From Self... Challenge to the Mind.

It is extremely challenging to look at the question, "who am I?"  Every answer just comes back to the question. There is no-one there! For how can the awareness of "I" possibly look at itself? It can only BE  awareness itself, which is everywhere and everything and words can merely point to what is already so, has always been so and will always be so. Timeless, therefore beyond reason, defying all attempts at analysis. Intelligence more powerful than the mind that creates a form of fear in the mind. That's the challenge Self puts before the mind. .  We can know it when we see it, but we cannot wrap it up in a perfect memory to draw on when we need it.  It is now.. All the time it is now. We are already there!

This is What We Do..

So this is what we do...

  Although through zazen or meditation it can become obvious that we sabotage ourselves with desiring this thing and that thing, we continue with the sabotage...  

The mind seems to make us forget our centre and when we feel the conflict and begin to suffer to a lesser or greater degree,  there is nothing we want more than to find our centre again. But that is a desire also.  What a neat trap! To observe ourselves getting into this pattern, is to realize the opportunity to end this pattern. But not by doing anything, but by being, whatever there is for us to be. 

In such circumstances, how can you just be? Who can just be?

Cycling With Who? or Playing with Essence? Give it up!

To me today Zen is saying, "for heaven's sake, give it up!"  Be ordinary for from the mundane comes  the profound knowledge that cannot be talked of, but can be transmitted - well so it is said.

I am asking myself,  have I ever transmitted it?

What a pointless question! The question of whether or not I transmitted is past experience.. But experiencing cannot be past at is now! The illusion of past experience is in memory, in the illusory mind!  Did I experience it? What a ridiculous question!

I am reminded of the Zen master, Wu Li saying, "Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water". So ordinary. So every-day!  So simple! So immediately NOW!  And in my zazen the silence... And then the disturbance... "For heavens sake, give it up!"

Practice the art of waiting. Letting go, yet staying alert. No ambition. Just being in harmony with what's going on in the universe out there. Out there?  In here? Nowhere, no place.  Things come and things go.

Rain… snow.. whatever... Just here. And each season has moves on through and out of its cycle - manifest and un-manifest whilst its essence remains.  The universe doesn't interfere with itself as the mind of humankind does.  There is an exchange. The earth gives, the sky gives. No reason. No worry or judgement about too much, too little, too violent, too weak, too strong.  But what of all this?  Indeed, what of all this?

So I aspire to wait in patience. Just allowing things to pass by. Times and seasons I don't like, will also pass, as will seasons I like. Who likes? Exactly!  No answer, just silence. The eternal self is emptiness. So pure.

Seeing into the truth. Working my way through, and not around the compromising mind. Getting past the politics. They are all illusions. I cannot say who I am. Saying, explaining anything operates in time.  So how can I use these words? They are already gone! Please share....

Who gets stuck in time?

Not-hing. Mu. Yu, Shunyata! Pure essence.

Awakening

Getting a higher state of awareness has its advantages AND its disadvantages.

The disadvantages are that I feel things much more deeply as I am getting more in contact with my conditioned mind that doesn't want to be awakened from its stupour!   The problem is that there is no knowing when full awakening will occur. It could be in a moment from now or in a few lifetimes from now.  It comes in its own time, when the practitioner has given up seeking for it. The paradox is that without seeking, it cannot happen, but the very seeking can be a barrier.

The advantages are that through zazen one can have many awakenings that words cannot describe. And then there is a spontaneous development of love and compassion. And understanding that cannot be learned, but is a gift from Self.

Acceptance, Awareness, Making Distinctions

Tension occurs when two forces originating in the mind are pulling  in two different directions. Life-force becomes out of balance.  Sometimes we appear to get relief and the problem disappears.  But a more serious problem could arise if such relief has not come consciously, with awareness - in other words, our tension has merely been suppressed and not resolved, because we have pushed it away.

Zazen is the practice or non-resistance -  the art of taking awareness to a condition and willingly penetrate through deeper and deeper levels to the core.  The art of total acceptance.  

One then develops the ability to make a distinction between imaginary illusions and true intuition,  never forget common sense,  and especially truths that may come up that one does not want to hear!  This way we can learn to know and be responsible for our own truth, our own resolutions. 

Analysis: A Koan, or How to Title This Post...

Unconscious mind. I think I would prefer to call it the super-conscious mind,  because of the inexplicable intelligence that works all around the universe.

The old question, "if a tree falls in the forest and there is nobody there to hear it, does it make a noise?"  A koan perhaps?

I am aware that I need to see that I am part of this. Everybody and everything in existence is part of this universe. Not so much subject to its "laws" but ARE those laws.  Creators…

Everything and everyone are creators whether or not it is realized. It doesn't depend on being mentally recognized or analysed.  I can't see analysis going on in the universe, it doesn't need analysis. But I can see it in my ego-mind. Even right now. I am analysing the non-analysed.. I have only got to write this down to be in a state of analysis. Analysis is the content and the universe is the context. 

The universe HOLDS analysis, but is certainly not dependent on it. Analysis came into being a long time after we came out of the primordial soup. It was created out of our awareness. So it didn't exist before? 

I get that it always existed. Never started and will never end. It was merely unmanifest and then became manifest.

 And the universe works without it.  Of that there is no doubt.  So what exactly is analysis?  Who is the analyser?  You, I in our ego minds? What effect does our analysis have?   Using our awareness we may see that we know already.. We are already are buddhas…

Analysis has no effect other than  to  change things around that already existed, after the fact. Things simply continue to exist in a transformed state.  A hole in the ground that we dig can be potentially filled again. We have not changed the ground, we've just move a bit of it!  Transformed it into concrete, or some piece of pottery or whatever.

And so with a knowing smile or worried mind look, I can carry on analysing. If I am aware of doing it, the mood or state of mind is irrelevant, as an emotional state will always only be a transient state.  A (spiritual) springtime will turn to summer, autumn and then winter as it continues within the cycle of birth and death. 

Contemplation: Time as Illusion.

 I see time and it is an illusion.  So I can observe illusion?  How can illusion exist, if it is illusion? So it is an illusion that I observe illusion too!   I have examined and written about this time thing so much, but I think such enquiry really has to be tautological.  

Approached from different sides of the reality and this promotes closer examination for those as crazy or as sane as me!  I don't know which, but such duality needs to be transcended.  And really these words are inadequate- they can only point to what I am experiencing as I write, and each of us has to see for ourselves.  So I will point on….

How can time exist when now is immediately gone forever?  To be free of this we need to see and experience this reality and be willing to live with uncertainty, because that is the way it is. Uncertainty is a mystery. To know life as anything less than a mystery is not what the "I-consciousness" really wants.  What can we learn from what we know, because what we know is already gone. We have learned. Past. Illusion. 

My zazen (meditation) is the practice of constantly focusing on the here and now and letting it go. It takes many years of daily practice, and it is on-going. In this life, we all have a mind equipped with ego-conditioning after all!  But the more reality can be experienced as the now passing away,  the greater the ability to see reality. Little by little, inch by inch. We watch ourselves grow. Impatience will never get there, because it exists as need. A need to be somewhere other than the now that is immediately gone. 

If we pay attention to what is coming up right now, we can expand from self as individual. Expand from needs and emotions and realize a much higher state of awareness and consciousness outside our dualistic nature of what is I and what is not I.