Hollow Bamboos

Q: I was wondering: Awareness is, always, no matter what. Sometimes a belief arises that says there's a person, a separate being and it is what I am. Awareness is aware of/appears as that thought. Does this belief still appear in you, too? Is there a period of time when an apparent shift happens back and forward for a while, or once the spell has been broken, does it never return? I'm wondering, because apparent involvement in the person-thought still arises here regularly. There's a shifting back and forward, so to speak.

A: The experiences are still noticed as before, but they don’t have any effect on me. There still appears to be an apparent person moving around in the world, but I no longer name the persons or the objects, and they’re not colored by desire or fear, and so they don’t hinder me (the names and labels arise, but are fleeting). Nisargadatta says “The experiences are quality-less, pure experiences, if I may say so.” I feel like I am moving around between all the “meanings” of things, and am in a world of pure equanimity, all one color, all one substance. I see the meanings that other people assign, but they don’t affect me.

My world is in between those meanings, in the space where there is no meaning, no differences. I'm still there, moving around, interacting, but that world does not touch me. We are only touched by the world as long as we are assigning meaning to things, and the meanings all come from the idea of a self-center. When the meanings are no longer assigned, the world is just Me, everywhere I look. Nothing to fear, nowhere to go, nothing to desire. No point in moving, since I remain here no matter what.

Q: There's another question. There's a knowing, a seeing, a peace that's forever, we could call it awareness. But how come we can say it is peace, it is aware, etc.? For to know that means it is subjective also.

A: You’re right, no words can touch this. It’s not an object, and the words are just pointers. The only way to be absolute about it is to not talk at all. Who needs words? Just being is all. Returning to words is effortful and stressful. Let the mind open into transparency and restfulness. It’s all right here, all the time, as you have noticed.

Q: Do you mean that once “you” have seen through it, from the moment on that it was clear that the “I” is just a thought and there's only awareness, there was never a time that “you” got lost again in the story? When belief in the person does return here, does it mean there was never a seeing through, because otherwise “I” would never get lost in the story again? Once seen through, the person will always be seen through?

About my second question: Even if we don't use words, we know we are stillness, a silent knowing, constant. We sense stillness, we sense the qualities of awareness. We know there's a silent knowing in the background of everything. But even to sense that means it cannot be what we are. So can we ever know what we are. How can we know that we are this silent awareness? Aren't we aware of this silent awareness? So can we ever know what we are?

A: I don’t know how to say this as strongly as I’d like it to be taken, but this is the only thing that is being pointed to: These questions will never be answered, and you’re looking in the wrong place. You are wanting reassurance that you’re on the right track, or that the “seeing” you’ve had is legitimate, or how to know that what you know is what you know.

But this is all about the person’s doubts, the person’s security, the person’s progress, and I’d like to reiterate that there is no person outside of a thought – an idea arising and passing, like weather. You think you are a person, but how can be you BE that which arises and then passes? How can you BE a fleeting idea? You can’t. And yet all these questions you are asking – always new ones to replace the ones you've had answered – all relate only to this person, which you cannot possibly be!

Look right now at the fact that you know. You know there is a thought arising. You know the thought that arises contains questions and doubts. The thought that arises with questions and doubts references a person. The thought that arises contains the referenced person as well. The person is entirely circumscribed by the thought. The thinking IS the person. The person exists nowhere outside of the thought.

Now again look at the fact that you know this thought. You know. You are knowing. You are the knowing. You are the knowing that a “person” arises in thought.

You are the knowing. You ask questions suggesting that there will be something “better” going on for the person, later, when the story is not identified with anymore. You want to know if the “seeing” is de-legitimized by the fact that there is still identification with the story sometimes. But I’m trying to point out that there is nothing to be made “better,” because the person to whom all of that applies is not a real thing. The “real thing” is the knowing, which is YOU right now, without which you could not be reading this page. So what can be made better or more secure about that? It never changes. You never cease being this, no matter what is going on, in thought, for an imaginary person.

So the pointer is to quit living in a dream and live what you are. Quit repeating the same mistake over and over, which is to attempt to answer questions in the mind, for the person. There is nothing you want there; it is a dry well; what you are looking for is NOT THERE.

What you are looking for will not be found by one more answer to one more question, not even that most nagging, pressing, insistent one. Why not? Because the replies you get only provide dream answers. Answers in the dream! How sad! How pathetic! How valueless! You should shun the answers as surely as you shun the questions. Shun the dream, and see what is left: You are.

So just stop; that’s all I’m saying. Stop and look at what is left here when the questioning ceases. Is anything lost? Are you still here? We think that if we stop questioning that we’ll “miss the boat” or something. But while we’re standing on the dock asking questions, the boat sails, and we don’t even notice that we’re on it. We’re already on the boat, having a nice cruise, while panicking and questioning, “When does it sail? I don’t want to miss it!”

This is it. This knowing. No more questions. Really. No matter what the content is, it refers to a person, and the person is not real. It is a dream. Don’t live a dream, live who you are. Story or no story, it doesn’t matter one bit. Whoever is “lost in the story” is only that in a thought, and the thought passes. Then one is no longer “lost in the story.” So it made no difference.

But what never passed? This knowing that a thought arose. You know. You know thought, and you know space between thought. Where is the person in the space between thought? It is gone – so can that be you? You still know the space, don’t you? The knowing stays.

This is all. No more questions. Just don’t look there. Pay attention to the wise ones, the great sages of all time. It is not found in the mind, it is not found in thought. Look at that which is constant and unchanging. This is you. Nothing can harm that which is constant and unchanging. This is grace and this is God. You are this.

I found some wonderful words on Stephen Wingate’s website that say this better than I can. These are excerpts from “Tilopa's Song to Naropa” (from Mother of the Buddhas by Lex Hixon):

“To realize this inexpressible truth, do not manipulate mind or body, but simply open into transparency with relaxed, natural grace, intellect at ease in silence, limbs at rest in stillness like hollow bamboos. Neither breathing in nor breathing out with the breath of habitual thinking, allow the mind to be at peace in brilliant wakefulness.”

“Phenomena on every plane of being are constantly arising and disappearing. Thus they are forever fresh, always new and inexhaustible. Like dreams without solid substance, they can never become rigid or binding. The universe exists in a deep, elusive way that can never be grasped or frozen. Why feel obsessive desire or hatred for it, thereby creating illusory bonds?”

“Strenuously seeking truth by investigation and concentration, one will never appreciate the unthinkable simplicity and bliss that abide at the core. To uncover this fertile ground, cut through the roots of complexity with the sharp gaze of naked awareness, remaining entirely at peace, transparent and content. You need not expend great effort nor store up extensive spiritual power. Remain in the flow of sheer awareness. Mahamudra neither accepts nor rejects any current of energy, internal or external.”

“Since the ground consciousness is never born into any realm of being, nothing can add to or subtract from it. Nothing can obstruct or stain it. When awareness rests here, the appearance of division and conflict disappears into original reality. The twin emotions of anxiety and arrogance vanish into the void from which they came.”