There are gold nuggets everywhere in that report.
Stability, if you want to call it that, comes about by
recognizing awareness in all states and not just associating it
with particular states or circumstances. Of course it even makes
logical sense to say that what’s stable is what's present in
everything. That's what makes it stable.
That's really a key discovery, to see that it's never absent from
any state, that it's not possible for awareness to be absent from
any state.
You’re not
trying to hold onto any particular moment or trying to pin down
awareness as looking any particular way because the next moment it
will be something completely different!
I think
we end up missing something really fundamental, which is that every
perception is inseparable from awareness. It’s not only the moments
where the perception is one of an intensification of the sense of
presence of awareness
because then we’re back in putting it in a category when it’s
actually all pervading, and saturating experience. If freedom’s
going to be really free, you have to be free in the midst and in
and as everything. That’s real freedom.
Awareness is equally present in and as every flash moment no
matter what the content of that moment is, which isn’t to say that
we might not prefer to be in certain environments where people are
talking about awareness and pointing to that and it feels like it’s
coming more alive then in another moment where your partner’s
pissed off at you or something, whatever it might be that might not
be our preferred experience. But there it is in that too, and the
whole host of responses that might arise in the face of that kind
of an encounter.
One
mistake I see many people make (and I have done this myself) is
having what we could call an interesting or very profound
experience. Now, even if this is evidence that there is recognition
of awareness, that we’re growing familiar with awareness, awareness
doesn’t reside anywhere. Such experiences arise in, of, as, and
through awareness, just like the experience of being totally
nervous arises in, of, as, and through awareness. They are equal
and even. So, to pinpoint a certain sensation or feeling or vision
as “awareness” and then when it isn’t like that, to conclude that
it’s not awareness is just a misunderstanding, that’s all. It is
devastating if someone does lockdown on a certain perception,
thinking that that’s awareness and if they
don’t have that experience then they’ve lost it. You know it’s like
the greatest lover you’ve ever had and then they’re gone and you’ll
never get
23
them
back, you know. And then you’ll pine and lament, want to kill
yourself, and that’s not an exaggeration, I know people like
that.
Let’s
say you go on a retreat and you have no external distractions,
you’re just resting as awareness, resting in the ease of being.
Then you leave the circumstances you’re in and the instruction
you’re receiving and now you’re in your life and your wife says
something that pisses you off, or the next circumstantial
perception arises, a new perception - whatever you want to call it,
all the labels, we might give experience. We think awareness is
gone now because there’s a new perception. But once we really get
that this new perception is also it, how can there ever be
instability if every experience is the
movement of that? Anything that comes can go because that’s the
nature of phenomena, right? We can’t hold anything in place, including recognition of
awareness.
I had
some amazing experiences – quite cosmic experiences – some quite
psychedelic experiences at points, as well as some feelings of
incredible bliss
–
absolutely overwhelming bliss, and obviously this is quite amazing
because it is so out of the ordinary in terms of our normal
everyday experience. But these experiences are nothing special –
these experiences are also simply the dynamic energy of awareness.
And if that’s the way it’s appearing in the moment, then that’s the
way it’s appearing in the moment, which is great so you can enjoy
that. But that’s not awareness. Awareness isn’t that blissed-
out state. Awareness isn’t that psychedelic display. Awareness is
also that feeling of feeling shitty. This is so common, that
association, because the first time you really do recognize the
fundamental inseparability of everything,
it’s
usually an incredible revelation, and it does feel great and you do
feel a
sense
of relief. But then to associate awareness with that particular set of feelings or that particular
experience is immediately to limit what can’t be limited – you’re
deciding, “This is awareness.” You’re defining it. And yet
by nature, it is completely un-definable – completely ungraspable.
It is whatever is appearing, and if it’s appearing as bliss, it’s
appearing as bliss, if it’s appearing as depression, it’s appearing
as depression. It’s incredibly powerful when you
have that recognition in these afflictive or negative states and
see that they are also this same ground of
being. That’s a huge recognition. And
then there really is no chance of falling back or getting lost in a
story of non-recognition of awareness because that story of non-
recognition of awareness is evidence of
awareness.