The Shortest Path Is No Path
El camino más corto es ningún camino
A student who has studied with several teachers describes feeling stuck on a circuitous spiritual journey, and the teacher responds by questioning the very premise of needing a path at all.
The Shortest Path Is No Path
A student who has studied with several teachers describes feeling stuck on a circuitous spiritual journey, and the teacher responds by questioning the very premise of needing a path at all.
I've had the good luck of meeting a number of good teachers in my life and retaining connections with them. For a while I've had this thought that there's some kind of shyness preventing me from fully just eating the apple. As a father especially, it feels silly not to learn all I can, to give credence to that shyness. Last night I had a dream, or just an idea, of coming to one of my teachers and saying, "I've had it. I just want to dive in and commit and learn."
Recently I've been preparing for interviews, working on a breadth-first search algorithm to find the shortest path between two words by changing one letter at a time. I've been thinking about that as a metaphor: how many teachers, experiences, peak experiences, meditation retreats, how many visited nodes can we accrue on our journey to find the shortest path between where we are and where we want to be? I'm feeling a little fed up with myself for navigating such a circuitous path.
I have a question. Why do you want the shortest path?
I think the way I was thinking about this metaphor is in the context of that last question. The idea came to me: the path doesn't exist. It exists in a sense, but maybe I'm getting lost.
Two ways to live
Here is what I'm saying. Everything you want, or the thing you want the most, you already have. Which is this.
I think that's what I mean. Why am I expending all this energy visiting all these nodes?
Please inquire, because there are two ways to live. One is: this is not full, there is something missing here, and therefore everything has a flavor of dissatisfaction or wrongness, some subtle way in which this is lacking something. Then life becomes about chasing what is missing, fixing what is broken. That's one way.
The other way is either the experience, the absolute undeniable knowing that this has nothing missing, or the path of trusting somebody who says that, in order to inquire: how can I know for myself the experience of nothing missing?
That trusting in people like me is only valuable, not if you turn it into belief, but to the degree in which it gets you to look for yourself and find for yourself.
And from there, once it is known that nothing is missing, life is different. The path, the journey, the creating, the flowing, the living, all of it comes from a different place. It's not coming from "something's missing and I have to fix it, and I will be okay only when I get there," which has been described as maya: the endless wheel of endless becoming and dissatisfying search.
But the thing is, what is found is actually a negative, in a sense. What is found is that "what was missing" was actually this: the sense of something missing was that I was imagining there was something here that there isn't.
Tastes and thresholds
I've had these tastes, and I feel like I've had enough to know this is real.
You know enough from your own experience of tasting, of glimpsing, that very likely what people are talking about is true. Something like that.
Yes, and it feels like a question of degrees. At this stage it doesn't feel like a mere taste or a flirtation. It's past the threshold where I'm 99% convinced. It feels like I'm on the precipice of just going into that mode you described, abiding in that place for myself. Yet I find myself, particularly with job stuff, on some level losing the thread or the taste.
Job stuff is really important. It's not a distraction, but it has nothing to do with this.
What I'm saying is that over the course of certain pursuits like a job search, I feel like I lose the thread or the taste.
So you mean when you're active and doing, you feel like you're losing whatever feels more spiritual to you?
It depends on the activity. If I land an interview, or prepare really well and learn something interesting, I have this feeling of, "Oh yeah, I actually can confront something difficult and work through it and come out in a better position with more opportunities, more knowledge, more capability."
That's great, but it has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.
Right, and that's my point. Getting into the nitty-gritty of those activities pulls me back into the mindset of seeking.
The illusion of back and forth
I wouldn't say it's pulling you back in. You are where you are. You are believing the illusions you are believing. I wouldn't say there's too much of a back and forth. I think it's more stable than you think, in the sense that the illusions you have are the illusions you have and that you're operating with. When an illusion drops, it drops.
The back and forth you're describing, of being "in presence" or not, I think that's just the natural process of seeking. When you think that what you're looking for is in time, when you think it's in the experience, when you think it's in the future or that it's a process in time, it's going to be a back and forth. Because that's how the addiction works.
Addiction as contraction and expansion
Identification, the addiction to thought, the addiction to certain aspects of mind: defining what we are with thinking is an addiction. And how does addiction work? Addiction is, in a sense, a process of contraction and expansion. Feeling the lack of something and then satisfying it. You need both. Think of substance addiction. There's a craving and a releasing of a craving. People think all they want is the well-being that is tasted after a release, but actually what is wanted is both: the movement from one to the other. Because you can't have the release without the contraction.
What you're describing, the tasting of presence or well-being or wakefulness during a job search or career development, when you're having this sense of deep releasing and contracting, you've placed in that journey that which you're trying to find. And what I'm saying is: it's not there. It's here. It's already here. It's already here regardless of whether you are abiding in presence, studying for interviews, getting the job, or losing the job. In all of those situations you're describing, it's here.
What happens is you can also create a fictional map of how you're getting closer to it according to your strategy. I'm sure it's a very sophisticated, well-developed map, which is very valuable when we're talking about life and functioning in the world. I call that growing up: the process of gaining more and more deep, true wisdom in living and acting according to freedom, love, and well-being for you and everybody around you. That's growing up, and it's very important. Ultimately it's what matters the most, and that's really what I'm in service to.
But the means is: wake up. And waking up is not discovering new facts. It's the opposite. It's seeing that what you think are facts, your beliefs about you and life, are just imagination. Specifically, your experience of what you are, your interpretation of it, from which comes a world and a life based on a misinterpretation.
Yes, ultimately what matters the most to me is that we all become more and more in service to and actualizing peace, truth, love, freedom. That's the only thing that matters to me. I talk about sensations, thoughts, "why are you" and so on because I see it as the only real way.
Checking assumptions
Another programming metaphor: I'm practicing 50-minute chunks of solving a problem, and it blows my mind the extent to which I can misunderstand the problem or its details. I'll start implementing a solution that is not appropriate given the constraints, and I'm not asking the follow-up questions required to gain a complete understanding.
I'm guessing that is because you start from assumptions. Which is exactly what I'm talking about.
Yes. I'm feeling an urge to undergo that same type of test I'm doing in the programming world, to check my assumptions, but in the spiritual realm. I had that thought and then realized: that's also another map. It might be an accurate map, or an accurate-ish map.
It is. And that's why I'm here. I host these meetings because I think there is value. I'm partly also exploring. For me there's a learning of how to communicate, point to, and transmit this. But it's because I know the value. And I know I'm not delusional, not only because I know it in myself, but because those who have known me for many years saw the change. I was more hesitant about it than everybody around me. My wife, who was just here, became the strongest voice pushing me to start teaching, because she could not believe the change. Teachers I worked with were also nudging me repeatedly.
I'm saying this because you brought up this sense of having a map, having a bit of a strategy, and I'm saying it is valid. It is valuable. The strategy is: test your assumptions.
You're specifically calling it spiritual, and I was using that word just to differentiate it from programming.
I find it a bit of a funny expression. For something to be spiritual, there has to be something that's not, and I don't have that experience anymore. But yes, that metaphor of the programming test is exactly what I talk about. I've been doing this for three years, almost every week, rarely skipping a week. I have 150 sessions recorded. That's the only thing I talk about: the checking of assumptions. It's become so clear. Because seeing my own assumptions, I could see them in others quite easily.
The untested assumption of what you are
It begins from an untested assumption of what you are. It appears that what you are is this body and mind. Whereas in fact, what you are has also this body and a mind. I could say, "I have a hand." That's one way to put it, which emphasizes where the misunderstanding is. And it's untested. If you try to validate that assumption, you will find no evidence. It's impossible. You will find no evidence that what you are is this body and mind, or limited by this body and mind.
Testing this experientially is a process, one of the processes for awakening, which is self-inquiry. It's one path among others, but it's a really valid and powerful one. My point is to emphasize not so much the method, but where the issue is, which can be diagnosed with these tests.
You experience the body and the mind. That which is experiencing cannot be those things, nor limited by them. That's it. Keep looking at that. Then: what are you? That which hears, that which knows, who are you? What are you? Where are you? You're having thoughts, you're having experience of a body, of a mind, of a life, of a world. All of that is known, so it cannot be that which knows. That's the brief version.
What I'm experiencing right now is, again, a programming metaphor: I sometimes think I'm a good programmer who can solve a problem, and then I sit down with a new problem and am shown that what I thought is not true.
You find your assumptions. You see your assumptions.
So I'm feeling an urge to undergo that same kind of test in this realm. I had that thought and then was like, "But that's also another map." Maybe I'm just asking for your reflection on my own map of how that process might unfold for me.
No, I can't do that. I do sometimes have a very strong sense of where someone is and what's ahead, but I also feel like that's not the right thing for you right now. I think what's right in front of you is the assumptions.
I'm thinking about my method for checking those assumptions.
Whenever something feels not right
Put it this way: whenever you feel like something's not right in a deep sense, and I don't mean practically (you could feel like something's not right with your child and something needs to be done, yes, trust that), I'm talking about something not right with you at a deep level, existentially, even if it's very subtle. If something at a deep level is feeling not right, there's an assumption happening, and it's a false interpretation of reality. That's the path. One path. Maybe your path, your tool set.
Any sense that what would make it right is in some other time, later today or in the future: that's an assumption.
Now, this doesn't mean there's no point in doing anything. Life has vast, infinite potential for experiencing and living in truth, beauty, love, and freedom. But if the point of what you're doing is coming from "it's going to fix something I feel is missing," then everything you do, even helping others, is coming from a place of illusion. To the degree that action comes from a sense of lack, it perpetuates illusion. To the degree it comes from a place of trust, openness, peace, and well-being, it acts in accordance with what is true.
Cultivating presence, or recognizing it
What's coming to me now is just cultivating presence, and the seed from each moment has greater potential.
That's a valid practice. I don't resonate with it fully, but I've been there, I've done that practice, and I can see how it has value. But also see that it's the other way around. Presence: you can't cultivate it, you can't gain it, you can't do anything to make it happen or go away. The cultivation of presence, as a form of "how can I see more and more that which I call presence already is, does not come, does not go, cannot," is fine. It is in fact the only thing that is. If you want to call "cultivating presence" being more aware of that over time, sure.
But I find that, and this is how it was for me too, there was a sense that I was doing something that was creating something, that as a consequence of my doing, presence was increasing or decreasing. That is an illusion. What does increase and decrease is certain kinds of sensations, which can be attributed to energetics. But that has nothing to do with what I'm saying. More and more energetics, more and more sensations, more and more presence in that sense: none of it is going to get you what you want.
You could have a full-blown kundalini awakening that feels like presence is burning through every cell of your body with enormous voltage and have absolutely no peace of mind. Be completely ignorant of what I'm talking about. I say this from experience.
So whether it's a peaceful cultivation of presence or a full-blown kundalini experience, both can still be refuges from what is?
The cycle of glimpsing and contracting
They can be more and more food for the process of illusion, for addiction. Here's how it was for me. On one hand, I had a profound energetic opening, an energetic awakening, and complete ignorance at the level of identification. On the other hand, the recognizing of your true nature to whatever degree, or the dropping of an illusion to some degree, can grant you a sense of presence and relief, a sense of tingly expansion. But then if you want to keep having that, you need to go back to illusion and then have another glimpse. It's all partial glimpsing that creates the release. That tingly presence is often the consequence of dropping an illusion. And so that's very addictive.
I contract. I believe I am my hand: fundamental illusion. My hand is very tight, feels very uncomfortable. But if I do this spiritual thing, then I release my hand. I just happen to do it by coincidence when I'm doing this practice. It seems like a consequence of the practice, but I do this thing and it releases. How do I get that feeling of relaxation to come back? Because if I leave my hand relaxed for a while, I stop having the pleasure of the relaxation. I only have the pleasure when I've been holding my hand tight like a rock for twenty minutes or twenty years and then let go. It's amazing.
This could be really intense or it could be very subtle. "Oh, that's uncomfortable. Oh, this practice is working. I'm progressing on my path." So I do this more and more often. But that sense of release, of relief, of relaxation can only happen as a consequence of being contracted. And this is very addictive.
What I'm talking about is not how you can do this permanently. It's how you can realize you are not the hand. Then this process you've been doing has no purpose. The hand just is the hand and it functions naturally as a hand.