The Stillness That Cannot Be Lost
La quietud que no puede perderse
A student asks how to reconcile getting things done with staying connected to a deeper sense of self, prompting an exploration of the difference between achieving a state and recognizing what is already present.
The Stillness That Cannot Be Lost
A student asks how to reconcile getting things done with staying connected to a deeper sense of self, prompting an exploration of the difference between achieving a state and recognizing what is already present.
I've struggled to get things done sometimes. I was recently talking with my roommate about it, and he seems fairly organized. He suggested doing at least three things a day, figuring out exactly when to do them, starting work at the same time each day. I started doing that and was very successful the first week, then faltered the second. I often feel like getting things done can be at odds with tuning into myself in the moment. It sometimes feels like I have to abandon myself in order to knock things off my to-do list. I remember you saying that when you achieve some state, you can be doing anything and it doesn't really matter as much. Could you elaborate on that?
The big point is actually what you said at the end: that you remember me saying "when you achieve a state, then such and such." That is exactly what I would not have said. But it's understandable, and it shows how insidious the belief is that it's all about achieving and states.
It's really hard to talk about, because as soon as you start using words and describe things and point to things, it's always going to be misleading. But it is exactly not achieving a state. What you're referring to is something you can recognize as already being true, as already being real. It is not a state you achieve. It is not a state, and it is not an achievement.
The self that cannot be abandoned
You say you feel you sometimes have to abandon yourself in order to do things, to knock things off the to-do list. That sense of self you feel you need to abandon: that is the problem. The self that you are cannot not be. It cannot be abandoned. Only the idea of what you are can be abandoned.
Now, what I just said can also be misinterpreted. It can be rationalized into something inauthentic, and there is a way in which we can be inauthentic and not ourselves. I'm pointing to something deeper than authenticity, in a sense. Once you recognize that this self you feel you might abandon is not your true self, then authenticity flows more naturally. And this isn't an achievement. It's not a state. It's simply a recognizing of what is more real, what is more fundamental.
Stillness in the midst of activity
That said, what you're referring to is true. No matter how much movement you have going on, how much activity and thought and emotion and achieving is happening, there is something present that cannot go away. It cannot be lost. What can happen is that we stop noticing it because we narrow our attention into the activity. Then it feels like we need to become physically still and inactive in order to recognize it. It feels like we even have to develop this non-doing, develop this peace and calmness.
Actually, when we meditate and become still, it becomes more available for us to recognize a stillness that is always there. But it's not a stillness we develop or grow or create. When we recognize this, it doesn't matter how much movement or activity there is. There is always, and it's not exactly stillness. There isn't a thing that is still or that doesn't move, because only things that move are things. These are words pointing to a certain kind of emptiness that is present.
The metaphor of silence and space
For example, silence. If there's no sound, we call it silence. But there isn't such a thing that is silence. It's just the absence of something. And that space where, when there is no sound, we call silence: it is the same space that is there when there is sound.
Think of physical space. Consider the void of empty space. When a planet passes through it, you could say there is no longer a void, there is a planet. But the space where the planet is moving through is still space, still an empty space through which the planet moves. It's not an opposition where there is something or there is nothing.
When there is activity, it's similar. There is a space of inactivity where the activity is happening. This can be pointed to as emptiness, voidness, stillness, openness, beingness, consciousness. It cannot be covered. It cannot be lost. It's prior to anything.
What "I" actually points to
It is actually what, when we say "I," that word points to. We think it points to a body and a mind and a narrative of a person in time. But it points to a subjectivity, an experience of subjectivity that we then interpret as belonging to this body and this mind, emerging from this body and this mind. In truth, it is prior to both.
That is why no matter what the body and mind are doing, this subjectivity, this "I" we refer to, is always open and unaffected. This is why, when we remember how we felt in our subjectivity as children and compare it to how we feel now, there is something unchanged. There is a sense of subjectivity identical to when we were children. Our body and mind have grown, have gone through a great deal of experience. But there is a deep sense of this "I-ness" that is completely unchanged. It could be referred to as an empty looking.
The body may age, our experiences may change, our thoughts about ourselves may differ, our mind may become more complex. But prior to all of that, there is an unchanging subjectivity. "Subjectivity" is also a tricky word, because it implies objectivity. It is this infinite subject, this infinite, open, empty seeing. You could be doing a hundred things a day and it will remain as it is. Unabandoned.
What I'm taking away is that the subject of "I" is always there, pretty much by definition, and that activities like meditating can resource you in accessing that, in realizing it's always there. So when you go about filling your space with activities, a meditation practice can help with remaining aware of that.
Yes, and at the personal level there are many things that can be worked out: seeing what your attachments are, your fears, how anxiety operates, challenges in life, commitments and responsibilities you take on. That's another level, which is one way to address procrastination. But at the deeper level, the key is to see through this false (by "false" I mean illusory) sense that if you are still in your body and mind, you are closer to the stillness we're talking about here. That is an assumption, because it comes from a dualistic map where there is activity and then non-activity. In that map, during activity I'm further from non-activity, and non-activity is more spiritual, more holy, more preferable. It feels nicer, or something important is there.
The sports analogy and the personal level
I'm tempted to think about it like playing a sport. If you're on a team, guided by a coach, and you start training and doing exercises, then when you're on the field, your experience will be one of understanding the game, feeling capable, moving in ways that don't hurt your body. There's a confidence, a connection with other people on the team. I think of what I'm doing with my roommate as training my capacity to navigate the soccer field of my day. My hope is that with that sort of training, I'll feel similarly conscious and capacious.
That's important and relevant, but it's what I'm calling the personal level. You can absolutely work on strategies for being more effective, more proficient, more pragmatic. For example, one common pattern is that we overwhelm ourselves with our thinking about everything we have to do, and then we end up not doing anything, not even starting.
One way to approach that is to say, "Okay, I'm only going to do five minutes of this thing." I work with myself this way, for instance with playing piano. When I was younger, it was very stressful and overwhelming. There was a lot of ambition, a lot of insecurity, and so practicing became very frictional. But if I just told myself I was only going to do five minutes a day, it removed all that pressure. What would happen is I'd sit for five minutes and those five minutes would turn into twenty, or thirty, or an hour. But my commitment was only five minutes. The same principle applies to a workout routine.
Those are strategies for working with our personal responsibilities and desires on a day-to-day basis. I'm pointing to something different.
A stillness beyond the mind's stillness
When I say there is a stillness that, no matter how many thoughts are appearing, remains unaffected, it is of a completely different nature. It is not the stillness we experience when we become physically still and the mind slows down. We might taste it in those moments and recognize something that's already there, but the quieting of the mind is not the stillness I'm talking about. It's a stillness that is unaffected even when the mind is at full speed.
So in a sense, we're talking about two kinds of stillness. You can take one dimension as practical: work on the struggles you're having with activity and efficiency, as you're doing with your roommate. That's very important. But you could also take this as a koan, a riddle.
When your body and mind are at full speed, what is it that remains still? When there is fear, what is it that remains unafraid while there is fear? When there are thoughts, what is it that does not think in the midst of thoughts? When there are sounds, what is it that is silent in the midst of sound? When there are objects and forms, what is it that is empty of form, empty of objects, that remains empty?
This is not a state to achieve. I'm pointing to something that is real now.
Glimpses, states, and the trap of reproduction
I think that's the part I struggle with. I've had that experience, and it often feels spontaneous. I'm in the middle of something, or I look out a window. It's been different, triggered by different things at different times. I've had tastes that felt longer. And then, no matter what, I come back into a state where I don't feel like I have access to that.
What happens is we have a recognition, which you can call a glimpse or a taste. It can be very subtle, very ordinary, very insignificant. But it has a consequence: it shifts our state. Then we interpret that the state is what matters. We interpret the cause to be a certain sequence of things we did, and we try to reproduce that state.
What actually happened is much more subtle. We simply recognized something that was prior to states. It's a tasting of reality, a tasting of our nature, a glimpse. But because we are so contracted in our identification, there is a release, a shift in our state. Then we get fixated on that state shift.
So what you're saying is that the state shift might be real on some level, but it's a layer on top of what you're talking about?
Yes. It's a real mental state shift. You could probably put an electroencephalogram on someone and measure it and detect it. But it's not what matters. It matters in that it lets us know something significant is there. There's a contraction and then a releasing, and in that shift we notice, "Something has happened that is unusual, and I like it. It feels like what I'm looking for." Then we think it has to do with a state shift, and we can get very attached to that, very attached to what causes it. That can become our hobby or our addiction.
What I'm pointing to goes deeper. And it's good news, because it doesn't depend on any kind of activity or any kind of state. It's actually always present. When we recognize that, the releasing becomes a kind of nonstop movement.
The vase, the faces, and the paper
Think of that initial releasing: we're contracted, contracted, contracted, and then there's a release, and we go back into contraction, and we notice it as a state shift. But imagine if this releasing were a constant movement. In a sense, there would no longer be contraction and releasing.
Do you know the famous gestalt image where you see two faces, and it's also a vase? You can look at it and see the two faces, then look at it and see the vase. Some of these optical illusions take a lot of effort to flip. But imagine you can flip back and forth at will, instantly, very fast. Then there is no longer an attachment to one side or the other. You actually see that both are always there, which is an obvious reality. The image isn't changing. We know that.
In this metaphor: you see faces, and then you see a vase for a second, and then you see faces again. Something happened. The faces feel a bit more spacious now, because you notice there's a space between them. But you don't actually notice that space as such. Something just shifted, and you think it's something in the faces that changed. So you try to create the relaxation in the faces. Then you see the empty space between the faces again, and you see a vase, and you make that vase into a thing. But it's actually an empty space. There's this whole back and forth happening.
We're attached to seeing the faces. We don't see the space. Over time we start to notice: there's something there that's not the faces.
The faces represent whatever state you feel you're in or find yourself in. The space is the subjective experience we were talking about earlier with the planets. And if at some point you can see there are always faces and space, that it never was something switching back and forth, that there's nothing switching back and forth, that it's just attention focusing on something different, then it becomes obvious. There isn't a movement. You were just looking from a different perspective. But at first we only see one side, one perspective.
In this metaphor, what I'm ultimately pointing to is the paper that the image is printed on.
Three levels: faces, vase, paper
So you have three things: the faces, the vase (the space between the faces), and the paper. You can also think of it as two things: the paper and that which is printed on it.
The paper, in this metaphor, is consciousness. The space between the faces is like a taste of emptiness, the emptiness that allows form to be. You can't have faces without the vase; you can't have form without formlessness. First we need to recognize that formlessness, that emptiness. But we'll still be focused on experience.
When I say, "What is it that notices thought?" I'm pointing to the vase, the space between the faces. But when I say, "What is it that knows thought but is not thinking, that knows contraction but is not contracted?" I'm trying to point to the paper where it's all printed.
I'm tempted to think of this in terms of Brahman. Did you talk about that another time?
Yes, I've used the terms Brahman and Parabrahman before. Brahman is what Hinduism uses to point to that. But then you can turn it into an intellectual trap. If I say "the paper," well, where is the paper? Where does it appear? What knows the paper? That's when they say Parabrahman, which is the ultimate Brahman. Then you can go, "Well, where does the ultimate Brahman appear?" And you get para-para-Brahman. You see this in the scriptures: para-para-para-Brahman. It's basically pointing to that ultimate infinite where there is nothing beyond.
The use and the limit of concepts
These more intellectual or rational koans are useful for some of us. If we have a very rational mind and we're deeply involved in understanding at that level, we need something operating at that level to help us enter confusion, to become troubled in our thinking, to discover our lack of knowing. You could say spirituality, the practice of it, is the art of not knowing. It's how to undo our knowing. And it's a very specific kind of knowing. Not the knowing about how to make coffee or operate a computer. It's the knowing of what we are. That's what needs to be undone.
In that sense, God could have been a powerful tool and concept, because it points to that which is beyond us, which we cannot know or understand. But then it becomes known. God has said this, God has said that, and he's told you to do this and that. Now God becomes known, and it's no longer useful; it's problematic.
After you laid out the three things (the paper, the space, the faces), I wondered: am I twisting this? Am I too focused on the intellectual structure?
It's helpful to understand it at a level where it might open something, but it's not going to be as powerful as feeling into it. It's better to see if you can intuitively feel into what it's pointing to, rather than trying to grasp every detail. Because it's a metaphor, it's going to be imperfect. See if it invokes an intuitive sense of something strange, beyond your grasp, beyond your understanding.
Because regardless of whether it's God or a piece of paper or our breath or any other metaphor, the pointers are myths. Ultimately, they are scaffolding to help you contact something more real, more fundamental. If the scaffolding is successful, it opens something. If it's unsuccessful, it's misleading. That's the problem with religion: it came from an authentic voice pointing to something, and then it was made into something known. That is exactly the problem. It's all about the unknown.
Active inquiry, not progressive stillness
There seems to be a growth or evolution in our capacity to recognize this space more and more often. At first it seems to happen more easily in certain contexts like meditating, and then it starts to happen in more activity. My question is: should I make an effort to try to be present in the middle of activity, or is that the wrong approach? Will it happen naturally?
The problem is in how you describe it. You said, "I can try to be more present when there's activity." What I'm pointing to is exactly not that. You cannot be more present.
Right. That's why I was asking. I used to think like that, but now it seems like the wrong way to think about it.
It's an appropriate way depending on where we are in practice. When we begin, it's more useful to have a practice where we sit, meditate, and develop this stillness. But ultimately that can be misleading, because we think all we have to do is become more and more still, and we will arrive at some ultimate stillness. That does not happen.
It's not a progressive movement into something fundamental. It's more like: let's remove a lot of unnecessary noise, enough to make space to see something that is already always still. In that sense, the practice of calming the mind can, after a while, become problematic if we think it's going to take us further.
Where you are now, it's better to throw out that paradigm, or see it as an old paradigm, and consider a new pointer. While you feel unpresent, while you feel lost in thought and movement: what is it that is not lost? What is it that is present? What is it that is already still? You cannot do it. You cannot achieve it. You cannot lose it. You cannot create it. It already is. If you are having an experience, it is there.
So you're suggesting keeping that in mind during activity and seeing what happens?
I'm suggesting an active inquiry, to really look actively. It's not an effort; it's an actual looking. It's a looking at what is already there, and it doesn't require effort. In fact, it's the opposite: it's the most effortless, natural thing. But then we think it requires effort, and we interpret it as something effortful we need to do, such as calming the mind or creating a stillness.
It's difficult to point to, because "stillness" isn't quite right. Stillness, in the metaphor, is still pointing to the vase. I'm pointing to the paper.
The unchanged subjectivity since childhood
This connects to all of what we've been discussing. When you mentioned something about childhood and the subjectivity of now compared to when you're a child, it reminded me of something. There was this thing I did for a few years as a child. On my birthday, starting when I was about six, I would count the number of how old I was in my head. Six, seven, eight. But nothing changed from saying that number every year. It was this noticing that, from the perspective of the counter, everything was exactly the same. I was wondering if that's what you were talking about.
That is exactly what I'm talking about. I wouldn't be surprised if you surveyed non-meditators, people who are explicitly non-meditators, and asked them this question, a majority would say yes. The question is: do you notice something that has not changed in your deepest sense of self from when you were a child?
I think it's a very palpable, commonly known experience. It's just very evident: this strange sense that something very deep is completely unchanged. It has not grown up. You can surprise yourself: "I have this body now, my mind is like this, my life is like this," and it still feels like that which is seeing was seeing the four- or five-year-old in the mirror, playing with a friend. That subjectivity is the same. It's unchanged.
That is exactly what I'm pointing to, because that is what is outside of time. It is completely unaffected by experience, unaffected by the body aging, by the mind changing, by knowledge becoming more sophisticated. It is unaffected by pain, by all the struggle, by depression. When there is depression, that is not depressed.
So it's almost so normal that you don't notice it.
Everything I've been pointing to since the very first group session points to that which is so obvious it's overlooked. It's very simple. And yet all these complex ways of talking about it exist because it's like the old joke: a little fish in the ocean meets a bigger fish and asks for directions to the ocean. The bigger fish is bewildered. And the little fish swims and swims, going around the continents looking for the ocean. It cannot see it, because it's everything.
But it's also nothing. And then in language you get all these pointers: it's everything and nothing, emptiness and fullness. But the important part is that it's related to our sense of self. It's not a thing out there. It is identical to what, when we use the word "I," we are pointing to: that ocean, that empty fullness. But in our mind we confuse that ocean with the body and the mind. That is what we call identification. We, as that ocean, interpret that we are the mind, the image and the narrative of what we are in the mind.
So put it this way: how often, when you are living and moving through your day, every moment of your day, how often are you aware that you are that which is the same as when you were five years old? How often are you relating to life from that place, the place which, at any time you ask yourself, you will find?