“The awakened mind is free flowing, natural and well rounded. It’s like Teflon — nothing sticks. On the other hand, the unawakened, ordinary mind is rigid, limited, and sticky like flypaper; the ordinary mind has corners and sharp jagged edges on which ideas get caught, hanging us up. Dualistic thinking is like Velcro; it takes two to tangle. Unitary vision is more like a crystal through which all forms of light can pass unimpeded.”
— Awakening the Buddha Within
“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism.”
“We can’t comprehend Reality with our intellect. We can’t pull it into a static view of some thing. All our explanations are necessarily provisional. They’re just rigid frames of what is actually motion and fluidity. In other words, if you can think of how Reality is, you can be sure that’s how it isn’t. Reality simply cannot be put into a conceptual form — not even through analogy, for there’s nothing like it. Reality simply doesn’t fit into concepts at all. Nevertheless, Reality is something you can see. You can’t conceive of it, but you can perceive it.”
— Buddhism Plain and Simple by Steve Hagen
Finding Fearlessness in the Face of Change
The ultimate act of letting go is to abandon the delusion that consciousness and the world are separate things.
Because we fear our own eventual extinction, we construct the idea of a permanent self.
(The Buddha) saw the self as composed of a number of ever-changing processes.
Knowing that I exist, it’s hard for me to imagine never having existed, and so in my own mind there’s a certain inevitability about my existence.
When we try to imagine death, what comes to mind is imagining an experience of nothingness, as if we’d still be around to have a non-experience. […] We simply cannot imagine not being able to experience anything at all, because experience is all we know, and so we’re forced to imagine experiencing non-experience.
Since we assume that the self existed before conception and will exist after death, we’ll inevitably imagine that it persists — unchanged — throughout life.
Once we start naming things, our language reinforces our underlying tendency to see them as fixed. We name things, and then we assume that because the name is static, so too is the thing named. The mind takes the language it uses to label reality as if it were reality.
It is (the) flow of events that constitutes what we call consciousness. Consciousness is not seen as being something separate that “has” experiences. Consciousness is the activity of experiencing.
The sage at peace recognizes that aging and dying are simply stories we weave for ourselves.
The opposite of suffering turns out not to be simple happiness, but something indefinable.
We may try to shelter ourselves from an awareness of impermanence by identifying with a nation or religion or with an abstract principle such as progress. […] To cling is to seek a stable refuge in the midst of a torrent of impermanence. […] The more our sense of well-being is dependent upon something impermanent, the more there is an undercurrent of fear. […] Fear leads to clinging, which leads to fear.
Insight is not the same as intellectual understanding but is a direct recognition of impermanence in our experience.
Everything that constitutes us is in fact a process, rather than a thing or object.
“Verbal thinking” – a scrolling tickertape of more-or-less connected words that streams endlessly through the mind.
(The body is) a process that has continuity rather than identity. […] There is no being, only becoming. There is no identity, only change.
In sensing my body as a river, I begin to realize that I do not know what I am. I begin to realize that there is nothing — “no thing” — to cling to or to identify with. One cannot hold onto a river.
If the earth were shrunk to the size of a soccer ball, the average depth of the ocean covering it would be sixty-five microns, or about twice the thickness of a grocery-store plastic bag.
Life is the sustainable self-organization of energy within the material world. […] Life itself is flow, and the energy of life cannot be grasped or possessed.
We need to hold definitions lightly, remembering that they are the map rather than the territory.
Despite Copernicus, we tend to think that we are at the center of the universe — that it all exists in order to serve us. But rather, we are scavengers of energy, peripheral to the vast processes unfolding around us.
Clouds make a good analogy for the illusory nature of the self. There’s nothing permanent in a cloud, just as there’s nothing permanent to be found in the self. The cloud is not separate from its environment, just as my self has no separateness. Just as the cloud lacks the essential qualities I assume a “thing” has, so too does my self lack the qualities I assume a self has. In looking at mists or a cloud; we can see a form, often with an apparently well-defined edge, and yet there’s nothing there that can be grasped. The fact that we name something a “cloud” often seems to create in the mind the assumption that the thing that’s being named is as static as the label applied to it. Often we’ll glance at a particular cloud and then look at it a short while later. Nothing much seems to have changed, because the human mind is not well-equipped to perceive change—especially not in something as amorphous as a cloud.
All concepts are simply labels superimposed upon the reality we perceive.
As we move toward the idea of abandoning the idea of a separate selfhood, we may need to go through a phase of treating the whole of creation as if it were us. […] Extend the idea of the self out far enough, and the idea of the self becomes meaningless.
As I sit breathing in my meditation practice, I might find myself wondering exactly at what point a particular molecule of air could be said to be “in” the body. Is it when it crosses some arbitrarily drawn plane enclosed by the rims of my nostrils? Is it once it’s crossed into the bloodstream? Or bonded to a molecule of hemoglobin? Any line I choose to draw would be purely arbitrary. I look for the boundary of my physical self and can’t find one.
Noticing how my gaze can often fixate on a narrow area in front of me, I become aware of the entirety of my visual field, allowing into awareness everything from the center of my visual field to the periphery. It’s like moving from a kind of “dial-up” connection between the world and my brain to a “broadband” one. Doing this generally has a very calming effect on my inner chatter, as if the sheer volume of incoming data I’m paying attention to leaves no bandwidth available for my inner dramas.
All experience takes place in the mind. […] We can know nothing beyond our sensory experience.
Consciousness is the activity of being aware of something. There can, by definition, be no consciousness separate from the things of which it is aware. […] We can never know objective things separate from our sense-impressions, which are interpretations rather than reality.
There can be no consciousness without something to be conscious of.
There is nothing stable within the mind. There is no permanent core. Perceptions, feelings, thoughts, and emotions are simply flowing through us, but are not us. Consciousness is an activity. It’s there when it happens.
Our identity depends on the internalization of the consciousness of others. Consciousness, like all the other elements, is therefore something that extends beyond the individual and that, in some sense, flows through us like a river.
Each event of cognizing is “a consciousness.” Since perceptions come and go, so too will consciousness come and go. Each response to a perception is another consciousness. There is no enduring consciousness, no permanent watcher at the helm of our being, observing everything that happens and making decisions. There are just the multiple overlapping waves of consciousness, rising and falling, rising and falling.
Our decision-making is a post-hoc conscious labeling of activities that begin outside of awareness.
Where is the self when conscious awareness is absent?
Memories are not etched permanently in the brain. Instead, every time a memory is retrieved, it is destroyed and then re-created, and it becomes a memory of a memory. Any current memories we have are copies of copies of copies… many times over depending on how many times we have recalled that particular experience. Because of this process of creating, destroying, and re-creating memories, our recollections are unstable and subject to alteration. Each time we recall an event from our lives, the memory of that event can change. […] We never have a full recollection of anything that’s happened to us, and our memories are constructed from hints, scraps and traces found within the mind.
“We are never conscious of anything but a particular perception; man is a bundle or collection of different perceptions that succeed one another with an inconceivable rapidity and are in perpetual flux and movement.” — David Hume
The underlying principle of selfhood in Buddhism: there is continuity but no identity.
I am a field of awareness in which all my experiences arise.
It’s largely our thoughts, and the emotional qualities associated with them that create our experience. […] In every moment of perception, we are able to choose between (fear and love). Fear is marked by clinging, aggression, doubt, anxiety, and denial. Love is marked by letting go, being flexible, compassionate regard, confidence, and intelligent curiosity. We have these choices in every moment of our lives.
Every time we make a choice, we play a part in forming a new version of the self, and we also remind ourselves of the self’s unfixed nature. We begin to see more and more clearly that our present experience is produced by largely unconscious patterns of thought.
There is no succession of fleetingly short selves, but instead a never-ending process of change. (No self!)
We simply let go of identifying any part of our experience as the self. Since we don’t cling to anything as being the self, we also don’t think of anything as being other than the self. […] There is simply experience, with no absolute distinction between subject and object. There is no idea “I am perceiving.” there’s no idea that there’s a separate world being perceived. There’s just experience.
Excerpts from Buddhism Plain and Simple by Steve Hagen.
When the Buddha was asked to sum up his teaching in a single word, he said, “awareness.”
The Buddha never considered himself to be something other than a human being — only someone who was fully awake. […] Buddha is not someone you pray to, or try to get something from. Nor is a buddha someone you bow down to . A buddha is simply a person who is awake — nothing more or less.
Buddhism is not a belief system. It’s not about accepting certain tenets or believing a set of claims or principles. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It’s about examining the world clearly and carefully about testing everything and every idea. Buddhism is about seeing. It’s about knowing rather than believing or hoping or wishing. It’s also about not being afraid to examine anything and everything, including our own personal agendas.
“Don’t believe me because you see me as your teacher,” he said. “Don’t believe me because others do. And don’t believe anything because you’ve read it in a book, either. Don’t put our faith in reports, or tradition, or hearsay, or the authority of religious leaders or texts. Don’t rely on mere logic, or inference, or appearances, or speculation.”
The point of Buddhism is to just see. That’s all. […] We cannot approach Buddhism with any assumption or belief whatsoever. […] Buddhism begins with fact. It starts with perception — direct experience. […] Truth does not need any explanation. It only needs to be seen.
Belief is at best an educated, informed conjecture about Reality. In contrast, seeing — raw, direct, unadulterated experience — is the direct perception of Reality Itself. […] Base your actions on what you see, rather than on what you think.
We can only be here. We can’t leave. We’re always here.
No solid, unchanging “good” or “bad” can be established. Good and bad aren’t absolutes. They are beliefs, judgments, ideas based on limited knowledge as well as on the inclinations of our minds.
Generally our desire, our actions, our speech, and our thoughts are geared toward bringing about some particular end by exerting control. The buddha-dharma doesn’t ask us to give up control. Instead, it acknowledges that we never had it in the first place.
“I discovered one day that what I was calling “I” cannot be found, and all fear and anxiety vanished with my mistake.”
To hold onto any particular view is to freeze Reality, to try to encapsulate the world into thought.
What you really need and want will never appear as an object to your mind.
The only way we can be free in each moment is to become what the moment is.
We can’t comprehend Reality with our intellects. Reality simply cannot be put into a conceptual form — not even through analogy. […] You can’t conceive of it, but you can perceive it.
The right intention is simply the intention to come back to this moment — to just be present with no ideas of gaining whatsoever.
Meditation is nothing other than the intention to wake up.
The mind will not be ruled. Just attend to what you’re doing. Because in attending to this moment, you’re attending to your own mind.
A buddha recognizes that anything put into speech is never completely reliable. Whatever someone says to you about another person is skewed from the start. It comes through their filter, their likes and dislikes, their education their ambition, and the leanings of their own mind.
As long as you think enlightenment is something special, you won’t wake up.
When we see Reality we are completely beyond the realm of words and concepts. We experience what words cannot express, what ideas cannot contain, what speech cannot communicate. So, in a sense, there’s nothing to say.
Our only choice of consequence lies in whether or not we’re awake.
You can’t want enlightenment like you want other things. There’s absolutely nothing to go after.
Our thoughts and mental states are just as fleeting as the sensations of our bodies. (Like feeling hot or cold. And we have no control over them)
A key point in the practice of mindfulness is never to chastise yourself.
Do right meditation even though it’s useless. Do it for no purpose.
There are two kinds of knowledge and two types of views. One consists of beliefs, opinions, conjectures — having an idea of something. It’s an intellectual grasping of concepts. This is how we commonly think of knowledge.
There is a second type of view, what the Buddha called right view. Right view is not a concept or belief. In fact, it’s no particular thing at all. Right view is simply seeing Reality as it is, here and now, moment after moment. It’s relying on bare attention — naked awareness of what is before conceptual thought arises. It’s relying on what we actually experience rather than what we think.
It’s by our very desire to find meaning that we create meaninglessness.
The Buddha, relying on direct experience alone, not only found no evidence of beginnings or endings, he could find no evidence of any separate, persisting thing (self) that could have a beginning or end.
Our belief in non-existence (death) arises only as the result of hold the notion of existence (of the self) in the first place.
The awakened may have thoughts and concepts just like anyone else. The difference is that they’re aware that what they actually see differs from what they think.
What is Real and True is immediately perceivable without any abstract thought — any concepts — whatsoever.
Seeing doesn’t require conception, language, or memory.
Ultimate Truth can’t be conceptualized or imagined. You cannot hold Ultimate Truth in your mind at all. You can see it. You just can’t hold It as an idea.
Whenever we come up with any concept at all, we simultaneously create one or more opposite concepts.
We tend not to realize the extent to which we make up what we call the world.
Trying to make a leaning mind stop leaning is just another form of leaning. […] Forget yourself. Start noticing if your mind is leaning — showing preferences, making calculations, trying to bring about, trying to push away. […] When your mind is not leaning, it’s none other than Whole Mind.
To awaken is not to hold the idea of awakening. You can’t practice waking up.
Amazon: “Rick Hanson and Richard Mendius, a neuropsychologist and a neurologist and both practicing Buddhists, show us just how the brain programs us to experience the world a certain way by combining information from the external world with information held in neural pathways within the brain. These pathways operate in the background of our awareness, influencing our conscious mental activity.”
This book was a bit of a struggle for me so the following notes are intended for my own reference and make little sense outside the context of the book.
The self is like someone running behind a parade that is already well under way, continually calling out: “See what I created!” (pg 212)
In the brain, every manifestation of self is impermanent. The self is continually constructed, deconstructed, and constructed again. (pg 212)
We experience “now” not as a thin sliver of time in which each snapshot of experience appears sharply and ends abruptly, but as a moving interval roughly 1-3 seconds long that blurs and fades at each end. (pg 213)
At any moment, the parts of the self that are present depend on many factors, including genetic heritage, personal history, temperament, and situations. In particular, self depends on a lot of feeling tone of experience. When the feeling tone is neutral, the self tends to fade into the background. But as soon as something distinctly pleasant or unpleasant appears, the self quickly mobilizes. The self organizes around strong desires. Which comes first: Do “I” form a desire? Or does desire from and “I?” (pg 213)
The self has no inherent, unconditional, absolute existence apart from the network of causes it arises from, in, and as. (pg 213)
The self is truly a fictional character. (pg 214)
“There is a profound Buddhist doctrine that speaks of a great river that flows through all of reality. Once you have found yourself, there is no more cause for action. The river picks you up and carries you along forever after. In other words, effort from the personal level, the kind of effort all of us are used to in daily life, becomes pointless after a certain point. This includes mental effort. Once you become self-aware, you realize that the flow of life needs no analysis or control, because it’s all you. The great river only seems to pick you up. Actually, you have picked yourself up — not as an isolated person, but as a phenomenon of the cosmos. No one gave you the job of steering the river. You can enjoy the ride and observe the scenery.”
I like that. I found it in a book by Deepak Chopra (“Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul”). I’m not recommending the book (you’ll read it if you’re supposed to). But this is where I jot done some of the lines and passages that I want to remember or find again.