The Map and What It Covers
El mapa y lo que cubre
A question about watching an infant develop its mental map of the world, and what this reveals about the nature of mind, satisfaction, and the beingness that was never lost.
The Map and What It Covers
A question about watching an infant develop its mental map of the world, and what this reveals about the nature of mind, satisfaction, and the beingness that was never lost.
I was living with my sister and her husband, and they foster a mother and baby. We've had a baby living with us from the day she was born until now, at ten months. When you were talking about the mapping, I was thinking about the experience of seeing this baby grow from not being able to hold anything or put anything in her mouth to where she is now. She's just started to clap her hands together and mirror all of us. It felt like a good guide, watching the map actually being written.
That's exactly it. Jesus said, "When you are as children, you will enter the kingdom." He also said, "When you make a hand where there is the image of a hand, you will enter the kingdom." What I'm talking about is not about going back to no map. It's about seeing what gets forgotten when the mapping appears. What's forgotten was actually never gone anywhere, but the map gets taken as reality. It's very hypnotic.
The map as hallucination
We can hear a sound and instantly have the image of what's making the sound. Then we can have the sound itself being replayed in thought. We can have a sensation and have the image of what the sensation is, and then have the sensation replayed in thought. The mind reflects reality and creates a virtual mental representation of everything that's happening right now, along with all of the narrative based on memory: where it's all coming from, where it's going, imagined futures, direction. At the center of all this is the image of "I" in this world.
All of what I'm describing is mind, thought. And then the actual sensations, the actual sounds, the actual experience of the mystery of this reality becomes like a thin afterthought in the background. When in fact it's the other way around. The mental representation, the hallucination of mind, is the thin veneer on reality.
One way to prove this to yourself is to ask the question and sit with it as an exploration: if I am not able to use or access memory, what is my experience of this moment? You would have to remove all of that map, because it's all based on memory. This doesn't mean we function without it. But it means we can see that it flips the balance of what reality is. We started that map from so young, as you've seen, from a few months old, and then it became reality. Everything that is the map becomes 99% of our experience, what we think life and reality literally is. Because we are relating to the image of the hand, the image of the sound, the image of the road, the image of the other person, the image of myself: all mental representation.
The mind has this ability. That's why we can talk to ourselves. You can think of the sound of a bird and you will hear it. The mind is doing this constantly with everything right now.
When the mapping stops
The change in this balance is that the mental representation can stop for even a moment, for one second. Gone. And then it comes back. And in that second, you can see: oh, that's what reality is.
We can come to that slowly and gradually through the process of meditation. Sometimes it can happen as a sudden interruption. There are different levels at which the mind's mental mapping can stop. And then it's hard to go back to that being 99% of reality, because you just know it's not. You know reality exists before the mapping even appears.
Whenever you then notice the mapping appear, you just know: oh, that's just this thin aspect of reality, the mental mapping. And then it becomes in service of your functioning, rather than being assumed as reality. When it's assumed as reality, you are in service of it, in service of preserving the map-making.
Satisfaction and the map
And that's the satisfaction and dissatisfaction that you were talking about.
There is no satisfaction in the world of that map. Because we are keeping it permanently in motion, permanently reinforcing the reality of it, it becomes an addiction.
That we think is satisfaction, but isn't.
Right. You imagine satisfaction in the future. "I will be satisfied when, in my worldview, in my map, I get to that thing tomorrow or this afternoon." Then when you get there, the mapping relaxes. You give yourself a little break, put it in the background, and enjoy the satisfaction of being. Then you start all over again. You use that cycle as a way to reinforce the proper functioning of the map. But you don't realize, or you ignore the fact, that actually the satisfaction came from putting the map aside. The satisfaction came from being, from presence.
All of what I'm talking about is that you can realize this satisfaction is always present. It's beyond mind. It's before mind.
So it's as if mind comes in and wants to claim that.
No, we want to lose ourselves in mind. The trick is that in mind, we know what we are. A baby does not know what it is. And when we realize our true nature, we go back to that not knowing. We go back to that awe and openness that you see in a newborn: just not knowing, completely being. That hasn't been lost. It hasn't gone anywhere. It's still here right now in all of us.
The addiction to knowing
It's just that we layer it and layer it with the knowing of what I am, and therefore the knowing of what everything else is. The key is always reflecting on "I am what I am," that familiarity. It's the addiction to "I know what I am." And it's not a curse. It's not happening to us. It's not imposed. It's a choice. The path to freedom is to see that it's a choice. And it's not a choice that the mind makes. It's a choice happening before or outside of the mind. My mind does not choose.
So it's just happening.
Something chooses, though the word "something" is a problem because it points to an entity. It's not an entity that chooses. It's being that chooses. But being isn't an entity. I don't subscribe to this "not choosing" perspective. Something is choosing, but it's choosing freely and creatively.
What we're looking for is always present now. It is that open beingness that you notice in a newborn. It's not gone. It's right now, if you really pay attention.
This beingness that you notice in a newborn: that's what we are looking for. But it's not in the future. It hasn't gone away. It hasn't gone anywhere. It's right now. The trick is not to go into the thought that says, "I will get to beingness tomorrow. I will get to be like a newborn tomorrow." It hasn't gone anywhere. And I'm sure, as we talk about it now, you're probably having a taste. It doesn't take much.
You reminded me of the awe and the wonder of being here. My mum tells a story of when I was born in the hospital. She picked me up, and all the other babies were crying or sleeping, but she said my face was just looking around with this wide open expression. That's the thing I think about a lot, the thing that I think never goes away.
You could do that at any moment. Notice any sense that you know what you are and what you're looking at, and you're looking at mind. Keep looking. Look further, look deeper, look closer. Any sense of "I know what I am" and "I know what this is" is a veil of thought.
Mind in service of being
When that becomes very obvious, then we can invoke the world of mind in a very practical sense, and it becomes very efficient. Because we're no longer doing it to create and preserve this mechanism of knowing, knowing, knowing; I, I, I. Then there is just beingness, and mind being accessed for simple things: "Oh, I'm thirsty, I'll grab water, it's over here, it's in the fridge." Very little thinking is necessary. It's like driving a car. It becomes very much a flow without a lot of mental effort, without having to constantly create a sense of "I know what I am and I know what this is."
It's a position of "I," which, if you observe it, is a knowing of "I," of what I am, and through that, a projection of what this is. You can look at something you know, like a glass, and you can acknowledge: yes, in the world of the map this is a glass, and in the world of the reality we operate in, it serves a purpose. But you can also be looking at it and most of the experience is just this: wow. There's just beingness to it. Not even "it," because it's just the experience of being alive.
I'm using something simple like that as a small example, but imagine going for a walk, or watching a sunset. So many ordinary things, because we make them known, we become bored. Boredom is only possible in mind. And even the most marvelous thing is another human being. I say very emphatically: what we are looking for is not lost. It has not gone anywhere. It is right here.
It's miraculous, really.
That's a word that starts to point to what I'm talking about. It's miraculous, mysterious, beautiful, loving, intimate, always new, always fresh. It can feel like free fall as well, so it feels vulnerable, delicate.
Well, the map tells us we should have a lot of control.
Right. That always works. What you can control with a map is the map. You can keep controlling the idea of control, the imaginary world in which you control. Because that which we believe is controlling is a thought, a concept.
Something's missing: the trick
Whenever you have a sense that something is missing, look more closely at now. It feels that something is missing, but actually there's something in the way.
Which is the belief that something's missing.
Exactly. It's like a magician playing magic tricks. We are the magician, and we're playing a trick on ourselves. But it's actually playful. It's a free movement of playing that trick. Then we forgot we were doing it, so it becomes a habit, until we start to feel uncomfortable or tired of it.
The first step is to see that it's a trick, not reality. The trick is: something's missing. It looks like something is really missing. It's hard to debate. And everybody is in on it. Everybody believes it, so it reinforces the construct.
Once you see it's a trick, you can't unsee it. Like any trick: you watch a magician and you know it's probably a trick, but it just looks like magic. Then you might see something that shows you, oh, it's clearly a trick. You see some evidence. You still don't know how it works. This is what the mind is doing.
I'm pointing to different ways in which you can see the trick. Once you see for yourself that it's a trick, you really can't fool yourself much longer. Yet you're not relieved. You still see magic. It's still hypnotic because you still experience the trick. So until you actually come to understand exactly how the trick works, that's the next step. Then you're free from it.
What is lost
But at the same time, there's a loss. A certain kind of innocence is lost. In Hinduism they call it maya. More accurately, it is ignorance rather than innocence, but something is lost. And that's what we hold on to. There's a quality to the experience of "something's missing and I'm looking for it and I will find it in my little world. Me, I will find it in my world." All of that goes poof when we see that what we're looking for is not missing. What goes poof is the belief in what I was. And it becomes very obvious.
It then becomes very obvious how it works. You can see it in yourself, you can see it in others. But the first step is what you said: you see that what's in the way is the belief that something's missing. Yet it's still going to get you. It's still very convincing that something is missing.