by Greg Goode
Free, light, weightless, uncrowded, unburdened, sweet and peacefully present.
Like really connected...
Ah! No, I don’t mean like Dustin Hoffman tried to illustrate with his white towel in I Heart Huckabees – “Everything’s connected!” It’s closer than that, much closer. There’s neither a feeling of connection or disconnection with the chair and pencil. It’s all present, here, now. There’s not an impression of the pencil as something on the other side of some spatial relation.
No spatial relations. How is that possible in the physical world? I hear you ride a bike. How do you explain that?
In fact, I ride a bike with no gears and no brakes. It’s called a track bike. The lightness I’m speaking of actually makes the track bike easier to ride than it would have been, even on city streets. By the way, there are many others who ride the same kind of brakeless bikes. I’ve spoken with many of them over the years. Even though they have no interest in these spiritual kinds of inquiries, they often report the same lightness, the sense that everything is hooked in together with you the rider. Everything moves and flows together in a way that is light and free and connected.
This just doesn’t make sense to me. How light is it if you get hit by a bus!?
The same! I’ve had accidents, I’ve been hit by cars, other cyclists and skaters. I’ve crashed and had bleeding injuries. I’ve had sprains, damage to the ligaments, and was once not able to ride for 6 months. This is all lightness itself, having zero weight and zero external existence, just like ideas. Injury, damage to the body, pain – they’re all lightness.
So it’s all in the mind then?
No, because without an outside, how can there be an inside? It’s more that there’s no border.
How can someone come to experience this?
By coming to see that all experience is whole as it is, and not disconnected from you. Experience doesn’t indicate objects outside of experience, so there’s no gap. One key to this is not to associate unpleasantness or pain with disconnection. Allow these to be as they are without making symbols or metaphors out of them.
Personal Identity
How does all this talk about physical objects relate to self-inquiry? After all, I don’t think I am a physical object. I also know I am not this coffee cup in front of me. But you’ve spoken of not seeing objects, and I want to experience what you experience.
I experience no edges or borders or limits. I cannot experience a difference between “me” and “you.” Your inquiry will confirm this as “your” experience as well. It is not personal, but global, unlimited. It is already that. That is, inquiry will reveal the lack of difference between a “you” and an “other.” Ironically, the desire to attain this as a personal experience is as close to separation as you’ll ever get – and even then it is not truly separate. The desire to experience what another experiences is based on unsubstantiated beliefs, all of which lead to suffering. Wanting to experience what we project “an enlightened person” experiences is the very feeling of suffering; it’s not the path to the ending of suffering.
How so?
When this desire arises, do you feel more together, or more separate?
Definitely more separate, but wanting to be together.
OK, let’s look into it. You say you don’t think you are a physical object. Yet you’d like to experience what I experience. This is because you haven’t fully let go of the idea that you are a physical object. You see us as two separate places where experience happens. But if there are no physical objects, then how can there be separate experiencers? You see, there’s no way to make this distinction between experiencers without distinguishing them by physical characteristics.
This distinction between experiencers depends on a sense that experiencing is rooted, centered and located. And how can you localize something without treating it as a physical object? Other than the concepts of shape, boundary, extension, left/right, here/there, how can one center be marked off from another? You might not have the explicit belief that you are a physical object like a body, but in a subtle way you are still granting independent existence to physical objects.
I’m not aware of treating experiencers as physical objects. Can you explain a bit more?
You say that you would like to experience what I experience, correct?
Yes...
But you see, any characteristic you come up with that seems to distinguish one “center of experience” from another will be a physical characteristic. Here/there, right/left, this side of the room/that side of the room. Any dividing line is based on physical properties such as line, extension, shape, contiguity to other shapes.
Yet any shape or line is merely the interface between two colors, which are nothing more than ideas. This is the same for any characteristic. Shapes are nothing other than ideas. Not just visually but even felt shapes like the shape of an arm or coffee cup are ideas. The shape is not apart from the feeling of the shape, and the feeling is not apart from awareness of the feeling. It’s all awareness, all the time. This is how there are no separate physical objects. So how can there be separate experiencers?
So I can’t be in your shoes, right?
You aren’t in any shoes, even now. The shoes are in you, which is awareness.
The desire to have the same thing someone else seems to have makes people think they’re missing something. They’d like to have the same kinds of experiences that they believe an “enlightened one” has. And yet enlightenment is the very lack of separateness in the first place. It’s across the board. As they would say in Zen, it’s just as much in the North as it is in the South. So it cannot be bottled up in one person, leaving the other person without. It can’t be owned.
This is wonderfully inspiring! At first it makes me feel peaceful, as though nothing truly is lacking. But then I think, how can I better understand this? I don’t really want to think of you and me as really persons, but I still don’t think I have the same experiences you do.
Is it like you are thinking of us in a kind of abstract way as different centers of experience, but not really located anywhere?
Yes, that’s it!
And in some way, you are there and I am here?
Yeah, something like that...
You asked how to understand this. It’s not a matter of taking up a new theory, but seeing your present theory as a story taken literally, taken to the bank. Being invested in that story makes you think you are separate and walled off. Without this structure in the mix, there would be no presumption or experience of separation.
What is that structure you’re talking about?
It’s the structure underlying the notion of separate centers of experience. We can dismantle the structure by looking at the very notion of “center.”
I never thought of that. How would you do it?
OK, let’s look into just what you think this center is.
OK...
How are you thinking of a center? What divides one from another? Does it seem like there’s a “here” and a “there”?
In a kind of soft way, yes. Like your center is over there, mine is closer to here.
But if there is no body, how are you finding the “here”?
What do you mean?
Can something be to the left of an idea? In front of an idea?
Aaah, no!
So if you have deconstructed your body in that you see it as nothing other than ideas, then how can ideas be close to other ideas or far from them? How can there be ideas over here or over there? How can ideas surround a center? Can you make any sense of that?
Not when you put it in those terms...
Can you put it another way? Can you give sense to the idea of a center without treating it like something related to a physical object?
No, not right now...
So can you see that apart from taking these physicalistic words literally, there is simply no way to conceive of separate centers of experience? Hence the supposed difference between “you
” and “me” dissolves.
This is why it is so important to deconstruct the experience of physical objects as objective things, independent of awareness. Our notions of differentiation tend to be based on physical characteristics, such as position or location. Let me ask – to you right now, what is the difference between you and me?
You’re sitting over there, and I’m right here.
And this couldn’t make any sense unless you thought of yourself, as well as me, as bodies with awareness inside them. The great Advaitin Krishna Menon said that “what we take ourselves to be is what we seem to see.” If you take yourself to be a body, then the world seems to be made up of physical objects. If you take yourself to be a mind, then the world seems to be made of subtle essences including minds. And if you take yourself to be awareness, then the world is experienced as nothing but awareness.
But I know I’m not the body – the body changes over time, and I know that I am what watches it, and that I have remained unchanged.
Yet you feel like you are “inside” the body?
Yes – I can see things only from this angle. If I were not inside this body, I would be able to travel anywhere, and see anything from any angle.
Do you feel like you are in any specific location inside the body?
Hmm, let me see...
Do you feel that you are above the waist or below the waist?
Above, definitely.
OK, do you feel you are above the neck or below the neck?
Above the neck.
OK, above the nose or below?
Above.
Can you narrow it down any more?
I feel like I am behind the eyes.
How big are you? What shape?
Oh, about an inch wide, maybe round.
Behind the forehead? On the left, right, or in the center?
I feel like I’m in the center behind the eyes.
How far back from the eyes?
Oh, about an inch.
OK, we’ve found you!! A marble-sized ball about an inch behind the center of the forehead!
I guess so (smiling)...
Now – what is it that this marble appears to?
What?
Well, as we talk about this, does the little marble seem to appear as an image?
Yes it does!
So if this image is appearing, what is it appearing to? That is, it doesn’t seem like the marble is doing the seeing – it seems like the marble is being seen.
Yeah, I understand. The little marble isn’t the seer – it is being seen. I guess it’s just an idea I have of myself.
Yes, based on a few habitual things, such as the prominence of the visual sense over hearing, taste and smell. Also based on the association that arises over time between thinking of one’s self and the subtle muscular contractions in the forehead region. It makes us think that this is where we are.
But now, think of the marble image, and that which is aware of the marble image. If you had to place your true self on one side or the other, would you be on the side that is seeing? Or the side that is being seen?
The seeing side, definitely. I feel that I’m looking at this marble. So how can I be over there inside the marble?
OK, the seeing of the marble – think about this seeing. As the seeing arises, does the seeing have a location?
No, it isn’t experienced as being in a location. I can say it must be in the brain, but that’s just an idea. The experience itself doesn’t have any location at all. Aha!
That’s it! Nothing else has a location either. And that awareness in which these arise is your Self. It is the non-separate Self of all.
And in the midst of this realization, there’s no desire to experience anything else. It doesn’t make sense that experience is anyplace or happening inside anyone.
Wanting an Enlightenment Experience
I read about the life-changing enlightenment events that people write about – and I haven’t had one. Does this mean I’m not “done” yet?
What is it that you’d like to be “done” with? Do you want what you’re calling an enlightenment event because it might feel good, or to confirm something?
Suffering. I don’t want to suffer any more.
How do you visualize this non-suffering?
Like not having any problems anymore.
Life without death? Health without disease? They contain each other. You can’t hold a one-ended stick. The famous stories we read are not about life without birth, illness, death, or unpleasantness. How can there be life without its ups and downs? Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Ramakrishna, Suzuki Roshi were all struck with cancer. Many teachers and expositors of profound nondual teachings have had family problems, financial problems, health problems, emotional problems.
OK, then what are they talking about? Nisargadatta had cancer, but he’s also famous for saying, “In my world, nothing goes wrong.” It makes me want the same thing.
Good point! Depends upon where you, the interpreter, place the “I.” If you place the “I” at Nisargadatta, then there was a body, with cancer and pain. If Nisargadatta (or any person) is the center of that world, then there is a lot wrong in it. But if you place the “I” at That which witnesses what occurs, then there is nothing wrong. Nothing happening at all. And nothing missing. It isn’t personal. This “I” is the being of Nisargadatta, you, me, all else. This is where the “I” has always been. It is pure and untouched, and always available.
Is there any way I can really see or know this “I”?
You can’t see it – it sees you. Awareness sees you. It is happening now, and has always been the case. Just like you see your arm, Awareness sees the body/mind you take as yourself. Just like your own seeming passage from waking to deep sleep and back to waking. In deep sleep, there is no evidence that the world or the body is present. That is, the body can’t be said to be there. Yet there’s no sense that “you” are ever missing. Your true “I” does not depend on phenomenal activity to be present. Actually, your true I is not really “present” as in the opposite of “absent.” Rather, it is Presence itself.
But some people seem to know this, and others don’t.
There’s no need for this to be known by a person. There is actually no possibility that this can be comprehended or held by a person. Personal grokking is just another coming-and-going experience, like a mood or a runny nose.
I think I understand that, but it doesn’t make the desire to know go away...
Yes, this inquiry is about knowing. It’s not about feeling or possessing. It’s not about having only certain feelings or desires and not others. If you seek this intimate knowledge, then do what so many others have done – inquire deeply into the supposed makeup of a person. Inquire into the makeup of life, death, into that which you consider to be yourself. Inquire into that which would supposedly benefit by “knowing.” Be as intensely motivated to look into these matters as you would be to gasp for air after being held under water. Look everywhere. Don’t stop if it gets rough. The search is sweet, but it is not always comfortable or reassuring to the assembly labeled as the person. Be unafraid of what might come up.
And then what?
If this is truly what you want, then you will find it. Two ironies. One, when it “happens,” you’ll see that it really didn’t happen. Two, during this inquiry, you weren’t looking for “enlightenment”!
I hear what you are saying, but I must admit, I really do feel like I would like to have the same kind of experience I read about others having.
I understand this. Many people feel this way – even those who have been asked to teach by their teachers. One teacher asked my advice on this. He really wanted to have this kind of transcendent mountaintop experience, but he never did. The best he was able to come up with was this – he looked at the history of his seeking. He counted up the peak experiences he had, and they came to about 12 or 13. He wondered, if he added those together, could they equal one large experience? He had intern
alized a notion that to be a well-known teacher you had to have a dramatic enlightenment story in your toolbox.
Funny, he wasn’t interested at all in Buddhism. If he had been, he would have felt better to hear about Shunryu Suzuki, one of the most famous Zen teachers in the English-speaking world. Huston Smith, the famous religious studies scholar, once asked Shunryu Suzuki why satori (i.e., enlightenment experience) didn’t figure in Suzuki’s famous book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. Suzuki’s wife replied with a smile, “It’s because he hasn’t had it.”
These experiences sometimes called “enlightenment events” are ironic. They never come when you look for them. If they do come, they come while you are looking in another direction entirely. They usually disappear before you get the chance to talk about them! They never last. And nothing is made true or authentic by these experiences. And looking for these experiences actually serves to push them away.
Looking for enlightenment itself is like looking for the golden egg. Instead, look for the goose.
In this case, what is the goose?
The truth of yourself. Once you find it, you won’t think of enlightenment in the same way. It won’t seem like a special power, a state of being, or a set of qualities.
Seeking special effects will inevitably sidetrack you. The various nondual teachings all agree that these experiences are beside the point. You can have blisses and buzzes without understanding, and vice versa.
Identifying “enlightenment” with a feeling or experience coopts the notion into serving a personal agenda. The same for “being done.” But in any of the great descriptions of enlightenment, your freedom is never a personal or political freedom. It’s not about being a person free of needs. A person needs air and nutrition and love.
You can see these things poetically, metaphorically. You can see these everyday needs as clues to your nature, as met by your nature as awareness. You are not a person, but the awareness in which the person arises. Awareness doesn’t feel these needs because it is not a person. An organism has a need for air, but awareness doesn’t have this need – you as awareness are like air itself, totally clear and uninterrupted, without borders. An organism has a need for nutrition, but awareness doesn’t have this need – you as awareness are the sustenance of all that appears. A person has the need for love, but awareness doesn’t have this need – you as awareness are like love itself, totally open and generous, never saying “no” to anything that arises. There is no requirement to “possess” this in any way. The person is actually “possessed” by this openness, this sustenance and this generosity. No experience proves or establishes this. No experience can overturn it.