space for everything to be just as it is.
The deeply engrained habit is to try to resolve our doubts and uncertainties by thinking about all of this and trying to figure it out mentally in our heads. But the key to waking up is in being present, being aware, being embodied—and by embodied, I mean awake to the somatic sensations and energies that we think of as “my body.” Paradoxically, the more awareness and presence we bring to the body, the more we realize experientially that there is no body in the way we think there is—“the body” is a concept, while the actuality of what we call “the body” is fluid and alive, moving and changing, subtle and space-like, with no boundary between inside and outside.
Feeling the sensations in the body, feeling the breathing. Hearing the birdsong, the traffic sounds, the barking dog, the airplane passing overhead, the rain pattering on the roof. Smelling the coffee, tasting it, savoring it. Enjoying the colors and shapes and the whole visual dance of the moment in the way that you might enjoy abstract art or a plotless movie or the tumbling shapes in the kaleidoscope, as pure visual sensation. Seeing the thoughts as they arise without believing them or following them or getting caught up in their content. Allowing them to come and go without resisting them or judging them or getting caught up in secondary thoughts about the thoughts. In other words, simply being present as the living reality Here / Now, just as it is, without trying to change or understand it. This is true meditation or devotion to what is.
But don’t try to “do” all of this perfectly or “all the time,” and don’t make it into some methodical practice, but simply allow it to happen naturally whenever it invites you. This isn’t some kind of effortful, goal-oriented task in which we need to strain and struggle in order to achieve some result. It’s not about getting anywhere other than Here / Now, and it’s not about getting rid of anything that is showing up. It is simply being Here / Now. Being here is effortless. There is nothing to get, nothing that needs to happen, nothing that needs to be achieved or resisted or eliminated or figured out.
And if you notice that you ARE trying to figure it all out, or trying to do something or make something happen or “get” something or get rid of something, or if you notice that you are judging yourself or evaluating your progress, simply recognize (SEE) that this is happening, and that all of this is nothing more than a movement of conditioned thought, an old habit, a compulsive pattern of the universe—see it for what it is and allow it to pass through. Don’t imagine that these old habits mean something about the mirage-like “me,” that they are signs of spiritual failure or personal lack. They are nothing more than conditioned patterns of energy happening to no one. You are the awareness beholding them, and awareness is unconditioned and free. So, simply see these movements of thought for what they are and allow them to come and go naturally. Allow the sensations that accompany these thoughts to unfold and move naturally in the body as pure energy, and allow them to dissolve in their own time. Awareness is unconditional love. It’s not about resisting and hating these old patterns, but simply bringing them into the light. This is all about devotion to what is. It’s not a self-improvement project.
So don’t look for results. That’s the trap and the old habit of the mind—to get lost in past or future. You’re not going anywhere. This isn’t about vanquishing thoughts or achieving some fantasy version of enlightenment in which you always feel calm and blissful and spacious and loving. Rather, this is about discovering how it actually is Here / Now, however it is. It’s not about coming up with a conceptual formulation or a label or a description or an explanation for how it is, or getting some kind of mental picture or mental map nicely arranged in your head, but instead, simply being awake Here / Now, effortlessly—noticing how it actually is without needing to grasp or define it in any way. Simply hearing-seeing-sensing-awaring-thinking-being, just as it is. Just this!
If it feels complicated or difficult, that’s a clue that we’re thinking again, trying to grasp it conceptually or make something happen. Reality itself is simple, effortless, always already here. So if it seems otherwise, that’s the invitation to investigate directly—to stop, look and listen—to explore, and to relax into the simplicity of what is.
Don’t go to war with complexity or restlessness or resistance or efforting or confusion or seeking or trying or obsessive thinking if any of that shows up, but simply be aware of it—see the thoughts, feel the sensations in the body—allow it to be as it is, feel how it is, allow it to move through naturally. Meet whatever shows up with awareness, which is another word for unconditional love or acceptance or welcoming or the openness of not knowing. Simply be aware—and notice that awareness is always already fully present.
This kind of true meditation can happen anywhere—in an armchair or on a meditation cushion, at home or while riding on the city bus or in an airplane or in a waiting room. It doesn’t require a quiet setting or any particular posture. Your eyes can be open or closed. In fact, we might even notice that meditation is always happening—that meditation is the very nature of Here / Now.
