Who am I?

“Who am I?” is the form of enquiry that is the “principle means” for achieving “that happiness which is one’s nature” according to Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950), who achieved spiritual awakening when he was only 17.

His name was “Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi.” “Bhagavan” is one of the names of God, which, in the Hindu tradition is also used as title for someone who has realized identity with unity (the Absolute, Brahman). “Maharshi” (maha rishi) means “great sage” (great rishi). He came from a middle class brahmin family in South India. His name of “Venkataraman” was shortened to “Ramana.” I here follow the example of his devotees who usually spoke of him as “Bhagavan.”

Bhagavan’s chief teaching was advaita, which is the ultimate doctrine of non-duality: Being is One and is manifested throughout all beings throughout the universe.

This means that what we usually think of as “the world” is both real and unreal. It is unreal as a separate, self-subsistent entity, but it is real as a manifestation of the Absolute.

“Who am I?” is designed to help bring the ego to the point where it ceases to function, thus enabling apprehension of the resplendent yet qualityless Absolute.

Bhagavan wrote, “The enquiry ‘Who am I?’ is the principle means to the removal of all misery and the attainment of the supreme bliss” [from The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi, 11th ed., p. 13. All direct quotations in this post are from that work].

When conceptualization ceases, apprehension of unity becomes possible. “When the mind, which is the cause of all cognition and of all actions, becomes quiescent, the world will disappear.”

The mind is the set of all thoughts including judgments, perceptions, emotions, imaginings, and remembrances. When there is an initial disengagement from all thoughts, a spiritual breakthrough occurs.

“Apart from thoughts, there is no such thing as mind. Therefore, thought is the nature of mind. Apart from thoughts, there is no independent entity called the world.”

In other words, “Who am I?” has the same function as a Zen koan. Indeed, when Zen students do not feel that the koan Mu resonates with them, “Who am I?” is given in some Zen sanghas as an initial koan.

It’s helpful to think of “Who am I?” as a natural koan in the sense that it is independent of the zen or even buddhist tradition.

“The thought ‘Who am I?’ will destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, it will itself in the end get destroyed. Then, there will arise Self-realization.” Here, “Self” (with a capital ‘S’) refers to unity (Brahman, the Absolute, Being), which is sometimes called the Big Self to distinguish it from the little self, which is the egoic mind.

It’s critical to realize that the answer to the “Who am I?” question is not a thought or set of thoughts. If you are using “Who am I?” to question and you answer “Who am I?” with an intelligible description, you are on the wrong path. You are thinking about “Who am I?” rather than meditating.

All that is necessary is constantly to hold on to the “Who am I?” question itself. Try exhaling “Who?” with every exhalation. The idea of using it as a spiritual practice is to bore into “Who am I?” with a questioning attitude without thinking about the answer to “Who am I?”

Suppose that you are focusing on “Who am I?” and find that some thought or other arises. What should you do? Do not get entangled in it or pursue it. Drop it and ask yourself, “To whom did that thought arise?”

These are Bhagavan’s instructions on this important point:

“As each thought arises, one should inquire with diligence, ‘To whom has this thought arisen?’ The answer that would emerge would be ‘To me.’ Thereupon if one inquires ‘Who am I?’, the mind will go back to its source; and the thought that arose will become quiescent. With repeated practice in this manner, the mind will develop the skill to stay in its source.”

Simple, isn’t it? It’s not even necessary to be literate or to have any formal education to understand it.

If you have ever tried it, however, you may have a sense how difficult it is to do. It’s a simple skill, but one that is not easy to master.

The idea is to have only one focus point, the “Who am I?” question. To hold on to it persistently is to develop a one-pointed mind that is not permitted to wander to other forms (objects, things). Both liking and disliking should be eschewed.

Awakening (enlightenment) occurs “when there is absolutely no ‘I’-thought. That is called ‘Silence.’”

Silence is the language of the Absolute, of Being, of God. The Absolute is the real world.

It is the achievement of non-attachment. “As thoughts arise, destroying them utterly without any residue in the very place of their origin is non-attachment.”

This is knowing the truth. The mind of one who knows the truth never leaves the Absolute. “Who am I?” is a way to transition from forms to formlessness.

Knowing the truth is happiness. “There is no happiness in any object of the world.” Gaining, identifying with, or desiring any form cannot yield happiness.

“Desirelessness is wisdom. The two are not different; they are the same.”

Desirelessness occurs when the mind is not focused on any form. It is not seeking what is other than the Absolute. Wisdom is never focusing on any form, in other words, always being detached.

In other words, we usually answer the question, “Who am I?” by identifying ourselves with some form or set of forms such as our bodies or our autobiographies.  Any such identification obstructs happiness.

“Simple, changeless being is one’s true nature . . . successful meditation . . . Those who follow the path of enquiry realize that the mind which remains at the end of the enquiry is Brahman.”

This is what a modern Hindu sage says. He doesn’t say it the way, for example, a Buddhist sage would say it, but it seems to me that both are pointing in exactly the same direction.

If you have not yet followed the “Who am I?” enquiry to its end and are not even trying, why not?

It’s quite possible that the word “happiness” is misleading. A better word is “liberation”:

Asked how long should one practice focusing on “Who am I?,” Bhagavan answered, “Until the mind attains effortlessly its natural state of liberation from concepts, that is till the sense of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ exists no longer.”

In other words, you may think that your nature is to be a separate self. It’s not. The self/nonself distinction is merely conceptual.

You are unity.

This entails that you lack nothing and that you are infinitely valuable.

“Self-realization which is permanent is the only true accomplishment.” There is nothing else to be done. Furthermore, this isn’t so much a positive accomplishment as an uncovering of what is already there.

“If one enquires, ‘Who am I?’, one will see that there is no such thing as the ‘I.’”

Happiness is the “peaceful repose” that occurs once the ego/I is uprooted: “this egoless condition is the common goal.”

To realize (not just think!) this is to be liberated and fulfill the purpose of life. It is to realize oneself as “the perfect Bliss of non-duality.”

According to advaita, this is the sole reality.

If you are not yet on the path to fulfilling your purpose, why not? Why not focus on “Who am I?”

As always, if you know someone who might benefit from this post on “Who am I?,” please pass it along.

Related posts: there are many related posts in the spiritual well-being category of this blog including Realize Being and Silence.

Related resource:  The Collected Works of Sri Ramana Maharshi (11th ed.), particularly chapter 2, “Who am I?”

An independent human is one of true worth.

Yasutani Roshi: “If you would be a man of true worth and not a phantom, you must be able to walk upright by yourself, dependent on nothing”[quoted from The Three Pillars of Zen, which is listed below].

Sadly, most of us are still phantoms and will die that way.

We are dependent on thought-forms; we cling to them as though they were real. Therefore, we fail to abide in unity.

Although spontaneous glimpses of it occur without practicing, becoming independent requires three things.

Kao-feng Yuan-miao (1238-1295) formulated the requisites for breaking through: great faith, great doubt, and great aspiration.  Lacking any one of these is being like a three-legged cauldron with one leg broken off.

Which is the most important of the three?

Zen Master Hakuin wrote in his spiritual autobiography Wild Ivy: “The most important of the three is the great, burning aspiration. You may possess an abundance of deep-rooted faith and a great doubt as well, but if the burning aspiration is not present . . . you will be incapable of curing the besetting illnesses of mankind and liberating sentient beings.”

Therefore: “Strive diligently, all of you! Do not allow yourselves to be content with meager gains.”

Master Hakuin and Yasutani Roshi are speaking of koan practice, which is a shortcut to enlightenment (kensho, satori, spiritual awakening, direct awareness of Being). Although there may be other ways to break through, it is impossible to be an independent human being without enlightenment.

Both men stress the importance of continual practice.

Master Hakuin: “It means immersing yourself totally in your practice at all times and in all your daily activities – walking, standing, sitting, or lying down.”

Yasutani Roshi: “Unless it accords with your everyday activities Zen is merely an embellishment. . . How can you achieve this unity? By holding to Mu [a first koan] tenaciously day and night! Do not separate yourself from it under any circumstances! Focus you mind on it constantly. . . carry on steadfastly for one, two, three, or even five years without remission, constantly vigilant.”

Nobody does this without great, burning aspiration.

Should one do it? Should one strive to be independent?

Master Hakuin: “It is the One Great Matter of human life: striving with fierce and courageous determination to bore through the barrier into kensho.”

Why?

The only alternative is remaining dependent.

Yasutani Roshi: “[M]ost of us cannot function independent of money, social standing, honor, companionship, authority, or else we feel the need to identify ourselves with an organization or an ideology. If you would be a man of true worth and not a phantom, you must be able to walk upright by yourself, dependent on nothing.”

Enlightenment is directly grasping the nature of what-is. It cannot be conceptualized, understood by mere thinking.

Why is spiritual enlightenment beneficial?

Yasutani Roshi: “When you truly understand the fundamental principle you will not be anxious about your life or your death. You will then attain a steadfast mind and be happy in your daily life. . . Miraculously, everything is radically transformed though remaining as it is.”

Each of us will either become independent of attachments or not. According to those who have broken through, there is no greater blessing or higher aim of human life.

Master Hakuin: “body and mind falling completely away . . . the great emancipation.”

There are three classes of humans: those who are independent, those who are dependent and trying to free themselves, and those who are dependent and not trying to free themselves.

If you are in the third class and would like to be in the first class, understand that being in the second class is stressful. Stress occurs when two forces are pulling against each other.

Even if you are in the second class and devoting yourself to your practice energetically and wholeheartedly, you cannot attain unthinking absorption in your practice until your defilements have burned away. As purity increases you seem unable to go back and unable to go forward.

This is why becoming independent is not for the faint of heart!

As Mumon famously put it in his commentary on Mu: “It will be just as if you swallowed a red-hot iron ball, which you cannot spit out even if you try.” [Sekida, tr.]

Would you pass the barrier of the patriarchs and realize independence?

As difficult as it is, it’s not just a matter of breaking through: it’s a matter of living the liberated life. Enlightenment is capable of indefinite expansion.

Master Hakuin: “What is to be valued above all else is the practice that comes after satori is achieved. What is that practice? It is practice that puts the Mind of Enlightenment first and foremost. . . What is the Mind of Enlighenment? It is . . . a matter of doing good—benefiting others . . . “

Being independent means living a life of genuinely serving others.

As always, if you know someone who might benefit from this post, please forward it.

References: Roshi Philip Kapleau’s  The Three Pillars of Zen and Wild Ivy:  The Spiritual Autobiography of Zen Master Hakuin.

Living well requires letting go of your self-image.  Surprised?

How can that be?

After all, you have probably been told for years that the way to make improvements in the quality of your life is to improve the way that you think about yourself. Once you begin to accept the idea, for example, that you really are a nonsmoker, quitting smoking becomes easier.

That is the usual way that self-improvement works. I’m not denying it: it is possible to make improvements in your life by improving what you believe about yourself, which is your self-image. Once you really have improved your self-image, you will tend to behave in accordance with that improved self-image.

The self-help method of substituting better thoughts for thoughts you are attached to now certainly can work to improve your life.

However, that kind of improvement is insufficient for living well.

Haven’t you demonstrated that for yourself? Have you ever, for example, quit smoking, lost 20 pounds and kept them off for five years, bench pressed 300 pounds, increased your net worth to over one million dollars, or anything like that? What happened?

Your life improved – no doubt about that.

Then what happened? You adjusted to your improved life and that was that! Nothing about your essential dissatisfaction had changed.

Because Becoming is ceaseless flux, even if you had the power arrange everything exactly as you wanted it, that arrangement would soon fall apart. Living well isn’t anything at all like that.

Living well requires letting go of your self-image, which is detaching from egocentricity. It requires breaking bondage to thoughts (conceptualizations, judgments, propositions, statements, beliefs, evaluations, and so on).

Although letting go is simple, it is very difficult to do. As literate, civilized humans we are all attached to our thoughts about ourselves. There’s no question about that.

What sages do that the rest of us fail to do is to liberate themselves from bondage to thoughts. They transition from thought to no-thought, from judging to beyond judgment, from conceptualizing to freedom from conceptualizing, from thinking to awareness.

This doesn’t mean that they cannot think when thinking is necessary. It means that they are free from having to think incessantly, they are free to think or not to think.

Those of us who are still bound to thoughts drag those thoughts into all our experiences. This is a heavy burden. Instead of continually enjoying fresh experiences, we incessantly subsume experiences under concepts or labels, which deadens them. Life becomes wearisome, boring, tiresome, dull and flat.

Since thoughts are forms of Becoming, sages transcend Becoming to Being. It’s not as if all forms disappear; rather, it’s that all forms are experienced from the domain of Being rather than from the domain of Becoming.

That changes everything! Before liberation, forms were taken to be the whole of reality. After liberation, the whole of reality is taken to include Being as well as Becoming. Life forever becomes fresh, new, and bright.

It also changes nothing. Why?

It’s not as if, for example, all forms are replaced by other forms. For example, if you awaken spiritually your house won’t disappear! Rather, you’ll perceive your house differently because you’ll see it as an aspect of Being instead of an isolated form of Becoming.

It’s the quality of experiences that changes rather than the experiences themselves. Thoughts no longer necessarily contaminate experiences.

The same applies to your self-image, which is nothing but a set of thoughts.

You will still be able, if you want, to think the same thoughts about yourself that you had before, but you won’t mistake them for the real you. The real you is neither a thought nor a set of thoughts. It is neither a form not set of forms. The real you is Being itself.

When you realize this, you will immediately stop identifying with a certain autobiography or life story or a certain body that supposedly persists for many years. That body had a beginning and will have an end. It exists in the domain of Becoming. You will fear the end of that form only if you continue to identify solely with it.

Since all language comes from Becoming, it is impossible to use language to describe the transition from experiencing life from the perspective of the egoic mind to the perspective of the Great Mind. At best, words are nothing but signposts.

As Sengcan, who was the third Chan [Zen] ancestor, put it in the oldest Chan document: “To seek Great Mind with thinking mind / is certainly a great mistake.” In other words, it’s impossible to think yourself from Becoming to Being.

To realize Being directly, just stop the mind from discriminating. That is like waking up from a sleep and “all dreams will vanish by themselves.”

Waking up is simply dropping attachment to self-image.

As always, if you know someone who might benefit from this post, please forward it.

Additional resources: Helen Schucman’s  A Course in Miracles and Eckhart Tolle’s “Living the Liberated Life and Dealing with the Pain-Body” (3 CD set).

How much do you think about the future?

The answer reveals a lot about the quality of your life. In fact, there may be no better question to ask when examining yourself.

The more you think about it, the poorer the quality of your life.

Now that’s interesting!

From an epistemological point of view, the future is wholly unknown and unknowable. It may or may not have any resemblance whatsoever to the past.

As Hume pointed out, that we usually take it to have a lot of resemblance to the past is really just a fact about our psychology rather than having anything to do with what’s really ahead.

The future does not yet exist. It isn’t real. So thinking about it is nothing but imagining.

Furthermore, we never experience the future! It is always still out there in front of us. As far as experience goes, it is always now; it is always the present moment.

This is why living well always and only occurs in the present moment. It is impossible today to live well tomorrow – and that very thought is incoherent.

Why, then, are we tempted so frequently to imagine tomorrow?

That’s an important question.

The answer is that we identify with our own stories, which are always unsatisfactory or dysfunctional.

Our stories are our autobiographies, the narratives we tell ourselves in an effort to make some sense of our experiences.

Autobiographies are works of fiction. They appear to be about a separate continuant self that has a sequence of experiences.

Yes, usually the experiences did occur. It’s just, as the Buddha seems to have been the first to point out, that there’s no separate self that has them! That’s why autobiographies are nothing but fictional narratives.

Whether you agree with that or not, notice that autobiographical narratives are always unsatisfactory. There’s always something missing.

Of course, if you just fell in love or won the lottery or purchased a new home or finally got that promotion that you’ve been wanting for years, you may feel, today, on top of the world. You may even feel that nothing is missing.

I hope that, at least occasionally, everyone has the experience of everything’s seeming to fall into place. Wonderful!

If you are an adult, you also understand from experience that, even when it seems that nothing is missing, that feeling never persists. So, if you feel like that today, just wait. Notice how dramatically that changes in the next month or year.

Even if you ever managed to get everything exactly how you wanted it, that arrangement couldn’t last. Why? It’s an arrangement in Becoming, which means that it’s temporary. Becoming is characterized by incessant flux.

So life forces us back to the usual fall-back position: my life may not be without problems today, but it may be without problems tomorrow. My story may have a happy ending. All my problems could satisfactorily be solved tomorrow.

We imagine a better time to come when we shall, finally, be living well.

That explains why we think so much about the future. We keep hoping that life will get better. We imagine lots of specific ways in which it could improve.

This fall-back position is very dangerous: If I am thinking about tomorrow today, those thoughts separate me from whatever I’m experiencing today. The more I have those thoughts, the more separated I am from the present moment. The more separated I am from the present moment, the more I suffer. Separation is the root of suffering.

Life doesn’t have to be that way.

Who controls what I think about? I do!

Who controls whether or not I think? I do!

The fewer thoughts I have about tomorrow, the less separated I am from whatever I’m experiencing today. The less separated I am from whatever I’m experiencing today, the less I suffer.

The fewer thoughts I have, the less separated I am from whatever I’m experiencing today. The less separated I am from whatever I’m experiencing today, the less I suffer.

(As always, it’s important to distinguish suffering from pain. Pain is an inevitable part of life, whereas suffering isn’t. Pain is not optional, but suffering is optional.)

The best way to live well tomorrow is to live well today.

The only way to live well today is to eliminate separation, which eliminates suffering.

Thinking always involves separation. The nature of thinking or conceptualizing is separating (discriminating, sorting, classifying).

Thinking well is valuable. There’s no better way to solve problems. Most thinking, though, is unnecessary; perhaps 90% of it is useless, mere repetition.

Yes, of course, think when it is necessary.

Admit, though, that most of the time it isn’t. When thinking is useless, cut it off. Stop it. Be fully conscious (alert, aware) without thinking most of the time.

That’s how sages live.

They simply do not spend much time thinking about the future – or anything else!

Their quality of life is much higher than ours because they waste a lot less of it thinking.

This is why there’s nothing to gain to live well. We don’t need anything more. We already have everything required.

Rather, living better comes from letting go of obstructions to living better. The chief obstruction is misuse of our ability to think.

To live better, think a lot less.

Thinking a lot less includes thinking a lot less about the future.

Once you admit that, like Godot, it never arrives, you can waste a lot less time and effort thinking about the future, which is what doesn’t, and never will, exist.

Improving the quality of life is largely about letting go.

Don’t you already have a sense that this is correct? Remember those intense, wonderful times when you were deeply experiencing something without, at least for a few moments, thinking at all? That’s a taste of how sages live.

Living that way is a tantalizing possibility, isn’t it?

The only obstruction between how you are living now and your living as a sage is a lot of unnecessary thoughts. Why not drop them, right now, and find out for yourself?

Additional resources:   the works of Eckhart Tolle

The key to understanding self-reliance is understanding the meaning of ‘self.’

To understand the meaning of “self” is to have the key that unlocks the meaning of life.

I am self. You, too, are self. What, though, do such statements mean?

I am Being. You, too, are Being.

Consider the following from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous essay “Self-Reliance”:

“For the sense of being which in calm hours rises, we know not how, in the soul, is not diverse from things, from space, from light, from times, from man, but one with them and proceeds obviously from the same source whence their life and being also proceed . . .”

Being is formless. If Emerson is right, then, all forms (objects, things) come from Being. If so, all forms come from the formless. They are Being; they are not just beings.

A self is a form. It too comes from Being. That is its meaning. To rely on self is to rely on Being. Self-reliance is reliance on Being.

(Buddhist thinkers sometimes distinguish little or small self [your everyday self] from big or large Self [Being].)

It’s misleading to think of any form in abstraction from Being. To single out a form correctly always involves falling through to Being. Singling out self-reliance correctly is not singling out self-reliance in isolation: it’s to single out self-reliance as an aspect of Being.

It’s the same for all other forms, too. Consider flowers:

“These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. . . But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he, too, lives with nature in the present, above time.”

Being is timeless. It has no past, no future, and even no present. It is beyond time or, if you prefer with Emerson, “above time.”

A rose is what it is. A rose is what it is tenselessly.

We, too, are what we are. We, too, are what we are tenselessly.

Such thoughts are mere signposts.

The idea is not to think Being but to realize Being. Unlike a being, Being cannot be thought or singled out, which is why it cannot be thought (conceptualized). It is not like a form, an item in a plurality.

Flowers have no trouble realizing Being. Nonhuman animals have no trouble realizing Being.

Only human animals have trouble realizing Being. We seem to be the only forms that get stuck in thought, in ceaseless thinking (conceptualizing). At least all literate humans, whether they understand their predicament or not, seem to end up trapped by thought.

The escape is simple:  stop thinking without stopping awareness (consciousness, alertness).

Let go of remembering the past. Let go of foreseeing the future. Let go of imagining being elsewhere.

The escape is also difficult.

You will live well when you “live in the present” with full awareness of its riches.

There are moments when that happens naturally and spontaneously. Welcome such moments! Expand them. Let yourself relish being like a rose. As Emerson puts it:

“A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages.”

Trust yourself. Nothing bad will happen if you linger in the light, if you realize Being directly.

“What is the aboriginal Self, on which a universal reliance may be grounded? . . . when we discern truth, we do nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams.”

Our little selves, these little forms, do not create truth (what-is). When we open in stillness to the light of the formless, we realize Being, which is our own nature.

This is true for all of us: “All men have my blood and I all men’s.” It is an experience not reserved for philosophers or sages.

It is an experience not reliant upon thinking or intellect: “The intellect is vagabond.”

You’ll know when it happens because it means the end of wanting and being dissatisfied: “Discontent is the want of self-reliance.” It is the end of wanting property, too, as well as for governments to protect property.

It is the beginning of peace.

No form can provide peace. Only Being can provide peace. This explains why you need to rely on nothing except your true self, which is Being.

“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.”

As always, if you know someone who might benefit from reading this, please forward it.

Related post: “The Bifurcation of Reality“

Additional resources: the works of Eckhart Tolle; Alan Cohen & Alan Gordon’s Are You as Happy as Your Dog?

Because it’s election season, this is stupid season for talking about having a job.

The President says, “I’ve helped to create lots of them; if you re-elect me, I’ll create even more.” His challengers say, “The President hasn’t helped to create enough of them; if you elect me, I’ll create many more.”

There’s a host of philosophers in the last century and a half who have argued for various reasons that modernity’s heavy emphasis on having a job is crazy. I’m thinking of thinkers such as Marx, Nietzsche, Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Lame Deer.

Count me as someone deliberately walking in their footsteps.

“Who am I?” is the critical question.

What do people identify with? Typically and chiefly, they identify with their occupations, their economic roles. They think, “I am a doctor or a farmer or an engineer or a teacher or a shopkeeper” or whatever.

If you think that way, you identity with your job.

That really is crazy!

The question calls for an identification of who you are, yet you answer by specifying some of what you do.

No: Who you are is not what you do. You would still be you even if you never had one or permanently lost one you had. A job, therefore, is more like a possession than it is like an owner. Owners can gain or lose possessions, but owners cannot gain or lose being owners.

If you insist on identifying with something you do, at least make it your preferred work rather than your job. It’s important to distinguish doing work from having a job. You may, for example, devote yourself to mastering piano-playing, but, unless you are regularly paid for giving concerts, that doesn’t mean that your job is to play the piano.

Typically, having a job is spending your best daily hours doing something in a factory or office for which you are rewarded with money.

Sadly, having one becomes thought of as necessary, which is part of our communal money fetish. Be honest: are your thoughts preoccupied with money and possessions, with gaining more and losing less?

If so, count yourself as among those who, undoubtedly without intending it, are the living dead, those whose lives are devoid of meaning, those who have committed spiritual suicide.

If you are living in a dead world, either you won’t change or you will. If you won’t, there is no hope for you. If you will, resurrection is possible.

You are not just cut off from what is genuinely human, but also you are cut off from what is natural. What is natural includes the inorganic as well as the organic. In fact, the organic/inorganic distinction lies at the foundation of the problem.

We modern humans understand ourselves to be living in a dead world. In fact, we are. We are living abstract lives devoid of the concrete. We don’t have adventures or love affairs, for example; we read about them in books or watch them on television or in the movies.

We fail to realize the obvious fact that we are animals. Like them, we are parts of an interconnected whole.

Instead of seeing animals as our brothers and sisters, we degrade their environments, which kills them off, or change them to suit ourselves. We turn wolves into dogs! We eat the flesh of domesticated or artificial animals like Angus cattle instead of wild, noble buffalo!

We have the hubrus to think that Nature belongs to us instead of the other way around.

Eventually, we think, “All will go well if I just had a job” or “All will go well if I just had a better job.” No, it won’t.

What you are is not only more important than anything you have, it is infinitely valuable. Being trumps having.

I never expect to live long enough to see the day when politicians are talking what is really important.

Having a job is of no importance.

Identifying with Being, which is what you are, is of ultimate importance.

Related posts: Alienation on the Job,  Having a Job, and Unemployment and You.

Recommended Resource: Jay Garfield’s “The Meaning of Life” (18 CD or DVD set from The Great Courses).

Surrendering is the most powerful spiritual practice.

What, exactly, does that mean? Why does it work?

Attachment to ego is the most important obstacle to living well, to flourishing, to realizing Being.

Ego is separation. If there were no separation, there would be no ego.

It’s as if the ego is in constant fear of its own nonexistence. It is always grasping for more separation, always looking to strengthen itself. For example, it loves to react! Why? Reacting perpetuates its existence because it perpetuates separation by undermining identity.

The ego is never satisfied, never at peace. It perpetually wants more and more and then even more.

This explains why, if it is left unchecked, it is perpetually evaluating everything. It always labels experiences as either positive (“this is good for me”) and desires more of them or negative (“this is bad for me”) and desires fewer of them.

These egocentric evaluations are at the heart of every emotion. There’s no such thing as a detached, impersonal emotion.

Emotions provide an excellent test of spirituality. The more emotional someone is, the more egocentric that person is. The more egocentric someone is, the less spiritual that person is.

It’s easier to spot this in others than in ourselves.

Since children are more immature and self-centered than adults, they are more emotional than adults. If you doubt this, watch children. Their emotional tanks are tiny and require frequent refilling. They have short attention spans. They are easily bored. Their egos are constantly gobbling up experiences.

Despite occasional outbursts of spontaneous generosity, children are typically ready to take everything personally and, so, engage in emotional reactions without hesitation.

This does not entail, though, that there are no immature, emotional adults! Most adults are as emotional as they can get away with being.

Some people rationalize this by claiming that emotional intensity is valuable. The rush or high from, say, falling in love can be intoxicating and addictive.

However, the price to be paid is more valuable than the experience purchased. “Emotional intensity” is a euphemism for “emotional slavery.” Admit it: you have always suffered whenever you have experienced prolonged bouts of emotions such as grief or loneliness or anger or fear or emotional love (attachment). No form can provide lasting satisfaction.

Surrendering works because it dissolves reacting as a way of life. By dissolving reactions, including emotional reactions, it opens the way for appropriate responses to changing circumstances.

Please don’t confuse reacting to events with responding to them. It’s good to respond appropriately and even spontaneously; responses come from freedom. It’s bad merely to be reacting to whatever unfolds next; reactions come from slavery.

The stronger the ego, the stronger and more frequent are reactions. The weaker the ego, the weaker and less frequent are reactions.

The ego thrives when reacting. Reactions strengthen the ego. This explains why, if you accidentally bump an angry young man on the street, you are likely to get attacked. He’ll take it personally, egocentrically. Reactions often spawn violence.

The ego does not fear reacting; instead, the ego fears living without reacting, which it thinks of as weakness. The angry young man imagined in the previous paragraph falsely believes he’ll be demonstrating weakness if he doesn’t react to being bumped.

By way of contrast, how would a sage respond to being accidentally bumped? He or she, of course, wouldn’t react at all. A fully enlightened sage never reacts, never takes anything personally.

Nothing is personal. The mature, who are sages, understand this truth, whereas the immature, who are not sages, just don’t get it.

So don’t confuse responding with reacting. Surrendering to reality (what-is, truth) is not reacting to reality; instead, it is the only way to respond to reality. It’s impossible to respond and to react simultaneously.

Surrendering to reality is a way of life, a way of living from moment to moment.

Surrendering to reality is a recognition of reality. Since reality is already real, it makes no sense whatsoever not to surrender to it.

The only alternative to living by incessantly surrendering to reality is not surrendering to it. This is a rebel’s life of perpetual rebellion, a life of war instead of peace. Pace Camus, being a rebel is far from the best way to live.

Surrendering to reality does not require liking reality. It does not mean that you will not try to respond by improving conditions. It does not mean that you have given up promoting something better.

All it means is that you are being realistic in recognizing reality. The only other option is not recognizing reality. If you don’t recognize reality, how could living well be possible?

Surrendering to reality undermines the ego. It is an act of unity (nonseparation, oneness). It is an act of releasing futile resistance. Why? Since reality already is, it is always futile to resist it.

For example, your physician tells you that you have cancer. You are shocked. After the initial period of questioning and double-checking the diagnosis, you stare reality in the face.

What should you do? Accept reality. You have cancer. It happens. Now consider the best way for you to respond.

Living well requires responding well; it never requires reacting.

Objection: What about automatic reactions?

Reply: There are, of course, times when you will react automatically. When a snake strikes, you’ll leap back without thinking. If you took the time to think through a good response, you’d surely be bitten. Since you don’t control such automatic reactions, there’s no need ever to worry about them.

Other kinds of automatic reactions are the result of training; those are your responsibility. Suppose, for example, that you are a master of karate, someone attacks you, and you react automatically to defend yourself. As long as you don’t react with more force than is necessary, there’s no problem. If you had had time to think through an appropriate response, you may have acted in an exactly similar way.

Practicing surrendering is taming the ego. Taming the ego is what spiritual mastery is all about.

This practicing requires persistent effort, relentless mindfulness. It’s simple, but it’s not easy. You’ll try to stop reacting and yet find yourself reacting again and again. Reacting is a deeply engrained habit. It’s difficult to free yourself.

So?

Once you accept that it isn’t easy, practicing becomes easier. If you don’t practice, you’ll never free yourself. Nobody else can free you, and there’s nothing between you and freedom except you.

Leading a nonattached life is better than leading an attached life. The critical attachment is attachment to the ego. It is necessary to tame the ego to achieve any degree of freedom from it; it is necessary to kill it to achieve full emancipation. The ideal of living well without freedom from attachment to the ego is an idol.

Living well requires a sufficient degree of nonattachment, detachment, surrendering.

Since the only alternative is continued slavery, why not do what it takes?

Related posts: Nonresistance, Resistance, Reactions, and  Idols.

Other aids: my How to Survive College Emotionally and any works or audio training programs by Eckhart Tolle.

As always, if you know someone who might benefit from this post, please forward it.

Silence is the language of Being.

You are infinitely important because Being is of infinite importance and each of us is Being.

Since you are Being, it is impossible for you to be genuinely fulfilled (happy, satisfied) until you realize identification with Being. All other fulfillments are transitory.

Sadly, most people do not identify with Being. This explains why most people fail to be genuinely fulfilled. Life beats them down to the point where they become preoccupied with avoiding living poorly rather than focusing on living well.

The best way to foster identification with Being is to listen to silence. There are a number of different practices or techniques available that will help you listen to silence, to hear the language of Being, to realize your true nature.

How, you may wonder, is it possible to listen to silence? After all, isn’t it only sounds that we are able to hear?

Good question!

Normally, we are preoccupied with whatever is in the foreground while ignoring its background. Daoists encourage us to reverse this procedure.

Sounds are in the foreground. Without their background, it would be impossible to notice them. What is always behind or beneath sound? Practice paying attention to it.

Doing so is apprehending Being; it is learning the language of Being.

This will seem unintelligible until you realize one critical truth: thoughts are sounds. Whenever you are thinking, your attention is directed away from Being towards noise.

What-is is divisible into Being and Becoming.

Paying attention to Being is not paying attention to Becoming; paying attention to Becoming is not paying attention to Being.

All thoughts are forms. All forms are Becoming.

Therefore, whenever you are thinking, whenever you are paying attention to forms by perceiving or remembering or imagining or conceiving them, your attention is not on Being.

Being is the other side of thought. Being cannot be thought; it cannot be perceived, remembered, imagined, or conceived. To apprehend Being directly, simply stop paying attention to all forms. That’s easy to say but difficult to do.

Unfortunately, most people seem to spend their whole lives focused on forms. They never find genuine fulfillment. They never realize themselves.

Silence is formless.  It is formlessness. Of course! How else could it be the language of Being?

You may wonder, “Am I really Being?”

Ask yourself, “What is the field or wellspring of all experience?”

Think of it this way to answer: What do all your experiences have in common? Isn’t that where you will find yourself?

Remember an experience that happened when you were 4 years old. Imagine one that may happen to you when you are 94 years old. What do those two experiences have in common? What will all the experiences in between them have in common?

Notice that they all unfold in the present moment. Each experience you have ever had, are having, or will ever have occurs now. Experiences neither occur in the past nor in the future. All experiences have in common the present moment.

To encounter the present moment, subtract all forms from an experience by isolating or abstracting it from what makes it unique. What’s left?

You are not able to think of anything remaining, right?

That’s because you are trying to think of Being, which is formless. Remember: only forms can be thought of (singled out, picked out as objects of attention).

Assuming that you aren’t deaf, it’s easy to hear or single out a sound or string of sounds.

Try to “hear” the silence beneath or behind them, the root and ground of their actuality. You won’t be able to hear it as you hear a sound or string of sounds, but it’s there. No silence, no sound.

The only way to hear it is to stop thinking about it. Drop it. Let it go. Then listen again.

It is impossible for anyone to teach you how to apprehend Being. It can neither be taught by pointing nor by words, because all gestures and words are Becoming.

Suppose someone were to ask you, “Who are you?” Undoubtedly you could reply by telling your story, the sequence of experiences that you identify with, that have made you who you are. Are you, though, really just your story?

Like your body, your autobiography is a radically incomplete accounting of who you are. You are infinitely more than your body or your autobiography!

If you disagree, that’s only because you have not yet learned how to listen to silence. To know yourself as you really are it is necessary to learn the language of Being.

Fortunately, because it happens spontaneously, it’s not really necessary to be taught how to apprehend Being. It’s mostly a matter of noticing it and expanding those moments. I have no doubt that you have done it, but you may never have given them much attention. Attending to them is worth doing. (I discuss ways to do that in other posts in this spiritual well-being category.)

Let silence ring!

What is the great way sages use to become sages? It’s the spiritual path. It’s helpful to have an overview of it.

Two preliminary points are critical.

First, it has nothing to do with any particular set of beliefs, with any specific religious creed. Since I practice zen, I’ll use terminology familiar to Buddhism, but that’s only an accident. If you are more comfortable using other words or concepts, just replace mine with yours.

Second, I don’t know what I’m talking about in this post! I almost always try to discuss only topics that I understand or, at least, think that I understand. On this occasion, however, I’m relying largely on the understanding of others.

I feel like a blind, cave-dwelling salamander about to talk about sunshine!

I am not a sage. A sage is someone who is wise and lives well. A sage is a buddha, in other words, someone who is awake (enlightened).

The goal of the great way is to become a sage. Becoming a sage, realizing one’s inherent Buddha nature, is its purpose or destination. Kusan Sunim: “The purpose of practicing Zen meditation is to awaken . . .” Since awakening itself can be greatly increased, following the spiritual path is a lifetime quest. Zen Master Dogen: “Practicing Zen, studying the way, is the great matter of a lifetime.”

Why, then, should I attempt to discuss the stages of the great way?

Without some destination, it’s impossible to get started. All that is necessary is a vague understanding of where to go and, sometimes, even a misunderstood destination is sufficient.  Most people have a very poor understanding of these stages.

The purpose of this post is to encourage you to get started.

It is not to attempt to provide a perfect map. In fact, there is no such map. Just as there are many ways to reach the top of a mountain, the great way is not one way but many.

The first stage of the great way is the commitment to begin. The first turning of the dharma wheel begins with the decision to start the journey. One vows with wholehearted determination to master a spiritual practice.

Although you will naturally begin with the idea of gaining something for yourself or others, this is a mistake. Dogen: “Proceed with the mind which neither grasps nor rejects, the mind unconcerned with name or gain.” Don’t worry: as your egocentric desires burn away, his advice here will eventually make sense.

The second stage of the great way is to begin practicing. There are many different spiritual or breathing practices. There’s no one practice that works for everyone. It’s not even necessary to begin doing one practice perfectly: just pick one, start, and correct mistakes as you proceed.

Living well is a skill to be mastered. It is not a theory or set of beliefs. Mastery comes from practicing [see my The 7 Steps to Mastery].

It’s sometimes difficult to find a suitable practice, which will be one that quickly enables you to feel “at home” when doing it. I suggest a simple stilling meditation such as zazen rather than any kind of moving meditation.

Zazen is simple and so easy to learn that anyone can do it. Mastering it, however, is very difficult, which makes it like all other legitimate spiritual practices.

My own practice is a koan practice in which the practitioner inquires nonconceptually into the nature of the koan. Thoughts, particularly of past and future, eventually begin to drop away. The task is simply to sit still and investigate the heart (nub, hwadu) of the koan.

The task is to press beyond all pain, dissatisfaction, and conceptualizing as well as to keep meditating in the midst of activity.

The goal is complete identification with the koan.

[From here on I’m only making educated guesses.]

The third stage of the great way is experiencing no-thought that comes from practicing.

No-thought is simply awake, alert, thoughtless awareness. It is a break from our normal addiction to compulsive thinking.

There are different ways to experience no-thought, and it would be surprising if you yourself have never experienced it. If you have ever felt “it” happening when you played a musical instrument or perfectly executed some athletic skill, for example, you have experienced it. For six alternatives, click here.

It’s joyful, selfless (without self consciousness), and very satisfying.

A problem is that, when experienced outside a spiritual practice, it’s not transferrable. It’s wonderful when it happens frequently when you are, say, playing the piano, but it is useless at all other times.

When experienced during zazen, Dogen writes: “your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away,” in other words, all thoughts of body and mind fall away.

The fourth stage of the great way is, to use the traditional Sanskrit word, samadhi. It involves not only one-pointedness of mind, but also focused concentration that is not only intense but effortless.

Zen Master Hakuin says at this stage the practitioner “will transcend the emotions and sentiments of ordinary life. His heart will be filled with an extraordinary purity and clarity, as though he were standing on a sheet of ice stretching for thousands of miles.”

This is not yet awakening, but it is the prelude to awakening.

The fifth stage of the great way is awakening. This is the great tipping point. Here, finally, is the experience that Hakuin calls “the great ecstasy of joy.”

Unity cannot be thought by the bifurcating intellect. Awakening is direct apprehension of the truth, as Yasutani-Roshi puts it, “that the world is one interdependent Whole and that each separate one of us is that Whole.”

That, though, is just a thought. As Master Mumon famously says, what really happens is that “all of a sudden an explosive conversion will occur, and you will astonish the heavens and shake the earth.”

This explosion is the direct experience of Being, which means freedom from Becoming. Since concepts, thoughts, regularities, and so on are all forms, they cannot be used to understand Being, which is formless.

The mind is turned inside out. Everything changes, yet nothing changes. Instead of being trapped in Becoming, Becoming is experienced from Being.

Zen Master Sengcan writes, “This ultimate finality . . . can’t be described.”

He does add, though, some of what it is not. When the mind is one with the great way, “all ego-centered strivings cease; / doubts and confusion disappear.” It is a domain beyond all thought and feeling. It is beyond all discriminations, especially beyond the self/other distinction.

It is the initial unbinding of the three critical fetters of infatuation, greed, and delusion.

The sixth stage of the great way is breaking through the defilements (fetters) that obstruct fully enlightened existence. Eventually, Becoming is always experienced from Being.

There are four major stages along the supramundane path that result in the elimination of all defilements. The disciple becomes a stream-enterer, a once-returner, a nonreturner, and, ultimately, an arahant (fully enlightened sage).

It is realizing Being more and more fully. It is a more complete fulfillment of our purpose. There is increasing joy as the last vestiges of ego delusion disappear.

The horizontal axis of time (Becoming) completely collapses into the vertical axis of timeless Being (eternity).

The Buddha presented himself humbly as the guide to nirvana, as one who shows the way. According to him, “there is . . . a delight apart from sensual pleasures, apart from unwholesome states, which surpasses even divine bliss. Since I take delight in that, I do not envy what is inferior, nor do I delight therein. . . I abide . . . with a mind inwardly at peace.” [Madandiya Sutta]

Finally, there is his stock description of a sage as “one with taints destroyed, who has lived the holy life, done what had to be done, laid down the burden, reached his own goal, destroyed the fetters of being, and is completely liberated through final knowledge.”

Should you consider becoming what used to be called a contemplative?

What is it?  Might it be a worthwhile option for you?

What it’s not is a thinker.  Our ability to think and solve problems is one of our greatest abilities.  Learning how to think well is a valuable skill.  Even though it’s natural to say that thinkers, when they are thinking, are contemplating, let’s avoid mixing the two notions.

A contemplative is not necessarily a thinker.  Nobody these days is a thinker who does not spend a lot of time reading, writing, and, usually, discussing.  Even solitary thinkers do a lot of reading and writing in addition to thinking.

By way of contrast, a contemplative need not even be literate!  They can certainly be poor or unsophisticated thinkers.  So what is it that they do?

Contemplatives focus on bringing Being into all their acts.

That’s it!  That’s what distinguishes contemplatives.

They don’t necessarily do anything special or extraordinary.  They may live alone or in groups.  Judged by what they do, there is nothing out of the ordinary about them.

It’s how they do what they do that makes them very special.  They bring a very high level of awareness into their actions.

They spend their lives attempting to open Becoming to Being.  Since joy comes from Being, they focus on generating joy from the way they perform their daily activities.

Consider, for example, walking down a hall.  When those of us who don’t usually pay attention walk down a hall, we almost always are lost in thought.  If we aren’t thinking of what will happen when we get to our destination, we are thinking about something else we regard as more important than just our walking.

[I have discussed this in the post on mini-meditation and in the post on body-practice, which are also here in the spiritual well-being category.]

We may or may not achieve our goals.  Often we do.  As soon as we do, we are off in thought to the next goal.

All goals are thoughts.  They are imaginings of a nonexistent future.  They are important because, without them, we wouldn’t know what to do.

However, if we do whatever it is we are doing while focusing on the goal or purpose of what we are doing, we get the how wrong.  Why?

Suffering comes from separation.  If I am walking while I am focused on something other than walking, I am split.  My thoughts are split from my actions.  Such splits generate dissatisfaction (suffering, not being at ease).

On the other hand, if my thoughts and actions are unified, there’s no split and, so, no suffering.  There’s no room for dissatisfaction or dissonance.

Normally, of course, walking down a hall does not generate much dissatisfaction.  However, doing most of what I do mindlessly, without paying attention, generates a lot of dissatisfaction.  It creates habits that create an enormous amount of suffering for myself and others.

Contemplatives get this.

They usually don’t generate dissatisfaction by their actions because they spend life trying to pay attention.  Instead of frequently being elsewhere, lost in thought, they are typically fully aware of what is happening right here right now.

That awareness opens their actions to being (infuses their acts with Being), which is the source of abiding joy (bliss, beatitude).

As Eckhart Tolle writes in A New Earth:  “Their purpose is to do everything in a sacred manner.”

Contemplatives are all about joy.  They specialize in living joyfully.  Living that way, getting the how right, brings benefits to others as well as to themselves.

Contemplatives spend their lives attempting to be right here right now.

Judged by what they do, they are usually thought failures.  Judged by how they do what they do, they are successes.

You may initially find it strange to think that walking down a hallway, raking leaves, washing dishes, preparing a meal, or cleaning a room can be done in a sacred manner.  The stranger you find it, the more likely it is that you are out of touch with how to act well.

It’s simple to find out for yourself whether or not contemplatives are onto something important.  Simply test their way of life for yourself by focusing on whatever you do as you go through the day.

If you actually try it (as opposed to just thinking about it), you’ll quickly find that spiritual exercise very difficult!  Your ego will keep pulling you back into compulsive thinking.  You won’t be able to do it very well at all.

No matter:  just keep trying even if you keep failing.  If you do, eventually, little by little, you may begin to pay attention to life as it is right here right now.

You may think that’s too superficial, that it’s only the what of our acts that is valuable.  Not so!

You may be able to force the what to achieve whatever you desire to achieve.  That may be your pattern in life.  You may automatically act on the false belief that joy comes from the content of the act itself.

If that is your pattern, you may already have discovered for yourself that what you are incessantly doing is creating more dissatisfaction for yourself and those around you.

As soon as you notice that, why not break the pattern by emulating contemplatives?  Start paying much more attention to Being.

If you do, you will discover that it’s false that joy comes from the content of our acts; rather, joy comes from Being that flows through our acts.

It’s getting the how right, it’s emulating contemplatives, that makes all the difference.