Why is it that we feel that we must bring meaning to our experiences? Can we simply experience them in their natural purity? We usually think about the experience as it’s happening, as we’re actually having it and try to remember it exactly, cling to it so we can later ruminate on it’s meaning and then determine how it places us in our social structure and self-concept. Usually we have some awareness that we’re doing this and we feel a bit uncomfortable because we don’t really want to be doing that! We would prefer to be fully present and get the most out of the experience. We have all observed the “selfie-syndrome” where the experience is taking place from a third person perspective, missing it completely, in a state of compulsive dissociation. A social media monster.
Are we missing the experience entirely? Are we even capable of having an experience in its natural purity? We place experiences in a contextual structure that constantly creates the story about “me” in a meaningful way, as if to reassure ourselves of the validity and meaningfulness of our existence. Yet we cannot accurately remember an experience exactly. At the very moment the experience occurs, our mind processes it and it becomes a memory, colored with the hues and saturation that our minds unconsciously paints it with. Despite our best efforts to remember it clearly, we cannot. We remember what our mind tells us about the experience. The story, remembered in narritave thinking or feeling-tones, immediately emerges about the experience and reinforces the ideas we unconsciously hold about ourselves. It creates the meaning of our relationship to, and our place in, the self-conception of our being-ness and in how we fit into the world.
This “creative thinking” is referred to in koan as “stacking tiles on your head”. The ideas, conceptions and thoughts we compile, knowingly or unknowingly, are like foolishly stacking tiles on your head, eventually they tumble off with a great crash! The interpretations, concepts, ideas and stories we’ve embedded crumble, often causing great suffering, consternation and confusion. The very thing we erroneously cling to as meaning has proven to be a branch we are clinging to in mid-air as we are falling.
I would ask: Can we directly experience something without “stacking tiles on our heads”? What do you think? Which are the experiences that tend to snap you into the moment directly, without conceptual thinking? Are they the rapturous moments; sounds, colors, physical sensations, breath-taking landscapes? Have you had these openings in psychedelic induced moments when the self drops away and the clear, ecstatic presence of all-one-being-ness obliterates everything that had obscured the directness of experience of the as-it-is.
Have you experienced this dropping away, this falling off of tiles in your meditation or elsewhere in your life? The Mū koan is known to do this. Throughout different schools of Buddhism there are many methods, techniques and esoteric practices you can learn to facilitate this dropping away. The purpose is, of course, expansion; to experience things as-it-is, clearly, with pristine awareness, unencumbered by self delusion. This is sometimes called “right view“. Samantabhadra, the primordial buddha is representative of this aspect of consciousness. Sometimes it can occur through a spontaneous kundalini experience, or another ecstatic awakening event. Some people may naturally slip into this state of rigpa with no practice at all but most of us need to cultivate this awareness.
Each one of us has the ability, regardless of our Zen prowess, to effortlessly relax into the naturalness of mind (the awareness of the energy of ourselves unfolding) and in a few simple breaths be awake to the moment immediately. Actually, we are always in this state of awakened consciousness. We simply need to notice it, to stop stacking tiles. It is always available to us without special circumstances or practices. Just get out of the boat, leave it on the shore. I was approached by a monk on the street in Bangkok offering teaching on 5-breath awakening. ”See”, he said, leading me through the breaths, “breath 5 times and no more self!” For some people, the more engagement there is in meditation practice the easier it becomes, but not necessarily for everyone. At a certain point, this clarity in our perspective becomes the pervasive state of our awareness.
Practice is no-practice. Yet, everything and no-thing is practice. To be awake in the worlds, without second guessing yourself, without manufacturing the delusional thought patterns of self, happiness or misery, without attachment to your fear or desire, this is to nurture and affirm what life brings. Just this is to be alive as the ten thousand things, as tzu-jan, experiencing in natural purity.
…and yet it is said: Mist doesn’t swallow up the scent of plum blossoms…
Gate! Gate! Paragate! Parasamgate!…
Gone! Gone! Gone over! Gone completely over to the other shore!
Deep Peace & Great Love,
Issan (author) & Zenho
SCHEDULE 1/7-1/13
WEDNESDAY 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT THE TEAHOUSE WITH ISSAN
FRIDAY 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT THE TEAHOUSE WITH ZENHO
Noah’s Poem
Now nestled within this quiet room
I listen to the
Slow pace of this
Winter
And wonder what awaits me
I don’t know I don’t, Still
The passing siren
The subway rattle
Sing my prayers
For me
No Gate Zen Center 