The Substance That Contains Everything
La Sustancia Que Contiene Todo
A student describes an experience in meditation of perceiving one substance that contains all thoughts, emotions, and sensations, and the teacher explores the difference between the practice of focused observation and the recognition of what lies beyond practice.
The Substance That Contains Everything
A student describes an experience in meditation of perceiving one substance that contains all thoughts, emotions, and sensations, and the teacher explores the difference between the practice of focused observation and the recognition of what lies beyond practice.
I want to share something brief. It has to do with what sometimes happens in the meditations. Just now, it was as if I reached a point where the feeling was that I looked at one thing, and that one thing is a substance that contains everything: the thoughts, the emotions, the feelings, the sensations. But the feeling is usually so intense that it's very hard to keep my gaze on it. It's not a difficult feeling exactly. It's as if it's one thing that contains everything because it's all made out of the same substance, and if I could just look at that one thing… I'm trying to put something into words, but I'm not sure what it is.
My sense is that what you're doing is a good practice. It strengthens a capacity to stay present and focus. At the same time, you're describing something where there's an effort, and it's hard to maintain that attention. As if it's hard to look.
Yes, it does feel that way.
The two sides of practice
There are two sides to this, and I'm basing this on my intuition from your words. One is to keep doing that, keep exploring it. But then notice: you're talking about something observing something else. That's a good focus, and bringing everything into that kind of one-dimensional looking is valuable. Then notice, from there, while you are in a sense in that focusing, that there is something within which that itself is happening. And notice specifically the sense of an "I," a center that's focusing on and observing something else, something you're calling the substance.
It's strange, because the feeling is that the center, the sense of "I," starts to be less of a center if I can keep my gaze on that.
Yes, that's right. But also notice what you're describing: the feeling of something that's in a center, or expanding. Notice how much of that is thought.
And the sense of there's a contraction that is expanding…
What is observing that?
Observation versus recognition
In the meditation I was actually pointing to these two things you're describing. One is the practice of observing thought and disidentifying from thought. Then there's something else: the space where that practice is happening. The sense is that if we observe thought long enough and disidentify enough, something is going to change, shift, and something is going to be attained, achieved, or released. But that is not going to happen through the practice itself. It is still a very valid and useful practice, but what can happen is that we recognize that the whole experience is happening within something vaster. That is what is pointed to as consciousness.
In a more traditional setting, it was pointed to as the kingdom of heaven, but it is outside of anything you can describe or anything you can experience. Even what you're describing now, the sense of something being one substance, still involves a focusing, a subject observing a substance, and the subject is the substance. That tension is still part of the experiencing. It's a valid and useful tension, but there is something else where that tension is happening.
Practice and non-practice
You could say these two are valid, even required practices. One is the practice of what more conventional meditation is about, which is calming the mind. But really it's about observing the mind and disidentifying from the mind. Then there's something that's the non-practice, which is to recognize that something is already there. Something cannot be achieved. What you're longing for, what you're looking for, cannot be attained. It already is.
But when we do this practice of focus, attention, and presence, it creates some space for the more transparent observation of that which is beyond the practice. In some cases, that recognition doesn't come through practice at all. Some people were doing no practice whatsoever, and it was recognized spontaneously, usually because of suffering. There was so much torment at the level of experience that what is beyond it was recognized.
The trap of attainment
But once you're doing this work, you're in practice. And the trick, or the trap, for people who are already consciously doing this work is that there can be a sense of something that will be attained or achieved through practice. Something is attained or achieved, but it's almost like the preparation for something to be realized that cannot be accomplished through practice. It cannot be done through anything. It happens. Because it is seeing that something already is, and that what you are really looking for already is. What you're trying to become, you already are.
As Eckhart Tolle put it: it takes as much time as it takes for you to realize there is no time needed.
Why it's not easy to see
I want to add one more thing, because I'm putting myself in your shoes and the question comes up: why is it not easy to see? The answer that comes is this: there is a wanting to be something that we know. There is a desire to be that which you know yourself to be, to be the one who is experiencing and having a journey. In that sense, you are that as well. But what you truly are is what that whole narrative is made of, and in a sense, recognition is the end of the narrative, because you no longer believe it to be absolutely true. That's why the word that is often used is "waking up." And in a sense, we don't want to wake up. There's a part of us that doesn't want to wake up, that wants to keep experiencing the journey.