Illusion to Reality

I just heard from a friend complaining that his mind keeps “running” back and forth into thinking though he tried his level best to be on the in-breath and out-breath meditation method as taught by his teacher. He finds himself fighting an unending battle of stationing himself. To him, the breath is more important than his discursive thinking. Of course, if a bodily discomfort was to appear, he would really have a hard time handling all these “distracting” stuffs that are seemingly pulling him away from the specialness of his breath focusing.

That brought me to the subject of the mind choosing its own object. The mind, as you would have noticed by now, choses its own object all the time. If you are not aware of this reality, do sit quietly for a moment and learn to “get yourself out of the way” – to mean ‘not involve’. You may catch a glimpse that the mind goes from one object to another all the time, on its own. Of course, the objects always revolve around the six senses all the time. Now, if you are able to be in that non-interference state for a longer period of time and just observe the mind in a nonchalant way, you will realise that the mind has a nature of its own happening in your field of experiences – whether you like it or not. There is nothing much you can do about this mind experience except, either to observe it, or to be involved in it. When you observe it with right attitude of non-interference, you will gain a certain insight that makes you realise that the mind is not you, or there is a no-you in it. Yet, when you are involved in it, the sense of ‘you’ in the experience will suddenly become seemingly real. Many a times most of us experience the latter and take for granted that all the mind activities are us.

Out of the above two, you can also use the mind to create another state of experience of calmness by choosing a specific object of focus, say, in-breath or out-breath as shared by my friend. By focusing and intermittently bringing the attention back to the breath when it gets distracted, you will upon time, experience a deep state of calmness which you may not have experienced before. It is a pretty pleasant experience to have and you may be enticed to meditate more and more by the hours to get the experience so as to feed your need to be calm and also to enjoy that extraordinary pleasant experience.

The mind is a playground of sorts – 1) observe, 2) immerse, or 3) create a new game out of it – all to your intent. Yet, whichever route you take, bear in mind that all has its own different consequences. If you observe it, you will realise a lot of stuff about this mind you have not known and probably gain much awakening, detachment and realisation out of it. If you immerse in it, you will have unending storylines which you are responsible for, irrelevant whether you like it or not. And for the third, you may create an addiction out of the experience and stay escaped out of the world that you have to sooner or later deal with – it may not be a practical solution unless you go to a remote and become a recluse.

You can’t have all three games played simultaneously. Also do remember that you can’t choose one and experience another consequence for they all have different routes. As a gentle reminder, if you are on the route of observing so as to gain insight into the nature of this mind, stop choosing your object of choice – a thought, in-breath, pain, anger, whatever – are all the same. They are all in seemingly varied  degrees due to your likes and dislikes. If you force your attention to only one, unknowingly you have set yourself to the third route though you think you are on the first.

It is funny that when you become familiarised with the mind, and the way you look at it changes over time. Due to realizations and wisdom, you will start to take notice that the things outside you, the world, so to speak, comes in the form of images. At this moment you may see the world in a video-like motion, as if everything is in a continuum of processes. Yet, over time there are glimpses of images appearing, rather than motion. The images are in reality occurring at the level of the mind, but seemingly projected outward as separated from seeing.
 
It might feel kind of strange in the beginning, but when a sense of stable and keen observation comes into place, you will realise that there is actually only you alone in the experience, experiencing everything around you. Though seemingly, there may be people moving around you, in actual fact what you experience in those moments are images of your mind in clips or motions. The sound they make, the voices that comes from them, the seemingly beauty out there are all actually playing out in the mind. It is as if there is only knowing and known. And in those moments, if you are fortunate, you will also notice that there is only experiencing happening but no experiencer. The sense of experiencer is very much an experience rather than someone or somebody looking at it.
 
Many a times when these glimpses of reality occur, there is a sense of stillness, or you may call peace, prevailing at that moment. There is also a sense of impartiality, observing what is going on, as if, like an entire universe been played out in front of you. Yet the you is also part of the whole scene. Strange enough, upsets or judgments, if ever were to be conditioned to arise due to its familiarity of conditioning, do not arise. There is also no intense joy or intense outburst of ahas but merely knowing and known, a single process of different sides. It is what the Buddha termed it as namarupa, to mean mind and object (to mean known by the mind) arising to each moment.
 
This experience cannot be done, nor can it be expected. Yet, it comes when conditions for it arise. It gives you a new perspective of viewing the world as a not-two experience but rather as merely “happening” happening. It is like a dance of nature taking its own time, arising and disappearing, as briefest as a brief moment can be. As if there is a great silence in it though there are on going of sounds happening as in any daily moments. “I” at that point is nothing more than just a happening – together in the image of a temporary light-projected image to be replaced yet by another. It is impossible to try visualising what it is like and hence the sharing I make here is just for my own historical diary, a renaissance of what it is in a journey that is less travelled. To express it into words is an impossible task, yet that is the very best of what that comes up in my mind at this moment upon reflection. It is still work-in-progress as the journey of self-realization gets a little more exciting and queer :)