The Vase and the Faces
El Jarrón y los Rostros
This meditation invites you to notice how thoughts can shift from being part of experience to filtering all of it, and to gently explore both perspectives.
The Vase and the Faces
Noticing thought
As you're sitting, notice something that's probably happening.
It is not very clear.
It's more of a subtle, almost cloudy part of experience.
It has to do with thoughts.
So at any moment right now, thoughts can be known and seen as part of experience,
just like everything else: sounds, sensations, colors, seeing.
Thoughts are just one more flavor in that field,
and we can know experience from that perspective.
Or there's a subtle shift possible in consciousness and in attention.
This is what I'm referring to as this subtle and cloudy shift,
which is: thoughts become the filter.
Thoughts become not just part of the field,
not just one more flavor in the texture of experience,
but they become the lens, the filter, the perspective,
the frame, the narrative through which everything else is known and seen.
This interpretation layer.
What thought is made of
So what we're going to explore is alternating, or attempting to alternate, this relationship to thought.
Just to bring some clarity: thoughts are basically images that are imagined,
that are not occurring or coming through raw visual perception.
For example, anything you're not seeing, a memory, an imagination of the future, of the next minute,
that's going to bring up images,
which are the forms of thought that are visual.
And then there's the imagination of sounds.
Any inner dialogue, when most people talk to themselves, there's inner dialogue.
Those are sounds that are imagined.
It's just the imagination of sounds.
Then there's the concepts that those sounds and images might refer to.
That's all of what thought is made of.
Effortless appearing
All of that can just be seen to be happening,
just like clouds,
like the weather,
like traffic,
like my voice right now.
All of that which is just appearing and flowing and coming into awareness on its own, effortlessly.
So you are not needing to do anything to hear my voice.
It just appears effortlessly.
Sensations of your skin, of your back, or wherever there's any kind of activation of sensation, pressure,
that's happening effortlessly.
You might need to bring your attention to it to become more aware of it,
but it was there already and it's already there effortlessly.
The same way, thoughts just effortlessly appear.
Imaginations.
Even the imagination of I, I person, that just appears.
Any sense of tension or struggle, that's just also appearing.
Effortless listening.
The subtle shift
So playfully try to explore a change.
And it's a very subtle but deep position change,
similar to when we see an optical illusion
that might be an image that has two ways of interpretation,
and when we get the illusion we can alternate.
It's a very subtle shift of interpretation where,
for example, we can see a vase or two faces instead of the vase, and vice versa.
It's a very subtle shift.
It's deeper and subtle.
Standing back into awareness
So one position is standing back into groundless, effortless awareness,
where all thoughts, all imaginations, memory, past, future, appearances of I,
all of that is just appearing as part of the field
of sensations, perceptions, sounds, colors, shapes.
Thoughts are all one experience appearing and flowing.
Where there's nothing to do,
no effort is needed,
just noticing.
It's as if we step into being empty.
It's more open,
maybe a little more unsettling.
From that perspective, everything is just happening.
Discomforts, tensions,
the normal mind habits,
thoughts, sensations, perceptions.
Imagined sounds and perceived sounds,
all one field where there's raw experience
and then just the reflecting, and thoughts,
just the reflecting on experience,
all happening in one field effortlessly.
Everything is moving and changing.
Every appearance comes from a previous shape and it moves on to a different shape.
All of what we experience behaves this way.
One multicolored, multishaped kaleidoscope,
just shifting, moving slowly or quickly,
known by this emptiness.
Take some time to explore that perspective.
Thoughts as part of the field
And as thoughts come and pull you to focus,
just notice they are part of that field.
As important and real as they might seem,
the thoughts are just more appearances,
more intense, more prominent, but still just part of the field.
A large loud sound or bang does not make it more real than a quiet whisper.
Similarly, thoughts that are full of intensity and worry or desire
do not make them more real.
And everything that comes and goes is less real.
You might taste or notice silence or emptiness or stillness
just from moving into this perspective.
Let yourself trust that,
let yourself sink into that,
fall into that,
dissolve into that.
Even the sense of disappearing into that empty stillness is reality.
Stepping into the me world
Now, playing with the more habitual perspective,
let's do it intentionally, consciously.
What is it like to know reality through thought?
Focus on the image of I,
the appearance of I, the thought of I.
My life, what I have to do, my problems, my struggles,
and the thoughts of that,
perceiving and filtering, interpreting this moment, this reality through that.
The thoughts are no longer thoughts.
They are partly truth, partly reality, what matters most.
Stepping fully, consciously, into the me world, the me narrative,
looking out at the world from there.
Past is real.
Imagination of past is important.
Imagination of future is urgently important.
The strategies, the doings,
where the mind, the imagination and thought is more real
than the mystery of perceptions, sensations.
Alternating
Notice any activation or contractions or tensions.
And just like that optical illusion of a vase that can be seen as two faces, and vice versa,
play with alternating.
Letting thoughts just be thoughts.
Not reality, not truth,
just assumptions and maps, imaginations,
just appearing in the field
as all perceptions, sensations, sounds, thoughts.
All one field.
Effortless.
The freedom to move
What we're doing is seeing the ability of consciousness to identify.
We can stand back into the position of empty stillness, consciousness,
pure non-mental knowing,
or shift into the position of mind perspective,
where mind is real and I am,
the I-thought is real,
and from there everything else is filtered,
known to be real as the mind says it's so.
You can feel moments playing, moving back and forth,
tasting the shifts,
understanding the subtleties of how things happen and change.
And notice the freedom to move.
To take any perspective, any view, any position.
Absolute freedom is here,
just like a choice to see the faces or to see the vase.
With nothing gained or lost,
with no needs, no drama.
Nothing gained or lost in either perspective,
just the freedom.
Beyond both perspectives
I can see it really isn't vase or faces at all.
There really aren't two separate perspectives either.
No choice or decision needed or happening.
Just textures of ink on a page,
just sounds, sensations, perceptions, thoughts.
Alternating perspectives or choices, all just happening effortlessly.
Sound of silence disappearing into silence,
or movement of stillness made of stillness,
appearing to be other than stillness
but falling back into stillness.