There’s an inherent paradox in talking about “practices” for approaching natural awareness.
Acknowledged! Let’s ahead anyway, because today, we’re going to explore an awareness practice where we can discover the difficulty (or ease!) in letting things be as they are.
Let’s note two things that can act as barriers to the “experience” of unconditioned awareness. These two things are not inherently barriers, but only become so when we don’t know we are identified with them. They are:
- The need to know, or understand
- The need to do
Just to clarify, it’s when there is an invisible and unexamined “I” over here, trying to understand or manipulate some thought, feeling, or experience “over there” that we set up a conflict (a duality).
I’ve mentioned this in another blog that is practice-focused… It’s All Content, Even the Observer – Nondual Practice and Resting in What Is Never Gone, which goes quite a bit into the practice of viewing everything that arises in our experience as content. That practice is admittedly an intermediate step on the path to unconditioned awareness (because even the meditative observer is a content), but it can be a very useful step. It’ a helpful practice because we’re often unconsciously identified with such contents as a “do-er” or an “observer” and we often find ourselves attached to subtly conditioned – even if sublime – states like “bliss” or “no thought.”
This relates to the current topic, because I’d like to suggest a “simple” bit of practice that can highlight how we are subtly identified with something that needs to know, and/or needs to do.n
Keep doing what you're doing
Here’s the practice…
- Find a spot where you won’t be disturbed
- Agree with yourself that you’ll sit relatively still for ten minutes, and not get up and leave that spot.
- Then, just let your body and mind keep doing what they’re doing, making no effort to control or manipulate your experience.
Notes about the instructions… You can sit in a room, in the park, in your car, anywhere you like, as long as you’ll be undisturbed. You can scratch, shift, blink, adjust – but just don’t move your body somewhere else.
Have the intention to let your body and mind keep doing what they’re doing… that means if thinking, analyzing, imagining, feeling, or remembering happen, just let them keep going. If your body is breathing, or adjusting, or scratching, just let those processes keep going. If you become aware of some part of your mind asking “Why am I doing this?” just let it keep going. If you become aware of a part of your mind seeking more precise instruction, then let that keep going as well.
Even if you become aware of some part of you that’s trying to manage your breathing, or manage your thinking (e.g., “Stop thinking!” or “Let thinking continue!”), then let even those things keep going.
And if you notice something in you trying to stop something that is happening (e.g., something in you that is trying to stop thinking), and then something in you tries to shut even that down, just let that keep going, too. Keep stepping “back.”
Just continue to sit and keep doing what you’re doing, and this includes any time you notice something “over here” trying to manage, change, or control something “over there.” Ways to know this is happening include becoming aware of such experiences as, “Those thoughts/feelings shouldn’t be happening.” Or, “I shouldn’t be getting pulled into those thoughts/feelings.” Or, “What’s wrong with me that I cannot focus? I need to try harder.”
Identity - The Self "Over Here"
It’s the imagined separate self “over here” trying to manage, control, manipulate that experience “over there” that we have the opportunity to take note of in this experiment. I touched on this theme in another blog… What Gets in the Way? Awareness, and Obstacles to Living What You Already Are.
The need to know, or understand, is the other experience that commonly shows up as we sit in this way. Experiences of this nature that emerge include, “Why am I doing this?” Or, “How can this be about nonduality if I’m doing something?” Or, “Am I doing this right?” Note that these variations on the need to know/understand are often linked to the need to manipulate, change, or control what is happening in some way.
For those ten minutes, just keep doing what you’re doing. Make no effort to control or manipulate what you’re thinking, feeling, doing, or experiencing. And if you note something in you trying to manipulate your experience, and then notice something now trying to stop even that, then take a mental step back and let that keep going.
It’s difficult to offer a direct awareness “practice” that is completely free of instructions to do or not do something. Again, the paradox is acknowledged.
If we let it, this practice can bring into the light how something “over here” (an “I”) is trying to make sense of, or manage, something that is happening “over there.” It’s the invisible and unexamined division into “something here” (and my identification with it) pitted against “something over there” that keeps us outside the gateless gate. That keeps us separate from what has never been gone.
The interesting thing is that both parts of this experience are only ever, here.
Have fun with this little experiment, and try it as many times as you like. Let it drive you crazy as you realize needing to know and needing to do are always happening!
Just to be clear, there’s nothing inherently wrong with understanding or doing. It’s that we unconsciously sit in the seat of the one who needs to know or to do/manage that interferes with (1) our goals for living a more satisfying life, and (2) any agenda we might have for a more fundamental awakening.
Wake Up. Live Well.™
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Coaching and psychotherapy have not traditionally been concerned with practices aimed at fundamental awakening. Please feel free to contact me if you’re interested in counseling or coaching that addresses everyday struggles and has the agenda of supporting you in living well – and/or if you want a coach or therapist who has space for your interests in awakening in the more fundamental se