And I can tell you from my own experience that whatever I do from the illusion that there is a Douglas meatball here doing it and controlling it, is rather badly and very badly done. And whatever I do from the experience that here is not Douglas’ meatball, any meatball, but Space for the whole world to happen in, is better done. There’s more energy, more love. It’s obviously not going to be perfect, but it is going to be a lot better done.
– Douglas Harding
Tag: headless way
Douglas Harding: Whenever we have the grace to say YES! to our circumstances
Whenever we have the grace to say YES! to our circumstances, and actively to will (rather than passively to acquiesce in) whatever happens, why then there springs up that real and lasting joy which Eastern tradition calls ananda.
– Douglas Harding
I love this. I also find it fascinating how there are different flavors, variations, and aspects of this.
One is surrender. How is it to surrender to this situation, to what’s already here? How is it to drop resistance? Complaints? Even for a moment?
How is it to accept what’s already here? How is it to accept what’s already accepted by life, space, the consciousness I am?
How is it to find gratitude for what’s here? How is it to find gratitude for it as an expression of the same life as I am expression of? How is it to find genuine gifts in it?
How is it to meet my experience, as it is here and now, with kindness?
How is it to actively want what’s here? How is it to lean into it?
How is it to identify my stressful thoughts about what’s here, investigate them, and find what’s genuinely more true for me?
How is it to dialog with the parts of me that don’t want what’s here? How is it to hear what they have to say? To listen to their concern for me, their love? Can I find a way to more consciously be on a team with these parts of me? How is it to thank them for protecting me? For their love for me?
How is it to take one of these and explore it over time, through different situations?
If I try one or a few, which one seems to resonate right now? After staying with it for a while, does it open for another? For instance, if I sincerely thank a part of me for protecting me, does that help me actively wanting what’s here as it is?
When people look at me, it points to my nature
At a Headless Zoom meeting yesterday, Richard Lang shared another helpful pointer.
When people look at you, notice that from your point of view, they are looking at nothing.
As so often with these pointers, what they point to is both very familiar and a new angle. What I notice has always been here, I have noticed it to some extent, and that particular pointer is fresh and highlights something I haven’t consciously noticed or investigated before in just that way.
I also realize that this is a version of the basic pointing experiment: Point at something in your environment. Notice the outline, texture, colors, and so on. Notice it’s an object. Then point at something else, and notice the same. Point at your feet. They, too, are objects. Point at your chest, that’s also an object. Then point back at where you are looking from. What do you find there? Do you find an object? Or space wide open for the world? The space that all objects, all experiences, happen within and as?
In this case, we use the gaze of others as the finger. When they look at me, I can take it as an invitation to notice what’s here. What do I find? Do I find an object? Or wide open space? Capacity for the world as it appears here?
I love these pointers. Each one brings attention to a certain feature of my nature, or of the world. I want to bring this with me. When someone looks at me, what do I find here? How is it to notice that? How is it to relate and interact from that noticing?
As Richard also mentioned, there is often a switch between (a) feeling self-conscious and focusing on this human self, and maybe even identifying with this human self, and (b) noticing the nothing here that’s full of the world. It’s not one or the other. Both are here, and both are valid and important.
Some background: The Headless Way and the Headless experiments were developed by Douglas Harding. Richard Lang is one of his friends, and is now among those sharing it with others. I love this approach for its simplicity, practicality, and for how egalitarian it is.
And a disclaimer: The quote from Richard is paraphrased. I did write down some notes, but I don’t think I got it exactly. Also, the way each of us talk about these things will be a little different, and that’s part of the beauty of it.
What I enjoy about headlessness
As I mentioned in the previous post, in the Headless Way Zoom meetings, Richard Lang will often ask what we enjoy about being headless.
Just about everything people talk about, unless it’s overly conceptual which happens on rare occasions, fits my own experience.
What I enjoy about headlessness, about my nature noticing itself, is that…
It’s full and complete, nothing is missing.
It’s timeless and spaceless. It’s what forms itself into the experience of time and space.
There is no beginning or end in time. It forms itself into the experience of time.
There is no outer boundary that I can find. It forms itself into any ideas of boundaries.
There is no real center. Its center is everywhere and nowhere.
There is no distance to anything. It’s all here in this field of experience.
When this human self moves through the world, the world moves through me.
It’s endlessly creative. It’s always taking new forms.
It’s always fresh and new.
It’s home. It’s where I am at home. It’s the home that was never left.
It’s awake space that forms itself into the world as it appears to me.
Everything is this awake space. It’s this awake space taking the form of these legs, this computer, the hands and fingers, the sounds, the music, the breeze, the room, and so on.
It’s not anything I need to remember. I just need to remember to notice.
It’s already here. It’s not anything that needs to be manufactured. (Anything manufactured happens within the field of experience like anything else.)
It’s all I have ever known. This awake space is what has formed itself into anything and everything ever experienced here.
It’s capacity. It’s nothing allowing for everything. It’s nothing making itself into everything.
It has no characteristics and can take the form of any characteristic.
Everything is noticed as happening on its own. Everything is living its own life, including this human self.
It can take itself to be something within its own field of experience. It can temporarily take itself to be this human self, a doer, an observer, and so on.
This noticing can be shared with others. We can talk about it and find we are noticing the same. We can help others to notice it for themselves.
We can talk about it with simple and everyday words.
It can be noticed here and now if attention is guided. It doesn’t take lifetimes, years, or hours to notice.
It doesn’t require any belief or spirituality or religion or anything.
Noticing it doesn’t require anything apart from the noticing.
It’s prior to any thought. It’s more immediate than any thoughts, words, and mental representations.
Words can point our attention to it.
Words cannot even begin to touch it.
It’s an endless process of exploration. How is it to notice it now? How is it to live from and as it now? How is it to invite more of my human self to align with this noticing?
It can be profoundly transforming for this human self and its life in the world.
It doesn’t necessarily transform anything at first. This human self can be exactly as it is, whatever that is, and the noticing is still here.
It is mystery. It’s a complete mystery to itself. I am a complete mystery to myself.
Everything is mystery. This whole field of experience it forms itself into is mystery.
It’s possible to explore, learn about, get familiar with, talk about, create maps about, and so on. It’s possible to find maps and understandings that fit the data more or less well. It’s possible to be more or less familiar with it than someone else. And it’s still mystery.
Most likely, we are all this to ourselves. All “conscious beings”, no matter the shape of the body and no matter the psyche, is this to themselves. That opens for a profound sense of connection with all beings.
That it’s endlessly fascinating to my human self.
The fullness and completeness of my nature
In the Headless Way Zoom calls, Richard Lang sometimes asks:
What do you enjoy about headlessness today?
Even if I haven’t been on that many Headless Way Zoom calls, I find the question lives in me. (The meetings are great, it’s more about my energy levels and brain fog.)
Today, what I notice I enjoy is the fullness and completeness of it. Nothing is missing. No matter where I look, nothing is missing. My nature is all of it, complete, whole, full, without boundaries, without beginning or end in time (that I can find), and so on.
Of course, at a human level, a lot is missing if I use a conventional mindset. My brain doesn’t work so well. My body struggles a lot. I have energy for just the essentials and not much more. I have a lot of traumas. Parts of the roof fell down. We are in an ecological crisis. And so on.
It’s endlessly fascinating to explore the different aspects of my nature, how it relates to my human self (and how my human self relates to it!), how to invite more of my human self to align with a conscious noticing of it (AKA heal, mature), how to talk about it, the many different ways to talk about it, and more.
When our nature notices itself, why is it sometimes valued and sometimes not?
I was on a Headless Way Zoom call earlier today, a daily one between Christmas and New Year. One of the topics that came up was sharing seeing.
When we share headless experiments with others, and they notice their nature, why do some value and pursue it while others don’t?
There is no right or wrong, or better or worse here. It’s just nature and life playing itself out in many different ways, but it is still interesting.
There may be several answers, as usual.
THE PSYCHE
First, what is valuing it or not? What’s interested in it or not?
It’s this human self with a particular psyche, personality, and orientation.
All of the answers below have to do with how our psyche responds to what’s noticed and the context of the noticing.
ORIENTATION
One answer is the general inclination of this human self and personality.
Some are more inclined to want to explore things thoroughly, including who and what they are. There is a natural curiosity there and an attitude of leaving no stone unturned. We are not satisfied with the answers our culture gives us and want to look for ourselves.
Others may be satisfied with the ordinary answers or not looking. Some may feel it’s enough to focus on daily life activities.
TOO FAMILIAR
Another is a common answer from Buddhism: It’s too close, ordinary, familiar, and simple.
It seems like this cannot be it since it’s what we already are familiar with and always have been.
The mind may want something “over there”, more complex, and more unusual. It has built it up in its imagination, and what it finds doesn’t match.
THE CONTEXT
I also suspect that the context of the noticing plays a role.
Our human self may value it more if…
It happens after a long period of exploration. We have invested a lot into it, and have wanted to notice it for a long time, so when it happens we value it more.
It happens in the context of a tradition and with a teacher we respect and admire. We respect the setting and what they tell us, so we value the noticing more.
It’s verbally set up in a way that resonates with this human self. For instance, we may share how it has helped us in daily life, and the person is interested. Or it may be phrased in a way that resonates with what they are already familiar with from religion or spirituality.
It comes with a lot of fireworks and side effects. There may be strong states, strong energies running through our system, a flood of insights, and other side effects, and these make us pay attention more. (We may also confuse the side effects with the essence and it can take a while to learn to differentiate.)
The noticing is strongly and undeniably in the foreground and any sense of being something within the content of experience gone or far in the background.
WHAT NOTICES?
Another answer may be in our experience of what notices.
Our nature already does everything, so it’s always our nature that notices itself.
The experience of it, and the way it’s understood, can be different.
In some cases, there may be an experience of this human self noticing its nature as space for the world, capacity for it all, what the world moves through, and so on. There is still fundamentally a sense of being a human self. If so, it may seem like a party trick and something peripheral.
Of course, there is an inherent contradiction here. If we are space for it all, we are also space for this human self so him or her is not what we fundamentally are. But that may not be noticed or taken seriously.
In other cases, we realize that we are space for all of the world, including this human self and everything related to it. That’s a profound shift. It turns everything upside down and inside out.
I imagine that when this is noticed, we are much more likely to take it seriously and want to continue to explore.
LIFE MOVING
As mentioned above, there is no right or wrong here. Any ideas or right or wrong, or better or worse, are created by the human mind. They are imaginations and not inherent in life.
What’s happening – a consciousness noticing its nature or not, and deciding to continue to explore it or not – is all life moving in different directions.
In one sense, this has to do with readiness. We can be ready or not to explore this more thoroughly, and if we are not, the experience may sow a seed that sprouts later.
In another sense, it’s all – no matter what it is – life, existence, the universe expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself in always new ways. It seems that the exploration is a goal in itself.
And it does make a difference for this human self. When it’s ready and explores its nature more thoroughly, it can and likely will change its life, in ways its personality likes (more ease, flow, sense of being home) and doesn’t like (all sorts of unprocessed material surfacing to be seen, felt, loved, and recognized as consciousness).
The image is from a video interview with Richard Lang, and likely originally from one of Douglas Harding’s books.
The psychological impact of our ecological crisis
We are local and temporary expressions of larger social and ecological systems, so our whole life and existence is impacted by our global ecological crisis.
Our life-support system is in a massive crisis, we notice and know, and this will inevitably bring up things i many of us – stress, grief, anxiety, anger, old trauma, a wish to work for change, and so on.
A recent study found that in the US, a majority of young people are concerned (AKA scared) about the future. (Survey of young people aged 16-25 from all US states shows concerns across political spectrum in The Guardian.)
So how do we deal with it?
I won’t write a detailed and general overview, but I can share some of what I have found that helps me:
WORLDVIEW & ASSUMPTIONS
I explore more nourishing and life-centered worldviews, and I actively work on allowing these to transform me.
I love the Universe Story. It’s based in science and gives a context of wonder and awe for our lives. We are the local and temporary expressions of the unfolding of the universe. We are the universe bringing itself into consciousness. We are the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe. The history of the universe is, in a very real sense, our history. It’s how we came to be.
Similarly, I am a local and temporary expression of the always-evolving living system we call Earth. I am nature.
Everything I am and know – thoughts, feelings, actions, human civilization – are local and temporary expressions of this unfolding universe and the processes of this living planet.
This is a view of holarchies, of wholes within larger wholes and with smaller wholes within it. It’s a view of all as inherently sacred. If we want, it’s a view of all of reality, whatever that is, as God.
This is a more life-centered worldview. It helps me see myself as an intrinsic – temporary and local – expression of the unfoldment of it all. It helps me hold my thoughts and assumptions more lightly.
IDENTIFYING THE LESS LIFE-CENTERED WORLDVIEWS AND ASSUMPTIONS
This is in contrast to the conventional worldview of our civilization, which is of separation. This is the worldview of our agricultural civilization, aimed at justifying unequal access to resources, domestication, social hierarchies, abuse of living beings and nature, theft of the land of those who are “inferior”, and so on.
Here, we are separate from nature. Mind is separate from body. Only humans have souls. The sacred is in a god in the sky. We should take someone’s word about the fundamentals of who and what we are, and pretend we believe it (whatever that means). Western civilization is superior. Nature is here for our benefit. Nature is infinite. Thoughts can tell us the full, absolute, and final truth about something. We best understand something by taking it apart to its smallest parts. If one thought is true, other perspectives must be false. Some emotions are good and others are bad. We see the world in polarities where one end is bad and undesirable and the other good and desirable. And more.
I find it helpful to know some of this history, recognize these kinds of worldviews and assumptions, explore the effects of these, and find worldviews and assumptions that are more life-centered and can help us develop a more ecologically sound civilization.
OTHER ASSUMPTIONS
I also use other assumptions that, in my experience, fit with a more life-centered worldview.
I see all beings as primarily consciousness. They are consciousness to themselves, just as I am, and we all live through different bodies with different psyches. All beings are then fundamentally the same as me. All beings want happiness and to be free of suffering, just like me.
Thoughts are questions about the world. They have a practical function only, to help us orient and function in the world. They cannot hold any full, final, or absolute truth. The world is always more than and different from our maps.
If people act in destructive ways, it’s either because of the system we are all part of or trauma. Usually, it’s both. The system leads to trauma, and the system and trauma come together to bring about destructive actions. (This is the system that comes from a worldview of separation.)
BEFRIENDING EXPERIENCE
I explore befriending my experiences and wounded parts of myself.
How do I relate to this experience that’s here? These sensations, mental images, words? Can I find a more gentle and kind way to relate to it?
When I experience distress, it comes from distressed parts of me. It’s not all of me. These parts want the same as me: Love, kindness, acceptance, understanding, support. How is it to give it to them? How is it to give them what they most deeply want? How is it to be a good parent to these parts of me?
ALLOWING MYSELF TO BE HUMAN
I allow myself to be human with easy and difficult days and the full range of human experiences, thoughts, emotions, hopes and fears. It’s normal. It’s human. It makes me like anyone else.
In a very real sense, these emotions are the emotions of this living system we call Earth. They are the local and temporary expressions of Earth, in this case, responding to what’s happening to itself. (Filtered through the usual biases, interpretations, hangups, and so on that this particular local and temporary expression of this living system has.)
THE REALITIES OF LIVING IN THIS SYSTEM
Most of us live within this global civilization which is inherently ecocidal and suicidal. It’s a system that assumes separation from nature, and infinite natural resources. That means that all of us, inevitably, live lives that are somewhat ecocidal and suicidal. It’s mostly about the system, and less about us as individuals.
I know that living in this system, my life will inevitably be somewhat destructive. It’s inevitable. It’s not personal, it’s how it is for all of us. What I can do is do my small part in nudging it in a more life-centered direction.
ENGAGEMENT
I do whatever small things I can do in my own life. I compost. Eat organic and local if possible. Take public transportation unless I have a good reason to use a car. Vote for those who take our ecological crisis seriously.
I am also in the fortunate situation that I have land in the Andes and am working on regeneration, reforestation, and creating a food forest here. I love the work we are doing to help this land. This morning, I planted more Maya nut seeds, and participating in the regeneration in this way, in partnership with the nature here, is deeply rewarding and meaningful.
Engagement in the solutions, even in apparently small ways, gives a more visceral sense of hope.
COMMUNITY
I seek out communities of like-minded people. I loved being at the Zen Center in Salt Lake City. I love the Breema community. I love the Permaculture community. I love the people in the Green Party in Norway that I have met. When I am reminded of the Universe Story, Deep Ecology, Permaculture, systems views, and so on, I feel connected to a worldwide community of people who share these interests and this orientation.
Here in the Andes, I seek out and have found people who work with regeneration, bodymind practices, and so on. Just knowing about them helps me a lot, and I also enjoy the interactions and exchanges.
VOTING
Voting alone is not going to save us, but it is an important piece of the puzzle.
If I know what’s happening in the world today, and it’s the consequence of the policies of the parties that have been in power for decades, it makes no sense to vote for these.
I personally vote for, and am a member of, the Green Party in Norway. They get the situation, want to do something about it, and get enough votes to be included in the government.
QUESTIONING STRESSFUL STORIES & EXPLORING PROJECTIONS
I identify and question my stressful stories. For this, I generally use The Work of Byron Katie, although I did it so much that The Work mostly does itself.
This is an effective way to explore – to notice and own – projections and the shadow. What I see in others is also here in me. Whatever story I have about someone else, I can turn it to myself and find genuine and specific examples of how it’s true.
I am in the same boat as everyone else. I am not inherently better or worse. (Also because ideas about better or worse are just that, ideas. It’s not inherent in reality.) I live in the same system as everyone else.
MEDITATION & YOGA
I have done a good amount of meditation in my life, although these days it’s mostly in the form of noticing in daily life. I especially like basic meditation – to notice and allow what’s here, fail at it, and then notice it’s all already noticed and allowed.
I find training more stable attention very helpful, it supports just about any activity in daily life and also general well-being.
I have also variously done tai chi, qigong, yoga, and Breema, and love it. It’s nourishing and brings me home to myself – as bodymind and the consciousness it’s happening within – in a more visceral way.
NOTICING MY NATURE
I have used the Big Mind process and Headless experiments to explore my nature, although these days I mostly just notice.
In one sense, I am a human being in the world. That’s not wrong. It’s an assumption that works relatively well, although it also comes with inherent stress and discomfort.
In my own first-person experience, I find I am fundamentally something else. I am what the world, as it appears to me, happens within and as. I am consciousness, and the world, to me, happens within and as the consciousness I am.
This gives a different and more real context to this life and everything else.
I should mention that this says something about my nature, not the nature of all of existence, and that’s more than enough. It leaves the nature of all of existence open for question and exploration.
HEART-CENTERED PRACTICES
I use tonglen and ho’oponopono.
In tonglen, I visualize someone in front of me. It can be an individual (including myself) or group or the whole world. I see their suffering as black smoke and breathe it in. In me, it transforms to light and I breathe that light out and into the other(s). I repeat many times until and beyond there is a deepening shift. This helps me viscerally see myself in others, it opens for empathy, and any sense of division softens and/or goes away.
In ho’o, I similarly visualize someone – perhaps someone I have a difficult relationship with in my life or the world. I say: I am sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you. (To me, they happen within and as what I am so this makes sense, although it works even if it doesn’t make sense at a thought level.)
NATURE
I love to spend time in nature. The more untouched the better, although any nature is nourishing – even if it’s just seeing the sky and clouds outside the window. I love to work in the garden. It’s amazing how plants grow and how a plant comes out of a seed and knows how to do all of it.
It also helps me to notice that I am nature. Everything around me is nature. It’s all this living system we call Earth forming itself into all of it, including what we think of as human civilization.
DON’T KNOW
I don’t know how this will all unfold. I don’t know what will happen with Earth and human civilization.
It’s possible we won’t have much time left, and that’s OK. Our time as a species and civilization always had an expiration date.
It’s also possible that some of us will come out at the other end.
I don’t know. I can know what science says. I can know the different scenarios and how likely each of them looks to us now. And I cannot know for certain.
For me, there is peace in resting in that don’t know. It’s what’s most honest to me.
DEATH GIVES LIFE
I also know that death gives life. The death of stars made this planet and us and all we know possible. The death of species allows new species to emerge. The death of individuals give space for new individuals.
Death is what allows everything we know.
We wouldn’t be here without it. This universe as we know it couldn’t exist without it.
THE BEAUTY OF THE FLEETING
Everything has an expiration date. Our civilization has an expiration date. Our species has an expiration date. I have an expiration date. It will all be completely gone one day, with no-one to remember any of it.
That can seem sad and terrible, and there is also an immense beauty in it. There is an immense beauty in that everything is fleeting. Everything has its time and is then gone.
IMPERMANENCE & OUR NATURE
One of the beautiful things in the fleeting nature of everything is that it invites us to notice our own fundamental nature.
Everything in my field of experience is fleeting. It’s always changing. Everything about this human self is fleeting and changing.
So how can I fundamentally be any of it? What am I more fundamentally?
I find I am what it all happens within and as. To myself, I am consciousness forming itself into all of it.
Getting this in mental representations is one thing. It’s a good start and can give inspiration to explore it in immediate noticing. What it is about is the noticing and viscerally getting it through noticing. That’s where it transforms this human self, over time. And it is more than possible to notice it and keep noticing it. If there is a sincere wish, and some guidance, it’s more than possible.
Teller: The story… made it impossible for your eyes to see what was right in front of you
Somehow the story of that action made it impossible for your eyes to see what was right in front of you.
– Teller in A life of magic with Teller, about 27 minutes in
Teller of Penn and Teller here describes the essence of all (?) magic tricks: We fool ourselves by the story we tell ourselves of how the world works.
WE FOOL OURSELVES
Based on our experiences, we use a wide range of mental shortcuts to make sense of the world. These mostly work well in daily life, which is why we keep on using them and why they often are “invisible” to us. Magicians intentionally make use of these to fool us. We fool ourselves.
SOME EXAMPLES FROM THE WORLD OF MAGIC
For instance, we see a head at one end of the box and feet sticking out at the other end. It’s natural for us to assume the head and feet belong to the same person. When the two parts are separated, we shock ourselves since what we see doesn’t conform with what we expect.
We see two guys at a table dropping objects moving in impossible ways. At first, it seems inexplicable since we know how gravity works. As the bigger scene is revealed, we realize it was all performed upside down.
HELPFUL
These mental shortcuts help us immensely in daily life. They mostly work well, and they help us use our attention, energy, and time for what’s more important.
For instance, I assume that if I step off a step in a staircase, gravity will help my foot land on the next step. If I see someone walk behind a tree, they are still there it’s just that I can’t see them anymore. If I see someone who looks and sounds just like like someone I know, it’s likely that person. And so on.
STRESSFUL
In some cases, we create a lot of stress for ourselves by using these mental shortcuts. We may operate on assumptions about ourselves and the world that are out of alignment with reality, and that’s inherently stressful.
I assume I am unlovable, despite all evidence on the contrary. I assume someone meant something terrible with what they said or did, while it was far more innocent. I assume my future will be a certain way, while I can’t know for certain.
MISS SOMETHING ESSENTIAL
We can also miss something essential. We may not notice our nature.
We assume we are this human self in the world. After all, it’s what others tell us and it’s an assumption that works relatively well in daily life.
And yet, when I look in my own first-person experience, I find something else. I find I am what the world – all content of experience – happens within and as.
I am what a thought may call consciousness, and the world to me happens within and as this consciousness. My nature forms itself into any and all content of experience. It’s all I have ever known.
This is interesting in itself, and noticing it transforms my perception and how this human self lives his life in the world.
THE MOST AMAZING MAGIC TRICK
This is likely the most essential and amazing magic trick we can perform for ourselves.
For a while, we assume that we fundamentally are this human self. It’s an assumption that works relatively well, although it comes with inherent stress.
We may not even notice this assumption. If we do, we may not seriously question it. And if we question it, it may be only mentally.
Then, our nature notices itself, and our world is turned inside-out and upside-down. Our nature is consciousness. To us, the world happens within and as the consciousness and the oneness we are. The oneness we are forms itself into our experience of everything.
We realize we operated on a fundamental assumption that’s ultimately wrong.
WE MISS WHAT’S RIGHT IN FRONT OF US
In all of these cases, we can use our assumptions about the world to miss what’s right in front of us.
We overlook that the head and feet belong to two different people.
We miss out on noticing that our stressful thoughts about the world are innocent questions about the world, that the world is not like that, and that the reversals of these thoughts also have some limited validity in them.
We miss out on noticing our nature, even if it’s what’s closest to us and all we have ever known.
The good news is that we don’t have to miss out on this. We can investigate and reveal some of the “hidden secrets”.
INVESTIGATION
Since childhood, I have had a fascination with magic tricks and find it gives me a multi-layered enjoyment. I enjoy the performance if it’s done well. (Even if it’s not there is a certain enjoyment.) I enjoy being baffled if it’s a new trick to me. I enjoy imagining how it may be done. Often, I go out of my way to learn how it most likely was done. When I realize the likely method, I may get a little disappointed (if it’s a gimmick), I may be hugely impressed (if it requires advanced skills or a lot of preparation), or I may laugh if the method is very simple and also impressive (the Voodoo needle is one example).
When I notice stress, I know I am performing a magic trick on myself. I hold an assumption more true than it very likely is. Often, I identify the stressful thoughts and investigate them. What happens when I hold the thought as true? How would it be if I couldn’t? What’s the validity in each of the reversals of the original thought? Can I find specific and genuine examples? How is it to take one of those as a guideline for my daily life? I can do the same with underlying and related thoughts. (The Work of Byron Katie.)
I also explore how my mind creates its experience of me and the wider world. How does something appear in the sense fields? In sight? Sound? Taste and smell? Bodily sensations? The mental field? (Words and mental images.) What’s there in the actual senses? What’s there in the mental field? What happens when I recognize the mental field as the mental field? Words as words? Mental images as mental images? What happens when I notice sensations as sensations? What associations has my mind created between bodily sensations and the mental field? Does certain sensations lend a sense of solidity and reality to certain thoughts? Do the thoughts give a sense of meaning to those sensations? How is it to notice each as distinct from each other? (The Kiloby Inquiries.)
I explore what I fundamentally am. I find I am what the world to me – this human self, the wider world, anything else – happens within and as. I find I even more fundamentally am capacity for all of it, consciousness and what it forms itself into. I explore how it is to live from and as this noticing. (The Big Mind process, Headless experiments.)
MULTI-LAYERED ENJOYMENT
This is a rich landscape and exploring it offers a rich enjoyment, just like exploring the many facets of magic tricks.
Just like with magic tricks, there is always more to explore and discover, and more performances to enjoy.
And just like with magic tricks, there is often some discomfort inherent in the process. That’s part of a deeper enjoyment of it all that seems to be here, whether I notice it or not.
Testing teachings and teachers
Douglas Harding and others in the Headless community talk about what happens after a shift into headlessness: We test teachings to see if they align with what we are noticing for ourselves. Richard Lang touches on this in the short video above.
HOW HAS IT BEEN FOR ME?
How do I relate to texts, teachings, teachers, and fellow explorers in this area?
I look for how clear they seem. How familiar are they with this terrain? This is what Douglas Harding describes.
I resonate with those who use a more direct language without too much jargon and tradition, and with as little cultural differences as possible. (Adyashanti, Byron Katie, Douglas Harding.)
When it comes to fellow explorers and teachers, I look for the ones where there is an immediate mutual recognition. (Adyashanti, Bonnie Greenwell, and others.)
I am especially happy when I find someone whose shift happened “out of the blue” as it did in my case, although that’s more rare.
In addition to clarity, I look for kindness, wisdom, pragmatism, freedom from tradition, and often special skills and insights I feel I can learn from.
IF WE DON’T RECOGNIZE OUR NATURE, HOW DO WE GO ABOUT IT?
How do we go about it if we are not familiar with our nature, and we cannot test teachings and teachers based on our own immediate noticing?
The most direct approach is to become more familiar with our nature through guided explorations. The ones I find most helpful are the Headless experiments (Headless Way) and the Big Mind process.
Otherwise, the normal guidelines are often helpful: Look for a tradition or teacher that seems kind, wise, pragmatic, clear, and healthy.
Be aware of your own projections of hopes, fears, shadow, and so on. Whatever you see in the world, including in teachers, is what you have in yourself. Don’t put up with behavior that seems unethical. And it’s often helpful to think of the others as friends, guides, and coaches more than “teachers”.
A FEW MORE WORDS ABOUT HOW IT WAS FOR ME
When this human self was sixteen, there was a strong oneness shift “out of the blue”. All was revealed as God, with no exceptions. These days, I would say that consciousness woke up to itself.
I looked for others who were familiar with the same terrain, and that took years. Mainly because I lived in a little town in Norway and it was the 1980s.
BOOKS
First, the ones I found through books…
The first I found was Meister Eckhart. I still remember standing at a shelf at the old main library in Oslo, reading a book by him, and seeing that beneath layers of cultural differences and a Christian language, he seemed to come from the same or similar place.
In the beginning, that was a typical experience. The layers of tradition and cultural differences were there in Buddhist texts, although they too often seemed to come from the same place. I loved Taoist texts, although they were often more indirect about it.
I also loved systems views and the books by Fritjof Capra, although his books came at it from a more intellectual angle.
The first that seemed more clear and with fewer layers of cultural differences was Ken Wilber’s No Boundary which I loved. He seemed to come from a similar place as me in terms of culture and worldview.
This was all in the late 1980s.
I then found the books by Jes Bertelsen which combined a direct noticing with Jung, Buddist and Christian practices, and energetic work. For me, that was perfect, although he didn’t seem to come from a completely clear place at the time.
I also read a book by Vigdis Garbarek who lived in Oslo as I did, although I didn’t contact her since she didn’t come from a completely clear place. It was close but filtered through some layers.
At the Zen Center, in my mid-twenties, I got into old and new Zen texts, many of which came from a clear place and with less jargon and fewer layers of tradition. My Zen teacher also developed the Big Mind process which came from a clear place and felt completely at home for me.
Some years later, in my early to mid thirties, I found Adyashanti, Byron Katie, and Douglas Harding, and finally felt I had found “my people”. They came from a clear place and talked about it in a way that was less filtered through tradition and cultural differences.
IN PERSON
When it comes to in-person encounters, these have been more rare.
I did go to the Tibetan Buddhist center in Oslo for a while, although felt a distance there because of it all being so heavily clothed in terminology and tradition. When I initially happened to speak from my own direct experience, the Norwegian teacher seemed reactive and angry so I learned to not speak up.
I found my friend BH in my late teens, who seems very familiar with this terrain, and the same with Hanne Bertelsen a few years later. Genpo Roshi seemed very familiar with this terrain as well, and I love his Big Mind process. Later, my connection with Bonnie Greenwell and Adyashanti was very important, and there have been several others. I especially love the circle around Adyashanti.
THE UPSIDES AND CHALLENGES OF NOT FINDING OTHERS SO EASILY
There were upsides and challenges in not finding others for a few years.
The main upside is that I was free to explore and get familiar with the terrain on my own, without the influence of traditions or teachers.
The main challenge was at a much more human level. This human self lived within a context of oneness, and also was profoundly alone in these explorations.
Kiarostami’s Certified Copy
I just watched Kiarostami’s Certified Copy with its theme of copies and originals.
This is one that stays with me for a while and continues to unfold as it’s being digested. It was moving, relatable, and stimulated a lot of questions about the movie itself and the themes it brought up.
ONE WAY TO UNDERSTAND THE STORY
I thought I would start with a way to understand the story that makes sense of otherwise puzzling aspects and makes it rich, poignant, and heartbreaking. (Spoilers below.)
They were lovers fifteen years ago, and her son is theirs. They meet and live a day as if they had married fifteen years ago. At the end of the day, he leaves to go back to his wife and family.
This ties up several loose ends:
It explains her reserved seat and why she looks sad during his lecture. She arrives late and leaves early because it’s too emotional for her to see him, although she wants to meet him one-on-one so she gives her phone number to the translator to pass on.
He says yes to meeting her even if he leaves later that day. (If she had been a stranger, it seems less likely he would agree.)
He warns her that copies can be dangerous. He implies their connection can be dangerous since he already has a wife and family.
She bought six copies of his book and wants him to sign all of them. It seems like an excessive number of books, especially since she isn’t very interested in the topic. She bought them to have a connection with him, and maybe as a way to share him with her friends and family, either without telling them about the role he plays in her life or as a way to tell them.
There is tension between them in the car, which is understandable if they had something together fifteen years earlier. The tension would be odd if they were strangers.
He had not seen the painting in the museum before because they are not married and do not live together. He dismisses its importance to his work. Is it difficult for him to acknowledge that she would have contributed to his life in that way too if they had married?
When he tells her the story about the mother and son, he asks her if the mother told the son that the sculpture is a copy. She silently confirmed. He took it to mean that she had not told her son about him, about the “original” that the son is a kind of copy of. If they were strangers, it would be strange for him to ask her about an element in the story that he told.
When he receives the phone call, it may be from his wife which is why he felt he needed to answer.
She tells the café owner that he spends almost all of his time away from her and their son. She is emotional because it’s true. The café owner does not understand the situation so she repeats it. She also says that he didn’t call when their son had his birthday last week.
The café owner assumes they are married, and they immediately go with that fiction. They have both played out that scenario many times and they want to explore it together even if it’s for just a day. It’s easier for them to explore it through role-playing than talking about it directly.
He says: My family lives their lives and I live mine. She gets upset and emotional over this, which makes sense if he refers to her and their son. She and their son live their lives, and he lives his. They live separate lives.
He says: You cast me in the role of absent parent, but it’s natural for a parent to sometimes be away. She responds: Yes, sometimes, but in your case it’s constant.
They repeatedly bring up how the other has changed over the last fifteen years. The changes seem important, maybe because they are playing with the possibility of actually being together.
She rests his head on his shoulder, imitating the sculpture they discussed earlier. She has missed having him there to physically and metaphorically lean on.
She remembers the hotel and he does not. It meant more to her and had a lasting impact on her life.
Their interaction and role-playing take on a far more emotional and urgent tone in the last part of the movie. She sincerely asks him to stay because they can have something together. It’s not just based on this day but on what happened fifteen years earlier and their son.
Their imagining into having had a long married life together is a kind of copy. Actual marriages, including his, are the originals and the imagination is the copy.
This fits just about everything in the story and explains a lot that initially seemed puzzling to me and – I imagine – to many viewers.
I easily imagine that this is the story the three of them – the director and the two actors – had in mind while making the movie. It would ground the performances in reality and give the movie substance and richness.
It’s also not the one correct answer. The story is intentionally ambiguous and can be understood in many different ways, although other understandings seem to leave loose ends that this one makes sense of.
THE ROLE OF ART
Then to other aspects of the movie.
One explicit theme of the story is copies and originals, especially in art.
Art mimics life. Whether it’s visual, music, theater, or something else, it’s a copy of life. And yet, it resonates with us. It’s a mirror for us that touches on emotional, universal, and archetypal truths.
In this case, the movie itself is fictional and a copy of life, and I am watching one of many physical and digital copies of the movie. And yet, it evokes moods, emotions, memories, and reflections in me which are real and important. There is a reality to the story that resonates.
Art is not only a copy of life and nature, it’s a copy of art. It draws on generations of art production and our culture as a whole. This movie can be seen as a classic post-modern self-referential story. (Although there are many self-referential stories from other times and cultures.) It’s a variation on a theme.
COPIES AND ORIGINALS
Can we get as much out of copies as the originals? Is the difference only in the story we tell ourselves about them? Aren’t originals copies too and always based on something else?
Story is everything
If I tell myself another story, how does my experience change? I often explore this with art and life. In a sense, the story and context is everything.
For instance: If I knew this was my last day, how would I perceive and live?
This helps me notice how much my experience is created by my stories. That’s yet another reason to identify and examine the stories I operate from. What happens when I hold onto a certain story as true? How do I perceive? How do I live my life? What’s the genuine validity in the reversals of the story? Can I take one of those reversals and see how it is to perceive and live from it?
This also helps me see that all of my stressful stories, and they are all stressful when I hold them as true, come from somewhere else. They are copies. They are copies of copies of copies, passed on in our culture, and some possibly in all cultures, through the generations.
Originals as copies
Isn’t an original itself a kind of copy, always based on something else? When I explore creating AI images, I am aware that these images emerge from a network trained on a large database of images. They come out of a segment of the collective image-production of humanity.
Our current collective image production is itself based on our existing collection of images created by humans and nature.
The real artist is existence itself. Existence forms itself into this wonderous universe and nature, into us, into the art we create. In a sense, Existence is the only artist, expressing itself through and as this universe and us and human art.
Existence is always copying itself and exploring variations on existing themes.
When it comes to AI, there is an important difference between human-created and AI-created images, music, and so on. Human artists should be fairly compensated for their work and contribution. And it’s helpful to remember that all art is based on something else, it’s all variations on existing themes.
ROLES AND IDENTITIES
Are the two main characters a married couple who role-play meeting each other for the first time? Or did they meet for the first time and role-play being a married couple? Or is something else going on?
If identities and roles are so fluid, isn’t the difference between playing a role as a role-playing exercise, and playing a role in life, mainly the story we tell ourselves about it and how seriously we take it?
As Shakespeare reminded us, we all have our entrance and exit and play many roles throughout life.
And yes, the difference between role-playing as an exercise and role-playing in life mainly seems to be the stories we tell ourselves and how seriously we take them.
What roles do I play here and now? How would it be to take these roles less seriously? To hold them lightly? To even enjoy playing and exploring them, knowing they are roles and temporary?
IF IT’S ALL CHANGING, WHAT AM I?
This leads to the even more essential question: If stories are so exchangeable, and roles and identities also are changing and temporary, what am I more fundamentally?
I assume we all sense that there is, and we are, something more essential and lasting than any of this. There is a kind of red thread that goes through it all and all the changes.
What is it? Yes, at one level, I am this human self in the world with a variety of changing roles and identities. That’s a pragmatic view that helps this human self function in the world.
When I look in my own first-person experience, I find something else. I find this field of experience happening within and as consciousness, and I find I am what this field of experience happens within and as. Even more fundamentally, I am capacity for all of it.
As Douglas Harding says: I am capacity for the world.
From here, it’s easier to hold my identities and roles more lightly.
Parts of me will still try to hold onto some and avoid others, and they will struggle with this, especially in some situations. This too happens within and as what I am, and it’s good to notice.
What I am forms itself into that too.
WAYS TO EXPLORE
One thing is to get this mentally and in a general way, and another is to get it more viscerally and in the situation we are in here and now.
I find The Work of Byron Katie immensely helpful in identifying and exploring the stories I perceive and live from, and find what’s genuinely more true to me. (Which is often that the initial story isn’t as true as parts of me thought, that there is genuine validity in the reversals, what that validity is, and that parts of me want to explore how it is to perceive and live from those too.)
Different role-playing exercises can be helpful to have more awareness of the roles and identities I operate from, where they come from, how I relate to them, and so on. I find the Big Mind process especially helpful.
To find what I more fundamentally am, and explore consciously living from and as it, I find Headless experiments and the Big Mind process very helpful.
The image above is from a scene in the movie where the main characters unknowingly – or knowingly? – imitate a sculpture they discussed earlier.
How do I navigate meaning and purpose in my own life? How do I find it? How do I find freedom from it?
How do I navigate meaning and purpose in my own life?
In general, I follow what’s fascinating to me, what sparks something in me, and what makes me come a little more alive. It may be something small or expressed in a small way, and then I see where it leads.
I take my surface wants and needs and trace them back to more essential, and often universal, wants and needs.
And I examine my stressful thoughts related to meaning and purpose to find more freedom around them.
EARLY IN LIFE
As a child, I was fascinated by just about everything. I loved nature programs on TV, I loved Cosmos by Carl Sagan, I loved reading science magazines, I loved reading in general, I loved exploring, I loved nature and the night sky.
When I was sixteen, there was a shift where the oneness and consciousness aspects of my nature came strongly into the foreground. The consciousness I am showeditss nature to itself very clearly.
This threw me in at the deep end in exploring my nature – as consciousness and consciousness taking the form of this human self and the world.
At a human level, I had been fascinated by parapsychology before this, but I was a self-proclaimed atheist and regarded religion and spirituality with disdain.
Now, I found myself fascinated by what spirituality is about, and in the process wanting to learn more about what others have found in their own explorations and how they talk about it.
I followed this fascination through my own explorations, reading, and also – to the extent I found it there – university studies.
I also followed my passion for art and expressing what I was exploring in art. Not by telling, but by allowing it to be expressed naturally and inevitably in what I created.
FOLLOWING THE VOICE OF WOUNDS
I also followed the voice of my wounds at a crucial point in my twenties, which dampened my spark and passion. I got married, she wanted to move to another state, and I decided to abandon my own life and the path that felt deeply right for me and instead support her.
I felt profoundly off track, and although I followed my fascination in my sustainability work, I also dampened my passion and spark for what was even more juicy for me including meditation, prayer, body-centered practices, and art. It was too painful to engage in it because as soon as I did, my inner guidance would tell me clearly to get out of the situation and back on track in life.
As I followed my unexamined fears, I knew what I was doing, although I was unable to get out of it for many years. Life had tapped into deep traumas in me that made me make life choices different from those I would have made if they were not there.
EXPLORING MEANING AND PURPOSE
How do I explore meaning and purpose?
As I mentioned above, I mainly explore it by noticing and following what sparks something in me, what makes me come a little more alive. Often, it’s small things and I see where it leads me. It can be going for a walk in nature, feeding the birds, eating ice cream by the ocean in the summer, the explorations I write about here, writing here, talking about something in an authentic and real way, finding plants for our food forest project, and so on. It can be anything.
There is an essence to whatever sparks something in me. One way to find it is to take any surface wants or needs and trace them back to their essence. What do I hope to get out of it? What do I hope to get out of that? And keep asking that question and notice what comes up, until I find a simple essence, usually something universal and very innocent. (This is from Adyashanti.) How can I bring this essence more into my life? Can I give it to myself here and now?
I identify and examine stressful thoughts I have about meaning and purpose and find what’s more true for me. I find The Work of Byron Katie very helpful here. For instance, years ago, I spent a good amount of time investigating stressful thoughts related to being off track and having abandoned myself.
I explore how all of this shows up in my sense fields. How does my mind associate sensations, mental images and words with each other to create an experience of meaning, purpose, being off track, and so on? Here, the Kiloby Inquiries are very helpful, or a simplified and more natural version of it.
FINDING FREEDOM FROM IT
The two inquires above – The Work of Byron Katie and the Kiloby Inquiries – are ways to find freedom from meaning and purpose, or rather from our ideas about meaning and purpose.
A related way is to notice my nature. The most effective ways to explore this that I have found, so far, are the Big Mind process and the Headless experiments.
At one level, I am this human self in the world. Everything about that comes and goes, so can it be what I more fundamentally am? When I look, I find I more fundamentally am what it all comes and goes within, what forms itself into the experience of all of it.
More fundamentally, I am what a thought may call consciousness, and this consciousness that I am forms itself into the experience of this human self, the wider world, and any ideas and sense of being an I or me, and of anything related to a sense of meaning or purpose.
Here, there is freedom from meaning and purpose.
FINDING FREEDOM TO FOLLOW IT
There is another freedom I should mention, which is to find the freedom to FOLLOW my spark, what fascinates me, what gives a sense of meaning and purpose at a human level.
Here, it’s more about finding healing. To identify and examine stressful thoughts saying I can’t or shouldn’t do it, or that say it needs to look a certain way. To meet and find love for the wounds in me holding me back from following my spark. To find a safe way to begin exploring and living it, and then allow it to blossom.
EXPLORING BEING OFF AND ON TRACK
A big theme in my adult life has been to be on or off track. I felt profoundly ON track in my late teens and especially early and mid-twenties – with art, university studies, meditation, prayer, body-centered practices, living at the Zen center, and so on. I then felt profoundly OFF track after I abandoned a clear inner guidance, moved to another location, and left much of what was most important to me.
What I am exploring has a couple of different aspects…
It’s not possible to be off track in any real and fundamental sense. The idea of being off and on track, and how it looks and feels, is created by my own mind. It’s a human idea and not inherent in reality.
In a human and everyday sense, it is possible to be off or on track. When I follow my inner guidance and what’s juicy for me, I felt and feel very much on track. When I abandon myself – my inner guidance and what’s juicy and important to me – I feel off track, and sometimes profoundly off track.
These two are both valid and important.
CURRENTLY
How is all of this for me now?
I still follow the juiceness and spark to explore what I rapport from in these articles.
I have found an outlet for my passion for sustainability and life in the regeneration, reforestation, and food forest project in the Andes.
The passion I have for art is still somewhat unexpressed in me, although I wish to bring it out more. There is still a deep pain there from abandoning it earlier in life.
In general, I am recovering from going off track – from leaving my guidance – in my twenties. It’s a long process. I am asking life – the divine, my psyche – to guide me to feel more deeply on track again, to live a life that feels deeply right and on track.
I feel halfway on track now, and I am very aware that I don’t know how it would look and even feel to be more deeply and profoundly on track again. It’s a mystery, which I love.
It’s part of the adventure.
NON-DUAL FOLKS AND MEANING & PURPOSE
I have heard some non-dual folks talk about meaning and purpose with disdain. (At the same time, it does seem that living a meaningful life seems important to them.)
I understand where they are coming from: Meaning and purpose are mind-created ideas, not inherent in reality.
At the same time, it seems quite one-sided to take the position they are taking. It’s a position. It’s not fluid.
It does not really reflect life and the fullness and richness of who and what we are.
The drawing is one I made when I was sixteen, in the middle of the initial oneness shift and when I found a deep passion for art. I would draw for hours a day and often long into the night, and did so for years.
Read MoreOut-of-body experience and noticing my nature
What are some of the connections between out-of-body experiences – and similar experiences – and noticing our nature?
MY OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCE
When I was just a few months old, I had an out-of-body experience.
I remember floating maybe 15 meters up in the air, seeing my parents and older brother in nice clothes walking on the road to our house, with a stroller. It seemed to be a beautiful slightly cool early spring day. They walked along the gravel road to the house, and there was something white, big, and rectangular in front of it. As they walked into the house, I floated around in the different rooms. I remember old yellowish floral wallpaper in the big bedroom that someone had started to remove from the walls. I also remember the living room. (Where I am writing this.)
This was a vivid memory for me growing up. When I was in my late teens or early twenties, I decided to mention it to my parents. It turns out that this is exactly how it happened when we moved into this house. I was four or five months old. It was a nice cool spring day. They had walked from our old house (on the other side of the small town) to the new. The big rectangular white thing was the moving van. The wallpaper in the bedroom was there and was removed and replaced shortly after.
There are some things here I am curious about.
A FEW THINGS I AM CURIOUS ABOUT
How can we sense? How can we sense without the senses of the body? In my case, I only remember visual memories, but I know others describe hearing too. The sight in my experience was from several meters up in the air, and from floating around quite high up in the rooms.
Why did I remember it? This is by far my earliest memory, so I wonder if out-of-body memories can be more easily remembered. Maybe because it’s unusual, and there are also other possibilities. If we can sense without bodily senses, maybe we can remember without the physical brain? Maybe memories, or some memories, are (also) stored somewhere else? Maybe that’s why I remembered it through my childhood and even now. (Although now, it seems more like a memory of a memory, if that makes sense.)
Similar to NDEs. An out-of-body experience viscerally shows us that we are not, most fundamentally, this human body. That’s similar to a near-death experience (NDE), and it can profoundly transform our views and life. It may also be one reason I was so fascinated by ghosts, mysteries, ESP, and the unexplained growing up.
Still a center. In an out-of-body experience, there is still a sense of center. We are consciousness, and yet there is also a center that we look out from. What is that center, if there is no physical body? Could it be what some describe as a subtle body, a kind of body made up of more subtle energies?
Not the same as awakening. Maybe for that reason, it’s not the same as awakening. It’s possible to have an out-of-body experience, realize we are not most fundamentally this physical body, and for that to not stick after. That may be because there is still a sense of center there.
Memory from between lives. This out-of-body experience is similar to my memory from before this incarnation. I was consciousness and everything was consciousness, and there was still a kind of center here. There was also a sense of time being very distant.
OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCES AND NOTICING OUR NATURE
These kinds of experiences are not the same as noticing our nature, but they can fuel curiosity and motivation to explore our nature, and they shows us what we are if we only notice.
To ourselves, we are consciousness and the world to us happens within and as the consciousness we are. This does come into the foreground now and then – in out-of-body experiences, near death experiences, in flow states, and so on.
Often, we notice we enjoy it and we notice some things about it while we miss the essence which is that this is our more fundamental notice, and we also don’t keep noticing the essence when these states are no longer here.
In my case, it had to come into the foreground strongly for it to be recognized. I had to go through a year of an apparently observer-observed split where the world – including anything that has to do with this human self – seemed very far away. Then, there was a oneness shift where the oneness and consciousness nature of all was very strongly in the foreground and unmissable.
That lasted for several years, and a part of me associated the essence of it – my nature – with some of the side-effects (bliss, absorption, flow, other states). I knew it wasn’t about those things, and yet apart of me didn’t viscerally know it.
It took some more years – and a lot of changes in states and content of experience including a dark night – to more viscerally get it, and there is still further to go.
HOW TO NOTICE OUR NATURE
None of this – out-of-body experiences, between-lives experiences, near death experiences – are needed for us to notice our nature. It’s far more accessible than that. It’s what’s here and all we have ever known.
What I have found most helpful are…
The Big Mind process, under guidance of an experienced facilitator. Most people seem to notice and get to consciously know their nature within minutes, and it can be explored in a great deal of detail. The Big Mind process is based on Voice Dialog and was developed by Genpo Roshi (my old Zen teacher).
The Headless experiments, which also can help us notice and consciously get familiar with our nature. These are very simple experiments developed by Douglas Harding.
Basic meditation, which can take more time and, for that reason, is often even more viscerally transformative. Notice what’s here in experience. Allow it as it is. Notice it’s already allowed and noticed.
At some level in us, there is also some curiosity and other noticing going on…
All content of experience comes and goes, including any sense of being something within the content of experience – this human self, a me, and I, an observer, a doer, and so on. If it all comes and goes, can it be what I more fundamentally am? If I am not fundamentally anything within content of experience, what am I?
Something is already noticing and allowing what’s here. What is that? Can it be what I more fundamentally am?
I have also found other forms of inquiry very helpful, including sense field explorations (Kiloby Inquiries) and The Work of Byron Katie.
All of this helps me notice, clarify, keep noticing through changing states and experiences, and so on.
INVITING MORE OF MY PSYCHE TO JOIN
A big part of this is also inviting the different parts of my psyche onboard with it.
Many of these still operate from separation consciousness.
How do I relate to them when they come up?
When do I join in with the bubbles of separation consciousness?
How is it to notice them as bubbles of separation consciousness, and notice that their nature is the same as mine and everything else in this field of experience?
The image is created by me and Midjourney and really all of life and existence as everything is.
Note: It’s August 2026 and I read through some notes about her life my mother wrote for me some years ago. She writes that we moved into the house April 11 which fits my memory. I remember it was a cool and sunny day in early spring. I was 2 1/2 months old.
Noticing is primary
Instagram gifted me this video from Mingyur Rinpoche (son of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche) this morning. (Was he the young teacher-in-training I had tea with in Kathmandu in the mid-90s? I somehow think it was.)
NOTICING IS PRIMARY
Yes, when it comes to different forms of meditation and mindfulness, noticing is primary.
The content – what’s noticed – is not important in that context.
It can be dullness, agitation, sadness, frustration, anger, joy, contentment, bliss, and so on, anything within the always-changing content of experience.
TRAINING STABLE ATTENTION
When I train a more stable attention, my attention is on something specific within the content of experience. For me, it’s usually the sensations of the breath at my nostrils, but it can be any other sensation, a mental image, and so on. Training a more stable attention also happens through mindful movement like yoga, tai chi, qigong, Breema, and so on.
Whatever else is going on in the content of experience is less important. It’s literally peripheral. (Althought depending on how my personality responds to it, it can trigger distractions.)
NOTICE & ALLOW
Basic meditation is to notice and allow what’s here, and really to notice it’s all already noticed and allowed and rest in and as that noticing.
The content of experience comes and goes and specifically what it is, or whether my personality happens to like it or not, is less important.
The coming and going, in itself, is worth noticing since it shows me that I am not fundamentally any of it.
NOTICING WHAT I AM
I may find myself as what content of experience happens within and as, perhaps amplified by pointers from Headless experiments, the Big Mind process, and so on.
Here too, the specific content of experience is not so important. It’s all what I not fundamentally am. It’s what my nature happens to form itself into.
AT DIFFERENT TIMES
Of course, this will look a bit different at different times of our exploration.
In the beginning, it’s often easier to explore these things if the content is generally more calm and our personality is generally OK with it. It makes it easier to not create distractions for ourselves. Mindful movement can be a great lead-in to meditation and inquiry for that reason.
After a while, it becomes more important to keep noticing through the changing content of experience, and through the metaphorical changing weather and occasional storms, and even if our personality doesn’t like it very much. It’s part of the exploration. It helps us do the same in daily life when storms happen. This often requires a more clear intention and resolve.
NOTICING WHAT IN ME DOESN’T WANT TO
A part of this is to notice the parts of me that don’t want to do this. The parts of me that are scared of it.
Notice and acknowledge they are here. Welcome them. Get to know them. Understand where they are coming from. See what they really need, and if I can give it to them here and now. See they are innocent, and are here to try to protect us. Make friends with them. Find appreciation for them, because they are here to help me and come from love for me, even if it’s confused love.
ONGOING EXPLORATION
Here too, there doesn’t seem to be any finishing line. It’s an ongoing exploration.
It happens here and now, or it doesn’t happen. (Until it does.) Ideas of past times it happened, or ideas of it happening in the future, are ideas and they don’t nourish any more than a menu of a delicious meal nourishes.
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Headless, so what? How the headless experiments work (in my experience)
I love the Headless Way and the headless experiments.
The Headless Way is simple, egalitarian, to the point, easily accessible, and aligned with what mystics throughout time and across traditions have talked about.
THE HEADLESS WAY & DOUGLAS HARDING
It was developed in the mid-1900s by Douglas Harding, and he continued to develop experiments, write books, and share what he had found with friends until his death in 2007.
I was introduced to it by a fellow Breema student in Oregon a few years earlier and immediately fell in love with the approach. He clearly got it, talked about it in a beautifully simple way, had simple experiments to help clarify it, and the organization is egalitarian and essentially non-hierarchical.
The best way to get started may be through their website and Harding’s book On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious.
HAVING NO HEAD
The main pointer is right in the title: We are headless. In our own first-person experience, we don’t have a head. We cannot see our own head.
I assume that may seem odd to many: So what if I can’t see my own head? I know it’s still here. I know I am this human self.
That’s because this is all about what we can discover and explore for ourselves. That’s where the magic is and that’s where it begins to make sense.
THE POINTING EXPERIMENT
The main experiment is quite simple:
Point at things where you are. Notice the shape, texture, color, and so on. Notice they are objects in space. Point to your legs, belly, and chest and notice they too are objects in space. Then point back to where you are looking out from. What do you find there?
And if we want to be more leading: Do you find a head? Or do you find you are space for the world?
WHAT I FIND
What I find is that in my own immediate first-person experience, I have no head. I can’t see my head. Where others see a head, I find a pink blob, sensations, and awake space it’s all happening within and as. My whole world happens within and as this awake space.
How is it to notice this? How is it to keep noticing it? How is it for this human self to live within and from this noticing?
HOW IT SEEMS TO WORK
It’s all about the noticing, of course. No explanation is really needed. But it can be interesting and helpful.
Here is a brief explanation of how it seems to work:
We are trained to think we most fundamentally are this human self. It’s not wrong that we are his human self. It’s here with us as content of our experience quite often, apart from in some dreams and occasionally other states and experiences. It’s what others take us to be. It’s what our passport tells us we are. It’s an assumption that works relatively well in a practical sense.
We may also have ideas of “having” a soul or consciousness, as some kind of appendix. We may even have ideas of being that or something similar.
Let’s set all of that aside. This is about our own first-person experience. What am I to myself, in my own first-person experience?
When I look here, where others see a head, I find a pink blob (what others may call my nose), I find sensations (roughly where others see a head), and nothing else really in terms of the content of experience.
I also find awake space. The pink blob, the sensations, and everything else including the wider world, happens within and as awake space.
Am I more fundamentally this awake space? Noticing there is no head here and noticing the awake space it’s all happening within and as helps me find that. I rest in and as that noticing. I rest in noticing myself as this awake space my world – the whole world to me – happens within and as.
To myself, I am not fundamentally anything within this world. I am not fundamentally this human self. I am not fundamentally a doer or observer. The world, and this human self, happen on its own. It all lives its own life. It all comes and goes. It’s all in apparently inevitable change.
I also notice other aspects of this.
What I am – this awake space – seems to form itself into the experience and forms of this human self and the wider world. It forms itself into what appears in (what a thought may divide into and call) the sense fields.
I notice that the world to me is like a dream. It has a dreamlike nature. It happens within and as the awake space I am, just like night dreams and any state and experience.
I also find that there is something even more fundamental in my nature, and that is capacity. I am even more fundamentally capacity for it all – the awake space and all it forms itself into.
A FEW OTHER HEADLESS EXPERIMENTS
There are other headless experiments to help us notice this, to bring our nature more into the foreground in noticing, and to help explore different aspects of our nature.
One I find powerful is making a face-sized hole in a sheet of paper. Notice what you see through the hole – notice them as objects with shape, color, texture, and so on. Then notice the opening itself, notice it as a clear and open space, a space full of the objects on the other side. Then move the paper closer to where you are looking from, and notice how you become that wide open space full of the world.
For instance, I can take a ruler and measure something. I find there is a specific distance between any two objects. If I turn the ruler 90 degrees so the two ends align and measure the distance between something and where I am, I find there is no distance. Everything happens within and as the awake space I am.
I can also notice that when this human self moves within a landscape, for instance in a car, the landscape moves through me. This human self moves within the landscape, and the landscape moves through me. When this human self moves within a room, the room moves within me.
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The experience of center, movement, distance, time, physicality, and so on
If there is identification with and as this human self, or any object, there is – I imagine – a sense of a center and being that center, a sense of moving through the landscape, a sense of real distance, a sense of real time, and so on.
NO CENTER
For me, there is not really a center. I find myself as this field. As the field of consciousness taking the form of any appearances, of the world as it appears to me. At the same time, if there is a focus on a task, there is a sense of a center around this human self. The focus and attention create a sense of center. Also, when I get caught in wounds, hangups, and unquestioned thoughts, there is also a temporary sense of center in or around this human self.
THE LANDSCAPE MOVES THROUGH ME
When this human self moves through a room or landscape, the room or landscape and everything else moves through me. I am space for it all moving through me.
THERE IS NO DISTANCE
There is no distance. Whatever is here is happening within and as awake space, within and as this field of experience, the awake space that takes all of these forms. At the same time, there is distance in a conventional sense, although it takes a bit of conversion for that to happen and to work with it. Fortunately, that conversion happens mostly on its own!
NO TIME
There is no time. What’s here happens within and as this awake space, including any images and words related to past, future, and present. I can only find the past and future, and any ideas about the present, here and now. At the same time, I can work with ideas about the past, future, and present, and that’s a good thing for this human self.
THE DREAMLIKE NATURE OF REALITY
This physicality is like a dream I can put my dreamlike hand through. It’s all happening within and as awake space. This body consists of sensations, visuals, taste, smell, a sense of movement, and so on that happens within this awake space. When I touch something, it’s sensations – and sometimes visuals, sounds, smell, taste, and so on – happening within and as awake space.
INFINITY
To me, the world happens within and as awake space that has no end and no boundaries. It happens within and as what seems infinite. It’s made up of mental images, sensations, visuals, smells, tastes, and movements that happens within and as awake space with no end.
CAPACITY
More fundamentally than any of this, I find that my nature is capacity for all of this – the consciousness I am and all it forms itself into.
THE LIKELY UNIVERSALITY OF THIS
This is how it is, I imagine, for everyone, whether we notice or not. The question is exactly that: if we notice or not.
I am likely no different from anyone else. They too are awake space to themselves, and the world to them happens within and as that awake space. They too are consciousness to themselves, and their world – anything within the content of experience – happens within and as the consciousness they are.
They too are their field of experience, without any inherent center. They too are what their world moves through when their human self moves through the world. Their world is at zero distance from what they are. They too are what their ideas of time – past, future, present – happen within and as. To them too, the world appears as a dream, within and as the consciousness they are. They are the infinite that the finite happens within and as. They are capacity for all of it.
EXPLORING IT FOR OURSELVES
How can we explore this? How can we notice? How can we deepen into this noticing?
What seems to work the best for me is a combination of basic meditation and inquiry.
Basic meditation is to notice and allow what’s here, and that it’s already noticed and allowed, and rest in and as that noticing and allowing.
As for inquiry, I love the headless experiments and the Big Mind process.
Training a more stable attention can help with this, as it helps with just about anything in life.
Heart-centered practices can also be a good support. I especially like tonglen, ho’oponopono, and similar practices. (Heart-centered practices are equally or more a support for our life in general. If I had to do just one practice, it would likely be a heart-centered practice like tonglen.)
The image is created by me and Midjourney
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Thoughts and feelings belong to the world
I was on a Headless Way Zoom meeting for the first time this Sunday, and Richard Lang mentioned what someone else had said: Thoughts and feelings belong to the world.
That’s one of the things I love about finding my nature as well.
Thoughts, feelings, sensations, moods, and anything connected with this human self, belong to the world. It’s out there in the world. It’s part of what comes and goes.
It’s part of the field of experience.
What I more fundamentally am is not touched by any of it. I am what allows it all to come and go. I am what momentarily forms itself into all of it. It’s all happening within and as what I am.
MY HISTORY WITH THIS
I noticed this first when I was fifteen and the world suddenly (around noon on January 1st) seemed to become very distant. Thoughts, feelings, sensations, and the wider world all seemed very far away.
My mind responded by thinking something was very wrong. Later, I saw it more as a basic observer-observed split. There was identification with the mental representation of an observer and a release of identification with any content of experience.
In any case, it made it very clear that thoughts, sensations, and so on belong to the world. It belongs to the content of experience. It comes and goes and lives its own life just like any other content of experience and anything else in the world.
This shifted into oneness about a year later, and it never went away. (Although it goes more in the background or foreground of attention depending on where my attention goes…!)
I have since explored this more thoroughly through different forms of inquiry – the Big Mind process, Headless experiments, traditional sense field inquiry, and modern versions of sense field explorations like the Kiloby Inquiries.
Does this mean I don’t have hangups, traumas, wounds, and so on? Does it mean my center of gravity never goes into these traumas and wounds?
Not at all. I have a lot of traumas and wounds, these parts of me operate from separation consciousness, they color my perception and life, and they sometimes come to the surface and take over for a while.
That’s OK. It’s very human. It’s part of the process.
Image is created by me and Midjourney
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A suicidal & ecocidal civilization: Finding a more real, grounded, and kind way to relate to it all
All civilizations rise and fall, and ours is no exception.
An interesting twist is that ours is the first global civilization that rises and falls and we don’t know how that’s going to look.
INDEX
What comes together falls apart | A civilization fatally out of alignment with reality | Sudden change | Familiarity with systems dynamics | We have the solutions but do we have the collective will? | What will collapse mean? | What can we do individually? | Collapse acceptance | Power-over vs power-with | What’s my history with this? | Notes
WHAT COMES TOGETHER FALLS APART
How can we know that our current civilization will fall?
In terms of history, it’s because all past civilizations have risen and fallen. It’s what civilizations do and ours is no exception.
In the bigger picture, it’s because everything does. What comes together falls apart.
We can notice it here and now. Every moment, what was is gone and something new and fresh is here. And it happens at more obvious and larger scales, including at the scale of humanity, culture, Earth, and the universe. It will all be gone.
Everything we know – collectively and individually – has come together and will fall apart.
A CIVILIZATION FATALLY OUT OF ALIGNMENT WITH REALITY
We can also look at specifics of how our civilization creates its own fall.
The most obvious may be that our civilization is fatally out of alignment with reality.
We operate on a worldview that’s out of alignment with reality. For instance, we assume and emphasize separation in a world where everything is intimately connected. We assume the superiority and rights of humans over other beings. We prioritize the current generations over Future generations. And, crucially, we assume that the Earth has unlimited resources and unlimited ability to absorb waste. (See more below under “Power-over vs power-with”.)
This is reflected in all aspects of our culture and all our systems. (1)
Let’s look at our economic system.
We have created an economic system that assumes an infinite ability of nature to provide resources and absorb waste, and that our health and well-being is not dependent on the health and well-being of the larger ecological systems.
We made those assumptions because it fits our general worldview, and because we practically could at the time it was developed.
At the time, our population was relatively small and our technology relatively simple so we didn’t receive immediate feedback from nature. For all practical purposes, nature was infinite.
We still use that economic system. The problem is that we now have a much larger population and a far more efficient technology, so Earth cannot keep up.
Globally, our ecological footprint would require two Earths to be sustainable. And for the Western world, our ecological footprint would require around five Earths to be sustainable.
We are also putting more waste into the Earth’s system than it can easily deal with. There are plastic particles and toxins in just about every living being. We are in the middle of an insect apocalypse because we (insanely) grow our good with toxins. Our climate is changing dramatically from all the heat-trapping gasses we release into the atmosphere.
We are in overshoot and we are not doing anything significant to change it.
And that overshoot has serious consequences.
SUDDEN CHANGE
Ecologically, we are doing the equivalent of living on our savings. If we lived on the interests – the surplus produced by the Earth – it would be sustainable. But we are digging into the savings. That looks OK for a while. We have what we need. Then we suddenly realize the harsh reality. We are out of funds.
Our climate is similarly set to undergo sudden change. Any system tries to maintain equilibrium for as long as possible. We put heat-tapping gasses into the atmosphere, the system maintains a kind of stability for a while. And at some point, it shifts into a new state, and that tends to happen quickly. In the case of climate, it shifts into a more chaotic and unpredictable state.
That’s what we can expect with our global ecological system as a whole. In the coming decades, we can expect to see a series of sudden and likely dramatic shifts. These shifts feed into the system to trigger a cascade of other shifts.
What may happen?
Several moderate changes are already happening: More extreme weather. Stronger storms. More drought. Heavier rain and flooding. Crop failures. Species extinction. Mass death of insects impacting the whole ecosystem. Mass human migrations away from areas that become unlivable from drought, flooding, and rising ocean levels (eventually tens of meters). This, in itself, is serious but manageable, at least initially.
We may also see more extreme changes: Changes in ocean currents may significantly impact regional climates. The oceans may die due to rising water temperatures, acidification, and low oxygen levels, and this – loss of oxygen production from plankton, etc. – will seriously impact land life. Forests may collapse in large regions due to drought or they may lose their ability to produce oxygen because of increased temperatures. And so on. These are all things experts in the field say can happen, and will likely happen if the current Earth changes go far enough. If any of this actually happens, it’s not realistically manageable for us. It may not be compatible with human life.
FAMILIARITY WITH SYSTEMS DYNAMICS
If we are not familiar with big-picture thinking or systems theories, we may assume a kind of linear and gradual progression. That means we have time. Things look mostly OK so far, so why change too much too soon?
If we are familiar with overshot and systems views, we tend to see it differently. Then we know that things may look mostly on for a while, then there is a sudden shift, and we are screwed. We don’t have time to wait. Changing things within our current sudden is not enough. We need a deep transformation of our civilization as a whole.
WE HAVE THE SOLUTIONS BUT DO WE HAVE THE COLLECTIVE WILL?
We have the solutions.
We know some (humane) ways to reduce our population. (Educate women, provide economic safety nets for everyone, and so on.)
We have many technological solutions that are part of the puzzle.
We know how to create an economic system that takes ecological realities into account, and where what’s attractive and easy to do – individually and collectively – is also ecologically sound. (We have the big picture and know in what direction to move, and the details will be worked out.)
We have the worldviews necessary for a more sustainable civilization. Some elements may be ecospirituality within each of the major religions, the Universe Story, the Epic of Evolution, deep ecology, systems views, integral views, and so on.
The question is: Do we have the collective will? Will we find it in time?
We are already too late to avoid massive changes to our planet which will impact all of us, so we have minus time in that sense.
Will we be able to create an ecologically sustainable civilization in time to prevent the fall of our civilization? We have to work towards it as much as we can, but it is unlikely.
What we tend to see at the end of civilizations is what we see in the world today: A few who recognize what’s happening, take it seriously and sincerely work towards creating a better and more functional civilization. Many who go into denial, continue much as before, or wait for others to do something. Polarization, infighting, distractions, and the privileged holding onto their privilege even if it’s suicidal. Of course, all of this is common anyway.
There is also a great deal of simplistic misdiagnosis of the situation. Ideas that focus on aspects of what’s happening within the system but not the system itself. Some blame greed, governments, or corporations. Some think there is a technological solution. Some assume it’s mainly about climate change. Some think we still have time because the changes will be gradual and incremental. And so on. All of it is simplistic and myopic. This misdiagnosis reflects and comes out of the worldview that created the situation in the first place. And the misdiagnosis is part of the problem.
WHAT WILL COLLAPSE MEAN?
I don’t know.
What we know is that it will look different from the collapse of past civilizations. They were regional and this one is global. People in those civilizations continued to live their lives, just in a slightly different context. A lot from those civilizations was passed on to other and emerging civilizations. In our case, we don’t have another place to go. We have destroyed our global life-support system to the extent that it may no longer be able to support us, or at least very many of us.
The best scenario may be significant ecological changes, a significant reduction in the size of humanity, and a new emerging civilization – hopefully with some lessons learned. This requires that the more extreme Earth changes – like the death of the oceans – don’t happen.
The worst, from our perspective, is the end of humanity. (Along with many other species and ecosystems.) The Earth’s system changes to the extent that it’s no longer compatible with human life. In this case, the end of humanity happens sooner rather than later. If the changes are as dramatic and rapid as some scientists – and especially those familiar with systems views – think, it may even happen within one or two generations.
In the bigger picture, these are not disasters. This is just what happens. It’s how reality is set up. Things come together and fall apart. Death is the price of life.
WHAT CAN WE DO INDIVIDUALLY?
The question then is: What can we do individually and in small groups?
We can do what we can in our own life.
We can find what we are most drawn to, and do that. Joanna Macy talks about three categories: Stopping actions. Creating and living alternatives. And developing and spreading new worldviews.
In my case, I eat organic and local as much as possible and do a few more things in my personal life. I used to be actively involved in local sustainability organizations. I do healing work for myself and others. I currently have 36 acres in the Andes mountains I am helping regenerate and make into a food forest. (I realize the last one is not everyone can do, and I didn’t expect it in my life.)
We can all find something we are drawn to that’s meaningful and a small part of the solutions. We may not be able to save the world. But we can save our world. We can save ourselves by doing something meaningful.
We can realize that we live within a *system* that’s not ecologically sustainable.
That means that what’s easy and attractive to do is not ecologically sustainable. We all, inevitably, contribute to the destruction of ecosystems, just by going about our own lives. That’s not our fault. It’s inevitable. We don’t need to beat ourselves up for it. (And we don’t need to use it as an excuse either.)
We can find ways to nourish ourselves through our connections with the larger whole.
We can explore the Practices to Reconnect (Joanna Macy), the Universe Story, the Epic of Evolution, Deep Ecology, ecospirituality, systems views, integral views, and so on. Whatever we resonate with.
We can spend time in nature. We can connect with and nourish our physical body and sense-oriented animal self.
We can get familiar with the bigger picture.
Through the Universe story, the Epic of Evolution, systems views, Big History, and so on, we can become familiar with the bigger picture.
We expect what comes together to fall apart.
During the end of a civilization, we expect an amplification of what we generally see in society: Polarization, infighting, distractions, denial, people holding onto privilege, and so on. It’s what humans do.
We also expect some to do the work to create a better functioning civilization.
And we expect to experience grief, anger, hopelessness, and a wide range of emotions as a response to what’s happening.
We can find more peace with death and change.
Change happens. What comes together falls apart.
It happens continuously, which we notice if we look closely. And it happens at a more obvious and larger scale, sooner or later.
Change and death are what allow something new to exist. It’s what opens up space for something new and different. It’s what allows experience. It’s what allows evolution. It’s how we are here. It’s what allows anything to exist at all.
Everything and everyone is born to die.
It’s meant to be. It’s perfect. It’s how this universe is set up.
We can find gratitude.
We can find the gifts in death and change. As I have mentioned above, it’s what allows anything to be at all. It’s what allows us as individuals to be. It’s what allowed humanity and our current civilization to exist.
It’s what opens the space for something new. When our civilization is gone, who knows what will come in its place? Perhaps some humans will survive and create something new, and even something more aligned with ecological realities. And when humanity is gone, who knows what will come in our place? Perhaps the descendants of the octopus will create a new and amazing civilization that would not be possible if we were still here.
We can allow and welcome our grief, anger, and other responses.
It’s completely natural to experience grief, anger, hopelessness, and a range of other emotions in the face of what’s happening with our world. And it helps to make friends with it and even welcome it.
It’s natural. It’s healthy. It’s something we can channel into action.
We are, in a very real way, a local part of the Earth grieving itself. We are the Earth grieving itself.
These are universal emotions. All humans experience it and many or most species likely experience it in one form or another. It’s one of the things that tie us together. Even what triggers these emotions is universal in its essence.
We can find gratitude.
There is a lot to find gratitude for here.
We are an expression of all of existence. We are part of this amazing and beautiful larger whole.
We are alive. We are alive at the peak, in some sense, of our civilization. We have the basics for life and often a lot more. Many of us live beyond what anyone could have imagined in the past, and better than 99.9% of all humans that have lived in terms of healthcare, food availability, convenience and so on.
We are aware of the larger context of impermanence and can allow it to inform us in sobering and beautiful ways.
By viscerally getting impermanence – including of ourselves and all we know – we can find deep and equally visceral gratitude for our life and what’s here now.
We can find kindness towards ourselves.
We can learn to relate to ourselves and our world with more kindness.
That, in itself, makes a big difference.
It makes our life easier, and we are giving ourselves something essential we all wish for. It’s what we often are really looking for when we think we are looking for something else.
It’s something our civilization doesn’t really teach us and something we don’t learn unless we are lucky with our parents and upbringing. So this work is also part of changing our civilization and our individual and collective worldview.
One of the things I do for myself is to aim at being a good parent to myself, especially when thoughts and emotions visit that it’s difficult for me to meet with kindness. And I also use the befriend & awaken approach.
We can find kindness towards others.
We all do our best with the cards we are dealt. When people go into denial, short-sightedness, and so on, it’s their way of dealing with living in this world. A lot of it, or all, comes from fear.
We can be of service.
We can find meaning and joy in being of service, in whatever form that takes for us. Whether it is supporting humans, non-humans, or ecosystems.
We can find fellowship.
We can find others like us. We can find and create communities. We can support each other.
I did this in the past and lost it to some extent (apart from what I carry with me) due to illness and other life circumstances. Now, it may be time to refind and rebuild community.
We can find our nature, if we are drawn to it.
What do I mean by our nature?
It’s true enough that I am this human self in the world.
And if I look more closely, I find that in my own immediate experience, I am more fundamentally what my field of experience happens within and as. I am, more fundamentally, what a thought may call consciousness, and the world, to me, happens within and as this consciousness. This is what mystics across cultures and throughout time have described. (And talking about it this way is compatible with a range of worldviews.)
Just about anything is an invitation for us to notice and explore how it is to live from our nature. And these types of more dramatic and massive change even more so.
Of course, many won’t be drawn to it. But if you are, then there are ways to explore this. The ones I have found that seem most effective are: The Big Mind process. Headless experiments. Kiloby Inquiries. Basic meditation. And supportive practices like training a more stable attention.
What does this do for us? Not much, necessarily. But it does feel like coming home which is a relief. And it does change the context for everything.
COLLAPSE ACCEPTANCE
What does collapse acceptance mean?
It means accepting that what comes together falls apart.
This civilization will come to an end. Human civilization will come to an end. Humanity will come to an end. Each of those deaths will leave space for something else, which could be a new human civilization or new species eventually developing a new civilization.
It also means accepting the possibility of a more imminent collapse than many expect.
It’s a possibility, it’s not inevitable. We don’t know for certain.
To me, it also means using this to fuel our life – our gratitude, zest for life, engagement, connections, and so on. We can use it to deepen our conscious connection with our life, the life of others, and life in general. We can use it to be good stewards of our own life and life in general. It’s immensely precious as long as it’s here.
POWER-OVER VS POWER-WITH
A few more words about worldviews.
The worldview of our civilization (post-agriculture) has a power-over orientation where we seek power over ourselves, others, nature, and so on. We have a transcendent sky-god out there somewhere and not in or manifesting as everything, including ourselves, others, and nature.
That allows us to see nature – and ourselves and others – as primarily a resource and something to use (and abuse). This is internalized in all of us, and we can train ourselves to recognize it and support and emphasize alternatives ourselves and our culture.
The alternative is a power-with orientation where we seek partnership and cooperation with ourselves (different parts of our psyche), others, nature, and the universe. It’s also to see all of existence as sacred, as the divine or an expression of the divine. (This includes ourselves, others, nature, the universe.)
When this is internalized, it leads to a very different life individually and collectively. We’ll still need to use natural resources to support our own life, but we’ll do it from a different place. We’ll do it with more gratitude, reverence, and seek to find ways to do it that supports not only our own life but the larger living system, future generations, and life in general.
Of course, there will still be times when a more narrow view takes over – times of crisis or when we are caught in trauma, and we’ll make mistakes because we don’t know better – but that will still happen within a larger context of a general power-with and immanent Spirit orientation. And there will be systems in place to protect the interest of life – our own and the wider living systems – to prevent the worst anti-life behaviors.
This is not idealism. It’s what’s necessary for our own survival. It’s how we protect our own survival and the survival of our descendants.
WHAT’S MY HISTORY WITH THIS?
I loved nature from a very early age. As a child, I always said I wanted to become a zoologist. (What I really meant was ecologist but I didn’t know that word then.) I loved being in nature. I loved the hiking, skiing, and cabin trips with my family. I loved sleeping under the stars in the mountains of Norway. I loved the nature documentaries with David Attenborough and Sverre M. Fjelstad. I loved Cosmos by Carl Sagan, which had a huge impact on me and – in many ways – changed my life. (“We are the local ears, eyes, thoughts and feelings of the universe. We are the universe bringing itself into consciousness.”)
In my mid-teens, I got deeply into Fritjof Capra, systems views, and the people he references. I also got deeply into Deep Ecology (Arne Næss, a fellow Norwegian) and eco-philosophy, and I got deeply into Jung. I read all the books I could get my hands on from these authors.
Climate change became a big topic in my later teens, in the ’80s, and even then, I saw it as just one expression of the problems inherent in our civilization. We need to make the changes anyway, climate change or no climate change. (Discussing the details about it and whether it’s human-caused or not is a distraction and sometimes an intentional distraction.)
In my twenties, in the US, I read everything I could find about ecospirituality (from any and no particular tradition), ecopsychology, the Universe Story, the Epic of Evolution, and so on. I used the Ecological Footprint a lot in my work with sustainability. (I was the initial paid coordinator for Sustain Dane in Madison, Wisconsin.) I organized several projects where we used the ecological footprint as a central theme, and also several events and workshops (and one longer retreat) where we used the Practices to Reconnect and the Council of All Beings.
These days, I work on a regeneration project (15 hectares) in the Andes mountain. It feels deeply rewarding to help this land become more vibrant and healthy again and support the lives of innumerable beings. An integrated food forest will provide food for non-human beings and humans. And it may also eventually be part of local eco-tourism. We’ll see. Anything can happen.
Read MoreDoes all time happen now? Yes, to us it does
I remember having this experience in my teens, following the oneness shift. It was as if I could see, for my inner eye, all of time happening now, and I imagined that’s how time is to God. This was one of the early side effects of the shift, and it changed as I found more clarity about what was going on.
Since then, I occasionally talk with people who share a similar experience, often relatively early in the awakening process.
Is this topic important? Why do people experience it this way? And how can we explore it for ourselves?
IS IT IMPORTANT?
At a philosophical level, it’s about as important as other abstract philosophical topics. For most of us, it’s not very important in our daily life.
If it’s an experience – or a sense or intuition, then it’s often important for the ones having it.
And as a topic to explore in our own direct noticing, it can lead us to notice our nature. It can lead us home, to the home we already are whether we notice it or not. And for us, nothing may be more important than that.
WHY DO SOME HAVE THIS EXPERIENCE?
Where does the “all time is happening now” experience come from?
It comes from noticing reality. Not necessarily some absolute reality out there but the reality of our own experience.
To us, any content of experience happens within our sense fields. Any experience happens within one or more sense field – sight, sound, smell, taste, sensation, mental representations, and so on.
And that includes our experience of time. Any ideas of past, present, and future, and any ideas of what’s in each of these, happen within our mental field. It all happens here and now.
Any sense of all time happening now also happens within our sense fields. It happens as a combination of certain mental representations (of a timeline and past, future, and present) and certain sensations in the body. Our mind associates the two so the sensations seem to lend a sense of solidity and reality to the mental representations, and the mental representations give a sense of meaning to the sensations.
That means that to us, all time happens now. It’s inevitable. It’s always been that way.
So if we experience that all time happens now, it’s because it does – to us. It was always that way. It cannot be any other way. It’s just that we don’t always notice.
And that doesn’t mean that this is how reality itself is. It’s just our inevitable experience because of how our mind works.
DIFFERENTIATING OUR OWN EXPERIENCE FROM REALITY “OUT THERE”
It’s important to differentiate the two.
To me, all time happens now. I cannot find the past or future, or even the idea of the present, outside of my mental representations. And they all happen here and now.
And that doesn’t say anything about reality itself. It doesn’t tell me how existence in itself is. What we call “time” is a mental overlay on (our mental overlays of) existence.
It says something about my own experience.
A POINTER TO MY OWN NATURE
More importantly, it says something about my own nature.
It’s a pointer to what I more fundamentally am, in my own first-person experience.
If I notice a sense of all time happening now, it’s an invitation for me to take a closer look. How does my mind create this experience?
This can be an invitation to explore our sense fields. To explore what’s happening in each, and how the mental field combines with physical sensations to create a sense of solidity and reality out of imaginations and sensations. (These imaginations are essential for us to orient and function in the world so there is nothing wrong with them, it’s just good to notice what’s happening.)
And this may lead me to find what I more fundamentally am. I may find that I more fundamentally am capacity for anything appearing in the sense fields. I am what the world, to me, happens within and as.
HOW CAN WE EXPLORE THIS FOR OURSELVES?
How can we investigate this for ourselves?
There are many approaches out there and what works depends on the person and situation. Here are a few I have found helpful.
Traditional Buddhist sense field explorations. For instance, pay attention to one sense field at a time and what happens there. Notice what happens in the mental field. Notice how the mental field interprets what happens in the other sense fields, how it interprets what’s not here in any other sense field, and perhaps even how certain sensations lend a sense of solidity and reality to some mental representations (give them a charge) and how certain mental representations give a sense of meaning to certain sensations.
The Kiloby Inquiries is a modern take on this traditional Buddhist inquiry. This inquiry usually requires a facilitator, at least unless we are trained and have some experience with it for ourselves.
The Work of Byron Katie can be helpful, especially if we explore this specifically.
Apart from sense field explorations, the most direct ways to explore this may be the Big Mind process and the Headless experiments. Here, we get a direct taste of any ideas of past, future, and present as happening here now, and happening within and as what we are.
Basic Meditation can do the same, although it tends to be a slightly slower process. Notice and allow what’s here. Notice that it’s already noticed and allowed. Notice how any content of experience comes and goes, including any ideas of past, future, and present. So what am I more fundamentally?
ALL OF TIME DOES HAPPEN NOW
So yes, all of time does happen simultaneously. To us, it does. It’s inevitable since time can only be found in our mental representations, and these happen here and now. I cannot find time outside of my present experience.
That doesn’t tell me how reality itself is.
And it’s an invitation for me to take a closer look, which may lead me to find my own nature.
Although much is important in life, we may find there is no greater treasure than that.
Read MoreExploring identities and finding what we more fundamentally are
There are several ways for us to notice what we more fundamentally are.
VIA POSITIVA AND VIA NEGATIVA
We can explore it directly through, for instance, the Big Mind process and Headless experiments. (Via positiva.)
And we can explore what we are not, which leaves just one option for what we more fundamentally are. It brings us to the threshold of noticing what we more fundamentally are. (Via negativa.)
EXPLORING WHAT WE ARE NOT
How do we explore what we most fundamentally are not?
There are several ways.
One is to explore subpersonalities.
I can identify and explore a wide range of subpersonalities in myself. Whenever I notice a reaction in me, that comes from a subpersonality. I can also explore universal subpersonalities. And I can use the world as my mirror – whatever I see “out there” mirrors parts of myself.
I can shift in and out of the perspectives of the different subpersonalities and notice how it is to perceive and live from that perspective.
By doing that, I notice that I am not most fundamentally any of those. I am each of them, in a certain sense. And more fundamentally, I am not any of them. I am not any identity because I can shift in and out of the perspective of each and any identity.
So if I am not any particular identity, what am I?
Another is Basic Meditation.
This works in a similar. We notice and allow what’s here in our field of experience, and notice it’s already noticed and allowed. (It happens within and as consciousness so it is, in a sense, noticed by consciousness even before it’s consciously noticed, and it is already allowed by life, space, and consciousness.) We notice it all comes and goes. Any content of experience comes and goes, including ideas about what we are and what these ideas refer to.
I may also notice that in my dreams, I may be either absent or a different character than in my daily life.
If all of this is coming and going, I cannot most fundamentally be any of it.
So what am I, more fundamentally?
BRINGING US TO THE THRESHOLD
These kinds of explorations remove options for what we are. It removes any identity and anything within the content of experience as an option for what we most fundamentally are.
And this brings us to the threshold of noticing what we more fundamentally are.
So what is the remaining option? It may be difficult to notice and accept since it’s a whole different category than what we are used to. It requires a fundamental shift in what we are noticing and looking for.
What I find is that I am, more fundamentally, capacity for the world. I am capacity for any and all content of experience, and any and all identity and what these refer to.
I am what it all happens within and as. I am what allows it all to come and go.
I am what forms itself into all of these experiences, including of taking myself to be something within my content of experience.
THE BRILLIANCE OF THE BIG MIND PROCESS
I learned the Big Mind process more than two decades ago, when Genpo Roshi first developed it, and I keep noticing how brilliant it is.
In this context, it does two essential things very well.
It helps us explore any number of views, perspectives, and subpersonalities, and how it is to experience the world from their viewpoints. This allows us to notice that we are not, most fundamentally, any of these. Identities are fluid. We can shift in and out of any of them.
And then, it helps us notice directly what we are. It helps us find ourselves as Big Mind / Big Heart.
It brilliantly combines via negativa and via positiva.
Read More
Alejandro Jodorowsky: I am the others, the others are me
I am the others, the others are me
– Alejandro Jodorowsky in Jodorowsky’s Dune
I can find several ways it’s true.
The first two are more loose and poetic. The next three are something we can check out for ourselves in our direct noticing. And the last one either depends on our definition or is an assumption – at least for me now.
POETIC & SENSE OF US
We can mean it in a loose and poetic way.
I have a sense of fellowship and a sense of us.
So I am you and you are me in the sense that we are all in it together.
SYSTEMS VIEW
We are all part of and expressions of larger social and ecological systems.
We are expressions and parts of a larger whole, just like cells are part of a larger organism.
We are the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe.
In this sense too, I am you and you are me.
MIRROR
I see in others what I know from myself, whether I know I know it from myself or not.
I can take any story I have about someone else (or anything in the world), turn it to myself, and find genuine and specific examples of where it’s true.
You are my mirror. You are me.
I am your mirror. I am you.
This is something I can find for myself by exploring projections. One of my favorite ways is through inquiry and especially The Work of Byron Katie.
SENSE FIELDS
To me, the world happens within and as my sense fields.
To me, any experience is found within sight, sound, smell, taste, sensations, thoughts, and so on.
To me, you happen within and as my sense fields.
Here too, you are me. And to you, I am you.
This is something I can explore and find for myself, by noticing my sense fields and how any experience happens within them. Traditional Buddhist sense field explorations are especially good for this.
WHAT I AM
In one sense, I am this human self in the world. That’s an assumption that’s not wrong and it works pretty well.
And when I look closer at what I am in my own experience, I find something else.
I find I more fundamentally am capacity for the world and anything that happens in my sense fields. I am what allows any and all experience, including what I think of as you.
I am what the world, to me, happens within and as. I am what you, to me, happen within and as.
If I want to put labels on it, I can say that to me, I am consciousness and the world happens within and as this consciousness I am.
In a very literal sense, you are me. And to you, I am you, whether you notice or not.
This is also something I can check out and find for myself, perhaps most effectively through forms of inquiry like the Big Mind process and Headless experiments, and also Basic Meditation.
SPIRIT
We can take this one step further.
If we call all of existence Spirit, the divine, or God, we can say that we are all aspects and expressions of Spirit.
I am you and you are me.
Read MoreMy meditation history
I thought I would write a few words about my meditation history, and I’ll include a brief mention of other spiritual practices since they go hand-in-hand.
CHILDHOOD INTEREST
In my childhood, I was fascinated by yoga and meditation and wished to explore both but I couldn’t find anyone who could guide me. Not much was going on in my little town in Norway at the time. (These days, it’s easy to find.) The closest I came was doing yoga from a book I found in the library.
INITIAL EXPLORATIONS
During the observer-observed shift when I was fifteen, I remember trying some forms of meditation based on what I picked up from a movie I watched, but it didn’t make much sense and wasn’t very satisfying. (I think it had to do with focusing on a candle flame.)
TAOIST, CHRISTIAN, AND BUDDHIST PRACTICES
When I was sixteen, there was a shift into oneness that turned everything upside-down and inside-out. This sparked a more intentional exploration of my nature and the nature of existence. (And also of healing since my human self was still quite messy and with lots of trauma.)
It led to first engaging in the Taoist practices described by Mantak Chia, which felt natural to me and I could sense the energies moving. It led to getting involved with a local Tibetan Buddhist center in Oslo and the Ngöndro practices. It led to exploring Christian practices like the Heart/Jesus prayer and the Christ meditation (visualizing Christ in the six directions and the heart). And I also did Tai Chi and Chigong.
I had a passion for these practices and did them for at least two hours daily and often longer. Just like drawing and painting, it didn’t require discipline. Something in me wanted to do it more than anything else.
I should say that the Taoist and Christian practices felt very familiar and natural to me, and I loved them completely. I also loved the Tibetan practice of Tonglen and did it daily for long periods of time.
Some of the other Tibetan practices were more challenging since they seemed to encourage the energy and attention to go “up” and made me feel more ungrounded, and the teachers I talked with about this didn’t seem able to relate to it and didn’t give me helpful pointers.
During this time, I also discovered the books by Jes Bertelsen, which I deeply loved since they incorporated Depth Psychology, Taoism, Buddhism, and Christianity, and I did also explore and engage in the practices described in some of these books.
ZEN PRACTICE
When I was twenty-four, I went to Salt Lake City to study psychology, moved into the Zen center there (Kanzeon Zen Center, Genpo Roshi), and lived there for about three years. Here, I obviously engaged in basic Zen practice. (Training more stable attention, Shikantaza, Koan practice.) If I remember correctly, I think the official meditation practice was 3-4 hours a day during quiet periods and double or triple during more intensive periods. Although I loved my time there and the practice, the more formal practice did feel constricted and constricting compared to the previous Taoist and Christian practices. It felt less alive.
THE BIG MIND PROCESS
After a while, Genpo Roshi developed the Big Mind process which I also loved since it incorporated what had revealed itself during the initial oneness shift and my passion for psychology and parts/subpersonality work. (I was there when I first came upon it and started developing it.)
MORE FOCUSED ON COMMUNITY
After my marriage and moving to another state, it was difficult for me to engage in my inner exploration as I had before. Instead, I got far more involved in community projects – mostly related to sustainability. This lasted for about five years and was deeply rewarding in its own way. (We used a solution-focused and partnership-oriented approach, and I was the coordinator for the organization.)
RETURN TO PRACTICE
In my early- to mid-thirties, my passion for exploration returned.
I trained in Breema, practiced Breema daily for years, and also instructed.
I got back into training a more stable attention.
I found and loved the Headless experiments.
I continued exploring the Big Mind process for myself and with others.
After a few years (2-4?) of these explorations, there was another shift. This time, into a sense of complete absence of any separate self. It was all just existence experiencing and living itself, and this human self somehow living its own life as a small part of that. (The shift itself was triggered by doing one of the Headless experiments, likely supported by all the other practices.)
And this was followed by a collapse of my health and a dark night of the soul that has lasted years. (I have written about this in other articles so won’t go into it here.)
A NECESSARY SHIFT
After my health took a dramatic turn for the worse (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome later combined with Lyme disease), I had to shift how I engaged in these explorations.
Before this, I had relied on my passion and fire. And now, I had to find a more gentle and effortless way of exploring and noticing. (Which is a blessing.)
For instance, I had to use a distinction in basic meditation more intentionally. Basic meditation is to notice what’s here in my field of experience and allow it as it is. And really, it’s to notice it’s already allowed and already noticed. Noticing what’s already here is more effortless and easier, and it’s also a bit closer to reality.
I continued with The Work of Byron Katie, did two “Schools” for The Work, and did most of the certification process. I continued with Ho’oponopono. I got certified in Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) and the Living/Kiloby Inquiries. I did each of these daily or close to daily for some years, with some overlap. (The Work, Ho’o, and TRE during the same time, then Kiloby Inquiries and TRE.)
HUMBLING
I had taken some pride in my practice, ability to keep a stable focus almost indefinitely, and ability to meet my experiences with some intention and equanimity. All that went out the window when the dark night started several years ago. (It came following my health crash.)
My ability to meet my experiences with intention and equanimity went out the window, and a huge amount of unprocessed psychological material came to the surface. It was the most difficult period in my life, and it’s still here to some extent.
THESE DAYS
How do my exploration and noticing look these days?
It’s more a natural part of daily life. I rarely sit down with the intention to practice. I also know that sitting meditation has many benefits and wish and hope to get back into it.
I notice that what’s here in the field of experience is already allowed (by life, existence, mind) and that it’s already noticed (by mind and before consciously reflected upon).
I notice that the world, as it appears to me, happens within and as what I am.
I notice that my more fundamental nature is as capacity for any experience, for anything appearing in my sense fields.
When I notice it would be a helpful medicine, I engage in ho’oponopono, prayer, TRE, and similar practices.
WHAT’S THE EFFECT OF THESE PRACTICES?
I am honestly not sure.
I notice some are quick and eager to point to all the beneficial effects their practices have had in their life. As for me, I cannot say I know. I only have this one life. There is no control group or comparison. I don’t know how my life would be without it.
What I can say is that training more stable attention certainly seemed to have an effect. I had laser attention during the time I practiced this daily, and that supported many activities and my life in general. (The stable attention also came with the initial oneness shift and the transformations that followed.)
The heart-centered practices certainly seem to have an effect when I do them. My orientation shifts.
I have discovered a lot through the different forms of inquiry.
The essence of the Big Mind process and the Headless experiments, combined with the oneness shift in my teens, makes noticing my nature close at hand and effortless.
Have I somehow transformed through these explorations? I don’t know. With the dark night, my capacity to relate intentionally to what’s here was reduced and a lot of unprocessed material has come to the surface. It’s easy to think of this as a backward step, although it’s equally an invitation for deeper healing.
A FEW WORDS ON MEDITATION AND OTHER SPIRITUAL PRACTICES
WHAT IS MEDITATION?
The word is used to refer to several different explorations.
Basic meditation is to notice and allow what’s already here in the field of experience, notice it’s already noticed and allowed, and rest in and as that noticing and allow it to do whatever it does with us. Here, there are also some insights that tend to come over time. For instance, we may notice that attention tends to get distracted, and it does so whenever thoughts have “glue” on them and what they tell us seem real and important. And that any and all content of experience comes and goes, including who or what we think we are. If that too comes and goes, what are we more fundamentally? What are we in our own first-person experience?
Training a more stable attention is also often categorized as a meditation practice.
Inquiry is an exploration of what’s already here, and is often done as a meditation. As is several forms of body-oriented practices like Tai Chi and Breema.
WHAT’S THE PURPOSE OF MEDITATION AND OTHER SPIRITUAL PRACTICES?
That’s a good question. Mainly, it depends on the practice and the person.
Heart-centered practices help us shift our orientation and relationship with our experiences. (AKA ourselves, others, life, situations, and parts of ourselves.)
Training more stable attention supports a wide range of activities, our life in general, and also other spiritual or healing practices.
Inquiry helps us see how our mind creates its experience, and it can help us see through the misleading quality of many of our mental representations.
Some forms of inquiry can also help us notice our nature. (Headless experiments, Big Mind process.)
The purpose of basic meditation is especially interesting here. On the one hand, the purpose is to notice the changing nature of our experience, find ourselves as what it all happens within and as, and also allow that noticing to work on our human self and psychology. On the other hand, there is no purpose. It’s just resting in and as what we are.
WHY WRITE ABOUT THIS?
Why did I write about this here?
It’s partly because I may find helpful insights, pointers, or reminders for myself now.
And it’s partly because it may be helpful to others on a similar path. I have often learned a lot from others. (That includes reminders of what doesn’t resonate with me which clarifies my own path.)
Why do many scientists and psychologists ignore our nature?
To me, there is something that seems clear, both from direct noticing and logic.
And that is what we are to ourselves, and what the world is to us. It’s our own nature, and the nature of the world as it appears to us.
WHAT I AM IN MY OWN NOTICING
In one sense, I am a human being in the world. That’s not wrong, and it’s an assumption that helps this human self orient and function in the world.
And yet, in my own direct noticing, it is what I most fundamentally am?
When I look, I find I am something else.
I find I am more fundamentally capacity for any and all experience. I am what allows and takes the form of any and all of my experiences. I am what allows and takes the form of what happens in all of my sense fields, in sight, sound, sensation, smell, taste, and the mental field. (And any other sense fields we can differentiate out through our mental overlays.)
I am what the world, to me, happens within and as.
I am the oneness the world, to me happens within and as.
We can call this different things. For instance, consciousness.
And that brings us to the logic side of this.
WHAT I AM LOGICALLY
In our culture, most say that “we have consciousness” as if it’s a kind of appendix we happen to have. There is an assumption here that we are primarily a physical object and this physical object somehow has consciousness as it happens to have arms, legs, and physical organs.
This is a third-person view, and it doesn’t really matter in this context how accurate it is.
The more interesting question for me is: What are we to ourselves, in our own immediate experience?
Logically, if we “have” consciousness, we have to BE consciousness. There is nothing outside of consciousness somehow experiencing consciousness. What experiences and has the idea of consciousness is consciousness itself. Not anything outside of it.
Any experience happens within and as consciousness. It’s consciousness taking the form of that experience.
So to us, the world happens within and as consciousness.
The world, and any experience, happens within and as what we are.
We ARE consciousness and the world and any content of experience happens within and as consciousness, within and as what we are.
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF WHAT WE ARE
Both direct noticing and (this particular) logic arrives at the same answer for what we are to ourselves, and it also arrives at the same answer for the characteristics of what we are.
What are some of the characteristics of what we are to ourselves?
What are some of the characteristics of consciousness?
To me, what I am has no beginning or end in space. It also has no beginning or end in time. Any experience of space and time happens within and as what I am.
To me, I am one. I am the oneness the world happens within and as. I am what my field of experience, which my mental field differentiates in many different ways, happens within and as.
To me, I am the world and the world is me. The world happens within and as what I am.
To me, the world happens within and as consciousness. It’s like a dream in that way.
To me, any and all content of experience comes and goes. And this includes any ideas of what I may be within the content of experience (this human self) and what these ideas refer to. In some cases, I may not take myself to be this particular human self, for instance in a dream, and what I more fundamentally am is still here. What any and all experiences happens within and as is still here. (Including shifting ideas of what I am as an object in the world.)
When what I am notices itself, I find that my nature is what can be called love. It’s a love that’s not dependent on shifting states or emotions. It’s the love of the left hand removing a splinter from the right. And this love is often obscured by separation consciousness, by dynamics and patterns created from when I took myself most fundamentally as a separate object in the world.
IS THIS WHAT I “REALLY” AM?
So is this what I really am?
Yes, it is. It’s what I am in my own direct noticing.
Outside of that, I don’t know. I don’t know what my nature more fundamentally happens to be from some kind of outside third-person view. And that’s also less important, at least in my daily life.
WHY DON’T WE ALWAYS NOTICE?
If this is so obvious both in terms of noticing and logic, why don’t we always notice or take this into account?
Most likely, because we live in a culture and world where most don’t. When we grow up, we do as others do. We learn to take on and operate from separation consciousness. And that can be very convincing, at least until we start examining our assumptions – about what we are and what the world is to us – a little more closely.
IS IT IMPORTANT?
Yes and no. We humans obviously get by without noticing or examining our nature.
And yet, when the oneness we are notices itself, keeps noticing itself, and explores how to live from this noticing, it can be profoundly transforming.
It can be profoundly transforming for our perception, sense of fundamental identity, life in the world, and our human psychology.
WHY DO MANY OVERLOOK OR DENY THIS?
If this is so obvious, both in terms of noticing and logic, why do so many ignore or deny this?
Most people are not so interested in the question of what they more fundamentally are in their own immediate experience. That’s fine. They get by anyway. They have more immediate concerns to focus on and take care of.
And yet, for some people, this is their job. For scientists and especially psychologists, this is essential to their job and (I assume) interests.
So why don’t more of them explore this? Why don’t more of them take it seriously?
I am not sure.
The essential answer may be the same as above: We live in a world where we are trained in separation consciousness from we are born. It becomes the norm, so we don’t even consider questioning it. And if we do, we feel we are somehow transgressing and entering dangerous waters so we don’t take it very far or speak about it.
To elaborate a bit:
Exploring these things is a kind of taboo in our culture, especially in academic circles. It goes against our shared worldview. It goes against standard norms. (Although all of that is changing.)
Our western culture, and especially our scientific culture, value the more “objective” third-person view over first-person explorations. Again, this has been different in the past and will very likely be different in the future.
If you work as a scientist in academia or as a psychologist, you typically cannot stray too far from the mainstream. As a scientist, you risk losing (or not getting) funding. You even risk losing your job if you get too weird. And as a psychologist, you risk losing your license. (In Norway, psychologists have lost their license for exploring the possibility of past lives in therapy sessions, even if these explorations obviously deal with projections and don’t say whether or not the past lives were real or not.)
In short, cultures are systems and systems want to stay mostly stable. There are many mechanisms operating to preserve some kind of stability. There are many incentives to not explore this, and not so many opportunities or invitations to do so. (Which, again, is fortunately changing.)
At a more personal level, many people may not have the curiosity or passion for exploring this. They are happy exploring other things, and that’s fine. Not everyone needs to explore these things.
WILL THIS CHANGE?
Will this change?
It is already changing. More and more people, including in science and psychology, are interested in a more transpersonal approach and understanding.
I envision a future where the third-person and first-person approaches exist side-by-side and even hand-in-hand, including in science and psychology.
It will be a far more rich exploration of our human experience, and one that reflects a little more of the bigger picture.
ACKNOWLEDGING THE VALIDITY OF WHAT MYSTICS DESCRIBE
If or when this shift happens, something else will happen as well.
And that is an acknowledgment – in science and our culture – of the validity in what mystics across times and cultures have described.
If we look at the essence of what mystics describe, it’s exactly this.
We are consciousness, and the world to us is consciousness.
We are the oneness the world, to us, happens within and as.
Image: Created by me and Midjourney (AI image)
The logic of what we are (awakening)
There is a logical inevitability to what we are.
There is a logic to what we are in our own first-person experience.
There is a logic to what we find when we are guided, and when we set aside thoughts telling us what we are.
THE CONVENTIONAL VIEW & WHAT I FIND
The conventional view is that we are this human self in the world. I am a human being in the world that has consciousness. That’s not entirely wrong. It’s an assumption that works relatively well in daily life.
But is this what I find when we take a closer look in my own immediate experience? Here, I find I more fundamentally am something else.
I find I more fundamentally am capacity for any and all experience. I find am what any experience happens within and as. And I find there is a logical inevitability to this.
THE LOGIC OF OUR WHAT WE ARE: THE SIMPLE VERSION
Why is there a logical inevitability to what we are?
The simple version is that if we “have” consciousness, then to ourselves we have to BE consciousness.
The world, as it appears to us, then has to happen within the consciousness we are.
And we and the world, as it appears to us, have to have the characteristics of consciousness.
THE LOGIC OF WHAT WE ARE IN MORE DETAIL
I’ll go into this in a little more detail.
(1) If we “have” consciousness, then to ourselves we have to BE consciousness.
Consciousness is not some appendix we happen to have. (The only way it can look that way is if we: (a) Assume we most fundamentally are an object in the world with consciousness somehow attached to it. And (b) don’t examine it very closely.)
If we “have” consciousness, it means that we perceive “through” that consciousness. It means that all our experiences happen within and as that consciousness. It means that what receives any and all experiences is that consciousness. And that means that, to ourselves, we have to BE that consciousness. There is no other option.
(2) The world, as it appears to us, then has to happen within the consciousness we are.
The world, to us, happens within and as consciousness. We are that consciousness.
That means that the world, to us, happens within and as the consciousness we are.
And by “the world” I mean any and all content of experience including the wider, this human self, thoughts, feelings, states, and so on.
Anything that appears in any sense field – sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, thought – happens within and as the consciousness we are.
(3) And we and the world, as it appears to us, have to have the characteristics of consciousness.
Here are some of these characteristics:
Oneness. The consciousness we are is one. And the world as it appears to us happens within and as the oneness we are. Our experience of anything and everything inevitably happens within the oneness we are. (If our system is invested in a perception of separation, we may not notice that oneness, but that’s another matter.)
Timeless. To ourselves, our nature is timeless. It just is. And since the world happens within and as what we are, that too is timeless to us. Time happens within and as what we are. It’s not fundamental to what we are.
Spaceless. Similarly, to ourselves, our nature is spaceless and the world appears spaceless. Any sense of space happens within and as what we are, it’s not fundamental to our nature.
Love. We can also say that our nature is love. Love is a natural expression of the oneness we are recognizing itself. It’s the love of the left hand removing a splinter from the right. It’s a love that’s not dependent on feelings or states. (It’s always here but it’s dependent on not being too obscured by our separation-consciousness hangups to be expressed.)
Not a thing. As consciousness, we are not a thing. And since the world, to us, happens within and as the consciousness we are, that too – to us – is not a thing. It’s all happening more like a dream, within and as consciousness, than anything else. (Again, being caught up in separation consciousness can make the world appear very much as a thing, and there is some truth to that too.)
Ephemeral. Any and all experience is ephemeral. It’s gone before we consciously realize we have noticed it. In this way too, everything is dreamlike. (Any sense of permanence is created by the overlay of our mental field.)
Capacity. As consciousness, our more fundamental nature is capacity. We are capacity for any and all experiences. We are what allows it all. We are what all happens within and as.
Always here. Our nature is, inevitably, always here. It may not recognize itself, but it’s here. It’s what we already are.
NO IDEOLOGY OR SPIRITUALITY REQUIRED
No ideology or spirituality is required to explore this. It’s just what we find (or not) when we look.
What we find is what mystics throughout history and from any tradition have described. And yet, it’s not dependent on any religion, spirituality, or ideology.
If anything, it reveals that any religion, spirituality, and ideology is human-created, it’s created by our mental field. At most, and in this context, it reflects a direct noticing and can offer some pointers for how to explore it for ourselves.
HOW CAN WE EXAMINE IT FOR OURSELVES?
So how can we examine it for ourselves?
I’ll mention a few approaches I have found especially helpful.
Headless experiments and the Big Mind process are two of the most simple, direct, and effective approaches I have found so far.
Basic meditation is to notice and allow what’s here and notice it’s already noticed and allowed. Over time, we realize that any and all content of experience comes and goes, including what we may take ourselves to be. So what are we more fundamentally? Are we what it all comes and goes within and as? How is it to notice that? How is it to explore living from that noticing?
And there are also many approaches that support this noticing or support living from it, including other forms of inquiry (sense field explorations, Kiloby inquiries), heart-centered practices (prayer, tonglen, ho’oponpono, metta), training more stable attention (including body-centered practices), and ethical guidelines (reduces distractions, highlights what in us operates from separation consciousness).
WHY IS IT COVERED UP?
If this is our nature, why don’t we notice? Why is it covered up?
The simple answer is that as we grow up, we do as others do. We see others operate from separation consciousness, assuming they most fundamentally are an object in the world, so we do the same. And we don’t find a good reason to question or examine it. Or we don’t have access to good tools and guidance to examine it.
HOW IS IT COVERED UP?
How is it covered up? What are some of the mechanisms?
In short, it’s covered up when our mind holds onto mental representations – mental images and words – as accurately reflecting reality.
As soon as consciousness holds a story as true, it identifies with the viewpoint of that story. It becomes an “I” with an “other”. To itself, it becomes something within the content of experience. (1)
It temporarily takes itself to be one part within itself, and everything else as “other”.
That’s how separation consciousness is created, and it can seem very real.
If we grow up with separation consciousness, as most of us do, then many parts of our psyche are formed and operate from separation consciousness. That’s how emotional issues, traumas, hangups, ideologies, and so on are created.
Even when the oneness we are recognizes itself, it can still have many parts operating from separation consciousness, and it can take time to get all of these onboard with a more conscious noticing of oneness.
WHY DON’T MORE PEOPLE TALK ABOUT THIS?
Why don’t more people talk about this?
Well, some do. Many Asian spiritual traditions talk about this. Mystics from all traditions and times talk about it. Many spiritual coaches and teachers talk about it. Some psychologists and philosophers talk about it.
And yet, most psychologists and philosophers don’t talk about it, and few in academia explore it in any serious way.
Why do they ignore it even if it has logic to it? Why do they ignore it even if this has profound practical implications? Even if it can be profoundly transforming for anyone engaging in these kinds of explorations?
I am not sure.
Perhaps some lack curiosity or interest? (Which is fine. Our fascination is our calling, and there is no lack of things to be fascinated by.) Perhaps they haven’t investigated the conventional “have consciousness as an appendix” idea? Perhaps they are concerned to get lumped in with mystics, spiritual people, and weirdos?
I assume it’s not because this is not an important topic, because it is. It’s not for lack of information or guidance, because that can be found. It’s not because they cannot explore it for themselves, because they can. And it’s not because there is no logic to it, because there is.
IS OUR NATURE THE SAME AS THE NATURE OF EXISTENCE?
Is our nature the same as the nature of all of existence?
If we find our own more fundamental nature, it’s natural to assume that the nature of existence is the same. After all, the world to us happens within and as what we are, so it will appear that way.
And yet, do we know? Not really.
I cannot know for certain. I can find what appears as my more fundamental nature, I can explore how to live from that noticing, and so on. And yet, I cannot honestly say I know for certain that’s the nature of everything.
THE SMALL AND BIG INTERPRETATIONS OF AWAKENING
This is where I differentiate between the small and big interpretations of awakening.
This article is written from the small interpretation of awakening. It doesn’t rely on spirituality or religion. It’s about what we can find for ourselves through direct noticing.
It’s about our own nature, in our own first-person experience, not the nature of reality or existence.
From here, we can go one step further and say that our nature IS the nature of existence and reality. Reality IS consciousness. It is what we traditionally think of as the divine, as Spirit, as God.
Each of these interpretations has its place and value.
The small interpretation is more accessible to more people, it points more directly to what we can find for ourselves, and it goes to the heart of what mystics from different times and traditions describe. As I see it, it’s also more intellectually honest. And it may appear a bit dry and boring.
The big interpretation fits more what the main religions and spiritual traditions describe, it can be more inspiring, and it can open us up more. In some cases, it’s also a bit intellectually dishonest (presenting fantasy or speculation as reality), fanciful, and misleading. And there are several hints that the essence of it is more accurate in the bigger picture.
LILA – THE PLAY OF REALITY
All of this can be seen as play.
We can see it as the play of consciousness, reality, or even of the divine.
In the big interpretation of awakening…
It’s the divine exploring, expressing, and experiencing itself in always new ways.
It’s the one experiencing itself as many. It’s oneness experiencing itself as separate. It’s love experiencing itself as what looks like anything but love. It’s consciousnes experiencing itself as an object in the world. And so on.
It’s the dance of reality or Spirit.
In the small interpretation of awakening…
It’s much the same. It’s the oneness we are experiencing itself as separate. It’s the love we are experiencing itself as anything but love. It’s consciousness taking itself to be an object in the world.
And here, we can see it as play or something that’s just happening.
In either case, we can see it as the dance of consciousness, reality, or the divine.
And any ideas of purpose or meaning are ideas and not inherent in reality itself.
(1) Said another way, the consciousness we are creates a lot of identities for itself and identifies with these. It takes itself as a human, a gender, an age, someone with certain characteristics, and so on. None of this is necessarily wrong, but it is limiting and it’s not accurate in a more real sense.
If we look more closely we may find another mechanism. The consciousness we are associates certain thoughts with certain sensations. The sensations lend a sense of solidity, substance, and reality to the thoughts, and the thoughts give a sense of meaning to the sensations. And the consciousness we are may create chronic tension in the physical body in order to have ready access to sensations lending substance to certain thoughts.
If we have chronic beliefs, about anything, it’s a good bet that these are connected with chronic tension somewhere in the physical body.
Read More
How old am I?
I had a birthday yesterday, and it brings up the topic of age.
How old am I?
It’s a simple question, and if I take it seriously, it can reveal a lot about my nature.
THE AGE ON MY PASSPORT
In a conventional sense, I am the age my passport tells me. It’s the age in my official documents, and the answer most people expect if they ask the question. It’s not wrong, but it’s a small part of a much bigger picture.
MY BODY’S AGE
In another sense, my body has a certain biological age. Depending on genetics and lifestyle, it can be older or younger than my conventional age. This age has some importance in terms of my health. (And depending on how it’s measured and what criteria are used, it will likely change somewhat.)
THE AGE OF THE UNIVERSE
In yet another sense, I am the age of this universe. According to current science, I am roughly 13.7 billion years old. This can sound like an answer that’s meant to be cute or clever, but it’s far more real than that.
Everything I am as a human being is the product of 13.7 billion years of evolution of this universe.
Every molecule is the product of this evolution, most having been forged in ancient stars blowing up and reforming into this planet which formed itself into all of us and this living evolving world.
Every dynamic in me is the product of the evolution of this seamless system we call the universe.
As Carl Sagan said, and I often quote: We are the ears, eyes, thoughts and feeling of the universe. We are the universe bringing itself into consciousness.
Everything I am as a human being is the product of the evolution of this larger seamless system I am a local and temporary expression of.
In a very real sense, I am the age of this universe. Everything I am as a human is the age of this universe.
This age is important since it’s a reminder of the reality of the oneness of the universe. It’s a reminder of what current science tells us about our more fundamental identity and nature.
TIMELESS
All of that has some validity to it. And yet, am I most fundamentally this human self? Or even a local and temporary expression of this seamless and evolving larger whole?
If I look in my own first-person experience, what am I more fundamentally?
I find I am more fundamentally capacity for any and all experiences. I am capacity for the world as it appears to me, including this human self and anything connected with it. I am capacity even for any thought or sense that I am fundamentally this human self.
I find that any experience – of the wider world or this human self – happens within and as my sense fields. (Sight, sound, sensations, taste, smell, mental images and words.)
To me, the world as it appears to me, happens within and as what I am.
This is my more fundamental nature, in my own immediate experience.
Here, I find I am what any ideas or experience of time happens within and as. My nature is timeless, allowing and forming itself into ideas and experiences of time and change.
LAYERED
My age is layered.
As a human being, I am the age in my passport and my body’s biological age.
As a local and temporary expression of this larger seamless evolving system, I have the age of this universe. (And that will change somewhat depending on what science says.)
And in my own first-person experience, I find my nature is timeless. I am the timelessness any ideas and experience of age happen within and as.
I love the richness of my age. I love that there are many answers and that some change over time.
I love that each one makes sense in its own way.
WHY DON’T WE USE OUR UNIVERSE AGE MORE OFTEN?
If science tells us we all are 13.7 billion years old, why don’t we use that age more often?
It may seem a silly question, but it’s actually a very important one. Science tells us our more fundamental age is 13.7 billion years, so why don’t we collectively take it more seriously?
It may be because this story is still relatively new so it hasn’t had time to sink in yet.
Also, we are used to using our age in our passport so most people stick with that. Much in society is dependent on separating us by age. (School, tickets, pension, and so on.) And many seem to like to follow that orientation.
For me, it’s beautiful and important that this is an age we all share. Everything that exists has the same age. That’s amazing and wonderful to me. It’s a reminder of what ties us together and that we are all local and temporary expressions of the same seamless evolving whole.
That’s far more fundamental and important than the age we happen to have as local and temporary expressions of this whole.
WHY DON’T WE ACKNOWLEDGE OUR TIMELESS NATURE MORE OFTEN?
Similarly, why don’t we acknowledge our timeless nature more often?
It’s not because it’s not here to be noticed. Based on my own noticing and what I hear from others, it seems we all have this nature. (It’s the nature of the consciousness we all inevitably are to ourselves.) (1)
It’s not even because it’s difficult to find. I assume most can find it with guidance and within minutes.
So why don’t more people acknowledge this?
I assume there are many answers here too. The obvious one is that we live in a society that tells us – directly and indirectly – that we most fundamentally are this human self, an object within the field of our experience. As we grow up, we see that this is what others do so we do the same. In our innocence, which is very beautiful, we train ourselves to do as others do.
There are also many misconceptions about this. Many traditions suggest that finding our nature is difficult or takes a long time, or that it’s for special people, or that it’s about something distant, or that it gives us special powers.
In reality, it’s right here. It’s not only what we are most familiar with, it’s the only thing we are familiar with. It’s what all our experience consists of.
Since it’s about noticing what we already are, it’s for all of us.
It doesn’t give us any special powers, it’s just a noticing of our nature. (And that can be profoundly transforming for our perception and life in the world.)
And with good guidance, most of us can find it within a relatively short time.
How can we find it? The best approaches I am familiar with (so far) are the Headless experiments and the Big Mind process.
Of course, finding it is just the first step. It’s just a glimpse. If we want to continue exploring it, we need to refind it here and now. We need to explore how to live from this noticing. We need to investigate anything in us out of alignment with it, anything created and operating from separation consciousness.
And that takes dedication, passion, and a lifetime. (Or more if there are more.)
(1) Why don’t we acknowledge our timeless nature more often? It’s not even because it’s illogical. Based on logic, we find that in our own experience, we have to be consciousness. If we “have” consciousness, we inevitably and most fundamentally have to BE consciousness in our own experience. And the world, to us, happens within and as the consciousness we are.
We have all of the characteristics of consciousness, and since the world to us happens within and as the consciousness we are, that too – to us – have those characteristics.
We are what’s inherently free of time and space and that our experience of time and space happens within and as. We are the oneness any sense of distinction and separation happens within and as. And so on.
This just says something about our own nature in our own first-person experience, it doesn’t say anything about the nature of existence or the universe. And that’s more than enough. If we are led – by existence – to take it seriously, that’s profoundly transforming.
Image: A look at the distant relatives we call the “Cosmic Cliffs” in the Carina Nebula. (NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI.)
Noticing our nature while holding onto images for safety
At some point in the awakening process, we may find ourselves in a kind of in-between state.
We notice our nature directly, at least when we pay attention to it.
And we also still hold onto some ideas about what we are and identify as these.
THE BACKGROUND
To ourselves, we are consciousness and the world to us happens within and as that consciousness.
We are oneness and the world, to us, happens within and as that oneness.
This oneness learns that it is this human self happening within itself. It’s this human self that it can only see in the mirror or in photos and videos, can only see partially directly, that others and our passport say we are, and that it senses and lives in the world through. This is how most onenesses operate.
At some point, this oneness may become curious about its nature. It may intuit itself as oneness and consciousness. It may have glimpses of itself as that. It may learn how to notice its nature, and to do so more often through daily life.
NOTICING AND HOLDING ONTO IMAGES OF ITS NATURE
At this point, it will often both notice directly its nature, at least when bringing attention there. And it will create and hold onto some mental representations of its nature.
These may be mental representations of oneness, void, capacity, love, consciousness, and so on. And perhaps even Big Mind, Brahman, Spirit, and more.
IT’S NATURAL
This is a natural part of the process. It’s innocent. There is nothing inherently wrong with it.
The oneness we are is used to holding onto mental representations of who or what it is. It’s what it has learned from others. It’s how it finds a sense of safety, although it also brings friction with reality.
Also, when it discovers its nature, it can feel like a treasure and vitally important, so it tries to remember and hold onto it by creating and holding onto mental representations of it and even identifying as these mental representations.
This too comes with inherent discomfort. It’s something we feel we need to remember, rehearse, and even defend. And that’s a motivation to explore further and find a bit more clarity.
SOME WAYS TO EXPLORE THIS
What are some ways to explore this?
We may need some structured guidance, and here are a few I find useful:
Headless experiments help me notice my nature as capacity and what the world, to me, happens within and as. Here, it’s easier to notice the contrast between a direct noticing and my mental representations of what’s noticed.
Kiloby Inquiries helps me explore any identifications still in my system, including of capacity, oneness, love, and all the other identifications we may create for ourselves.
And the same goes for The Work of Byron Katie. This too helps me identify and explore any ideas I have of what I am.
A SPECIAL CASE OF AN UNIVERSAL DYNAMIC
As suggested above, this is a special case of something much more universal.
The oneness we are notices its nature. It recognizes itself as all it knows. To the oneness we are, the world happens within and as itself.
And it will still, very likely, hold onto a variety of mental representations of who and what it is. It will, at least to some extent, identify as these.
As mentioned, this happens out of old habits and because it feels safe. It’s a natural part of the process. And it comes with discomfort which is an invitation to explore what’s going on and find a bit more clarity around it.
What are some of these mental representations? They typically include a wide range of relatively universal ones. For instance: Gender. Nationality. Political orientations. A sense of lack and not being good enough. A sense of separation. All sorts of shoulds about ourselves, others, and life. And so on.
These are not necessarily wiped out by our nature recognizing itself. Usually, they remain in our system.
And that’s part of the process and adventure.
They are inherently uncomfortable, so we are invited to explore what’s going on, find a bit more clarity around it, and shift how we relate to it.
Read MoreSet aside looking for God and explore your own experience instead
There are many paths to God, and the two main ones may be devotion (prayer, surrender) and inquiry (investigation). Each one may be important at different times in our process. Both are equally valid and important. Each one offers something unique. And each one can be medicine for the other.
The statement above reflects the inquiry approach, and how the inquiry approach can be medicine for some of the potential pitfalls of an exclusively devotional approach.
WHAT WE MAY MISS ON A DEVOTIONAL APPROACH
If we are exclusively on a devotional path, we may look for God as something far away and out there, unfamiliar and extraordinary. We may get caught up in ideas about God, reality, and ourselves, and perceive and live as if they are true. And we may miss out on recognizing how our mind creates its own experiences.
INQUIRY AS MEDICINE
One medicine for this is inquiry. Through inquiry into our own experience, we may clear up a few misconceptions. We may explore what we more fundamentally are in our own direct experience, and find something we can call Spirit and qualities we associate with the divine.
WHAT WE MAY FIND THROUGH INQUIRY
We may find ourselves as what the world, to us, happens within and as. We may find ourselves as oneness and the oneness the world, to us, happens within and as. We may find ourselves as without any inherent characteristics allowing for the experience of any and all characteristics and experiences. And so on.
We may realize that our nature is already what we can call Spirit, and it has always been what’s the most close and familiar to us, and for that reason also the most ordinary. We may find that all we have ever known is our own nature since the world to us happens within and as what we are.
TWO WINGS OF A BIRD
Clearing up this, we may still enjoy a devotional approach. The two are not exclusive.
As they say in Buddhism, devotion and inquiry are like two wings of a bird.
THE REVERSE – AND GENERAL ORIENTATIONS
We can also find this in the reverse. An exclusive inquiry approach can be one-sided and a devotional approach can be the cure.
And there are some general orientations that guide and support both devotion and inquiry: Receptivity, curiosity, sincerity, diligence, authenticity, and so on.
Read MoreThe field
How do I experience myself?
Mainly, as a field. The field my experiences – right now of this room, this body, the computer, the sounds of the keys, and so on – happen within and as.
Sometimes, the focus goes more into the human self. I am the field, and there is a kind of focus on the human self. It stands out a little more.
And I am also very aware that many parts of my psychology still operate from separation consciousness. They too happen within and as the field, and they seem to assume they are separate.
All of that is part of the richness of what’s here.
SEEING VS VISCERAL EXPERIENCE
This is also where the difference between seeing and a visceral experience comes in.
For me, it’s inevitable to find myself as this field in terms of seeing. That is the visceral experience most of the time. And sometimes, when parts of me operating from separation consciousness are triggered, the visceral experience shifts into a sense of being separate.
That too is part of the richness that is here. The field takes that form too, sometimes.
COLORING
And when I look more closely, I find that these parts of my psychology experiencing and operating from separation consciousness color everything even when they are not triggered. It may appear to not be very obvious, but it’s here.
Until all parts are liberated, the whole is not fully liberated.
And that’s OK and more than OK. It’s all how the field and the whole expresses, explores, and experiences itself. It’s part of the richness.
THE FIELD
What is this field?
It’s what I most fundamentally am. It’s what takes the form of all content of experience – the whole world as it appears to me. It’s more familiar to me than any particular content of experience. In reality, it’s all I have ever known since it’s what takes the form of all content of experience.
Thoughts can label it consciousness, or oneness, or love, or Big Mind / Big Heart, or – if we want to be more fanciful – Spirit, the divine, Brahman, and so on. And as with anything else, labels can only point to it.
How can we find it for ourselves?
In one sense, we are this human self in the world. It’s how most others see us, it’s what our passport tells us, it’s what our own thoughts may tell us since we have learned it from others. It’s not wrong and it’s an assumption that works reasonably well. Although it does have some inevitable drawbacks since it’s partially out of alignment with reality. (It tends to create an underlying sense of something being off, and – to the extent our system pretends it’s true – it tends to create discomfort.)
And yet, is that what we more fundamentally are in our own first-person experience? And how can we explore this for ourselves?
We can explore it through basic meditation. Notice and allow what’s here in this field of experience, and notice it’s already noticed and allowed. Through this, we may get a visceral sense of how any and all content of experience comes and goes. And yet, something doesn’t come and go. What is that? Is that what I more fundamentally am? How is it to find myself as that?
We can explore it by investigating our sense fields, and especially how our mental field combines with the other fields to make sense of the world and help us function in the world. (And how it also can create a sense of fundamentally being something within our field of experience, this human self, even if that’s not the full picture.)
We can perhaps most easily and directly explore it through guided noticing. The most effective approaches I have found are Headless experiments (from Douglas Harding) and the Big Mind process (Genpo Roshi).
Reactions to noticing our nature / finding ourselves as our nature
When the oneness we are notices its nature, what are some of the typical reactions?
In my experience, it depends partly on how and in what context we notice our nature.
NOTICING OUR NATURE
We can notice our nature in a relatively undramatic fashion, for instance through guided inquiry. (Headless experiments and the Big Mind process among other approaches.)
Oneness notices itself.
And because of assumptions and emotional needs, may see it as too simple, too familiar, and not exotic or dramatic enough. It’s not what it thought it would be, so it keeps on looking somewhere else.
Or it may find itself intrigued and fascinated by it and keep exploring its nature. It keeps returning to noticing its nature. It keeps exploring how to live from it. And so on.
The upside of a simple noticing is that it’s often undramatic and simple and we are less likely to be distracted by dramatic experiences. It’s a little easier to notice the essence of our nature – capacity, oneness, love, and so on. And that it’s not about any particular content of experience. Oneness can notice its nature here and now through shifting states and experiences.
The downside is that we may see it as too simple. We expect something more dramatic or exotic, so dismiss it and continue to look somewhere else. Eventually, after some wild goose chases, we may realize that our nature never went anywhere and by neccesity is simple and familiar to us, and we may return to this simple noticing.
FINDING OURSELVES AS OUR NATURE
The oneness we are may also find itself as itself in a more wholesale way, with or without any particular preparation or intention.
This is often a sudden shift, although some seem to experience it as a gradual shift.
The upside of this is that our nature is undeniable. It’s strongly in the foreground of our noticing and experience, and it’s impossible to miss or explain it away.
Even the most dense atheist, like me when this happened, can’t dismiss it.
The downside is that we can easily get caught up in the associated states and side-effects of these more dramatic shifts with fireworks and bells and whistles. We may end up chasing states for a while and miss the simplicity of our nature that’s here across changing states.
MY EXPERIENCE
In my case, the shift happened without conscious preparation and intention and was dramatic, wholesale, and lasting.
Although my nature did notice itself relatively clearly, the drama of the initial shift and the side-effects and states (which my personality found very enjoyable) made me also chase experiences and states for a while. At some level, I was a little confused.
Later, I came to appreciate the simplicity of a simple noticing of my nature – especially guided by the Headless experiments and the Big Mind process.
The simple noticing helped me clarify the essence of my nature and what this is really about.
Read MoreThe 80-20 rule in spiritual practice: Most of it is about transformation, and only a bit is about awakening
The 80-20 rule says that 80% of the work is done in 20% of the time, and the remaining 20% takes 80% of the time.
That’s often roughtly accurate in my experience. I often find that most of the work is done relatively quickly, and it’s the final bits that take a lot of time to finish up and get right.
And so also when it comes to spiritual practice.
NOTICING OUR NATURE
Contrary to popular misconceptions, it’s not that difficult for most of us to notice our nature. If we have a guide familiar with the terrain, who is using an effective series of pointers, most of us can get it – the essence of it – in a relatively short time. And that means minutes, not hours, days, months, years, or decades. In these cases, the noticing itself can be 1% of the work or less.
We can get it, although many won’t see the value in it. It may seem interesting. A fun party game. But of little or no practical value. So we let it go and move on to something else.
Or we may value awakening, but what we find when guided doesn’t fit our ideas so we keep looking for it somewhere else. We may be looking for something exotic, distant, and mind-blowing in a crude way. And what we are shown is deeply familiar, never left, and without any fanfare or fireworks. It seems just too simple, so we move on and keep looking for the exotic and unusual.
RETURNING TO NOTICING OUR NATURE
If we find it and value it, then that’s where the work starts. It takes a deep and visceral interest – enough to prioritize and return to it – to keep noticing it through daily life. This is 10 or 20% of the work.
TRANSFORMATION
And then there is the transformation of our human self and psychology and life in the world. This too takes a deep and sustained visceral interest and passion.
This transformation can happen, to some extent, through different types of sincere and dedicated spiritual practice even if we don’t notice our nature.
And it can happen within the context of oneness noticing itself as all there is, and aligning our human self with this conscious noticing.
In my experience, this is the majority of the work and the 80% from the 80-20 rule.
NOT ABOUT THE NUMBERS
When I give numbers to the different aspects of the process, it’s a bit tongue-in-cheek. Each case is individual and it will vary a lot. And it’s not really possible – and easily misleading and a bit absurd – to assign numbers in this way.
So why am I doing it? Just to highlight that, in my experience, the noticing costs very little. Sustained noticing requires more of us. And the transformation requires a lot more – and really everything – from us.
Finally, what are some of the structured pointers that can help most of us notice our nature so quickly? Two approaches I personally enjoy are the Headless experiments and the Big Mind process.
Read MoreHow does God see us?
We believe that God sees us from above. But he actually sees us from the inside.
– Shams Tabrizi
If we have adopted a sky-god view of God, then we may imagine that he sees us from above.
If we have a more immanent view of God, we may say that God sees us from the inside.
GOD SEES THROUGH OUR EYES
We can say that…
God sees through our eyes. Hears through our ears. Senses through our body.
God thinks through our thoughts. Feels through our emotions.
God lives through our life.
If we say that reality or existence as a whole is God, then this is clearly true.
A MORE IMMEDIATE NOTICING
And it’s also accurate in a more immediate sense.
If I explore what I am in my own first-person experience, what do I find?
I find I am capacity for the world as it appears to me. My nature allows any and all experiences that are here.
I am what my experience of the world happens within and as. To me, the world happens within and as what I am. It happens within and as what a thought can call consciousness. To me, the world is like a dream since both happen within and as what I am, within and as consciousness.
If I use a big or spiritual interpretation of awakening, I can say that this is all Spirit or God.
And that means that God, quite literally, sees through my eyes. Hears through my ears. Lives through my life. And so on.
FINDING IT ON OUR OWN
It’s something we can explore and find on our own.
If we haven’t noticed it for ourselves yet, it may seem abstract, distant, a philosophy, a fantasy, unrelated to my life, without any practical use, and so on.
If we noticed it sometime in the past, it becomes a kind of reference. A pointer inviting us to notice it again here and now. Our nature is always here, so it’s always here to be noticed. It’s always here to notice itself as all it is in its own experience. It’s always here to find itself as what the world, to itself, happens within and as.
And we can find it on our own. We can explore what we are in our own first-person experience.
How? If we are not familiar with this terrain, we may not even know where to start.
That’s where more structured pointers come in. For instance, Headless experiments and the Big Mind process.
That’s where being guided by an experienced guide comes in. Someone we trust, to some extent, and who is familiar with this terrain and in guiding others.
And that’s where any number of supporting practices come in, for instance, basic meditation, sense field explorations, heart-centered practices, training a stable attention, body-centered practices, ethical guidelines, and so on.
Read MoreWhat are we in our own first-person experience? What do we find in immediate noticing? What do we find through logic?
What are we to ourselves, in our own first-person experience?
This is a question that, quite literally, is central to our existence.
We can explore it in two basic ways.
We can explore it in our own immediate noticing. To the extent we keep noticing and exploring how to live from this noticing, this can be profoundly transforming for what we take ourselves to be, our life in the world, and our human self.
We can also explore it through logic and thought. This, in itself, can be interesting. Although it’s not very transforming. And if we have a deeper interest, it can lead us to explore it in our own immediate noticing.
WHAT ARE WE IN OUR OWN FIRST-PERSON EXPERIENCE?
What are we to ourselves, in our own first-person experience? What do we find if set aside any thoughts and ideas about this, and look more directly?
Many of us may not know how to even start this exploration, so it’s helpful to have some structured pointers and a guide who is familiar with the terrain and guiding others in noticing.
The most direct and effective approaches I have found are the Headless experiments and the Big Mind process. These guide us in noticing what’s already here and in finding what we more fundamentally and already are in our own first-person experience.
What I find is that I am this human self in the world, in a conventional sense.
And more fundamentally, I am capacity for the world as it appears to me. And I am what the world, to me, happens within and as.
I am what this human self, the wider world, and any experience, happen within and as. And a thought may label this consciousness. It’s a rough pointer and works for some purposes.
Noticing this once may give me a kind of reference.
And it’s transformative to the extent I keep noticing it. Explore how to live from it. And invite more of my human self to align with this noticing. (Many parts of my human self and psyche are formed within and still operate from separation consciousness, so a part of this process is to learn how to invite these parts of me to align with oneness noticing itself.)
WHAT DO WE FIND WHEN WE EXAMINE IT THROUGH LOGIC?
We have all adopted a conscious worldview that tells us who we are in the world.
In this context, these worldviews don’t matter so much. (We may tell ourselves we most fundamentally are a physical human self and consciousness is somehow created by the biology. We may tell ourselves we are a soul. We may be a spark of some kind of universal Spirit. We may think of ourselves as having a soul or consciousness as some kind of appendage, without considering the specifics of how that may work. And so on.)
Seeing that aside, what are we to ourselves in our own first-person experience? Can we find something that’s simple and essential, and perhaps even so fundamental that it’s independent of these worldviews?
Here is a set of statements that, to me, make logical sense.
- There is consciousness.
- We experience something and that means there is consciousness.
- There is content of consciousness.
- Something is experienced and this is the content of consciousness.
- This content typically consist of this human self, anything connected with this human self, and the wider world.
- To us, whatever happens is within consciousness.
- To us, this human self and the wider world happen within consciousness.
- To ourselves, we are consciousness.
- Even if we – in some objective and third-person sense – most fundamentally are a physical being of flesh and blood, to ourselves we have to be consciousness.
- To ourselves, we have to be the consciousness that all our experiences happen within and as.
- Whether we notice or not, we are consciousness and the consciousness the world – to us – happens within and as.
- To us, the world happens as consciousness.
- The wider world happens within and as consciousness.
- This body and human self and anything associated with it happens within and as consciousness.
- Any content of experience happens within and as the consciousness we are.
- To us, we are oneness and the world happens within and as oneness.
- To ourselves, as consciousness, we are a seamless whole and the world happens within and as this seamless whole.
- Thoughts create imaginary lines within this oneness so we can orient and navigate.
- Our nature is more fundamentally capacity.
- We are capacity for the world as it appears to us.
- We are capacity for all our experiences.
- We can also take this a step further…
- In many cases, we as consciousness take ourselves to most fundamentally be a separate self in the world. This is an experience created by and within the oneness we are, and it’s often quite functional although also inherently stressful. Although it’s not wrong in a conventional sense that we are this human self in the world, assuming that this is our most fundamental nature is out of alignment with our reality.
- As oneness, we can notice ourselves as oneness and even learn to live from this noticing. This is typically a long process because of our previous habit of taking ourselves as most fundamentally a separate self.
This is just one way to outline it, and I suspect I’ll find a more clear and succinct way to do it at another time.
The essence is that, to ourselves, we have to be consciousness. To us, the world has to happen within and as consciousness. And to ourselves, we are inherently oneness and the world happens within and as this oneness.
This doesn’t say anything about our more “objective” nature or the nature of all of existence, and it’s relatively independent of worldviews. It may fit within a wide range of worldviews. This is all about what we are to ourselves in our own first-person experience.
NOT FOR EVERYONE
If this question is central to our existence, why is it not central to more people?
Most people have enough with their daily life. They may not be drawn to this exploration. They may not see it as important to them. They may not see any practical use for it. And so on. And that’s perfectly fine. Not everyone needs to collect stamps. Not everyone needs to be interested in this.
If it’s so logical, why is it not recognized logically by more people?
I am not sure. Perhaps they haven’t thought about it this way. Perhaps they are more interested in some “objective” third-person reality rather than our own first-person experience. Perhaps it’s not as logical as it appears to me?
If this is what we already are, why don’t more people (AKA onenesses) notice it?
Here too, I am not sure. Perhaps it’s because we live in a culture that doesn’t encourage this kind of exploration. We are trained to take ourselves as most fundamentally this human self in the world. And we are not trained to explore or prioritize our first-person experience.
A FEW MORE WORDS
This is just a brief outline, and there is a lot more to say about it.
For instance, there is a wide range of practices designed to help us notice our nature and live from this noticing, and to support this exploration.
Basic meditation helps us notice the always-changing nature of the content of our experience, which – in turn – helps us find ourselves as what it all happens within and as.
Heart-centered approaches help us shift our relationship with ourselves, others, and the world, and align more with the oneness nature of it all.
Some forms of inquiry help us explore any mental representations (thoughts, identities) we identify with and find a more conscious relationship with these, and it may even invite these identifications to soften or release.
Parts work help us get to know the different parts of us, relate to them more intentionally, and invite them to align more consciously with oneness. It can also, as in the Big Mind process, help us shift into noticing and finding ourselves as our nature.
Training more stable attention helps us with all of this and just about anything in our life.
Body-centered approaches help us relax and ground and train more stable attention.
Ethical guidelines help us notice when we are out of alignment with living from oneness.
Relationships, social engagement, and living in the world, and any reactivity and discomfort this brings up in us, help show us “what’s left”.
Read MoreThe body as capacity, space, and consciousness
I just had a conversation with someone who is taking a Vortex Healing class and said she experienced only space in her chest area.
It made me realize that the way I experience my physical body may not be how it is for everyone. At some level, I know that. And at another level, it’s not something I am aware of or think about.
HOW I EXPERIENCE MY PHYSICAL BODY
So how do I experience my physical body?
For me, it’s mainly capacity. Everything is capacity and this capacity forms itself into the content of experience, the world as it appears to me, and this includes how this body appears in my sense fields – the shapes and colors, the sensations, the movement, and so on.
I can also say that this body is space. It’s space and this space sometimes takes the form of sensations. The sensations happen within and as awake space.
And I can say this body is consciousness. It’s happening within and as consciousness, just like the rest of the world appears to me.
HOW CAN WE EXPLORE THIS FOR OURSELVES?
This experience of my body and anything physical came with the initial awakening shift when I was fifteen and sixteen.
And I keep exploring it.
I explore what I most fundamentally am in my own experience, and find what I can call capacity for the world as it appears to me, and what the world to me happens within and as. (Headless experiments.)
I do inquiry on my experience of this body and any sense of being this body. I notice the sensations. Visual impressions. I notice the mental representations associated with these. I notice the sensations are sensations. I notice the mental representations are mental representations. And what’s left is this capacity and awake space taking all these forms. (Traditional Buddhist inquiry and modern versions like the Living Inquiries / Kiloby Inquiries.)
Through this, I also notice how any sense of solidity is created. It’s created in the same way as much else, through associating physical sensations with certain mental representations. The sensations lend a sense of solidity and reality to the thoughts, and the thoughts lend a sense of meaning to the sensations. And, in this case, this meaning is physical solidity. Here too, when this is seen and explored and we get familiar with this terrain, the “glue” that holds the sensations and thoughts together softens. We see through how the mind creates its own experience of the world. And what’s left is capacity and awake space taking all of these forms.
What is omniscient and omnipresent? Turning the story around and see what we find
Some have the idea that God or the divine is omniscient and omnipresent.
As with any map, cosmology, and story, we can turn it around and see if we can find it here and now in our own experience. We can use it as a mirror for ourselves, for who or what we are, for our human self or our nature.
This particular story seems to more obviously reflect my nature than dynamics at a human level, and the “God” part of the story hints at that as well.
MY NATURE
First, what is my nature? When I look in my own first-person experience, what do I find?
At one level, I am this human self in the world. That’s not wrong, but it’s not the whole picture and it’s not what I more fundamentally am in my own first-person experience.
I find that more fundamentally, my nature is capacity for the world as it appears to me. I am what allows any and all experiences including of this human self, the wider world, and anything else.
I am what the world, as it appears to me, happens within and as.
OMNIPRESENCE
Here, I also find that my nature, to me, is omnipresent. I am what the world – all content of experience – happens within and as. My nature, to me, is everywhere and everything.
OMNISCIENCE
Similarly, I find that my nature is inherently omniscient.
There is a knowing of any experience before this knowing is reflected in thoughts and any conscious reflection on the experience.
FINDING IT FOR OURSELVES
How can we find this for ourselves?
For me, the most effective way is guided and somewhat structured inquiry, initially guided by someone more experienced. The Big Mind process and the Headless experiments are two of the most direct and effective ones I have found.
The initial noticing can happen relatively quickly and without much preparation. Continuing to notice it and live from it is where the work is.
NO SPECIAL POWERS
When we hear the words “omniscience” and “omnipresence” we may associate them with special powers.
In reality, it’s inherent in our nature. It’s what’s most familiar and ordinary to us, even if we may not consciously notice. And it looks quite different from what our thoughts and fantasies initially may have told us.
At the same time, there is something extraordinary in this. Thee is an extraordinariness inherent in existence and our nature and the nature of all beings.
CONSCIOUSNESS
I prefer to not put too many labels on our nature. Labels can help us mentally get it, and that’s not what this is about. It’s about what we find in our own noticing.
And if we are to use more direct labels, one is consciousness.
To ourselves, we are consciousness, and this human self and the world happen within and as this consciousness. All the content of our experience happens within and as what we are.
To us, as this consciousness, our nature is everywhere. The world happens within and as what we are. Consciousness, to us, is omnipresent.
And this consciousness knows any and all of its content, before any of it is more consciously reflected on and reflected in thought. It’s inherently and effortlessly omniscient.
Read MoreCells and oneness
Someone I talked with brought up the idea that we are like cells in an organism. Just like a cell is a part of a larger organism, we – as human beings – are part of a larger organism. We are holons in larger holarchies, just as we are a holarchy for smaller holons. We are part of the seamless system of this planet and the universe and all of existence.
This is all accurate at a story level, in terms of science, and so on.
At the same time, we are something else. To ourselves, in our own first-person experience, we are capacity for the world as it appears to us. We are what the world – this human self, the wider world, and anything else – happens within and as. We are oneness and love.
These two are complementary. In the world and as human beings and at a story level, we are like cells in a larger organism. To ourselves, when we look, we find we are capacity for the world as it appears to us, and what the world happens within and as. We are oneness and love, and we are the oneness and love that – to us – the world happens within and as.
Awakening described in five levels of difficulty
I keep seeing YouTube videos where people explain something at different levels of complexity.
So why not do it for awakening?
How may it look if I describe it from the essence and then increasingly add more detail and differentiation? Here is my first go:
What is awakening?
LEVEL 1
At the simplest level, it’s about exploring what we really are in our own experience.
To see what we find and see how it is to live from it.
It’s as simple as that.
LEVEL 2
We can add another layer of detail.
In one sense, we are this human self, a being in the world, and so on. That’s not wrong.
And yet, when we look, what is it we more fundamentally are in our own first-person experience?
This involves setting aside any ideas others tell us we are and we tell ourselves we are. Engage in a sincere and often guided exploration. See what we find in our own first-person experience.
And then see how it is to live from that noticing and what it does with us.
LEVEL 3
This can be understood in a psychological or spiritual context.
In a psychological context, awakening is just about discovering what we are in our own first-person experience.
We have mental representations of this human self in the world, and we need those to orient and function in the world. And yet, when we look more closely, we may find we more fundamentally – to ourselves – are something else.
Conventionally, we may say we “have” consciousness. And in our own first-person experience, we are this consciousness and all content of experience – including this human self, the wider world, and anything else – is happening within and as this consciousness. What we are forms itself into any and all our experiences.
In that sense, all we have ever known and will ever know is what we are. All we have known and will ever know is our nature.
In a spiritual context, we can go one step further. We can say that all of existence is the divine, and we are the divine first taking itself as a separate being and then reminding its own nature and oneness.
The upside of the psychological interpretation is its simplicity and that it doesn’t require any particular worldview. It can help us ground our approach to awakening and living from and as oneness.
The upside of the spiritual interpretation is that it *may* be more accurate in the bigger picture, and it can be more inspiring.
LEVEL 4
What may we find when we explore our more fundamental nature?
We may find ourselves as capacity for all our experiences – of this human self, the wider world, and anything else.
And we may find ourselves as what any and all experiences, and the world to us, happens within and as.
Noticing this is the first step. And it doesn’t necessarily involve a long and complicated process.
Simple guidance from someone familiar with this terrain may be enough, for instance using the Big Mind process or the Headless experiments.
The next step is to keep noticing this in more and more situations in our daily life, and over time deepen the groove of this new noticing habit.
And to explore living from it. How is it to live from noticing my nature? How is it to live from noticing that the world and all of existence, to me, is one?
What does this do to me? What does the noticing do to where my “center of gravity” is in terms of what I most fundamentally take myself to be? What does it do to me to intend to live from this noticing in more situations and more areas of my life?
The noticing itself is relatively simple. It doesn’t ask that much from us.
And to keep noticing it and to live from it asks everything from us.
It involves a profound transformation of our most fundamental identity, our perception, our life in the world, and our human self and psyche.
And it requires a deep healing at our human level. It requires deep healing of all the different parts of our psyche still caught up in separation consciousness, and emotional issues, hangups, beliefs, and traumas.
We can notice our nature and even, to some extent, live from it, while also having many parts of us still operating from separation consciousness. These parts of us will inevitably color our perception and life, and they will sometimes be more actively and obviously triggered.
In an awakening process, they’ll come up metaphorically asking to join in with the awakening. Asking to reorient within the context of finding ourselves as oneness. And find deeper healing through that.
LEVEL 5
A couple of things here are relatively simple.
It doesn’t necessarily take much for us to notice our nature, especially with skilled guidance.
And it doesn’t take that much to understand all of this, to some extent, at a story level.
Both of those are good starting points. And the real work is in living it.
The real work is in keeping noticing our nature, exploring how it is to live from it, and inviting the many parts of us still operating from separation consciousness to align more closely with oneness.
There is always further to go in the noticing, living, and realigning of the many parts of us.
It’s an ongoing process.
What are some of the many things we may discover or experience?
We may go through dark nights. As I see it these days, these are phases where our system holds onto deeper assumptions and identities and life puts us in a situation where these don’t work anymore. There are many types of dark nights, including one I am familiar with where deep trauma comes up to heal and align with the awakening.
We may engage in different forms of structured inquiry and explore certain processes more in detail. We may notice what happens when our system holds onto a specific belief, examine this belief, and find what’s more true for us and how it is to live from this.
We may explore our sense fields. We may notice how our mental field is a kind of overlay on the rest of the content of our experience to make sense of it all. Our mental representations help us orient and navigate in the world.
We may see how our mind associates certain mental representations (mental images and words) with certain bodily sensations. The mental representations give a sense of meaning to the sensations, and the sensations give a sense of solidity to the mental representations. This is how the mind creates beliefs and identities for itself, and also emotional issues, hangups, and traumas.
This is also how the oneness we inherently are creates an experience for itself of I and Other. It’s how separation consciousness is created. It’s a relatively basic mechanism behind separation consciousness.
We may find that mental representations (thoughts) are questions about the world. Their function is to help us orient and navigate in the world. They are different in kind from what they point to. They simplify. In a conventional sense, they are more or less accurate. And they cannot hold any final, full, or absolute truth. Reality is always more than and different from any thought, and also – in a sense – far more simple.
As we explore this in more detail, we may discover more places where our systems hold onto identities and assumptions about ourselves and the world. We may find an identification as an observer, as consciousness, as oneness, as love, as capacity for the world, and so on. In each of these cases, the mind creates a mental representation for itself, associates it with certain physical sensations, and identifies with the viewpoint of that mental representation and its story.
This is an ongoing process.
ABOUT THESE STEPS
These steps are obviously somewhat arbitrary, and they turned out to be more about adding another layer of detail than explaining awakening in different levels of complexity. If I did it again, I may be able to follow the assignment more accurately…!
I would likely also include more about the heart and energetic aspects and more about the dynamics of living from noticing our nature.
I am also aware of how these steps roughly mirror my own process. During the initial awakening shift in my teens, oneness woke up to itself. I wasn’t aware of the more detailed mechanisms and so on. All that came through different forms of inquiry and other practices later on.
Note: If I wanted to point to it more directly in the first level, I could say: “It’s the one pretending to be two and then refinds itself as one and many simultaneously”. This is not wrong, but I prefer to emphasize the questions and exploration since it more clearly leaves the finding up to the person. Pointing to it more directly can give some a sense that they get it even if they only get it at a conceptual level. As mentioned above, that’s a good first step but it’s not what this is about.
Photo: A snapshot I recently took from the land that chose us in the Andes mountains.
Why do we tend to be identified with the head area?
Most of us in the current western world are identified with the area where our head is. We have a general identification with or as the body and a slightly stronger identification with the head area.
WHY THE HEAD AREA?
There may be some physical and practical reasons for this head-identification.
Some of our most used senses are located in our head: Eyes, ears, nose, and tongue.
And others tend to look at our face and eyes when they look at us, suggesting that’s where we are mostly located.
CULTURAL COMPONENT
At the same time, there is a cultural component here.
Our head-identification is not inherent in who or what we are. It’s not inevitable.
We happen to live in a culture where most people are identified with their head, so we naturally adopt it as well. We learn that’s what people here do, so we do the same, mostly without even noticing or questioning it. It’s natural and innocent and even sweet. (Our culture’s value on the intellect and, indirectly, the brain, may also play a small role here.)
We can imagine a culture where it’s different. For instance, a culture where we are most identified with or as the heart area. If we grow up in a culture that values the heart, and where people are mostly identified with or as their heart area, our main sense of self would likely be there as well.
EXPLORING IT THROUGH THE SENSE FIELDS
How is this identification created? How does the mind create a sense of an I or me mostly in the head area?
If we explore this through the sense fields, we may find that the sense of self in the head area is created the same way the mind creates any other identification with a mental representation.
We have mental images, in this case of our head area. We have words saying we mostly are in the head area. The mind associates these images and words with certain bodily sensations, often in the same area. The sensations lend a sense of solidity, reality, and truth to the mental images and words. And the mental images and words give a sense of meaning to the sensations.
As we discover this, we can more easily recognize the mental representations as mental representations, the sensations as sensations, and we are less blindly caught in the temporary appearance of a sense of self in the head area – or the body in general.
And this allows us to more easily notice our more fundamental nature as capacity for the world as it appears to us, and as what the world to us happens within and as.
HAPPENS WITHIN CONTENT OF EXPERIENCE
In general, what do we find if we explore this for ourselves through, for instance, inquiry or basic meditation?
We may find that any sense of an “I” or observer or doer in the head area (or anywhere else) happens within the content of experience. It comes and goes like any other content. Since it comes and goes, it’s not what we more fundamentally are.
It happens within and as what we more fundamentally are.
HEADLESSNESS
This typical head-identification is, I assume, why Douglas Harding created the Headless experiments and the Headless Way.
If we are mostly identified with the head, then pointing out basic headless nature is the most direct remedy.
In our own first-person experience, we don’t have a head so we cannot be a head. There is a pink blob where my mind tells me the nose is. If I am in front of a mirror, there is a face out there in the mirror behind the glass. If I look at my mental images of myself, I see a head but that’s just a mental representation. That’s not me. Others may tell me I am this body and head, but I cannot find that in my own first-person experience.
I know this can easily sound silly, childish, and just like an oddity to mention at a party.
And if we explore it for ourselves, with sincerity and diligence, and see how it is to live from it, it can be profoundly transformative. It shifts our deepest sense of identity. It transforms our perception. It transforms how we live our life. And it, over time, transforms our human self and psyche.
Drawing: Self-portrait by Ernst Mach, 1886.
Read More
Two of us – perceiving ourselves as observer and observed
You can talk about ‘myself’ as if there’s two of you: one that is doing or has done something, and the other one who’s watched it and is talking about it. Strange, isn’t it?
– Adyashanti, Silent Retreat Vol. 80, Q&A Sessions, Day 4
In daily life, we tend to take this for granted. We talk about ourselves as something we observe. And we talk about ourselves as someone who observes. And we may not give it a second thought.
It seems a given, and most of us may not even point this out or question it. And if we do, it may just seem like an interesting curiosity.
TAKING A CLOSER LOOK
When we take a closer look, we may find something else.
And it helps to do this exploration with guidance from more structured inquiry, for instance, sense field explorations (traditional Buddist inquiry, Living Inquiries), the Big Mind process, and even The Work of Byron Katie. We can explore it through the Headless experiments. We can explore it through basic meditation, through noticing and allowing any content of experience, and noticing it’s already noticed and allowed before the mind comes in and does something about it. And many other approaches.
Each of these gives us a slightly different view of what’s happening.
What do we find through these forms of explorations?
We may find that any sense of observer and observed happens within the content of our experience. They come and go. Our nature is capacity for both. And they happen within and as what we are.
And when we take another look, we may find that both are mental representations. We have an image of ourselves as observed, as an object in the world. And we have an image of ourselves as observer, as an I. The mind associates each one with a lot of other mental representations, and it also tends to associate each one with certain sensations in the body. These sensations lend a sense of solidity and reality to the mental representations, and the mental representations lend a sense of meaning to the sensations. And it’s all happening within and as what we are, which a thought may (unsuccessfully) label consciousness.
THE CREATIVITY OF THE MIND
This shows the creativity of the mind.
To ourselves, we are capacity for all our experiences. And we are oneness. We are the oneness our experiences of anything – this human self, the wider world, anything else – happen within and as.
And that goes for any sense of observer and observed as well.
Our nature temporarily forms itself into a sense of observer and observed.
WHY DOES ADYA POINT THIS OUT?
Why does Adya point our this apparent oddity?
Because it shows that we often take something for granted – in this case perceiving ourselves as both observer and observed – and on investigation, it may reveal itself as something we didn’t expect.
If we look more closely, we may discover something about our nature. We may discover what we are, in our own first-person experience.
THE MAGIC HAPPENS IN THE EXPLORATION
We can read about this and understand it, to some extent, within the realm of stories. That may be a good initial step, but it doesn’t lead to any real transformation.
The real transformation comes when we engage in an exploration of our own immediate experience and see what we find for ourselves, and when we keep noticing and exploring this.
Image: John William Waterhouse’s Echo and Narcissus 1903
Read MoreWe are not primarily human
This is a statement that can seem either obvious or outrageous depending on where we are coming from.
WE ARE NOT PRIMARILY HUMAN
If we are somewhat familiar with finding what we are in our own first-person experience, it may seem obvious.
In a conventional sense, we are this human self in the world.
And when we look more closely, and set aside our assumptions just enough to not be blinded by them, we may find that our more fundamental nature is something else.
We may find ourselves as capacity for the world as it appears to us, and as what our world happens within and as.
If thoughts were to put (very imperfect) labels on what we are, it could be consciousness or awakeness. And this is the very ordinary consciousness and awakeness we are all familiar with.
It’s the consciousness or awakeness we are and which all content of experience – of the world, this human self, and anything else – happens within and as.
AND WHEN THIS IS NOT NOTICED
For most, the statement that’s the title of this article may seem silly or preposterus.
It may seem to come out of a weird philosophy or theology. Or something not meant literally but metaphorically or discovered through slightly forced logic. Or something said as click bait or for the (very moderate) shock value.
Of course we are this human self, and nothing else – unless you mean a vague idea of a soul or something like that nobody has seen or measured or have any clear idea what is.
I understand where this is coming from.
It’s not wrong that we are this human self in the world. We have inside information about this human self and outside information about all the other ones.
And yet, when we look in our own first-person experience, we may find that we more fundamentall are something else. To ourselves, we are something else.
HUMAN AND NOT
When we notice this, we find we are human for practical purposes in the world. And primarily something else in a more real first-person sense.
This only looks like a dilemma or paradox within a certain set of stories.
When it’s lived, is simple, given, and what we already are most familiar with even if we didn’t always notice.
A response to someone baffled by a materialistic view on awakening
Someone in a Headless Way forum shared her disbelief that some who discover headlessness find it compatible with a materialistic worldview.
For me, this is about the difference between the small and big interpretation of awakening.
Here is what I wrote:
I must admit I started out with the more typical spiritual view of all as God, the divine, and consciousness. And now, after three decades, I find myself exploring more the camp you describe.
I find myself as headless, as capacity, as oneness, as love, and so on, and explore living from and as it. And, at the same time, I realize there are two possible ways to explain this.
One is the Big or Spiritual view which says all is God, the divine, and consciousness. My direct and naive experience of all of existence as consciousness – AKA God or the divine – is how existence actually is.
The other is the small or materialistic view of the brain creating consciousness. In my direct experience, all of existence appears as consciousness. But I also realize it HAS to appear that way since I am consciousness, and the world to me happens within and as this consciousness. It would be that way even if the small or materialistic view is correct.
To me, both views are perfectly compatible with what I find when I explore myself as headless. In either case, what I am to myself, in my own first-person experience, is Headlessness and what a thought may label consciousness.
And, to me, admitting this is intellectual honesty. Anything else would be pretending I know something I cannot really know. Admitting this also helps not get stuck in any particular view, and – equally important – it brings me back to direct noticing.
That said, there are some hints that the Big view is more accurate: Distance sensing and healing, research into reincarnation and near-death experiences, and so on.
Douglas Harding: You are your own authority! Don’t believe a word that other people tell you about who you really are
You are your own authority! Don’t believe a word that other people tell you about who you really are, not even Douglas…. especially not Douglas!
– Douglas Harding
I would change this quote slightly. I would say….
Allow your own sincere noticing to be your authority. Don’t believe a word anyone tells you about who you really are, and especially not what your own thoughts tell you!
– Mystery of Existence
This means not indulging in wishful thinking, ideologies, hangups, and so on. And instead follow what we notice when we explore with sincerity, receptivity, discipline, and persistence, and perhaps the guidance of structured inquiry – including the Headless experiments.
Clarification: When it comes to discovering what we are in our own first-person experience, it’s good to not trust any story, including what our own thoughts tell us. In other areas of life, it’s more of a balance between a healthy trust in our own faculties, gut feeling, and experience, and receptivity to the validity in other views.