A central theme in seeing clearly is to realize the vacuity of the contents of the mind. Indeed, it could be said that the spiritual “path” has to do, in general, with coming to terms with the nature of one’s mind.
What is that nature? Its nature, our nature, is precisely that we take the mind seriously. As Byron Katie puts it, we worship at the alter of our beliefs. Whether we call them beliefs or stories or thoughts or desires, we say that these contents of the mind mean something. We attach to them, we clutch at them, we take them seriously. And right there is where our suffering comes in.
In a couple of ways: First, out of thought we construct the whole “I”-complex. Once the self-concept is put together, then this imaginary separateness becomes concerned with how to be safe and secure, how to make life go right and so forth. Tension and anxiety come in. Anger comes in when something seems to thwart this desire. Sadness comes in when we realize that, in spite of our best efforts, something is missing.
Second, in clutching at the contents of our minds we tend to live in a world of symbols rather than a world of reality. We look at a tree and we see a “tree.” We know what it is, we have a word for it. And so it seems separate too, it’s a “tree.” And we don’t really have to take it in because we’ve seen it before, we have a word for it, we know what it is, it’s dismissable. And thus we miss the real texture of reality—reality without the burden of thoughts and stories.
I used to think that waking up was some “kaboom!” kind of thing. The ultimate peak experience, as it were. But it’s not. It’s very ordinary. And it doesn’t come and go like a peak experience—anything that can come and go is not it, because it always remains. It’s what is always there.
In eastern paths they tend to talk about “no-mind” or “emptiness” or one’s “true nature.” In western paths they tend to talk about “union with God” or “cosmic consciousness.” Can they possibly be the same thing? They are.
Imagine for a moment what life would be like if you had no stories or thoughts in your mind as you went about your life. Or more accurately, if they appeared but you didn’t buy-in to them. You just let them be there, just like you let clouds in the sky be there. No need to do anything at all with them, because they have no intrinsic meaning. They have only the meaning that we say they have. If we don’t clutch at them, they mean nothing more than that they are present.
When we don’t grasp onto the thoughts and feelings in our mind, it’s just as if they’re not there. Not that we’re pushing them away; we’re perfectly happy for them to be there. But we’re not identifying with them either. We just let them be there, and then they’re not a problem. In fact they tend to wither away as time goes on, not from rejection but from benign neglect.
In this non-involvement, a kind of deep spaciousness arises. But of course that’s inaccurate, because the spaciousness is always there. It just wasn’t noticed before, because we were too busy being involved with our sacred beliefs and stories and emotional dramas. And in that spaciousness one eventually notices that the personal doesn’t exist and never did, that’s it’s just a huge collection of thoughts and feelings about a personal doer who’s conducting his or her life.
Absent all that—meaning non-involvement—life goes on just as before, but surprisingly, it’s more present, more real, more tender.
People sometimes say that they don’t want to give up the personal because they would lose deep feeling. But they don’t understand that the personal never existed in the first place, and that the perspective of the non-personal is ordinary and everyday but incredibly sweet to the taste because it’s about nothing but love.
When all the contents of the mind are left alone, in that spaciousness love is what’s left. Love that doesn’t discriminate between this and that—because how can it discriminate between itself?
Love that’s not separate from the infinite because it is That, and always has been. And that is found within us and outside of us and in whatsoever the attention falls on...
—jim sloman, 02/11/01 for Feb 11
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