A matter of perspective.

For so long we have been conditioned to believe that to get something we need to make the effort. It’s a rule of life!

And suppose we decide to rebel and decide we want nothing. Do we still not have to make effort?

Then both these instances assume some thing or state pertaining to a future date. We don’t have it now, so we must strive to attain it.

But what if someone were to tell you that ‘knowing’ or ‘realisation’ or whatever you wish to name ‘it’ is effortless and only available right now?

To illustrate using an analogy. What is more taxing: peering through a very dirty window or seeing clearly through a transparent pane of glass?

One could claim it’s merely a matter of getting our seeing right.

The accepted way is for us to appear as individual objects in a world full of complexity – rife with conflict and strife. This is the effort equating to peering through the dirty window.

With the clear seeing comes a world of changing energy forms appearing within us as subject. We are one (subject) the world is many (objects). How can conflict arise if there is only one? And without conflict what effort is required? One effortless seeing.

We must continue to ask ourselves, “What is our reference point?” and “To whom or what does it pertain?”

A continual fascination for what we are not.

It’s quite a revelation to realise that what ‘one is not’ is the source of our continual fascination. I am speaking of the world of phenomena, that is everything we are looking out at, hearing, touching etc.

Eventually one is forced to pose the question: “Who is is who is perceiving all this?” For surely there must be someone or something at centre. But when one seriously looks for what it might be, one cannot find any ‘one’ or ‘thing’ or ‘centre’. It’s as if this show of forms, constantly appearing and disappearing before us happens against a back drop of emptiness.

But can it be any other way? Surely for some thing to appear there must be no thing for it to appear on. To paint a picture one needs a blank canvass. If a pattern was already present on the canvass, it would interfere with the new picture. Or supposing the surface of the canvas was orange, the artist could no longer use that particular colour. In other words anything present here will interfere with what is there.

But is there a ‘here’ or ‘there’? If so, where is the line of demarcation? Are we not unlimited emptiness for all that which is appearing? A boundless, still, blank canvass for this busy picture which is constantly metamorphosing before us. Aspects seemingly so opposite, yet sharing the same source. For how could one exist without the other?

But then it’s not two – nor is it one. It just ‘is’.

We know the truth when we hear it.

It is no coincidence that some of the most quoted words, phrases, poems strike a chord within us simply because they are conveying an eternal truth.

While many will be happy sit back and listen to the flow of the words or find solace in the message they appear to promise, I believe a more responsible course of action is to investigate what it is beneath the surface that makes such a phrase or poem so rich in meaning.

By way of example, let us take Jesus’ timeless words, where he gives us the following advice:

Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

(Matthew 6:34 – 1611 King James Version)

I am sure many of us have heard these words at one time or another. Immediately there is something about this verse which challenges our automatic beliefs, for most of us have been conditioned to think continually about our future as we go about our everyday lives.

But what Jesus appears to be saying quite adamantly is that we should instead consider what is happening ‘now’, for there is plenty to attend to this very moment. Surely this contradictory advice warrants some further investigation.

Firstly I wish to discount the slightly absurd notion that this is in some way an affirmation of Horace’s famous “Carpe Diem”, and usual frivolously hedonistic meaning attached to it, which runs along the lines, “enjoy today with no heed of tomorrow.” Basically an excuse to indulge one’s selfish whims with little consideration for others or one’s surroundings. We only need to turn on the news or open a magazine to see this behaviour being enacted out on a daily basis.

In order to have an understanding of its depth of meaning, we literally have draw a halt to the momentum of our lives. Stop Now! Observe the never ending flow of thoughts which race before us like clouds across the sky on a gusty day. Thoughts which are continually pulling us this way and that – either into the future or the past and so rarely into now. To be here and now requires the effort to arrest thoughts – such as the moments we are able to give our attention to viewing a painting or work of art. But how often does this happen?

Surely a better course would be to try to understand the concept of time as we are accustomed to view it i.e. how it has been taught to us. For this is essentially what Jesus is alluding to. Few would dispute that time as we know it consists of a past and future, divided by a thin line known as the present. That we are usually in the former two, and only occasionally between them – in the present.

But what if we start at Now i.e. what we call the present? Stop focussing on thoughts – the clouds streaming before us. What can be added to this now? Where is past and future right now? Surely any past you conjure up can now longer be past because you are dragging it into the now. And where is the future?

Try this experiment. Focus fully on now and raise your finger when the future arrives. Of course it never will, providing you honest with yourself and are fully attentive to now.

Seeing this might lead you to the uncomfortable realisation that we in effect never live. If living is occurring now – which it is – with continual thoughts for tomorrow, when we reach tomorrow we shall be thinking of the following tomorrow and so on – until that final tomorrow of our lives. At which point we might take a glance back and think to ourselves… hang on! Maybe I missed something.

“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.”

The truth of this will become apparent when one is able to dispel the myth of time. There is no past, no future – and without them there can be no present either. All there is is Now. No use thinking about it. We will never comprehend this from the point of view of mind, just as we will never understand what we term life. Then do we need to know? Isn’t ‘living’ it enough?

Or as Jesus says, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

Nothing to look forward to any more

If I were to say to someone, “I don’t look forward to anything any more.” I’m sure most people would look at me and think to themselves, “Poor fellow, he’s lost all enjoyment in life – he might as well be dead.” Or words to that effect.

But let’s not miss the irony lurking behind such a response. For to look forward is to be somewhere else but ‘here’. The future is a concept after all – as is the past. But then so is the present, for without a notion of future or past, there wouldn’t be that thin dividing line we call the ‘present’. All is ‘now’ – a continuum without beginning or end. So no time either – then many stories do begin with those four magical words, “Once upon a time.”

As long as we are ignoring this truth, we are dead. Dead to the possibilities or real living in contrast to the imaginative kind where, for the most part, we dwell.

Enjoyment is only possible while it is appearing before us through the medium of this remarkable collection of sensory structures we call the body – which is happening continually and animated by a living energy. Why look to the future – that will never ever arrive? Just as the past will never ever be retrieved – except in the moment and then it is no longer ‘past’, but something that is appearing now.

All rather confusing? Remember, there is more that one perception possible. Just as a small movement to the right or left can cause something at a distance, previously unidentifiable, to become instantly obvious.

The best gift to those you love.

Surely the best gift you could leave your family and friends – far better than a sum of money left in one’s will – is to be able to tell them with certainty that ‘dying’ holds no fear. Rather it is an illusion, the mere passing of a form, completely natural and in many ways a wonderful thing. Besides it is not ‘I’ that is dying, but the appearance of ‘I’.

Yet in order to pass on this ‘knowing’, it is necessary to experience it for oneself. Otherwise it remains in the realm of ‘hope’ or ‘faith’, both of which are very meagre substitutes – in fact no substitute at all.

Bankei Yotaku, the 17th Japanese Zen master cited his motivation for discovering ‘Truth’ was to be able to reveal it to his mother before she parted this life, which he was able to realise.

How much happier we would all be if we saw our loved one’s smiling when we or they bid those farewells we all must at some point; knowing that what was doing the bidding was not who we or they truly are.

“Self Remembering” – what is it?

For many years ‘I’ was preoccupied with the effort to ‘Self Remember’. With the mistaken belief that the ‘Self’ was a separate entity trying to do the ‘remembering’, it was a preoccupation doomed to failure and frustration.

So what a relief to realise that ‘Self’ is the remembering (and the forgetting) – aspects of this our true nature – which is not two (nor one).

We don’t disappear when we go to sleep at night. The sun continues to shine even when we don’t see it (which tends to be the case if you live in the UK).

Pondering Existence

We really have no divine right to exist in these bodies. But we are, just as the flower in the vase on the table is existing. But to whom is the ‘we’ referring? Why that which is ‘conscious’. That which exists as a result of us appearing in this form. For it takes the appearance of form to reveal to us our true nature – consciousness.

Perhaps that is where a flower has an advantage in as much it doesn’t need to question its existence – it just ‘is’. While we humans are more complex. Our consciousness operates in such a manner that in order to ‘be’ we have first not to ‘be’, by being something other than we are. As it stands, we are – yet we are not. When this being who we are not becomes unbearable we start yearning to be who we really are again – though this time with the knowledge of the knowing. ‘I’ knowing itself.

Why do we need to have our true state revealed to us? Why have we forgotten? Who knows? However, we have learnt to identify with the appearance i.e. our bodies and minds. Yet we say this is ‘my body’, ‘my mind’. Who is saying this?

Answers to these question start coming when we begin to pose the question to ourselves: “To whom is this ‘my’ referring?”

‘Who Am I?’ again.

It recently struck me that this question, ‘Who am I?’, the question Ramana Maharshi, as well as numerous sages down the ages have advised we ask ourselves, functions in a similar fashion to a Zen Koan.

Now let me clarify, I’ve had no direct experience with Zen Koan’s whereby a Zen master gives the student a puzzle in the form of a paradox to ‘muddle’ over. I have on the other hand had plenty of experience (practice) posing the question to myself: ‘Who Am I?’.

What I have observed is not dissimilar to, at least from what I’ve read and been told, the way a Koan is intended to function, which is by directing the aspirant toward an understanding of ‘That’ to which it is pointing – essentially ‘no thing’. For in a similar manner, by constantly posing the question, ‘Who am I?’, as in a situation where one might find oneself feeling upset and expressing under one’s breath, ‘I’m not happy about that!’ By asking ‘Who am I that is angry?’, the very question who it that ‘I’ can become a mighty conundrum to the point of becoming demoralising.

And that’s part of the reason for doing it. For if one is really honest and tries to offer an answer, it’s extremely tricky to pinpoint that ‘I’. In fact if one is really, really, really honest, it turns out to be impossible. For that ‘I’ is beyond definition, at least via the mind which is doing the questioning. So we work ourselves into that ‘ball of doubt’ which seems to be one of the primary functions of a Zen Koan.

For it’s the very doubting that leads to any break through. Just as we have often witnessed that a way can appear – seemingly out of nowhere – when all other avenues have been exhausted. For the very reason that while it is ‘you’ who has been struggling with finding a way out, the means of escape has nothing to do with the ‘you’ – that has been making the efforts. It seems that the moment one resigns one’s self will – the realisation that the answer to ‘who am I?’ cannot be sought by mere human effort alone. At which point something not unlike what we might term divine intervention occurs.

But this is no divine intervention from on high – after all where is on high? The divine is your True Self – that simplicity which lies behind the complexity. Yet at the same time two sides of the coin without which neither one could exist. The ‘void versus form’ dynamic which unpins the great teachings, such as Buddhism or Taoism.

One can point to this space now. For it is you that is looking out at this very moment. Point to yourself now – see you are the ‘mirror’ in which everything appears. You can’t locate this mirror, just as you can’t define it. It’s there simply on account that there is something (a form) to reveal it. It’s there just as you cannot deny your existence – for you must exist in order to deny it. However, when we become lost in ‘outside’ form the mirror goes dark.

It’s both wonderful and frustrating to find ways to describe this, for the very reason it is beyond description – or should one say transmission. We point to it. But it’s here for every one of us to see for ourselves.

On reading words by eminent masters

I can now attest to two kinds of reading. The reading that goes on ‘before’ as opposed to the reading that comes ‘after’.

By ‘before’ and ‘after’, I am referring to the periods prior and subsequent to the realisation of ‘Truth’. For this realisation is truly of a tangible nature – as is the nature of ‘Self’.

This intrinsic quality is further echoed in one’s subsequent reading of the works of eminent masters, sages and those who have managed to cast aside delusion.

For prior to this state, while reading profound passages or illuminating words, we might find ourselves exclaiming, “How interesting!” or “I believe that’s the truth”. Or “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to really know that”. For while performed with all the vigour of an exciting search, it is still nonetheless a search for the the ‘Knowing’ of Truth.

But once that seeing of Truth abounds, such reading takes on a completely different aspect.* Then writings, such as those of the 17th century Japanese Zen Master Bankei, when viewed with this newly discovered eye, only go to confirm what has now been realised. So one simply finds oneself uttering, “Yes.. yes… yes…”

In fact Bankei comments on this very topic following a question he was asked about whether it was helpful in studying the Way to read through the Buddhist sutras and the records of the old masters. To which Bankei replied, “It all depends. If you rely on the principles contained in the sutras and records, when you read them, you’ll be blinding your own eyes. On the other hand, when the time comes that you can dismiss principles, if you read such things, you’ll find the proof of your own realisation.” (from ‘Translations from the Record of Bankei’ by Peter Haskell)

“Yes… yes… yes…”

* Equally, there may be a repulsion for some of the prior material, in the same way as too much chocolate can make one feel sick. Though this is unlikely to be the case with the clear and simple writings of true masters, it is quite possible with some of the more convoluted works which focus on mental concepts or mere intellectual reasoning.

Seeing & Knowing

First comes the Seeing of who you really are. ‘Who am I?’ Answering itself if you like. This Seeing is often accompanied by a sensation. Some might have an adrenalin rush with a feeling of ‘wow!’ Others might simply say, ‘is this all it is – now what?’. In my case it was a huge sense of relief – namely because the ‘search’ was finally over. There was no need to go anywhere except where one was – right here.

And here lies the beauty of this no trip. For self realisation, or whatever word you wish to call this seeing of one’s true nature, is as varied as there are individuals. Then it is the notion that we are each individual that we are trying to dispel. Which is not to say our fate is to fall back into one homogenised mass. Rather we assume a viewpoint which opens up a whole host of possibilities. Possibilities which we in our ordinary day to day state can barely conceive – though are constantly hinted at in works of nature and art.  That all- Seeing state, with you at centre. Not as a small individual floundering amidst the many, jumping up and down, trying to get noticed. There’s no jumping up and down here, no individual-ness here either, for without the many, that too disappears. What can be more individualised than ‘One’? Equally, what can be less individual than ‘One’? A realm so infinitely deep, empty – yet at the same time containing all things. A place where paradoxes effortlessly resolve.

Whereas this Seeing is direct, without compromise. There are no half measures. It really is a case of black and white. You either See or you don’t. However to stay with that direct Seeing is almost impossible. To prolong it, make it a permanent state – always before you if you wish – can just as easily be a means of avoiding it. Then as long as we have to contend with this human form, as long as there exists the little ego – so necessary to interact in our day to day lives – to be constantly open as the big ‘One’, one senses would be the equivalent of living in a monastery – apart from life. That time will come.

Fortunately, along with the ‘Seeing’ comes the ‘Knowing’. For once Seen, our true nature can no longer be completely hidden. For if it does disappear behind the veil, what once was ignorance is now replaced by ‘Knowing’. This Knowing allows us to drawn aside the curtain at any time to reveal ‘This’, for it is always there in the background. Just as we know the sun is above us even on cloudy day.

“Know the Truth and the Truth will set you free.” The Truth is always with us. What is important is whether we ‘Know’ it. Not knowing as in believing or trusting, but ‘Knowing’ in the deepest sense of the word, without a shadow of doubt.