Already Perfect, Always Broken

Everything is perfectly so. Everything has a resonant self-generated precision. The pain of loss embodies the same gesture as the joy of intimacy.

There is continual maintenance, the continual tying of loose ends, and the consummation of a given task is temporary. Yet in this endless incompleteness, this chronically unfinished job, there is a perfect completeness going on and on.

Freedom is not a good feeling. Freedom is placing one's cheek against the cold concrete of a world that isn't here to please you, without compensation or self pity.
Then, in genuine humility, something gives-way within you. The reactive wall behind awareness falls away leaving awareness bright, clear and tensionless. Everything exists on its own terms and is no longer warped by ownership. There is play. This play is freedom.

Understanding Not-Self (Anatta)

The experiential truth that is pointed to with Buddhist teachings cannot identified with as "I" or"Me". This is not to say that the nature of this truth is "there is no Self", only that it cannot be reduced to either a Self or the absence of a Self.

However, because we are starting out with the assumption of a Self, Anatta is employed as an antidote to this view attachment. Once Anatta has dissolved this attachment, Anatta itself dissolves.

The assumption of Self usually falls into two categories, Eternalism and Nihilism. Eternalism is Spiritualistic. It is the identification of Self with the formless quiescent equilibrium at the subjective pole of awareness. Nihilism is Materialistic. It is the identification of self with the impermanent forms and disequilibrium at the objective pole of awareness.

A fear of nihilism, along with the need for an ontological absolute, leads many people to demure on the true meaning of Anatta, and it is frequently presented as a negation of the Ego that affirms an Eternal Self. In other words Buddhism is presented as an Eternalistic philosophy who's goal is "I Am" by another name. The "Emptiness" at the subjective pole is reified as Self or Spirit, and the Buddha's refusal to affirm an ontological absolute is interpreted as a sly affirmation of an ontological absolute.

To clarify, Dhamma practice does not reveal an Eternal Self or Witness at the subjective pole of awareness. Instead, awareness is realised as a single occasion of active extensivity and passive receptivity. These positive and negative poles co-arise. Neither pole is primary to the other. Neither pole causes the other. This co-arising cannot be reduced to a prior causal ground. This co-arising has no witness.

The non-existence of non-existence

Discerning the space between two objects is not the discernment non-existence, since there is no less a positive impact on the eye. Whether it is a background of other objects or the blackness of space, the gaps between objects are part of a single positive of visual field.

Discerning the relative absence of a particular object such as a lost wallet is not a knowing of non-existence, because an absence is a positive memory phenomena, a thought.

There is no such thing as a negative non-phenomena called nothingness or non-being. There are only positive phenomena with an assigned negative value called "nothingness" or "non-being". No one has ever known "nothingness", yet everyone will mistakenly attest to it. This is a crucial point to grasp in one's contemplative practice. Self view has many degrees of subtlety. It can be crude, or it can involve identification with highly attenuated "spiritual"conditions. Once these most subtle conditions have been made known, Self view will take refuge in an image of non-existence.

There is only existence.

Existence is a relative term, and to say that there is no such thing as non-existence means that there is no such thing as existence either. This is why the Tathagata cannot be reduced to either category. However there is value in poetry, and poetically speaking one can say that there is only existence. Existence having the characteristics of Anicca, Dukkha, Anatta.

Equilibrium and Disequilibrium

When the axis of "I" is traced back to its source, quiescent equilibrium and infinite extension are found . Then there is a turning around, and quiescent equilibrium is filled with the disequilibrium of bodymind and world. Stillness and movement are now one. The ends disappear, the middle remains, and everything resolves in nameless experiencing.

Emptiness and Form (part1)

There is a can of blue oil paint sitting on my work bench. I pick the can up and pour its contents into another container. Now all that remains inside is empty space, and filling that space the air which has replaced the paint. The inside surface of the can is stained blue but the space at the centre is not. The air that is now in that space meets no trace of paint. Next I pour the paint back into the can. The air, which has an attenuated mass, is displaced by the denser mass of the paint, but the empty space is not displaced. That space remains, except now it is once again full with paint. The space inside the can is negative. The paint and the air are positive. The negative space was first full with paint, then full with air, and now is full with paint again. The negative space and the positive paint have the same location, and are the negative and positive poles of that location. As with all polarities they co-arise. There is no such thing as positive form without negative space, and there is no such things as negative space without positive form.

It is easy to see how positive form cannot exist without negative space . A positive cannot occupy another positive, a rock cannot occupy wood. A positive will displace a positive, such as when the paint displaced the air, but it can only occupy negative space.

It is not easy to see how negative space cannot exist without positive form . This is because we see the paint can as an empty stage being occupied by successive objects. The same negative space appears to persist.

A spatial medium is not negative space, no matter how attenuated. It is a positive substance that fills negative space, and like all positives it will have a certain plastic memory. A more subtle notion that is commonly held is the idea of space as a persisting nothingness. For instance when we think of the “big bang” we automatically imagine the cosmos expanding within a pre-existing nothingness, but nothingness, absence, void, and emptiness, are all relative terms. When we make reference to “nothing”, we are referencing the absence of something, and that absence does not constitute an entity, let alone a solitary persisting one. Absence is a psychological phenomena. Two hundred years ago there was a farm on the spot where I am writing this. Does the absence of that farm persist? Would someone who does not know about this farm see its absence?

Returning to the example of the paint can. The negative space occupied by the paint seems to be the same negative space occupied by the air, but it is not. Each negative space co-arises with each form, and is not other than that form. Space is the negative side of forms extension, and form is the positive side of spatial reception. They are not two entities, they are two sides of one coin. All phenomena consist of this positive extensive and negative receptive polarity.
This unity of space and form can be difficult to see, but correcting the perception of a single, persisting nothingness has powerful implications. Our sense of being a perceiving subject who stands apart from what we see, hear and touch, is then open for review.

When describing the objects we see in the world around us, the terms emptiness and form are quite effective, but when we are speaking of the form and emptiness of ourselves, our bodies and minds, then the effective terms are subject and object, or more accurately, the subjective and objective poles of awareness. The subjective and objective poles of awareness are the experiential correlate of emptiness and form.......

Emptiness and Form (part2)

The Emptiness/Form of my own body and mind is experienced as the subjective and objective poles of awareness. The objective pole of my awareness consists of both the external world and the sensations of my interior dimension. These interior sensations are the subtle extensions in negative space of physiological processes. For instance, the thoughts occurring as I write this are the interior dimension of neural activity in my brain. Conversely the neural activity of my brain is the exterior dimension of these thoughts. One must be careful here not to fall into either Positivism or Idealism, because neither the exterior dimension nor the interior dimension is primary to the other. They are two sides of one coin, with the Interior/subjective side being negative space, and the exterior/objective side being positive form. The experience of a thought is the extension in negative space of positive neural activity.

This negative receptive space is indicated with the word “I”. Usually when we say “I” we think we are pointing at a core subjective entity. But when we investigate we discover that everything we considered to be the subject of awareness turns out to be a positive interior extension of an exterior object. The word I points along with these extensions toward the subjective pole, but it does not point to another object, no matter how attenuated.

It is here that the notion of a persisting nothingness can come into play again. Just as we assume an entity called nothingness when we look at the empty can of paint, we project onto the subjective pole concepts of nothingness that can be either nihilistic, “I am Not” or eternalistic, “I Am”. It is common among contemplatives who have clarified the subjective pole of gross objects to miss subtle attenuated sensations of infinite extension and quiescent equilibrium, and project these subtle conditions onto the subjective pole along with eternalistic concepts of nothingness. "I" however doesn't point to a positive or a negative subject. It indicates the negative/receptive side of a single occasion that includes both poles equally, and has no witness.

Freedom

When I was a child, freedom meant doing what I felt like doing.

If the wind happened to blow in the direction I walked, I called it providence.

But life meets every pretension with humiliation, and suffering is a divide between how things are, and how I want them to be.

Freedom is how things are.

Symbolic pictures

A subtle object of my interior dimension is thought. Thoughts are light and sound sensations that function as symbolic representations of the external and internal world. These representations do not have a one-to-one correspondence with the world. If I park my car on the street and enter a building to visit a friend, the thought that the car is still parked outside is a good bet, but the thought is not the car parked out side. I may come out and find that it has been towed. As I look further afield in time and space the correspondence between thought and external conditions becomes less accurate and more general. It is like computer modelling the weather. It can be done for today...perhaps... but the match of representation with conditions drops away exponentially.

Being aware of thought means seeing both the phenomena and the symbolic content . It is like looking at a painting and seeing both the painted surface and the spatial representation. Our usual relationship with thought is like looking at a painting and being so absorbed in the illusory space that the paint itself disappears, along with the canvas and the wall. Once I realize that a thought is an object of awareness, the potential of its grace and utility is also realized. Thoughts can flow freely according to their nature and do not bind or meet obstruction. They have clarity. At the same time the limitation of thought becomes clear. Just as awareness is single and whole, the representations of the world in thought, no matter how synthetic, are inherently partial and relative.

It is a mistake to denigrate conceptual understanding, or to try and suppress thought in meditation. Conceptual understanding is a natural function and a creative opportunity. Suppression of thought is suppression of life.

Heads are heads and tails are tails

Although the subject and object of awareness are "not two", they are not the same and should not be confused. Heads and tails are two sides of one coin, but heads are still heads and tails are still tails. It is precisely the the confusion of subject and object that produces duality, as unconscious interior objects take up the seat of subject. Uncovering non duality is a process of disentangling subject and object starting at the dense end of the objective pole and working along the axis of “I” toward the subtle end of the subjective pole. Once the Subjective pole has been clarified both poles do not vanish. They remain the receptive and extensive poles of the nameless middle.

Craving

Like thought and feeling craving is neither good nor bad in meditation practice. It is simply a natural phenomena that is necessary for life. If I never craved food I would starve. Craving is a unique object because it is a positive sensation, yet while it remains unconscious it is experienced as a negative draw for another positive object. The Pali word “Tanha” seems to capture this this quality of draw very well. Craving is a very important object to clarify because it is a key component that pulls tight the sense of “I” like a knot. The experience of this negative draw popping out into a positive presence is the first taste of release. Very seldom do we actually see a craving as a fully delineated object, even though we may be very aware of a negative draw. If I am resisting a craving, I am by definition not completely aware of it. To be fully aware of a craving is to know a positive sensation that has no hold.

Emotional life

When the open field is uncovered, the experience of emotion begins to change. Instead of resisting or indulging them ones tends let them fully bloom, by fully feeling them. The problem is that an emotion fully felt may from the outside look like an emotion being suppressed, and an emotion being resisted may look from the outside like an emotion fully felt.

It is a common view that if you openly express emotions, you are feeling them more completely than someone who does not express them. You are more “in touch” with your emotions. Certainly this is true when compared to many people, men in particular, of my fathers generation. I was taught as a child that being male meant having a stiff upper lip, and I have known many people who are expert at locking bad feelings in a forgotten dungeon. But is someone who expresses their emotions all the time really in touch with them? When I am fully feeling an emotion I am allowing that emotion unobstructed extension toward the subjective pole, so that it may reach its full bloom. An emotion that is free in this way follows its own nature. From the outside I may look relatively peaceful while surge of animal fear is being allowed to metabolize. If on the other hand I were to resist the emotion, say no to it, I would try to express it from my system. An outward expression of emotion, reveals an honest relationship with it, and this is more healthy than suppression. But the expression of an emotion is an aversive impulse......

Weightless Effort

Undivided awareness is not work. It is the opposite of work, it is rest. Work is required to divide awareness, to block out some things and focus on others. This work is an action of desire.

There is a saying that a thief can only see a saints pockets. This describes the work of dividing awareness.

The meditator does not need to oppose this work. All that is needed is the weightless effort of recognition. Recognition does not involve changing conditions, it means leaving them alone, and knowing them as objects of awareness. When the work of dividing is itself a sensation, there is undivided awareness.

Thought requires the same weightless effort. If I wander in the content of thought, its phenomenal reality is lost, and awareness is divided. When you have trained to see thought as a thought, it is generally easy to recognize, but certain kinds of thoughts can be hard to see as phenomena. These are the class of thoughts that include self images and self narrative. Self images are like a standing wave in the stream of narrative thoughts, and "my" story is very compelling. I have never met anyone who is completely beyond being drawn into these self images when certain buttons get pushed. The difference is that someone with a mature practice will say “oh right”, and step back.

Don't blame ego

The realization of Non Duality does not mean being egoless.

Certainly self-centered Egotism loses its fuel, but the basic ego-structure of the bodymind/world interface remains intact. This structure is a natural part of the bodymind's process and not some kind of aberration. With non dual realization it becomes more integrated and autonomous. I am still me...not you, and we may have different sensibilities and needs. The villainizing of ego in spiritual circles is rampant, and can create conflict that is hopeless, as people try to negate the tryer. A healthy ego-structure is part of a mature spiritual practice, it is no trouble. Beware of someone who is "Egoless".

No Solution

There is only life, and life is forever approaching equilibrium. Knowing this you are hopeless, and find joy in tying loose ends.

Nondual realization is never achieved. You have arrived while always arriving. If you have arrived with no more arriving, you are stuck in emptiness.

Morally whole

The division of the subject into ”me” and “my conscience” needs to end, before the division of awareness into subject and object can end.

What brings me into accord with conscience in one situation might bring me into confict with it in another, so I listen and do not attach to moral theory.

When I live in accord with my conscience, I am morally whole.

Authority and Authenticity

One issue the open Internet raises is authenticity and authority. Today there are many self described "enlightened teachers" in the marketplace. Some seem responsible and clear, while others are clearly deluded and potentially harmful. The Guru disciple relationship that is a normal part of Indian or Tibetan culture, can easily slip into cultish pathology here (Canada), especially when the teacher does not have the imprimatur of a grounded lineage. Part of the problem may be a lingering orientalism in Western attitudes toward Eastern origin traditions. This sense of the exotic is reinforced by a new-age sensibility that values spiritual specialness. I have encountered quite a few people who, having glimpsed non-duality, think they are Elect. On the other hand the orthodoxy of lineage can be just as much about personal and political power as it is about preserving teachings.

I can see two separate issues here, spirituality and tradition. As far as spirituality is concerned, everyone can speak with absolute authority of their own understanding and experience of life. To accept external authority on spiritual matters is like asking someone else to tell you how you feel, and there is no shortage of people who would claim to know that.

Tradition is another matter.
Many popularizers describe Buddhism as a sly Brahmanism , with Emptiness being "Self". This is not to say that the Buddhist approach is right and others are wrong. Who can say? But it does mean that the realization might not be the same. I can't say that Christian prayer will lead the aspirant to the same place as Buddhist practice, and it would be disrespectful to Christianity for me to make that claim.

This blogger is not a teacher, and I do not see how anyone can call themselves "Enlightened". I have no authority but some authenticity. If you are looking up blogs on non-duality then you probably already understand the language. Please enjoy. Take what you like.

A "spiritual" phobia of brain

Tonight on the CBC radio show "Ideas" there was an interview with neurologist/psychiatrist Eric Kandel. He was describing how his research shows that the mind and brain are one, which the interviewer seemed to find very novel. Mr. Kandel is a positivist, so for him the mind and brain are not "two sides of one coin", they are in his view "just" brain. He collapses subjective reality into objective reality, which is quite a trick, and not really surprising considering his training. Still, it was fascinating to hear the idea discussed on public radio.

What I find more interesting is how "spiritual" people can be so threatened by this kind of research. The reductionism of Mr. Kandel is a philosophical belief, and he had the intellectual honesty to say that. Can spiritual people acknowledge that they to are also being reductionist by collapsing objective reality into subjective reality? This is just the mirror position of Positivism, and it is just as untenable. The Idealism that pervades the spiritual marketplace is just as free floating as belief in the Virgin Birth. A widespread attachment to this idealism can create an almost phobic reaction to research that "links" our subjectivity to physiological processes.

I believe that it is important to distinguish the difference between the objective realities revealed by the sciences, and the philosophical interpretation of these realities. However once the two have been distinguished, any form of spiritual knowing that needs to contradict these realities or oppose them, should be re-examined. No truth claim in any area needs to negate another. It just isn't necessary.

Open Field

At any given moment I am experiencing a full range of sensations..... internal, external, subtle, and gross. There are internal sensations such as the kinaesthetic sense of the body's movement, and the ambient sensations of the body's mass that merge with feelings and emotions. There is also the negative draw of cravings along with volitional impulses of all kinds. Thoughts flash and disappear in a steady stream. As these inner sensations are occurring, there are also a full range of external environmental sensations, like sights and sounds, tastes and smells, heat and cold, interacting with this inner dimension in a play of activity and reactivity. This complex of internal and external sensations however does not constitute two separate experiences. The totality of experience in any given moment, with all its textures and tones occurs “at once” as a single sensation. This sensation does not require effort on my part to experience, because it simply presents, and because this sensation includes everything called I ,me, and mine there is no witnessing subject who stands apart from it. It is a sheer presence that is whole and alone.

There are traditional metaphors used to describe this awareness. An effective one is the “Mirror Mind”. A mirror reflects multiple objects and activities. Each one of these elements is affirmed in it's delineated uniqueness by the reflection, yet at the same time the whole reflection is single...simple. The complex diversity of textures are not negated by the unity of the reflection, and the unity of the reflection is not broken by the the complex diversity textures. A mirror also has the quality of showing various elements changing and moving apparently unrelated to each other, while at the same time the whole reflection plays as a single gesture.

This awareness is primary, because the division of it into subject and object is secondary, quite literally an afterthought, with further bifurcations being after-afterthoughts. It is also primary because it cannot be reduced to any prior ground of existence, either physical or spiritual. Such ontological absolutes are also afterthoughts, as are categories like "awareness" or "presence" for that matter, which have a purely descriptive function here. With an accurate comprehension of this I am left groundless without even myself to hold onto, and am thrown into nameless experiencing. This ontological groundlessness however does not mean that reality is amorphous. As described in the mirror analogue it has delineations and certain basic patterns. One basic pattern is space and object, or to use the traditional term, Emptiness and Form.......