The Ghost Under the Bed
El Fantasma Debajo de la Cama
A student reflects on the contrast between effortless presence experienced in group meditation and its apparent absence during the week, leading to a discussion about owning one's own presence, the nature of peace that doesn't depend on conditions, and the dissolution of the boundary between the relative and the absolute.
The Ghost Under the Bed
A student reflects on the contrast between effortless presence experienced in group meditation and its apparent absence during the week, leading to a discussion about owning one's own presence, the nature of peace that doesn't depend on conditions, and the dissolution of the boundary between the relative and the absolute.
It's always such a wonder how, with the guided meditation and the ensuing discussion, I'm brought into another space. On one hand, it's a wonder that I'm available to be brought to that space. On the other hand, it's a wonder that I can be away from it and try to bring it back, and it's just not there. The experience isn't there.
The memory is there, or the awareness of it, or some little chord that says, "What I'm experiencing isn't me." So what am I? And then I go tumbling back into identification. Then there's this magic of being in this space and it's effortless. I guess I'm just contemplating that. It's not a big deal during the week. I don't obsess about it, and it doesn't take up a lot of space, but I do wonder about it. Right now I'm just amazed by the contrast. There are moments of effortlessness throughout the week, sure, but there's just this quality of "getting it" that's so immediate, so easy. What a process.
The question that comes up for me is: do you sit and stop doing things regularly? By that I mean, do you meditate on your own during the week? That's a way to access more recurrence, because there's a reason the practice of meditation has been taught and recommended forever. There are many kinds, and there are also objections to the value of it, and I agree with all of that. But there's a balance.
The taste that comes and goes
It is important, especially given what you're saying: that you have access to something you can taste, and it comes more regularly when you join the group, and you feel like it comes and goes, present sometimes but not always.
I completely relate. I remember how that was for me. Being with my teacher, he would say, "By the time you get to the corner…" because we would see him only in person, in the middle of Buenos Aires, a very busy city. You leave the house, you get to the corner, and you've forgotten. You've disconnected from half of it. By the next corner, you're completely gone. He would say that as a way for us to recognize a shift that happens when going into presence. There's the induction of being in the shared space with him and the group, and we all knew the difference. That's why we would go. You would arrive and instantly start feeling better, and then you would leave and start feeling terrible again.
When I moved to Canada, I would go to see him at least once a year, and I would speak to him about exactly what you're describing. I would say, "When I'm with you or close to you, it's there, and when I'm not, it's gone."
Taking ownership of presence
He described it this way, and I'm sharing this because it might be useful. He basically said that at some point, it's up to you to take responsibility and ownership of that presence. It's up to you to enter it on your own.
I've never been told that before. You just touched something really deep in me. I think maybe it has to do with meditation, because I changed my approach. I used to meditate for longer periods, and then I noticed there was this efforting. So I shortened it, thinking, "This is not helpful, just shorten it and meditate later." But maybe I shouldn't have. Maybe I should just let the efforting appear. Maybe I hit a wall or something.
All of that is what to explore. Keep exploring, keep curious, keep experimenting. What if I shift this? What happens? What if I sit with the efforting and notice that there's an effortlessness there?
The presence that is always with you
The presence we're talking about is always with you. It just goes unnoticed. It's forgotten. The induction through resonance gets you in touch with something that is yours. Then you walk away and forget, and you attach it to the teacher or to whatever brings you into that state. But at some point, it's up to you to find that in yourself. You're given the tastes and the tools and the inductions so that you can recognize it, so that you have instant knowing: "Yes, this is it." Then when it seems gone, you also have instant knowing: "Where is that? I know that." And it's you.
It's funny, two things came up as you were speaking. One was that day when I had a whole day of complete effortlessness. I realized it became a reference point, and I noticed I got it mixed up with the experience itself. Then I said, "No, no, no, it's not the experience; it's that." And then I would meditate wanting to go to that. It just occurred to me that this is really what I was asking you about, because I think that was the barrier I noticed.
Layers of deepening recognition
There are layers and layers of deepening. What I'm referring to is that the recognition can go deeper and deeper. What does that look like? More and more, it becomes obvious to you that what you're looking for is here.
At first you taste an effortlessness, but you taste it in the context of going to a retreat or sitting in a group. Then you notice it sometimes in meditation, but it's noticed as a contrast to something else. It's an effortlessness that's conditioned on experience not being effortful. That comes and goes. You're tasting something, but you're not tasting it clearly or directly. Still, it is a tasting.
Peace at the bottom of the ocean
Then you can start to notice: the effortlessness is not the peace and well-being of the boat when it's sunny and calm. It's the effortlessness and peace that's at the bottom of the ocean. They taste very similar, but the one that's always here has no care if there's effortfulness in the body-mind. And you can only recognize that when there is effortfulness in the body-mind. Only when your body-mind is freaking out is there a chance for you to recognize, "All of that is here, and there's peace, and there's effortlessness."
That's what happened to me that day. I was in the midst of the boat rocking. I was sure I was going to fall out and drown, and then all of a sudden, that was it. That was exactly what happened. And I didn't do it. It just happened.
You're recognizing something that's always here. You can't do it in your reality.
Exactly. That's why it happened, because I wasn't there.
The ghost under the bed
Then you glimpse that. And now what's happening is that this is clarifying more and more, reconfirming itself more and more, until it's so obvious you don't have to do it anymore. It's like living afraid of the ghost under the bed. One night, fifty years later, you dare to look. You've spent fifty years afraid, and you finally look, and there's no ghost there. The next night you're terrified again: "What if it's there now? Maybe the one day I checked, it just wasn't there." Thirty years later, you check again. Until you check every single night for a few years, and it's like, "There's no ghost." At some point, you just stop checking. You no longer hold the belief that there's a ghost under the bed.
It's the same with this. You dare to look and you experience, "Oh, there's a lack of effortlessness, but it's because I was doing this and that, and this happened, and this changed. It's not really it. It's dependent and conditioned." Then you hear, "No, it's not." You check again and again and again, until you have the experience you had: in the middle of the storm, there's peace, there's effortlessness. But then the day after, it's like, "Well, that was then. I don't see it now." The encouragement is: keep looking.
You've tasted the peace that happens when the mind settles and the body-mind calms, and that's beautiful, but that's the first step. Then you taste it when the body-mind is freaking out, and that's a whole other revelation: "Oh, it's not dependent on that. It's here anyway." And then the next step is: it's here always, and it's so obvious you no longer have to check. At some point you just forget about it and go about life living in peace, not even recognizing or reconfirming it, not even thinking or talking about it. It's just the nature of reality.
The impulse to externalize
When you say "reality," I want to externalize it. I can see this little pivot in the mind that wants to go to "reality out there." But that's the separation again. I can see the natural movement of the old habit.
Out there and what's in here.
Exactly. And as I was listening to you speak today, I had this picture of how I would have described my experience in the world. I would notice a miracle happening and say, "What the hell, that's amazing!" And then again, "Aren't I lucky?" And then one day I said, "No, no, no. It's rigged in my favor." That's what I say: "It's rigged."
As I was listening, that was coming up. It's like there's nothing I could do to avoid this, because it's rigged. I'm on an incline, falling into it, even if I don't see it. But then again, that's an externalization. "It's rigged": what's "it"? I'm noticing that as I hear you speak, I want to make it into something out there.
You can live with a perspective and a paradigm of something out there and something else in here. Just recognize that they're not separate. There is no boundary. There is no separation. That's it. You can still operate with "out there" and "in here." Just notice that the sense of a separation, the boundary between those two perspectives, is the problem.
I had a glimpse of that a few years ago. It was one of those ridiculously improbable miracles, and I said, "Where do these things come from?" And then I got this glimpse: that was not this person showing up for me; that was me bringing that person here in this moment. Ever since then, I've thought I knew that glimpse was true, but I've never been able to integrate it. I know it's true, but I have no idea why it's true. It doesn't make any sense. If I told people out in the world, they'd say, "Right, sure." And yet I know it's true. I don't know how I know. But that's what you're saying, in a way: there's this dance, and no matter what I do, there will always be a connection, even if I don't understand the connection, because there isn't two. But I don't understand it.
A different way of knowing
As you know it and don't understand it, more and more things will be known in that way of knowing. It's a different way of knowing: not intellectual, not understandable, not rational. We don't need to understand it. In fact, if you understand it intellectually, it's not it. If it can be spoken, it's not the truth.
I guess it's really about integrating it, or for it to become more natural, as opposed to "that was a glimpse."
Clarifying the belief that truth comes and goes
The glimpse is a recognition of something that is true. What I'm suggesting is that there are different degrees of truth and different degrees of clarity around it. You can clarify more and more.
You've tasted different kinds of truth: the truth around the connection between the so-called inner and outer, the benevolence in the expression of a miracle, the benevolence of reality. You've experienced the peace that is there. As Osho said, you're only in heaven when you're in heaven when you're in hell. The recognition of tasting peace in the middle of the deepest distress in the body-mind, suffering, whatever: peace that is not conditioned by that distress having to be gone.
Now, what you can clarify more and more is the belief that these truths come and go. The belief that they come and go creates the experience of their coming and going, because it is the obscuring and the forgetting caused by the belief. The direction of further clarification is: how are you sure that's not always the case?
Maybe that's what the meditation is about. There's a veil, and the veil is just there.
The veil is the belief. Observe the belief. Question it. The veil is that forgetting, which is just a belief. There's going to be a part of you that is very attached to the perspective that this comes and goes. You're going in complete conflict with that part of you by questioning it.
Last week I asked you how it is that my life started to change when I began having these dialogues on non-duality. How does that work? Afterwards, I realized what I was actually asking about was the relationship between experience and the absolute. That's the mystery in this process for me. There's this belief: "Of course it comes and goes. I see it now, I don't see it now. What are you talking about? Don't argue with me; it's not here." That's the relative versus the absolute, and that's the mystery. And what you're talking about, the clarification, is just looking at that. Not figuring it out. Just looking at it.
The cause of coming and going
If you're afraid, you're in fear, and then the fear goes away. The fear comes back, and the fear goes away. All you want is the absence of fear. But the fear comes every time you go to bed because there's a ghost under the bed. So all you want is the ghost to be gone. And yes, the fear definitely comes and goes. The distress definitely comes and goes. That's absolutely, factually true in your experience: the suffering comes and goes, the fear comes and goes. But the cause of it coming and going is the belief. If you believe there's a ghost under the bed, you're going to be afraid when you go to bed. But if you remove the belief, things don't come and go.
So I think what I was describing was: how do you go from having both feet in the relative to both feet in the absolute? And it's like there's no going anywhere.
No difference between the two
You recognize that there's no difference between the two, and that you have no feet. Recognizing the absolute is like noticing the depth of the ocean, but it's not any different from the surface. It's still the ocean. It's not two.
That is liberation: recognizing that nirvana, the peace, is the same when there is samsara. There is no difference. So then there's no need for nirvana, no avoidance of samsara.
That's great. Thank you.
You're welcome.