Awakening from Ego

The “ego”, or self-sense, is a mirage, an illusion, like the snake that is seen to be merely a belt laying on the floor when there is sufficient light. It is only a mental construct, a thought, a feeling that arises like any other thought or feeling. When the mind is quiet, pure awareness, “the simplest form of awareness”, is what is aware. This can see thoughts at inception, see them form and arise. As the self-sense arises, it is seen just as any other thought is seen. From the perspective of this, there is no letting go. The self-sense simply isn’t present, and when it does arise, it is seen, just as all thoughts and feelings are seen. We see its phantom-like nature. When only pure awareness is present, there is no self-sense. The self-sense arises in habitual reaction to stress. If it is not seen, it eclipses pure awareness, we become bound up in the mental construct, this fabrication of mind, just as we can get bound up in thoughts during meditation. When we realize we have become bound up in a train of thoughts in meditation, what do we do? We acknowledge, relax, go back to “the simplest form of awareness”, and go back to the method, following the breath, or mantra. Pure awareness is what is there between each breath or each mantra repetition. It is what perceives, the silent witness to all movements of the heart and mind. When it alone is present, there is no letting go. There is no grasping, no pulling toward or pushing away. It simply is, silent clarity. There is no possessor. No owner. No doer. It is only when the self-sense arises and pure awareness is overshadowed by attention being absorbed into this egoic mental construct, that we say we must let go, just like we acknowledge in meditation that we have been swept away in a train of thoughts, and let go of the thoughts and fall back to the simplest form of awareness.

With time and practice, we see the bramble we refer to as ego when it arises. It is just a habitual mental construct that has no more reality than any other concept held in the mind. Its just a notion, an overlay on top of pure awareness that we become entangled in just like we become entangled in thoughts during meditation. So, when we find we’ve become entangled, we relax back to the simplest form of awareness. From this vantage, there is no letting go because pure awareness is not bound by anything.

So, it is only when we are bound up in thought, including the thoughts giving rise to the self-sense, that we say we must let go, relax our grip, fall back to baseline pure awareness. From the perspective of baseline pure awareness, there is nothing to let go of. It is what is when there is no entanglement in thoughts or feelings.

So, the practice is one of perpetual meditation. When we see we have become bound up in thought to the point silent pure awareness is occluded, we relax back to the unbound silence, the simplest form of awareness. With time, one sees more and more clearly how pure awareness gets eclipsed by ego, until when ego arises, it is always seen.

When ego is seen, the illusion vanishes. It’s a phantom. It has no real substance. It is totally mind made. The practice is seeing into the mechanics of how pure awareness becomes bound up and overshadowed by thoughts. Once this is seen, it can’t be unseen. Every time ego arises it is seen and it loses its illusion, can no longer overshadow. The magic trick has been exposed. Life becomes the meditation. Just keep returning to the simplest form of awareness. Ego erodes away and with time, all it’s stories, beliefs, narratives, the whole bound up identity is eroded away by the light of pure awareness. Make this your practice and awakening is sure to occur.

A simple way to check whether you are experiencing from ego or pure awareness is to simply ask, “What is aware?” This question has an arresting effect on thought-bound illusion. It tends to shatter the illusion and return to non-occluded awareness. Once this occurs, feel your entire body, how pure awareness encompasses the whole body. Feel the environment, how pure awareness encompasses the environment, is not localized, is unbound. Settle into that spacious unbound nature. Return to the task at hand from this simplest form awareness. Do this as many times a day as you discover you are once again occluded, overshadowed. The light of pure awareness will very quickly erode away the illusions produced by mental entanglement.

Is There Suffering after Awakening?

A meditation teacher recently remarked that suffering will always be with us.

And yet, when the mental suffering caused by being wrapped in worrisome thoughts of the future or lamenting the past, or feeling slighted or insulted when we don’t get the attention we feel is due because of who we think we are, when all this subsides because the world is now witnessed from and as pure awareness and love, suffering and dissatisfaction are greatly diminished.

When ego is seen to rise and pass away as any other thought or feeling, all suffering bound up with our sense of entitlement is alleviated. When thoughts no longer carry and shape us but are arising from the silence that is primal, when we are no longer hung up in the thorny thicket of beliefs, stories, opinions, theories, misperceptions and protections, suffering is largely non-existent. When one directly and consistently experiences the deep contentment of silent, crystal clear being, dissatisfaction doesn’t arise as much does it?

Life is flow. When we are that flow without resistance, mental anguish doesn’t arise.

Vipassana and Chan meditation practice can show us that even physical pain can be overcome. Three days into a retreat we may feel we are going to die of leg and back pain. Seven days into a retreat, when pain arises and awareness goes there, the pain vanishes and with it, suffering. Bliss and equanimity are what is left.

So, while what the teacher said is true, what he omitted is that suffering is so greatly diminished that by comparison, it is as if non-existent.

Having said that, once we awaken from the otherwise permanent day dream we were previously caught up in, and we see others still caught in their dream and not aware they are dreaming, compassion wells up along with the desire to alleviate their suffering. Is this a kind of dissatisfaction or suffering? Perhaps it could be called that, and if so, it is universal. After awakening, it may seem as though one is the only awake person in a world of sleepwalkers, some having a good dream, others a very bad one. It’s natural to want to help others also awaken and may be uncomfortable to be around those that aren’t, especially when they are saying and doing things that cause more pain and suffering in themselves and others. Some retreat from the world after awakening. Some try to alleviate the suffering of others by helping them to awaken from their mental entanglement and misperceptions. This is the Bodhisattva path.

Does the Dalai Lama Repress Emotions?

A friend asks if the Dalai Lama represses emotions or if he is angry about how Tibetans are treated by the Chinese government.  Here’s a response.

I can’t speak for the Dalai Lama, but from the standpoint of Buddhist mindfulness practice in general, there is no such repression of emotion. Nor is there any dwelling on emotion beyond simple acknowledgment that the emotion has risen or fallen away.

Traditional mindfulness in Buddhism is performed from the simplest form of awareness. In shamata meditation, the emphasis is on transcendence, samadhi, the jhanas. In Vipassana meditation, the emphasis is on insight. The traditional practice is to calm the mind through shamata meditation and experience the levels of samadhi, then use the first level, referred to as access samadhi or gateway samadhi to practice mindfulness. So, one learns to experience from the cusp of samadhi in activity. It is seeing from pure awareness, “Rigpa” in the Tibetan tradition. It is not the ego being self-aware, as is commonly taught in Westernized mindfulness practice, but simply experiencing from the quietest levels of mind and consciously acknowledging whatever is arising or passing away as it actually occurs, without further engaging the mind. There is no pushing or pulling, no analysis. Just pure watching from silence. This cultivates the mind, acclimating it to function from pure awareness, which becomes the new norm. Once this transition happens thoroughly and deeply enough, there is no reverting back. Nor would one want to.

The Dalai Lama published a wonderful book on Dzogchen, which emphasizes experiencing, seeing, acting from Rigpa, bare, primal awareness.  I think that would answer your question from his perspective.

Freeing from Identification

After years of family history research and travels to multiple states and to England, I traced the Wadsworth family history back to 1620 when Christopher Wadsworth and his brother William came to this country on the ship the Lyon. I made gifts of the research to my siblings.

One day, I was told I’m not actually a Wadsworth by my brother, who is a Wadsworth. He said I’m actually a Pfeiffer! It turned out my family all knew but me.

Even though I was awake by then and thought I had seen through identity, I remember waking the following morning with the strangest sensation that my memory had been erased, that everything I had known myself to be in terms of family and heritage was as if surgically removed and replaced by nothing. Emptiness. It was actually very liberating and helped me see there still had been a residual sense of identification with clan of which I was now free. This as if shined a light into shadow and helped me see other lingering overarching identification as an American, a Caucasian, a male, etc. It all came tumbling down like a house of cards and was replaced by emptiness, deepening the silent awareness from which life lives.

As a result, when any sense of identity arises, it is seen and there is no tendency to take that on as self. I don’t identify as a white, male, 63 year old American, a son of particular parents, even as a human being. I simply am, centerless awareness. If any identity persists, it’s as a passenger on the back of this glorious Mother Earth with whom I am one. I find no sense of separateness with this planet, the moon, sun and stars. There is only the silent continuum of what is aware that encompasses all things, from grains of sand on a beach to the perceived universe.

We are trained from birth to identify with gender, religion, team, race, ethnicity, nationality. As awakening deepens, one-by-one, or all at once, these all fall away until what is left is the silence that was relegated to the background now is primary. When silence is primary, thoughts no longer coalesce into identity. There is just being and the thoughts and feelings that rise from silence and fall into silence.

So liberating to be free of all the baggage that comes with any form of identification!

[North coast of California near Gualala]

Upon Finding the Kingdom of Heaven Should We Shout from the Rooftops or Chill?

There’s an interesting difference between the Eastern meditative traditions and the the Christian tradition with regard to sharing spiritual experience. People that grew up in the Christian tradition tend to want to “share the good news”, “give testimony” of the Spirit, and shout from the rooftops when they have found the Kingdom of Heaven, the treasure buried in the field of consciousness.  It is not our tradition to remain silent and not share, bear witness and encourage others. Yet in Eastern traditions it is considered bad form to do so.

I remember when I woke up I felt tremendous compassion for everyone still driven by mental stories and so wanted to free them. From both a Mahayana and a Christian perspective, I felt moved to point others toward what is here now before the churning mind gets involved. And I often did so whether asked or not.

As time went on, I found that it’s just not so simple apparently. People remain trapped in their heads largely out of, not just conditioning, but choice. Until someone wants to wake up regardless of the cost, they simply can’t and won’t. There need to be the causes and conditions of complete surrender. Most can’t let go to that extent and there is little anyone that is awake can do to help others unless there is the complete and sustained willingness to let go.

I’m not so zealous about sharing anymore about awakening, though I still will when moved to do so. I’ve hoped to inspire others since I trust that if someone as ordinary as me can awaken, most anyone should be able to. But, people awaken when they are ready to awaken. There’s little I or anyone else can do to change that. Sometimes its best to just remain quiet.

What do you think? Should people that awaken remain quiet about it or give testimony to inspire others?

Thoughts Pass Like Clouds

Thoughts come and go, some are felt, some expressed. From where do they arise? Who takes ownership of them? What was the intention of the owner, if an owner can be found? And if no owner can be found, who or what is aware of the coming and going? If this is seen and doing the seeing, all else falls into place.

U.S. Election Day

Trump has tapped into the story telling going on in anyone’s mind that is not yet awake, and has fed a narrative conducive to bolstering tribal identity, fear of other, and created re-imagined boogiemen: Antifa, socialists, murdering, raping, job-stealing immigrants, which only his wall will protect white America from. He’s tapped into the tendency for the mentally entangled to believe in outlandish conspiracies and religion-inspired fears of Satanic forces. He’s tapped into all the fears and hatreds of white nationalists and the self-serving greed of elected officials. He’s manipulated the media to report the narrative he wants to feed the mentally entangled, and that is his one specialty. Those most mentally encumbered have fallen victim and would likely follow him off a cliff if he told them to. He’s turned the Republican Party into a mind-control cult for the weak-minded, the greedy, and the naturally prejudiced.

Perhaps this is all happening in response to a genuine mass-awakening of people beginning to experience the fruits of meditation. There has never been a time when more people in the world have practiced meditation and mindfulness, and many people are beginning to see the tendency for their minds to become occluded by their own thinking. On seeing this, they are becoming liberated from the bondage of their own encumbered thoughts, worries and fears. They are beginning to realize they are not their thoughts but the awareness that sees thoughts and feelings come and go.

This awareness in its purest form is non-localized, ubiquitous, vast. It cannot be led into divisiveness for it is what is aware, even behind all delusion, the spark of the divine behind the eyes of all sentient beings. The awareness that is in plants, the Earth herself.

The awakened mind sees this conscious light, this Buddha-Nature, this face of Christ in all, even those that chant out of confusion, “Fire Fauci!” or “Four more years!” of this madness.  There, behind the confusion and self-deception is the glimmer of the divine trying to shine through, though occluded.

They are not our enemies but future Buddhas temporarily encumbered by their own mental entanglement. Be kind. Only love can open hearts and minds. Only love can heal and unify.

Watch what is arising in heart and mind on this election day. And simply ask, “What is aware?”  Our only hope is to awaken from this dream.

Rejecting Karma as a Belief System

There seems to be a trend to dismiss the notion of karma as a manipulative belief system these days. While I sympathize with disgust with the caste system and abusing the understanding of cause and effect as justification for a lack of empathy and compassion. Yet to completely dismiss cause and effect as merely a belief to be discarded along with all others is simple-minded ignorance.

Buddha’s teaching of the Middle Way and the Noble Eightfold Path was in reaction to gurus of his day that were promoting nihilism and the idea that actions have no consequences on the one hand, and eternalism and the caste system on the other.

Although there are some people that seem to be waking up these days, we have many more that are self-deceived, and out of self-deception, deceiving others. We see this especially in non-dual circles where huge egos claim there is no doer, have an obvious lack of compassion for others, and justify all sorts of unwholesome behavior (that which leads to suffering) by dismissing “karma” as merely a belief system. Yet such people tend to avoid things they know will lead to their own death. Their understanding of cause and effect is implicit in all they do. As such, their belief that there is no such thing as resultant effect of action (karma) is itself a system of belief that is mind-made, not grounded in reality, and a form of mental entanglement that obscures what is aware, and prevents awakening. They may feel this is liberating and may even feel enlightened, being free of “beliefs”. But true awakening necessarily has as a hallmark the deep, direct recognition of cause and effect, not only in nature but in one’s mind.  

Mental entanglement is itself a web of cause and effect that obscures what actually is and displaces it with imaginings that tend to pit oneself against the rest of the universe, creating separation and isolation, obscuring the interconnectedness of all things on the level of cause and effect but more importantly on the level of pure awareness, that which is aware, perceives and directly experiences life without mental conditioning and filtering.

It’s important that we don’t turn the rejection of beliefs into a rejection of what actually is, which simply stated is ignorance, ignoring truth.

The Universe is Awareness

According to this video, the period in the lifespan of the universe that can support sentient beings is extremely minute. But without life and awareness, why would the universe exist? A universe devoid of awareness intuitively seems to be an absurdity.

It appears to me that the universe is awareness itself and is self-aware, that our lives and consciousness are an expression of what is already universally awake. Call this universal awareness God, Dao, Yaweh, Allah, Krishna, Brahma or Brahman, or whatever. No name can contain what is aware.

I’ve found the most useful practice is to simply reflect on what is aware and surrender, let go, rest in this. From this silent clarity, engage in the world. This apparently is what the universe as a whole is doing, whether it be a single universe or an infinite foam of universes. This is awake! When we let go into this, we are flowing with the heart of universal life and love.

Perspective from Centerlessness

When the center shifts from egoic thinking to centerlessness, ownerless, apparently omnipresent awareness,  inner and outer become less distinct until everything just seems to be happening in awareness. From this perspective, the apparent interconnectedness of all things becomes a predominant feature. No sense of ownership arises. The view from here seems fundamentally truer, freer from interference of mental machinations.

From open awareness, one still cannot be sure what others are experiencing, but we can see signs of whether they are still trapped in webs of thought and conditioned habit energy or if they too have awakened from that dream-like, conditioned state, if they are bound up in thoughts and the resultant self-sense or have opened beyond that. We can see it because we also have been through that territory and know the signs.

If pure awareness becomes predominant for me here and you say you also have undergone this shift and opened to it, and no sense of ownership of pure awareness arises in either of us, it becomes apparent that this ownerless, omnipresent awareness is common to us both. Is this a deduction? Can I be certain I am experiencing what you say you are experiencing? Not really. Yet we seem to be sharing the same ownerless pure awareness. It experientially seems abundantly clear.

Is this deduction valid? It seems so because the very nature of being rooted in pure awareness, rather than entangled thought, is that everything apparently is happening in this ubiquitous, field of awareness and is not separate from it. It’s not my pure awareness. The “my” isn’t arising. Where is “other” here? If you experience the same, isn’t it obvious that we are experiencing the same field of awareness?

Even if one of us is mired in thoughts and pure awareness is no longer predominant, at least one of us can still see that has happened and that most people live their lives in this occluded state. But it is still clear that when the entwined thoughts subside, what is left is pure awareness, which is also apparently life itself. Even the thought thickets that may arise and overshadow are happening within pure awareness.

Some may be wondering if anyone out there actually exists since there only seems to be ubiquitous pure awareness, but this may be the wrong question. If you strike me in the face I will naturally assume you exist. Or if I feel your love. The question for me is do we both share the same primal awareness? On the surface, apparently not. But when one experiences as awareness itself, it becomes abundantly clear that we must.

Pure Awareness, Consciousness and Subjectivity

Who experiences what is aware?  

Consciousness arises and passes away constantly. A bell is struck in silence and hearing consciousness arises. When the bell stops vibrating, hearing consciousness also fades away. So, consciousness is always being born and always passing away.  

But, what is aware of the ever-changing field of consciousness? That is unconditioned, never is born, never dies and is centerless and unbounded.

A center, a sense of identity can arise within this pure awareness, and with it thought, subjectivity, personal perspective. But from this pure awareness itself, there is the absence of subjectivity, identity, ownership—until these arise in ever-changing consciousness through thought.

What is aware of this arising and passing away of identity, the individual self-sense? What is aware is aware before thought, before identity arises, before the world is bifurcated into subject and object.

The view from pure awareness, from what is aware, is without the duality of subject/object, internal/external, possessor/possessed. Pure awareness simply is, and is without boundaries. All things come and go within pure awareness like waves on an ocean. All phenomena is the answer to all phenomena in a ripple that goes back to beginningless time. A flux of isness, of what’s happening. It is beyond time and space and is time and space, both the silence and the activity, both the calling and the called, all things the answer to all things.

The very experience of being is prior to subjectivity arising. There is no separate, independently existing pure awareness, no owner of the experience of what is aware, no subject, no object. All is being, all aware, all happening in awareness.

There is no dichotomy between silence and the phenomenal world. They are the same, all the silent-dynamic flow in which all thoughts arise, all sense of individual self, all individual perspective. But, what remains predominant moment-to-moment is Life, pure awareness, being, what is aware.  

“What is aware” seems to imply a subject but it is from this primal awareness that individuation  arises, and from that a sense of separateness and subjectivity. Subjectivity arises out of a self-sense that is a mental fabrication, like a hologram, produced by awareness becoming entwined and occluded by the thinking mind. One gets lost in this mental entanglement and forms an individual persona, personal perspective and lots and lots of opinions derived from attractions and aversions found in this sense of separateness.

Once one shifts from the twining ball of thoughts strung together, to pure awareness, the subjectivity of separateness diminishes and can completely fall away.  What remains is unbound awareness liberated from the illusion of separateness.

[photo of the parting clouds of the lightning storm that caused so many fires in California]

Seeing Through Collective Imaginings

The only cure for the fear-based divisiveness being perpetrated from politicians is to directly live from pure awareness, which is that which sees the mechanics of how thought arises producing a sense of identity, a self-sense that grasps onto thought and becomes entangled in apprehensive imagining. What if the only war going on between good and evil was the tendency of pure awareness to be occluded by our self-sense born of fear and aversion, and by avarice and grasping? This is the root of separateness, our sense of identity that seeks to bolster its own phantom-like existence by clinging to what acknowledges it as a unique,separate, independently existing self and pushing away that which threatens its adapted identity.

From meditation and mindfulness practice we can begin to shift from mental entanglement to that which is aware of thoughts and feelings arising. From bare awareness, from the ground of being, we can see though all the antics and mental contortions of mind, aversions and clinging. When we can see this directly in ourselves, we can also see through the collective dreaming and imaginings that become our tribal fear of other.

Once we begin to see from bare, primal awareness, fear of the boogyman, of satan, of other, vanishes. We can easily see through those that exploit egoic greed and fear to create an even greater sense of separateness and division, a clinging to our favorite team, our social status, our ethnicity, our tribe, our religious beliefs, to nationalism, to news channels that bolster our fragile, fleeting, mind-made sense of identity.

[Bowling Ball Beach, northern coast of California]

No Better Guru than a Tree

Trees can be the very best teachers. They ask nothing of us but to let go of our physical and mental waste and in return give us the openness of awareness that is timeless and unbound.

Rest awareness on a tree and enter it’s realm. You will be transformed, opened to the silence of being, the vastness of space, the adoration of light, the wonderful coolness of soil, roots feeling, absorbing, sharing life with life.

Trees require no reverence or devotion, yet give freely always pointing to what is beyond thought, to the pure being that is ever present and the interdependent wholeness that is life.

Take time to rest awareness on a tree and enter it’s realm of pure being. There is no better guru than a tree.

Buddhism Is Not Nihilism

There is a world of difference between nihilism and the Buddhist teaching of emptiness. I have seen some people embrace the thought that they don’t actually exist and therefore others also do not actually exist.  This can have very unwholesome and even devastating effects on one’s life, relationships, job and happiness.  There are teachers who make the mistake of indoctrinating students into a view that they don’t exist, saying things like “Hitler never killed any Jews because Hitler and Jews don’t actually exit.” I’ve actually read such statements from a contemporary American Dzogchen teacher.  He points out to his students at every turn that everything they think or feel is invalid because they don’t actually exist, until they embrace the notion fully, but without any direct experience. The students become quite arrogant and dismissive of others and very close minded in their views. They fall into a pit from which it is very difficult to be extracted, thinking they are enlightened, yet parroting to others there is no enlightenment because there is no person to become enlightened. They also tend to believe that neither meditation nor any other spiritual practice are needed since they already believe they don’t exist.

Awakening simply isn’t like this. The question of whether one exists or not simply isn’t present. When the world is experienced from Rigpa, pure, primordial awareness, identity is absent. The sense of identity, the sense of self, the sense of being a unique possessor of the experience simply doesn’t arise. It is silent, centerless, open, ubiquitous, bright continuum of clear, unperturbed awareness. It is seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, thinking and feeling without the habitual need for a sense of self to arise to take ownership or identify with the perceptions, thoughts and feelings. One is no longer bound up and imprisoned between the ears. Free, liberated, functioning from the core of Life itself and one with it’s updraft that spurs all beings to transcend the burdensome sense of separateness we’ve carried since beginningless time. The direct experience of Rigpa, pure awareness, is what frees, not intellectually embracing the notion of non-existence.

At the time of the Buddha there were many teachers that were teaching nihilism with devastating effects. Buddha taught the Middle Way beyond nihilism and eternalism out compassion for those bound up in false views.  To create a system of belief based on intellectual denial of one’s own existence, is nihilism, not Buddhism.

Through meditation we can set up the ideal conditions for pure awareness to become predominant, and through mindfulness practice we learn to function from pure, primal awareness, Rigpa, open, unbound clarity.  

The experience of emptiness isn’t a system of believe. It isn’t realized through the thinking mind, but rather through complete surrender to what is, always right here, always right now. Unceasingly returning to just what is happening right here, right now, perhaps looking, “What is aware this very moment?”  This is the way of Buddhas past, present and future.

[Upper Twin Lake, Desolation Wilderness]

The World Is

The world is absolutely perfect.

The world is absolutely flawed.

Daily, I’m in awe that both are true.

Awakening from the entanglement of our own thoughts and feelings, the perfection of nature is revealed. All things are alive, aware, reflective of all things. All things an answer and proclamation of all that happened before. Ownerless, centerless, perfect,  awake, aware flowing.

All of this collapses in an instant when harsh words are spoken and ego re-emerges, personal will re-engages, and we are again trapped between our ears. This is the world of Fox News, tribalism, separation, prejudices, division and suffering.

Both exist simultaneously and without paradox. Awareness alone is but it can become occluded and forgetful. This phenomenon is also not separate, an intrinsic part of Oneness.  

It’s our choice where we pass time. We can live from life itself, letting go of ego-occluded separation, or we can re-enter and live from the space between our ears in separation from all that exists. In the former, the Pure Land of the Buddha Amitabha, the Kingdom of Heaven of Jesus, is here, now. In the later, we are bound up in the world of opinion, concepts, beliefs and ego-centric isolation. Both are true, both are real, both coexist because they are not separate. Choose. It’s just a shift between grasping and letting go.

What is Awakening?

For Mothers Day, 2020

Over 2,500 years ago Buddha and his disciples began drawing the distinction between merely being adept at experiencing levels of samadhi and being truly awake.  Siddhartha Gautama had practiced with two of the great meditation masters of his time and quickly mastered all they had to teach. Both encouraged him to become a guru in their lineages. Though he experienced the deepest samadhi and his experience of unity was validated by both masters, Siddhartha knew that he and his masters were not yet fully awakened. He resolved to find true liberation and for six years practiced the extreme austerities of the sadhus of his time.

As the story goes, Siddhartha found the middle way beyond the self-mortification of sannyasis and the worldly pleasures he had once lived as Prince, when a young gopi, Sujata, offerred him milk and rice, ending his asceticism and enabling him the clarity to awaken under the fig tree one morning after a night-long meditation.

So what, then, is the distinction between the experience of unity induced through repeated experience of samadhi and the Buddha's awakening?  This has been the subject of much debate over the past 2,500 years. But, I think it can be distilled down to this: the transcendence of self-reference, identity.

At the time of the Buddha's awakening, the Upanishadic tradition had long since established that the highest enlightenment was the realization of the mahavakya, "I am That", Brahman, the eternally tranquil, yet lively, effulgent totality of life. In this statement, and in the actual experiential realization, the seeming duality of "I" and "That", inner and outer, subject and object, experiencer and experienced are resolved. It is the realization of complete unity, oneness with creation and what transcends time and space.  Was this the realization of the Buddha upon awakening?  If so, how was this different from the unity the two meditation masters had taught, which Buddha had realized but rejected?

I first experienced unity with the environment when walking down a path one late spring morning in the late 70's. I began to experience the wind before it hit my back and could feel it flow around me and continue on in front of me. This immediately expanded to include the rays of sunlight hitting my face, the ground below and sky above me. I was suddenly interconnected with the plants around me such that I could feel their roots searching for moisture and nutrients in increasingly deep and cool soil, could feel the life force in each as they filled leaves with sap, lifting them outward to take in the sunlight and the satisfaction in that. I seemed to be hyper-connected with everything, and all distinction between self and other temporarily suspended.  And yet what was not suspended was the self-sense, the identification that it was me that was having this experience. "I" was one. And in that, there was a kind of glorification of "I", a bolstered and hugely expanded sense of identity.  I was one with the environment. It was all me.

It wasn't until 2006 that I had this experience of unity again, only this time, it gradually unfolded over the course of a seven day Chan retreat and began to stay with me even after the retreat ended.  During subsequent Chan and Vipassana retreats, the sense of deep, interconnectedness continued to penetrate all experience in day-to-day life until one retreat, in 2007 and another in 2008, even the self-sense fell away. The first time this happened, it was during meditation and it was like being on the precipice of an abyss and I felt the very essence of self-sense gasp at the realization it was to be no more -- it backed away. But, that afternoon I vowed I would never again pull back regardless of the consequence, even if it meant my death. I was totally committed to finding what lie on the other side.

Then it happened, during an extended period of walking meditation without expectation or anticipation, when the incense board was firmly brought down on the wood floor of the meditation hall with an echoing "crack" with the timekeeper's loud shout, "Stop!" And stop, it did. Everything fell away except for bottomless, light filled peace.  

From that time on, the experience of unity was no longer the same. There was no self-center, no locus of experience or awareness, no identification or ownership of experience, just a pervasive sense of well-being and interconnectedness.

At first, this seemed like awareness was more in the environment than a me looking outward aware of the environment. It was a shift from me in here looking out to awareness out there that included me, to an un-missed absence of any identification with the experience. Just silent, yet flowing, omnipresent, pervasively interacting pure awareness, life, interconnectedness of all things, a depth of timelessness penetrating it all. No ownership, just natural flow of all-pervasive life.

During the next few years, this came and went until I noticed one day a couple years ago that it had no longer been coming and going but that my life had acclimated to being established in This, just what is without self-reference. Of course, there is still a self-sense. I am sitting here writing. I see through my eyes, not yours reading these lines. But in comparison to what is predominant, it is a thin veneer that enables interaction with the world and pales by comparison to the ubiquitous, non-localized sense of well-being that has no possessor, no separate identity to claim ownership.

Am I awakened? Where is the localized "I" that can make such a bold, arrogant claim? With the continued thinning of the egoic thought thicket that was once my identity, I have not been able to find a center of self that could ever rightly make such a claim and am naturally suspicious of those that do.  It's enough to say life is good and worth living with a heart full of gratitude and appreciation for this wonderful planet with which we've all been blessed, our true Mother and Grandmother Earth, who extends her love through all motherly beings on this planet.

Happy Mothers Day!

The Space Between

The space between stimulus and response is where all that is good happens, and all that is bad. What is aware in that silence? Knowing that directly makes all the difference.