The Field and Its Center
El campo y su centro
A gentle exploration of looking beyond the mind's familiar maps to notice the open, alive field of present experience you already know.
The Field and Its Center
You can do the meditation with eyes open or closed, as you prefer.
Sometimes if we have a meditation practice that we've been doing for a long time, even if it's just for a while, it's good to switch it up.
So if having your eyes closed feels better, feels more comfortable, feels like a fuzzy warm going inside, we can explore what happens with eyes open.
There's no right or wrong way.
Seeing through the map
The usefulness of closing our eyes is because the visual field brings up very quickly the map making.
And it's very hard to see through it, but it's a very good practice.
In a sense, one of the first key explorations that any kind of spiritual work does is to bring this insight.
And insight is a word too, pointing to something that's different than what we understand as knowledge.
Usually knowledge is very conditioned as theoretical or informational.
So it's a different kind of knowing, and we can use different words: for example, insight or seeing, recognition, glimpsing.
Those are words that point to a knowing that's not of an intellectual kind.
Intellectual knowledge is very valuable, but it's limited.
In a sense, we want to have a kind of seeing or an insight that creates a kind of domino effect,
where the traditional kind of knowledge starts to break down,
the map making that we've assumed to be reality starts to, in a sense, fall apart.
Falling apart is a description of how it feels, because it's as if reality is falling apart, but it's just that we are seeing through the map and glimpsing beyond it.
And what is beyond is a field of unknowing, of mystery, of presence that is infinite.
It's the kind of thing that we taste all the time and we've known it very well.
When we were children, that's what we long for, to be in touch with again.
And you can't find it anywhere other than right now, always here.
The mind is always going to look for that somewhere else.
The mind is going to tell us what you want is over there, in a different time and a different place, because that's all it knows.
All it knows is time and space.
We can glimpse through the mind, the mapped form of reality, in subtle, soft, gentle ways, and sometimes more abrupt and profoundly.
They're both very useful.
Sometimes if the glimpse is profound and abrupt, we then need to refine.
The hand and the map
So for example, just the sensations of what we call hands.
In the instant you hear the word hand, or hands, the mind grasps it, goes to the map, brings up the image of the body.
First abstract, and then goes from hand to my hand, finds that location in space, highlights those sensations, and then overlaps an image of my hand over those sensations.
This happens almost instantly.
And so now you will have a mix.
It'll be a channel of perception, which is the sensations of tingling and what comes through touch, and it's intertwined with a mental image of a hand that your mind is going to be constantly mapping onto those sensations.
This happens with everything.
If we just do the subtle work, out of curiosity, to start distinguishing what is raw perception and sensation from the imaging, the map making.
Just as a child exploring the room, crawling, investigating.
That's the curiosity we want, that openness.
Exploring present reality
So from there you can explore your reality, present reality, which is the only reality there is.
If you want to explore your future, then you are mostly exploring imagination and thought.
If you want to explore the past, you're mostly exploring memories and thought, the aspect of your experience that is just currently happening as memory or thought.
So you tune out everything else and focus on memory and thought.
But if we say, let's explore the present.
Now we try to tune out, just out of curiosity, focus less on memory and imagination of future, less about mind and time.
And more about current sensation and perception.
It's all actually one vast field.
Sound, sight, perception, sensation, thought, map, past, future, images.
One vast field, one infinite soup.
Not a single boundary anywhere.
The sense of me and here, that out there; that's just thought.
That whole experience is the aspect of the field that is creating the image of me here and that there.
It's just that function of the mind arising in the field.
What we call suffering
Usually what we struggle with is some aspect of this field.
We want it to be different, look different, feel different.
But that which wants it to look different, feel different, be different is also a part of the field taking that form.
If you can sense it, perceive it, experience it, it's a part of the field.
And when you really start seeing this, what's happening in the field starts to matter a lot less.
The details of what the mind is doing, physical discomfort, wants and needs and frustrations.
They're all just a part of the field.
The more you see that there's just this radiance, vibrance and luminosity, no matter what is happening, no matter what the field is doing, there's this aliveness.
It's dancing, it's celebrating, it's moving, it's shifting.
It's experiencing itself, it's creating itself and celebrating its creation.
It's like a whirlwind and it's subtle, it's soft and it's intense.
Infinitely moving without ground, without place, without a center, and absolutely empty.
Looking for yourself
You just look at the field of everything you're experiencing and try to find where you are.
What of it is you?
The catch is you won't find it, but keep trying.
You could think, well, it's obvious. I am here, I am this, I.
You might notice there's kind of a process going on, saying constantly, obsessively: I am this, am that, am this, am that.
This sensation, that's me.
That thought, that's me, that's me.
Now this is me.
The field is constantly changing.
Thoughts are constantly shifting, moving, coming, going.
Sensations moving, coming, going.
Arising, going away.
Arising, going away.
Everything.
And something, a mental process, feels very close, it's going: me, me, and this and this and that and this and that.
Just notice that mad jumping around, so unstable, trying to grab water with a closed fist.
Can you see that?
Notice that if it stabilizes, it's because it's got a hold of an idea and is creating a sensation.
Created a contraction, trying to preserve a sensation, something that stays. Trying to keep it staying: don't go away, keep staying, me, me, this, here.
And no, it keeps slipping away no matter what you do.
You close your eyes, it's thoughts about this and that, me, me in the center.
Open your eyes, there's a pillar over there, me over here, pillar over there, me over here.
That's what we call suffering: trying to find a center and a self in something that's constantly moving and changing.
The addiction to a center
Something is addicted to this sense of a center, an independent separate thing in the field that we can hold on to and grab and say, me, this is it, I got it finally.
And it's going to have a component which will be a physical sensation, contraction, emotional tone, and a story in the past and the future: where I'm coming from, where I'm going.
Trying to maintain a state and create a state that is just quicksand, constantly moving, changing, moving, changing.
The more directly you're able to see this, if even for half a second you glimpse at what I'm describing, it's massive.
Even a glimpse for a second.
You have a taste of the true nature of the field, and then you can just practice seeing it more and more and more.
It's like a cosmic joke, this hypnotic quality.
The birth of restlessness
The first ground is this restlessness.
There's a deep choice which is a natural part of being human, very early on, to create a center.
And with it is born the restlessness, because the center, the independent agent in the center that we're trying to create, is illusory.
It's an imagination.
We have to arbitrarily create a beginning and an end.
Then we notice the mechanism of choosing.
We attach to that, the perfect place to settle.
I am the agent of choice, and the origin of the choosing is my own separate will.
When that mechanism is in place, the first part of our work is done.
We have collapsed.
We have become finally only human, nothing more.
All our limits and boundaries are human limits and boundaries.
Our destiny is the human destiny, and that is a miracle.
Returning to what is here
But keep noticing just what is happening now.
Everything you're experiencing, sensing, feeling, thinking, imagining, all of it is just part of the field.
What is it that is seeing, experiencing?
Anything you point to is part of the field, so what is it?
What are you?
Is it the field looking at itself?
Trust your instinct.
Trust your truth.
The only thing to do is to just keep exploring, keep looking with open curiosity.
It's not a task or a burden.
Let the exploration be motivated by this curiosity, a childlike joy and a love for existing and being.
Don't try to create a joy or a love; see if it's already there.