No Ground to Stand On
Sin suelo donde pisar
A student describes the disorienting discovery that there is no solid ground beneath experience, and the teacher explores what "ground" truly is when everything familiar falls away.
No Ground to Stand On
A student describes the disorienting discovery that there is no solid ground beneath experience, and the teacher explores what "ground" truly is when everything familiar falls away.
Sometimes the mind thinks it's just so crazy. The thoughts come and it feels insane because there is no ground anywhere. Just vastness, happening and not happening. It was a very powerful meditation. Thank you. There's really not much to say. I just wanted to share a few words and express my gratitude.
You're very welcome.
The shock of groundlessness
The discovery that there is no ground comes as a shock when we have been operating from the assumption that the ground we know is real. When we get to see it for what it is, it turns out to be an appearance that is not essentially, fundamentally real. Then there arises that sense of wonder: there is no ground, there is nothing from which everything is appearing.
At the same time, anything that is stated, such as "there is no ground," is dual. It is a mental representation that is by its nature dual. There is also a ground, but what is that ground? It is not what it appeared to be. It appeared to be something absolutely, totally real: a solidity, the body, the dimensions that seemed so certain.
Beingness as the true ground
So where is the ground? You could say the ground is beingness. There is an absolute certainty that something is appearing. And that which is appearing, even when it is known as formless, even when it can be tasted as formless, still carries beingness within it. There is the knowing of formlessness, of emptiness: timeless, dimensionless, no beginning, no end, no colors, no shapes, no forms, no substance. In a sense, that is ground, but it is not what ground appeared to be. Ground is ground.
Yes. The mind doesn't even go crazy anymore. It just doesn't have anything to say, because everything the mind was structured into since birth, through school, through all that framing of "this is this way and that is that way," just falls away.
It is so free, actually. Like getting out of a cage. And it always was free. The fear of that freedom is what created the image of the cage.
When the structure returns
There is no cage. It's funny. But it is really interesting to see how at some point the structure comes back: the thoughts, the meaning. Yet it's just another movement of this. Like waves coming. It can still grip you, and you forget. But when it's remembered, it's all a game.
Beautiful.