#4856 -
Thursday, February 28, 2013 - Editor:
Gloria Lee
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The peace that we
are looking for is not peace that crumbles as
soon as there is
difficulty or chaos. Whether weГвЂre seeking
inner peace or global peace or a
combination of the two, the way to experience
it is to build on the foundation of
unconditional openness to all that arises.
Peace isnГвЂt an experience free of
challenges, free of rough and
smoothГвЂitГвЂs an experience thatГвЂs
expansive enough
to include all that arises without feeling
threatened.
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~ Pema Chodron
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Alan
LarusВ Photography
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Joan Tollifson
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I just got word
that someone I knew took his own life
recently, someone who had a very clear nondual
understanding. Many years ago, I remember
hearing of a Zen teacher who committed
suicide. His students
found him hanging. What a teaching! Many
people imagine that Г“enlightenmentГ”
(whatever that might be) means
you wouldnГвЂt do something like that ГвЂ
you wouldnГвЂt kill yourself, you
wouldnГвЂt be depressed, you wouldnГвЂt
have
financial problems or health problems or
personal problems or problems of any
kindГвЂyou wouldnГвЂt need
ZoloftГвЂand if you were terminally ill, you
wouldnГвЂt want the morphineГвЂyouГвЂd
want to be clear and alert and
Г“fully presentГ” at the moment of your
death (presumably so that you could get a good
start on a successful new
incarnation of your self Г†ho ho ho).
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In the world of
meditation or Г“the Power of Now,Г” what
people tend to mean when they talk about
clarity or
awakeness (or Г“enlightenmentГ”) is
being fully present here and now, awake to the
nonconceptual, sensory
reality of this moment, not entranced in
stories and ideologies.
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But in my
experience, the most liberating realization of
all is the recognition that there is no way
NOT to be
here nowГвЂthat EVERYTHING is included in
What Is, even the EXPERIENCE of confusion, or
depression, or
anxiety, or apparent encapsulation in a
separate bodymind, or even the compulsion to
take your own life or the
life of someone else.
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Unlike some
radical nondualists, I do still talk at times
about Г“being in the Now.Г” Maybe one
day IГвЂll stop
doing that entirely. IГвЂve mentioned in
some of my writing that with my fingerbiting
compulsion, whenever there
is complete attention to the bare actuality of
fingerbiting (i.e., the bare sensations
without the storyline or
the labels or the judgments), when there is
total acceptance of it being just as it is,
when there is no effort or
desire or intention to change it, when there
is complete awareness and total presence with
the bare happening
itself, the biting immediately stops. (It may
start again a moment later, but in that moment
of complete
attention and total acceptance, it stops.)
This experience is completely nonverbal and
nonconceptual. It is
concentrated but relaxed, alert but
effortless, open and unbounded, free
awareness. It is frequently called
Г“being in the NowГ” because there is no
story happening of past or future, no ideas
about Г“meГ” and Г“my lifeГ” ГвЂ
just simple awake presence Here / Now. This
kind of presence and attention to the present
moment is what
many schools of meditation aim to cultivate.
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And this can
indeed be helpful for dealing with addiction,
depression, anxiety, stress, physical pain and
other
forms of suffering. And as I have often said,
sitting quietly, doing nothing, tuning into
the nonconceptual
sensory reality that is so easily ignored in
our busy world of information bombardment MAY
help to directly
reveal impermanence, interdependence, the
absence of any real separation between inside
and outside, the
mirage-like nature of the self, and the
ungraspable, inconceivable and unavoidable
nature of reality. All of
this CAN be very liberatingГвЂit certainly
seemed so for meГвЂand for a very long time,
I associated this
experience of presence with true awakening or
real clarity, and I had the sense that
enlightenment or final
liberation would be the state of abiding
permanently in that kind of presenceГвЂbeing
Г“in the NowГ” all the time.
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But of course,
that kind of experiential "being in the Now"
inevitably comes and goes. For some people, it
is
an easy state to accessГвЂfor others, it is
more elusive. Some bodyminds have more stormy
weather than others.
Some people naturally have more equanimity,
greater calm, and a better ability to
concentrate and relax and
Г“be presentГ” than other people. Some
people are by nature more tightly wound, more
hyperactive, buzzing
with thoughts and impulses flying off in
different directions, more easily
Г“distractedГ” from what they are
Г“supposedГ” to be concentrating on.
Some people can happily sit quietly doing
nothing for hours, while others
canГвЂt sit still and Г“do nothingГ”
for more than a few seconds. And while
training and practice may be able to
alter our basic nature to some degree, it can
never turn a turtle into a rabbit, a dandelion
into a rose, or a
shrub into a giant redwood tree.
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Some of us are
given the abilities, the aptitude, the
inclinations, the interests, the drives, the
urges, the
concerns, and the circumstances that compel us
to join or lead a movement for social justice
or environmental
protection. Others of us are given the
abilities, the aptitude, the inclinations, the
interests, the drives, the
urges, the concerns, and the circumstances
that compel us to take up a spiritual practice
such as
meditationГвЂand some of us have the
interest and the ability to persevere at this
practice, while others quickly
or eventually lose interest. Some of us are
compelled toward radical nonduality, many of
us are not. Each of us
is an expression of nature, just as each tree,
each animal, each flower, each rock, each
cloud and each
rainstorm is an expression of nature. Some
trees are tall and straight, some are short
and gnarled. Some buds
open and blossom, others die before that ever
happens. ALL of these varied forms and
happenings are an
expression of nature.
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Nothing holds
still. Every form is inseparable from
everything around it, and each form is nothing
but
continuous change. Impermanence and flux are
so thorough-going that no-thing actually forms
as a solid,
persisting, independent entityГвЂexcept
conceptually, as a mental idea. No-thing is
actually separate,
autonomous, or self-sufficient. Everything is
one whole indivisible happeningГвЂseamless
and
boundlessГвЂever-present and ever-changing.
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At some point in
my journey from Here to Here, it became clear
that ALL states of consciousness ("being in
the Now" AND being entranced by thoughts and
stories) are equally included in What Is, and
that ALL of
them are passing experiences. All these
different experiences are impersonal in the
sense that they have no
owner, no author, no subjectГвЂthey are
simply expressions of nature like the
ever-changing movements of the
outer weather. It was realized that biting my
fingers is simply a compulsive happening of
nature that is no
more wrong or unenlightened or personally
caused than a thunderstorm or a cloudy day or
a gnarled up tree or
any other expression of nature. It doesnГвЂt
MEAN anything Г“about me.Г”
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That discovery or
realization was a big relief. The NEED to get
rid of this compulsion and all the ideas about
what it meant about me fell away. The biting
continues off and on when it does, but there
is no judgment or
evaluation of it, none of the previous
conflict with it that used to be present. The
interest and the inclination
to pay total attention to it in any given
moment (to Г“be in the NowГ” with it)
may or may not arise, and it
doesnГвЂt matter either way. There is no
longer any idea that Г“being here nowГ”
is the superior spiritual state and
that Г“IГ” must make that happen.
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ItГвЂs clear
here that everything happens in the only way
possible. Some people are compelled to do
terrible
things like child molesting and serial murder
in the same way that I am still compelled to
bite my fingers. Only
by grace (aka luck) is my compulsion
fingerbiting and not serial murder or
molesting children. No one chooses
to be a serial killer or a child molester, and
although most of us find such behavior
repugnant and disturbing,
it is as much a part of nature as erupting
volcanoes, earthquakes, tornados, plagues, and
animals eating their
young. That doesnГвЂt mean we have to like
it, or that we wonГвЂt put serial killers in
prisons and do our best to
keep child molesters away from children. But
it does mean we may have compassion for these
unfortunate
people who are driven to do things that they
themselves may find abhorrent, acts that make
them social
pariahs and outcasts. We donГвЂt get to
choose the part we play in the Cosmic Dance.
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The most
liberating realization is that ALL of it is
What Is Г†the parts we like and the parts
we donГвЂt, the
Г“being here nowГ” and the Г“being
lost in thoughts and stories,Г” the calm
experiences and the turbulent ones, the
moments of heaven and the moments of hell, the
heroes and the villains and the ordinary folk
in between.
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And we really have
no way of KNOWING what THIS (this presently
appearing happening) is. We can only BE
it. We ARE it. It is ALL there is. Our
attempts to understand this happening, whether
through physics or
neuroscience or biology or philosophy or
spirituality, are always limited. We can never
stand outside this
happening. Subject and object are not two. The
observer is inseparable from the observed;
they are one
event. Any understanding we have is partial
and always subject to doubt. But we cannot
doubt BEING here.
We cannot doubt this present happening, this
aware beingness. We can doubt any explanations
of it (that it is
a dream, or a brain experience, or a bunch of
atoms and molecules doing a subatomic dance),
but we cannot
doubt the bare ACTUALITY of the happening
itself, the beingness of Here / Now ГвЂ
THIS, just as it is.
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And we can notice
that it is no way in particular, for it is
ever-changing. Anything we try to grasp will
vanish
and disappear. Anything we THINK is permanent
(including any IDEA or any EXPERIENCE or any
subtle
IMAGE of the One Self or Consciousness or
Primordial Awareness or Emptiness) will vanish
and slip through
our fingers like water, air or smoke. And
yetГ….
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THIS is
undeniable. You cannot NOT be as you are ГвЂ
this ever-unfolding, ever-present event that
is always
Here / Now. This event may show up as the
mirage-like thought-sense of bring a
separate-self encapsulated in
a bodymind looking out at the world. It may
show up as an experience of undivided
wholeness. It may show up
as the experience of Г“being here now,Г”
or it may show up as molesting children,
committing serial murders,
planning a genocide, drinking yourself to
death, committing suicide or biting your
fingers. It may show up as a
giant meteor hitting the earth and wiping out
an entire continent, or it may show up as a
gentle spring day.
However it shows up, it is all one undivided
happening without beginning or end.
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Of course, this
begs the question, what do we mean by
realization or enlightenment? We thought at
first that
realization meant Г“being in the NowГ”
and that enlightenment meant Г“being in the
NowГ” all the time. From that
perspective, it seemed like we were going back
and forth between Г“getting itГ” and
Г“losing it.Г” It seemed that
Г“realizationГ” meant something
experiential, something Г“deeperГ” than
merely understanding all of this
conceptually or believing it as a philosophy.
But then we realized there was no way NOT to
be here now, and
no one apart from Here / Now to be in or out
of it. There is no separate Г“somebodyГ”
to be lost or found,
realized or not realized, enlightened or
unenlightened.
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The whole
spiritual adventure melted away. We were left
with life, just as it is.
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That doesnГвЂt
mean being left in a state of perpetual bliss
or having a continuous EXPERIENCE of
Г“being in the
NowГ” (except in the sense that EVERY
experience is one of being in the Now). It
doesnГвЂt mean we are always
calm, decisive, spontaneous, relaxed,
fearless, happy and filled with love. Some
people by nature have more or
less stormy weather than others, just as some
places are by nature sunnier and others more
overcast and
cloudy. Realization simply means it is ALL
recognized as What Is, even the absence of
that recognition. ItГвЂs
not a perpetual EXPERIENCE Г†but rather,
the understanding that EVERY experience is one
whole happening
without an experiencer, even the experience of
apparently being a separate experiencer.
Nothing is left out.
Nothing is not it. And there is no
Г“itГ” to be found!
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Like the edge of
the earth that our ancestors feared they might
fall off, the problem weГвЂve been trying to
solve is imaginary. We are no longer seeking
heaven without hell, or up without down. We
donГвЂt mind being the
short tree instead of the tall tree because we
know itГвЂs all a play, and weГвЂre the
Whole Show. And this isnГвЂt an
EXPERIENCE or a special STATE of
consciousness. It is JUST THIS, Here / Now,
EXACTLY as it is!
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How is it? It just
moved! And yet, Here it is!
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