One aspect of awakening to Who You Really Are is the recognition that, underlying all the surrounding hubbub of your life, you are always and permanently on vacation. Recently this was brought home to me when I went on three short trips, one of which was a three-day excursion into the Rocky Mountains with a friend who, for that short time, was temporarily in “a state of being unoccupied” by his pressing responsibilities.
We visited old haunts where we once had lived or worked. On the first day we cruised the towns where my friend, a successful businessman in the past, formerly had accounts in the restaurant trade, places that were now mostly unrecognizable. The second day, we drove forty miles on a gravel road to a mountain town in which the house I once rented was currently painted a scandalous pink and the old theater I ran on weekends was now a combination bar and antique shop, devoid of customers. The third day, we drove home, wishing the trip had been longer and planning for our next, maybe to the Midwest and East Coast where our childhood memories lie.
Overall, I have to say, we traveled highways that were once country roads and searched for others we could not find on a map, not, perhaps, because they were no longer there but because there were no maps we could find—at least not the kind we were familiar with that could once be purchased at any gas station along he way. And of course, we found rooms we had reserved in the usual motels, one even with an indoor pool where we discovered we could now sink a lot easier than we could swim. And strangely, other than at the remote campsite where we stopped for a packed sandwich, the highlight of the trip was a return to a Bavarian eatery that currently served Mexican food, huevos rancheros done the way they can only be done south of the border: homemade corn tortillas, perfectly fried eggs, and fresh salsa picante.
In the past, outside of summer breaks between school years and the week or two surrounding major holidays, I don’t remember ever having taken a vacation. At least not during the period of my life after college when I held a real job, brief though that was. As a criminal, some might say that I was on vacation all the time, but that wasn’t the case—in many ways I was busier than I ever was, and the stress was at times unbearable. And those decades in prison? No vacation, I can guarantee.
But then I discovered the real vacation, not one that I take but the one that I am. The first of the three recent trips was, perhaps, the standard variety vacation, filled with the continuous distraction of interesting sights and good conversation with my friend. A great time, to be sure.
But the second and third trips were another matter. They may have started off the same, distractions galore, but they soon became what I call the real sightseeing (or Sight-seeing!), an entirely different manner of attending to the facts.
The second trip was a one-day affair in which two friends and I boarded an old narrow-gauge mining train pulled by an ancient locomotive. At first, I was mostly conscious of the trees passing by close to the track, one after the other growing and turning as they approached, the scent of pine carried along by the breeze. But then the vision opened to take in not only the scene but that in which the scene appeared, and each tree became my personal invitation to follow it home, to see the place, or was it the no-place?, where each disappeared into this Empty Awareness that I am. The engine chugged up the mountain and the open-air cars followed, and it occurred to me that, along with the cars, the train was towing what was left of this “me” while I, wide open and clearly gone, simultaneously created and witnessed this miraculous spectacle out of nothing-at-all, pure Awareness manifesting as trees and rocks and mountain and sky, and, winding up the narrowing track, this puffing relic of the1800’s.
And the third trip? Two weeks passed, and summer was rapidly turning to fall when a call came from a friend whom I’d told about a farfetched entry on my “wish list,” which, given my age, I think I said was a “bucket list.” To my surprise, he said he’d be at the house with his truck on the very next weekend, and would take my housemate and me on a half day’s journey up to a high mountain pass at tree line for a bike ride down to the bottom, 14 miles of wild hairpin turns on a narrow path, a steep coast all the way with plenty of serious braking. The thought of the bike ride was thrilling, of course, an adventure I wanted to experience for certain. But it also took me to the edge, to a place where fear can rule and even ruin the day, and I’ve no doubt that others have felt the same. I rode a two-wheeler instead of my trike for this trip, and for a moment at the top just before we began our descent, I hesitated, visions of one possible accident after another flashing before me, each with the worst of possible outcomes.
“What nonsense,” I remember saying aloud, and following my pal, I pushed off into oblivion and plunged into the void, each mile rushing by and into this Awake Space of no accidents, no injuries, no death at all.
For what is there to die? What do I see when I look within, here where I am? I see absolutely nothing! Only “things”—objects—can suffer death, and I am obviously no-thing. This Aware Emptiness is birth-less and deathless, no-where and no-when. I am not the self-existent separate individual I may look like to others, not what I learned as a child and have believed for so long. This body-mind named J.C. has never held the central position. He is an object, one of the countless “ten thousand things” appearing moment by moment, while I—Pure Presence/Awareness—have never been a thing, nor anything at all.
It was over, as they say, “in no time at all.” We sped from the top of the pass down through golden stands of aspens, raced under and across bridges and past fields of wildflowers, then out and across an empty ski town to a narrow canyon where the path eased for a moment, then sharply dropped again to follow a whitewater creek for the final miles. At the end, across a wooden bridge, our friend was waiting with his truck, and the day ended like the incredible path, abruptly and with a grin.
Riding “shotgun” on the way home in the truck, now with this Empty Awareness like a glassless windshield into which the highway endlessly vanished, I kept thinking: Are we not all on vacation, forever “empty, free, and at leisure?” And won’t one look in the right direction confirm it?
Perhaps not. But isn’t it worth the look? And if, being no-thing, we discover there really is a state we could be in, wouldn’t it surely be “a state of being unoccupied?”
TAKING IT TO THE STREETS
“The way to do is to be.”
―Lao Tzu
A few months after I was released when I was musing over what to do, a psychologist friend said to me, “Be your gift.”
What gift? I thought. Writing? Was this what he meant?
I pondered this question, despite the fact that I already knew the answer and knew that it would again arrive with a laugh from that place prior to thought. Writing, or anything else I could do, whether or not I could do it well, wasn’t my gift. My gift was the gift that all beings of all descriptions have—whether or not they can express it—and it has everything to do with being and only indirectly to do with doing. It is the gift that I and that all beings cannot not have. Or rather, cannot not be. It is the gift that is empty, awake, filled with the scene, and supremely intelligent, clever beyond all we can imagine (after all, it came up with a universe!). The gift is not what I am, but that I am, and this presence, this I-am-ness, although no “thing,” is the foundation of all things everywhere, all space and time. In short, it is the “be” in “Be your gift.”
This advice from my psychologist friend was, of course, my reminder for the day, the latest in a string of countless reminders since I had first seen the awake emptiness at my core, the pure awareness behind all my so-called “doing.”
Which is how it has been for me. Perhaps we all experience truth differently. Few awaken and never return to the misunderstanding of who or what they really are. Others glimpse reality and only return to the realization years later, often conflicted between the ultimate insight and dealing with the complexities of life. Most, of course, live out their span in their private dreams, never recognizing the glory of Who they really are.
<
br /> Here, the Beatific Vision has never left, although much of the time it awaits in the background, especially during times of distraction. Fortunately—and this is the genius of Douglas Harding and the Headless Way—the Vision is always available, no matter what the mood or circumstance. All that is required is a look, and there you are—lit, awake, present, and empty, so entirely empty that you are capacity for every objective appearance in the world, as well as all the thoughts and feelings attached to those objects. Each look is always the same, even though each appearance may be different. Each look is spaceless and timeless and filled to the brim with space/time. Therefore, seeing no-thing filled with everything is always identical, no matter what appears within the emptiness that you are. Why? Because void and form are void/form, the same.
Some say that form requires void, but void does not require form, that, for instance, objects require awareness to be aware of them, but awareness does not require objects. As the physicist Amit Goswami put it: “There is no object in space-time without a conscious subject looking at it.” When I look here, I see awake nothing, pure awareness. But simultaneously I also see it filled with the scene, whatever that scene may be. Although I may refer to this awake no-thing at my core as pure awareness, I cannot say I have ever seen pure awareness as an object because pure awareness is what is looking! And yet it is here, and although there is nothing to see here, I see this nothing plain as day! Wei Wu Wei used the term “apprehend” rather than “see,” but this conscious nothing here where I assumed I had a face is clearly visible, as clearly present, as Harding once said, as seeing the absence of eggs on his morning breakfast plate.
So it is awake, but is no object. It is pure consciousness—boundless and uncontained, while all things are contained within it. It has been termed Subjectivity, or Original Face, which points to the wondrous fact that, while all things are within it, all things within it are it, so that whatever appears within the pure consciousness that you are is what you are. Again, to paraphrase the Buddhist formula:
First there are mountains and rivers (the common view that objects intrinsically exist “out there” in the world apart from the viewer);
Then there are no mountains and rivers (recognizing that you are pure awareness here/now);
Then once again there are mountains and rivers (as what you are.)
To settle the matter as to which comes first―awareness or object―I say to See for yourself. In my experience, they arise together but not as two. And yet I can clearly see the empty and pure awareness here as opposed to the scene that appears within it. Both visions are available, and although it may seem odd when looking from the position of duality, both are one and the same. In the first instance, they can be seen as separate, but in the final and awakened view, they arise together and are not two. Have a look, and see what cannot be explained. You are the authority on Who you are.
So why the reminders? Why should I need them, and what function could they serve? Seeing what—or Who—I see when I look, am I so conditioned to attach to the popular belief of a separate self that I need to be continually reminded of Who I really am? Why can’t I simply drop the baggage of the past and board the train of no one going nowhere?
But the delicious irony of this apparent need for reminders is that there is no separate “who” who needs them, and moreover, that reminders arise as part and parcel of truth itself. The whole universe, appearing moment by moment as each passing scene, is my mirror, my teacher, my reminder. The reason is simple. The universe, appearing as whatever scene, is Who I am! I am appearing to myself! I―I who am not―am manifesting as whatever, which is What I am! In fact, if that were otherwise— heaven forbid!—there would be no universe!
Byron Katie once commented that she was the most self-centered person she knew—everything she did was for and about herself. As she put it, “When I say, ‘I love you,’ there’s no personality talking. It’s self-love: I’m only talking to myself. The way I experience it is that It is only talking to Itself. If I say, ‘Let me pour you some tea,’ It is pouring Its own tea for Itself, and the tea is Itself. It’s so self-absorbed that It leaves no room for any other. Nothing.”
So what to do?
Why, be my gift! What else? What else could I do?
And what else could you do, you who were never “you,” who are THIS? What should you do with the remainder of life, however short or long it may appear to be? Why, nothing! There’s nothing you should do because as a separate you you’re already being done! And being done along with everything else apparently being done, in, by, and as Who you really are. What a crazy notion we’ve had, this counterfeit “I” supposedly doing all these things, as if that were actually possible. And in case we think we’ve at least done that, made that mistake called a “crazy notion,” no, we can’t even have that, for it too is part of the movie that arises in, by, and as the Empty Awareness that we are….
…And yet, what fun it all is! Such a fabulous show, and on such a grand scale! What perfection! And what intelligence! This world, all from Nothing-at-all, and all for Itself! To quote Byron Katie again: “When the ‘I’ arises, welcome to the movie of who you think you are. Get the popcorn, here it comes! If you investigate, and the ‘I’ arises, there’s no attachment. It’s just a great movie.”
So I take it to the street, this drama of who I think I am, this character with this part on the stage of this thought called “world.” Someone once asked if I felt obligated to teach others Who they really are, which of course is impossible other than to show them how to see for themselves. In my case, after many years of searching, I first saw (actually saw) the undeniable emptiness/presence at my core when I came across Harding’s article in a magazine and pointed back at what I was looking out of. I was floored. It was so ridiculously easy, so childishly simple, so “here-all-the-time stupid,” that I burst out laughing, the only proper acknowledgment there is to something so absurdly un-religious and at the same time so exquisitely sacred.
But when it comes to sharing the obvious, there are others who are more capable than I am, in particular Richard Lang who was only 17 when he first met Harding and saw the Aware Emptiness at his core. Although Harding introduced tens of thousands to the same, he once said that the only way he could make a difference for others was to See for himself, to attend to Who he really was and to leave the rest to take care of itself.
And I often refer to this when I am struck by the mistaken idea of “obligation-to-others,” either as the result of a question from some supposed “other,” or from one of my own thoughts passing through. “Where are these ‘others?’” I find myself asking, the question itself being the answer. THIS—here and now―is where the movie, the world, and every possible scene, including all that thought labels “other,” is where it begins and ends—in and as Empty Awareness, which is Who I really am, and Who you really are. The same.
So be your gift. It’s easy. You already are.
THIS JUST SHOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED
A friend visited today to help me with a issue concerning the future of this book, and during our conversation he mentioned that he had recently read an author who cited Harding’s enthusiastic position on why there shouldn’t be anything at all. Years ago when I read the same in a number of Harding’s books, I had the impression Harding was literally gushing with astonishment that Awareness had seemingly, as he put it, “popped up out of nothing,” that there could be—or should be—simply a blank, a zero, the absolute darkness of nothing forever. But the fact that there was Awareness and an entire universe of everything within it—well, that was just incredibly improbable, truly worthy of the highest reverence. It just shouldn’t have happened. And the fact that it did, that there is this Presence, this I-Am-Ness, was astounding, moment by miraculous moment!
“Yes, that’s the true basis of gratitude,” I said to my friend. “Seeing that, I can’t help but feel grateful for everything. Literally everything! It’s really a stunning insight. It manifests as
an unconstrained fountain of Being, all from Awareness, from this Awake No-Thing-At-All.”
We talked over coffee at the kitchen table, and I was thankful that he accepted the other half of a pecan pie of which I couldn’t possibly eat another slice, and we talked about the crazy state of affairs in Washington politics and how the world is a mirror to our attitudes and actions—and then we talked about looking Here and seeing Who we really are and the difference it makes in our attitudes and actions and how easily that issues forth in reciting gratitudes and intentions (he is a member of Intenders For The Highest Good), and finally about this book and his music and how we pass forward gifts that turn out to be to our Self. And how, in the end, and at the “gateless gate,” there’s nothing more that can be said.
And when he was leaving, at the door, I hugged him like a brother and thanked him, then watched him walk to his car. In the momentary silence that followed, I thanked him again, then thanked the world for this communion of self and other as Self, and for this day, a day truly worthy of the highest reverence.
Like every day.
Love is so vast within itself.
It’s so vast that it will burn you up.
It’s so jealous and greedy for itself mirrored back that it will leave you nothing.
And when you’re feeling that if you don’t give it away you’ll die in it, it’s so vast that there’s nothing you can do with it.
Coming to Nothing and Finding Everything Page 11
