All the words I have read over the years about enlightenment, awakening, awareness, presence, The Dharma, all the teachers I have listened to and honored, all of the retreats, seshins, countless hours of meditation – all of this means nothing now. Right now, as I sit quietly and investigate, moment by moment, what I am beyond thought, all that I have learned in 60+ years of practice is truly water over the dam or, rather, dam over the water.
What is right now? Right now, there is breathing, the sound of the fridge humming, the feeling of the body and the heart beating, thoughts arising, and a compelling sense of emptiness behind the thoughts. The thoughts and images, memories and feelings, where do they come from? What is it that sees them? The sensations in the body, what is it that senses them? This question, this open wonder, is all that matters. It is all that matters and all that has ever mattered.
-Chicago, 9/14/23
Jan,
So the brain sees it, the body senses it, whatever it is, and then what? Even with a simple perception, the whole process is incomprehensibly complex, moment by moment, involving billions of neurons, forming a perception in the body/mind. Whether recognized or not, each perception gets labeled and filed on our personal hard drive, making up the image of who we are and how we react to other humans and events.
We are not robots, but most of us go through our whole lives unconsciously acting and reacting to our inherited and social programming…our conditioning. The question, ‘Who sees this? ’ or, ‘Who am I?’ is an inquiry into who we are beyond our conditioning. Who or what gets hurt? Who constantly wants physical, mental, and emotional satisfaction? Who gets sad or depressed? Or anything else on the endless menu of human perception.
Not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with any human perception or response. The problem lies not in our perception but in our attachment to it…with the automatic, unquestioned assumption that our perceptions/thoughts/reactions are what we are. This habitual attachment to that signal in the body/mind creates the illusion of a ‘me, myself and I’, which feeds the illusion that we are separate from life and others. The root cause of human suffering is the dream of a self separate from life.
The discovery of the falsity of a separate self is the essence of awakening. It is the realization that what we are, what we really, really are, is beyond thought and perception. It is the realization that what sees life is life itself, no ‘I’ required.
The 17th-century Japanese Zen master Bankei said:
An enlightened awareness is within each one of us, right at this moment.
This enlightened awareness is truly unborn and marvellously illuminating; and everything is perfectly managed by it.
Conclusively realise that what is unborn and illuminating is truly awakened and without effort,
rest naturally as the Unborn Mind.
Resting in this way, you are a living Buddha.
Well Mike, a brain sees them. What about that? Jan