You And The World Are Creating Each Other - Guided Inquiry

Picture a small bank of fog lazily rolling in across a vast,

Barren desert plain.

The mist gathers and disperses,

Gathers and disperses.

It curls in on itself,

Thin areas becoming dense and dense areas becoming thin.

There is no inherent solidity to its form,

And yet we recognize it as the same bank of fog slowly tumbling across an open expanse.

This is how we appear to others,

Similar enough in appearance that we are recognizable,

Relatable and predictable.

They can see our trajectory moving across a room and predict where we will end up.

But is it truly the same person who makes it to the other side of a room who began the journey less than a minute before?

Only in the way that this bank of fog is the same recognizable cloud blowing and roiling.

Many of the same atoms exist,

But they're rearranged in new configurations,

Its patterns constantly evolving.

It's easy for us to project a false solidity about who we are,

Because the rate that our body changes is even slower than a cloud,

Too slow for our eyes to grasp,

Which can be a large part of how we assess change across a passage of time.

In addition,

It provides us with a sense of security when we can maintain the delusion of predictability in the world around us,

Especially in those who are closest to us.

Who wants to acknowledge the potential changes in relationship dynamics?

The fact that we can love someone but grow apart over the years because the two people they are today are no longer the same ones who fell in love 20 years before.

And of course the specter that hangs heaviest over every relationship is the loss of that loved one forever.

So this willful ignoring of impermanence makes sense for the self who needs comfort and security.

It's normal for us to view houseplants and giant trees with this same ignorance of their actual nature,

Alive but essentially stationary and consistent.

In a year or ten we might acknowledge how much it's grown,

But in the interim we regard it every day as the same unremarkable plant.

But if we watch a time-lapse recording of the plant,

We find that all day,

Every day,

It's moving,

Stretching,

Repositioning leaves and limbs,

Adding and subtracting cells,

Never still at all.

Of course this is only talking about the external visual appearance of the plant because we have no access to its inner world if one exists.

But the same can be said for both our outer and inner appearances.

Turn inwards for a moment and scan through your body.

Where in the physical senses can you find lasting stability?

You might have an idea,

For instance,

That your bones are fixed and stable,

But can you feel them?

We know from borrowed knowledge that even they are constantly being rebuilt or eroded every day.

In your direct experience,

Can you actually find a bone?

If you feel something that seems dense or heavy,

How does that heaviness or density become a bone without a mental image or thought?

Do you feel your muscles?

Do they seem solid and unchanging?

If it feels like you've found something,

Concentrate more attention on that area of density or stability until it starts to change and lose some of its definition,

And it might reveal to you more of its true nature.

Can you find anything in the kaleidoscope of physical sensation that is not a moving field of buzzing,

Humming,

Vibrating energy?

Next,

Scan the inner visual field.

Can you find anything lasting here?

Perhaps shifting images of your body or face.

Perhaps scraps of memory or fantasy about something which hasn't actually happened.

Are you able to grasp any of these for more than a few seconds at most?

And now check in with the inner auditory field.

What here appears to be constant and unchanging?

Do you hear your own voice?

Dialogues between you and a loved one?

A clip of a song you don't like?

Can you find a stillness anywhere that is not perpetually being remade or undergoing some change?

If it feels like you've found one,

Something which is absolutely quiet and at rest,

Watch to see if you remain permanently aware of it.

All that exists is what meets awareness or consciousness.

We can use those terms synonymously here.

If you only become aware of this stillness or silence or stability for a few seconds before being distracted,

Then this stillness or silence or stability is not permanent either.

It is being created in the moment when it is being made conscious.

And when some new,

More interesting movement grabs hold of the attentional system,

Then the stillness is lost.

So how can we say that even that stillness is unchanging or permanent?

Notice the shifting patterns of thoughts that arise in the mind.

It's okay that they're there.

Thoughts are a part of life.

But notice how much they move from moment to moment,

Second to second.

Can you find stability anywhere among this changing panorama of thought?

Open your eyes if they were closed and take in the world around you.

Look all around the room and try to find something that seems stationary.

Not stationary or stable in the idea of an object,

But in its actual appearance.

What I mean is a concept may remain fairly stable because it's not inherently real.

It's an inert idea that exists in its own conceptual plane.

It has no connection to actuality.

It is like how a word can stay stable,

Yet a word doesn't really exist.

The word tree,

For instance,

Is not made of wood and has no leaves or bark.

The word tree doesn't have any shred of the tangible about it.

So as long as its use within the English language remains consistent,

The word might have the illusion of constancy over hundreds of years,

Largely because it does not have any inherent reality of its own.

But as we know,

The meanings of words change constantly.

Notice in your room that even though a wall may seem to be solid and consistent,

That your perception of it is constantly changing.

The eyes scan segment after segment,

Moving from one square inch to another,

Assembling a collage of fleeting impressions of color and shadow that we compile through concept into something called a wall.

But is this your actual experience of it?

Notice if it shimmers or flickers.

Now open up to any sounds that might be present.

Is there a relationship between those sights and sounds?

Do they seem connected or disembodied?

What is the relationship of the sights and sounds to the awareness of them?

The world is not inert,

Being observed by a stable witness.

There is an interplay.

Both world and witness are constantly creating and shaping the other.

Feel how every vision that the gaze frames and fabricates is causing some chain of effects in the body and thought realm.

How every sound is heard and instantly known and understood.

How it triggers feelings and emotional responses.

What might not be immediately apparent is how this witness is not just objectively noticing passing stimuli.

Instead,

It is coloring what is seen and heard by its judgments,

Its preconceptions that it believes it knows what these sounds and colors are.

What they mean and what they are called,

What their use is and whether they're pleasant,

Unpleasant,

Good or bad.

And each of the feelings and emotions that arise in response to what is seen,

Heard,

Felt,

Tasted and smelled,

Taints the interpretation of what is being experienced.

We either enjoy the emotions arising in the body,

Associate it with the stimulus and decide that this means that we like it,

We need more of it,

We enjoy its presence.

Or if we feel discomfort,

Emotionally uneasy or in physical pain,

Then we associate that arising with something negative that we need to avoid contact with in the future.

These projections are happening many times every second and it is both too subtle and too quick for us to often realize it's even happening.

Beneath all of these levels of mutual interaction between world and witness,

We can recognize that the two are absolutely inseparable.

One cannot exist without the other.

Take in your visual field right now.

Allow the eyes to gently land on one object near you.

If it feels like you are looking out at it,

Place this seemingly tangible gaze out on the object.

Feel it with your eyes.

Feel that you are tracing its contours with those radiant beams of your vision.

It's like there are spotlights shining from your eyes and caressing the surface of this thing.

The vision can almost sense the texture,

Density,

Whether it's hard or soft,

Its temperature.

You know what it would feel like to touch it,

Right?

This is all being intuited from this projected gaze.

Now holding your vision there,

Trace the line of vision back towards you.

You can feel the almost tangible beam of sight reaching out to the object,

So follow it back towards the origin of the sight.

Is it heading towards your face?

Is it pulling you back to the space where you believe your eyes to be?

Do it slowly.

Slowly.

Do you ever get to a point where you encounter your eyes?

Notice here if you can feel the physical eyes in their sockets.

Does it feel like the object that you are looking at is somehow connected to these physical sensations in or around the eyes?

This sensation is not happening in the visual field.

In fact,

The two are not connected at all.

You cannot even tell that those sensations are eyes.

It's merely a sensation that seems to be showing up in a similar plane as the object that you are observing.

Allow every arising to be its own unique arising.

Don't connect things that are not related.

Instead,

Stay fully present with just the visual field.

Continue tracing it back towards you,

Wherever that is.

Go back further and further.

Do you ever encounter a threshold where you move from outside to inside?

If it seems so,

Is there an imaginary idea of darkness inside or behind the eyes?

It's a mental image that is not correlated or connected or related to the actual visual field that you see all around you.

Do you ever reach a near point where the witnesser resides?

Does your visual field ever get closer or further away?

Imagination traverses the space,

But the space does not exist.

The space is just as much a fabrication of imagination as the proposed witnesser itself.

Taking in just the visual field,

Can you find anything that is separate from the visual field?

If there is an idea of darkness or something behind the eyes,

Something inside of the head,

Notice that this too is just a mental image of darkness.

This is not actually present in your experience outside of the mind.

Again,

Note that sensations and other mental images of darkness are not related to the visual field.

They're simply their own manifestations happening in the same vast space.

The visual field is known.

It is instantly made present.

It is brought into existence the moment that consciousness rests upon it.

But consciousness is not an entity of its own,

Casually moving through space creating the world at its will.

Both consciousness and world are mutually arising.

When a sight arises out of the void,

Consciousness is spontaneously created along with the scene.

There is no division.

When a sound emerges from the silence,

Consciousness of the sound and the sound itself are spontaneously created together.

And when the sound dies away,

Or is overshadowed by something more tantalizing,

Then the consciousness dies with that sound,

And a new consciousness arises with the new sense apparition.

There is not one single consciousness or awareness,

Just as there is no single eye or bank of fog.

The world is in a constant state of death and rebirth,

As the interplay of consciousness and light,

Sound,

Aroma,

Taste and feelings are born and die away,

Moment after moment after moment.

It is unnecessary to create a pattern to these arising bits of information.

They are,

And then they are not.

That's all.

You are,

And then you are not.

That is all.

Again and again throughout the day you have died and been reborn anew countless times.

With every twitching repositioning of the eye or perceived bodily ache or itch,

It's only the faculty of memories,

Those internal and external to this body,

Which gives the impression that there is continuity here.

In actuality,

There is only the fleeting and impermanent.

In any given instant,

There is timeless stillness,

But notice how briefly this timeless moment actually lasts.

It's replaced nearly immediately by another,

With a new variation of our small wedge of spotlit world.

Each of these arisings is the birth of a new universe,

Entirely fresh and uniquely individual.

This universe has never existed before or ever will again.

Its appearance is a mystery and a wonder.

Why take something so precious for granted?

Every flashing appearance of existence is a unique and priceless work of art.

We forget to appreciate them because it seems that we are wealthy beyond measure when it comes to these perceptual wonders.

Until we aren't.

One day,

Consciousness will no longer arise in conjunction with a world,

And both will cease to be.

The bank of fog will someday disperse into something with a pattern that is no longer recognizable.

Lone water molecules suspended in air.

Destined for new lives as flowers,

Rivers,

The bodies of humans,

Animals,

And insects.

Then what will become of the transient appearance of you?

Of this pattern that others easily recognize.

That they have named,

Categorized,

And used to create a whole lifetime of expectations.

Where will its molecules,

Bacteria,

Atoms,

Find their next home?

And will that same miraculous consciousness appear when each of them encounters another part of a world known only to it?

All we know is what is right here,

Right now.

In this unique,

Strange,

And beautiful flash of a timeless yet fleeting universe.

When it is fully lived,

That ephemeral flash is more than enough.