You can never perceive perceiving. It is here and now reality. Jean Klein
I dont have anything particular to write about in this post, because nothing particular can be said about the way things are. Particularity is by its nature reductionist. Almost everything we argue over relates to difference or particularity, and the question how do things inter-relate, inter-depend and integrate have only begun to be asked seriously in relatively recent times. At least in a conventional power sense.
Reductionism started in the Renaissance, as our scientific capabilities gained momentum. The hope or strategy was to find the building block of the Universe. The tools used to achieve this was the telescope and microscope. This endeavour continues today with the hope of finding the Higgs Boson at the Large Hadron Collider in France. The belief in materialism continues even though quantum physics has shown unequivocally that matter is none other than energy, and that energy is none other than vibration.
With the emergence of Rational Reductionism, came the covering over of phenomenology or said another way, subjective experience. This is very common in todays conventional language usage, where you are told to be rational and/or objective, and subjectivity is reduced to self-serving behaviour. The importance of subjectivity and inter-subjectivity in our looking relates to our learning in this area not being avoided, because it is difficult to be looked at by the avoidance behaviour of the phenomenal subject.
Our apparent subject-object relationship infers a seeing subject who observes and experiences objects. Objects being people and things, but not thoughts because they are internal to the subject, and not relationships because they happen between people and in collectives and are therefore inter-subjective? This inner knowledge is not generally shared directly with others, outside of intimate moments of sharing. This intimacy is the absence of the ways we create separation. Watch the way an adult looks at a baby, their face softens and their projection drops away, this is because the baby wants nothing from them and vice-versa.
Wanting nothing is being free of desire. In a Western sense being free of desire is interpreted disdainfully from the conditioning that nothing will get done. This is missing the point of Wisdom Teaching, which asks whether there is a separate doer, which is separate from the overall functioning.
The difficulty we have with the seeming internal and external aspects to our living reality lies at the heart of the sum of the challenges we experience. These challenges, challenge us at the level of our preferences. Our preferences represent what we already know, or said another way, represent past and future. Past equals memory and future equals anticipation. This conditioned pattern sets up an inability to be curious about a better way, or another way of seeing, because the situation, person or object will be unfamiliar. You cannot embrace the unfamiliar unless you are curious.
The other major factor, is that it represents a no go zone in our communication. Take some time to notice that the majority of communication consists of one-up-man-ship, where one person is constantly trying to one up the other. Their story is always that bit better than the one you are telling, so that we rarely listen intently to what is being communicated, because we are waiting to jump in and one-up the story. This one-up-man-ship is another version of the way we create separation in that our behaviour and communication is based on the ways we assume superiority and inferiority. An aware manager, coach or parent doesn’t operate in relationships based on this dysfunctional arrangement. So it raises the question; is this conditioned reality, the way things are, or is there a direct and unconditioned way to look?
In direct experience there are 3 apparent containers of experience that are perceived;
Body, is the experience of sensation and feeling.
Mind, is the experience of thoughts (including silent language) and images
World, is the experience of sense-perceptions.
Does science agree with this? Yes and No. Science measures phenomena, but does not ask the question; to whom or what do the phenomena appear? In other words science assumes the subject; in the subject-object relationship. Science does not ask questions about the nature or essence of the subject other than phenomenal appearance. This includes neuroscience which images the brain.
Neuroscience agrees that the brain responds differently based on changing stimulii, and reports on these changes in behavioural terms. This is akin to turning on the christmas tree lights and agreeing that the lights are on, but not asking the question about the source of the lights being able to work at all! In this instance the source of the lights is mains electricity, so what is the source or suchness of experience?
To answer this we need to turn our attention to the Wisdom Traditions in general and in the case of this blog, the Direct Path of Wisdom. In order to be clear we need to define some important terms (in italics below), so that what is normally taken for granted can be looked at from a new perspective.
Duality: Belief in the experience of more than one Reality. This includes the belief in more and less, gain and loss, and pleasure and pain as two, rather than mutually interdependent opposites.
NonDuality: There is only one Reality. This Reality is what is investigated in direct looking.
Awareness: That, whatever that is, which is reading these words in this moment. This is all that we can say about Awareness when we look directly, as Awareness has no objective qualities.
Apperception: Glimpse of one’s True Nature. Intention without tension. Realisation that the obstacles in your path are nothing other than exercises. True Nature is a synonym for Awareness. It is an apperception because perception infers an object.
Knowing I am Nothing is Wisdom (Awareness in the absence of objects). Knowing I am Everything is Love (Awareness in the presence and absence of objects)
Meditation therefore is a vacation from doing and an exercise in looking for the meditator (is there a separate awareness, other than the perceiving)
Ignorance and Effort are the same thing.
Ignorance is dynamic.
Meditation is not dynamic because it is a release of all effort. It is a release of doer-ship and the functioning keeps happening as it is.
The sense of lack is made of contractions in the body. Unpleasant sensations in the body dont want to be looked at because their unpleasantness is their cover. In direct looking we notice these contractions and let them go.
Natural Focus: Interest, Curiosity, Enthusiasm.
Analyse provisional happiness which results from satisfied desire? This happiness is nothing other than the dissipation of mental agitations that cover over our true nature.
Lack of resistance is another name for happiness. Belief in separation is the only disturbance.
Nothing special needs to happen to be this Aware Presence. Specialness = separate mind.
Awareness therefore is the basis of all action. All action is non-action in that it doesn’t arise in any way separately. Beginning to understand this is the source of peace.
The intelligence that is shaping your bones and digesting your food is not separate from the intelligence that is aware of thoughts. For example in the sequence thought, thought, thought, thinker. Where is the thinker other than thought? The thinker is itself another thought in the chain of thinking which assumes doership independent of the functioning.
In practical terms this blog is written to communicate the nature of the intelligence of the body-mind, and the freedom inherent in this realisation. You can only begin to play with pure possibility when you are clear on the ways you create limitation. Without knowing the fact directly; what is one to do?
NB. Fact in the above sentence is used to denote the fact of ones own experience.
NB2. A concept is an experience, but not vice-versa.
I offer Embodied Leadership Training and Workplace Well-Being which flows from the above understanding.