not a body, episode 768

How is it that I can hear or read something a thousand times, and have a deep intellectual understanding of it and then on reading it the thousand-and-first time, the presence of that truth in me suddenly and unexpectedly reaches out to the presence of that truth in thought and in that moment the iceberg calves, the wall crumbles and I am shocked to find that there is comprehension?

What was different this time than the other times? I have no idea. But when a block to understanding dissolves, what occurs is a profound feeling that I now know less, not more. A whole area of assumptions has fallen away, and I am left in that empty space of not-knowing. Oddly enough, the emptiness is comfortable. I can breathe freely.

Perhaps not-knowing is actually more natural to us than knowing. Or perhaps knowing can only really apply to what you are not.

Last night this occurred as I lay reading in bed. The sentence I was reading was, "When you know you are neither body nor mind, you will not be swayed by them."

I remember precisely how over the course of a weekend, about 16 years ago, I understood that I was not the (mostly painful) thoughts that floated through my mind. I understood that they had nothing to do with me—not even my deepest habitual assumptions were holding water.  Since that time there has been a continual revealing and flaking-off of hidden beliefs. Some of them are quite adhered and don't flake off—they wear away over time like the sticky remnants of a bandage until one day, they're gone.

For me, the belief that I am this body has been like super-glue. I would imagine this is true for many of you. As babies we are taught to isolate sensations, then group them and name them, and finally claim ownership of them. Ultimately, with ownership comes identification. "Show me your nose. Where's your tummy? Point to your eyes." and so on.

What was there before a tummy, eyes and a nose? A bundle of sensations. Pressure, rhythmic pulsings, coolness, warmth, seeing. As the mind quiets it becomes possible to witness these sensations and have just a hair's breadth of detachment from the experience of them, without naming them. So they feel interesting, surprising. Pain, for example, becomes oddly engaging—it's very easy to focus the mind on pain and in that focus it becomes slightly less disturbing and reveals itself as being not-continual. Attention stops running from it and fighting it and in that settling, the pain itself contains less suffering.

From there, it's just a hop, skip and a jump to understanding that these sensations that arise, peak and dissolve against the sky of awareness, have nothing to do with "me." It's quite a revolutionary idea. If you entertain it for even a split second, it's too late. The grappling hook is over the wall.

Trust in your split-second realizations. Those are the seeds, and they are planted. Just let them go. They'll grow on their own.

Comments

[Simon]

I've had a few of those moments. They normally come while reading, or sometimes while idly contemplating something without any real *focused* thought. Then I just sit back and say "wow" to myself for a few minutes.

[Aileen]

I've had those moments of clarity that disappear as soon as I try understand them or put them into words. They are gone because they can't be conceptualized. It's important to become comfortable with no knowing; it opens the door to those glimpses of truth. As you say, "the emptiness is comfortable."

[Randalll Friend]

"From there, it's just a hop, skip and a jump to understanding that these sensations that arise, peak and dissolve against the sky of awareness, have nothing to do with "me.""

Brilliant...

[marian]

Simon, right. When the usual thinking mind is out of the way for a second, comprehension floods in.

Aileen, crazy, huh? Quite a mind-bender.

Randall--hi!

[Lynne]

I agree with all said. My moments usually come while driving to/from work (a 75 minute highway drive). I've also thought about how my dogs live: without words, labels, etc. They live more in the "now" than I ever have. And they seem to have a lot more fun!