LETTING GO OF WHAT YOU KNOW
As you’ve no doubt experienced, meditation theory – from Zen koans to Indian Yoga – often posits contradictions. In meditation we sit up in order to settle down, as we cultivate the seeming opposites of paying attention and relaxing. But what seems contradictory to convention is often complementary to the mind of meditation. The Mind of meditation is more relaxed, and hence, can see a greater spectrum of possibility than the its usual binary categorizations. The perplexities of life are posited as contradictions forcing us to THINK about the thinking process. Magic happens when the conceptual mind becomes frustrated in an attempt to fit reality into a frame it finds comforting. The mind might let go, surrender and open into a grander perspective.
This is the experience of the open space of possibility. It is a space beyond contradiction. In fact, it is a space where contradiction has never existed. It is the space of complete potential.
But, how do we get there? Well, in meditation, we simply sit and stop the mind, so that freed of itself, it can begin to see itself. What we begin to see is the vast potential of space, and the layers of ideas that we have created to try and make sense of that space. In order for us to make sense of the profusion of information available to the senses, our consciousness can be reduced to simple dualities. The conceptual mind, conditioned by the past and looking toward the future, – themselves a duality – tries to find meaning. Contradiction implies language, as in posing a contrary dictum. Therefore labeling is an assumption based on the conflation of more subtle inter-energetic exchanges. Realistically, we need labels to communicate. The problems arise as we begin to identify with the labels and automatically assign assumptive meaning based on uninvestigated and unrecognized feelings. We conflate history, physical sensation, emotional content and any number of environmental or societal factors into a judgement based on this and that, good and bad. We take these judgements for granted. We assume that our view of “good” and ‘bad” actually means something to the universe.
We are born with a basic goodness and natural inquisitiveness. As we grow older, we lose that natural inquisitiveness. The mind begins to configure around smaller and smaller sets of circumstances, as it avoids change instigated by outside stimulus. It is comfortable to rest in the known even if that known is painful or obviously limiting. We investigate less and less until one day, we investigate no further. Eventually, it seems labels are all there is to life. We take these labels for granted substituting designation for actual experience. Because these labels are without substance, they are inherently unsatisfying. Therefore, in our panic for sustenance, we grip and cling to the idea of things, even as contact with those things becomes more and more elusive. Sadly the more we grasp, the less we have.
Ancient Buddhist wisdom warns against mistaking the finger pointing to the moon, for the moon itself. We confuse the labels for the essence. But, each time we take these designations to be real, we discourage further investigation. We take the label as the truth and reduce awareness to a limited dimensional perspective. In religion, science, society and even our meditation practice, we begin to aggressively reinforce concepts with an intensity of ego identification and magical supposition. We dualize our view and begin to demonize opposites in order to further entrench our position. And thus, we are further and further from the truth. We fabricate concepts and magical abstraction as fingers become doctrine, spirituality becomes religion and supposition supplants discovery. The mind creates any number of overlays to help it create narrative and context for its perceptions. Our conditioning, being basically materialistic, will try and assign a value judgement and meaning to the designations we assign. The path of Meditation is a journey toward awakening from the overlay of concepts toward a direct perception of reality. According to Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, the truth of experience is that life is simply as it is. Life is actually so simple and direct that it lies well beyond any language capability. The path of meditation is the journey from sleepwalking through life, to actually experiencing life first hand, in real time. We go from taking designations for granted, through seeing the process of conceptualizing our life, to being willing to deconstruct the constructs. When we least expect it, and certainly when we don’t intend, we will actually glimpse naked experiences of reality. However, it may seem unsettling to our conceptual mind to rest in an undesignated space, without identification. We need to pass beyond a significant firewall to actually rest in undesignated space. Because this open space is with0ut footholds, there is little change to create an identity. This experience must seem sad, frightening and disorientating to a conceptual mind addicted to identification with itself. Each time we glimpse beyond thinking to naked reality, the conceptual mind confronts its own obsolescence. And yet, the experience is also quite exciting to another part of mind. ng our once we have accepted this experience, the conceptual mind, with amazing tenacity, will attempt to reconfigure itself to “own” the new experience. “Yes, this was ‘me’ all along.” However, comfort in identifying with this “deeper meaning” is simply grasping to another, ultimately unsatisfying, layer of construct. If one remains faithful to the path of discovery, it will have to be let go. This is quite painful. It takes patience and persistence to move beyond the defensive constructs of the firewall. Two minds? Well. there are many. In the same way indigenous people’s of the arctic are said to have thousands of words for ice, the Tibetans have many designations for mind. These can be placed in three categories: conceptual thinking mind, nonconceptual feeling mind and our present experience. I say ‘present experience’ to distinguish from the other categories of mind, which reference an identity forged by a relationship with past and future. Simply put, our identity based on past associations and expectations of the future cannot exist in the actual present. Thus, our ideas, concepts and overlays can also not exist there. With the absence of identification and conceptualization all that is left, is everything there is.
At some point, the mind, confounded by its inability to label this growing vastness of experience, will simply stop doing that. At that point, there is no meditation at all. There is simply what is. And while that much less than we make of it, it is actually much more than we understand.
We simply cannot grasp reality with the iron tongs of concept. We cannot grasp at all, as there is inherently nothing there to hold. In order to touch reality, we can only land, albeit briefly, with open arms and meet it on its own terms. In meditation practice, we train the mind to loosen its identification with itself in order to more accurately rest in the moment. At that point, we are able see beyond our self-interest into the open space of possibility. We may feel harmonic associations to our past, but we do not confuse that with what is happening now. We relax our grip and let go of the past in order to see this moment as it is. In this way, we are both mindful of the moment and mindful of our process. And, we are letting go of the interference due to gripping from the panic of identification.
Consider an open hand. If we close the hand, we obscure the object. If we grip the hand, we actually change the object. At some point, out of our own panic, we will actually kill the object. In that sense, we have beaten the unpredictability of the universe. We have frozen a dead object in place. But, even then our object is subject to change. In fact, we have not saved the object at all. We have only frozen the meaning, we have solidified the designation, while we have lost the essence. In order to free reality of life from the prison of interpretation, we must have have the bravery to allow things to be as they are. Things as they are are fundamentally beyond our control. But, if we are willing to loosen control, we are able to allow each moment, every thought and every breath its own liberation. By letting go, letting be and opening up to what is, we liberate ourselves from the designations, expectations and obligations of our mind. Letting go of the probable, the supposed, the compulsions, addictions, obligations, identifications and delineations of our experience is knowing that we do not know. And that is a truly remarkable position. Coming to the end of our road, is quite fortunate. Then we can give up, let go, and open to the landscape as it is. Becoming possible.
Becoming now and only that.
However, by the time you read this, it’s over. Something else is happening. All that was now is now gone. And now there is everything else. So, we are left with nothing but sitting, and sitting still, until the mind gives up control, as it will in any case, in death. Only to surrender now in life. To release ourselves of its limitations with every breath in every moment. And, in each moment life becomes possible.
There is a strength in a commitment to love. There is assurance in a commitment to non-violence. And, there is an unshakable power in a commitment to understanding. I will NOT act out of reflex, but will hold to the moment until I understand what is best. I will act when conscious. And, I will eschew all reflexive defenses that close communication and rely on awareness, as my best defense.
ad of acting on them, we can bring them back to the steady rhythm of the breath. Calm our heart and begin to wake up to our world. This radiance cannot be denied. It is seen by others. And, in this way, we instill peace in our world. By learning to love ourselves, we can radiate that love to the world.
