The Gold and the Ring
El oro y el anillo
A question about whether it makes sense to call some things "real" and others "not real," and how the teaching language of levels of reality relates to direct experience.
The Gold and the Ring
A question about whether it makes sense to call some things "real" and others "not real," and how the teaching language of levels of reality relates to direct experience.
I have a question on today's topic that I keep going around on. As I listen to you responding to the different questions, I realize how strange it has become for me, this idea that one thing is real and another is not. It has become a kind of blocker or paradox. Where I am right now is: how could that be possible? There are layers of reality, and then we identify at any given point with one level or another. But if everything is awareness itself, everything is real. So maybe where I am now is that it is more about the identification. We use this language of "something is not real" to try to detach from the identification. But the question is: is it really true that something is not real? Because that is not my experience. Everything is real. It is just that at any given point I am at a certain level of reality. Does that make sense?
Yes. You hinted at it. There are teaching devices, right?
The meaning of "reality" in this context
The problem, and also what I defined a few minutes ago, is that "reality" in English is different from the Sanskrit term. It gets translated as "reality," but there is a subtle difference that matters. What we are using the word "reality" to point to here is more in the Sanskrit sense: what is the essential nature of something?
You are right: everything is real, and there is only one reality, and everything is made from that one reality. I prefer to call it "substance." It is all one substance, but the substance can take different forms. If we believe that the form is more real than the substance, then we turn things upside down.
That, to me, is the key to the teaching. It was no longer sitting well with me that one thing was real and another was not. It is more about what you just said: what is the ultimate nature, the substance of it all. And at any given point, am I giving more reality to the thought or sensation than to the nature of it? Does that make sense?
Yes.
Okay, that helps. Because at some point I kept thinking, "It cannot be that something is not real and another thing is real. Everything is real." I was crashing against that.
The wave and the ocean
A wave is real. But the question of reality there is not so much whether the ocean is actually taking the form of the wave. The question is: what is the essential nature of the wave?
The essential nature of the wave is ocean. Right. That is beautiful. I often crash into this when I look at something like my experience of being a woman. It is as real as it can be, it is the same substance, but the question is: what is the essence or nature of it?
Yes. So really, what I was saying is: there is a sound, and there is something that is aware of it. Which one are you more? That kind of language, saying something is "more real" than something else, is pointing to the essential nature.
The gold ring
If you are a gold ring that can be melted and turned into a necklace, then what you are is not the ring, right? If you can be melted and have the experience of being a necklace, then what are you really? What are you more: the gold, or the ring?
The gold. The shape is beautiful language.
The problem is that we believe we are a ring and do not realize we are more the gold. That is why the teaching language points to "we are not really the ring." You are a ring too, right now, but what you really are is the gold. And if you realize your gold nature, then the change from ring to necklace will be less painful, less full of suffering.
Right, less attachment to being a ring.
Because the reality is that what you are is constantly moving and changing, and we try to control it because we are identified with a form. We are identified with what the metaphor of "ring" is pointing to right now. The ring is starting to fall apart because it is turning into a necklace, and you are fighting for that not to happen. You are suffering because you feel like you are dying, you are afraid, it is too much. But if you realize you are the gold being turned into something else, then that movement is going to be much more peaceful. There can still be pain because of the heat, but there will be a peace in knowing you are okay.
Simple but very powerful. Thank you. I have another question that may be more intellectual, but may I ask?
Yes.
Time and timelessness
During the meditation, I had this thought: time really exists only because the mind processes one perception at a time. That is where the sequencing comes from. It was something very intellectual, more about exploring the idea of timelessness. And I connected it to this: if everything is the space where it appears, there is no sequencing. Does that make sense?
I can see that my mind was playing around with the idea. But the question is always: what is the experience of timelessness?
It is quite simple, again. If you look directly at the experience of time, experientially, just look at it. You can look at things moving, and there will be a memory and a sense of what is coming. Fully go into the experience of time. That which is looking at the experience of time is timelessness. But you cannot have the objective experience of timelessness, because that would be something else appearing in time.
So the subject is the experience of timelessness, not the object.
Yes. You cannot formulate it in thinking.
I figured that much.
Timelessness as contemplation, not concept
Take it as an intuition. Do not try to intellectually grasp it. Just fully observe time, and hold an openness to the intuition that that which is observing time is timelessness.
It is so interesting, because suddenly it is full of paradoxes. It is subtle, but that which is experiencing time is not only timeless; it is timelessness itself. It is not merely an attribute. It could be described as an attribute, but it is, in itself, timelessness.
Yes. Just hold it as a contemplation. Be open to it and do not try to do anything. Just look at it and remain open to that.
Thank you.