Self: one hand clapping

When one inhabits that exquisite state of pure undifferentiated awareness found in meditation there is no Self: there is only awareness. Self is a natural and necessary product of the differentiation made inevitable by consciousness. Where there is consciousness there is Self. Because the focus of awareness which is consciousness exists as a center to which "things" are external, the external "not-self" of which one is conscious gives rise to and defines Self. Self is the sound of one hand clapping.

Nothing is external to Awareness. Awareness has no inside and no outside and no Self.

It is difficult to accurately describe these aspects of the real because language tends to be casual in its references. Phrases such as "self aware" serve well enough for street talk, but they are clumsy and misguided for other than colloquial purposes.

Let consciousness relax. Let consciousness dissolve into the awareness which is its substrate: this is meditation. And only by meditation does Self discover its identity and its abode.

Illusion

What would it mean to no longer harbor illusions of any kind? Illusion is that event where things are not seen such as they are. When things are not perceived accurately one's actions will be accordingly askew. The grief made inevitable by labors of illusion is the stuff of which legends are made.

There are all kinds of illusions: illusions peculiar to our biological make-up, political illusions, spiritual illusions, etc. Though illusions are often shared across some broad spectrum of humanity, all illusions are personal and coalesce around some existing predisposition.

Predispositions are formations of consciousness. Awareness has no form.

Only by meditation does one achieve the inner silence which makes inevitable an awareness of the subtle predispositions which are the enablers of illusion.

The Great Teachers

There is a wonderful parable that I first encountered in the Gurdjieff material which goes something like this...

the devil and his side-man are stalking mankind down the road of life...mankind reaches down and rejoices in something found...the side-man ask the devil "what's man found that is the cause of such rejoicing"...the devil says "man's found the truth"...the side-man says "well this is a bad business for us"... the devil says "oh no, we're going to help him arrange it"

The great teachers were pioneers. The great teachers were those precocious individuals who, though born to the earth, awoke as the children of the universe.  They dealt not in ideologies, they expressed the simple truth they found before them. It is not a crime that ten thousand ideologues have filled the space between them and us. It is the inevitable capture of truth by idea.

The soil of being is like that of a desert island: it takes millions of years of death and decay to produce a single flower.

Let us hope that on Earth this time has come.

Now

Charles Darwin was a man of his time: a brilliant inquisitive mind in a world supine to discovery. The voyage of the Beagle (aptly named for a kind of hunting dog) halfway around the world gave him days on end of staring out across the timeless ocean. The vast emptiness and seething sameness of this environment may have set his mind in sync with that timeless ever present Now which is the simple fact of existence. From this vantage point it is not an inconceivable leap of vision to see creatures morphing in-place as awareness refines the utility of consciousness in the Now.

Consciousness is one of the faculties of Awareness. The central illusion common to consciousness is Time. Awareness is ever Now, and Now is ever seething with inevitability. Consciousness is the ability of Awareness to pick up and follow the threads of the inevitable.  The existence of the inevitable and the echo which is its trail within the domain of conscious awareness, give rise to the illusion of Time and all of its subsequent confusions.

This is not to dismiss the obvious utility of the concept of Time, but rather to point out that concepts make a poor roof on a rainy day.

Concepts are an anathema to meditation except as they lead to shelter (which is to say it is a matter of utility). Meditation enables the alchemy which turns leaden concepts into golden realities. Meditation is the difference between Goethe's sorcerer and his apprentice. And Magic is the articulation of Now to influence the Inevitable.





A Thing of Beauty


seven days of snow

un-tread


pristine

before my home



because awareness has no form it can not be resisted

From the Ridiculous to the Sublime

Any objective observer will have to admit that the world is not made a better place by the existence of humanity. We are a high maintenance creature that takes what it wants and doesn't mind leaving a big mess behind. If we are ever to live in symbiosis with our lovely Earth we need big sublime ideas. As it is we find humanity in the sway of a plethora of ridiculously small ideas.

Ideas are projections of imagination and as such are mutable, and all it would take to end the enmity and corruption and needless grief oppressing the peoples of the world is for individual human beings to use their imaginations differently. This is not about to happen because the imagination of humanity is fascinated by ridiculous small ideas. And these ridiculously small ideas revel in ridiculously complex answers to very simple questions: for example...the question of existence.

Sublime ideas are no less the products of imagination than ridiculous ideas. The power of the sublime is it's inclusiveness. What makes a sublime idea truly SUBLIME is it's perfect symmetry with the real, and it's utility. A truly sublime idea is one that like mercury seamlessly absorbing it's separate blobs, effortlessly unites small concepts into one coherent self-evident form.

The ridiculous is not going away any time soon, and those problems large enough to insist upon the sublime may be insurmountable by the time the obvious becomes apparent to the hopelessly occluded.

Fate hinges upon the use of imagination.

Ideation and Awareness

All mental imaging and thought processes are configurations of awareness. It is as if a mist would concentrate it's self to create identifiable forms. This self-same mist can concentrate its self into any form imaginable, and yet the mist does not depart from its nature. This is an extremely powerful ability (its called consciousness), but it has a downside in that it is by sensing forms present in the mist that the mist knows anything at all. And when the mist is busy configuring some self determined form it is less available for pure sensing of the not-self.

In the act of meditation the mist of pure awareness is at rest; unformed and completely aware.

Notes on Imagination

"Use your imagination" oft heard phrase: seldom done. In most cases it is the imagination which does the using. This is responsible for much personal difficulty and cultural unpleasantness.

With the emergence of awakened awareness by the practice of meditation it is not difficult to see if one's consciousness is dominated by imagination, or if one's imagination serves consciousness. The implications are obvious.

We all have a figurine collection: a glass menagerie of projections of imagination. We tend to be fiercely protective of our projections because they are "us" in the same way as our fingers and toes. Albeit in a less physically generative way.

It must be remembered that all ideas are imaginary, and when we are identified with the projections of our imagination we live in the shadow of our imagination. When imagination serves awakened awareness it is a magic lamp.

Intentional Being

Very few people are capable of making a decision. We "opt" all over the place, but opting is not the same thing as deciding.

Let me explain. The normal human creature is one for whom the animal core of the psyche is wholly invisible. It is categorically impossible for this creature to recognize the weight of undiluted great ape influencing its behavior, and since its core animal responses are taken as personal volition to say that this creature is capable of "deciding" as opposed to "opting" is doing it a decided disfavor.

Deciding and opting share the same territory in that they both reflect the resonance of the external within the domain of the internal. The point being that if the interior of our being is an unexplored mystery our responses to the external demands of life will be in large measure that of an automaton.

Self control is a necessary social discipline, but it is miles away from the ability to decide ones state of being. And since most people are in large measure automatons that respond in predictable and inevitable ways there is great value in being able to decide what to be.

The what determines the how. If we are capable of being what we need to be in a given situation the how takes care of it's self. This is a skill that makes life better for all that it touches: initiates and ordinary people alike, and meditation is the exercise which makes possible this magic

That cultivation of pure awareness which we practice in meditation gently pulls back the curtain behind which our animal nature operates. When awareness recognizes and befriends the natural animal, the animal is no longer a slave to the millions of years of darkness from which it has emerged: there is a metamorphosis; it has become the wand, the magic carpet, the wish fulfilling gem.

Of the many fruits of meditation one of the sweetest is intentional being, as the children of the earth are reborn as the children of the universe.

Transcendent Awareness

The synthetic abilities of the modern English language make possible shades of meaning that would have been impossible to convey a mere hundred years ago. The advent of psychology and the popularization of meditation have enriched the descriptive power of words to a remarkable degree. With such tools at our disposal let us revisit the relationship of consciousness to awareness.

The word "Consciousness" is used rather broadly and loosely and it makes no sense to try to sort that out. "Awareness" is less abused and therefore more easily used succinctly. That which is "Transcendent" is that without apparent limitations.

There is no such thing as transcendent consciousness. Consciousness is a configuration of Awareness. Anything that is configured is limited, and its limits are its value.

Awareness, simple, un-fixated, awareness is by nature transcendent. Consciousness is the surface of our being, and Transcendent Awareness is the substance of our being.

In meditation simply let consciousness contemplate Awareness. Nature will take its course.

The Carpet, the Wand, and the Gem

Someone recently asked me "Well, if awareness awakens as you say, what then about life?"

The Magic Carpet

The Magic Wand

The Magic Wish Fulfilling Gem


This is our creaturely life.

The Hand We Are Dealt

There is no-one on the surface of the earth who is not subject to the person that they are. And by and large we all have a head full of ideas. For the most part these ideas are historical artifacts of a by-gone age. We are all playing the hand we've been dealt.

History's game has played its self out.

If there is any future for humanity it will come only from laying the cards on the table and admitting that the deck has been stacked, and that all ideas are imaginary.

It is not to be expected that humanity at large should awaken. But those of us who are awake must recognize the hand we've been dealt.

For instance: the patriarchal murder form of problem-solving is something that can only be put in the past by recognizing it for what it is. In our supposed modern superiority we have lost the ever present truth of mere existence.

The wild card is that the Universe might awaken in its progeny.

Endless Sleep

It is not uncommon that dreams are remembered. And of course dreams forgotten are dreams not futile but ephemeral. There are those dreams that on awakening drift away even as we grab pen to rope them down, but what can be said of those dreams never remembered. They can not be thought of because they did not enter into consciousness. We know they exist because we know they must exist.

We wake in a sweat, and know not why. It seems a taste of lingering dream is bitter on our soul's tongue but all images are occult. Do any imagine that they are immune to the sway of human nature? Those dreams to which we cannot admit are the dross of the possible and the inevitable sway of the mind of the animal.

Various systems have come up with various colorful metaphors. From the Hindu "mad monkey", to Gurdjieff's "It" those who see "IT" have tried to lead others to the trough of truth. The most amusing element of the whole bit is that seeing clearly broaches no exemption. Should the iron of the casting awaken it will not be exempt from its form.

The shallow promises of religious tropes short circuit any hope for enlightenment. It is a nightclub where all phantasies are respected.

Bring your metaphor, your belief, your desperate hope, your tradition, you will not be turned away.

Dangerous Operators

There is no operators manual for the awareness inhabiting a human animal. These awareness are born into the jungle to sleeping progenitors and fed a diet of ideas guaranteed to cost them half a lifetime to digest (let alone evacuate).

When Chuang Tzu remarked that teachings of diligence and reverence lead to indolence and debauchery he made note of the clever way idea has of replacing intuition. The obvious has been apparent (to those for whom it is apparent) for thousands of years, but it has yet to become fashionable.

There seems to be no way to explain to the mad monkey that all it is identified with is just monkey business, no more, no less.

I guess calculus is not for the average six year old. And they should be protected from operating dangerous machines such as governments.

Really Exercising

A pole barn is an exercise in Aristotelian logic

A hamburger is an exercise in Platonic ideal form

Zen has no problem with any of this



because Zen is the exercise of reality

Love in the Time of the Kali Yuga

How is one to have a sense of well being in the time of plague? Even if one is not directly subject to the tide of evil sweeping the world, the suffering innocent and the futility of good will break hearts.

It takes courage to be of good cheer when you recognize the world is run by fools and knaves; courage and self knowledge. To have some relative resistance to sorrow when sorrow is so justified is a tall (yet necessary) order. Anger is the child of sorrow, and it is important not to become the womb of the next oppression.

Only enlightenment can stem the plague. Only enlightenment can stem the sickness and inner darkness made inevitable by knowledge of the world of man. Only enlightenment can make man's place in the Universe so small. Only enlightenment can make the small good one can do so good. Only enlightenment can speak the truth without rancor.

A Simple Truth Simply Stated

Being is a multidimensional fabric. There is not a thing which is not a part of that fabric and as an elemental thick spot in the gelatinous fabric of being if anything moves the movement ripples through existence. This is the way anything is known.

The river is the water, not the ditch. If the river were a river of awareness it would recognize every spring and creek and gutter.

And in knowing its self it would also know the ditch.

Validation

I believe it was Lin Chi who said to his followers "If in your travels you meet the Buddha, slay him." What he was pointing out is; if you require validation your identity is second hand. The fact of existence is first person singular. And though knowing things like "the world is round" can and must be accepted as valid second-hand information, it is only the unnecessary complexity of the modern world (for all it's charm) that gives such information value.

Being a living breathing thinking creature has no explanation.

Know thy self.

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall

In the on going search for metaphors that will succinctly express the relationship of Awareness to Consciousness the "mirror" comes up. The eye can not see its self without benefit of a reflective surface. Consciousness is the mirror enabling the awakening of Awareness. It is to be expected that a naive creature would think its self to be its reflection.

Self realization is the water's utility. The death of Narcissus is the water's revenge.

Ten Bulls Eat Chocolate Buddhas

Metaphor, analogy, and parable are the poetic tools necessary to descriptions of enlightenment. Enlightenment is not something that happens to the personality. Enlightenment is rather like the electricity in a TV set waking up. Suddenly the personality doesn't matter much anymore. Its not about the picture.

Pure awareness of it's self does not have color or flavor. It is the very bland emptiness of awareness that is it's supreme value. It is emptiness that makes sound and color possible. Awareness is that emptiness necessary as the womb of form. Form is knowable. Awareness has no form, and yet awareness is the ultimate truth of individual being. So long as we are hypnotized by form we are barred from any approach to the identity of the universe. The Buddhist parable of "The Ten Bulls" is an allegory elucidating an Awareness awakening within it's creature and the subsequent domestication of animal nature by an awakened Awareness.

I suppose it happens that there are cases of spontaneous enlightenment. Some limit is breached and awareness transcends consciousness. If the individual has no experience in and practice of meditation it is inevitable that the personality seize the moment and define the event to it's own satisfaction; thereby thwarting (probably forever) the opportunity of a lifetime. The parable of "The Chocolate Buddha Box" is the appropriate allegory in this tragic case. This kind of case often results in a sincere religious fanatic.

Meditation is the touchstone. Meditation is way. Meditation is the key, and meditation is the door. Simply let consciousness contemplate awareness; nature will take it's course. It is no more necessary to stop one's thoughts than it is to remove the butterflies from a meadow; let them go their way. Awareness is all.

The obvious will become apparent.

The children of the earth will be reborn as the children of the Universe

The Savor of Enlightened Being

If you are properly aware you will notice that every moment has a flavor. Every moment without exception has a flavor. Some are like water, and it must be admitted that some water taste better than others. Some are like high cheese; one must develop a taste for them. Some are sweet and some are bitter. Some are retched. Some sweet moments are poisonous, and some bitter moments are nourishing. Through meditation we develop the ability to become truly aware. It is obvious to those who are truly aware that we taste our way through life the same way a salmon finds it's way to the stream in which it was born.

The ordinary state of being is one in which the creature is wholly identified with it's affective states. An awareness wholly identified with the nature of the animal has no separation from instinct or impulse or the flavor of inner state. The ancients referred to this as Maya: illusion: awareness believes its self to be its states. Enlightenment is the spiritual equivalent to awakening from a hypnotic trance.

Many years ago discussing such matters with a friend he said "Well, enlightenment won't help you pick out a head of lettuce." This is not true. The awakened awareness is acutely conscious of the flavor of its state. It is by induced states that we know anything, and the very flow of thought is a self induce state.

Thoughts About Intuition

One extremely valuable side benefit of meditation is that meditation enables one to taste the difference between intuition and thought.

Thought requires the exercise of imagination. Intuition is perception.

It is not difficult to see that the difference between tailoring our thoughts to support our perceptions and tailoring our perceptions to support our thoughts is the difference between day and night.

Genghis Kahn's Horses

Genghis Kahn's horses 

the steeds escorting death across the steppes

fire

arrow

sword 

war axe 

gift to all the living

restoring to an earth

the silent restless plain

did not outlive their riders

Xerxes' horses at Thermopylae

those of the Crusaders and Conquistadors

survive blood shed 

as blood flows through progeny

wives and children weep 

the riders

ride on

Labyrinth

We are the Labyrinth. We are the savage beast confined within the Labyrinth. We are the tender virgin abandoned to be devoured within the Labyrinth. The hero capable of dismembering the beast, redeeming the virgin, and finding a place in light of the real world is our Self.

The daughter of the King is indeed Wisdom. It is Wisdom that knows the way and will lead Self to the light.

Meditation is the womb of wisdom.

Material Questions: this and that

For a very long time it has interested me that no one is particularly interested in the relationship of awareness to matter. The awareness that results in what we refer to as our "self" is made inevitable by certain arrangements of atoms. These arrangements of atoms are constellated according to cookie cutter preprograms that have refined themselves over a period of hundreds of millions of years. The expression of these preprograms has led to a creature whose awareness is capable of transcending its animal existence, and awakening to the fact of existence its self. This is a remarkable occurrence in the fabric of the universe. This is the universe awakening to its self.

And this all has to do with merely stacking atoms properly.


Why should that be?

Powers

One of the things that is mentioned quite a bit from India sources and not so much from China and Japan is "powers". As one's meditation matures and awareness can actually control the mind one has the ability to form artifacts of consciousness and project them. This has a certain appeal especially if the personality is still in control, but there is the element of unintended consequences to be concerned with. Personally I think that it is valid and even important to experiment with transference of will because it is undeniable evidence of awareness as a field phenomenon, but these techniques should be treated with the same respect as a loaded gun.

Its OK

It's OK to be a human being. It's OK to have idiosyncrasies and imperfections. It's OK to simply be what you are. We are not our personalities. Most folks are wholly identified with their personality and that's OK.

The personality is a behavioral tool kit. The human is a social animal born into a cultural matrix, and it will spontaneously create a persona chipped from the flint of cultural norms and shaped by native powers of invention. There is no other way to be, but it can be noticed that the personality is a necessary creation of and not the core of our being.

Meditation is a tool. One ancient master described it as "the brick with which one knocks at the door". The door at which one knocks is opacity concerning the human condition. The human condition is a manifestation of the awareness which is the universe. With the practice of meditation it is possible that the human condition become translucent to the awareness which is its progenitor. The door opens. This is called enlightenment.

It's OK to be a human being, but it is preferred to be an enlightened human being for enlightenment enables the abandonment of all pretense. The abandonment of pretense results in a remarkably quickened faculty of intuition. Intuition is the inner voice of clairvoyance, and could be likened to seeing in the infra-red: the things seen are made obvious by their presence.

There is no sense in making distinctions of red and green to the color blind. There are no black-and-white answers to questions that come in colors. A lot of people are color blind and that's OK.

It's All Very Nice

It's all very nice to know something. Every one knows something about something or other. One of the things that I find very interesting is that the modern versions of psychology and neurology and brain slicing have not yet found the who. If we describe the "who" as an epiphenomenon of the existence of tissue of course that is true so far as it goes. But an epiphenomenon does not explain the experience which is the fact of our existence.

Off the Leash

The leash is the inner monitor that keeps us in check. Why do we need to be kept in check....because we are animals. What is the leash...consciousness. What is the one tool of consciousness....awareness. So why not just be aware and let it off the leash.

The Contemplation of Awareness

The difficulty that I have with most systems of meditation is that they work through and appeal to the consciousness. All religious systems work through the personality and seek to engage mind in a scenario that includes a world view. None of this is necessary and all of it to a greater or lesser degree entangles awareness in the fabrications of the mind.

If you want to cross the Atlantic Ocean you can board a sailing ship or take a jet liner. There is nothing wrong with the scenic route so long as you make it. If you want to meet the substrate of your being and know your actual place in the universe I suggest "The Contemplation of Awareness". No window dressing is needed, no system, no ideas: only the will to awaken.

All systems that deal with consciousness have the cart squarely before the horse. Awareness is the horse that pulls the cart of consciousness down the road of time. Awareness is the ultimate truth of our being, and consciousness and the personality are crystallizations of awareness. Most meditations train the consciousness to be silent by tying it to some mental pole and telling it to be quiet. Like most dogs, consciousness does not like this: it takes a lot of discipline and quite a bit of practice. "The Contemplation of Awareness" requires about the same discipline as watching a movie, because consciousness finds "The Contemplation of Awareness" relaxing and spontaneously engaging.

Consciousness finds and holds: consciousness is limited, and this is its purpose and its value. Awareness is ever one with the living changing moment; the limit of awareness is the fact of our being. If we set our consciousness to find and hold our awareness we are suddenly alive to everything around us. If the mind seizes upon some thing the spell is broken and once again we are trapped in our limited consciousness. There is a knack to this, but once one has tasted the simple magic of pure awareness it is not difficult to go back and forth from a focus of consciousness to expanded awareness.

Anyone who will try this will find the door open to them. And I would be very surprised if something very interesting did not happen to their mind before long.






One With God



it is a fish

and the water in which it swims

The Dance of the Butterflies

I at 68 have been a meditator for 55 years. Self Realization Fellowship found me when I was 13 years old, I was initiated into the Nichiren Shoshu sect while in Japan at age 24, and I discovered Zen as described by D T Suzuki at age 30. The eye of my spirit opened in my 32nd year. Though I find myself not able to be a joiner, and though I have known other meditators and found their practice subtly misguided; the benefits of meditation cannot be overstated, and any meditation for any reason and under any system will bear fruit.

The fragmentation of Buddhism into a prism of views is an example of a lapse of rigor in the pursuit of enlightenment. Ultimately no systems are necessary. A system is a key that one person puts in the hand of another. This is not a bad thing, but the door is not locked.

If the individual consciousness will simply contemplate the awareness which is it's essence, nature will take its course. It is time to take the ribbons and bows and the pretty wrapping paper off of the treasure of unity of awareness. Let the chrysalis of civilization split open. Let the dance of the butterflies begin.