It’s backwards from the way we normally think.
Is it ever! Seeing Who you really are is an exercise in being backwards and upside-down. Try as I might to beat that for fun and enjoyment, I can’t. It’s hilarious, because my previous belief was so at odds with the natural way. Actually, Who I really am is not the backward state; the truly backward state is the idea that we are all separate individuals self-existing in these body/minds referred to by such and such name and each having certain qualities and characteristics. It’s a joke. I am not my body/mind. In fact, it’s the Great Joke mentioned by the Ch’an masters of ancient China.
You are always at rest. You never move, do you, even when you are doing everyday things like shaving and washing your face and walking to the store or riding your bike to a doctor’s appointment?
That’s right. I shave your face, not mine. I have no face. I am this singular and awake and enormous Eye, and everything, including these hands and torso and legs and whatever sensations are present during shaving are, like all objects, part of the scene, as is the floor and wall and mirror and you standing there staring at me in that other bathroom. And by the way, I say that this Eye, this awake space, is singular because I have never seen—actually seen―another Eye, another aware space, and even if I had, it would be inside this awake Eye that I am, and would thus be an object. And I say it’s enormous because everything fits within it. It takes in, or is capacity for, the entire universe, including all the passing thoughts and beliefs that are attached to whatever objects appear in it. This Eye, which some have referred to as the Eye of God, is not subject to measurement because there isn’t another Eye to compare it to. So looking back at what I am looking out of, I see this great awake nothing, this empty Eye filled with the scene, and I see no dividing line between this empty Eye and the scene. They are the same. Nothing/everything (void/form) is one view, and that singular view cannot include another empty Eye. It’s singular, non-dual. There cannot be any sort of duality anywhere, any separation between a scene and that which is aware of the scene. They are one. And truly, calling the view “singular” or “one” is misleading because it implies that there is a second somewhere, when actually there isn’t even a “one.” It is probably best referred to as “Suchness” or “I-I” or any term that implies a lack of objectivity. I often use the term “Pure Subjectivity” to represent what cannot be described.
And getting back to your question of movement, Who I really am is at rest in every situation, no matter what. Both Douglas Harding and Richard Lang have cited the examples of flying in a plane to a distant destination, which is the conventional manner of describing a trip. Actually, as they have pointed out, the destination arrives to this aware space, this Eye, which never moves an inch. So of course, Who you really are is always rested, wide awake. This is true of walking, jogging, riding a bike or driving a car. Who you really are never left, never went anywhere, and everything conveniently arrived right where you have always been, which is Here. How’s that for relaxation?
Yes, and it doesn’t apply to me, does it?
Not over there, no. Not unless you come here, turn around, and become Who you really are, in which case you are “I.” Over there, as in the case of all “over theres,” you are an object in this awake and capacious Eye (“I”).
So all I need to do is turn around and become Who you really are. I’m going to do that now, and oddly, I’ll see you, or your body, walk out of the bathroom. From your vantage point, that is. Or, at that point, as Who you (I) really am!
Well said. Let’s go.
WHERE’S THE REMOTE?
“The foolish reject what they see and not what they think; the wise reject what they think and not what they see.”
―Ch’an Master Huang-Po Hsi-yun’ (d. 850)
God’s world is vertical because nothing is remote. Everything, every arriving and passing scene is experienced “Here,” in (and as) awareness. This is why there is no “remote.” This is why God is omnipresent.
And consider: There is no fixed size. Objects grow and shrink depending on how they appear Here where they are experienced. For instance, a woman or a man “at a distance” appears as a tiny figure: say, the size of one of those toys on the set of a model railroad layout. That man or woman at a distance is not actually 5’8” tall, as one might assume. Not Here, where they appear. In reality they are tiny, less than an inch tall!
You say, “Yes, but let’s use the example of a chair. I can measure the chair with a ruler and prove it is 3 feet tall, and I know that even though the chair is across the room, it is still 3 feet tall.”
And I say, believing myself to be an object separate from and surrounded by a world of separate objects, such a claim may appear to be true. But the premise is wrong. I am not an object existing in a world of objects. I am Subject, and everything that appears does so Here where it is actually experienced, and Here, the manner in which everything is experienced is exactly as it is experienced. Using the senses, going on present evidence only and not relying on erroneous thoughts and beliefs that I learned from others, I see this. And I take what I see, not what others say I should see. That chair is tiny, as is the ruler you left next to it, so I am relying on what I see Here, not what I think “over there.”
For instance, suppose I walk in front of a full-length mirror. Walking toward the mirror, I am watching a miniature but growing version of J.C. approaching. I have learned from others that that image in the mirror is “me.” However, here where I am, I see that Who I Really Am—pure, empty awareness—is motionless (being no-thing, there is nothing that could move). And seeing Who I Really Am, I see the person in the mirror (and the mirror itself) growing. Nothing really happens “out there.” No one actually approaches. The person-image grows larger and, thinking conventionally, I assume “I’m approaching.” Conversely, the image grows smaller, and I assume “I’m retreating.” But as pure empty awareness, these assumptions are nonsense. They are no more than an exercise in illusory assumptions. Growing and shrinking appear Here within empty awareness, not “out there.” There is no “out there.” There never was and never will be. Everything happens Here inside the oneness of awareness, which is Who I Really Am, and anyone can say the same, knowing there is no one else!
Last week, while shuffling through the papers and the pillows on the living room couch, my housemate said to me, “Have you seen the remote?”
I had to admit I hadn’t.
THE TUNNEL OF TRUTH
“What is the meaning of direct perception? Perception that sees only itself. No other.”
―Ramana Maharshi
I rent a bedroom in this old house. Across the hall from my bedroom is a closet, and on the inside of the closet door is a full-sized mirror. When the door is open and I step into the hallway and see the image in the mirror—the person others call J.C.—I am nearly always startled. For 35 years all I had, all that any inmate could buy from our prison canteen, was a shaving mirror not much bigger than my hand. Now I am confronted by the full-sized appearance of a balding and bow-legged old man standing behind a sheet of glass staring back at me, truly a snapshot of impending doom if ever there was one.
As him, I’m a goner. As him, I’m about to walk the “Green Mile.” As him, death may be a gift to others.
But thank God I’m not him. Thank God, right here, I look nothing like him. Here, I am Clear Space, pure capacity for what appears, which happens to be a full-sized version of the scofflaw I’ve too often referred to as “me.” Looking down at his right-side-up body there and then at my headless and upside-down body here, I am grateful beyond words. I am, as they say, all smiles, and he responds by smiling back. The thought appears that this immediate situation is uproariously hilarious, that, had things not worked out exactly as they had, I could easily believe that I am that passing and decaying image with so little time left on this planet―what a joke!
For only things die, and here, where I am, there is no thing, but a no-thing that is wi
de awake, and awake to Itself as no thing. Over there―the image of a thing called a human being, one that is on its way out, bound for the eventual graveyard that awaits all things.
But this isn’t all. Observing Awake Emptiness is only half the story; a step, let’s say, in the right direction. Because not only am I this empty and aware Eye that takes in and is the foundation of the universe, I am also that which is taken in! I am both void and form simultaneously, which is to say, unless I see I am no-thing, I cannot see I am everything. Ultimately, it takes both to be none. To cite the title of one of Wei Wu Wei’s books, “All Else Is Bondage.”
To clearly experience this, cut both ends off a paper bag and place one end against a bathroom mirror and your face in the other end, then tell the truth. Not something you believe to be true because you learned it from others in the past, but what you presently see! When I do this, I see no face at this end. Yet this end is my end. What I see here at this end is void, fully aware and fully present, while what I see at that end is what others see and what cameras record, from that distance. But at this end, nothing. Only Presence. A wholly different sense of I AM.
And to complete this Vision that ends all visions, upon seeing Empty Awareness at this end, I also see the scene appearing within it, which happens to be the face at that end. This occurs simultaneously, but it is crucial that Empty Awareness at this end not be overlooked. This way, our usual habitual attachment to the scene (and only the scene) is then transformed into Oneness, or to use a better term, “Within-ness.” Void becomes Capacity for the scene, form. The two are seen as One, inside. So completely inside, in fact, that the distinction between “inside” and “outside” are no longer relevant. Nor is there any need for the term “One,” which is understood to have functioned as merely provisional.
To quote Rabbi Rami Shapiro, “This is what is meant by ‘God is one.’ Not that God is singular rather than plural; but that there is only one reality and that reality is God.” God being Pure Subjectivity, both seer and seen.
And note the words of Ch’an master Huang-Po: “A perception, sudden as blinking, that subject and object are one, will lead to a deeply mysterious understanding, and by this understanding you will awaken to the truth.”
There is another interesting feature of the paper bag experiment: The term “timelessness,” which cannot truly be understood, can at least be seen. Empty Awareness, that which I’ve called “Pure Subjectivity” or “Awareness/Presence,” and what I’ve referred to in another of my books as “The Unfigureoutable” (a word I borrowed from the author David Lang), is recognized as prior to understanding, prior to description, and prior to space and time because there is absolutely nothing tangible here, nothing that can be touched, measured, or changed in any way, and it is only things―objects―that are subject to space and time. In the paper bag, my end is “empty” because there is nothing objective here. Objects are “out there” at the other end of the tunnel. At my end: the Unfigureoutable—aware, conscious, present, yet no thing, and therefore timeless. At the other end: the image of that old guy’s face, appearing as a thing, and therefore subject to space and time. In this sense, the tunnel acts as a bridge between timelessness and time, no-thing at my end and some-thing at that end, both of which can be seen. And as a Seeing friend once pointed out, the paper bag thus functions as a time machine.
For instance, no matter how close an object is, there is still a fraction of a second before I experience it. Light from Alpha Centauri takes 4.367 light years to reach me, and I then “see” it. Light from my nose blur (actually there are two, one on the left and one on the right) takes, say, a microsecond for me to register it. But here, where I actually do experience it, no time passes because: 1) there is no object to be registered, and 2) Awareness is that which is doing the registering!
And for those reasons, obviously there can be nothing prior to Awareness. Therefore Awareness, where experience occurs, cannot be anything in space/time, whereas any point along the shopping bag wall will appear to reflect a different time. As Douglas Harding explained, that which is incoming is reduced to nothing; that which is outgoing is produced from nothing. But both are experienced here where I AM.
Thus, in what might be called the Self-manifestation of Awareness, time proceeds from timelessness at this end of the bag to the time-full scene “out there.” Likewise, all that appears proceeds from this space-less point of Awareness here to dimensions of space “out there.” This is why Awareness is said to be the foundation of all things, the creator of the universe, God Herself.
So find a paper shopping bag, cut both ends off, and find a mirror—or better yet, ask a friend to place their face in the opposite end. Then drop beliefs and take exactly what you presently see. Consider that you just might be answering the ultimate questions so many have never answered, such as what you are and what this universe is, and doing so with that cheapest but most significant of all forms of scientific equipment, the paper bag. Call it five-cent enlightenment.
Who said God doesn’t have a great sense of humor?
INFINITELY SILLY
The terms “Infinite Universe” and “No Space/time” are essentially the same. Here—an infinitesimal no-point which is prior to quarks, prior to space/time, prior to thought; and at the farthest fringes of the universe—matter rushing headlong toward the speed of light where space is solid and time stops. So in a sense, infinity happens Here where there is no-thing, and infinity happens Out There where there is everything! Both are prior to existence, and in between, there appears a universe, and this is What You Are.
And of course, the idea that you are Infinite suggests a total lack of boundaries, as does no-space and no-time (timelessness). Opening to this possibility, we might suffer a sense of meaninglessness and loss of control, our self-importance as individuals. And this is what we fear the most—the loss of self—the irony being that we never had one to begin with!
Of course, those of us who want to remain as “us” have a way of putting a cap, or limit, on the infinite. If we believe in God in the usual sense that popular religions posit, we have a comforting parental figure (even as a spirit) who neatly provides us with an address in a familiar body and mind we call home— which of course turns out to be a cul-de-sac that repeatedly returns us to our customary notions of reality and the usual confrontations of day-to-day life, tragic though they may be.
But to Christian and Jewish mystics and Sufi masters, the terms God or Yahweh or The Friend refer to an altogether different figure, one that is not a “figure” at all but an unnamable Source at the core of all being. Knowing this God is knowing Who one truly is; it is the recognition that God is a Oneness that knows no “one,” never mind the absurdity of “two.” This God is Who You Really Are, disguised as who you think you are. This God is Unmanifested Awareness manifesting as anything and everything.
But in case you think this God is impersonal, He couldn’t be more personal. After all, He is Who You Are. How much more personal could He be? How much more intimate?
And in case you think this God is grim, the truth is that She is the epitome of irony, not to mention comedy. In fact, She’s a riot, the cause of endless laughter. Here She is, right where you are and in plain view, so close you miss Her—and there you are, out building monumental structures in an attempt to reach Her, spire upon spire stabbing the heavens so She’ll notice you. What foolishness She inspires!
And in case you think this God is closed for business, He couldn’t be more open and available. She is the open secret, the gateless gate, the timeless Now and space-less Here, the sum of which is NOWHERE, right where you are.
And in case you think you have a choice to reject this God and remain a separate “you,” come to your senses (literally!) and See that it isn’t “you” playing that part to begin with! You can’t even have that! There is no way out of being Who You Really Are, and even who you think you are isn’t you thinking it! So why not be Who You Really Are? After all, you cannot not
be.
And just in case you’re still hanging onto that thread of separate self by supposing you’ll awaken somewhere else or at some other time, point at the Space above your shoulders and notice that there is no way out of this no-place where You are, for all places are within You. And as for some other time, See that in your Absence and Stillness there is nothing that could register time. To quote D.E. Harding: “This moment is timeless, and there’s no way out of this moment.”
Isn’t it marvelous that we can be so infinitely silly? Isn’t it wonderful that God—Who You Really Are―has come up with these joys and tragedies and, right here and right now, this return to ItSelf? How simply amazing to be all this and nothing at all!
VACATION
The root word of “vacation” is the Latin vacare: “to be empty, free, or at leisure,” or having the meaning of “a state of being unoccupied.”
Coming to Nothing and Finding Everything Page 10
