The material presented here comes from the comments on the post, Is Relationship Based on Memory? This was originally posted around one year ago, and as I sit here now, have no memory of writing it. I can be fairly certain it is my writing, but there is no closeness or association that brings it up as something of “MINE.”
Upon re-reading this work, I felt compelled to question the writer on what was said. But sadly, he is no longer available. Haha.
Anyway, have a look at the original article and be sure to check out the comments, as it may bring you closer to the material at hand.
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If someone calls you a dickhead, and you get mad, do you ever ask why? Why does this cause anger? What is going on here? It is such a simple question, but no one ever asks.
Many of us are prone to violence of this kind, so you would think the question might come up at some point. But it rarely ever does.
The anger helps to solidify the self. YOU (the self) never feel more real than when you are angry. It weighs heavy in the mind, and seems to slow time.
Have you noticed this for yourself? When you are angry, you are very compressed. There is definitely a center that is projecting. The thoughts that race through your mind almost seem solid. Everything is tight, and not only physically. It effects the movement of the organism greatly, right down to the cell. Holding this violence in the mind is one of the most destructive things we do to our own bodies.
That question, “If you have no belief, can you be offended,” leads one into other questions. If one realized the answer to this question, I am not sure that it would lead to a transformation. Dealing with belief is important, but it is still on a superficial level of sorts.
One might start with, “What is belief?” “How is belief projected?” “Can one have a belief without conflict?”
One of the most important questions one might ask is, “Can one be free of belief completely?”
One thing important to consider is, you cannot really answer these questions. You cannot say yes or no. I am not trying to sound enigmatic, but if you have a conclusion, how did it arrive? You can only have a conclusion through knowledge, no? If you say YES or NO, how did you get there? What is it that answers the question?
One might ask, “ Why should I ask these question if I cannot answer them?” That is something that one might want to go into. Why do you need an answer? Any conclusion you reach will be made through belief or knowledge. So where does that put you? If you are answering based on belief or knowledge, that is just more of what you already have.
This is a very heavy subject that one has to face at some point. But only if they are serious about it.
Looking at the world, as it is, one can easily see the suffering brought about by belief. It is not a secret, and there is nothing really cryptic about it.
But if one sees this, what happens? Do they say, “That is so awful,” then go back to their own violent life? Or does it touch them in such a way that a fundamental change takes place? Do they see the danger then say, “That is it. Never again will I live my life in this mechanical way,” or not?
That is one thing I cannot understand; if one knows fire burns, why do they keep sticking their hands in it?
It all leads back to the monument of the self. Such an impressive, yet precarious, structure of thought exists. And this structure of experiences and thought - the self - has grooves that run deeper than any habit. But the danger, and the structure, is there to see. The problem arises with the way of seeing.
How does one see it all? Are they looking with their conclusions and experiences? If so, it is the structure, the monument, the self, that is seeing. And the self is only capable of seeing what it feels is important; from its own point of view.
It is the greatest difficulty one might come up against; how to see.
13 Comments
I know what you mean about seeing the writing and wondering where it came from. (laughs)
The way it was put to me this week - awakening is a moment of surrender. But wholeness is only found when we are in perpetual surrender. When we simply let go of all of it.
This is the challenge when we are so conditioned to being the doer, from the mind. Asking questions and making an answer if it cannot be found. Can we simply be with the question? That may be the doorway.
I have read the article as suggested and this is what it brought to mind: When I was a teenager I did not like my father. There were times when I outright hated him. An oedipal faze many young boys go through one might say. Perhaps. But the fact is I thought myself a victim of his corporal punishments from years earlier. I grew out of it and tried to get to know him better many times throughout the years but never completely exorcised the ghosts from the past.
He died suddenly four years ago Oct. 1. A few months later, while cleaning out the old barn behind his house, my brother found his diary from WWII. Well, not actually his. He took it off a dead German soldier. His entries start a couple of months after D-day, somewhere in France. After a few pages in his hand we saw this; “Things have gone from bad to worse. Today I killed two German officers and a horse with my pistol [close range]. How can my wife love a murdering son of a bitch like me?” My father did not need me to hate him. He’d been doing just fine by himself all those years. It explained so much of his behavior.
I now see that the person I hated did not even exist. That person did not have that history. That person existed in the rarefied atmosphere of my perception where I saw just enough to judge him but not enough to have compassion. I try to realize that about everyone now. That I will never have the whole story of any individual and judging them only assures that I never will.
The truth that you are trying to get at, Takuin, is probably far more complicated than what this age old story has to convey, but it is what came to mind.
It may sound trite and self serving, but my love for him grows a little more each day now. And more importantly I try to rely on memory less and less when when meeting anyone, old friend or new, for it has nothing to offer me in that moment that I can’t get from the moment.
You have the right of it, Davidya, when you say that wholeness is found when we simply let go of all of it.
Davidya,
I agree with you. I wouldn’t use the term “perpetual surrender,” but I understand what you are saying.
Many people stop with the idea of surrender. They may think, “Yes, surrender is the thing that will get me what I want.” Then it merely becomes the action of the doer, trying to get something to complete wholeness, or whatever it is. They may have heard advice from someone they trust, and “surrender” becomes the new thing to hold on to.
I don’t mean to say there is something wrong with it, but any idea of the “new thing,” merely takes the place of the “old thing.” This is, of course, a non-exchange. Haha.
Surrender may be important, but how might one surrender the person doing all of this surrendering? It is a subtle thing.
Eric,
Yes, that is it! The person - the object of your hate - never existed. You saw just enough to add momentum to your own story. It is wonderful to see this.
You may find this activity; all of the judgments and stories; leaking into other facets of perception. It spills over into areas where it doesn’t belong (for lack of a better phrase). This one lesson, realization, or whatever you call it, could end it all, as it is known. It is in this way that 1 Lesson = 10,000 lessons.
I am not sure it is complicated. It is simple, but I don’t suppose that makes it easy. The traps of our thinking are very subtle. And the same activity; the blaming, the judging, the selfishness; goes on in seemingly other forms. But it is all the same form.
It is that trickery of the mind that may make it seem new or different.
“and “surrender” becomes the new thing to hold on to. ”
A subtle thing, yes. but a very key point for someone so used to being the doer.
To Eric: “I saw just enough to judge him but not enough to have compassion” —> beautiful!
To Davidya: “Can we simply be with the question? That may be the doorway.”
—> the questions can be doors that open to spaces we don’t really know, no?
Yet if one approach the question with the momentum of ready-hand-me-down answers, the space might not become available at all; and the spaces these questions might lead us to would just be the space we “want” to see rather than what is actually there…
To Takuin:
The Beat
to forget
is to look afresh,
without yesterday’s images,
without yesteryear’s scars
this is not easy
for the mind considers the past
as a sacred, safe, absolute ground
that one should worship, adore,
venerate, and behold
forgetting is blasphemous
to the mind
and the heart is the mind’s
irreverent rebel for the heart forgets
remembrance is not its language
for every beat is new
as the heart beats
it forgets
as it forgets
it frees
…then love is there
I have read that what we call seeing is really just stumbling around in the dark, searching for the light switch. And if two blind people crash into each other who is more to blame? There can be no guilt in a world of darkness.
Do we surrender to the darkness, or do we continue the search? Is this analogy appropriate?
Ross - its more we surrender to what is and the darkness passes. What is darkness? Does it have substance? Or is it illusion?
sass - it’s not the question that opens the door, its the openness to allow the question as it is that is openness. See? Kind of a trick.
Yes. And so much conditioning is there, we don’t even see it. We assume it to be right. But if we observe what arises, then consider where it may have come from, we may discover it was just someone’s else’s concept. Not even our own. An illusion we picked up along the way.
@sass: Wonderful poem. Dead on about the mind holding the past as sacred. Worshiping it. After all, the ego thinks the past is responsible for its identity. This makes me ask how does one ever heal if they keep ripping open their scars and yelling “Look what you’ve done to me!”
Sass,
It is such a pitiful attempt, this action of the mind. The need to protect what has come before, and the fear that goes along with losing it.
That mind, or thoughts, or whatever you might call it, can never know what it has lost (and I question if anything at all can ever be lost). Never once can there be the knowledge of what is not, and if there is a knowing of the not, it is not the not.
You might say, What is not, is what is.
But one can never “know,” either.
One can only pity this mind. All the activity it undertakes in order to find something it can never know.
Ross,
Thanks so much for your wonderful comment. It is nice to have you here.
Forget the darkness, forget the searching, forget the blame, and forget the guilt. For that matter, forget what you have read. To see this, you’ll need your energy, and the wastage of energy required to hold a static position takes too much from the only moment you’ll ever have. Even to approach this will require all of your attention.
Many people talk or write about this, but if there is a path, it will be one of your own exploration; a path devoid of all interference, apart from your own activity. In this place, there is every possibility, and it is not limited by what you accept or believe to be true.
It will arrive when it arrives, and I suppose it is your job to get out of the way and let it happen.
Just do not assume there is a “something” to surrender to. Or if there is even one capable of surrender.
If there is surrender, it will happen despite everything you’ve done to make it happen. But please don’t believe me.
Go into the darkest cave for yourself. You may find, in the deepest recesses, there is far more light than you ever thought possible.
Eric,
Nicely said. You could say the past is responsible for the ego, but it might be more apt to say, the ego is created from what has come before. I think this is clear, and easy to see.
No person can heal when ripping open the scars, but not for the reasons we may think. They begin with the belief that there are scars to be ripped open. But there is not even that much separation. They ARE the very scars, as well as the activity of ripping them open.
This is very difficult for people. They so badly want to believe their pain, their sorrows, and their suffering are apart from them, as if it is something outside attacking them. But what is really happening?
There is the idea of an identity separate from everything else. It becomes the center that sees; the point of false light, creating its own illusory shadows. Its greatest strength is that it can hurt itself. And through that pain, it seems more real; a being that is separate due to its limited experience.
But it does not have to be this way.
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