What Is Real Now
Lo Que Es Real Ahora
A gentle invitation to set aside what you think you know and look directly at what is actually here right now.
What Is Real Now
They often say things repeatedly or change them a bit.
I think this applies to every teaching or teacher.
There's an understanding how tricky the mind can be.
The teaching is really very simple.
Let's say in reality, or what is true, what is pointed to is very simple,
but sometimes we need an elaborate, complex teaching to address the complexity of the mind.
Same with meditation.
There's a bazillion practices and techniques,
and they often become too complex, too many options, too many complications.
And the closer we are to what is pointed to,
the less words that can be said,
and ultimately only silence is possible.
But the mind needs to be addressed.
And so we speak.
We meditate.
The simplicity and the elusion
The most surprising thing for me was to see just how simple it is,
and how elusive.
There was a sense of always trying to get something,
understand something.
Something new appearing that a teacher had that I didn't have,
an understanding I didn't have, or a state, or a realization.
But it was actually quite the opposite.
It was a belief I had,
an assumption I had,
which was what dropped.
"Dropped" is just a word; it doesn't necessarily drop.
It just becomes seen through, becomes no longer assumed to be true.
And it's an assumption that's always kind of present in the background.
Looking at what's here
So right now, in this moment of exploring something we can call meditation,
we can look at what's here.
What's happening?
And we're all having, in a sense, a similar experience.
There's thoughts,
sensations,
sounds,
images inside.
The only difference is, in a sense, the interpretation of what is happening.
Something is experienced, perceived to be a certain way,
perceived to be real or true in a certain way,
when it's actually a misinterpretation based on assumptions.
The core interpretation
So for example, the core interpretation that there is something that I am, that we are,
that is distinct and separate,
and it's a kind of entity in time that remains the same in time,
changes in subtle but not fundamental ways,
is very much almost equivalent to the body, the mind.
And that entity is just something we created in our imagination
from a very young age and practiced every day.
And it has its practical uses, its function,
but it's not what we are.
It's not what, when we say "I," we're pointing to.
The depth is not the same.
It's not the same as this imagination of a person
dependent on this body mind.
Inquiry
As I've mentioned before, one way to see this is
asking the question: who am I, or what is this,
and not access memory.
What if for a period of time, twenty minutes,
we look at that?
What is real here?
What is real now?
What is it that I am?
What is it that this is?
The opinions that are based on memory get put aside.
Invite a different form of knowing.
Before memory maps it
Sound is experienced.
Immediately, the image of the object causing the sound appears.
That's a thought based on memory.
Sensation of the feet appears.
The image of the foot, the body, immediately takes over.
I don't need to fight with the mind mapping everything according to memory.
Just notice that's all it is.
The sensation of a foot is prior to the image of the foot.
The raw forms of sight and sound are prior to the mental images of what they are.
Is there any discomfort or emotions?
Explore them in the same way.
It's a direct, raw sensation of that discomfort.
Everything in constant motion
You might notice that everything is in constant motion.
Nothing of what is experienced remains.
It's a constant flow.
Sound, sight, sensations, thoughts,
moving, moving.
All repetition is just the mind.
All permanence is conceptual.
It's going to go "triangle" over and over and over and over.
Seems like it's there permanently.
But even that is moving and moving and moving.
All thought comes and goes.
All sensations and emotions come and go.
Nothing to hold on to
When we see this, a part of us could feel expansive, opening,
and a part of us will feel unsettled. Possibly
nothing to hold on to.
Nothing I can call "I" that is stable.
Always dissolving, recreating, dissolving, recreating.
Constantly functioning, imagining a triangle that does not change.
"I'm a triangle, I don't change.
I'm a triangle, I don't change."
That's what we do all day.
A knot of energy, distress, dukkha.
And we imagine this triangle will settle
once it finds its desired square companion.
That's always something imagined somewhere else.
The square is somewhere else in time, in the future.
The triangle will settle once I find a square.
Sometimes we find it, but it also comes and goes.
Returning
What is this?
That which hears,
that which knows,
that which feels.