Essence Revisited

by Darryl Bailey

  Q: So enlightenment can’t save the world.

  DB: Save it from what? Every apparent thing is moving to its essential nature. No aspect of existence is doing it wrong, any more than any raindrop is doing it wrong. Just because it often seems unpleasant doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with it.

  Existence is doing fine; in fact, it’s doing us. Realizing this dissolves the self-righteous arrogance we usually exhibit. No one can take credit or blame for their behaviour. No one can give credit or blame to another.

  Everything has to function in the way it functions. You have to be the body, need, interest, urge, and action that presents itself in this moment, and whatever it appears to be now is already on its way to some other expression.

  It’s a fantasy to think that your personal effort is responsible for what you are. There is no personal effort; nature gives rise to all apparent abilities, interests, and actions. To think there’s a you that deserves the credit or blame is like thinking a flower deserves the credit or blame for the way it looks and behaves.

  You can’t make a mistake in living life, because whatever you appear to think, say, and do is simply the inexplicable dance of existence.

  Q: But we should consider life carefully before making decisions.

  DB: Logical thinkers think so. Intuitives do not.

  Q: Your point is?

  DB: No two expressions are ever the same. We can’t become a copy of someone else.

  As it states in the old children’s story, a swan will feel ugly and out of place if it’s trying to be a duck. It’s also true that a duck will have difficulty in trying to be a swan.

  Spiritual teachings encourage an appreciation of the amazingly unique and wondrous expression that each of us is. We’re not trying to make ducks into swans. There’s nothing wrong with ducks. There’s nothing wrong with anything.

  Q: So, if a poisonous snake tries to bite me, I shouldn’t do anything, because that’s the natural expression of existence and there’s nothing wrong with it.

  DB: That’s not what I said. Even though there’s nothing wrong in their expression, certain snakes, and certain people, are naturally considered to be dangerous, and we respond to danger automatically.

  Nature is automatically expressing all apparent circumstances and all apparent responses to circumstance; it’s one movement. Even if you try to suppress your natural responses, they’ll eventually break through, because we don’t exist as anything apart from that.

  Q: Okay, but after hearing all of this, I’m still puzzled as to how I’m supposed to live life.

  DB: Yes, most of us want someone to tell us how to live, but no one can tell us what we’re supposed to be, or do. Each of us is a unique expression.

  People go to spiritual teachers hoping to find something to make their lives constantly pleasant; they want control. They ask all kinds of questions, but it’s really one basic question, “How can I get enough understanding and control so that I never feel confused, frightened, sad, uncomfortable, and so on?”

  The answer to this is, “You can’t.”

  The great spiritual teachings don’t offer an escape from life’s expressions. They offer the possibility of dispelling certain confusions, but not by gaining control over them; it’s by acknowledging certain facts, such as the fact that every apparent thing is changing.

  By acknowledging the actual happening of the moment, unrealistic ideas and expectations may fade away, along with the misery that accompanies them. The mistaken belief in ideas of form and personal doing may end, along with the confusions, anxieties, and frustrations that belief contains.

  Life has an inherent sense of well-being, a natural richness and fullness. As a child, you didn’t have to try to make yourself happy: life was a magical event, even though it was sometimes difficult and unpleasant. The focus was on the fullness of the event and not strongly attached to ideas of form and control.

  Spiritual teachings are an invitation to once again acknowledge the great, unformed, vibrant event that life actually is, along with its inherent sense of magic and well-being.

  You may appear to explore many teachings, both Eastern and Western, but your particular way of living will be unique. Just like any other expression of nature, you can never match another exactly.

  You don’t need to figure out what to do next; you don’t have to worry about getting it right or wrong. The next priority, the next need, interest, and concern that you are, rises up on its own; it always has. As an apparent four year old, it was what it was; at ten, it was different; as a teenager, it was something else. In this moment, it’s whatever it is, and it’s automatically on its way to some other expression.

  At times, it may seem vague and uncertain, but that’s also the natural expression of existence.

  There’s no particular you to be found: there’s simply the body, need, interest, urge, and action that nature is presenting in this moment and it’s already on its way to something else. Before lunch, it was someone needing lunch; after lunch, it’s different. Before bed, it’s someone needing sleep; in the morning, it’s different.

  Maybe there’s some major issue presenting itself, and the responses to that issue are also presenting themselves. This may dance around in various ways for an apparently long period of time, but it will eventually move on to some radically different expression. There is only this unformed dance.

  In realizing this, there’s a growing trust in being the movement we are, a sense of wonder at the magical appearance of everything, and a sense of richness in the full and vital expression of the moment. There’s also a tremendous sense of rest, because we don’t have to hold ourselves together. Everything we appear to think, say, and do, in any particular moment, is automatically presenting itself.

  As Jiddu Krishnamurti used to say, “Perfection is this movement. We never seem to learn about this, that it is one movement.”

  Q: Are you trying to get everyone to understand this?

  DB: Not at all. Only a certain percentage of the human population will have an interest in this. Others are expressed differently. There’s nothing anyone can do about that, because there isn’t anyone doing anything; there never has been.

  Reflections I

  The perspective presented here is not the only possible view of existence and it’s important only to those who relate to it; it has no importance outside of that.

  The coming together of people around a certain perspective has no more significance, or meaning, than robins gathering with robins and crows with crows. Like clouds gathering in the sky, it’s the inexplicable play of existence doing what it does.

  It’s difficult for most people to consider that someone like Hitler is a perfectly natural expression of existence.

  We accept the fact that sharks and tigers don’t normally attack people, but some do. They’re not the norm, but they are a harsh fact of life. Yet we find it so difficult to acknowledge that human beings are also expressed in this way.

  Saints and sinners are both valid expressions of existence, just as kittens and scorpions are. It’s a misconceived arrogance that condemns one over the other; both must be whatever they are.

  One may appear gentle and passive, while the other is nasty and aggressive; in this they’re different. But each is simply an indefinable expression of existence; in this they’re equal.

  This would be a doctrine of determinism if we existed as something separate from the movement of the universe, something being pushed around by it. But we’re not separate from it; we are this movement.

  This is what’s meant when a tradition speaks of reaching the unconditioned. Life’s mysterious event is not conditioned by anything, because it’s an inexplicable, formless dynamic that is freely expressing itself. Nothing else is evident.

  What is usually believed to be our conditioned personal behaviour is actually the inexplicable wholeness of existence freely expressing itself. Realizing this is what’s meant by “reaching the unconditioned”.


  The ideas offered here may seem strange, but others who have expressed a similar view include Albert Einstein, Simone Weil, Nietzsche, Spinoza, Emerson, Thoreau, Goethe, Hafiz, Schopenhauer, Martin Luther, Teresa of Ávila, Juliana of Norwich, Saint Augustine, Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, Alan Watts, Immanuel Kant, Voltaire, David Bohm, the Zen masters, Sufi masters, Advaita sages, and the enlightened teachers of the Upanishads.

  People want to awaken in order to make their worldly lives easier. What’s revealed is that nothing needs transforming; every apparent thing, in any apparent moment, is already flowing to its true nature.

  Any attempt to conform to some generalized standard of behaviour is suffering. Having general standards for human beings creates conflict with the fact that nature constantly gives rise to unique expressions that will never match another exactly.

  To attempt to deny the unique manifestation you are is to suffer. You must be whatever you are in any apparent moment and, no matter what it appears to be now, it’s unavoidably on its way to some other expression.

  The mental agonies of life are wrapped around the idea that we’re something separate from the movement of existence, a “me” owning and directing the thoughts, feelings, interests, urges, and actions.

  The karmic chain of personal responsibility is based on this concept and carries with it the burden of guilt or the pride of accomplishment. Realizing we’re a movement of the larger happening of existence removes us from the karmic wheel of personal responsibility.

  It’s possible, for those who are interested, to realize we’re a movement of existence itself, the same movement that appears as the stars in the night sky or the migration flights of wild birds.

  We now appear as we do, but we can just as easily appear to be a pinch of dust or a drop of moisture, and we will at some point; we’re a happening without any particular form.

  Spiritual awakening is the opening to what actually is, the mystery of it, appearing to be this or that, always moving, shifting, never being anything in particular.

  Freedom is being this indefinable vitality, without the strain or effort of needing to be more than that. This doesn’t end the pains and difficulties of life; it simply ends the delusion that any of this is being understood or directed.

  The various forms appearing in life can’t be the reality, because all of them are changing; they’re nothing more than false appearances. If we watch a cloud and it takes on the shape of a person, a house, or a mountain, it doesn’t matter what it looks like, we always know it’s a cloud. The appearance of form is not the reality; the unformed cloud is.

  The same is true of everything: bodies, objects, sensations, moods, thoughts, activities, states of mind, relationships, and so on. All apparent things are changing, flowing. They’re the passing appearances of a great, unformed, and inexplicable happening — a giant cloud, an event, a presence — call it whatever you have to.

  In the same way the appearances of a cloud move to its nature, all appearances move to the nature of existence. We mistake this inexplicable, unformed flow as a collection of things and its impersonal dance as a human accomplishment.

  Spiritual awakening can’t build an ideal society, because it’s the realization that nothing we do is autonomous; our apparent personal actions are the impersonal movement of existence. Everything, just as it is in any apparent moment, is the already complete and pure expression of nature.

  Everything we’ve apparently done, are doing now, and will ever do, is a movement of the cosmos. We are that inexplicable happening spontaneously expressing itself.

  To realize this is the freedom the great spiritual teachings point to. It’s not the freedom to make ourselves and the world match some fantasy of perfection.

  There is this odd notion of nature versus nurture, as though the movement of existence is somehow divided into different parts that influence each other. Many of us wonder how much of what we are is our “natural” expression and how much has been conditioned and distorted by bad parenting or societal education.

  We seldom consider that bad parenting, and the workings of society, are also the “natural” expressions of existence. A parent’s abilities, or lack of abilities, are just as much an expression of nature as anything else; the same is true of each and every apparent person and action in society.

  There is no nature versus nurture. Just as the apparently separate forms of an ocean — the tides, currents, bubbles, ripples, and waves — are actually one movement, so is every apparent thing in existence.

  Life isn’t moving in any particular direction. Always here and now, it’s simply without form, never becoming anything other than what it already is: unformed. Ideas of evolution, direction, and progress are fantasies.

  Stories of evolution, direction, and progress apply to the passing appearances of form, but form is a mirage. Any identifiable form, or “thing”, that appears to be existing now, is always changing in some way, and will disappear at some point. There is only inexplicable un-form; it’s not becoming something else.

  Ask three friends to sit around a table with you. Place a cup and a glass on the table. Put the cup closest to you and put the glass on the other side of the cup.

  Now say to your friends that you’re going to tell them the truth of what’s happening on the table, “The cup is in front of the glass.”

  “Wrong,” says the friend across from you. “The glass is in front of the cup.”

  “Wrong ,” says the friend to your right. “The cup is to the left of the glass.”

  “Wrong,” says the friend to your left. “The cup is to the right of the glass.”

  You’re all wrong. Life is a many-sided event that can’t truly be described, because descriptions are always one-sided.

  Added to this is the fact that there is ultimately no form to describe; everything is changing. The essential nature of all things is to remain unformed. Even the sense of existing disappears every night, and then apparently reappears.

  Descriptions of form are ultimately false. The happening of existence can’t be explained in any true way. Realizing this is not another thought: it’s the fading of attachment to thought, the end of belief in description.

  In its illusions of form, existence manifests in unique ways at all times. You can’t find two identical things: no two snowflakes, no two trees, no two leaves, no two beings.

  No two people exhibit the same sensibility. Each may consider the fact that climbing Mount Everest brings a strong possibility of death, and while that frightens one, another finds it exciting and challenging.

  My manifestation can’t be yours. You must manifest in whatever way life manifests you; you’re a unique expression of nature. There’s no place for you to get to other than your particular expression and, in each apparent moment, you’re already that.

  I can only respect and encourage your manifestation. No one can ever say what it actually is and no one can tell you what it should be.

  To say that one person is doing it right and another is doing it wrong, is like saying one snowflake is doing it right, while another is doing it wrong. It makes no sense.

  Taoist Echoes

  Seen from the essential fact of change, all things melt into one seamless flow. An un-form presence, it’s nothing in particular. All appearances are portions of this; they are expressions of its energy, its nature.

  The only effective remedy for suffering is in acknowledging the unformed nature of all things.

  Happiness and sadness come and go regardless of our wishes. We can’t hold to one and avoid the other. Now brave, now fearful, now clear, now confused, now happy, now sad; never tied to one road.

  The way of life is ingrained; it’s not a path to be pointed to; it’s not something from which you can deviate. You don’t consciously digest the food you eat or make the breath arise and pass. You don’t make your blood flow, choose your interests, or create your understandings. Events happen by themselves.

  Reflections II

  We au
tomatically respond correctly to any situation, since we’re capable of responding in only one way, with whatever response nature presents in that moment. There is only what pushes itself to the front in any apparent instant, and all of it is an inexplicable happening.

  This realization is not the liberation that most spiritual practitioners are hoping for. They want a story of enlightened beings, and the story of a world moving to a golden age. They want a special self and a special world, instead of awakening from the dream of self and world.

  You don’t have to learn to let life flow; there is only flow. You don’t exist as anything apart from that.

  Matter appears to become energy; energy appears to become matter; liquid appears to become gas; gas appears to become liquid; heat appears to become coolness; coolness appears to become heat; and so on.

  More precisely, there is no thing called matter becoming some other thing called energy, any more than there’s some thing called spring becoming some other thing called summer. These are merely the passing appearances of a pulsing, surging un-form.

  It’s like a cloud: one moment it looks like a person and, in another, it looks like a house. The cloud simply changes appearance, never becoming anything more than a cloud. All of existence is this same movement, appearing to be various things, but never being anything more than a happening without form.

  What’s here is here, but what it appears to be is not what it is. The appearances are constantly altering. This includes all that you appear to be and all that you appear to think, say, and do.

  Realizing this is not about attaching to another viewpoint; it’s about acknowledging a vital, formless dance. The narrow focus on thinking is shifted to the fuller happening of the moment: the totally mysterious, sounding, silencing, lightening, darkening, warming, cooling, pulsing, tingling, trembling event that this moment is.