Enlightenment and the Stickiness of Thoughts

[zendancer]

This post was prompted by the discussions on the Imre Vallyon thread. After thinking about some of the issues mentioned there, I thought it might be interesting to explore several issues in more detail.

The primary message of non-duality can be summed up in these five words; "this is all there is." Whatever we see or hear right now is all there is. The idea of a me or a you is a story happening in thought. There is no me or you. There is only this, and this is all there is. What can we see or hear? That's it. There is no secret. There is nothing else. The past and the future are stories. There is no one with problems and there is no one waiting to get enlightened. In short, there is no one. There is only this and this is all there is.

The idea that we had a tough day at the office, or that our lover left us for someone else, or that we had a miserable childhood, or that we're going to start a new project tomorrow, or that someone insulted us are just stories--just ideas appearing in emptiness. Forget about special powers, deep insights, and the idea that certain people have attained great things. Those are just stories we entertain ourselves with. They have no more reality than the idea that we exist as separate entities. The Buddha's life is a story. Ramana's enlightenment is a story. Whatever you hear and see right now is the truth, and that is all there is. There is nothing any deeper than this. There is nothing to get and no one who could get it. If we see the sun shining and hear some horns honking outside, we see and hear just as much as any Buddha or Ramana. They had no advantage over us, they were not more advanced than us, and they never discovered anything more than this.

All enlightenment stories are just stories. No one is ahead or behind because there is no one on a spiritual path (that's another story), and because this is all there is. Everything in our past is a story. Everything we think may happen in the future is a story. If we drop all of our stories (even stories that are lots of fun), we are left with this, and this is all there is--the wind rustling leaves on a nearby tree, voices coming from people down the hall, the sound of a computer humming. If we look for anything beyond this, we miss this and wander off into the mind.

Why, given how simple this is, do we miss this? It's because thoughts have a certain stickiness. We get stuck in thoughts and fail to look and listen to what is happening right now. Our entire past happened to a fictional character, but the story sticks, and we mistakenly think that the story is true. It is not.

Imagine that consciousness wakes up in our body/mind right now for the first time (isn't that a great story!). There is no memory of the past. What do we see or hear? Whatever it is, that is all there is. We look and listen. There is no idea that we were born or that we will die. There is only this. There is no one to know what this is. Seeing occurs, but there is no one who sees. Hearing occurs, but there is no one who hears. The truth is that simple and that obvious, and to look for anything else leads to a story about searching for this. No one is more enlightened than anyone else because there is no one who experiences this, and this is all there is.

Why, then, do Zen Masters, to use one example, check their students by questioning them? They do so in order to find out whether thoughts are sticking to the students--to see how free of thoughts their students have become. It is a play of consciousness. Remember the story where the ZM twisted the student's nose and the student had a big experience? The following day the ZM asked the student, "Yesterday, what did you attain?" If the student had answered, "I attained enlightenment, or freedom, or anything along that line, the ZM would have realized that the student wasn't free. The student, however, answered, "Yesterday you twisted my nose and it hurt." This satisfied the ZM because it showed that the student didn't get stuck by the idea of "attainment." The student could also have answered, "How could I have attained anything?" or "How could there have been a yesterday?" or "Speak, speak!" Perhaps best of all, the student could have grabbed the Zen Master's nose and twisted it. Too bad he didn't do that because it would have made a better story.

The moment anyone thinks that he/she has something that other people don't have, he/she is making up a story. The truth is so empty that no story about it is possible. There is only this, and if attention stays focused on this, thoughts get left behind. No one can understand this because this can't be understood. Tra la la la....

Nothing to learn and nothing to get, nowhere to go, and this is it. Cheers.

[lightmystic]

Good stuff, as always ZD.

Another aspect I'd like to point out about "this is all there is" is that it also means that anything that ever could be is here NOW. If you're concerned about the future or past, it's because those feelings are in you now, and so can be dealt with now. And that's important, because then they can really be dealt with in a way that will release the resistance to them, which is what causes all of the pain in the first place.

It also means that all the things we want are just the same: they are feelings available within us that may or may not look like we think they will on the surface. By accepting that those feelings are there now, then we can actually start opening to accepting those feelings. When there is an openness to the desire, which is really just a feeling, then it cannot but become fulfilled, however that happens to look on the surface. Many times, the fulfillment just comes without anything on the surface changing at all.

It also means that any high ideas of Enlightenment or goals towards Enlightenment are recognized by delving deeper into one's own experience right now. It is only THROUGH the accepting what is right now, that it can be seen clearly for the first time. And it is only though the seeing of it clearly that the recognition of Enlightenment happens. And it DOES happen for anyone who actually wants it. It's just just patience with the process, and openness to everything being different that what was thought.

There IS more, but it is found here. There is nowhere else that is going to provide it. Whatever is being resisted now can be released, and whatever is released creates the space for more. All happening now.

[loverofall]

These replies are what got me interested in this board. ZenDancer and Lightmystic always keep me pointed in the right direction (I know which is nowhere).

My emotionally freedom mentor always says that emotionally limited people use thoughts to control their experience to avoid ever being vulnerable to emotional pain. It appears that is the whole path to enlightenment. You either are totally present and experience the moment, or your use thought to interpret or control the moment out of fear of deeper emotional vulnerability.

His background is growing up in an ideal loving family and then becoming a counselor to prisoners for years and seeing how they live in a world of thought while he didn't. As I have worked to give up thought patterns and close distance with family, my mind has become quieter but of course there was real resistance to give up these methods of control and protection.

I watch people get all upset over thoughts and at times now it seems like they are insane but then I realize, I was there and still go there at times, it just gets harder as the awareness grows.

[zendancer]

loverofall: You are totally on target here. The more aware we become, the more emotionally vulnerable we are willing to be. Emotional pain, fully experienced, ceases to be painful and becomes, at worst, bittersweet, at best, joy. Byron Katie has some great writings about this in her book, A Thousand Faces of Joy." She has a terrific line that goes something like, "I'm always full of joy because I don't believe my thoughts."

[loverofall]

Its good to get confirmation of this because in the beginning I was having a hard time reconciling enlightenment teachings and emotional freedom becasuse some see enlightenement as a way to become indifferent which is the opposite of emotional freedom. I can see where some thing they are enlightened but are really indifferent.

I finally made the complete connection when I read the two chapters in Adyashanti's book "Emptiness Dancing" on Fear and Control.

Most insanity and limitations comes down to fear of deep emotional pain and the need to control feelings. Creating anxiety, regrets, resentments, rejections etc. are all ways to still control feelings and avoid the experience. Even if the feelings are suffering it is better to be in control than to be vulnerable to the possibility of emotinal pain from an experience like what ever I felt when my family fell apart as a little one.

What I have learned is that most people live in a cycle of anxiety and relief out of the need to control their experience. It could also be regret and relief or resentment and relief. Any of the thought created emotions will do for this method of emotional incarceration.

Its really great to see the whole picture come together but then I am stuck of course with a deep understanding of nowhere to go but forward.

[zendancer]

So true. Most people do not trust Reality, so they resist it by trying to control what happens. The sage gives up any attempt to control things and simply goes with the flow. As Byron Katie has said, "If you fight with Reality, you will always lose."

[lightmystic]

Definitely true loverofall. I'm glad you made that connection, because it is such an important one from my perspective.

What I find is that fear of certain emotions/feelings is really the main resistance that people have. And when there's resistance, one cannot see clearly what is going on, and so cannot see who they truly are. It's about 99% of what's in the way from what I can see. Ultimately, emotions seem to be the only thing that can really overwhelm and be threatening. It seems like any outside thing that people want or don't want really is just about the emotional response involved. And that recognition implies a lot of things about reality. Even with physical pain it's really our fear of what that means that makes it so horrible.

To allow emotions in is to see them clearly. And then they become safe to feel. And then there is no real motivation not to have them. And then the feelings can be followed as the pointers they really are, and life takes on this effortless flow. There is no reason to avoid feelings when they are safe, or to be fixated on them. It's just an open palm of existence...

And, yes, as you say, the only way out is through. And even that is a misnomer.

Oct 24, 2009 11:37:52 GMT -5 loverofall said:

Its good to get confirmation of this because in the beginning I was having a hard time reconciling enlightenment teachings and emotional freedom becasuse some see enlightenement as a way to become indifferent which is the opposite of emotional freedom. I can see where some thing they are enlightened but are really indifferent.

I finally made the complete connection when I read the two chapters in Adyashanti's book "Emptiness Dancing" on Fear and Control.

Most insanity and limitations comes down to fear of deep emotional pain and the need to control feelings. Creating anxiety, regrets, resentments, rejections etc. are all ways to still control feelings and avoid the experience. Even if the feelings are suffering it is better to be in control than to be vulnerable to the possibility of emotinal pain from an experience like what ever I felt when my family fell apart as a little one.

What I have learned is that most people live in a cycle of anxiety and relief out of the need to control their experience. It could also be regret and relief or resentment and relief. Any of the thought created emotions will do for this method of emotional incarceration.

Its really great to see the whole picture come together but then I am stuck of course with a deep understanding of nowhere to go but forward.

[divinity]

I have observed that everyone's "all there is" is different from everyone else's "all there is" depending upon the perception of the individual. So can we say that there is no one true "all there is"...? Or do you maintain that there is only one "all there is" which is there for everyone once their thoughts and associations are gone or at least ignored? Has anyone on this site attained that state and can anyone maintain it whilst still living in the illusion of the physical form?

[souley]

Nov 14, 2009 11:01:57 GMT -5 divinity said:

illusion of the physical form?

Can someone explain to me once and for all what this illusion thing is all about?

[karen]

Sure. Go within.

...still working on it myself.

[alpha]

Nov 14, 2009 11:01:57 GMT -5 divinity said:

I have observed that everyone's "all there is" is different from everyone else's "all there is" depending upon the perception of the individual. So can we say that there is no one true "all there is"...? Or do you maintain that there is only one "all there is" which is there for everyone once their thoughts and associations are gone or at least ignored? Has anyone on this site attained that state and can anyone maintain it whilst still living in the illusion of the physical form?

" All there is" is independent of observation, the individual, attainments, thoughts,or associations, but includes all these, it can best be explained as " ALL there is"

As regards the "illusion" of the physical form, or the world, Bernadette Roberts explains it well,

www.firedocs.com/carey/roberts.html

"Those in a less advantageous position would be those who have skirted or surmounted empirical reality by some intellectual endeavor, without passing through it experientially. This could lead to a denial of empirical reality and, by making the ground we walk on a mere illusion, pull the rug out from under any meaningful discussion. When we cannot discuss what lies two feet ahead because it would be too un-understandable or too ineffable to do so, the subjects that matter most in life become so esoteric and privileged, they end up belonging to a few superior men; as someone once said to me, "when you see the world as illusion, you will have become a superman." Even if this incentive had not come too late, I would have preferred to pass through the gate of the known and remain as is, which means to discuss what is when the chance arises....

[zendancer]

Souley: I do not think that one can "explain" the illusion thing. To understand it requires a direct experience. Nevertheless, I'll give it a try. What we are talking about when we refer to "the illusion of thingness" has to do with imaginary boundaries. It is fairly easy to see the illusory nature of the boundaries that define a "hand," "wrist," and "arm," by looking for the precise lines of demarcation between these "things." Where, for example, is the dividing line, precisely, between a hand and a wrist or between a wrist and an arm? Clearly the lines are imaginary. So, do "arms, wrists, and arms"--these "things"-- exist? Not in Reality. They exist as separate things only as ideas in our head.

This is pretty easy to grasp. What is not so easy to grasp is that physically distinct objects, such as basketballs or human beings, are just as imaginary as hands, wrists, and arms. Our eyes look at what Is, but our intellects transfigure our visual input as if what Is were divided into things and events. If we look at the world like the lens of a camera, we see only what Is. If we look like the lens of a camera, we see a unified suchness, or field of being, in which there are no discrete objects. However, this is not the way most people look at the world. Most people think-see a world that is divided into or composed of separate things. Thingness is a monumental illusion, but unless someone has experientially broken through the illusion, he/she will not be able to imagine what this means. Here is the primary point: THE TRUTH CAN'T BE IMAGINED! We cannot imagine the unimaginable, and Reality is unimaginable. It can be seen, but not imagined. After one sees through the illusion (which Zen calls "passing through the gateless gate"), then one can easily differentiate between the illusion and Reality.

It is a bit like those optical illusions which contain two potentially different images. We look at the famous two faces/vase illusion and only see the two vases. We can't see the vase until a kind of internal shift takes place and the vase suddenly becomes obvious. It is the same with the "thingness" illusion, but the shift is far more profound. Prior to the shift we only see thingness--separate parts; after the shift we see the whole. We then see Reality like an animal or a very young child. We see it without division because we are not "think-seeing."

Many people read about non-duality and think they understand, but they do not. They say things like, "I know that I don't really exist, so it doesn't matter what I do," or "This (the world) is all an illusion." Some Zen Masters have been known to strike students who say such things, and then ask," Is the pain you feel an illusion (you idiot)?" One Japanese Zen student actually sat down on the railroad tracks in front of an oncoming Bullet Train near Tokyo because he thought that he understood that everything is an illusion! Needless to say, he was totally smushed. That's a strong object lesson for people who think that everything is an illusion!

Here's a true story. Shortly before I had a big bells-and-whistles-kind-of-unity consciousness experience, I became consumed with this issue. I had begun wondering what a young child or a dog sees when it looks at the world. I left for a ninety-minute drive to another city, and I began looking intensely at different things along the interstate--road signs, bridges, trees, etc. I thought, "A dog can't see a road sign as a road sign because it doesn't cognize reality, so what does it see? A baby can't see a bridge as a bridge because it hasn't yet learned to distinguish a bridge as a separate thing with a separate name, so what does it see?" Mile after mile I stared at things along the highway trying to understand what the world would look like to an animal or a baby. After sixty miles or so, I began to feel a bit foolish. I thought, "Well, maybe it's impossible for an adult to know what I want to know. Maybe adults can never access the world that animals or babies perceive." Nevertheless, I kept looking and looking. As I came to an airport on the perimeter of the city I was traveling to, a huge commercial airliner came over the interstate highway on its final approach to a nearby runway. I looked up and thought, "A baby would not be able to see the airplane separate from the sky. It would have to see both the airplane and the sky as unified, so what would it see?" I stared extremely hard at the plane, and then, suddenly, something happened. The space between me and the airplane started to collapse, and I had some sort of strange internal emotional shock. It only lasted for a moment, and afterwards I started second-guessing myself. "What was that? Did something happen just then? Am I imagining that something extraordinary almost happened?" I was totally perplexed by what I had experienced, but I thought about it all afternoon. By that evening, "stable sameness" had taken over, and I relegated the experience to something imaginary. A week or so later I had my first big bells and whistles thing, and realized in retrospect, that I had been right on the edge of penetrating the illusion of thingness when I looked at that airplane. After the bells and whistles, I understood for the first time the difference between the illusion of thingness and the truth. I had passed through the gateless gate.

Sitting here now, I look around the room. I see what Is. What I see is unimaginable, but if I choose to imagine it, then I see "computers," "tables," "chairs," and "arms typing on a keyboard." If I choose to imagine what I am looking at, then I bring "things" into existence. Prior to the act of imagining, nothing (no-thing) exists. If I am NOT imagining, then I DO NOT see computers, tables, chairs, and arms typing on a keyboard; I see ......................

Does this help explain the illusion thing at all? Cheers.

[lightmystic]

There is only one "all there is", because all means ALL. It's just that everyone's relationship with all there is is a bit different, and the experience changes slightly. It's sort of like one person meeting someone on the street for a moment, another dating that person, a third person having an office rivalry with that person. Each is having a very different relationship with that person, and so a completely different experience of that person. A person who knows that they ARE all that is directly is obviously going to be having a very intimate relationship with all there is. And so there experience of it is going to be sweet and gratifying - like a deep romantic relationship. The analogy starts to get a little silly here, but in situations where one person is married to many, each of those intimate relationships will be slightly different, even though it's both an intimate relationship and the same person that each of those others are married to. So, people's experiences of that intimate relationship will be slightly different, but there is a commonality there and recognition there, even if one's personal relationship is talked about in slightly different terms. One recognizes what the other is referring to....

Nov 14, 2009 11:01:57 GMT -5 divinity said:

I have observed that everyone's "all there is" is different from everyone else's "all there is" depending upon the perception of the individual. So can we say that there is no one true "all there is"...? Or do you maintain that there is only one "all there is" which is there for everyone once their thoughts and associations are gone or at least ignored? Has anyone on this site attained that state and can anyone maintain it whilst still living in the illusion of the physical form?

[souley]

Thanks ZD. I have had enough strange experiences to get a hint of what you are talking about - the illusion of thingness as you call it is both logical and fits with my experiences. But ideas as divinity says "illusion of the physical form", is pretty common, and I have never come to terms with it. It simply doesn't feel like that. "I" have been in a state where perception seems to be all there is, headlessness is understood, and the body kind of loses the feeling of "me". It's like whoa, I have a body, cool. But that very body is still there.. nothing feels like an illusion at all. Is there a problem of communication here? Douglas Harding said in a book I have something like "the focus on the world being some kind of hindrance or illusion is a problem of much indian philosophy" in the context of nothingness and the normal world as identical. Maybe I'm picking a belief here that just fits into what I personally want.

[zendancer]

Souley: Okay, let's put it this way: The illusion is not between anything and nothing. The illusion is that you or anything (any thing) has a boundary. "Your" body does not stop at the limit of "your" skin. It extends to infinity. The air across the room from you is as much you as your fingernails. You are Reality--the whole thing. The illusion is that you are a human body. Go back to the hand/wrist/arm distinction. You can see that these "things" are a unified whole. So, what makes us think that they are separate things? It is the act of cognition or distinction. We look at "what is" and we imagine that "hands" exist. Do they? Well, it depends upon whether we choose to imagine. Look at your hands and wiggle them. What you see is the living truth. If you don't think a single thought, what are you looking at? Yes, you are looking at...................(wiggle them again)

What you are looking at has no name or form and is neither real nor unreal. What you are looking at is "what is." Now look and see if you can find a boundary between what we call "hands" and what we call "wrists." You won;t find one because a hand and a wrist are unified. The boundary separating these "things" is imaginary. Now look and see if you can find a boundary between your "wrists" and your "arms." Same thing. The boundary is imaginary.

In the same way, look at the boundaries that define everything (every thing) else. For example, open your mouth and ask yourself where the boundary of your body is in the empty space of your mouth? Or, drink a glass of water and ask yourself when the water becomes "you?" You will discover that all of the boundaries defining seemingly separate things are imaginary. A car looks solid, but we know that the metal surfaces are continually oxidizing. The car is disintegrating in front of our eyes, but at a very slow rate. Our minds imagine that it is a noun, but it is really a verb. Consider a "tree." Every moment it is changing; there is nothing continuously solid there.

After examining boundaries for a while, then stop, become silent, shake your hands and arms, and then shake your whole body. Take several deep breaths and feel the air enter and leave "your" body. What you are experiencing is Reality--the absolute. You can see it, hear it, feel it, etc. but until you imagine that it is composed of separate things, those things do not exist. What we are is a unified field of being that is intelligent and can directly experience itself through its senses. If our mind stays silent, and we take a walk, then we are literally walking through ourselves! We are breathing ourselves. We are a unified suchness that is always whole and complete. We blind ourselves to this truth as soon as we make one single distinction. One distinction and we artificially create two states. If we think "good" we simultaneously create "bad." If we think "hand" we automatically create another imaginary state of "all that is not-hand." It is impossible to distinguish a coca-cola as a "coca-cola" without creating and ignoring all that is "not coca-cola." This is why language and thought can never capture the undivided.

Imagine that the entire universe is an undifferentiated colorless solid piece of steel--an infinity of steel stretching in all directions without end. What could be said or thought about it? Nothing, because there would be no way to differentiate or distinguish any aspect of it from any of the rest of it. It would be undifferentiable and unimaginable. Now, imagine that you are part of that infinity of steel. You and the steel are one, and you and the steel are alive. This is analogous to our actual situation. Who we are is a unified but unimaginable field of being. In order to imagine that anything exists separately we have to imagine that we are separate from ourselves. We have to artificially divide ourselves into an observer and the observed. We have to make ourselves false to ourself by ignoring our true unity and focusing upon images, ideas, and symbols projected on the screen of our minds.

Adyashanti reportedly once said, "Enlightenment comes from the neck down." That is a great statement. It points to the difference between living in a head-generated dream and an embodied experience of the living truth.

So, periodically, stop, be still, become internally silent, and shake your hands. Look at that movement and then follow that movement to your wrists, arms, and body. Then, look beyond that to what all of that is moving within. You are looking at the truth. No hands, no wrists, no arms, no body, no floor, no ceiling, no things anywhere. You can see "what is" clearly, but it is unified--no separation at all. The illusion of separateness arises when we imagine that anything we see is separate from anything else.

One day a famous Zen Master entered his monastery's meditation hall and slowly walked around the room three times. He finally stopped and turned to the roomfull of meditating monks and said, "Isn't that amazing? I just finished walking around inside your body, and no one said a thing." He then walked out of the room leaving the monks totally mystified.

Another famous Zen Master was enlightened when he read a quote over the door to his meditation hall. The quote was from the Zen Master in charge of the monastery. The quote read, "10,000 mornings in thirty years. Haven't you realized by now that it's the same old fellow?"
Does that help at all?