The mind has absolutely no capacity to cognize consciousness. The mind recognizes thoughts. But consciousness is not a thought. Thoughts appear IN consciousness. So the mind is an incompetent judge regarding anything to do with consciousness, including its supposed origin or end, because it cannot even cognize consciousness in the first place. - John Wheeler
"What am I doing wrong?"
"Why can't I see this?"
"There seems to be a gap in knowledge between me and a realized person."
Many, many questions point to this basic misunderstanding - sometimes referred to in Zen as the "Gateless Gate". There seems to be a person who is suffering or wants Enlightenment. That person believes he/she needs to gain more knowledge in order to attain some realized state. So many seek to find and go through this Gate to Enlightenment, after which the person will have some permanent blissful experience.
Much effort is put into seeking, struggling to find answers to questions which seem impossible. How do I drop the "I"? How can I find peace? How can I stop suffering? The mind is utilized to its fullest to put this Enlightenment or Zen or Advaita thing in some definable box - something the mind can understand and from then on, the person can say "I've got it!"
All this is 100% false.
Through whatever method speaks clearest, meditation, investigation based on pointers, all out suffering to the breaking point, whatever - the mind is exhausted. There is no longer anywhere to look, nowhere to go to get the answer.
At that point, there may arise a spontaneous and effortless dawning that there just is no person there. It's like finally getting the joke, only this has to do with everything believed in.
Once the belief in the separate person is finally realized to be false, things start to fall away. If there is no ME, who can suffer? If there is no ME, who is reading these words? If there is no ME, who can walk through that Gate?
This is why it is called the Gateless Gate. There really is no gate. There never has been a person, only a belief. All that has been happening or arising or appearing has been happening to no one and done by no one. Who would do it if there is no ME?
This is seemingly very difficult for many, simply because of the investment in the person, the ME. "I have a personality, I have a life, I want to change my life and make it better..." There is tremendous investment in this.
But in the investment, suffering is bound to arise because it never goes quite the way we want. Sometimes it completely falls apart. And that sense of ME is threatened, taken away from, unwanted things are added - we want everyone to think well of us, think we're competent, worthy... we want to be loved, trusted, needed...
So upon passing through this Gateless Gate, we realize that all the suffering and investment in the ME has been an illusion. There never was anyone who needed anything, never was anyone who lost anything. There never was anyone who could be hurt or touched by anything.
The world perceived, including the arising of a body-mind, is only temporary in THIS MOMENT. You are like the sky - spacious and empty but the very basis for all that arises. Sometimes the sun rises brightly and it's happy, sometimes storm clouds come. But the very ground or basis for any of these to arise is the spacious empty sky.
All the thoughts, all the situations, even the arising of the sense of ME, is only appearances in awareness or the activity of knowing in the immediacy of this very moment. It all comes and goes, but that intelligent knowing never goes, never stops. That very presence of awareness is what you really are - not the body or mind.
Stop for a moment and look to what is knowing... It is very simple, effortless, totally obvious, unavoidable... it is 100% present NOW as you read these words.
No effort is required to know what you are. - Randall Friend
Nothing changes in the life of the seeming individual, once it is noticed that witnessing is all that is ever going on. A life, with all its ups and downs, with all its selfish interactions and illogical behaviors, will go on just as before.
There never was an individual there. So why would the story of the life change? Why would it get “more lighted,” or more peaceful, or more “spiritual”? Why would dramas and upsets disappear? That “life” is not yours – it is not a reflection of you.
Do not make the mistake of thinking of yourself as the owner of a life. You are not. An owner is not there, period. It is absent, to the very core. There is no owner, no individual, no reference point for any events in that life to refer to.
Where does the individual come from, then? Who is the individual who is thinking that there is an individual?
It is only being created right now, in a mistaken thought. It does not and never did exist over time, as an objective thing. Until you imagine an individual right now, it never was. See that all reference points only emerge from this one, current, mistaken thought, presently. And in the next new moment, all reference points vanish. It’s always a new day. . .
I remember some conversations. I remember some events. All kinds of memories are arising right now – a constant stream of them flowing through my mind. But I can’t find a person to whom they apply. I notice that this thought contains a reference to an event, but I was never involved in that event. I’ve always just been here, right now, where nothing is ever happening.
I have no reference point for what that event means. Some bodies talked and interacted. I was there as witness, but I have no idea what was going on. The only way I could make sense of what went on is if I assume an “avatar” of some kind, a fictional personality with certain traits which make it want to attract some things and avoid other things. Then, all the events have meaning and fall together as story. But I have no such personality. I am no one. The events fall away as they occur, into nothingness. Right now – always right now – I am free of all of it. So are you.
Everything falls silent. It all comes to a complete standstill. Nothing is happening. There is mental activity; any thought can arise. There is physical activity; all kinds of things can happen. But all this activity – mental and physical – is simply swirling gently within this utter stillness. The stillness is total.
This stillness does not need to be identified with. Let go of trying to “identify” with the witnessing presence. There is no one to do this. Witnessing is happening, and it’s impossible to be unaware of. So forget about it. - Annette Nibley
Sooner or later,
Just like the world's first day
Sooner or later,
We learn to throw the past away.
History will teach us nothing.
- Sting, "History will teach us nothing"
There is no progress or deepening in understanding who you are, because you are already that pure being, awareness and peace itself. To speak of progress concedes the concept of individuality or separation between yourself and reality. It is more emphatic to drop all such notions and just be what you are. Everything else is simply an idea arising in awareness. One does not progress to awareness, for one already is this. - John Wheeler
When you make the two one, and when you make the inside as the outside, and the outside as the inside, and the upper side as the lower; and when you make the male and the female into a single one, that the male be not male and the female female; when you make eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then shall you enter [the kingdom]. - Jesus, Gospel of Thomas
The way out -- and that's the only thing I'm interested in talking to you about -- is to see that any revisiting of what happened last night or what is a pattern of mine that happens all the time or what is the story of mine that I get it intellectually but it's not permanent or whatever -- that all of that is a story that's simply arising right now. . . The reason we tell stories like this is because we want to have mastery over them. We feel like there's no way to end the suffering without some control and some mastery -- that's how we've done everything else in our lives, control and mastery. So if you don't talk to me about how this suffering occurs for you and I don't help you find a way to master it and control it, then it's not doable. This is what our mind tells us. - Annette Nibley
