Sinking Into What Is
Hundirse en Lo Que Es
A gentle invitation to set aside memory and mental knowing, and sink into the direct, alive mystery of present experience.
Sinking Into What Is
Arriving
Start noticing sensations,
sounds,
thoughts.
There's nothing to do, nowhere to get to.
Noticing happens.
Thoughts appear.
Sounds happen.
The most obvious thing, undeniable, is that there is something happening.
Then there are thoughts about what is happening.
Two ways of knowing
There is the mind knowing.
There is a knowing that's not mind.
That's the knowing.
Something is isness, beingness, existence, I amness.
Many words. Consciousness.
And then there's a knowing that's mind,
which is: I'm a person, I'm a human, man, woman,
on a planet, on a Zoom.
That can be practical, useful,
but it's a knowing of the mind.
And it's all approximations.
It's all based on memory.
Right now, if memory was wiped,
there would be just mystery.
Sensations, sounds, sights,
and absolute not knowing of anything, of what this is.
So for the period of just a few minutes, this meditation,
notice the difference, two ways of knowing.
Even sounds would be unknown, mysterious.
Words would be incomprehensible.
The mind slows on its own
And the mind doesn't have to stop for this.
The slowing down of the mind is actually a consequence, not a cause.
It's a consequence of stepping into being.
And stepping is not the right word.
There's no movement needed.
Maybe sinking is more appropriate, a soft surrendering.
A soft allowing, gentle.
Sinking into the knowing of beingness.
It's an aliveness.
It's vast.
Even dimensionless.
Timeless.
It's what this is.
Letting thought pass through
Recognize the mind just names, maps.
Notice when that becomes the focus.
Just gently let the thinking happen into the breath,
into sensation, sounds,
and perhaps a certain sense of spaciousness.
The mind gets very active.
Don't fight it.
Just notice.
Notice everything it's doing is based on memory.
Which is fine.
I'm just not interested in that for a little period of time,
just to learn to regain the possibility of being.
Sinking deeper
Sinking into beingness that always is,
has no bottom.
You can sink, explore, taste everything.
As we do this, there will be a certain kind of emptiness.
And that's what the mind tries to fill,
to make knowable, to make known.
Like a diver, we sink.
We need to adjust gently to the deeper presence.
The mind pulls up into the known.
Discomfort arises, contractions.
Contractions arise, discomfort.
It's more of the same. Sensations.
Sink into it.
Nothing needs to change.
Contractions don't need to change.
You can see they are purely sensation.
One field
The mind seems active.
The mind is just images, sounds, concepts.
Which are also spacious.
One field, moving constantly.
No things.
No center.
Alive, present.
Without memory
And use the mind to imagine now:
what would this be like without memory?
Contemplate.
You have sensations in your feet,
but you don't know they are feet.
Just pure sensation.
You don't know the shape.
Sensation is not accurate enough to know how many toes you have.
Only the mind, with memory, knows.
To be born, to have a family, to have grown up: all memory, all mind.
Right now.
Sounds, sensations, images, beingness.
That we sleep, that we wake: memory.
For humans, animals, other species, planet Earth: memory.
Explore direct intimacy with what is now.
Raw, direct experiencing.
Memory aside for a moment.
There is presence, aliveness, mystery.
Everything's so close.
No inside, no outside.
This is to be as children.
Looking for the I
Now look at the I,
that which you point to when you say "I."
With no memory, what does it point to?
What or who am I if there is no memory?
Is the I in the sounds?
Is the I in the sensations?
Where is this subject?
Is it in thoughts?
Or is it nowhere and everywhere?
Be curious.
So familiar: the body, the head.
Or are those just sensations we call I?
Something to think about, or to look closely.
There is something likely grasping,
to attach, to create or find this center.
Made of thoughts and sensation,
moving, changing,
permanent motion.