Happenings Happening

As I’m typing this, I can see this phone. How do I know it’s a phone? I can distinguish its outline from what is behind it. 

What’s behind it? I see my hand which is holding this phone. How do I know it’s a hand? I can distinguish its outline from what’s behind it. 

What’s behind the hand? A leg and a floor. How do I know it’s a leg and a floor? I can distinguish its outline from what’s around it. Around the leg is the couch and floor. Around the floor are walls and doors. 

It seems everything in this visual field can be distinguished from other things by its outline and what’s behind or around them. Admittedly some things, like smoke from an incense stick, have a diffuse outline, but you get the idea. 

Now what happens when we apply this principle to the entire visual field, without relying on memory, reason and imagination. Let’s try this together…

Without moving your eyes around: What is above the upper range of what you can see in this visual field? What is below it? What is to the left? To the right? What is behind or around it? Take it all in. Notice what you find. 

Right away we find ourselves confronted with a mystery. Perhaps the only honest answer is “Unless I rely on reason, memory or imagination, I don’t really know what is around my entire visual field!”. 

Not knowing is the beginning of true discovery. A wonderful adventure awaits. 

What we did with the visual field can also be done with the auditory field. And the field of sensations, and all other sense doors. It can even be done with the whole field of thoughts. 

Step away from particulars. Relax and defocus your attention. Take in the whole  range of this experience. Without relying on reason, memory and imagination, check what’s above, below, around, behind, and in front of it. 

Is there a second field of experience to compare this one with? If not, then how can we know for sure if this is better or worse than any other reality? Isn’t it just the way it is? 

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A person who has only lived in one village his whole life, with absolutely no news or information about the broader world - can he talk about how big or small his village is; about how neatly or shabbily the residents are dressed etc. Why? Because there is no basis for comparison whatsoever. 

When there is no notion of whether something is good or bad, can there be any desire or striving to improve, or to remove anything from an experience?

What happens when we don’t interfere with what arises and passes in the visual field? With the auditory field? With the field of feelings and sensations? And with the field of thoughts and ideas? Isn’t there immediate non-interference?

This is a state of “suspended animation”. It means that our whole experience is sort of floating in an ocean of nothing - an ocean of something indescribable and unknown. We also notice that everything is “self animated”. Sights, sounds, feelings, sensations, smells, tastes, thoughts, memories, intentions and actions effortlessly happen by themselves. There is an unknown source behind all actions and activities. With no cause, intention or agenda. 

There is a recognition that this is not really you living life, this is Life living Life. Instantaneously there is ease, relaxation, freedom and quenching. Sometimes you can even notice this in the middle of an emotional storm or argument. It’s not even dependent on things being calm and serene. 

From this place it is clear that we were never the person we imagined. We weren’t the doer, or the thinker, or the decider or even the witness. 

Everything has been, is and remains in this state of suspended animation - a tiny bubble of activity in a boundless space of being. Further, everything is in a state of self animation - it fuels, propels and moves itself.

A vast unknown where everything happens by itself, to itself and for itself. None of this needs to make any sense or lead to any kind of special recognition or shift in experience or understanding. What needed to happen has already happened and the state we are hoping to reach is precisely the one we are already in. We actually never left it.  

Allow these words to impact you in the simplest and most direct way they can. Be still and let life determine what needs your time, energy and attention, without spinning new stories about what has happened, needs to happen or is happening. Whatever happens also un-happens - but what is that which remains unaffected throughout? 

Such questions may seem perplexing when approached intellectually. Yet reveal something surprisingly steady, available and reliable when investigated the way we just did. May this adventure continue! 

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