The essential understanding
...can be viewed as two complementary understandings (like the two sides of a coin):
1. Your fundamental nature is awareness. When you look in your own direct experience (really look without just going straight into thought about it, try to see what you can see without conceptualising about it), all that really is there are:
a. thoughts
b. feelings (basically thoughts with some sensations associated with them or vice versa)
c. “physical” sensations (sights, sound, touch, smell, taste etc).
But the inescapable fact is that there is this spacious “field” of awareness in which all these things appear. It is the unchanging “background” on (or in) which all these things appear and disappear. While we seem to develop many different concepts about who or what we are over “time”, the only consistent “thing” which never changes is this awareness. It doesn’t really matter whether we consciously recognise it or “tune into it” regularly. It is what we are. Any “state” which can be achieved can also be lost but the awareness is never lost. So it is not a matter of getting something new or achieving something but recognising what is already the case. What you actually are is unaffected by uncomfortable thoughts or feelings (which will continue to come and go).
2. What really causes suffering is the belief that things should be different and that there is a separate person (which you call “me”) which needs to be improved or needs to gain better experiences or avoid unpleasant ones, etc. This aspect of the understanding seems to be more difficult for many people, but it really just comes down to really relying upon your own direct experience and discriminating between conceptual thought and reality. Most of us experience life primarily through conceptual filters of the mind and take it to be reality. But if you investigate and look, you will find (like Sailor Bob Adamson says) “What’s wrong with tight now, unless you think about it?” You will find that all apparent problems revolve around this concept of a separate person (“you”). But if you stop and look for this separate person in your own direct experience, you will only find the things mentioned in 1. above. The “me” seems so real and it is rarely ever questioned but I challenge you to find it. If you find it, please let me know. Otherwise you may soon come to realise that there really is no separate person that needs to do anything and that you can’t possibly escape presence because it is what you are. Sure, distraction, forgetfulness, discomfort, and other things will continue to happen. They are part of the natural flow of life and they are not inherently a problem. What causes suffering and agitation is this belief in yourself as a separate, limited individual that needs to become something other than what you are, or needs to control or improve external factors.
www.beyonddescription.net with acknowledgment to John Wheeler www.naturalstate.org
1. Your fundamental nature is awareness. When you look in your own direct experience (really look without just going straight into thought about it, try to see what you can see without conceptualising about it), all that really is there are:
a. thoughts
b. feelings (basically thoughts with some sensations associated with them or vice versa)
c. “physical” sensations (sights, sound, touch, smell, taste etc).
But the inescapable fact is that there is this spacious “field” of awareness in which all these things appear. It is the unchanging “background” on (or in) which all these things appear and disappear. While we seem to develop many different concepts about who or what we are over “time”, the only consistent “thing” which never changes is this awareness. It doesn’t really matter whether we consciously recognise it or “tune into it” regularly. It is what we are. Any “state” which can be achieved can also be lost but the awareness is never lost. So it is not a matter of getting something new or achieving something but recognising what is already the case. What you actually are is unaffected by uncomfortable thoughts or feelings (which will continue to come and go).
2. What really causes suffering is the belief that things should be different and that there is a separate person (which you call “me”) which needs to be improved or needs to gain better experiences or avoid unpleasant ones, etc. This aspect of the understanding seems to be more difficult for many people, but it really just comes down to really relying upon your own direct experience and discriminating between conceptual thought and reality. Most of us experience life primarily through conceptual filters of the mind and take it to be reality. But if you investigate and look, you will find (like Sailor Bob Adamson says) “What’s wrong with tight now, unless you think about it?” You will find that all apparent problems revolve around this concept of a separate person (“you”). But if you stop and look for this separate person in your own direct experience, you will only find the things mentioned in 1. above. The “me” seems so real and it is rarely ever questioned but I challenge you to find it. If you find it, please let me know. Otherwise you may soon come to realise that there really is no separate person that needs to do anything and that you can’t possibly escape presence because it is what you are. Sure, distraction, forgetfulness, discomfort, and other things will continue to happen. They are part of the natural flow of life and they are not inherently a problem. What causes suffering and agitation is this belief in yourself as a separate, limited individual that needs to become something other than what you are, or needs to control or improve external factors.
www.beyonddescription.net with acknowledgment to John Wheeler www.naturalstate.org
