nothing in itself

Posted on July 24, 2012 by tiramit

A village near Hat Yai: Silence all around in the heat of the afternoon, save for the sudden ‘crack’ of roof tiles expanding in the high temperature. Birds and insects for the most part quiet, an isolated single syllable: ‘chirp’ sound, then quiet again. I look up, anorexic chicken is standing in my open doorway because it sees me sitting inside. It’s thinking maybe some food will get flung out of the door because this is what usually happens. The cranium darts forward in an inquiring sort of a way and it watches me with one eye then maneuvering around in stages to watch me with the other eye and I used to think this was funny and cute but now I realise, sadly, that no matter how much loving-kindness I could extend to that creature transfixed in its observation of me, it is motivated by food, only; there’s just the process driving itself and not much further on in evolutionary terms than its dinosaur ancestor. So I make the single sound: ‘SH!’ that I learned from Jiab’s mum and it’s gone.

I’ve got the fan positioned just right in the room, seated on the cushion, body getting grounded – all internal processes and organs settled, gravity helps. It takes about five minutes. Thought movements start to get slower and it’s possible to monitor the situation and bring attention to the breath. Then it drifts off and I have to bring it back again to the breathing pattern and focus on that for a while.

And there are times when it seems like there is only this continuing present moment, kind of surging through from the past and into the future in one constant movement – like standing at the bow of a small ship plunging through the waves, rising and falling; moving forwards but no landmarks in the sea to say you are going anywhere.

When I look around for the landmarks to gauge my progress, and try to picture it in my mind, that sensation of standing at the bow of a small ship fades away and that’s how I learn not to push aside the experience and put in a constructed ‘self’ in its place, with the thought that ‘I’ am doing this. ‘… impossible to be aware of an experiencer because it is always the experience itself that momentarily occupies that space.’ [Alan Watts, ‘The Wisdom of Insecurity’] So the sensation of being on the ship returns and around it there is periodically the experience of moments of nothing – and that’s not ‘nothing’ as in ‘not much happening’, but ‘nothing’ in itself. It seems like a worthwhile thing to focus on this for the time being.

‘Nothing is after all just nothing. It cannot be a place that resembles an idea of nothingness. A place involves area, or extension. It is defined by coordinates and boundaries. It is not nothing. It is room. Nothing has no room, nor can anything be located within nothing. Nothing cannot have an inside or an outside. It cannot destroy, swallow, or terminate. As nothing, it can have no energy or effect. As nothing, it cannot be a thing, a realm, a state, or anything. It is absolutely nothing to fear. It is nothing to hope for.’ [Robert Thurman]

The focus finds a comfortable place and I just let it sit there for a while then, as the afternoon dwindles away, squirrels get argumentative, great hosts of squabbles and a periodic shrill chattering fills the air.

If A Tree Falls …

Posted on July 21, 2012 by tiramit

A village near Hat Yai: Exotic red Hibiscus flowers and butterflies as big as birds. A zizzle of insects in the night and numerous coconut palm trees just standing around contemplating the situation: if a tree falls in the forest …. Does the world continue to exist when I close my eyes? Was this world here before I was born? Hard to believe it was, everything just going on as it is now, probably, farmyard animals, birds in the trees and all the other random events taking place as they are now, experienced from here on the top floor of the house where the treetops are level with the roof terrace and higher.

There was a time when I wasn’t here – not born yet. I can understand that, so it means I can understand what the world is without that person called ‘me’ going around, being myself, and there’s an anonymity about this observation that’s quite liberating. I am in it, that’s all – no more, no less – and undeniably, the present moment is all around the place, spread over the surfaces of the things I see, as soon as I look at them. It was there when the dogs got tangled up in the leash a short while ago – it can be inexplicable! Not always, but I keep bumping into it, the present moment is all there is. And it is as it is whether I am aware of it in its as-it-is-ness or not.

Sometimes it gets stuck, like a failed internet connection. The internet room at Hat Yai Airport was closed when I was there, all the computers covered with dustsheets and a sign written in felt tip pen explaining the reason why. And in the center of this Thai message were the words, in English: “could not make a connection” copied from the message on the browser – okay, everybody can go home now. Is this what Death is like? The unexpected occurs – it does that sometimes, fatal error – quit all programs and try restart. It doesn’t work; just another aspect of the ‘as-it-is-ness’, probably yes, whatever.

Systematically eliminating the idle chatter of the mind as it arises leads to a state of mind free of all the tugs and pulls. Everything that comes to conscious mind can be thought of as recognition of the object; bare attention, continued awareness applied to everything in the environment and the various happenings of the day.

It’s really nice to be in this pleasant rural remoteness and So What if I’ve been trying to get a connection all day? I’m an optimist, hoping for the best, without clinging to the idea there’s a problem about that. Meanwhile, the world and everything is just going on, the original state, always there. Death arrives one day and it’s that letting-go thing again.

“… how much more harmoniously the days are passing compared with those when we gave in to the slightest stimulus for interfering in the world by deed, word, emotion or thought. As if protected by an invisible armour against the banalities and importunities of the outer world, one will walk through (the) days serenely and content, with an exhilarating feeling of ease and freedom. It is as if, from the unpleasant closeness of a hustling and noisy crowd, one has escaped to the silence and seclusion of a hill top, and with a sigh of relief, is looking down on the noise and bustle below. It is the peace and happiness of detachment which will be thus experienced.” [“The Heart of Buddhist Meditation” Nyanaponika Thera]

rope seen as snake

Posted on July 12, 2012 by tiramit

OLD NOTEBOOKS: Nontaburi, Thailand: Alone in a house surrounded by trees. Leaves filter a lovely green light all around; birds, lizards, squirrels, I see something move out on the patio… is it a bird, dropped down from a branch to peck at something? There, it moves again – just a hop and it’s a few feet further on. I sit very still, don’t want to frighten it away. I see it now, in the same position, not moving. After a long time waiting for it to change position, I decide to slowly get up and see what happens when I do that. It’s still not moving – maybe it’s injured. I go out on the patio and walk up to it. Ahhh… the bird is not a bird, it’s a large brown leaf, blown by the wind across the patio surface.

Go back inside and look at it again. It looks exactly like a bird, and just then a gust of wind blows the leaf. The animation of it is absolutely convincing, but I see it now as a leaf, not a bird. How strange, believing that something is there, then having to accept that it’s not. The teaching about the rope and the snake; a piece of rope lying on the ground is thought to be a snake. It’s an analogy of ‘self’ seen in consciousness + name-and-form: I recognize that the rope is a rope, not a snake, and can see how the illusion occurs. Or I may not see it and be convinced it’s a snake… maybe for a long time – a whole lifetime preoccupied with a ‘self’ that isn’t there.

This small epiphany occurs after another curiously similar event took place in this quiet house. I’m alone here except for D who is a grad student, working part-time, and he also takes care of the place. I don’t see D much, he works night shift sometimes, sleeping in the middle of the day. The house is large and I’m never absolutely sure if he’s here or not. Usually he stays in his room so I’m used to not seeing him around. I just quietly go about the house, day after day, not making too much noise in case he’s sleeping and quite often forget about him completely.

Then, just the other day, I start to wonder what happened to him. I look in the car park and his car is not there. When did I last see his car? Two days ago, or longer than that? I go to look at his laundry – could be the same laundry that’s been there for a while… clothes without a person inside them – remembering the movie: The Time Traveller’s Wife. I have to stop for a moment and think, when did I see him last? Go up to his room, door is open, nobody there. Hard to believe, I assumed D was in the house but I’ve been alone the whole time. The leaf-seen-as-bird metaphor. Something I thought was there, wasn’t… thinking it’s one thing, then it’s not. The usual sense of ‘me’ suddenly gone… then it returns again. Everything feels light and transparent.

‘It was as if lightning coursed within my chest. The impact lasted for a while, and for the next few weeks whenever I saw people, they seemed like a magician’s illusions in that they appeared to inherently exist but I knew that they actually did not.’ [‘How to Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life’. The Dalai Lama, in the sixties reflecting on the Rope Seen As Snake metaphor, phenomena being dependent on conceptuality and his discovery that the “I” exists conceptually, dependent on mind and body; not an entity in itself] Source: Emptiness and Existence:

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