Question of the Week:  2/18 - 2/24

I want to ask you a question. Do you think its possible to be totally steeped in the self, and at the same time, be free of suffering?

When you are walking down the street and looking at the shoppes, or at a park looking at a squirrel, or in a bookstore reading a book, are you suffering? You might say, “Well, it depends on what I am thinking about.” Exactly. In reality, you are not looking at shoppes or at squirrels, and you are not reading; you are not attentive at all. Rather, you are thinking about what should or should not be, based on the center known as the self.

If you look at a squirrel in the park, and you are completely absorbed by it, and all of your attention is there on the animal, then there is no room for suffering. Your attention is on the animal. If you are reading a great story, and give your attention to every facet, there is no suffering (even though you may feel the pain of the characters, but that is something different).

You may find that the problem is not necessarily on the self. It may be that you never actually give your attention to anything. You might have the appearance of attention; the concerned look, the raised eyebrow, the gentle nodding of your head in agreement; but appearance is meaningless.

Attention is either there, or it isn’t.

Denying Attention

Let’s say you go out to your local park to see if you can attend with the squirrels. You find one, give it a peanut, and watch it eat. Five seconds later, thought comes in, and you feel the twist and turn, the pull and push of things that you should have or should not have done. These thoughts are not always obvious, because we are so conditioned and habituated to this kind of half-living that we do not feel anything is necessarily wrong.

Unfortunately for so many people, it seems natural to feel bad in this way.

But when the thoughts come up, do we attend to them, seeing them for what they are? Not likely. Rather, we keep looking at the squirrel, pushing our thoughts back so that we might have, for the first time, clarity in attention. But there is no clarity, because pushing away the thought keeps our energy tied up in keeping it subdued.

So what has happened? We tried to be attentive with the squirrel, and we couldn’t. Thought arose and we tried to suppress it in order to be attentive, but we couldn’t. Thought was denied in order to have attention.

If you sit down with the squirrel, and if you are truly attentive, nothing will stop it because there is nothing to be stopped. It is not I watching the squirrel, but The squirrel is watched. It is pure being.

Attention is the engine of being.

The Power of Nature

Nothing will shut-up the mind faster than the beauty of nature. If you are walking in a ravine, turn the corner to an open plain, and suddenly there is a huge mountain range, the self is absent. It may come flying in a few moments later, but during the initial perception, there is only mountain.

If you lie down outside at night to view the stars, there is a great silence there. It is just the stars and the eyes that see them. Once you start thinking about your debt, or the guy that cut you off on the freeway, or your dickweed boss, then the stars are gone. Your eyes may still be looking, but without attention, the self can only see itself.

If you want to think on these things, if you want to be attentive, then go out in nature. Sit for awhile and really be with whatever is there. Sit in that silence, because it is always free of sorrow.

The Question

Can the Self Be Free of Suffering? Try asking a few other questions along with it.

Can you be steeped in the self without the idea that you need to be free of something?

Outside of the self, is there anything to be free from?

When you are suffering, what is it that suffers?

I know you want me to answer your question for you, but what would that do? If I say, “Yes, you can be free,” what will you do? Believe that it is true and wait to be shown how to do it? If I say, “No, you can never be free,” will you accept it? Or will you keep searching until you find the right guru that fits your sensibilities?

I am telling you, NO ONE can give it to you. You have to find out for yourself.

If there is a path to truth, it does not exist until you make a move. And as you walk forward, the path of your journey is erased with every step. In other words:

Truth is a field of freshly fallen snow with no tracks other than your own. And even those tracks are obliterated by gently drifting snow.

From Ozren, at the announcement of the commencement for this series:

Maybe you could start with “Being.” What is this Being “thing?”

Initially, I was not going to include this entry into the A to Z of Being because it is generally understood. I have never really been asked about it in the past. Besides, people usually relegate being to the background in favor of Awareness, Consciousness, or other seemingly more important words.

Well, after receiving more than a few recent requests for this, I decided to drop it in.

What is Being?

We generally think of this word as the existence of something (usually, but not always, a human). Or something conceivable as existing or as actually existing.

Acolytes of the belief systems known as Subjective or Objective Realities (SR and OR, respectively) love to argue about this.

“I believe that nothing exists without my point of view!”

“No, you are wrong! I believe things exist without your point of view!”

Yawn.

(If you want to see this kind of argument in action, head over to the Steve Pavlina Forums. You’ll get all the SR and OR you can stand.)

SR and OR aside, being is thought of as simple existence. Some might say that as they turn the corner, whatever appears comes into being. I can understand that. And that is very close to what happens in liberation.

Being in Liberation

Simply put, Being is: the functioning of the organism in awareness.

Being is, in fact, what is.

If one is aware, then being is all there is. There may be one thousand things happening at any given time, but in awareness, it is all being.

In awareness, with no center or anchor, no story or prejudice, there is only what is. The “what is” in question, is being.

You might hear other speakers on non-duality or enlightenment say, “everything is being.” Or, “there is only being-ness.” I agree with that, even though I still question it.

One might ask, “If being is everything, why should it be a function of the organism?” Good question.

Because our bodies are the experience-rs of reality. Like or not, day in and day out, all of the sensory perceptions are a part of this organism. It is true to say that in awareness there is no difference between the body or a table, because there is no longer any one to make a distinction. But since being arises through this instrument of the body, it is easier for one to think of it as the functioning of the organism in awareness. (But please keep in mind through all of this, there is no MY body; just body.)

If there is no body, no sensors, no life, can awareness rise? If I die in five minutes, is there awareness here on the sixth minute? Please don’t theorize or repeat an answer given to you by another. Just sit with the question.

If one sees from their own point of view, through their own imagery, then being just becomes something that the self thinks it has; it is just me and this thing, or me and that thing. There is that eternal juxtaposition.

In awareness, through being, there is no juxtaposition. There is only what is.

There is only being.

Isn’t self inquiry just another form of seeking?

Someone might consider self-inquiry to be “seeking,” and I can see that. But the emphasis is that there is no reliance on outside authority.

With inquiry you neither accept or reject anything. It is just there. You see it for what it is, but if your thoughts are involved, with your preferences and prejudices, you are still enslaved to an outside authority. (Thought, in this case, is an outside authority disguised as the self. It moves within itself, and its range is limited and outside of awareness.)

Does that make sense?

Things are not rejected because of what you know. Rather, they fall away on their own, when seen as they are.

(Although the “self” in self inquiry is not quite right, I still use the term, but more often than not, I’ll just use inquiry.)

This post comes from my journal dated March 5th, 2007.

We cannot really know anything about what happens at the point of death. How will we know when we are dead? We can be told by others (in fact, that is all we know), but what meaning does that have for us? The only way to know death, is to die. (We cannot really know it. Knowing implies knowledge, and death is completely beyond thought.)

And I have been reading about “Levels of Consciousness,” but I don’t understand. Does that mean different states? For example, if someone is full of hate, that is lower, if someone is full of love, that is higher. Is that correct? Those are simply varying contents of the same consciousness. I question whether there are any levels of consciousness at all.

Unless you are talking about varying states of mind? Sorry, but there is nothing here that implies different levels. All of those things are a part of consciousness. Maybe it is just a problem with the language?

Different levels would seem to imply that there are different types of consciousness. A lower level, and a higher level. But there is really no difference, as it is all a part of the same consciousness.

Kind of like changing the curtains in an outhouse. The view might have improved, but something still stinks.

There is no higher or lower; there is only consciousness.

I found this video via the Blog of Tim Ferris. It is an incredible example of one’s physical potential.

This movement seems to be a combination of Capoeira, Break-Dancing, and Gymnastics. The amount of strength needed to pull-off some of these moves is amazing, but this guy (Junior) seems to move effortlessly.

Peak human performance is something that interests me greatly. Physical movement, guitar playing, acting, or any of one hundred other activities seem masterful in the hands of the right person. And this guy is wonderful.

I am not necessarily into it for the dancing. I just like to see the beauty of physical movement.

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