The Part That Has Not Changed
La parte que no ha cambiado
A gentle exploration of the quiet, unchanging awareness you've carried since childhood, still present beneath every experience.
The Part That Has Not Changed
The unchanged essence
So this is how we've experienced life.
When a difficult experience happens and it passes,
there's a part of us that has not changed.
If you remember when you were a child and you compare that memory to now,
you will likely notice there is an essence that is the same and hasn't changed.
There's a deep, it's just this seeing,
just this open experiencing that
you could call awareness,
you could call consciousness,
you could call being.
It's just this open seeing that is the same as when we were a child.
It hasn't been touched.
What has changed is the body, the mind,
the memories,
the knowledge,
but something which is experiencing hasn't been touched.
And that's the very deep sense of self,
but it's awareness,
it's consciousness.
Recognizing what is deeper
By noticing that, and noticing that what I'm pointing to,
it will feel more truly us.
It will feel more like that's where we are, more deeply.
That essence of awareness,
of seeing,
of perceiving,
is deeper than the body, than the mind.
The body and the mind have changed,
and something has remained essentially untouched.
This is what I think Jesus points to when he says
when we become as children, we will enter the kingdom.
And it's just remembering.
It's not a remembering, because it's present right now.
It's just so covered by all of our activity of thought, which a child hasn't developed that much.
But for us it's been so developed,
and we've gone into it so much that it has become our reality.
And that essence which is present right now, it hasn't gone anywhere.
It's just the seeing that is seeing right now,
the hearing. What is hearing right now?
What is understanding these words right now?
That is the essence which is unchanged from when we were children.
Doubting the misunderstanding
I'm making all of these little comparisons so that at the level of your understanding and beliefs there can be a doubting
of an understanding which is, let's call it, a misunderstanding.
There can be a belief that I am this body and I am this mind,
and I am limited to this body and this mind.
And that becomes really profound.
It becomes how we experience everything.
But it's a foundation that is only a belief.
Some of these things I can explain in a rational way that you can contemplate,
and it's hard to argue because it comes across as straightforward and rational.
And some require more of a leap of faith.
Instead of asking you to just believe me, because then it becomes a belief of how you interpret what I said,
I would say just have the benefit of the doubt.
What if
What if what I'm saying, what I'm pointing to, what if it's true?
What if you could lose your body, lose your mind, in the sense that it could be gone,
and you will remain?
What if you can go through the most intense fear and pain you could imagine
and come out on the other side untouched, undamaged?
What if you can open your heart and love so deeply and be hurt so badly
and come out on the other side untouched?
Another big what if is,
what if everything you're experiencing right now, what you're hearing, what you're seeing,
what if all of that is also you?
To that you might refer to an experience of no,
I am here and that is there.
But if you look deeper,
that distinction is thoughts.
There is a thought, "I am here,"
referencing a center that is made of thought.
Everything else is other.
The practice of self-inquiry
And that's why the practice of self-inquiry is so powerful.
Look for that center.
If you look for that center:
Where am I? Who am I? Where am I? What is that center?
You won't find it.
Or you will find something made of sensations and thoughts saying "me."
But it's so habitual.
We've been doing it since we were very, very young children.
There's a sensation,
and then the calling of that "me."
And by calling this sensation "me,"
now I am in danger.
Because whenever that sensation isn't the familiar, comfortable one,
I'm not okay.
The perfect design
It seems such a miracle to realize this.
It's almost as if the universe is rigged, made in a way to perpetuate that belief.
You hit your own body and you feel pain.
You hit the wall and you don't feel pain.
These kinds of things happen with sight, with the 3D and all of that.
I think it's a perfect design.
I see so much beauty in it because it allows the miracle.
The miracle to me is actually that we can have the experience of separateness.
Because if we didn't have the experience of identification and separateness,
there would only be this expansive unity.
And in a sense, there's just such a loss.
For example, if there wasn't the fear of death or disappearance,
there would be a certain not caring.
It's like the perfect design for learning to appreciate everything that's impermanent.
The sand mandala
It's like the Buddhist sand mandalas.
The monks, I think they're Tibetan monks,
they make these beautiful, large mandalas with colored sand.
They spend weeks or months making these beautiful sand mandalas,
and then they're gone.
You can think of it as a practice of non-attachment,
but it's also the practice of enjoying the beauty of every moment of making it,
and something that in its beauty is going to go away fully.
Everything is being created right now
My experience is that everything is being created right now.
It's exploding in vitality and creativity.
And it's coming out of nothing.
And it's full of life,
and I can't say that the freedom and the love are any different.
It's the same.
The source of it is freedom,
it's love,
it's beautiful.
And I don't know that that could be recognized unless there was the process of the losing of that,
the forgetting of that.
The prodigal son
That reminds me of the parable of the prodigal son.
There's a father who has two children. He's very wealthy.
The younger son takes off into life and leaves the house
and has all of the adventures.
Then he becomes very distressed and miserable because things are not going well for him on his own.
He's had amazing adventures, but is then not doing well.
So he comes back to his father asking for help and forgiveness, because he had kind of abandoned him.
And the father welcomes him with a huge party and celebration.
The other son, who had stayed and was very obedient, says to the father,
"Why are you celebrating him when he did everything you said not to do,
and I've been here doing everything you told me to do?"
And the response from the father is,
"But can't you see, your brother was lost and now he has returned."
And to me, this is the symbol: the celebration requires the forgetting.
The freedom of forgetting
That's why I find there's this beauty in the freedom of forgetting,
the freedom of veiling,
the freedom of knowing suffering.
I see suffering as the most freely chosen experience.
That might be hard to hear, or it might come across as something difficult,
because I remember how it was.
It felt like this is happening to me, and there's nothing I can do.
There's a sense of it just happening to me.
The world has been made in this way and I am experiencing this.
I have nothing I can do. I'm trying and it's not working.
There's a sense of receiving this from the world, receiving this experience which is difficult.
But in hindsight, that's how I remember it.
My experience is that was freely chosen,
and it was a beautiful choice,
and it was loved,
until I changed my mind.
And I think only by seeing that as a free choice can it stop.
And grace is only that recognition:
that it's a free choice.