As I was sitting yesterday I had the very clear insight that, “What I am can never be separated from What I’m not.” The insight, like so many insights, came with a non-verbal holistic “knowing,” and then also the thought itself, which sort of framed the insight in mental terms. I’ve found it very interesting to reflect on the deeper ramifications of this insight and how it represents my current edge in practice-understanding.
First, the most direct meaning has to do with seeing the process of identification and release of identification—another way we could frame this movement is in terms of expansion and contraction. Typically people think of spiritual freedom in terms of the release part, but I’ve found that the release of identification is a natural movement of consciousness, not one that should try and be removed or manipulated. After all the effort to manipulate, and the impulse to remove, is itself a function of consciousness that is identified.
This misunderstanding of freedom comes from, I think in part, the methods that many practitioners use to discover an even greater freedom—to simply allow reality to manifest as it is. The methods I’ve used are mainly from the Theravada Buddhist tradition, namely vipassana meditation. One of the great skills of vipassana is to help release identification from experience, which I’ve previously taken to be “me” or “mine”. By examining and releasing this identification the sense of “me” has been able to expand and become subtler. That new subtle “me” then gets seen, becomes an object (as opposed to the subject) and identity pushes back even further. It goes back to the point where there is literally nowhere left to stand and “pop”—Nirvana.
But the habits of consciousness to “unconsciously identify” are very strong, and so we must cycle through the various layers of consciousness over and over again, so that the process of incorrectly taking ourselves to be this or that unwinds itself, to the point where there is a major shift of fundamental identity, wherein we are not primarily identified with any position whatsoever. This is real freedom, as it doesn’t require the contraction of consciousness to be stopped—that continues on without our consent—rather it allows the process of consciousness expanding and contracting to happen in a more unimpeded way.
The problem, or downside, with this method is that it uses expansion and release to encourage freedom, and so it can often gives the impression that contraction is “bad.” But again, it’s not the contraction which is problematic, it’s the habitual tendency for the mind to identify with experience, including the most subtle and empty types of experience, that prohibits freedom! In other words, methods like vipassana cultivate a reliance on a 3rd person witnessing type of experience, and thus has a blind spot with this particular mode of inquiry. All methods have their blind-spots, including non-methods.
I’ve come to see that what is really meant by “non-duality” is that reality is allowed—but not by someone—to manifest just as it is. Interestingly, how it manifests is through a pattern of cycling from gross, to subtle, to very-subtle experience, and then back to gross again. Ken Wilber calls this pattern, “evolution and involution.” If we look around carefully we see this pattern happening on all sorts of time-scales and in nearly every aspect of life, both in the inner and outer worlds. The seasons, the rotation of the Earth around the Sun, the birth and death of stars, the change of emotional states and moods, are all exhibiting this pattern… it’s just the way life operates. Knowing this we don’t need to try and stay in an expanded, or “enlightened” state. Instead, we can recognize that “this is it”, and has always been it. There is never anyway we could avoid what we are, nor is there anyway that we can get there.
And even so, I sit each morning, and notice that this understanding is slowly metabolized in deeper and deeper ways. And so evolution—happening simultaneously within the cycles of expansion and contraction—unfolds as well. It’s this “both-and” relationship to paradox that also characterizes the non-dual.
Ah, very nice! It does indeed happen as you say, Vince, with cycles playing out on various scales. I expected the various “me” impressions to disappear completely at a certain point, but they don’t. And I see what you describe. The kicker for me was the realization, as you explain in your last paragraph, of getting out of the way of reality playing out all by itself, in whatever form that takes. Artificially trying to eliminate the “me” is of no help and in fact actually does impede the clear view. This insight manifest to me as, “Your seeking is in the way of the sought.”
Click
Thanks!
Beautifully put Chris.
Thank you for sharing this very deep insight Vince. And yes, Chris, that also exactly how it ‘clicked’ for me. Vince’s recent insight also seems to apply to the post awakening phase where, even if we know that we can never lose what we are and have always been, we still feel that we are getting embedded during the day.
The temptation is then to favor pure no-self (or non-dual) moments over times when we almost get completely embedded. Sharing this concern with advanced meditators, it seems that this is perfectly normal and that the point is to realize that it just doesn’t matter. On the contrary, it seems that our resistance to ‘identification’ is the very thing that prevents us from going beyond the last duality, namely the opposition between full non-dual awareness and identification. If I understand you well, that’s what you mean Vince?
Hi Alex,
I think what I’m discovering is that non-dual awareness isn’t the moments of being “disembedded”, rather it’s the understanding that embedded or disembedded or both equally it. I think when you use the term no-self or non-dual in your comment, you are pointing to what I was calling “expanse” and “release,” which I see as one side of the non-dual coin, not the coin itself.
In my experience there has been a deconditioning process happening (post-awakening as you say), wherein this non-dual understanding is being integrated in a deeper way, so that there is a fuller relaxation into just whatever is arising (including relaxation into non-relaxation).
Now, this may be what people mean when they say “disembedded,” but for me this isn’t something that can necessarily be practiced or fabricated. It isn’t even something I’m sure can be known in a particular moment, as anything that is happening in a moment is expansion or contraction. Rather it’s a changing relationship to the whole of experience that seeps in, and sometimes shines through as an insight, or simply as a recognition of how much one’s relationship to life has changed. At least that’s my take on it now.
Vince, you have eloquently laid out a sticky part of practice. The practice of allowing reality to manifest just as it is, is tricky and you’ve pointed some of the nuances. Reality, for been so evident sure has an image problem.
As you say their is no one doing the manifesting of reality. It would be egotistic to say either “I’m free from reality” or “I create my own reality”. Yes, I’ve been this kind of egotistic in the past and we see both these extremes in our culture.
The intimate non-dual reality is not dependent on my even noticing it. Quite the opposite, as Chris says, “The kicker for me was the realization, as you explain in your last paragraph, of getting out of the way of reality playing out all by itself, in whatever form that takes.” Yes indeed, you, Chris and I are but the form that reality takes, playing in the field of “evolution and involution.”
“What I am can never be separated from What I’m not.” This really hits home. It feels warm and comfortable. Worth exploring.
Thanks!
“The intimate non-dual reality is not dependent on my even noticing it.”
Yes, exactly! Much better put than I could say it.
Thank you Vince. “Non-dual awareness isn’t the moments of being disembedded, rather it’s the understanding that embedded or disembedded are both equally it” sums it up perfectly! It’s that the ultimate freedom? Freedom from embedded-ness. Freedom to get embedded in the dramas of everyday life. Freedom to even (temporarily) forget what we are.
I noticed also that when we (and I am the probably the worst case) have spent 15 to 20 years trying to get somewhere, the old habits of fixing or improving things tend to get back, even when we know without the shadow of a doubt that everything is and has always been perfect as it is.
I take the opportunity to thank you for the quality of your work.
What I find interesting about the contracted/embedded phase is that, for me at least, it’s absolute in the same way as the expansive/disembedded phase. It’s not like I experience it in an ‘enlightened’ detached manner, it really feels as if there is literally nothing ‘spiritual’ to reality whatsoever!
However, this has the somewhat ironic effect of actually offering the only genuine opportunity for true practice. When I feel so human and ordinary that the whole idea of awakening sickens me like 24 hour-old chewing gum, only then can I come to this immediate experience of existing (!) with a quality of awareness untainted by agendas.
Ha! Which neatly ties into that old saying about how Buddha-mind cannot exist without ordinary mind. A Buddha can only exist with the unconditional commitment to the very real possibility that you will always be a human!
*spits chewing gum into paper and throws in bin*
“In my experience there has been a deconditioning process happening (post-awakening as you say), wherein this non-dual understanding is being integrated in a deeper way, so that there is a fuller relaxation into just whatever is arising (including relaxation into non-relaxation).”
Yeah, I notice that even in what I would have previously called the most “embedded” of times there is a looseness, an openness, a willingness or ability to just be with that nasty feeling, experience, whatever it is. Whatever you call this it’s very real and, for me, unexpected. I was fully prepared for a binary on/off, embedded/disembedded life. Ha!
There is no binary.It’s all-at-once, both are true and the choice to be one and/or the other.
Sounds like more and more subtle integration of non-grasping freedom, poetically put. It’s interesting to me how everyone has a slightly different take on awakening. I enjoy reading all the different expressions of the path.
p.s. Ur new theme is sexy.
Thanks buddy, glad you like the comments and the new theme.
Good stuff….sounds like you’re on the right track, whatever that means
Could be way off track here, but perhaps consider taking a look at the aspect of mind that creates an identity around being a buddhist, a teacher, an explorer, someone who has had a non-dual experience, etc.
Then again, perhaps that’s just a conscious choice to create a brand. Feel free to disregard if this is off track.
Thanks.
Yep, that’s a conscious choice. I don’t feel any contradiction between the need to find an appropriate way of speaking in the world and the exploration herein. I simply do them at different times, and recognize when I’m doing what. And, I appreciate suggestions from others on what to explore, but I get to choose which of those to pay attention to. Not knowing you at all, I’d have to take your suggestions fairly lightly. Nothing personal, but you just need to know that if you’re going to try and drop personal suggestions on my blog.
Hello. What a fresh blog. I have had a hard time finding blogs like this. Perhaps I will find more here? Some great comments too.
I really enjoy how you write and how easily you describe your findings. Very inspiring.
I thought about practice, especially meditation. If things are fine, why do it? But we know it is good to do. I don’t practice in order to have states but to remind myself. But then again, remind myself of what? It is tricky to talk about. Who is trying to remind who?
Why the need to join a spiritual group or follow a teacher, or meditate?
There is more to it than just the concepts about practice and my opinions seem to be what causes “trouble”. But they are also it.
Cheers!
Hi Samuel,
Welcome to the party. And yeah, I’m with you around some of these questions around why the need to meditate, etc. I still find myself asking these questions, even though I’m clearly committed to the practice of meditation (and it sounds like you are as well).
I like the quote from, I think it’s Baker Roshi, “Enlightenment is an accident. Meditation makes you accident prone.” I also like the model, from the Dzogchen tradition, which points out that though our original nature is completely unimpeded and completely present here and now, we are habitually distracted from the recognition of our nature. They claim that through contemplative training we become less distractable.
I think both of these things are somehow pointing to a relationship between the Universal and the Personal, that acknowledges the importance of both simultaneously. Anyway, that’s been what has made the most sense to me, up to this point.
No worries
However, by setting yourself up publicly as a teacher for hire one of the things that comes with the territory will be criticism and challenges to your credentials and justification for your ability to charge for teachings. I imply no judgement on this one way or another, but this is something that comes with the territory. By transitioning and growing from a site that explores different aspects of Buddhism (Buddhist Geeks, which I love) to a personal site that brands yourself as a teacher & explorer (offers your services to the world) you are entering new territory. Your site is no longer just a personal blog, but a branding/business site offering fee for service teaching. By making this transition, your business will be subject to the usual challenges & criticisms of quality, content, & expertise. Like it or not this comes with the territory. When you offer your advice & help on meditation teaching for free this is one dynamic, setting up a business situation where compensation is involved is a different dynamic…one that opens yourself up to challenges on credentials, wisdom, etc. Obviously, it’s your choice on whether or not to engage in such challenges/discussions, but it does come with the territory of running a business with marketing materials (your blog) in the public domain. You can’t run a business or teach using a fee for service model and expect every comment on your marketing website to be praise on the wisdom and beauty of your thoughts (though there is a lot of wisdom and beauty there in my opinion). I do think it’s relevant for people to test & challenge those who set themselves up as teachers, if only to maintain a check and balance against possible unethical teachers (which you are not in my judgement) who make their way on the scene. That said, I recognize that dharma circles tend to err more on the side of acceptance than that of critical analysis, for better or for worse.
I like your website, and I have learned a lot and greatly enjoy the Buddhist Geeks site. Thanks for the continued work you’ve done to bring Buddhist thinkers onto the web. If there is any chance of getting someone like Ajahn Sumedho or Gil Fronsdal to do an interview that would be really cool. If you prefer I won’t post anymore on your blog, but I hope you sense that my comments are not trying to be malicious, but rather aim to be in the spirit of critical discourse.
Thanks!
Hi Shane,
I appreciate your points about public criticism and discourse. These are indeed important values. I’m fine with them, but I also find it important to make a distinction between those people giving me feedback who I know absolutely nothing about, and those with whom I’m more familiar. In your case, I know nothing about you, what your practice is like, your depth of understanding in certain areas, your intellectual leanings, your ethical behavior, etc. and so when you took on the “teacher” role with me I had to make clear that I don’t enter into a student-teacher dynamic with just anyone. I need to know and respect this person before I even consider them a useful source of criticism and feedback. Often this takes time, and even personal interactions (as I’ve had with many readers on this blog), but it’s totally worthwhile.
The signal-to-noise ratio is very high on the internet, with many people reading my blog who think they know a lot about the spiritual path (and many of them fortunately do). But just as you point out the need for people to criticize and challenge my credentials here, I also need to make sure that I’m being criticized and challenged by those people who are actually in “the community of the adequate.” That is to say that critical discourse can only happen in a field of knowledge where all those parties involved are actually sufficiently knowledgeable to engage in said discourse. I have no idea whether you are, or aren’t, and your comments so far haven’t revealed that to me one way or the other. Definitely, please keep posting here, it’s great to have you around, just keep in mind that it takes a relationship and mutual respect to have a critical discussion.
all the best!
Good stuff…I completely agree with your perspective. Basically you said it better than I could have
Well put on my brief attempt to take on the “teacher” role. Probably inappropriate on my part. Keep up the good work, your comments earned my trust (whatever that’s worth) Thanks