The Acquired Taste of Freedom
El gusto adquirido de la libertad
A wide-ranging dialogue about the non-duality of appearance and awareness, the limits of language in pointing to this, and why the taste of genuine freedom is so often met with resistance.
The Acquired Taste of Freedom
A wide-ranging dialogue about the non-duality of appearance and awareness, the limits of language in pointing to this, and why the taste of genuine freedom is so often met with resistance.
I'd like to pick up on the discussion you were having. I get it and I don't. I can see how if there's an appearance, you can't separate the appearance from, well, it's illuminated, right? But to call it an appearance, there has to be some kind of contrast. There's something that's not an appearance, something it appears to, or something it appears in. Is the fundamental illusion that it isn't an appearance?
No, because "appearance" in that sense is in contrast to the absence of appearance. There is no appearance, then there is appearance. That's the contrast. But what matters is that this doesn't require a duality. The false duality is that the appearance and what it appears to are separate.
What about what the appearance appears in?
Same. Because that implies there's a container and a substance within it, separate from the container. And that's not true.
So why there is appearance at all, we just don't know.
It can be poetic. Because of beauty, love, and living it.
The problem of language at subtle levels
Let me clarify something generally. When we start to recognize experience at this level, what we're talking about now, which to someone who hasn't done much meditation would seem very abstract and absurd, is actually a very real experiential conversation. When we're talking about appearance, what it appears to, the container where appearance arises, the language to describe something very real and experiential is tricky and needs to be clarified.
What we're clarifying here is the not-two-ness of appearance and that which appearance appears to: receiver and perceived, container and content. Because of language, this level of subtle reality always implies two-ness. So it's important to clarify that the apparent duality is a problem of language.
For example, when we say "there is a spaciousness and appearances appear within that spaciousness," that points to something real. But then language implies a subtle duality: that there is a space and that which appears within it, separate from the space, as if there were a substance and an emptiness, and the substance appears separate from the emptiness. That is not reality.
Perceiver and perceived are not two
The same applies to perceiver and perceived. It's important to start recognizing that the appearances (what is perceived) and the notion of a perceiver as this open, infinite, spacious consciousness, with what is perceived coming and going, all of that is very helpful. But once it's clear, it needs to be further clarified that there are not two. That which perceives is that which projects. That which is the space where appearances appear is the appearance. We can use different words or expressions, more poetic or more rational, but it's important to clarify this, which can then be known experientially: there is no such thing as a perceiver separate from what is perceived.
It can be said, for example, "I perceive, but I project what is perceived." Or consider the metaphor of a cinema: the movie, the spectators, the actors, the director, the projector. All of that is consciousness. All of that is reality, and it is one reality.
But in a sense, it's somewhat premature to refer to that before it's experientially clear that everything is appearing and something is knowing it all. To people who haven't meditated, that expression would sound like complete abstract philosophical nonsense. It would always be interpreted as: "No, I am this body of mine, and reality is out there. I'm inside of it. I'm a small part of it, and I'm experiencing it." That's the first step to clarify.
Steps of recognition
There is a useful framework where there are steps. You first realize you are consciousness. Then you realize that consciousness is unlimited. What I'm describing maps onto that: you first realize you are consciousness, which can be subtly interpreted as a space. Then it can be seen that if that which I am, that consciousness, is unlimited, there cannot be a separate reality where appearances exist. The appearance and that which it appears to must be the same reality. What is appearing must be consciousness itself.
Could it be like an aspect of consciousness? Like a reflection of it, or part of consciousness, the way my hand is part of me but not equal to me?
At that level, no. That's when we start breaking down appearances into separate things. It's really about the understanding that everything appearing and that which it appears to are not two separate realities. It's not a part of consciousness or a function of consciousness. It is consciousness itself.
But then why is it that there's a way in which the cup is consciousness, and yet there's a difference between the cup and the consciousness that is aware?
Why "reality" rather than "consciousness"
This is where it gets tricky with the word "consciousness." I actually usually avoid that word. I prefer to use "reality," because "consciousness" can be misinterpreted in ways that "reality" is harder to misinterpret. One common misinterpretation is that consciousness is a function of the body-mind. That interpretation can get falsely projected, so that now consciousness is "in the cup," and maybe the cup is conscious too. That's absolutely not what this is about.
One can say "the reality that is conscious," using the word "conscious" but defining it as reality. That's very clear. But the way I speak about this, I avoid the word "consciousness" to sidestep those misinterpretations. I'd rather use "reality."
So: the reality of the cup and the knowing of the cup are the same reality. You can't have one without the other. You can have the absence of the content while the reality is still present. But there is no cup that we can determine for sure outside of the knowing of the cup. There could be, but we'll never know. There could be no experience of a cup existing without the consciousness of a cup existing. So the cup is as real as the consciousness that knows it. It's the same reality. The cup is real because it is the same reality.
The mind-body problem dissolves
This, in a way, resolves the so-called mind-body problem, which is considered one of the top three unsolved mysteries of science. The problem is unsolved because it's a false problem. It begins from the false assumption that there are two things, and then you try to resolve how those two work together. It's similar to the problem Einstein solved around space-time. People were trying to understand space and time as separate things and how they work together. He saw that it's not two; it's space-time, one thing. And he resolved the biggest problems in physics simply by removing the false assumption.
If you look at it another way, the tendency for things to seem as two comes from an attachment to the "I." It's a psychological, emotional attachment.
I agree. I would call it many different things. You could say it's a psychological or mental attachment. You could say it's the beauty of divine existence that there is illusion. You could say it's an addiction.
But what about people like us who really want to see through it and find it tough? Is that because we don't really want to?
The beauty of the long journey home
There's also a process. When you start to really want to know, it begins a process that is also part of the beauty of the creation of the illusion. I love how Osho expressed this. I'm paraphrasing something I read about twenty years ago. He said, essentially: for those of you who feel that you are very far away from home, very unconscious, and in deep suffering, you are blessed with having the richest, longest, and most experience-filled journey home.
That's the prodigal son. I interpret it in a similar way. What I love about how he said it is the reframing, which to me is also a reality I know experientially. I suffered. It was hell, the deepest, most unbearable levels of hell, until that ended. And then I could see that all of it was beautiful and chosen. I wanted to know that. I wanted to experience that.
In fact, at times when I was in that deep hell, I had the intuition that I was choosing it. I have memories of being a teenager in a hellish moment, a hellish night, and having this deep intuition: "I'm wanting to taste this." Now, in hindsight, it's very clear. So it's very hard for me to frame it only as a trap we're in. It's very much a beautiful, divine creation.
Being pulled out of thought
After what you shared about your suffering many years ago: what I feel now is that something is forcing me out of thought, even when I try to live in thought. Something is dragging me out of that way of thinking. Like if someone says, "Oh, I'm okay here in that thought," it wouldn't be allowed.
Leave me alone. Leave my mental prison. I'll share very briefly: I've had many different types of experience in the process, and one of them was more traditionally kundalini, which implies a lot of physical sensations, pain, burning, and mystical experiences. Without going into the details of how real any of that is at the relative level, I experienced the intervention literally as if there were beings, not embodied, putting their hands into my body and moving energy. It was very painful, but it also felt cleansing and healing. And I hated them. I was so angry, asking them to stop and leave me alone. This was almost twenty years ago. I was in hatred, very deep resistance.
But now I taste what it feels like outside of thought. It's nicer. I don't want to go back into the thoughts.
Exactly. I use this metaphor a lot. I talk about an acquired taste. For those of us who enjoy, say, a very fine wine, or a fine scotch, or mezcal: there are aspects of life that are acquired tastes. Saunas, for instance. If you put a five-year-old into a sauna, they're going to scream and want to get out. Same probably with a hot tub. And for practical purposes, give a five-year-old scotch and they're going to spit it in your face.
For someone who naturally develops a healthy enjoyment of high-quality liquor, it's an acquired taste. You don't like it at first. Another metaphor: put a hundred-dollar sushi order and a McDonald's burger in front of a five- or ten-year-old. Most will throw the sushi aside and grab the burger, especially if there's caviar and raw fish and all the strange things.
But metaphorically, as we mature and wake up, you will prefer the sushi over the McDonald's burger. It takes time. And once you start to taste what is really valuable, where truth is, where reality is, where deep knowing and deep wisdom and peace are, it's very hard to go back into the illusion that the burger is better.
Yes, because now thought feels more neurotic.
Thank God. It feels unpleasant, and it's also known to be unnecessarily unpleasant. Compare it to working out. Working out is necessarily unpleasant until it becomes an acquired taste, and eventually even the discomfort of it feels good because it releases good-feeling hormones. At first it releases unpleasant experiences. It's the same with the tasting of freedom. Most people, if they taste it, will run as fast as they can.
How far you've come
What happens is that those of us in groups like this, who have spent time exploring, forget how far we've come compared to where we were. For normal human experience, a very little taste of freedom is the most terrifying, unpleasant thing, and people will fight you to keep them away from it.
Physically as well. The nervous system: it was like a very tight chest, then it moved to the solar plexus, and now it's in the head. Not really a headache, but like something trying to break out.
There are very deep effects of living an illusion: deep distortions and disharmonies created in the body-mind. When we're undoing that, it's like a withdrawal process from a substance, which is why I use the expression "addiction." There are body-mind changes needed, and that takes time. It's like a cleansing.
Thank you.
The draw toward mystery
I wanted to say, you mentioned resistance and trying to go back. In memory now, I always had that kind of draw, just looking at life thinking, "This can't be it." The values, the society. There's something more. There's this mystery. I had a feel for that mystery, so I started searching. Yoga. Religion. Then Buddhism, because no God. And I remember reading an introduction to Buddhism where everything sounded so wonderful, how they explained it. Then I came to the chapter on no-self, anatta. My feeling had been, "I'm the soul, separate. I'm not the body, not the person. I'm the soul, and it's so near and dear. I'm going to go on this adventure discovering the worlds, the astral planes." And then this "no self" chapter hit, and I thought, "I didn't sign up for this." That was exactly the thing you're talking about. "No, I want this me-ness." And now I see it's like, "Oh, that's interesting."
That's exactly what I'm talking about. And you're among the exceptions of people doing that journey that deeply. I'm including everybody here and in other groups. There are many such groups, and they're growing, but it's still such a small minority of the population. Because we're in this kind of community, and I've been in this kind of community since I was a teenager, reading and in touch with these subjects, our networks overlap heavily with these communities. But you step out of that and it's absolute madness. Generally speaking, there will be a very deep resistance to anything that is truly waking up.
A lot of people love it and are super interested, but they have an idea of waking up being something like, "I'm this soul that will join God." Whereas real waking up is what you're describing, for example what you read in Buddhism. Body or soul, it's the same illusion. If the soul is the interpretation that I am a separate entity inhabiting a body, separate from everything else, it's the same illusion. Maybe a little softer.
It might even be a bit more grandiose, because now I supposedly have all these powers.
Right.
I feel like I don't talk to anybody about this outside these groups. Even my husband: he knows what I do, he sees my books around, my calls. He thinks we're just meditating, doing whatever. After a few years of me doing this, the first question he asked was, "How do you not fall asleep when you meditate?" That was so sweet. A hint of curiosity. But I don't really talk about it. Sometimes things come up, like I share something online, and I think my friends regard it as if I'm talking about some kind of death. I can feel the fear energetically. "Don't go there." But they're willing to go into self-reflection, psychology. And it's fine. It is how it is. But I had to learn to really feel into it and not push.
What's being normalized is self-improvement, mindfulness to perform better, having a calmer state of mind, some conventional form of well-being. Anything beyond that is still very recent in becoming more accepted.