The only thing that we need to remember is, “I don’t know.” Nobody knows. I am here sitting in a chair like someone who knows, but I don’t know. It just happens, I don’t know how. Every time it happens, I am amazed.
This afternoon, I thought that I didn’t know that which is unknowable, and then I realized that this can’t be true, it’s just words.
For people who don’t understand, that has no meaning, but for those who do, it has all the meaning in the world. Parmenides said, “Being is and non-being is not.” To the philosopher interested in logical statements, it is a tautology. A good satsang is one of which you remember nothing. In fact, nothing is said. Satsang is silence. Nothing remains, but you feel good. Its essence is lightness, love, or beauty. That is all. It cannot be spoken of.
It seems that the only thing we can do is polish the mirror. Is this done by not knowing?
Instead of trying to maintain an attitude of not knowing, it would be simpler to understand that we cannot know anything. Then we don’t have to maintain any attitude. That is a fact of life. We don’t know that which knows everything. So how, therefore, can we truly know any of the things that it is supposed to know? We cannot. So we know nothing. We are that which knows but which is itself unknowable. To know that which knows is not knowledge of an object. Our true identity is that which we are. It could be said that the unknowing of objects is a prerequisite for the knowing of our true nature.
There is a story of the fifth patriarch of Zen, who said that he would transmit the bowl and the robe, the sign of office of patriarch, to whoever could write the best poem about the truth. He had a very good disciple who wrote a poem on the wall, and nobody dared write another after him because he was obviously the best. In his poem he said that the soul is like a mirror and we should keep polishing it to make sure that not the slightest speck of dust damages the surface. The patriarch approved it and said it was a nice poem that reflected the deep meaning of Zen.
There was another monk working in the kitchen who wrote an answer saying that the essence of the Self is pure, so there was no danger of any speck of dust staining it. This mirror, he said, was of a different nature than the dust, so why bother cleaning it? When the patriarch saw this reply, he knew that it was the real thing, the direct path. That is how the sixth patriarch of Zen came to be. So no polishing, but if you want to polish, that’s fine!
It seems that the job of the mind is to know and yet it cannot.
All the mind has to do is to get out of the way. The mind gets out of the way when we understand that it cannot secure happiness, no matter what it does. We have to see clearly that the happiness that follows the acquisition of a desired object is derived from the fact that, for a brief moment, we are desireless and therefore happy. When we understand that our happiness comes from this desirelessness and not from objects, the mind naturally comes to a rest.
Once it has been fully understood that the mind cannot be the architect of its own happiness, why does it continue to produce desires for objects?
The problem is with the dissatisfaction that prompts us to look for happiness in objective experience in the first place and which keeps returning, again and again, in spite of the happiness we experience on fulfillment of a desire. We have to see that this process will continue as long as we neglect our feelings and bodily sensations and concentrate our inquiry and meditation in the mind only. When feelings become too intense or unpleasant, we usually generate thoughts as a distraction from the unpleasantness, and we escape into thinking. The mind in this way acts as a sort of screen, producing desires and their subsequent activity in order to avoid these uncomfortable feelings. However, they are unpleasant only as long as we don’t face them. The moment we face them they become harmless. When they are neutralized in this way, there is no longer any need for us to generate thoughts in order to distract ourselves from them. Therefore, both the mind and the body have to be free of the tensions that create this dissatisfaction and its subsequent train of desires and, in that moment, we have the opportunity of seeing that we are already happiness itself.
Thoughts manifest through language and enable us to conceptualize, and these concepts in turn either lead to freedom or depression.
Thoughts are usually preceded by an image before being formulated in words. The thought itself is a formulation of this image. However, there are also thoughts that arise out of thin air. These are inspired thoughts, like poetic insight, which come in a flash, and we subsequently find the words to fit the thought. There are other thoughts that come from the past, from memory, from recurrent thinking, whose origin is the I-thought. That is captive thinking, dependent on the past. The thinking that is fresh and comes in the now is free thinking. Captive thinking binds us. Free thinking liberates us.
We don’t have to remember in order simply to be, and yet there is a flavor of remembering in this being. Is this some higher memory?
We could call it remembrance. The difference between memory and remembrance is that memory refers to objects, whereas remembrance refers to the subject. Memory refers to the past, whereas remembrance refers to the timeless. When we are free from the past, there is inspiration. We fall from grace when we bring in the ego. It is like a balance artist dancing on a cable, perfectly at ease until he remembers the abyss.
If one could stay in “not knowing” without reaching out for the next branch to cling to, there would be complete insecurity, which at the same time is security.
Yes. That is what satsang is about. It is not about exchanging concepts but about dancing on the cable. Once we are on the cable there is no disciple or teacher; there is only dancing. All the watching bystanders are also dancing with us. Satsang is an art form: how to dance spontaneously with inspiration.
It is a relief not to have to live up to external expectations. With that comes spontaneity and humor.
Sometimes humor and at other times something else. Sometimes it is sweetness or relaxation. It doesn’t have to be one way or the other. It can change dramatically from one moment to the next.
Something that prevents spontaneous questioning in satsang is the ego saying, “I already know the answer.”
That is not necessarily the ego because it might well be true. The way to find out is to ask yourself whether your own answer puts an end to your question. If it does, it was the right answer. It is good to be autonomous and get the answer that way. In fact, when you receive the answer in this way, it comes from exactly the same place as an answer that comes from the teacher. Truth is not the possession of the teacher, so whether the answer comes to you directly or whether it comes via the so-called teacher, it always comes from the same place, from consciousness.
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I find that I try to get away from the quietness in meditation. I get bored and don’t know how to welcome it. There is no juice there.
Be interested in your boredom. There is no juice because you are expecting something and you are not interested in understanding. You want juice but you do not want to learn where the grapes are and how to press them. We understand boredom by being interested in boredom. We cannot understand something in which we have no interest and from which we are trying to escape. See how boredom triggers thoughts. If we want the mind to be quiet and undisturbed, we first have to face boredom. If we stop facing the feeling of boredom, we escape from it into thinking, and this subsequent mental agitation then triggers all sorts of activities with which we become involved. When we face the boredom, no matter how unpleasant it is, without labeling or judging, the mind and the body become quiet and, as a result, we do not get involved in useless activities. Then we can see it for what it is, a cluster of bodily sensations, an aversion. It is very deeply rooted in us and is not going to dissolve in one minute. However, every time we welcome it, the boredom loses something of its unpleasantness. We find ourselves identifying with it less and less and, as we do so, it begins to lose its capacity to distract us from the source. It becomes clear that this very boredom ha
s been one of the main motivating forces in our life.
Is it boredom that compels me to seek the truth?
Boredom is an invitation from God. It is a great opportunity. If we want to get rid of boredom, we are declining the invitation and trying to replace it with an offer of our own making. Boredom comes from the feeling that whatever is current, whatever is or is not happening at this moment is not interesting, and so we look for a distraction, for entertainment.
I know that there is no real juice in objects, but there is still the desire for juice.
Yes, but you are still subtly looking for a happy state. As long as you are looking for a happy state and not for truth, there will be a conflict. See clearly the mechanisms of escaping from the present moment and how we project the possibility of happiness into some future situation. We should go right to the source of this boredom. The boredom is not an end in itself. It is a feeling, an aversion, an imaginary wall felt in the body. It is made of localizations in the body. It is no big deal. It is just a localization. It is not painful, merely unpleasant. You want to get away from it, which means that you are not yet welcoming it. My suggestion is to fully welcome it until it is no longer a concern, until it is neutral, just a sensation. Make a deep acquaintance with it. This will take more than just one minute and will perhaps lead elsewhere, to other, subtler feelings. However, the moment we have the slightest intention to get rid of it by welcoming it, we are no longer welcoming it. Welcoming is not simply welcoming the boredom, it is welcoming the totality of the situation. Boredom is only one tree in the landscape. Don’t focus on it; be open to everything else. At some point the boredom will recede into the background and something else will come to the foreground. On the other hand, the desire to get rid of boredom actually maintains it in the foreground as a problem and the more we focus on a problem, the more we perpetuate it.
Boredom is an object and like all objects, it comes and goes. Welcome the totality of the situation. Give your boredom room to expand, to unfold, but without any volition in relationship to it. Be open to the totality of the situation of which boredom is only a part.
Somewhere in you, there is a refusal of the present moment, an expectation that something different should be happening. See that what we truly want to happen is in fact happening all the time, but we expect happiness to be delivered via an object. We expect this happiness on a silver plate. It is not going to work; it has never worked through an object. We have to surrender the belief that happiness is dependent on or conditioned by objects.
It seems that we have to accept this emptiness and nothingness.
It is not emptiness. You are just creating this feeling. It is your own creation. It is your own violence. In fact, there is no emptiness in the situation. It is just perfect the way it is. There is nothing wrong in the situation. Right this moment, what is wrong? If there is no juice, it means that you are not welcoming the totality of the situation; you are still doing something with a purpose. For example, if you meditate with a purpose, you might as well forget it. That is not meditation. It is end-gaining, striving. Just be simple. You don’t have to stay with your boredom once you have welcomed it completely. If you see that the situation truly has no juice, then allow it to move on. Be completely open. Do not focus on a dark state. Don’t escape boredom, but don’t focus on it either.
Don’t maintain it. If you find that you are expecting it to leave, just face it, look at it from two or three angles. Then, if it has nothing to teach you, let it go and let the situation move on to something else.
Know that your happiness is not in the next situation, in the next object, but that the next situation or object is simply a celebration of this happiness that we already are. Stick to happiness throughout all situations. Don’t stick to the situations.
We all know happiness. Follow it as it flows. The object is not the happiness, so we have to be ready to flow from moment to moment. It is only when the object vanishes that we experience happiness. The so-called happiness-bearing object delivers only when it vanishes. When it vanishes, we find ourselves as this happiness itself, as peace and bliss. If we follow our bliss from situation to situation, we will see that we stick to ourselves. Bliss is what we all know as happiness.
When I attempt to welcome feelings, they seem to increase and welcoming becomes impossible.
We should understand that welcoming doesn’t apply to a specific object or feeling. We welcome the totality of the situation, whatever the situation is. If we only welcome an object, we prevent this object from evolving or from leaving, because we become attached to a given shape or flavor. If we welcome the totality of the situation, the objects themselves can undergo all kinds of transformation. We should be present to the totality of whatever arises in consciousness, instead of focusing on something that we want to get rid of. Then, we will become aware of the feeling of unhappiness, and the dislike of the feeling, and perhaps a bird singing in the distance and all kinds of things. Let all that evolve by itself. Don’t try to put your hands on it. If you focus on one single thing, you are still trying to manipulate it. There is the story of a sadhu who heard that everything was God. As he was walking down the street, a mad elephant came charging towards him. The mahout on top of the elephant cried, “Get out of the way!” The sadhu thought that as both he and the elephant were God, he would not be harmed. He ended up in hospital and when he complained to his guru, he was reminded that the mahout was also God and that God had told him to get out of the way! The sadhu had been focusing on the elephant instead of on the totality of the situation.
It seems difficult in some situations.
We focus on an object because we think that we can do something about the situation. The moment we understand that there is nothing that we, as a person, can do about any situation because we are not a doer, we let the situation evolve by itself. It is a kind of off-hand approach to the situation, a stepping back. If we focus on an object in any situation, our natural tendency is to focus on the problematic aspect, which means to focus on our misery. This only makes us more miserable, it maintains the misery. We don’t know what the totality is. We don’t know how it is going to evolve. Therefore, we become interested in the situation, but without an agenda.
Do we have control over our focus of attention?
As a person, no. If we deeply understand this and remember it in any given moment, when we catch ourselves red-handed trying to manipulate a situation, we can immediately let go of the desire to manipulate. Then something happens. The situation becomes free to evolve in an organic way. We should have a basic interest in life, a feeling that life is good, that life is perfection. That is all that is needed: trust. Trust in the divine. “Be still and know that I am God.” Just be quiet, don’t worry, and see what happens. Give God a chance.
Could you speak of my will and thy will? How do I make a decision?
“My will” creates the mess. “Thy will” cleans it up. When you have a decision to make, it is good to try to make it from that place of stillness. Come to stillness and wait for an answer that feels good. That is all there is. It is your goodwill that matters. It is not making the right decision that matters. A good decision is one that flows out of this goodwill, which is trying to let the infinite decide. Then, it is going to be magical. Even if your decision is apparently a mistake, some miracle will intervene to fix the mistake and go beyond any expectations. Whereas if the decision comes from the person and is apparently correct, whatever has been won will be lost. It is all a game.
The preoccupation with winning or losing does not seem to be a game. When does the lightness come in?
When you are open to the idea that it is a game.
How can we keep these days of treasure together in our hearts and retain or recall the perfume of this experience knowingly?
One should forget. Don’t try to recall or retain. In this way, everything that can be forgotten is forgotten, and what remains is the perfume that can never be forgotten. Don’t worry. T
he perfume will never forget you. All things are knowingly or unknowingly longing for the source from which they emanate, are longing for the experience of awareness. That is how the entire cosmos is set in motion, through this longing. It is the longing of the earth for the sun that makes it rotate around the sun. See the beauty of your longing, because the sun is already in the longing for the sun.
Just tune into this silence, into this presence which is you, which is us. Surrender everything that is perceived, especially your body. Leave it there, floating in emptiness, floating in your infinity, desiring nothing, having nothing, knowing nothing, being nothing.
Take a bath in this light. Turn your heart towards this resonance. Don’t ask how, just do it. Do it again and again. Every time it seems you have lost it just do it again, until it becomes as natural as a young child looking back to see if his mother is still present watching him. This is a very simple gesture, going back to that which you love the most. From this place there is truly nothing to do.
Simply remain in waiting without waiting. You are the love in everything you love. You are the beauty in everything you behold. You are the intelligence in everything you understand. You are the sweetness in all things.
Just seek yourself as this sweetness. Stay focused on the sweetness and don’t be attached to things. Things are the shell. The sweetness is the pearl.
The Perfume of Silence Page 23