What If None of It Is Truth
¿Y Si Nada de Ello Es Verdad?
A gentle invitation to question whether our thoughts and interpretations are truth, and to discover what remains when we let them go.
What If None of It Is Truth
As we all know, there are many, many kinds of meditation.
Some are more direct than others, more specific kinds of techniques.
The natural state
By direct I mean pure meditation,
which is basically to do nothing and allow everything.
It's what's called our natural state,
but the problem is that we're rarely ever in our natural state.
And so then there are these techniques to help us undo all of the doing,
and the natural state is.
It's not really a state either.
It's a form of being or flowing
where what is happening is just happening
and we're not pushing, trying to control the experience, and pulling.
The pointing to it is: there's nothing to do.
There's nowhere to get to.
Even saying to observe is too much,
because observing happens naturally.
The deep observing is closer to being,
and we can't undo that.
We can't not be.
So it's natural.
The more this is seen,
the less one needs to meditate, because the meditation is happening.
You could also say the more this is seen,
the more we are always meditating.
And then the practice can just be a form of enjoyment,
or giving space for the body and the mind to readjust,
a bit like a good night's sleep.
Techniques and traditions
When the natural state isn't happening naturally,
we have all kinds of techniques:
to observe the breath, or count the breaths,
or to do self-inquiry,
which is to look at who I think or feel that I am right now.
All traditions and religions attempt to point at that in different ways.
We have a longing for something.
In a sense we are aching,
a sense that something is missing.
And that can be, in a sense, fully resolved.
At the level of the heart and feeling,
that longing and the aching points to that which is missing,
and what's missing is a part of ourselves
which we've turned into an other.
And we see a person or a tree.
We've lost a part of ourselves.
And so we can learn, as Jesus said,
to love the other as we love ourselves.
That's the meditation of love and devotion.
And so the other and ourself becomes
more and more seen to be what it is:
not two,
or the three that is one and the one that is three.
This is very literal.
Trust and wisdom
What does it take?
What is needed?
One thing is trust, or faith, in something
that shows me that things are not how I think they are.
Things could be different, and this difference could be better.
And also to rely on our wisdom,
and notice when we see things how they are.
We notice that our mind plays tricks on us.
We notice that we believe things
that we've seen to not be true or real.
All that is needed is this trust
and this wisdom that we have,
to awaken this wisdom,
to see things how they are.
The trust or faith
that seeing them how they are is better.
Letting go of our beliefs or habits of functioning and thinking.
What if?
So if we contemplate the possibility
that everything the mind says is not truth,
it first requires a bit of trust or faith to contemplate that possibility.
What if everything you imagine,
think,
remember,
believe,
interpret,
none of it is truth,
and never can be?
Not only is it not now truth,
but you cannot get it to be truth.
It's not a work in progress.
So to all of this: what if?
For a part of us this is terrible news,
but it is also freedom.
Dissatisfaction and interpretation
The sense of dissatisfaction and contraction we normally experience;
if we're lucky, we experience it almost constantly,
so it means we are conscious and aware of it.
That dissatisfaction, if we look closely,
it's because an interpretation seemed to be truth.
And by that I mean some way I interpret my current experience.
I don't perceive or see it as an interpretation.
I experience the interpretation as reality, truth, how things are.
We're usually not aware of how much of our experience is thought.
The more we see it as thought, as what thought is,
the more we see it as just mere interpretations,
not truth, not absolute reality,
the more we operate from our natural state.
The central character
The thought is not just inner dialogue.
You see in your dialogue
your images, sounds, emotions.
If you observe the movement of thought,
what is it about?
It's going to be a constant narrating
of the essential character: me.
Normally, we don't see it like that.
That central character is not thought.
It is truth.
It is real.
It is me.
So the leap of faith or trust: what if it is not me?
And the wisdom to observe.
If you see the story,
if you see the character,
then who are you?
What is observing the character in your story?
What would be left if that narration stopped?
What are you without it?